This article explores the trend of increasing automation in law enforcement and criminal justice settings through three use cases: predictive policing, machine evidence and recidivism algorithms. The focus lies on artificial-intelligence-driven tools and technologies employed, whether at pre-investigation stages or within criminal proceedings, in order to decode human behaviour and facilitate decision-making as to whom to investigate, arrest, prosecute, and eventually punish. In this context, this article first underlines the existence of a persistent dilemma between the goal of increasing the (...) operational efficiency of police and judicial authorities and that of safeguarding fundamental rights of the affected individuals. Subsequently, it shifts the focus onto key principles of criminal procedure and the presumption of innocence in particular. Using Article 6 ECHR and the Directive (EU) 2016/343 as a starting point, it discusses challenges relating to the protective scope of presumption of innocence, the burden of proof rule and the _in dubio pro reo_ principle as core elements of it. Given the transformations law enforcement and criminal proceedings go through in the era of algorithms, big data and artificial intelligence, this article advocates the adoption of specific procedural safeguards that will uphold rule of law requirements, and particularly transparency, fairness and explainability. In doing so, it also takes into account EU legislative initiatives, including the reform of the EU data protection _acquis_, the E-evidence Proposal, and the Proposal for an EU AI Act. Additionally, it argues in favour of revisiting the protective scope of key fundamental rights, considering, _inter alia_, the new dimensions suspicion has acquired. (shrink)

Pain, suffering and positive emotions in patients in vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/uws) and minimally conscious states (MCS) pose clinical and ethical challenges. Clinically, we evaluate behavioural responses after painful stimulation and also emotionally-contingent behaviours (e.g., smiling). Using stimuli with emotional valence, neuroimaging and electrophysiology technologies can detect subclinical remnants of preserved capacities for pain which might influence decisions about treatment limitation. To date, no data exist as to how healthcare providers think about end-of-life options (e.g., withdrawal of artificial nutrition (...) and hydration) in the presence or absence of pain in non-communicative patients. Here, we aimed to better clarify this issue by re-analyzing previously published data on pain perception (Prog Brain Res 2009 177, 329–38) and end-of-life decisions (J Neurol 2010 258, 1058–65) in patients with disorders of consciousness. In a sample of 2259 European healthcare professionals we found that, for VS/uws more respondents agreed with treatment withdrawal when they considered that VS/uws patients did not feel pain (77%) as compared to those who thought VS/uws did feel pain (59%). This interaction was influenced by religiosity and professional background. For MCS, end-of-life attitudes were not influenced by opinions on pain perception. Within a contemporary ethical context we discuss (1) the evolving scientific understandings of pain perception and their relationship to existing clinical and ethical guidelines; (2) the discrepancies of attitudes within (and between) healthcare providers and their consequences for treatment approaches, and (3) the implicit but complex relationship between pain perception and attitudes toward life-sustaining treatments. (shrink)

Hypocretin regulates brain reward function and cocaine consumption in rats. The hypocretinergic (Hcrt) system is implicated in energy homeostasis, feeding and sleep regulation. Hypocretinergic cell bodies are located in the lateral hypothalamus (LH) and project throughout the brain. The aim of the present studies was to investigate the role of the Hcrt system in regulating brain reward function and the reinforcing properties of cocaine in rats. Intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) thresholds provide an accurate measure of brain reward function in rats. Here (...) we show that a single injection of Hcrt-1 (5 µg icv) induced persistent, long-lasting elevations in ICSS thresholds in drug-naïve rats. Indeed, Hrct-1 elevated ICSS thresholds for 36 h, with peak elevations between 6 and 12 hours after injection. Hrct-1-induced threshold elevations were attenuated by an antibody known to neutralize the binding of hcrt-1 to its receptors. Taken together, these observations suggest that Hrct-1 negatively regulates brain reward function in rats. Because Hrct-1 negatively regulates brain reward function, we hypothesized that it may attenuate the increased brain reward function usually observed after cocaine consumption, and thereby alter cocaine self-administration behavior. A daily injection of Hrct-1 (1 µg icv), for 4 consecutive days, slightly increased cocaine self-administration (0.25 mg/infusion) in rats. Overall, these data demonstrate that Hrct-1 negatively regulates brain reward function, and as such may indirectly alter cocaine self-administration. Given the well-established role of hypocretin neurons in regulating feeding behavior and sleep, we hypothesize that hypocretinergic regulation of brain reward function may provide a mechanism by which appropriate and competing behaviors (e.g. sleep or feeding) may be engaged to maintain energy homeostasis. (shrink)

Human-Computer Interaction and games set a new domain in understanding people’s motivations in gaming, behavioral implications of game play, game adaptation to player preferences and needs for increased engaging experiences in the context of HCI serious games. When the latter relate with people’s health status, they can become a part of their daily life as assistive health status monitoring/enhancement systems. Co-designing HCI-SGs can be seen as a combination of art and science that involves a meticulous collaborative process. The design elements (...) in assistive HCI-SGs for Parkinson’s Disease patients, in particular, are explored in the present work. Within this context, the Game-Based Learning design framework is adopted here and its main game-design parameters are explored for the Exergames, Dietarygames, Emotional games, Handwriting games, and Voice games design, drawn from the PD-related i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite holistic approach. Two main data sources were involved in the study. In particular, the first one includes qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, involving 10 PD patients and four clinicians in the co-creation process of the game design, whereas the second one relates with data from an online questionnaire addressed by 104 participants spanning the whole related spectrum, i.e., PD patients, physicians, software/game developers. Linear regression analysis was employed to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the PGS beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of this work can assist HCI-SG designers for designing PD-related HCI-SGs, as the most significant game-design factors were identified, in terms of adding value to the role of HCI-SGs in increasing PD patients’ quality of life, optimizing the interaction with personalized HCI-SGs and, hence, fostering a collaborative human-computer symbiosis. (shrink)

Three‐dimensional structured illumination microscopy (3D‐SIM) has opened up new possibilities to study nuclear architecture at the ultrastructural level down to the ∼100 nm range. We present first results and assess the potential using 3D‐SIM in combination with 3D fluorescence in situ hybridization (3D‐FISH) for the topographical analysis of defined nuclear targets. Our study also deals with the concern that artifacts produced by FISH may counteract the gain in resolution. We address the topography of DAPI‐stained DNA in nuclei before and after (...) 3D‐FISH, nuclear pores and the lamina, chromosome territories, chromatin domains, and individual gene loci. We also look at the replication patterns of chromocenters and the topographical relationship ofXist‐RNA within the inactive X‐territory. These examples demonstrate that an appropriately adapted 3D‐FISH/3D‐SIM approach preserves key characteristics of the nuclear ultrastructure and that the gain in information obtained by 3D‐SIM yields new insights into the functional nuclear organization. (shrink)

This article investigates the role of ‘anarchy’ in state securitisation. First, we discuss state hierarchies’ struggle with active and reactive anarchic networks, theorising a state in existential crisis, which exploits anti-anarchist discourses to respond to network threats. In the second part, we illustrate with examples the use of fear of anarchy in hierarchical productive structures of securitisation. As an ‘antiproduction assemblage’, the state treats logics stemming from the ‘social principle’ as a repressed Real, the exclusion of which underpins its own (...) functioning. The scarcity and fear resulting from state terror ensure responses to this structural violence by reactive networks, while paradoxically also exacerbating reactive tendencies within social movements. In the concluding part, we discuss visions of desecuritising society, breaking away from majoritarian logics of control and the coming of other worlds counterposed to the hierarchies producing and reproducing an eternal loop of state and ne... (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer ca. 1445 von Nikolaus von Kues verfasste Dialog »De Deo abscondito« widmet sich der erkenntnistheoretischen Frage, ob Gott und was von ihm erkannt werden kann. Damit führt der Kusaner seine Überlegungen insbesondere aus seinem Hauptwerk »De docta ignorantia« fort. Wie dort, so kommt er auch in diesem Dialog zu dem Schluss, Gott als derjenige, der alle Gegensätze in sich vereinige, könne weder via positionis noch via negationis erkannt und beschrieben werden. Vielmehr sei Gott vor aller sagbaren Wahrheit und mehr (...) noch: vor allem Gedanken, der über ihn gedacht werden könne. Darin übertrifft der Kusaner den Anselm'schen Gottesbeweis. Gerade in der Nichterkennbarkeit erweise sich die Existenz Gottes und liege der Grund, ihn anzubeten. Das Wesen Gottes bleibt für den Menschen in der absconditas. Die Frage, ob die Rede vom verborgenen Gott bei Nikolaus von Kues auf Luther gewirkt habe, lässt sich historisch nicht eindeutig klären, dürfte aber eher unwahrscheinlich sein. Theologisch liegt jedenfalls keine Beeinflussung vor, da Luthers Rede vom deus absconditus kein erkenntnistheoretisches Problem lösen will, sondern in den Kontext des Willens Gottes im Gegenüber zum menschlichen Willen gehört und damit eine soteriologische Frage, von der Offenbarung in Christus aus gedacht, beantwortet.SummaryThe dialogue “De Deo abscondito”, composed by Nicolas of Cues in ca. 1445, is dedicated to the epistemological problem whether and to what extent God can be known. Nicolas is continuing here the train of thought of his most important work “De docta ignorantia”. In both works, Nicolas comes to the conclusion that God can neither be known and described via positionis nor via negationis. Rather, God precedes any expressible truth and, what is more, any thought that could be thought about him. Thus, Nicolas goes beyond Anselm's argument for God's existence. The existence of God and the reason for worshipping him is manifested exactly by the impossibility of knowing or proving that existence. For human beings, the essence of God remains absconditas. The question whether the conception of the hidden God in Nicolas of Cues has influenced Luther cannot be definitely solved historically; a direct influence is rather improbable. At any rate, there is no theological parallel between the two, as Luther's concept of the Deus absconditus does not respond to an epistemological problem. It rather concerns the divine will in its opposition to the human will and responds to a soteriological problem in the light of the revelation in Christ. (shrink)

The interactional organization of meetings is an important locus of observation for understanding the way in which institutions are talked into being. This article contributes to this growing body of research by focusing on turn-taking and participation in business meetings, approached within conversation analysis in a sequential and multimodal way. On the basis of a corpus of video-recorded corporate meetings of a multinational company, in which managers coming from several European branches convene, the article takes into consideration the embodied orientations (...) of the participants as they address each other, as they turn to particular addressees or groups in a recipient designed way while describing, informing, announcing events and results, and as they make relevant specific participants’ identities – especially national categories – and, in this way, display specific local expectations regarding rights and obligations to talk and to know. (shrink)

This theory accords to volitions the status of basic mental actions, maintaining that these are spontaneous exercises of the will--a "two-way" power which ...

We show that various paradoxes can arise in a natural class of social networks. They demonstrate that more services or products may have adverse consequences for all members of the network and conversely that restricting the number of choices may be beneficial for every member of the network. These phenomena have been confirmed by a number of empirical studies. In our analysis we use a simple threshold model of social networks introduced in Apt and Markakis, and more fully in Apt (...) and Markakis. In this model the agents, influenced by their neighbours, can adopt one out of several alternatives. We identify and analyze here four types of paradoxes that can arise in these networks. These paradoxes shed light on possible inefficiencies arising when one modifies the sets of products available to the agents forming a social network or the network structure. One of the paradoxes corresponds to the well-known Braess paradox in congestion games and shows that by adding more choices to a node, the network may end up in a situation that is worse for everybody. We exhibit a dual version of this, according to which removing a product available to an agent can eventually make everybody better off. The other paradoxes that we identify show that by adding or removing a product from the choice set of an agent may lead to permanent instability. Finally, we also identify conditions under which some of these paradoxes cannot arise. (shrink)

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

The field of Philosophy of Sport has been developing in Anglo-Saxon scholarship since the 1960s and since then has achieved considerable consolidation. However, this is a progressing field in Latin American countries like Brazil. This paper aims to analyse the trajectory of the Philosophy of Sport in Brazil, presenting an overview of its development since the 1980s and some prospects that have been generated since the turn of the century. In conclusion, the article points out that the field of Philosophy (...) of Sport in Brazil is in the process of disciplinary consolidation, presenting a plurality of agents, institutions and theoretical approaches in its structure. (shrink)

Derek Parfit’s view of personal identity raises questions about whether advance decisions refusing life-saving treatment should be honored in cases where a patient loses psychological continuity; it implies that these advance decisions would not be self-determining at all. However, rather than accepting that an unknown metaphysical ‘further fact’ underpins agential unity, one can accept Parfit’s view but offer a different account of what it implies morally. Part II of this article argues that contractual obligations provide a moral basis for honoring (...) advance decisions refusing life-saving and/or life-sustaining medical treatment; advance decisions have similarities to contracts, such as life insurance policies and will-contracts, that come into effect when the psychological discontinuity is through death. (shrink)

Scientific research and ethics -- Ethical theory and decision making -- Data acquisition and management -- Mentoring and professional relationship -- Collaboration in research -- Authorship -- Publication and peer review -- Misconduct in research -- Intellectual property -- Conflicts of interest and scientific objectivity -- The use of animals in research -- The use of human subjects in research -- The use of vulnerable subjects in research -- Genetics, cloning, and stem cell research -- International research.

It is a commonly accepted view that men think to live, and do not live to think, that conation, and not cognition, is the primary object of living. Impression, affect, and expression constitute the complete psychic process. The term philosophy, the love of wisdom, also suggests that man's thought has a practical and not a theoretical objective. In this connection, however, two errors must be avoided: on the one hand an exaltation of the intellect as in rationalism, and on the (...) other hand a depreciation of the intellect as in pragmatism. (shrink)

The poet’s words: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp” are not merely a command of whatought to be, they are a description of what is. Man has always been stretching himself beyond his own measure. He has a sense of the Infinite: Eternity has been set in his heart: he has not been content to look only on the things seen, his gaze has ever been towards the Unseen. Whatever stage of development he may have reached, he seeks for, (...) and strives after, what is above and beyond himself and his world. In science he tries to get behind thephenomenalreality as his senses apprehend it, to thenoumenal, mind. In philosophy he endeavours to bring the multiplicity of his experience, outer and inner, into a unity that will evidence itself to his reason as coherent, and not contradictory. In morality he is not content with the customs and standards of the society of which he is a member; but conscious of their inadequacy, he conceives and aspires to realize an ideal adequate to his nature; hisought to beis always challenging hisis. The impulse or motive of progress in all spheres of human interest and activity is “the best is yet to be.”. (shrink)

Die Edition prasentiert Rees Bucher Psychologische Beobachtungen (1875), Der Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen (1877), Die Entstehung des Gewissens (1885) und Die Illusion der Willensfreiheit (1885).

The role of power in healthcare can raise many ethical challenges. Power is ownership, whether given, ceded, or taken of another person’s autonomy. When a person has power over someone else, they can control or strongly influence the decision-making freedom of that person. From the principalist perspective1,2 of healthcare ethics, denying a person their freedom to choose, should only occur when justifying conditions related to beneficence and nonmaleficence are sufficiently satisfied. In healthcare, it is rare to be able to identify (...) situations where paternalism is justified. However, experience suggests that abusive power in healthcare is used too frequently without justifying criteria. (shrink)

Arguing that psychologists and their predecessors have invariably relied on metaphors in articulation, the contributors to this volume offer a new "key" to understanding a critically important area of human knowledge by specifying the major metaphors.

Across a wide range of legal contexts, E. Thomas Sullivan and Richard S. Frase identify three basic ways that government measures and private remedies have been ...

Released in 1984, Steven E. Rhoads' classic was considered by many to be among the best introductions to the economic way of thinking and its applications. This anniversary edition has been updated to account for political and economic developments - from the greater interest in redistributing income and the ascendancy of behaviorism to the Trump presidency. Rhoads explores opportunity cost, marginalism, and economic incentives and explains why mainstream economists - even those well to the left - still value free markets. (...) He critiques economics for its unbalanced emphasis on narrow self-interest as controlling motive and route to happiness, highlighting philosophers and positive psychologists' findings that happiness is far more dependent on friends and family than on income or wealth. This thought-provoking tour of the economist's mind is a must read for our times, providing a clear, lively, non-technical insight into how economists think and why they shouldn't be ignored. (shrink)

A dialogue between a foreign philosopher and a powerful statesman outline Plato's reflections on the family, the status of women, property rights, and criminal law.

Many writers in various fields--philosophy, religion, literature, and psychology--believe that the question of the meaning of life is one of the most significant problems that an individual faces. In The Meaning of Life, Second Edition, E.D. Klemke collects some of the best writings on this topic, primarily works by philosophers but also selections from literary figures and religious thinkers. The twenty-seven cogent, readable essays are organized around three different perspectives on the meaning of life. In Part I, the readings assert (...) and defend the theistic view that without the existence of God--or faith in God--life has no significance or purpose. In Part II the selections deny this thesis, defending instead the humanistic alternative--that life has or can have meaning and worth without any theistic beliefs or commitment. In the final group of readings, contributors ask if the question of the meaning of life is in itself legitimate and significant. The volume also includes an introduction by the editor and a selected bibliography. This new edition adds essays by A. J. Ayer, Hazel Barnes, William Lane Craig, Owen Flanagan, Antony Flew, Thomas Nagel, Kai Nielsen, Philip L. Quinn, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Walter T. Stace. The only anthology of its kind, The Meaning of Life, Second Edition, is ideal for courses in introduction to philosophy and human nature. It also provides an accessible and stimulating introduction to the subject for general readers. (shrink)