This is an exploratory study of perceptions of human dignity in childhood as recalled by young adults. Our goal is to discover the range of dimensions, sources and experiences, both those that supported and violated, of the concept of human dignity. This research, drawing on responses from over two hundred university students, may help to develop a language with which to explore the concept of human dignity in a broader, more systematic way. The approach taken here permits us to move (...) beyond the ‘legal’ frame that often confines us to discussions of the extremes of child abuse and neglect, to a frame that frees us to explore the meaning and real life experiences with human dignity in childhood and the impacts on later life. Violating and not supporting human dignity in childhood helps produce a world populated by adults who, having been harmed as children, go on to harm and violate others as adults. If our goal is to have a world populated by children who were nurtured to flourish into child-centered adults who are empathic, intelligent and responsive and who have no need to hurt others, then our understanding of human dignity in childhood must be increased. This paper and the materials on which it is based seek to provide preliminary insights into the language of human dignity. (shrink)

This article reviews recent developments in health care law, focusing on the engagement of law as a partner in health care innovation. The article addresses: the history and contents of recent United States federal law restricting the use of genetic information by insurers and employers; the recent federal policy recommending routine HIV testing; the recent revision of federal policy regarding the funding of human embryonic stem cell research; the history, current status, and need for future attention to advance directives; the (...) recent emergence of medical–legal partnerships and their benefits for patients; the obesity epidemic and its implications for the child’s right to health under international conventions. (shrink)

For nearly a century, and until very recently, the majority of U.S. states required a blood test for marriage license applicants. The tests identified people with conditions formerly designated as "venereal diseases," most importantly gonorrhea and syphilis. Those who tested positive were barred from civil marriage. Although the premarital testing requirement is no longer a feature of state law, numerous related enactments are common features of law in most states.The historical literature describing the rise and fall of laws prescribing marriage (...) restrictions related to VD has treated those enactments as public health measures, meant primarily to forestall the spread of disease to intimate partners. But laws to... (shrink)

The Supreme Court decided Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky in 2019. Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion in the case claimed there was a direct connection between the legalization of abortion, in the late 20th Century, and the beginnings of the birth control movement a full three quarters of a century earlier. “Many eugenicists,” Thomas argued, “supported legalizing abortion.”Justice Samuel Alito highlighted similar claims in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, citing a brief entitled “The Eugenic Era Lives on through (...) the Abortion Movement.” That brief was an echo of Justice Thomas’ misguided attempt at history in the Box opinion. Similar claims reoccur in Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s opinion in the Texas mifepristone case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.These false claims are the focus of this article. There is no evidence that early leaders of the eugenics movement supported abortion as part of the movement for birth control. It is accurate to describe those leaders as anti-abortion, and their followers as people who condemned abortion for moral, legal, and medical reasons. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years, the doctrine of informed consent has become a focal point in discussions of medical ethics. The literature of informed consent explores the evolution of the principle of autonomy, purportedly emerging from the mists of 19th Century medical practice, and finding its earliest articulation in legal cases where wronged citizens asserted their rights against medical authority. A commonplace, if not obligatory, feature of that literature is a reference to the case of Mary Schloendorff and the opinion (...) written by Judge Benjamin Cardozo by which the case is remembered. Commentators today applaud the prescience of Cardozo for an early articulation of what eventually would become bioethical orthodoxy concerning informed consent and its place as a bulwark of patient autonomy. They inevitably quote Cardozo's famous statement, “Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body.”. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years, the doctrine of informed consent has become a focal point in discussions of medical ethics. The literature of informed consent explores the evolution of the principle of autonomy, purportedly emerging from the mists of 19th Century medical practice, and finding its earliest articulation in legal cases where wronged citizens asserted their rights against medical authority. A commonplace, if not obligatory, feature of that literature is a reference to the case of Mary Schloendorff and the opinion (...) written by Judge Benjamin Cardozo by which the case is remembered. Commentators today applaud the prescience of Cardozo for an early articulation of what eventually would become bioethical orthodoxy concerning informed consent and its place as a bulwark of patient autonomy. They inevitably quote Cardozo's famous statement, “Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body.”. (shrink)

This is an exploratory study of perceptions of human dignity in childhood as recalled by young adults. Our goal is to discover the range of dimensions, sources and experiences, both those that supported and violated, of the concept of human dignity. This research, drawing on responses from over two hundred university students, may help to develop a language with which to explore the concept of human dignity in a broader, more systematic way. The approach taken here permits us to move (...) beyond the ‘legal’ frame that often confines us to discussions of the extremes of child abuse and neglect, to a frame that frees us to explore the meaning and real life experiences with human dignity in childhood and the impacts on later life. Violating and not supporting human dignity in childhood helps produce a world populated by adults who, having been harmed as children, go on to harm and violate others as adults. If our goal is to have a world populated by children who were nurtured to flourish into child-centered adults who are empathic, intelligent and responsive and who have no need to hurt others, then our understanding of human dignity in childhood must be increased. This paper and the materials on which it is based seek to provide preliminary insights into the language of human dignity. (shrink)

During the 20th Century, thirty-two state legislatures passed laws that sanctioned coercive sexual sterilization as a solution to the purported detrimental increases in the population of “unfit” or “defective” citizens. While both scholarly and popular commentary has attempted to attribute these laws to political parties, or to broad or poorly defined ideological groups such as “progressives,” no one has identified the political allegiance of each legislator who introduced a successfully adopted sterilization law, and the governor who signed it. This article (...) remedies that omission. (shrink)

Dr. Caleb Williams Saleeby was the author of Parenthood and Race Culture, one of the first monographs on eugenics and the book that popularized the term “racial poison.” The goal of eradicating the racial poisons and the harm they caused — particularly infant morbidity and mortality — provided common ground for early 20th century reformers, and their concerns fed the growing support for legal prohibition of alcohol.

The STD experiments in Guatemala from 1946–1948 have earned a place of infamy in the history of medical ethics. But if the Guatemala STD experiments were so “ethically impossible,” how did the U.S. government approve their funding? Although much of the literature has targeted the failings of Dr. John Cutler, we focus on the institutional context and research ethos that shaped the outcome of the research. After the end of WWII, Dr. Cassius Van Slyke reconstructed the federal research contracts process (...) into a grant program. The inaugural NIH study section recommended approval of the Guatemala STD experiments at its first meeting. The funding and oversight process of the Guatemala research was marked with serious conflicts of interest and a lack of oversight, and it was this structure, as opposed to merely a maleficent individual, that allowed the Guatemala STD experiments to proceed. We conclude that while current research regulations are designed to prevent the abuses perpetrated on the subjects of the Guatemala STD experiments, it takes a comprehensive understanding of research ethics through professional education to achieve the longstanding ideal of the responsible investigator, and ensure ethical research under any regulatory scheme. (shrink)

Since their revelation to the public, the sexually transmitted disease experiments in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 have earned a place of infamy in the history of medical ethics. During these experiments, Public Health Service researchers intentionally exposed over 1,300 non-consenting Guatemalan soldiers, prisoners, psychiatric patients, and commercial sex workers to gonorrhea, syphilis, and/or chancroid under conditions that have shocked the medical community and public alike. Expert analysis has found little scientific value to the experiments as measured by current or (...) contemporaneous research standards.Such an obvious case of research malfeasance, which violated research norms in place both in the past and now, has been uniformly repudiated. The Guatemala STD experiments were labeled “clearly unethical” by President Barack Obama and “reprehensible” by the Secretaries of State and Health and Human Services. (shrink)

Kara Swanson details the professional evolution of Alan Guttmacher, and the quandary he faced when the law interfered with prerogatives he wished to exercise in his practice of reproductive medicine. This response focuses on how decoupling reproductive technologies from a regime requiring medical licensure could lead to more complete reproductive autonomy for women.

Can the quality of gender+ equality policies be defined in ways that apply across different policy contexts and different policy moments? In light of different scholarly debates and empirical material from gender violence policy debates especially in Southern and Central Eastern Europe, this article discusses dilemmas around defining the quality of gender+ equality policies. It proposes a two-dimensional model. The first dimension links quality to procedural aspects: empowerment of women’s rights advocates at different stages of the policy process, and transformation (...) with reference to prevailing contextual legacies. The second dimension is more substantive, and includes genderedness, intersectionality and the structurally transformative focus of policies. The article illustrates how within the framework set by these criteria, the quality of gender equality policies is constructed through policy debates in ways that are dependent on the different discursive, institutional and structural factors specific to various policy contexts. (shrink)

In this personal narrative the author recounts his experiences teaching bioethics in Pakistan. He notes the different moral, cultural and legal environments of Pakistan as compared to the United States, and in particular, the ways in which subtle interpretations of Sharia law shape bioethical reflections as well as the biomedical legal environment. As he argues, any attempt to export models of bioethics from one country to another with no attention to social and cultural differences is a recipe for failure. To (...) presume that all ethical considerations are universal is to devalue moral traditions that differ from our own, and dismiss cultural values of other societies. (shrink)

This article explores the extent to which a feminist reading of gender mainstreaming is incorporated in the EU political discourse by analysing how family policy and gender inequality in politics are framed in EU policy documents. Gender mainstreaming is treated as an open signifier that can be filled with both feminist and non-feminist content. The article provides a set of criteria to assess whether a feminist reading of gender mainstreaming has been adopted. The frame analysis of EU documents on family (...) policy and gender inequality in politics reveals but a partial adoption of a feminist understanding of gender mainstreaming and only in the area of gender inequality in politics. (shrink)

Public companies in the US stock market must annually report their activities and financial performances to the SEC by filing the so-called 10-K form. Recent studies have demonstrated that changes in the textual content of the corporate annual filing can convey strong signals of companies’ future returns. In this study, we combine natural language processing techniques and network science to introduce a novel 10-K-based network, named Lazy Network, that leverages year-on-year changes in companies’ 10-Ks detected using a neural network embedding (...) model. The Lazy Network aims to capture textual changes derived from financial or economic changes on the equity market. Leveraging the Lazy Network, we present a novel investment strategy that attempts to select the least disrupted and stable companies by capturing the peripheries of the Lazy Network. We show that this strategy earns statistically significant risk-adjusted excess returns. Specifically, the proposed portfolios yield up to 95 basis points in monthly five-factor alphas, outperforming similar strategies in the literature. (shrink)

Patrizia Lombardo | : Stendhal et Musil sont les deux écrivains par excellence qui se sont interrogés sur le type de connaissance qui vient de la littérature. Avant Musil et comme Musil, Stendhal répond à cette question fondamentale en montrant que le roman offre une connaissance des émotions humaines et de leur lien avec les valeurs. Il s’agit à la fois de valeurs éthiques — les situations morales dans lesquelles se trouvent les personnages — et des valeurs esthétiques et (...) proprement littéraires — le tragique, le comique, le tragi-comique, le sublime, etc. Surtout, le roman n’est pas simple représentation du réel, mais aussi du possible. L’analyse de quelques phrases hypothétiques, conjectures et expériences de pensée dans Le Rouge et le Noir, confirme la thèse que la littérature propose une connaissance du possible à travers le travail de l’imagination. | : Stendhal and Musil are deeply concerned with the question of theknowledge value of literature. Like Musil and before him, Stendhalanswered this question by showing the potential of the novel :this literary form presents human emotions and their connection tovalues. The characters deal with various situations, therefore conveyethical values, while aesthetic values —such as the comic, thetragic, the tragic-comic, the sublime- emerge from the way in whichhuman actions and emotions are represented. All these values arebrought about by the style of Stendhal, which is both form and content,both ethical and aesthetic. The analysis of some hypotheticalsentences, conjectures and thought experiments in The Red and the Blackconfirms the thesis later endorsed by Musil, that literature allows forthe knowledge of the possible, thanks to the exercise of theimagination. (shrink)

"Featuring a carefully selected collection of source documents, this tome includes traditional teaching tools from the Zen Buddhist traditions of China, Korea, and Japan, including texts created by women. The selections provide both a good feel for the varieties of Zen and an experience of its common core.... The texts are experiential teachings and include storytelling, poetry, autobiographies, catechisms, calligraphy, paintings, and koans. Contextual commentary prefaces each text. Wade-Giles transliteration is used, although Pinyin, Korean, Japanese, and Sanskrit terms are linked (...) in appendixes. An insightful introduction by Arai contributes a religious studies perspective. The bibliography references full translations of the selections. A thought-provoking discussion about the problems of translation is included.... Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels." --_Choice_. (shrink)

We recorded participants' eye movements while they read sentences containing verb‐phrase coordination. Results showed evidence of immediate processing disruption when a reflexive pronoun embedded in the conjoined verb phrase mismatched the sentence subject. We argue that this result is incompatible with models of human parsing that employ only bottom‐up parsing procedures, even when flexible constituency is employed. Models need to incorporate a mechanism similar to the adjoining operation in Tree‐Adjoining Grammar, in which one structure is inserted into another.

Relativistic geometrical action for a quantum particle in the superspace is analyzed from theoretical group point of view. To this end an alternative technique of quantization outlined by the authors in a previous work and that is based in the correct interpretation of the square root Hamiltonian, is used. The obtained spectrum of physical states and the Fock construction consist of Squeezed States which correspond to the representations with the lowest weights $\lambda=\frac{1}{4}$ and $\lambda=\frac{3}{4}$ with four possible (non-trivial) fractional representations (...) for the group decomposition of the spin structure. From the theory of semigroups the analytical representation of the radical operator in the superspace is constructed, the conserved currents are computed and a new relativistic wave equation is proposed and explicitly solved for the time-dependent case. The relation with the Relativistic Schrödinger equation and the Time-dependent Harmonic Oscillator is analyzed and discussed. (shrink)

This study concentrates on two kinds of video games, Massive Online Battle Arena and Massive Multiplayer Online Role Play Game, and examines the scores obtained by the subjects in the sample. Score...

Relativistic geometrical action for a quantum particle in the superspace is analyzed from theoretical group point of view. To this end an alternative technique of quantization outlined by the authors in a previous work and, that is, based in the correct interpretation of the square root Hamiltonian, is used. The obtained spectrum of physical states and the Fock construction consist of Squeezed States which correspond to the representations with the lowest weights \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} (...) \begin{document}$${\lambda=\frac{1}{4}}$$\end{document} and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\frac{3}{4}}$$\end{document} with four possible fractional representations for the group decomposition of the spin structure. From the theory of semi-groups the analytical representation of the radical operator in the superspace is constructed, the conserved currents are computed and a new relativistic wave equation is proposed and explicitly solved for the time dependent case. The relation with the Relativistic Schrödinger equation and the Time-dependent Harmonic Oscillator is analyzed and discussed. (shrink)

L’ironie est une valeur esthétique, et donc affective, chez Stendhal. Les phénomènes affectifs varient en nature et en intensité. L’ironie implique une gamme complexe d’aspects et de degrés : elle peut être satirique, comique, tragique, nihiliste, paradoxale, etc. Stendhal s’éloigne à la fois de la satire tragique de Chateaubriand et de l’ironie romantique nihiliste. Il pratique, certes, la satire sociale ; le roman doit atteindre l’idéal de l’ opéra-bouffe, où le comique est « un mélange de gaieté et de tendresse (...) ». L’ironie cache enfin la pudeur de l’écrivain qui masque ainsi sa tendresse et sa sympathie pour les âmes sublimes de ses personnages majeurs. (shrink)

Citizenship is both a contentious and contested struggle about the creation of rights, duties, and opportunities. Feminist practices and debates can clarify the meaning of citizenship. This is because the form of feminist practices, characterized by an ongoing struggle, and the content of feminist debates, focusing on gender and other inequalities, recognition of different voices, and critiques of the public and private dichotomy, are particularly suited for dealing with the challenges of contentious and contested processes of citizenship. We argue more (...) specifically that feminist debates and practices provide fruitful contributions for the citizenship challenges that the European Union must face. (shrink)

A recent paper by Watabe et al.(1) describes the identification, in the promoter region of the organizer‐specific gene goosecoid, of two distinct growth factor responsive elements that are required for the regulation of this gene both in vitro and in vivo. This is an important finding since it provides molecular evidence in support of the recently proposed model in which the production of dorsal type mesoderm is thought to require a synergistic interaction between a general mesoderm inducing factor and a (...) dorsalizing competence modifier(2,6–8). Furthermore, the authors provide an elegant example of how a response element can become a useful tool to map the presence of a biologically available ligand within the embryo. (shrink)

Exploring Textual Action questions how we analyse works of art after the performative turn and shows how the interplay of performativity (textual action), space and topography, and the converging of genres and art forms is essential in modern drama, theatre, prose fiction, poetry and film. The volume also fosters a keen concern for the development of congenial theory. Its 14 detailed essays analyse works of art ranging from Balzac, Melville and George Eliot, to Breton, Kafka, Benjamin, Blixen and Woolf; and (...) from W.C. Williams, Bresson and Scorsese, to Sarraute, Duras, Reygadas, Dumont and Waltz. The approach of these studies discloses the art works as creative and dynamic utterances with active and shaping forces so powerful, and consequential, that they have the potential to transform human perception and blur clear distinctions between art and real life. Using an alternative and dynamic method and suggesting a direction towards the detailed analysis of literature, art, media and culture, Exploring Textual Action addresses current debates within the humanities. (shrink)

Este artigo intenta apresentar como a pregação de Santo António de Pádua está conectada com a cidade. Através de alguns exemplos tomados das legendas hagiográficas e sermões, o autor reconstrói as mudanças de atitudes de hagiógrafos e pregadores ligados a António algumas vezes a um contexto urbano geral e, em última medida, a cidade de Pádua. Em particular, o artigo se detém sobre alguns textos que destacam o efeito da pregação de Santo António no seu público-alvo, ou seja, a população (...) da cidade em que falava. O período da análise é primariamente compreendido durante a canonização do santo, em meados do século XIV. Apesar disso, algumas referências a autores da época posterior serão feitas como comparação e aprofundamento da panorâmica oferecida. No final da Idade Média, santo António acabaria por ser, em certa medida, o modelo para os frades mendicantes, talvez atraídos pelos santos mais próximos no tempo. (shrink)

This article discusses irony as an aesthetic, therefore affective, value, as exemplified in Stendhal’s irony. Affective phenomena vary in nature and intensity, and one same emotion can be coloured differently (adjectives indicate its nuances, as, for example, in “sweet nostalgia” or “desperate nostalgia” etc.). Irony involves a very complex gamut of aspects and degrees: it can be satiric, comic, tragic, nihilistic, paradoxical etc. I first consider what kinds of irony Stendhal avoided. He discarded both the tragic satire of Chateaubriand and (...) Romantic nihilistic irony. Then I look at Stendhal’s theory of laughter, as hinted at in several of his writings where he reflects upon various forms of comedy while developing his own ideal of comedy as it will appear in his major novels (see Journal littéraire, Histoire de la peinture en Italie, Racine et Shakespeare, and Correspondance). Dissatisfied with Hobbes’ definition of laughter as involving a feeling of superiority, he considered two conditions for the comic effect: clarity and suddenness. Both become fundamental in his literary style. At the same time Stendhal was convinced of the affective superiority of the moderns over the Ancients: only the moderns, forged by Christian sensitivity, experienced tender emotions. Tenderness should color everything: the novel should aim at the ideal of opera-bouffe, where comedy is “a mixture of gaiety and tenderness,” while the writer masks his tenderness by using a “sweet” (douce) irony towards his favourite characters. (shrink)

Many of the original Saturday Night Live (SNL) cast and writers believed that cocaine was non‐addictive and that it was a logical drug to use to sustain the long hours of intense preparation necessary for a weekly live show. It's no secret that drugs and alcohol have been fuel for some SNL cast members. In the early days, the culture and writing of SNL were fueled by drugs, particularly cocaine and marijuana. So John Belushi's drug use was not at all (...) unique, and it justified his belief that people in the entertainment business needed to do drugs to cope with pressure and stress. Sadly, though, John and Chris Farley both lost their lives to overdoses at the young age of 33. Although Stuart Smalley pokes fun at the Pollyanna tone of recovery gurus, Al Franken himself has been a great advocate for the kind of twelve‐step programs that Chris Farley succeeded with for a time. (shrink)

Lombardo and Bell have translated this important early dialogue on virtue, wisdom, and the nature of Sophistic teaching into an idiom remarkable for its liveliness and subtlety. Michael Frede has provided a substantial introduction that illuminates the dialogue's perennial interest, its Athenian political background, and the particular difficulties and ironic nuances of its argument.