Current status linear regression

We construct $\sqrt{n}$-consistent and asymptotically normal estimates for the finite dimensional regression parameter in the current status linear regression model, which do not require any smoothing device and are based on maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of the infinite dimensional parameter. We also construct estimates, again only based on these MLEs, which are arbitrarily close to efficient estimates, if the generalized Fisher information is finite. This type of efficiency is also derived under minimal conditions for estimates based on smooth non-monotone plug-in estimates of the distribution function. Algorithms for computing the estimates and for selecting the bandwidth of the smooth estimates with a bootstrap method are provided. The connection with results in the econometric literature is also pointed out.Comment: 64 pages, 6 figure

Het Licht van Vlaanderen

A metaphorical reflection on police control in Flanders, and the creation of a suspicious Othe

Keep biology weird

peer reviewe

On monsters and other matters of housekeeping. Reading Jeff VanderMeer with Donna Haraway and Ursula K. Le Guin

peer reviewedThe eco in ecology and economy derives from the Greek oîkos, meaning “house” or “household”. The age we call the Anthropocene is one of wide-ranging domestic violence. Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern reach Trilogy provides a rich fantastic world to think the nature of that violence, and also the possibility of its antonym. That antonym, I suggest, is perhaps not peace, but ‘importance’ as understood by the philosopher AN Whitehead. The itinerary taking me to that suggestion meanders through the kinship ties between cosmic horror, colonialism, and the Anthropocene as narratives of power and control. I briefly explore those kinship ties in the good company of Donna Haraway and Ursula K. Le Guin. I then return to the Southern Reach to focus on the role of bounded, situated ecologies in the novels like an overgrown swimming pool, a desolate parking lot and tide pools. It is here that the concept of ‘importance’ takes on meaning and substance. It is here also that I find some rudimentary elements of an answer to the questions that open this chapter: how do the matter of stories and the matter of the living relate to each other? How does fiction help us appreciate and think about ecosystems? And how might ecosystems themselves invite us to turn to fiction

Orphan Drugs, Compounded Medication and Pharmaceutical Commons.

Regulatory agencies installed orphan drug regulations to stimulate research and development of new innovative treatments for life-threatening diseases with a low prevalence (rare diseases). We established a list of well-known food-related ingredients with clinical evidence for rare diseases in the open medical literature that obtained marketing authorization as an expensive "orphan drug", protected by intellectual property (IP) rights. We show that these ingredients are part of an established practice of medicinal compounding-a form of point of care manufacturing. We argue that these ingredients should be considered as "pharmaceutical commons", and that regulatory incentives for private companies and market protection mechanisms such as IP rights are not justified in this case

CNTS: Memory–based learning of generating repeated references

In this paper we describe our machine learning approach to the generation of referring expressions. As our algorithm we use memory-based learning. Our results show that in case of predicting the TYPE of the expression, having one general classifier gives the best results. On the contrary, when predicting the full set of properties of an expression, a combined set of specialized classifiers for each subdomain gives the best performance.

Introduction: Immunity, society, and the arts

peer reviewed[No abstract available

Solidarity after nature: From biopolitics to cosmopolitics.

peer reviewedWhat is sustaining the divide between nature and nurture, even though sciences like epigenetics have been challenging it for at least two decades? Evelyn Fox Keller asked this question and considered it a logical problem rooted in terminological confusion within the sciences. In this article, we propose a complementary diagnosis of the problem: the nature-nurture divide is (re-)mobilized when society faces questions of inclusion and solidarity. With examples stemming from the fields of insurance and health care, immigration policy and epigenetics, we demonstrate how the nature-nurture divide is performed through techniques of classification for a politics of solidarity. We identify a common operation to these different examples that we coin 'biopolitical imputation'. We use this term to draw attention to how (Western) societal institutions, including science, create solvable problems out of complex situations, defining human actors and their agency along the lines of the nature-nurture divide as a moral guide. We argue that the tenacity of the nature-nurture divide is therefore not only a logical problem needing better scientific concepts, but also a cosmopolitical problem asking for a more profound reflection on the ontology and ethics of solidarity in order to move beyond the biopolitics of nature versus nurture