The focus of this thesis is on the technical methods which help promote the movement towards Trustworthy AI, specifically within the Inspectorate of the Netherlands.The goal is develop and assess... Show moreThe focus of this thesis is on the technical methods which help promote the movement towards Trustworthy AI, specifically within the Inspectorate of the Netherlands.The goal is develop and assess the technical methods which are required to shift the actions of the Inspectorate to a data-driven paradigm, concretely under a supervised classification framework of machine learning.The aspect of reliability is addressed as a data quality concern, viz. missingness and noise.The aspect of fairness is addressed as a counter to bias in the selection process of inspections.The conclusion is that, whilst no complete solution has yet been suggested, it is possible to address the concerns related to data quality and data bias, culminating in well-performing classification models which are reliable and fair. Show less
This doctoral dissertation explores classical music performance from a curatorial perspective, reflecting upon and challenging the traditional configuration of performance environments. Beginning... Show moreThis doctoral dissertation explores classical music performance from a curatorial perspective, reflecting upon and challenging the traditional configuration of performance environments. Beginning with a consideration for the historical origins of absorbed attention and silence as the dominant mode of performing and hearing classical music, the subsequent chapters of this dissertation investigate alternatives to this mode by exploring artistic creations developed during this research. Informed by my combined experience as a curator and performer in the contemporary music field, these artistic creations use what I call ‘metaxical amplification’: the amplification of environmental sounds that are generally considered noise in the context of classical music performances, and that are therefore rarely considered in relation to the artistic experiences generated by these performances. Metaxical amplification proposes a reconfiguration of the performance environment and the ways in which attention unfolds within it. It also challenges a work-centred performance culture, since the performance mode emerging from this form of amplification is oriented towards the sonic exploration of musical environments through these works. More broadly, it propels the development of a practice in which musical interpretation, improvisation, and curatorial thinking are tightly interwoven. Findings are discussed in close dialogue with literature from various fields including sociology, philosophy, media theory, as well as through related examples from the fields of music, theatre, and the visual arts. Show less
This thesis described the development of novel scanning tunneling microscopy techniques to investigate strongly correlated electronic states in quantum matter.
This conversation takes Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld’s installation and perfor- mative presentation The Christmas Report & Other Fragments (2017) as a start- ing point to discuss legibility in... Show moreThis conversation takes Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld’s installation and perfor- mative presentation The Christmas Report & Other Fragments (2017) as a start- ing point to discuss legibility in relation to the mass digitization of the colonial archives in Denmark. To gain access to the archive, Dirckinck-Holmfeld draws on the figure of the Data Thief, inspired by The Black Audio Film Collective, in an attempt to unearth and excel the vulnerabilities and ethical dilemmas at the heart of today’s data desire. The Data Thief, Dirckinck-Holmfeld claims in conversation with Pepita Hesselberth, teaches us to attune to the noise, to the sonorous, affective and textural dimensions of the archive. It compels us to create assemblages of enunciation that cut across semiotic and machinic flows, and invites us to nourish a relationship to time where the past keeps enfolding on itself in the present. This way, she concludes, it demands us to stay in and with the discomfort, and to stay in the cybernetic fold of radical, creative, decolonial and technological reimagination. Show less
Real-world (black-box) optimization problems often involve various types of uncertainties and noise emerging in different parts of the optimization problem. When this is not accounted for,... Show moreReal-world (black-box) optimization problems often involve various types of uncertainties and noise emerging in different parts of the optimization problem. When this is not accounted for, optimization may fail or may yield solutions that are optimal in the classical strict notion of optimality, but fail in practice. Robust optimization is the practice of optimization that actively accounts for uncertainties and/or noise. Evolutionary Algorithms form a class of optimization algorithms that use the principle of evolution to find good solutions to optimization problems. Because uncertainty and noise are indispensable parts of nature, this class of optimization algorithms seems to be a logical choice for robust optimization scenarios. This thesis provides a clear definition of the term robust optimization and a comparison and practical guidelines on how Evolution Strategies, a subclass of Evolutionary Algorithms for real-parameter optimization problems, should be adapted for such scenarios. Show less
Stochastic differential equations with delay are the inspiration for this thesis. Examples of such equations arise in population models, control systems with delay and noise, lasers, economical... Show moreStochastic differential equations with delay are the inspiration for this thesis. Examples of such equations arise in population models, control systems with delay and noise, lasers, economical models, neural networks, environmental pollution and in many other situations. In such models we are often interested in the evolution of a particular quantity, for example the size of a population, or the amount of pollution in a particular area, changing in time. A differential equation with delay, or delay equation, is a differential equation in which the change in time of such a quantity is expressed as a function of the value of that quantity at different points in time, in the past as well as in the present. This is in contrast with an ordinary differential equation, in which the change in time of the quantity at a specific time is expressed as a function of that quantity at that specific time only. Show less
The theoretical foundation for the work reported here is provided by Landauer's scattering theory of electron transport. The three main ingredients of a scattering problem are (1) a set of... Show moreThe theoretical foundation for the work reported here is provided by Landauer's scattering theory of electron transport. The three main ingredients of a scattering problem are (1) a set of reservoirs that emit and absorb particles, (2) the particles themselves, that propagate as waves between the reservoirs and (3) a scatterer that obstructs free propagation. In this thesis two classes of problems are considered. The first class results when the physical quantities characterizing the reservoirs or the scatterer are not constant in time. The second class results when wave propagation is described by the Dirac equation rather than the Schroedinger equation, as is the case in a 2D form of carbon, called graphene. Show less
