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Bayesian Deep Neural Networks with Agnostophilic Approaches
Get PDFA vital area of AI is the ability of a model to recognise the limits of its knowledge and flag when presented with something unclassifiable instead of making incorrect predictions. It has often been claimed that probabilistic networks, particularly Bayesian neural networks, are unsuited to this problem due to unknown data, meaning that the denominator in Bayes’ equation would be incalculable. This study challenges this view, approaching the task as a blended problem, by considering unknowns to be highly corrupted data, and creating adequate working spaces and generalizations. The core of this method lies in structuring the network in such a manner as to target the high and low confidence levels of the predictions. Instead of simply adjusting for low confidence, developing a consistent gap in the confidence in class predictions between known image types and unseen, unclassifiable data new datapoints can be accurately identified and unknown inputs flagged accordingly through averaged thresholding. In this way, the model is also self-reflecting, using the uncertainties for all data rather than just the unknown subsections in order to determine the limits of its knowledge. The results show that these models are capable of strong performance on a variety of image datasets, with levels of accuracy, recall, and prediction gap consistency across a range of openness levels similar to those achieved using traditional methods
The Healer and the Witch: Performative Transitions in the Theatre of Friel and Carr
No full textIn this chapter, Ben Levitas investigates forms of distance and temporal indeterminacy legible in the latter-day revivalist drama of Marina Carr and Brian Friel. In their works, strategies of distance, of “paratheatricality,” seek not to avoid representation but to link it to more authentic experiences for the audience. Both playwrights create a theatre of hope, a theatre for and of the future that testifies to a continuance of the Revival’s main themes and concerns (particularly with respect to time), despite their rejection of the idealism of so many early revivalist works. Friel and Carr achieve a transposition of dramatic life from the stage to the audience – that is to say, from the stage to actual life – which is, in its turn, captured in the dramatic work. Theatrical words are forms of political action insofar as strategies of performative distance and alienation find their place in dramatic productions that support a “grammar of change.
Queer Inversions: When Orientation and Desire Remains Undecidable in Leyla Yilmaz's 'Not Knowing'
No full textPublic relations as ‘tour of duty’: ‘Dis’embodying PR work in Criminal Minds
No full textIn this chapter, the television crime drama, Criminal Minds becomes a locus for analysing the fluid nature of occupational identity in the promotional professions. The fictional character, Jennifer Jareau or ‘JJ’ engages with specific artifacts of public relations (PR) work for the first six seasons of the show, before moving out of her communications role to become an FBI profiler, at which point her public relations work disappears without a trace. As a career trajectory, JJ’s first embodying then disembodying of a PR role is significant. Not only does JJ’s tour of duty in PR echo many real-life career trajectories, it also complicates idealised notions of ‘who’ does promotional work. The chapter analyses scenes from ‘early’ Criminal Minds to highlight JJ’s embodying of three overlapping occupational identities and cultural typologies – the FBI agent, the PR practitioner and the female detective. The chapter concludes by offering a framework for analysing different aspects of embodiment in professional work
Setting the Stage: Using Virtual Reality to Assess the Effects of Music Performance Anxiety in Pianists
Get PDFMusic Performance Anxiety (MPA) is highly prevalent among musicians and often debilitating, associated with changes in cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physiological responses to performance situations. Efforts have been made to create simulated performance environments in conservatoires and Virtual Reality (VR) to assess their effectiveness in managing MPA. Despite these advances, results have been mixed, underscoring the need for controlled experimental designs and joint analyses of performance, physiology, and subjective ratings in these settings. Furthermore, the broader application of simulated performance environments for at-home use and laboratory studies on MPA remains limited. We designed VR scenarios to induce MPA in pianists and embedded them within a controlled within-subject experimental design to systematically assess their effects on performance, physiology, and anxiety ratings. Twenty pianists completed a performance task under two conditions: a public 'Audition' and a private 'Studio' rehearsal. Participants experienced VR pre-performance settings before transitioning to live piano performances in the real world. We measured subjective anxiety, performance (MIDI data), and heart rate variability (HRV). Compared to the Studio condition, pianists in the Audition condition reported higher somatic anxiety ratings and demonstrated an increase in performance accuracy over time, with a reduced error rate. Additionally, their performances were faster and featured increased note intensity. No concurrent changes in HRV were observed. These results validate the potential of VR to induce MPA, enhancing pitch accuracy and invigorating tempo and dynamics. We discuss the strengths and limitations of this approach to develop VR-based interventions to mitigate the debilitating effects of MPA
Editorial
No full textThe contributions selected for this special issue exemplify the intellectual richness and diversity of perspectives that characterised the December 2024 seminar. Collectively, they reflect the central question animating the event: can artificial intelligence genuinely serve as a tool to diminish legal inequality, or does it risk entrenching existing asymmetries of power?
Taken together, these contributions chart a nuanced and sometimes ambivalent picture of the role of artificial intelligence in enhancing access to justice within commercial law. They show that while AI has genuine potential to make legal processes more accessible, this promise is fragile. Technological innovation cannot be understood in isolation from the institutional, economic, and governance structures in which it develops. AI may simplify procedures, reduce barriers, and empower marginalised communities. At the same time, it may also deepen existing inequalities, obscure decision-making, and shift important judicial functions into private hands. As AI continues to influence legal systems, the key task for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers is to ensure that its development promotes fairness and equity rather than efficiency alone. The contributions in this special issue stress that access to justice in the age of AI depends not only on specific technological tools but also on the broader legal and technological systems that support them. Hence, these systems must remain public, transparent, and accountable if AI is to play a meaningful role in creating a more equitable commercial justice landscape
The Practice of Making Ethics : Methodological Entanglements and Speculative Governance
Get PDFEthics in research is often treated as a procedural hurdle; a fixed, front-loaded checkpoint of compliance. I propose an alternative: an ethics that is intra-active, materially situated, and made with the unfolding of the research itself, making ethics . Drawing on feminist new materialist praxis, I explore how ethics emerges within embodied, co-creative, and affective research encounters, particularly in creative, practice-based, and post-qualitative methodologies. I examine not only the methodological implications of this remaking but also the institutional structures that constrain it. I call for iterative materially embedded ethics practices and a remaking of research governance that privileges responsiveness over risk-averse abstraction. With this paper, I offer making ethics, not a retrospective add-on or predictive mechanism but a generative, materially attuned, and institutionally consequential practice, one that demands structural transformation. What might research become if ethics were made with-in its world
Dr Paul Dash: Painter of Life and Joy
No full textFor all who get to know the work of Dr Paul Dash, across the decades of his practice, there will be the joys of discovery and exploration of an incredible sustained oeuvre, with bodies of work as expressive and harmonious as Dash himself. As an esteemed art educator, Dash gently encouraged all of his students to bring into view their visions and potential for more than four decades. Those of us who had the great fortune to be taught in art and art education by Paul Dash, are absolutely delighted that he is now viewed as a significant international artist
Using a narrative method to research young people’s religious engagement, past and present
No full textNaomi Thompson is a is a sociologist of youth, faith and inclusion, using narrative research to explore people's lived experiences of inclusion and exclusion. She grew up in a large evangelical Christian family in the West Midlands of England, became a young parent at age 20, and is on an ongoing journey of faith, non-faith and identity. Her first career was as a local authority youth worker before her addiction to studying led to her falling into a second career in academia. She currently works at Goldsmiths University of London where she is a Reader and the Head of the Department of Social, Therapeutic and Community Studies.
This chapter explores how Naomi’s own life narrative relates to what she studied. The research discussed in this chapter was a study of the peak and decline of Sunday schools in the twentieth century, and young people’s engagement with organised Christianity today. The specific time periods considered were 1900-1910, 1955-1972 and 2008 onwards. It was the first substantial study of Sunday school decline to consider internal factors in churches and religious institutions, rather than focusing on wider societal change. Narratives of rigid institutionalisation emerged, as well as a reinterpretation of whether young people have rejected churches – demonstrating that, in many cases, young people and youth leaders have been marginalised and excluded by religious organisations. The chapter outlines the postmodern approach and narrative methods used in this project and as well as some of the themes and discourses that emerged from the research. The chapter explores the challenges of conducting qualitative narrative research whilst recognising and being accountable to how the personal narratives of the researcher impact on interpretation and analysis of research findings