In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.1 (2004) 47-54 [Access article in PDF] Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research*(A Recommended Manuscript) Adopted on 16 October 2001Revised on 20 August 2002 Ethics Committee of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai, Shanghai 201203 Human embryonic stem cell (ES) research is a great project in the frontier of biomedical science for the twenty-first century. Be- cause the research involves (...) the use of human embryos, it triggers serious debate on ethical issues. Opponents consider the embryo to be an early form of human life that should be respected and not destroyed. However, the majority of scientists support embryonic stem cell research, believing that it offers good prospects for the treatment of diseases that have remained incurable until now and so will benefit humankind. The Ethics Committee of the Department of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai seriously discussed the ethical debate initiated by embryonic stem cell research. We concluded that we should support the scientists of our country in actively carrying out human embryonic stem cell research for the noble cause of "medicine being a beneficent art." For the healthy and orderly development of human embryonic stem cell research in our country, we put forward the following recommended Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research as a reference for leaders, administrative departments, and related scientists. Preface Article 1. Human embryonic stem cells are the primitive cells that play the main role in the growth and development of a human body. These [End Page 47] primitive cells have the potential for infinite proliferation, self-renewal, and multi-directional differentiation. If scientists can discover the mechanism of differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, it will be possible to induce differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to form various types of human cells for clinical cell therapy. If human embryonic stem cell research can be integrated with modern biomedical engineering techniques, it also will be possible to make repair and replacement of human tissues and organs a reality. Article 2. There are two ways to classify human embryonic stem cells. One way is to classify them according to their potential for differentiation. There could be three kinds of stem cells: totipotent stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells.A totipotent stem cell has the potential to develop into a whole individual. It can differentiate into the more than 200 cell types in the whole body, construct any tissue or organ of the body, and finally develop into a whole individual. The fertilized egg and the cleavage cells at the very early stage of embryonic development are totipotent stem cells.A pluripotent stem cell has the potential to differentiate into many cell types derived from the three embryonic layers. However, it has lost the capacity to develop into a complete organism.A unipotent stem cell is derived from the further differentiation of the pluripotent stem cell. It can differentiate only into one cell type such as a hematopoietic stem cell, neural stem cell, and others.The other way is to classify human stem cells according to their source. There could be two kinds of human stem cells: embryonic stem cells and tissue stem cells (also called adult stem cells). The former involves experimentation with embryos, which has serious ethical implications. Ethical issues associated with the latter are mainly expressed in the various opinions regarding the allocation of health resources. Article 3. Human embryonic stem cells are the group of cells called the blastocyst inner cell mass during the early stage of embryonic development. They are the main source of totipotent stem cells, and hence the focal and hot point in stem cell research. Studies on the clinical application of embryonic stem cells probably will involve use of the somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) technique, which destroys the early human embryo. At present, the ethical and moral debate is very serious in human embryonic stem cell research regarding whether the research will develop... (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing analyses that aim to confront the problem of marked variation. Negatively marked differences are those natural variations that are used to cleave human beings into different categories (e.g., of disablement, of medicalized pathology, of subnormalcy, or of deviance). The problem of marked variation is: Why are some rather than other variations marked as epistemically or culturally significant or as a diagnostic of pathology, and What is the epistemic background that (...) makes these—rather than other variations—marked as subnormal? For Wilson (2018a), critical examination of the problem of marked variation is central to understanding the epistemology of medicalized pathology that made the history of eugenics possible. My aim is to explore the role marked variation plays in eugenic and other problematic classifications and the inferences they appear to license. I pay particular attention to the normative valuations of marked variations, how these valuations affect the inferences that are made by others about those possessing the variation, and how those possessing the variation perceive themselves. In the final sections, I illustrate this by critically discussing three putative kinship conceptions of race. I rely on these to extend the scope of the puzzle of marked variation from the context of historic and current markings of an individual’s variation as disability in the eugenics movement to historic and current markings for assigning putative racial ascriptions to individuals and groups. Lastly, I suggest that the problem of marked variation is a problem that looms over any epistemic account that is dependent upon sorting or classifying. (shrink)

Le géologue Charles Jacob est nommé en aout 1940 à la tête du CNRS, finalement maintenu par Vichy, et même renforcé, mais avec une évolution importante de son fonctionnement. Jacob impose à tous les niveaux un fonctionnement pyramidal, autoritaire et transpose à son échelle le culte du chef. À l’échelle locale, on peut suivre les acteurs, les déterminants et les décisions qui ont conduit à la création du laboratoire CRSIM (Centre de recherches scientifiques, industrielles et maritimes) à Marseille en 1941, (...) le premier laboratoire propre du CNRS en province. Issu de la réorganisation du laboratoire de la Marine de Toulon, dissous par les conventions de l’armistice, sa création est due au physicien François Canac, proche de l’amiral Darlan. Nous montrons que ce moment est une opportunité saisie par un proche de Canac, Fernand Ozil, pour développer ses recherches sur « un procédé d’indentification de profils humains », un cas d’étude qui interroge les réseaux et les formes de la collaboration au sein du CNRS sous le régime de Vichy. (shrink)

Almost all languages have some ways of categorizing nouns. Languages of South-East Asia have classifiers used with numerals, while most Indo-European languages have two or three genders. They can have a similar meaning and one can develop from the other. This book provides a comprehensive and original analysis of noun categorization devices all over the world. It will interest typologists, those working in the fields of morphosyntactic variation and lexical semantics, as well as anthropologists and all other scholars interested in (...) the mechanisms of human cognition. (shrink)

'This study is extremely authoritative and up-to-date... This book has much to offer linguists motivated by any one of several primary interests, particularly universals and the connection between language and cognition' -Journal of Linguistics 'Aikhenvald displays the rare gift of being able to inspire interest in new research through the success of her own results, without stifling those future possibilities through undue certitude in having discovered all of the answers already. The best thing about this very excellent book is precisely (...) the author's keen awareness that it is not the last word on the subject' -Journal of Linguistics 'Data presented in a clear, straightforward manner... also cutting edge research presented in the spirit of a work in progress' -Journal of LinguisticsAlmost all languages have some ways of categorizing nouns. Languages of South-East Asia have classifiers used with numerals, while most Indo-European languages have two or three genders. They can have a similar meaning and one can develop from the other. This book provides a comprehensive and original analysis of noun categorization devices all over the world. It will interest typologists, those working in the fields of morphosyntactic variation and lexical semantics, as well as anthropologists and all other scholars interested in the mechanisms of human cognition. (shrink)

The faces of both adults and children can be classified accurately by sex, even in the absence of sex‐stereotyped social cues such as hair and clothing (Wild et al., 2000). Although much is known from psychological and computational studies about the information that supports sex classification for adults' faces, children's faces have been much less studied. The purpose of the present study was to quantify and compare the information available in adults' versus children's faces for sex classification and to test (...) alternative theories of how human observers distinguish male and female faces for these different age groups. We implemented four computational/neural network models of this task that differed in terms of the age categories from which the sex classification features were derived. Two of the four strategies replicated the advantage for classifying adults' faces found in previous work. To determine which of these strategies was a better model of human performance, we compared the performance of the two models with that of human subjects at the level of individual faces. The results suggest that humans judge the sex of adults' and children's faces using feature sets derived from the appropriate face age category, rather than applying features derived from another age category or from a combination of age categories. (shrink)

The faces of both adults and children can be classified accurately by sex, even in the absence of sex‐stereotyped social cues such as hair and clothing (Wild et al., 2000). Although much is known from psychological and computational studies about the information that supports sex classification for adults' faces, children's faces have been much less studied. The purpose of the present study was to quantify and compare the information available in adults' versus children's faces for sex classification and to test (...) alternative theories of how human observers distinguish male and female faces for these different age groups. We implemented four computational/neural network models of this task that differed in terms of the age categories from which the sex classification features were derived. Two of the four strategies replicated the advantage for classifying adults' faces found in previous work. To determine which of these strategies was a better model of human performance, we compared the performance of the two models with that of human subjects at the level of individual faces. The results suggest that humans judge the sex of adults' and children's faces using feature sets derived from the appropriate face age category, rather than applying features derived from another age category or from a combination of age categories. (shrink)

The term, idiopathic, emerged as a key concept in the classification of disease in the 18th century and has become ingrained in our terminology in defining diseases and their aetiologies throughout all fields of medicine. Despite, or perhaps because of this, little has been written about the meaning or meanings of the word itself. Although most medical professionals will be able to offer a definition of idiopathic, different definitions of the word are in use and are often confused or used (...) without an appreciation of the range of meanings. This article aims to clarify these different meanings with reference to historic and current uses. The change from the earlier nosological definition of ‘primary’ to the most widely accepted current definition, ‘of unknown cause’, occurred in the late 19th century, reflecting changing perspectives of disease causation. Far from being an innocent translation of ‘unknown’, idiopathic creates problems for future terminology and adds little to medical understanding. In masking the unknown, the term idiopathic maintains a paternalistic patient–practitioner relationship, and so should be avoided in modern medical terminology. (shrink)

Recent accounts of “the biological” emphasize its thoroughgoing transformation. Accounts of biomedicalization, biotechnology, biopower, biocapital, and bioeconomy tend to agree that twentieth- and twenty-first-century life sciences transform the object of biology, the biological. Amidst so much transformation, we explore attempts to stabilize the biological through standards. We ask: how do standards handle the biological in transformation? Based on ethnographic research, the article discusses three contemporary postgenomic standards that classify, construct, or identify biological forms: the Barcoding of Life Initiative, the BioBricks (...) Assembly Standard, and the Proteomics Standards Initiative. We rely on recent critical analyses of standardization to suggest that any attempt to attribute a fixed property to the biological actually multiplies dependencies between values, materials, and human and nonhuman agents. We highlight ways in which these biological standards cross-validate life forms with forms of life such as publics, infrastructures, and forms of disciplinary compromise. Attempts to standardize the biological, we suggest, offer a good way to see how a life form is always also a form of life. (shrink)

This is a paper dealing with methodological and foundational issues in the realm of Futures Studies. It provides possible metrics for the temporal coordinate in the cone of plausibility. As a consequence, some adaptable scales to classify levels of future with respect to a certain time interval relevant to measure the future of humanity are suggested.

John Dupré explores the ways in which we categorize animals, including humans, and comes to refreshingly radical conclusions. He opposes the idea that there is only one legitimate way of classifying things in the natural world, the 'scientific' way. The lesson we should learn from Darwin is to reject the idea that each organism has an essence that determines its necessary place in the unique hierarchy of things. Nature is not like that: it is not organized in a (...) single system. For instance, there is no universal principle by which organisms can be sorted into species. We are obliged to accept that different classificatory schemes are equally valid, and to take a pluralistic view of biology and the human sciences. These provocative and readable essays move on to discuss a set of contentious topics relating to human nature. To start with, Dupré argues that the concept of a universal human nature should be rejected. He questions the relevance of evolution to explanation of human behaviour, and casts doubt on the concept of normality in human behaviour. He shows that misunderstanding of biology and evolution has lead to widespread misconceptions about human sex and gender-in particular, about sexual behaviour and gender roles. The books concludes with a pair of essays about the differences between humans and animals, which may not be quite so clear-cut as we think. (shrink)

Neonatal brain monitoring in the neonatal intensive care units requires a continuous review of the spontaneous cortical activity, i.e., the electroencephalograph background activity. This needs development of bedside methods for an automated assessment of the EEG background activity. In this paper, we present development of the key components of a neonatal EEG background classifier, starting from the visual background scoring to classifier design, and finally to possible bedside visualization of the classifier results. A dataset with 13,200 5-minute EEG epochs from (...) 27 infants with birth asphyxia was used for classifier training after scoring by two independent experts. We tested three classifier designs based on 98 computational features, and their performance was assessed with respect to scoring system, pre- and post-processing of labels and outputs, choice of channels, and visualization in monitor displays. The optimal solution achieved an overall classification accuracy of 97% with a range across subjects of 81–100%. We identified a set of 23 features that make the classifier highly robust to the choice of channels and missing data due to artefact rejection. Our results showed that an automated bedside classifier of EEG background is achievable, and we publish the full classifier algorithm to allow further clinical replication and validation studies. (shrink)

SummaryDuring the 1860s the sciences relating to human diversity were undergoing significant intellectual and methodological changes. The older generation of practitioners including James Cowles Prichard, Thomas Hodgkin and John Crawfurd were slowly passing away. Recognising that there was an opportunity to take a leading role in reforming the study of human variation, two competing intellectual camps vied for control of the nascent discipline; anthropologists led by James Hunt, and ethnologists led by Thomas Huxley. Taking their observational practices and vocational strategies (...) as its starting point, this paper seeks to expand our understanding of the debates surrounding British race studies during the 1860s. In doing so, this paper takes seriously Hunt and Huxley's self-descriptions as scientific reformers. Both of these figures promoted strategies for transforming the sciences relating to human diversity. Each believed they were strengthening anthropology and ethnology's best aspects and dispensing with their weakest. Moreover, their training in natural history, anatomy and physiology can be seen to have influenced their observational practices when it came to identifying and classifying human varieties. (shrink)

IntroductionThe assessments of the motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease are usually limited to clinical rating scales, and it depends on the clinician’s experience. This study aims to propose a machine learning technique algorithm using the variables from upper and lower limbs, to classify people with PD from healthy people, using data from a portable low-cost device. And can be used to support the diagnosis and follow-up of patients in developing countries and remote areas.MethodsWe used Kinect®eMotion system to capture the spatiotemporal (...) gait data from 30 patients with PD and 30 healthy age-matched controls in three walking trials. First, a correlation matrix was made using the variables of upper and lower limbs. After this, we applied a backward feature selection model using R and Python to determine the most relevant variables. Three further analyses were done using variables selected from backward feature selection model, movement disorders specialist, and all the variables from the dataset. We ran seven machine learning models for each model. Dataset was divided 80% for algorithm training and 20% for evaluation. Finally, a causal inference model using the DoWhy library was performed on Dataset B due to its accuracy and simplicity.ResultsThe Random Forest model is the most accurate for all three variable Datasets followed by the support vector machine. The CIM shows a relation between leg variables and the arms swing asymmetry and a proportional relationship between ASA and the diagnosis of PD with a robust estimator.ConclusionsMachine learning techniques based on objective measures using portable low-cost devices are useful and accurate to classify patients with Parkinson’s disease. This method can be used to evaluate patients remotely and help clinicians make decisions regarding follow-up and treatment. (shrink)

Ideas about freedom and related concepts like autonomy and self-determination play a prominent role in the moral debate about human enhancement interventions. However, there is not a single understanding of freedom available, and arguments referring to freedom are simultaneously used to argue both for and against enhancement interventions. This gives rise to misunderstandings and polemical arguments. The paper attempts to disentangle the different distinguishable concepts, classifies them and shows how they relate to one another in order to allow for a (...) more structured and clearer debate. It concludes in identifying the individual underpinnings and the social conditions of choice and decision-making as particularly salient dimensions of freedom in the ethical debate about human enhancement. (shrink)

Human–nonhuman chimeras have been the focus of ethical controversies for more than a decade, yet some related issues remain unaddressed. For example, little has been said about the relationship between the origin of transferred cells and the morally relevant capacities to which they may give rise. Consider, for example, a developing mouse fetus that receives a brain stem cell transplant from a human and another that receives a brain stem cell transplant from a dolphin. If both chimeras acquire morally relevant (...) capacities as a result of transplantation, and if those capacities are indistinguishable, should the difference in cell origin matter to how we classify these creatures? I argue that if morally relevant capacities are easy to detect, cell origin is irrelevant to how the chimera ought to be treated. However, if such capacities are hard to detect, cell origin should play a role in considerations about how to treat the chimera. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether humans are unique in using tools and artifacts. Non-human animals exhibit some impressive instances of tool and artifact-use. Chimpanzees use sticks to get termites out of a mound, beavers build dams, birds make nests, spiders create webs, bowerbirds make bowers to impress potential mates, etc. There is no doubt that some animals modify and use objects in clever and sophisticated ways. But how does this relate to the way in (...) which humans make and use objects to achieve their goals? To answer this question, this paper first presents a taxonomy of artifacts, identifying four overlapping categories, namely embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective artifacts. It then discusses definitions of animal tool-use, arguing that we need a more liberal approach, one that goes beyond the use of tools that are embedded in occurrent perception-action cycles. This paper ends by analysing how instances of animal tool and artifact-use can be classified according to the four identified categories, concluding that some animals use embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective artifacts. In this sense, humans are thus not unique in the kinds of tools and artifacts we use. What is unique, however, is our unprecedented flexibility and openness to deeply incorporate a large variety of complex tools and artifacts into our embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective systems. (shrink)

Human enhancement has emerged in recent years as a blossoming topic in applied ethics. With continuing advances in science and technology, people are beginning to realize that some of the basic parameters of the human condition might be changed in the future. One important way in which the human condition could be changed is through the enhancement of basic human capacities. If this becomes feasible within the lifespan of many people alive today, then it is important now to consider the (...) normative questions raised by such prospects. The answers to these questions might not only help us be better prepared when technology catches up with imagination, but they may be relevant to many decisions we make today, such as decisions about how much funding to give to various kinds of research. Enhancement is typically contraposed to therapy. In broad terms, therapy aims to fix something that has gone wrong, by curing specific diseases or injuries, while enhancement interventions aim to improve the state of an organism beyond its normal healthy state. However, the distinction between therapy and enhancement is problematic, for several reasons. First, we may note that the therapy-enhancement dichotomy does not map onto any corresponding dichotomy between standard-contemporary-medicine and medicineas-it-could-be-practised-in-the-future. Standard contemporary medicine includes many practices that do not aim to cure diseases or injuries. It includes, for example, preventive medicine, palliative care, obstetrics, sports medicine, plastic surgery, contraceptive devices, fertility treatments, cosmetic dental procedures, and much else. At the same time, many enhancement interventions occur outside of the medical framework. Office workers enhance their performance by drinking coffee. Make-up and grooming are used to enhance appearance. Exercise, meditation, fish oil, and St John’s Wort are used to enhance mood. Second, it is unclear how to classify interventions that reduce the probability of disease and death.. (shrink)

Emerging technologies are increasingly used in an attempt to “enhance the human body and/or mind” beyond the contemporary standards that characterize human beings. Yet, such standards are deeply controversial and it is not an easy task to determine whether the application of a given technology to an individual and its outcome can be defined as a human enhancement or not. Despite much debate on its potential or actual ethical and social impacts, human enhancement is not subject to any consensual definition. (...) This paper proposes a timely and much needed examination of the various definitions found in the literature. We classify these definitions into four main categories: the implicit approach, the therapy-enhancement distinction, the improvement of general human capacities and the increase of well-being. After commenting on these different approaches and their limitations, we propose a definition of human enhancement that focuses on individual perceptions. While acknowledging that a definition that mainly depends on personal and subjective individual perceptions raises many challenges, we suggest that a comprehensive approach to define human enhancement could constitute a useful premise to appropriately address the complexity of the ethical and social issues it generates. (shrink)

This is not a book about sound. It is a study of sounds that aims to write the resonance and response they call for. John Mowitt seeks to critique existing models in the expanding field of sound studies and draw attention to sound as an object of study that solicits a humanistic approach encompassing many types of sounds, not just readily classified examples such as speech, music, industrial sounds, or codified signals. Mowitt is particularly interested in the fact that beyond (...) hearing and listening we 'audit' sounds and do so by drawing on paradigms of thought not easily accommodated within the concept of 'sound studies.' To draw attention to the ways in which sounds often are not perceived for the social and political functions they serve, each chapter presents a culturally resonant sound--including a whistle, an echo, a gasp, and silence--to show how sounds enable critical social and political concepts such as dialog, privacy, memory, social order, and art-making. Sounds : The Ambient Humanities significantly engages, provokes, and contributes to the dynamic field and inquiry of sound studies"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In African metaphysics, with special reference to Yoruba thought, human destiny, reincarnation, and personal identity constitute some of the major philosophical concerns. Given that man is trimorphously considered a composite of body , soul and inner-head , the last is the metaphysical symbol of human destiny which externally is represented by the physical head. The three elements are classifiable into physical and metaphysical entities with êmi and ori taken to be immortal. Do these metaphysical entities reincarnate and in what way? (...) This paper tries to show that the problem of personal identity and reincarnation are inconclusively resolved in Yoruba thought. (shrink)

Systems with human-centered artificial intelligence are always as good as their ability to consider their users’ context when making decisions. Research on identifying people’s everyday activities has evolved rapidly, but little attention has been paid to recognizing both the activities themselves and the motions they make during those tasks. Automated monitoring, human-to-computer interaction, and sports analysis all benefit from Web 4.0. Every sport has gotten its move, and every move is not known to everyone. In ice hockey, every move cannot (...) be monitored by the referee. Here, Convolution Neural Network-based Real-Time Image Processing Framework (CNN-RTIPF) is introduced to classify every move in Ice Hockey. CNN-RTIPF can reduce the challenges in monitoring the player’s move individually. The image of every move is captured and compared with the trained data in CNN. These real-time captured images are processed using a human-centered artificial intelligence system. They compared images predicted by probability calculation of the trained set of images for effective classification. Simulation analysis shows that the proposed CNN-RTIPF can classify real-time images with improved classification ratio, sensitivity, and error rate. The proposed CNN-RTIPF has been validated based on the optimization parameter for reliability. To improve the algorithm for movement identification and train the system for many other everyday activities, human-centered artificial intelligence-based Web 4.0 will continue to develop. (shrink)

This paper discusses von Wright's theory of causation from Explanation and Understanding and Causality and Determinism in contemporary context. I argue that there are two important common points that von Wright's view shares with the version of manipulability currently supported by Woodward: the analysis of causal relations in a system modelled on controlled experiments, and the explanation of manipulability through counterfactuals - with focus on the counterfactual account of unmanipulable causes. These points also mark von Wright's departure from previous action-based (...) theories of causation. Owing to these two features, I argue that, upon classifying different versions of manipulability theories, von Wright's view should be placed closer to the interventionist approach than to the agency theory, where it currently stands. Furthermore, given its relevance in contemporary context, which this paper aims to establish, I claim that von Wright's theory can be employed to solve present problems connected to manipulability approaches to causation. (shrink)

The burgeoning field of biomedical research involving the mixture of human and animal materials has attracted significant ethical controversy. Due to the many dimensions of potential ethical conflict involved in this type of research, and the wide variety of research projects under discussion, it is difficult to obtain an overview of the ethical debate. This paper attempts to remedy this by providing a systematic review of ethical reasons in academic publications on human-animal chimera research. We conducted a systematic review of (...) the ethical literature concerning human-animal chimeras based on the research question: “What ethical reasons have been given for or against conducting human-animal chimera research, and how have these reasons been treated in the ongoing debate?” Our search extends until the end of the year 2017, including MEDLINE, Embase, PhilPapers and EthxWeb databases, restricted to peer-reviewed journal publications in English. Papers containing ethical reasons were analyzed, and the reasons were coded according to whether they were endorsed, mentioned or rejected. Four hundred and thirty-one articles were retrieved by our search, and 88 were ultimately included and analyzed. Within these articles, we found 464 passages containing reasons for and against conducting human-animal chimera research. We classified these reasons into five categories and, within these, identified 12 broad and 31 narrow reason types.15% of the retrieved passages contained reasons in favor of conducting chimera research, while 85% of the passages contained reasons against it. The reasons against conducting chimera research fell into four further categories: reasons concerning the creation of a chimera, its treatment, reasons referring to metaphysical or social issues resulting from its existence and to potential downstream effects of chimera research. A significant proportion of identified passages fell under Category C. We hope that our results, in revealing the conceptual and argumentative structure of the debate and highlighting some its most notable tendencies and prominent positions, will facilitate continued discussion and provide a basis for the development of relevant policy and legislation. (shrink)

While often presented as promising assistive technologies for motor-impaired users, electroencephalography (EEG)-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) remain barely used outside laboratories due to low reliability in real-life conditions. There is thus a need to design long-term reliable BCIs that can be used outside-of-the-lab by end-users, e.g., severely motor-impaired ones. Therefore, we propose and evaluate the design of a multi-class Mental Task (MT)-based BCI for longitudinal training (20 sessions over 3 months) of a tetraplegic user for the CYBATHLON BCI series 2019. In (...) this BCI championship, tetraplegic pilots are mentally driving a virtual car in a racing video game. We aimed at combining a progressive user MT-BCI training with a newly designed machine learning pipeline based on adaptive Riemannian classifiers shown to be promising for real-life applications. We followed a two step training process: the first 11 sessions served to train the user to control a 2-class MT-BCI by performing either two cognitive tasks (REST and MENTAL SUBTRACTION) or two motor-imagery tasks (LEFT-HAND and RIGHT-HAND). The second training step (9 remaining sessions) applied an adaptive, session-independent Riemannian classifier that combined all 4 MT classes used before. Moreover, as our Riemannian classifier was incrementally updated in an unsupervised way it would capture both within and between-session non-stationarity. Experimental evidences confirm the effectiveness of this approach. Namely, the classification accuracy improved by about 30% at the end of the training compared to initial sessions. We also studied the neural correlates of this performance improvement. Using a newly proposed BCI user learning metric, we could show our user learned to improve his BCI control by producing EEG signals matching increasingly more the BCI classifier training data distribution, rather than by improving his EEG class discrimination. However, the resulting improvement was effective only on synchronous (cue-based) BCI and it did not translate into improved CYBATHLON BCI game performances. For the sake of overcoming this in the future, we unveil possible reasons for these limited gaming performances and identify a number of promising future research directions. Importantly, we also report on the evolution of the user's neurophysiological patterns and user experience throughout the BCI training and competition. (shrink)

Forensic evidence often involves an evaluation of whether two impressions were made by the same source, such as whether a fingerprint from a crime scene has detail in agreement with an impression taken from a suspect. Human experts currently outperform computer-based comparison systems, but the strength of the evidence exemplified by the observed detail in agreement must be evaluated against the possibility that some other individual may have created the crime scene impression. Therefore, the strongest evidence comes from features in (...) agreement that are also not shared with other impressions from other individuals. We characterize the nature of human expertise by applying two extant metrics to the images used in a fingerprint recognition task and use eye gaze data from experts to both tune and validate the models. The Attention via Information Maximization model quantifies the rarity of regions in the fingerprints to determine diagnosticity for purposes of excluding alternative sources. The CoVar model captures relationships between low-level features, mimicking properties of the early visual system. Both models produced classification and generalization performance in the 75%–80% range when classifying where experts tend to look. A validation study using regions identified by the AIM model as diagnostic demonstrates that human experts perform better when given regions of high diagnosticity. The computational nature of the metrics may help guard against wrongful convictions, as well as provide a quantitative measure of the strength of evidence in casework. (shrink)

Disciplinary issues -- Field studies -- Appendix: Theory of law : legal ethnography, or, the theoretical fruits of the inquiries into folkways. /// Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1995 to 2008 /// DISCIPLINARY ISSUES -- LAW AS CULTURE? [2002] 9–14 // TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE LEGAL STUDIES [2002] 15–17 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES: ATTEMPTS AT CONCEPTUALISATION [1997] 19–28: 1. Legal Culture in a Cultural-anthropological Approach 19 / 2. Legal Culture in a Sociological Approach 21 / 3. Timely Issues of (...) Central and Eastern Europe 24 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES? [2001] 29–48: 1. Legal Comparativism Challenged 29 / 2. Comparative Legal Cultures versus Comparative Law 34 / 3. Contrasting Fields 40 [a) The Historical Understanding of Socialist Law 42 / b) Convergence of Civil Law and Common Law 44] 4. Concluding Remarks 46 // THEATRUM LEGALE MUNDI: ON LEGAL SYSTEMS CLASSIFIED [2005] 49–75: 1. Preliminaries 49 / 2. Proposals 50 / 3. Impossible Taxonomy, or the Moment of Practicality in Legal Mapping 69 / 4. Diversity as a Fundamental Quality of Human Existence 74 // LEGAL TRADITIONS? IN SEARCH FOR FAMILIES AND CULTURES IN LAW [2004] 77–97: 1. Comparative Law and the Comparative Study of Legal Traditions 78 / 2. ‘System’, ‘Family’, ‘Culture’, and ‘Tradition’ in the Classification of Law 80 / 3. Different Traditions, Differing Ways of Thinking 85 / 4. Different Expectations, Differings Institutionalisations in Law 88 / 5. Different “Rationalities”, Differing “Logics” 92 / 6. Mentality in Foundation of the Law 94 / 7. Defining a Subject for Theoretical Research in Law 96 // SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING OLD IN THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY OF LAW? [1995] 99–102 --- FIELD STUDIES -- MEETING POINTS BETWEEN THE TRADITIONS OF ENGLISH–AMERICAN COMMON LAW AND CONTINENTAL-FRENCH CIVIL LAW: DEVELOPMENTS AND EXPERIENCE OF POSTMODERNITY IN CANADA [2002] 105–130: I. Canadian Law in General 105 / II. Canadian Legal Developments in Particular [1. The Transformation of the Role of Precedents 112 / 2. The Transformation of Law-application into a Collective, Multicultural and Multifactorial Search for a Solution 116 / 3. Practical Trends of Dissolving the Law’s Positivity 120 / 4. New Prerogatives Acquired by Courts 125 {a) Unfolding the Statutory Provisons in Principles 126 / b) Constitutionalisation of Issues 127 / c) The Supreme Court as the Nation’s Supreme Moral Authority 129}] // MAN ELEVATING HIMSELF? DILEMMAS OF RATIONALITY IN OUR AGE [2000] 131–163: I. Reason and its Adventures 1. Progress and Advance Questioned 131 / 2. The Human Search for Safety Objectified 133 / 3. Knowledge Separated from Wisdom 135 / 4. Pure Intellectuality thereby Born 137 / II. The Will-Element Formalised in Law 5. Mere Voluntas in the Foundation of Legal Positivism 141 / 6. Formalism with Operations Fragmented 145 / III. The State of America Exemplified 7. “Slouching into Gomorrah” 147 / IV. Consequences 8. Utopianism-cum-Voluntarism 154 / 9. With Logic in Posterior Control of Human Formulations Only 159 / V. Perspectives 10. And a Final Resolution Dreamed about 161 // RULE OF LAW? MANIA OF LAW? ON THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN RATIONALITY AND ANARCHY IN AMERICA [2002] 165–180: {Transformation of American Law and Legal Mentality 165 / With Repercussions on the Underlying Ethos 168 / Legislation through Processualisation 170 / With Hyperrationalism Added 172 / Example: Finding Lost Property 172 / Practicalness Veiled by Verbal Magic 173 / Ending in Jurispathy 175 / Transubstantiating the Self-interest of the Legal Profession 178 / Post-modernity, Substituting for Primitiveness 178} // TRANSFERS OF LAW: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS [2003] 181–207: 1. Terms 182 / 2. Technicality 190 / 3. Contrasts in Transfers of Law 200 {Contrasts 200 / Criticisms 202 / Alternatives205} 4. Conclusions 206 // THE DANGERS FOR THE SELF OF BEING SELF-CENTRED: ON STANDARDS AND VALUES [2002] 209–212 --- APPENDIX -- THEORY OF LAW – LEGAL ETHNOGRAPHY, OR THE THEORETICAL FRUITS OF THE INQUIRIES INTO FOLKWAYS [2008] 213–234 1. Encounters 213 / 2. Disciplines 218 / 3. The Lawyerly Interest 223 / 4. Law and/or Laws 226 / 5. Conclusion 233 --- Index of Subjects 235 / Index of Normative Materials 242 / Index 244 . (shrink)

Metaphors are central in communication and sense-making processes in health-related contexts. Yet how the metaphors used by health-care-professionals to make sense of their patients and their relations to them are associated to the perceived valence of their clinical encounters is underexplored. Drawing-upon the ABC Model of Dehumanization, this study investigated how the humanizing or dehumanizing metaphors nurses’ use for making sense of their pain patients are associated with how they perceived their relationships with them. Fifty female nurses undertook individual narrative-episodic (...) interviews about easy/difficult cases in pain care. A content analysis classified the metaphors, identifying eight classes reflecting different types of patients (de)humanization. A multiple correspondence analysis extracted patterns of metaphors and their association with the perceived characteristics of the patient-nurse relationship. It showed how these patterns were not associated with patient sex or socioeconomic status (SES) but were related to the perceived valence of the clinical relationship. By uncovering how patient metaphors guide nurses’ sense-making and potentially modulate interactions in clinical encounters, these findings may contribute to improve quality of pain care. (shrink)

the proclivity of many people to classify human acts as good or bad calls into mind the import of ETHICS. The penchant for classification warrants the evaluation of the bases for saying that one is bad or good action. Normally, human act is ethical if it is in accordance with what one would relatively expect in view of the events or the circumstances and unethical if the action is not called for by the circumstances, or a person whose behavior is (...) disorderly and inconsistent. The same observations harbor on perception rather than on paradigms and frameworks which ethicists have somehow perfected to classify bad behavior into one division and good behavior into another. The study of ETHICS will therefore increase proficiency at least in moral decision making. Likewise, knowledge of the course will give students certain techniques for evaluating others’ action as moral or immoral, including their own. ETHICS is the science of action but the action herein alluded to is not the action that concerns those that are unconscious and spontaneous. Action here is that resulting from intellect and will herein referred to as human act. ETHICS is both a theoretical and a practical discipline. The language of ethics refers to rights, duties, and values. One of the goals of ethics is to explore the nature of moral experience, its universality, and its diversity. Another is to provide intellectual analysis of values, and value conflicts in order to define man’s duties. Also, it is oriented toward the determination of right decisions. In order to do that, it is necessary to go step by step, analyzing, first, the facts of the case, second, the values at stake, and third, the duties. In short, ETHICS has the very practical purpose of helping us to choose, decide, and act morally. It should enable us to discover defects in the action of others and to avoid defects in our own action. (shrink)

It was meaningful to predict the customers' decision-making behavior in the field of market. However, due to individual differences and complex, non-linear natures of the electroencephalogram signals, it was hard to classify the EEG signals and to predict customers' decisions by using traditional classification methods. To solve the aforementioned problems, a recurrent t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding neural network was proposed in current study to classify the EEG signals in the designed brand extension paradigm and to predict the participants' decisions. The (...) recurrent t-SNE neural network contained two steps. In the first step, t-SNE algorithm was performed to extract features from EEG signals. Second, a recurrent neural network with long short-term memory layer, fully connected layer, and SoftMax layer was established to train the features, classify the EEG signals, as well as predict the cognitive performance. The proposed network could give a good prediction with accuracy around 87%. Its superior in prediction accuracy as compared to a recurrent principal component analysis network, a recurrent independent component correlation algorithm [independent component analysis ] network, a t-SNE support vector machine network, a t-SNE back propagation neural network, a deep LSTM neural network, and a convolutional neural network were also demonstrated. Moreover, the performance of the proposed network with different activated channels were also investigated and compared. The results showed that the proposed network could make a relatively good prediction with only 16 channels. The proposed network would become a potentially useful tool to help a company in making marketing decisions and to help uncover the neural mechanisms behind individuals' decision-making behavior with low cost and high efficiency. (shrink)

Our study analyses the nature, quality and extent of human resource disclosures of UK Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 firms by relying on a novel disclosure index measuring the depth and breadth of disclosures. Contextually, we focus on the 5-year period following the then Labour government’s attempts to encourage firms to formally report on their human resource management practices and to foster deeper employer–employee engagement. First, we evaluate the degree to which companies report comprehensively on a number of HRD items (...) that we classify as “procedural” or “sustainable.” Second, we hypothesise that a company’s employee relation ideology is positively associated with HRD. Our results indicate that: whilst there has been an increase in the breadth of HRD in terms of procedural and sustainable items being disclosed, the evolution towards a more comprehensive and in-depth form of HRD remains rather limited; and there is a positive association between a company’s employee relation ideology and the level of HRD. Theoretically, we conceive of HRD both as a reflection of an organisation’s orientation towards a key stakeholder and a legitimacy seeking exercise at a time of changing societal conditions. We contribute to the scant literature on the extent and determinants of HRD since prior research tends to subsume employee-related disclosures within the broader concept of social, ethical or intellectual capital disclosures. We also propose a disclosure checklist to underpin future HRD research. (shrink)

In response to the ever-increasing spread of online disinformation and misinformation, several human–computer interaction tools to enhance data literacy have been developed. Among them, many employ elements of gamification to increase user engagement and reach out to a broader audience. However, there are no systematic criteria to analyze their relevance and impact for building fake news resilience, partly due to the lack of a common understanding of data literacy. In this paper we put forward an operationalizable definition of data literacy (...) as a form of multidimensional critical thinking. We then survey 22 existing tools and classify them according to a framework of 10 criteria pointing to their gameful design and educational features. Through a comparative/contrastive analysis informed by a focus group, we provide a principled set of guidelines to develop more efficient human–computer interaction tools to teach how to critically think in the current media ecosystem. (shrink)

A minimal essentialism (‘intrinsic biological essentialism’) about natural kinds is required to explain the projectability of human science terms. Human classifications that yield robust and ampliative projectable inferences refer to biological kinds. I articulate this argument with reference to an intrinsic essentialist account of HPC kinds. This account implies that human sciences (e.g., medicine, psychiatry) that aim to formulate predictive kind categories should classify biological kinds. Issues concerning psychiatric classification and pluralism are examined.

Natural Categories and Human Kinds is a recent and timely contribution to current debate on natural kinds. Because of the growing sophistication of this debate, it is necessary to make careful distinctions in order to appreciate the originality of Khalidi’s position. Khalidi’s view on natural kinds is naturalistic: if we want to know what Nature’s joints really are, we should look at the actual carving job carried out by our best scientific practices. Like LaPorte, Khalidi is a fallibilist: our best (...) scientific theories may be revised or abandoned and so can our current classifications of natural kinds. Unlike LaPorte, however, Khalidi is an anti-essentialist: he argues against the idea that membership in a natural kind is a matter of possessing an essential set of necessary and sufficient properties. Like Dupré, Khalidi is a pluralist and anti-reductionist: he does not believe that there is only one true classification system and that there are natural kinds only at the so-called "fundamental level" of microphysics. Khalidi develops his pluralistic and anti-reductionistic position on the basis of a deep appreciation for the special sciences but, unlike Dupré, he thinks that only the scientific inquiry, which is driven by epistemic purposes, discover natural kinds and that, therefore, there are important differences between scientific and folk classifications. Khalidi’s conception of natural kinds has both an epistemic and a metaphysical component. (shrink)

Against the view that symbol-based semiosis is a human cognitive uniqueness, we have argued that non-human primates such as African vervet monkeys possess symbolic competence, as formally defined by Charles S. Peirce. Here I develop this argument by showing that the equivocal role ascribed to symbols by “folk semiotics” stems from an incomplete application of the Peircean logical framework for the classification of signs, which describes three kinds of symbols: rheme, dicent and argument. In an attempt to advance in the (...) classifying semiotic processes, Peirce proposed several typologies, with different degrees of refinement. Around 1903, he developed a division into ten classes. According to this typology, symbols can be further analysed in three subclasses (rheme, dicent, argument). I proceed to demonstrate that vervet monkeys employ dicent symbols. There are remarkable implications of this argument since ‘symbolic species theory’ fails to explore the vast Peircean semiotic philosophy to frame questions regarding the emergence and evolution of symbolic processes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: I argue that Sellars’s metaconceptual theory of the categories exemplifies and extends a long line of nominalistic thinking about the nature of the categories from Ockham and Kant to the Tractatus and Carnap, and that this theory is far more central than has generally been realized to each of Sellars’s most famous and enduring philosophical conceptions: the myth of the given, the logical space of reasons, and resolving the ostensible clash between the manifest and scientific images of the human (...) being in the world. Sellars’s distinctive contribution to this longstanding (if currently on the defensive) metaconceptual approach to the nature of ontological categories was to interpret and reconstruct it in terms of his own ‘meaning as use’ or norm-governed inferential role semantics. With these resources Sellars sought to preserve the genuine insights in the ‘realist’ or broadly platonic traditions while simultaneously defending the idea that in the end, as he puts it, “a naturalistic ontology must be a nominalistic ontology” (1980a NAO IV §129). (shrink)

This paper attempts to explore the philosophical argument regarding an account of the development of management orientations and attributes a historical succession of these orientations to a human hereditary. It is hard to find such a consolidate and plausible theory which may provide deep insight into the history and theory of management. This paper is theoretical, based on literature and philosophical analysis. It argues that human behaviours become a force and its treatment cause the variance in human management. The management (...) with respect to human has periodically recognised these forces and acquired the tools for treatment of such forces. In this paper, theoretically through deductive-partial inductive approach, human forces are classified into six dimensions (gender, attain, social, relational, metaphysical and heredity force) and subsequently in four orientations of management (demo, socio, psycho-socio and meta-oriented management). Demo and socio-oriented management are explored with historical context, while the psycho-socio oriented management is argued with theoretical considerations, i.e., theories related to human work behaviour, performance, need and satisfaction. In last, a plausible argument is presented for meta-oriented management by considering its application in existing corporate structure management. (shrink)

The discourse of hate crime has come to Europe, supported not least by international human rights actors and security and policy organisations. In this article, I argue that there is a need for a philosophical response to challenging claims about the conceptualisation and classification of hate crime. First, according to several scholars, hate crime is extraordinarily difficult to conceptualise and there is a fatigue among practitioners caused by the lack of clarity and consensus in the field. I agree that there (...) is a need, not for additional definitions, but for a more comprehensive conceptual framework, that may help us think more clearly about given definitions of hate crime; about their basic structure, cross-cutting problems, and possible variations. Supplying such a conceptual perspective represents a timely task for applied philosophy. I engage with this by offering a four-tiered concept of hate crime. Second, the involvement of human rights actors in the consolidation of hate crime law and policy in Europe has supported the classification of hate crime as a human rights violation. Ultimately, what is at stake is not only our understanding of hate crime, but also our maintenance of a precise and pointed discourse on human rights violations. I argue that we should hesitate or even abstain from classifying hate crime as a human rights violation, and that doing so is compatible with taking both hate crimes and human rights seriously. (shrink)

As we increasingly delegate decision-making to algorithms, whether directly or indirectly, important questions emerge in circumstances where those decisions have direct consequences for individual rights and personal opportunities, as well as for the collective good. A key problem for policymakers is that the social implications of these new methods can only be grasped if there is an adequate comprehension of their general technical underpinnings. The discussion here focuses primarily on the case of enforcement decisions in the criminal justice system, but (...) draws on similar situations emerging from other algorithms utilised in controlling access to opportunities, to explain how machine learning works and, as a result, how decisions are made by modern intelligent algorithms or 'classifiers'. It examines the key aspects of the performance of classifiers, including how classifiers learn, the fact that they operate on the basis of correlation rather than causation, and that the term 'bias' in machine learning has a different meaning to common usage. An example of a real world 'classifier', the Harm Assessment Risk Tool (HART), is examined, through identification of its technical features: the classification method, the training data and the test data, the features and the labels, validation and performance measures. Four normative benchmarks are then considered by reference to HART: (a) prediction accuracy (b) fairness and equality before the law (c) transparency and accountability (d) informational privacy and freedom of expression, in order to demonstrate how its technical features have important normative dimensions that bear directly on the extent to which the system can be regarded as a viable and legitimate support for, or even alternative to, existing human decision-makers. (shrink)

Introduction. Non-institutional humanities, philosophical practice, and informal education are “a family like” phenomena that are outside the social institution of science and education and are adjacent to socio-cultural activities and social work. The purpose of the article is to outline the contours of the informal educational creative industry in the postmodern society, which combines non-institutional humanities, philosophical practice, and informal education. Methods. The author uses the methods of autobiographical reflection, comparative analysis, empirical observation and analysis of the primary sources of (...) non-institutional humanities. Scientific novelty of the research. The transition to nonmaterial work of the postmodern era is the reason for the relevance of the area under study. The growing demand of a contemporary for such issues as the meaning of life, happiness, the growth of the precariat, the ousting of philosophy from formal education constitute a new social reality that determines the novelty of the research in the informal educational creative industry. Results. The author classifies non-institutional humanities according to the spheres of its existence and the strategies of subject genesis presented in the teachings. The concept of dedifferentiation is considered as an explanation of the area under study in postmodernism. The specificity of the philosophical approach in the work of a practicing philosopher is considered. Conclusions. The author connects the prospects of the informal educational creative industry with institutionalization in the way of leisure, entertainment, and other personal services. The author makes conclusions about the differences between formal and informal education, and indicates the risks and opportunities for the development of the informal philosophical sector. (shrink)

Recent works in Explainable AI mostly address the transparency issue of black-box models or create explanations for any kind of models (i.e., they are model-agnostic), while leaving explanations of interpretable models largely underexplored. In this paper, we fill this gap by focusing on explanations for a specific interpretable model, namely pattern-based logistic regression (PLR) for binary text classification. We do so because, albeit interpretable, PLR is challenging when it comes to explanations. In particular, we found that a standard way to (...) extract explanations from this model does not consider relations among the features, making the explanations hardly plausible to humans. Hence, we propose AXPLR, a novel explanation method using (forms of) computational argumentation to generate explanations (for outputs computed by PLR) which unearth model agreements and disagreements among the features. Specifically, we use computational argumentation as follows: we see features (patterns) in PLR as arguments in a form of quantified bipolar argumentation frameworks (QBAFs) and extract attacks and supports between arguments based on specificity of the arguments; we understand logistic regression as a gradual semantics for these QBAFs, used to determine the arguments’ dialectic strength; and we study standard properties of gradual semantics for QBAFs in the context of our argumentative re-interpretation of PLR, sanctioning its suitability for explanatory purposes. We then show how to extract intuitive explanations (for outputs computed by PLR) from the constructed QBAFs. Finally, we conduct an empirical evaluation and two experiments in the context of human-AI collaboration to demonstrate the advantages of our resulting AXPLR method. (shrink)

This volume reflects on questions of human rights in the context of globalization. The essays responding to this subject are rich and varied: they focus on legal acceptance as well as consequences of human rights with regard to social rights and the necessary protection of the environment connected or close to those rights. Another approach to the subject featured in the volume is the legal recognition and the consideration of human rights as moral rights. With concepts on universality, a new (...) cosmopolitism, cultural pluralism and perspectives on religious variants and technological advances the debate on human rights is concluded. Index / Indice I. The Foundation of Rights / El fundamento de los derechos: J. Rubio Carracedo: El legalismo occidental: un problema para la universalizacion de los derechos humanos J. A. Seoane: El caracter juridico de las leyes injustas M. Borowski: Classifying and qualifying properties of fundamental rights J. von Platz: Faith in reason: questioning practical reason as fact, norm, end, and function of human rights R. Cruft: Policy implications of the philosophical foundations of human rights Maria Gabriela Scataglini: Derechos humanos: otra mirada sobre la cuestion de su universalidad II. A New Cosmopolitism / Un nuevo cosmopolitismo: V. de P. Barreto: Derecho cosmopolita y derechos humanos Luis Fernando Barzotto: Reconocimiento y fraternidad A. R. Bernstein: Justifying universal human rights via Rawlsian public reason H. Khatchadourian: Democracy and the globalization of human rights Milagros Otero Parga: Derechos humanos y globalizacion Halim Bepari: Human rights and the United Nations Miracy B. S. Gustin: Rescate de los derechos humanos en situaciones adversas de paises perifericos III. Multiculturism and Pluralism of Values /Multiculturalidad y pluralismo de valores: M. Herrero / M. Saralegui: Dogmatismo politico y pluralismo religioso Berry Tholen: Migration, justice, and Europe's identity. The relevance of special ties for EU's migration policy C. M. Alvarez Chicano: Implicaciones de la inconmensurabilidad de los valores en la aplicacion de principios de orden etico y juridico L. Perez Conejo: Axiologia juridica y pluralismo de valores: algunas consideraciones sobre la nocion de 'inconmensurabilidad' S-I. Liu: Fundamental legal values and globalization with regard to historical experience in freedom of speech L. C. Amezua: Libertad natural y esclavitud voluntaria: reflexiones de F. Suarez sobre la esclavitud IV. Rights and Gender / Derechos y genero: J.M. Gil Ruiz: La violencia de genero en el contexto familiar y la agresion de la ciencia juridica A. Goiriena Lekue: El interes superior del/la nino/a, coparentalidad y neutralidad de genero en la atribucion de la guarda y custodia de los hijos e hijas P. Garcia Guevara: Las politicas de genero en los paises globalizados del 'Tercer Mundo' V. Technological Impact and New Generation Rights / Impacto tecnologico y nuevas generaciones de derechos: M. Ahteensuu: Understanding the precautionary principle in the light of the traditional weak-strong distinction: a critical comment Cristina Monero Atienza: Bases para una teoria de los derechos en el siglo XXI M. Kitahara: Personal data processing and business ethics: personal data processing and personal data protection in business A. D. Oliver Lalana: El lado empirico de la legitimidad comunicativa: sobre la publicidad organizativa del derecho de proteccion de datos en internet J. Ebbesson / M. Zamboni: Transbordering democracy? The case of environment protection Sagrario Moles Nieto: El impacto medioambiental de los cultivos transgenicos VI. Bioethics and Law / Bioetica y derecho: M. Cruz Diaz de Teran: Principios para una biojuridica global C. Faralli / S. Tugnoli: Bioethics between law and science: the Italian law on medically assisted procreation (Law No. 40, February 19, 2004) N. Zeegers: The working of power in communicative regulation: the case of research with human embryos J. A. Fernandez Suarez: La bioetica en la era de la globalizacion F. J. Blazqez Ruiz: Privacidad y discriminacion genetica: propuestas bioeticas y juridicas ante los desafios de un mundo globalizado. (shrink)

It is well known that Rawls and Habermas propose different strategies for justifying and classifying human rights. The author argues that neither approach satisfies what he regards as threshold conditions of determinacy, rank ordering, and completeness that any enforceable system of human rights must possess. A related concern is that neither develops an adequate account of group rights, which the author argues fulfills subsidiary conditions for realizing human rights under specific conditions. This latter defect is especially serious in light (...) of the different but equal roles that both subnational groups as well as supernational organizations play in bringing about a just global distribution of economic resources. (shrink)

Human consciousness, as dealt with in the Upanishads, modeled as a mechanical oscillator of infrasonic frequency (the Atman/Brahman), the result of breathing process, is further advanced to get an insight of functions of mind. An analytical approach is followed in parallel to and separette from quantum mechanical, quantum field and other theoretical propositions, approaches and presentations. Pure consciousness, unoccupied awareness and occupied awareness are identified, defined, classified and discussed together with fresh insight about time-space and time. A reversible transformation (vivartanam) (...) of virtual mental energy reflection (maya), creating various consequential / parallel / simultaneous conscious-states, phases, cognitive and communicative states, modes of language acquisition and communication, and kinds of function of human mind, which forms and facilitates human mental acquisitions, functions and communications, is proposed and discussed. Alternative analytical insight of human consciousness and mental functions to other theoretical approaches is given. All this is presented in brain wave modulation / demodulation terms. -/- . (shrink)

Currently, electronic agents are being designed and implemented that, unprecedentedly, will be capable of performing legally binding actions. These advances necessitate a thorough treatment of their legal consequences. In our paper, we first demonstrate that electronic agents behave structurally similar to human agents. Then we study how declarations of intention stated by an electronic agent are related to ordinary declarations of intention given by natural persons or legal entities, and also how the actions of electronic agents in this respect have (...) to be classified under German law. We discuss four different approaches of classifying agent declarations. As one of these, we propose the concept of an electronic person (i.e., agents with limited liability), enrolment of agents into an agent register, and agent liability funds as means to serve the needs of all contracting parties. (shrink)