How to be Critical of Security Today? Life in Motion, Untimeliness and the Critique of End-Thinking

This article starts from the observation of intense political mobilisations of existential endings. One of the defining challenges for critical engagements with such mobilisations remains how to take war, environmental degradation and pandemics seriously without making existential end-times the conditions that define the present. The article proposes to move beyond critical knowledge that makes security contingent and engage with the conception of life inscribed in the mobilisations of existential endings. It puts forward a concept of life that emphasises continuous movement rather than defining it from the perspective of its inevitable end in death. This point of view challenges traditional existential notions of life and death, highlighting instead the dynamic and transformative nature of life itself

Reproducibility of electrical caries measurements: A technical problem?

The currently available instrument for electrical detection of occlusal caries lesions {[}Electronic Caries Monitor (ECM)] uses a site-specific measurement with co-axial air drying. The reproducibility of this method has been reported to be fair to good. It was noticed that the measurement variation of this technique appeared to be non-random. It was the aim of this study to analyse how such a non-random reproducibility pattern arises and whether it could be observed for other operators and ECM models. Analysis of hypothetical measurement pairs showed that the pattern was related to measurements at the high and low end of the measurement range for the instrument. Data sets supplied by other researchers to a varying degree showed signs of a similar non-random pattern. These data sets were acquired at different locations, by different operators and using 3 different ECM models. The frequency distribution of measurements in all cases showed a single or double end-peaked distribution shape. It was concluded that the pattern was a general feature of the measurement method. It was tentatively attributed to several characteristics such as a high value censoring, insufficient probe contact and unpredictable probe contact. A different measurement technique, with an improved probe contact, appears to be advisable. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel

The Vatard Sisters

Les Soeurs Vatard, described by its author as a “lewd but exact” slice of life, was J.-K. Huysmans’ second novel. Huysmans abandoned poetry and turned to the novel at a time when the works of Emile Zola were intensely controversial; Les Soeurs Vatard is dedicated to Zola by his fervent admirer and devoted friend. In it, Huysmans vividly depicts the scene that for his generation of French writers stood for the contemporary world: the brutal, teeming life of the industrial quarters of Paris in the 1870s. Huysmans’ Vatard sisters are “Désirée, an urchin of fifteen, a brunette with large, pale eyes that were somewhat crossed, plump without being fat, attractive and clean; and Céline, the carouser, a big girl with clear eyes and hair the color of straw, a solid, vigorous girl whose blood raced and danced in her veins. The two are part of that “bizarre race of young women” who work as bookbinders, whose lives revolve around the gaslighted bindery works, the gaudy shop windows, and cheap wineshops that Huysmans describes with minute and colorful detail. His precisely observed sketches show that Naturalism as practiced by Buysmans had none of Zola\u27 s emphasis on “scientific” determinism, but centered primarily on the faithful rendering of what he described as “living persons in real milieus.” The Vatard Sisters is the first English translation of Les Soeurs Vatard. James C. Babcock is professor of French at Western Kentucky University.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_french_and_francophone_literature/1005/thumbnail.jp

About article "Construct and predictive validity of clinical caries diagnostic criteria assessing lesion activity."

Letter to the editor about article: Nyvad B, Machiulskiene V, Baelum V (2003). Construct and predictive validity of clinical caries diagnostic criteria assessing lesion activity. J Dent Res 82:117-122. Published in: J Dent Res 82(11):862-863, 200

Assembling credibility: knowledge, method and critique in times of 'post-truth'

Critical approaches in security studies have been increasingly turning to methods and standards internal to knowledge practice to validate their knowledge claims. This quest for scientific standards now also operates against the background of debates on post-truth, which raise pressing and perplexing questions for critical lines of thought. We propose a different approach by conceptualizing validity as practices of assembling credibility in which the transversal formation and circulation of credits and credentials combine with disputes over credence and credulity. This conceptualization of the validity of (critical) security knowledge shifts the focus from epistemic and methodological standards to transepistemic practices and relations. It allows us to mediate validity critically as a sociopolitical rather than strictly scientific accomplishment. Developing such an understanding of validity makes it possible for critical security studies and international relations to displace epistemic disputes about ‘post-truth’ with transversal practices of knowledge creation, circulation and accreditation

Quantifying Model Complexity via Functional Decomposition for Better Post-Hoc Interpretability

Post-hoc model-agnostic interpretation methods such as partial dependence plots can be employed to interpret complex machine learning models. While these interpretation methods can be applied regardless of model complexity, they can produce misleading and verbose results if the model is too complex, especially w.r.t. feature interactions. To quantify the complexity of arbitrary machine learning models, we propose model-agnostic complexity measures based on functional decomposition: number of features used, interaction strength and main effect complexity. We show that post-hoc interpretation of models that minimize the three measures is more reliable and compact. Furthermore, we demonstrate the application of these measures in a multi-objective optimization approach which simultaneously minimizes loss and complexity