Legibility in the Age of Signs and Machines offers a compelling reflection on what the notion of legibility entails in a machinic world in which any form of cultural expression – from literary... Show moreLegibility in the Age of Signs and Machines offers a compelling reflection on what the notion of legibility entails in a machinic world in which any form of cultural expression – from literary texts, films, artworks and museum exhibits to archives, laws, computer programs and algorithms – necessarily partakes in ever-more complex processes of (mass) mediation. Divided over four clusters focusing on desire, justice, machine and heritage, the chapters in the volume explore what makes something legible or illegible to whom or, indeed, what; the kinds of reading, processing or navigating such il/legibility facilitates or forecloses; and the role critical (media) theory, literary studies and the Humanities in general can play in tackling these and related issues. Contributors: Ernst van Alphen, Anke Bosma, Siebe Bluijs, Sean Cubitt, Colin Davis, Katrine Dirckinck-Holmfeld, David Gauthier, Giovanna Fossati, Isabel Capeloa Gil, Pepita Hesselberth, Yasco Horsman, Janna Houwen, Looi van Kessel, Esther Peeren, Seth Rogoff, Roxana Sarion, Frederik Tygstrup, Inge van de Ven, Ruby de Vos, Peter Verstraten, Tessa de Zeeuw Show less
The current orthodoxy maintains courts are not required to compare all language texts of a plurilingual tax treaty but may rely on a single one for cases of 'routine interpretation'. This view is... Show moreThe current orthodoxy maintains courts are not required to compare all language texts of a plurilingual tax treaty but may rely on a single one for cases of 'routine interpretation'. This view is fundamentally flawed, in violation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and the source of treaty misapplication. This study aims to: (1) help diminish treaty misapplication through abandonment of the current orthodoxy; (2) show that sole reliance on prevailing texts is available as a pragmatic alternative in line with the Vienna Convention that reduces global resource costs of tax treaty interpretation and increases its overall consistency by eliminating unintended deviations caused by language idiosyncrasies; (3) provide policy recommendations how residual cases may be eliminated. To support this goals, this study seeks to provide conclusive arguments and useful data to policy makers, treaty negotiators, judges, practitioners, and other scholars. Its analysis of the final clauses in 3,844 tax treaties is intended to help both taxpayers and courts interpreting tax treaties in practice. The general arguments presented in this book are not limited to tax treaties, since similar issues play a role in the interpretation of other treaties, for example, in the field of foreign investment regulation. Show less
LCA has become an important method to study environmental impacts of human activities. Still, there are several methodological issues in LCA that can adversely affect the results reliability.... Show moreLCA has become an important method to study environmental impacts of human activities. Still, there are several methodological issues in LCA that can adversely affect the results reliability. Three of these issues relate to a) allocation, b) the representation of the time dimension and c) the interpretation of results in LCA. Uncertainties play a fundamental and underlying role for these issues. It is widely-agreed that correctly dealing with these different uncertainty sources is a vital step towards increasing the usefulness and reliability of LCA results. Practical ways to deal with uncertainty are needed. The aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of the uncertainty dimension of current LCA. By means of addressing different sources of uncertainty not yet addressed, with new methods, a clearer picture of the implications of different sources of uncertainty in LCA is provided. This thesis departed from broad domains of uncertainty including risk, uncertainty as conventionally described, ignorance and indeterminacies. The selected sources of uncertainty are in the domains of risk and conventional uncertainty i.e. those due to incomplete scientific knowledge and that are to some extent quantifiable. This does not mean that all can be known or quantified as ignorance and indeterminacies exist. Show less
