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Background: Nerve injury induced protein 1 (Ninjurin 1 (Ninj1)) was first identified in Schwann cells and neurons contributing to cell adhesion and nerve regeneration. Recently, the role of Ninj1 has been linked to inflammatory processes in the central nervous system where functional repression reduced leukocyte infiltration and clinical disease activity during experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in mice [1]. But Ninj1 is also expressed outside the nervous system in various organs such as the liver and kidney as well as on leukocytes [2,3]. Therefore, we hypothesized that Ninj1 contributes to inflammation in general; that is, also outside the nervous system, with special interest in the pathogenesis of sepsis.
Methods: Ninj1 was repressed by transfecting HMEC-1 cells, a human dermal microvascular endothelial cell line with siRNA targeting Ninj1 (siNinj1) or a negative control (siC). Subsequently, cells were stimulated with 100 ng/ml LPS (TLR4 agonist), 3 μg/ml LTA (TLR2 agonist) or 100 n/ml poly(I:C) (TLR3 agonist) for 3 hours. The inflammatory response was analyzed by real-time PCR. In addition, transmigration of neutrophils across a HMEC-1 monolayer was measured using transwell plates (pore size 3 μm).
Results: Repression of Ninj1 by siRNA reduced Ninj1 mRNA expression in HMEC about 90% (Figure 1A). Reduced Ninj1 expression decreased neutrophil migration to 62.5% (Figure 1B) and TLR signaling. In detail, knockdown of Ninj1 significantly reduced TLR-2 and TLR-4 triggered expression of ICAM-1 and IL-6 (Figure 1C,D) while poly(I:C)-induced expression was only slightly reduced. To analyze a more specific TLR-3 target, we measured IP-10 mRNA expression, which was also significantly reduced in siNinj1-transfected cells (Figure 1E).
Conclusion: Our in vitro data strongly indicated that Ninj1 is involved in regulation of TLR signaling and therewith contributes to inflammation. In vivo experiments will clarify its impact on systemic inflammation.
The debates about the interrelations between reason and law have undergone a change after the eighteenth century. References to the recta ratio of jusnaturalistic tradition have not disappeared, but other comprehensions of legal reason have developed. The European debate over legal positivist science has contributed to this in a manifestation of the rationality of law. This transformation may be considered the basis for the development of true “legal technologies” throughout the twentieth century. On the other hand, in the context of theories of positive law which have taken the relation between ethics and legal reason as a problem, the formation of discourses on coercion (Austin and Holmes), on validity (Kelsen and Hart) and on justification (Alexy and Dworkin) has also contributed to the emergence of new models of legal rationality. In this paper, it is highlighted that the construction of these models is linked to the “points of view” which theories have proposed as legitimate for the interpretation of legal phenomenon. And it is suggested that the discussion over points of view (defined as “focuses”, term which is close to the notion of “attitude”, “stance” or “place of speech”) may aid in the debate on the normativity of law.
The role of experts grows in the present and that is, in part, justifiable: as complexity rises, the ones who deliberate feel the need of the help of those who have know-how in specific fields. The question that must be asked revolves around the type of expectations developed in modern societies regarding what experts can do. Though specialization is not a peculiarity of our time (the process can be observed since human beings became sedentary); it has presently gained specific characteristics. Two aspects of modern life are particularly significant on that matter: (i.) the fact that the economic system is based on excitation of new needs (and no longer on the demand for satisfaction of needs); (ii.) the growing pursuit for total administration of conflicts. These factors are constitutive of what Gadamer sees as a great threat to our civilization: the excessive emphasis given in our time to the human ability to adapt. A specific ability is demanded from individuals: the capability of making an apparatus functions properly. Less resistance and more adaptability is requested, and because of that, autonomous thought - that is, not determined by the function it has in a system – is devalued. The threat we currently face is that the abilities of a good technocrat become the only qualities demanded from those who are responsible for practical decisions (especially in politics and law). Teleological reason, that guides the activity of specialists (and requires know-how in a specific area and consists in choosing means to reach a previously established goal), should not substitute practical reason, as the former requires adaptability to experience (not to a plan that was previously established) and is grounded on solidarity. In order to discuss the limits of the activity of specialists, the paper looks back to phrónesis and the way ancient Greeks set boundaries - this exercise should help raising new questions revolving the matter.
H. L. A. Hart thought that a theory of law can be purely descriptive and called his theory a “descriptive sociology”. One of his great contributions to modern legal theory is his emphasis on the internal aspect of social rules. According to him, a theory of law can be built on the basis of the description of the participants’ view without sharing with it. This descriptivism is totally rejected by Dworkin, who propagates a theory that denies a sharp separation between a legal theory and its implications for adjudication. For Dworkin, a legal theory is only possible as a theory with “the internal, participants’ point of view”. Dworkin’s position implies a radicalization of legal theory that will transform the statement of an external point of view to that of an internal one. For Dworkin, the descriptivism bases on the sociological concept of law, which is an “imprecise criterial concept” and is “not sufficiently precise to yield philosophically interesting essential features.”Hart’s position is vulnerable because it takes an impure form of descriptivism that still draws a categorical distinction between fact and norm. This theoretical impurity results from the ambiguity of interpreting the internal aspect of rules. A strategy to rescue the Hart’s project is to radicalize his descriptivism with Luhmann's systems theory. Adapting the systems theoretical distinction between internal and external observation of law with all its implications for the explanation of the legal system and legal communications, Hart’s descriptivism finally attains its pure form, which is not only a distinctive paradigm of legal theory, but also possesses the potentialities to clarify its relationship to the legal theory based on the internal aspect of law.
In this article, I examine how open borders can serve the idea of global distributive justice by asking how or how not the existing practices of immigration to rich countries may contribute to global economic redistribution. There are two observations. First, migration is not the redistributive option that anyone has an equal access. In order to make use of migration as a means of global redistribution, rich countries need to provide a chance to migrate to those who cannot afford movement by themselves. Second, as long as brain-drain problems happen, what the perspective of global distributive justice requires is the compensation for some educational cost of raising professionals or some control of their movement. Immigration admissions largely focusing on getting highly skilled professionals may not serve the idea of global redistribution.
Open Online Course als Kursformat? : Konzept und Ergebnisse des Kurses "Zukunft des Lernens" 2011
(2012)
Basierend auf dem Konzept des Connectivismus entwickelte sich in den letzten fünf bis sechs Jahren ein neues offenes Kursformat: die Open Online Courses, die als so genannte MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) teilweise bis über 100.000 Teilnehmende anzogen. In dem Beitrag wird mit Bezug auf die konzeptionellen Ursprünge im Connectivismus das Format der Open Online Courses erläutert und Erfahrungen aus dem ersten deutschsprachigen Kurs dieser Art beschrieben, dem Kurs „Zukunft des Lernens“, den im Sommer 2011 studiumdigitale, die zentrale E-Learning-Einrichtung der Universität Frankfurt, der Weiterbildungsblogger Jochen Robes in Kooperation mit der GMW und dem Zentrum für Lehrerbildung der Universität durchführten. Der Kurs zog ca. 900 Interessierte an, die sich in verschiedenen online Medien beteiligten. Der Beitrag beschreibt den Kursverlauf, gibt einen Überblick über technische Umsetzung und Betreuungsformen und stellt neben Betrachtungen zum Transfer die Ergebnisse aus der Teilnehmerbefragung vor.
Open Online Courses als Kursformat? Konzept und Ergebnisse des Kurses "Zukunft des Lernens" 2011
(2012)
2011 starteten studiumdigitale, die zentrale eLearning-Einrichtung der Universität Frankfurt/M, und der Weiterbildungsblogger Jochen Robes den ersten deutschsprachigen Open Online Course unter dem Titel „Die Zukunft des Lernens“1. In 14 Wochen wurden in wöchentlichem Rhythmus 14 Themen behandelt, die sich rund um den Einsatz verschiedener Technologien in Bildungsprozessen und auch das Kursformat selbst drehten. Dieser Beitrag stellt die Bezüge des Open Online Courses zu seiner Herkunft und den ersten Kursen dieser Art in Kanada und USA her, bezieht sich auf die theoretischen und konzeptionellen Fundierungen dieses Ansatzes und stellt die Ergebnisse aus dem Kursverlauf und der abschließenden Befragung der Teilnehmenden vor.
Background: Undergoing systemic inflammation, the innate immune system releases excessive proinflammatory mediators, which finally can lead to organ failure. Pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), such as Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and NOD-like receptors (NLRs), form the interface between bacterial and viral toxins and innate immunity. During sepsis, patients with diagnosed adrenal gland insufficiency are at high risk of developing a multiorgan dysfunction syndrome, which dramatically increases the risk of mortality. To date, little is known about the mechanisms leading to adrenal dysfunction under septic conditions. Here, we investigated the sepsis-related activation of the PRRs, cell inflammation, and apoptosis within adrenal glands.
Methods: Two sepsis models were performed: the polymicrobial sepsis model (caecal ligation and puncture (CLP)) and the LTA-induced intoxication model. All experiments received institutional approval by the Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt. CLP was performed as previously described [1], wherein one-third of the caecum was ligated and punctured with a 20-gauge needle. For LTA-induced systemic inflammation, TLR2 knockout (TLR2-/-) and WT mice were injected intraperitoneally with pure LTA (pLTA; 1 mg/kg) or PBS for 2 hours. To detect potential direct adrenal dysfunction, mice were additionally injected with adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH; 100 μg/kg) 1 hour after pLTA or PBS. Adrenals and plasma samples were taken. Gene expressions in the adrenals (rt-PCR), cytokine release (multiplex assay), and the apoptosis rate (TUNEL assay) within the adrenals were determined.
Results: In both models, adrenals showed increased mRNA expression of TLR2 and TLR4, various NLRs, cytokines as well as inflammasome components, NADPH oxidase subunits, and nitric oxide synthases (data not shown). In WT mice, ACTH alone had no effect on inflammation, while pLTA or pLTA/ACTH administration showed increased levels of the cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, and TNFα. TLR2-/- mice indicated no response as expected (Figure 1, left). Interestingly, surviving CLP mice showed no inflammatory adrenal response, whereas nonsurvivors had elevated cytokine levels (Figure 1, right). Additionally, we identified a marked increase in apoptosis of both chromaffin and steroid-producing cells in adrenal glands obtained from mice with sepsis as compared with their controls (Figure 2).
...
Conclusion: Taken together, sepsis-induced activation of the PRRs may contribute to adrenal impairment by enhancing tissue inflammation, oxidative stress and culminate in cellular apoptosis, while mortality seems to be associated with adrenal inflammation.
Der religiöse Pluralismus innerhalb der multikulturellen Gesellschaft erfordert vom Staat das Bemühen, die wechselseitige Achtung nicht nur zwischen Personen mit unterschiedlichen religiösen Glaubensüberzeugungen, sondern auch zwischen Glaubenden und Nicht-Glaubenden sicherzustellen. In diesem Kontext wird es für die vom Staat übernommene Funktion entscheidend sein, rechtzeitig zu beurteilen, ob er eine aktive und positive Rolle als eine Institution spielt, welche dafür sorgt, dass die Religionsfreiheit der Einzelnen und der Gruppen geachtet wird. Im Vorliegenden werden einige Gefahren und Bedrohungen für die Religionsfreiheit in der heutigen Gesellschaft analysiert und eine kritische Betrachtung als Antwort auf diese Krisensituation vorgelegt. Konkret werden die folgenden Punkte erörtert: 1. Der Glaube, daß die Religion nicht mit den Werten einer modernen, liberalen Gesellschaft zu vereinbaren ist. 2. Die Konfessionalisierung des Staates. 3. Der Missbrauch der staatlichen Macht, um die Präferenzen der Bürger durch absichtliche Änderungen im sozialen Kontext zu beeinflussen. 4. Die unnötigen Behinderungen und Beschränkung des Rechts auf Verweigerung aus Gewissengründen, die von einem falschen Verständnisses desselben herrühren. 5. Die Verherrlichung eines falsch verstandenen, radikalen Individualismus. 6. Ein Verständnis des Grundsatzes der Nichtdiskriminierung als ,,Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber den Unterschieden“.
This article considers the Brazilian Legal System and the requirements of an act performed by public administration. To do so, it presents six main chapters. The first one considers Brazilian Constitution as it regards State form, legal and judicial systems. The second chapter presents the public administration stated in the Constitution. The requirements of a public administration act are presented in the third chapter. The improbity law, which determines how public administration acts should be performed, is presented on the fourth chapter. How one of the main judicial courts of Brazil has understood this law is the topic of the fifth chapter. The sixth chapter presents a proposal of how could be Phronesis used to solve misunderstandings about improbity in the Brazilian Legal System.
Es wird eine Verbindung zwischen dem von Antiphon entwickelten infinitesimalen Berechnungsverfahren, der Theorie Verteilungsgerechtigkeit von Aristoteles, des Hebelgesetzes, der eben radialen Figuren und der Verteilung hergestellt.
Die Problemstellung stellt sich wie folgt dar: dem Kennenlernen der Gründe, die Antiphon mutmaßen ließ, die Exhaustionsmethode als ein Mittel der Bildung des Quadratur des Kreises anzusehen, Beziehungen von grundsätzlicher und historischer Art zwischen der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit und den Hebelgesetz herzustellen, ein Model der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit, basierend auf der modernen Mathematik der Verteilung, von multipler Partizipierung zu konstruieren.
Die Zielsetzungen sind:
Die These zu erstellen, dass die Exhaustionsmethode aus der Gerichtspraxis stammt; dass das Hebelgesetz und die Theorie der Proportionen von Eudoxos Modelle der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit von Aristoteles sind; weiter soll gezeigt werden, dass die ebene Verteilung der materiellen Partikel auch ein Modell der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit ist.
Das Modell der Mehrteiligkeit der Verteilung, das vorgestellt wurde, enthält zwei Arten von Freiheitsgraden, einen für den Wert der zu verteilenden Güter an jeweils einen der Beteiligten und einen zweiter Freiheitsgrad für die verschieden Ebene zwischen den Beteiligten im Falle der Ungleichheit.
Keywords: Exhaustionsmethode, Hebelgesetz, Verteilungsgerechtigkeit, Verteilung.
Since de advent of what is known as new constitucionalism, jurists have faced a difficult task in order to overcome some failures of normative positivism. In this context, the judiciary has played a renewed role, which can be justified on grounds of legal theory and on institutional reasons. However, this new role has led legal philosophers to several concerns, such as the relationship between law and ethics. On one hand, Critical Legal Studies points out that the judge always acts informed by his own convictions. On the other hand, according to R. Forst (within another context, but also relevant here), this is not really a problem, because a rule can be provided with ethics, but not ethically justified. This openness of law to moral makes it difficult for the interpretative judicial discourse to be taken as claimed by K. Günther: as a discourse of application only, and not of justification. All these controversies, however, lead to a common statement: the constitutional adjudication has been exercising a different activity. Some legal systems allows such activity legitimacy in some extent, like Brazilian’s, for example, which i) states a very broad adjudication, ii) provides an extensive catalog of basic rights, and iii) contains several procedural mechanisms for their protection. This empowers the adjudication to exercise what can be called a political activity. Therefore, a series of moral issues which were once exclusive to the political arena have been brought to the judiciary, such as: gay marriage, abortion, affirmative action, religious freedom, federation, separation of powers, distribution of scarce resources. In a democracy, these moral questions ought to be mainly decided through deliberation outside the judiciary, but not always this is what happens. The paper discusses these issues, showing also how the Brazilian Supreme Court has dealt - technically, or not - with this relationship between law and justice in a complex and pluralist society.
The relation between law, moral, society and science is shifting in Brazil as it is changing in democratic contemporary societies. This paper proposes to reflect about this change in the Brazilian legal and social context. Jurisprudence and legal practice have been transformed intensively after the Brazilian redemocratization that began in 1985 and Federal Constitution of 1988. In the field of Jurisprudence (Legal Theory), a new legal theory called post-positivism progressively has been overcoming legal critical studies and legal positivism. In recent years, ideas as any moral values can be improved by law (positivism) or law is one of many oppressive institutions in capitalist society (legal critical studies – Marxism) have been losing place in legal theory. Nowadays, when Brazilian Constitution implements just society and legal system, different from the authoritarian military regime (1964 – 1985), it is difficult to work with a complete relativistic idea of law (positivism) or difficult to accept that law is necessarily oppressive in capitalistic societies. Otherwise the idea of science in law at post-positivistic point of view try to overcome in a dialectic way a pure science methodology (normativistic positivism) and the complete political and economic studies of law (critical legal studies – Marxism). After that, the text will show that Brazilian legal practice have changed intensively after post positivistic methodology of law and will reflect about same dilemmas of post-positivism in Brazil in the legal theory and practice.
In their book Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Tom Beauchamp and James Childress offer an account of bioethics, called “Principlism”, by way of specifying and balancing four clusters of principles.2 These principles are found, as the author state, in a common morality, understood as a set of universally shared moral beliefs.
This paper seeks to introduce the following questions: Does this account of Beauchamp and Childress flow from common morality in a natural way? Can their proposals claim to be endorsed by the authority of common morality? If not, in what way does Principlism contribute to bioethics?
Welche gesellschaftlichen Zwänge wirken auf die Medizin und ihre Anwender ein? Wie ist das Verhältnis von Ökonomie und medizinisch Gebotenem? Wie steht es mit der Finanzierung der nicht evidenzbasierten Behandlung? Stellen Rationierung und Rationalisierung die möglichen Prinzipien der Priorisierung dar? Führt die Priorisierung zur Qualitätsminderung oder gar Sorgfaltsverletzung? Diese Fragen behandelte der 4. Ärztetag am Dom in Frankfurt am Main. ...
A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is a systematic risk assessment tool, enabling organizations to maintain compliance with data protection regulations, to manage privacy risks and to provide public benefits through the success of privacy-by-design efforts. An actual practical implementation of a PIA framework has been realized in the context of RFID applications encompassing detailed steps for the PIA process; a first successful review has been completed. The PIA also allows to introduce a pro-active mitigation of privacy risks through technical and organizational controls. The better the precautionary measures realize the relevant privacy objectives, the less likely will occur with the PIA process afterwards. The recent proposal for a far-reaching revision of the EU Data Protection Directive envisages to state a specific requirement to implement a PIA process. Indeed, since risks for privacy and non-disclosure of personal data are different in not identical circumstances, the protection measures should also be different, i.e. technology should assist in trying to achieve the (at least) second-best solution for the implementation of the data protection regime by a PIA. Insofar, privacy rules can be individualized and matched with the concrete needs in the given environment.
This paper aims to assess the arguments that claim representative democracy may be enhanced or replaced by an updated electronic version. Focusing on the dimension of elections and electioneering as the core mechanism of representative democracy I will discuss: (1) the proximity argument used to claim the necessity of filling the gap between decision-makers and stakeholders; (2) the transparency argument, which claims to remove obstacles to the publicity of power; (3) the bottom-up argument, which calls for a new form of legitimacy that goes beyond classical mediation of parties or unions; (4) the public sphere argument, referred to the problem of hierarchical relation between voters and their representatives; (5) the disintermediation argument, used to describe the (supposed) new form of democracy following the massive use of ICTs. The first way of conceptualizing e-democracy as different from mainstream 20th century representative democracy regimes is to imagine it as a new form direct democracy: this conception is often underlying contemporary studies of e-voting. To avoid some of the ingenuousness of this conception of e-democracy, we should take a step back and consider a broader range of issues than mere gerrymandering around the electoral moment. Therefore I shall problematize the abovementioned approach by analyzing a wider range of problems connected to election and electioneering in their relation with ICTs.
Pseudo-Critical Temperature and Thermal Equation of State from Nf = 2 Twisted Mass Lattice QCD
(2012)
We report about the current status of our ongoing study of the chiral limit of two-flavor QCD at finite temperature with twisted mass quarks. We estimate the pseudo-critical temperature Tc for three values of the pion mass in the range of mPS ~ 300 and 500 MeV and discuss different chiral scenarios. Furthermore, we present first preliminary results for the trace anomaly, pressure and energy density. We have studied several discretizations of Euclidean time up to Nt = 12 in order to assess the continuum limit of the trace anomaly. From its interpolation we evaluate the pressure and energy density employing the integral method. Here, we have focussed on two pion masses with mPS ~ 400 and 700 MeV.
This paper aims to discuss in which sense public hearings in supreme courts of democratic rules of law can be seen as proceduralization of popular sovereignty policies. These policies constitute expressions of a normative claim for a wider “publicization of law” by democratic states’ institutional powers and organs; a claim that becomes evident when one undertakes an intersubjective interpretation of law. This theoretical argument will be presented in the first section of the paper through a new articulation of Jürgen Habermas’ discursive theory of law and his most recent studies on the concept of political public sphere. The theoretical section gives normative and procedural criteria for the second section of the paper, which consists on a critical analysis of the procedures and practical cases of public hearings held at the Brazilian Supreme Court, constituting the first scientific study to date on the Court’s use of this legal instrument.
We explore the phase diagram of two flavour QCD at vanishing chemical potential using dynamical O(a)-improved Wilson quarks. In the approach to the chiral limit we use lattices with a temporal extent of Nt = 16 and spatial extent L = 32;48 and 64 to enable the extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit with small discretisation effects. In addition to an update on the scans at constant k, reported earlier, we present first results from scans along lines of constant physics at a pion mass of 290 MeV.We probe the transition using the Polyakov loop and the chiral condensate, as well as spectroscopic observables such as screening masses.
Die Rassenmischung bekam in der Entwicklung der Sozialwissenschaften in Brasilien immer wieder neue Bedeutungen, um sich an jeden politischen Zusammenhang anzupassen. Sie wurde von den Männern des Wissens als Problem und später als Lösung angesehen – nämlich durch die Aufhellung – gemäß der evolutionären Rassentheorien Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. Aber vor allem in den 1930er Jahren betrachteten einige Intellektuelle Brasiliens, wie Gilberto Freyre, die Mischung der drei Rassen, die das Volk Brasiliens bilden, als Bestandteil der Nation. Eine solche Vorstellung brachte juristische und politische, manchmal unmerkliche Folgen für den Platz des Mischlings innerhalb der brasilianischen Gesellschaft. Dieser wird als Notausstieg Mulatte nach Carl Degler oder als epistemologisches Hindernis nach Eduardo de Oliveira e Oliveira verstanden. Der Zweck dieser Arbeit besteht darin, aufzuzeigen, inwiefern jene Tradition eine tiefe Auseinandersetzung verbirgt und wie sie juristische Auswirkungen in der Gegenwart hervorruft, z.B. in Bezug auf die Debatte über Rassenquoten an öffentlichen Universitäten.
Die brasilianische Verfassung hat ein System detaillierter materieller und prozessualer Rechte etabliert und damit die richterliche Kontrolle hoheitlicher Akte in fast allen politisch relevanten Bereichen ermöglicht. Auf dem Gebiet der ökologischen und sozialen Rechte, wo eine intensive Positivierung individueller und kollektiver Ansprüche stattgefunden hat, ist die wachsende Judizialisierung der staatlichen Programme nicht als übertriebene Einmischung der Gerichte in politische Fragen anzusehen, sondern fördert die Ausbildung des gesellschaftlichen Bewusstseins. Die Gesetzestexte enthalten kaum konkrete materielle Anforderungen oder Richtlinien zur Gewichtung von Gütern und Werten, sondern setzen lediglich Verbote fest oder regeln die föderativen Zuständigkeiten bzw. das Verwaltungsverfahren. Deswegen kann die Genehmigung umweltgefährdender Aktivitäten kaum auf der Grundlage dogmatisch abgeklärter Rechtsbegriffe erfolgen. Die fachliche Qualifikation vieler Verwaltungsbeamter und Richter entspricht noch nicht den Herausforderungen einer korrekten Gesetzesauslegung. Die akademische Diskussion konzentriert sich derweilen auf Themen wie die philosophische Hermeneutik, Semiotik oder Systemtheorie und unterschätzt dabei die Wichtigkeit des juristischen Methodenkanons, weswegen es ihr nicht gelingt, den Praktikern gangbare Direktiven zur Herstellung richtiger und gut begründeter Entscheidungen anzubieten. Nötig ist daher eine mehr pragmatisch orientierte Debatte über den angemessenen Gebrauch der traditionellen und modernen Methoden und Techniken der Rechtsfindung, um die dogmatische Basis des Umweltrechts in Brasilien zu stärken und es an das Modell eines Umweltstaats heranzuführen.
This paper considers the logic FOcard, i.e., first-order logic with cardinality predicates that can specify the size of a structure modulo some number. We study the expressive power of FOcard on the class of languages of ranked, finite, labelled trees with successor relations. Our first main result characterises the class of FOcard-definable tree languages in terms of algebraic closure properties of the tree languages. As it can be effectively checked whether the language of a given tree automaton satisfies these closure properties, we obtain a decidable characterisation of the class of regular tree languages definable in FOcard. Our second main result considers first-order logic with unary relations, successor relations, and two additional designated symbols < and + that must be interpreted as a linear order and its associated addition. Such a formula is called addition-invariant if, for each fixed interpretation of the unary relations and successor relations, its result is independent of the particular interpretation of < and +. We show that the FOcard-definable tree languages are exactly the regular tree languages definable in addition-invariant first-order logic. Our proof techniques involve tools from algebraic automata theory, reasoning with locality arguments, and the use of logical interpretations. We combine and extend methods developed by Benedikt and Segoufin (ACM ToCL, 2009) and Schweikardt and Segoufin (LICS, 2010).
We discuss recent applications of the partonic pQCD based cascade model BAMPS with focus on heavy-ion phenomeneology in hard and soft momentum range. The nuclear modification factor as well as elliptic flow are calculated in BAMPS for RHIC end LHC energies. These observables are also discussed within the same framework for charm and bottom quarks. Contributing to the recent jet-quenching investigations we present first preliminary results on application of jet reconstruction algorithms in BAMPS. Finally, collective effects induced by jets are investigated: we demonstrate the development of Mach cones in ideal matter as well in the highly viscous regime.
Civil Society became an important theme in the recent discussion of political or social theory. Civil Society is playing a substantial role for the legislation process. We can find it especially in the activities of international NGO. It gives a new aspect of the relationship between state and society, and legal philosophically speaking, of validity of law. Activities of Civil Society are socially recognized and their support systems are gradually institutionalized also domestic in Japan. But Japanese NPO has its own weak point, which arises from the political structure of our society.
We study the light scalar mesons a_0(980) and kappa using N_f = 2+1+1 flavor lattice QCD. In order to probe the internal structure of these scalar mesons, and in particular to identify, whether a sizeable tetraquark component is present, we use a large set of operators, including diquark-antidiquark, mesonic molecule and two-meson operators. The inclusion of disconnected diagrams, which are technically rather challenging, but which would allow us to extend our work to e.g. the f_0(980) meson, is introduced and discussed.
This paper describes the ongoing efforts of the authors to present ancient Greek and Roman numismatic data on the public internet, with an emphasis on efforts to integrate information from multiple sources using Linked Data and Semantic Web techniques. By way of very modern metaphor, it is useful to think of coins as intentionally created packages of 'named entities'. Each coin was struck by a particular authority, often at a known site, and coins often make reference to familiar concepts such as deities, historical events, or symbols that were widely recognized in the ancient world. The institutions represented among the authors have deployed search interfaces that allow users to take advantage of this aspect of numismatic databases. The American Numismatic Society's database provides faceted search to its collection of over 550,000 objects. The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) in the UK presents individual finds (and hoards) recorded throughout the country. The Römisch-Germanische Kommission and the University of Frankfurt (DBIS) are developing a prototype metaportal (INTERFACE) that accesses national databases of coin finds held in in Frankfurt, Vienna and Utrecht. Each of these resources is beginning to explore Semantic Web/Linked data approaches so that the role of numismatic standards is immediately coming to the fore. DBIS and INTERFACE are developing a numismatic ontology. At the ANS and PAS, the public database already presents RDF serializations based on Dublin Core. Together, the authors have begun to explore standardization of conceptual names on the basis of the vocabulary presented at the site http://nomisma.org . Nomisma.org is a collaborative effort to provide stable digital representations of numismatic concepts and entities. It provides URIs for such basic concepts as 'coin', 'mint', 'axis'. All of these are defined within the scope of numismatics but are already being linked to other stable resources where available. This is particularly the case for mints. For example, the URI http://nomisma.org/id/corinth is intended to represent that ancient city in its role as a minter/issuer of coins. The URI is linked via the SKOS ontology to the Pleiades Gazetteer of ancient places. This allows Nomisma to be the basis for a common representation of the concept that an object is a coin minted at Corinth. The ANS has already deployed such relationships in its public database. The work of all these projects is very much in progress so that this paper hopes to generate discussion on how multiple large projects can move forward in their own work while encouraging sufficient commonality to support large scale research questions undertaken by diverse audiences.
The main Question of this paper is: how can we tackle the global warming in accordance with the economical growth especially in emerging countries?
K. W. Kapp, “The Social Costs of Private Enterprise” (1950), defines the social costs as direct or indirect damages which are not compensated by the producer, but added to the third parties. An example might be the disaster of the BP plant in April 2010, in which the polluter can hardly cover all the damages so as to make the seawater clean, to regenerate the harmed natural lives and to recover the jobs and the everyday life of the residents on site.
The Club of Rome, “The Limits to Growth” (1972), makes us aware of the five conditions which set the limits to growth: population, industrialization, pollution, consumption of food and natural resources, which tendentiously increase in a exponential progression. The GDP growth 10% a year means that it will be 2.59 times as large in ten years, whereas technology could resolve problematic concerning five elements at highest in arithmetical progression.
Remarkable would be that the modern industrial civilization has brought social damages in form of global warming. Developed nations have not payed for it yet. All the people in the world should have right to economical growth at any rate, which would however be limited by those five conditions. Conclusion: the developed nations should give up the consumption lifestyle for the sake of equal right of every citizen in the world to reasonable standard of living.
Some advances in legal practical reason: for a progressive dialogue with contemporary hermeneutics
(2012)
This paper intends to critically discuss some points of the contemporary thesis concerning constitutional hermeneutics and methodology of law. Once identified some authors and the lines of argumentation affiliated grosso modo to the linguistic turn and rhetoric, as well as the core of the transcendental powers of communication (v.g. N. MacCormick, R. Alexy, K. Günther), the objective is to identify some dialogue with economics and political science, enlightened by recent researches about Hegel-Marx interpretations of social life. Of course the discussion inevitably passes through methodological questions, opposing analytics vs. dialectics, idealistic vs. realists standpoints. In a effort to foment the inclusive dialogue between points of view concerning the concept of law that may create (not necessarily) radical opponents, the lines of conclusion intents to revisit some foundations of Hegelian "method" (so to speak) and intends to give a modest contribution to a more profound analysis of the relations between sein and sollen categories, in order to enrich the discussions about technology and social life, specially the life of the law nowadays.
Making use of United Nations (U.N.) materials and documents, Anja Matwijkiw and Bronik Matwijkiw argue that the organization – in 2004 – converted to a stakeholder jurisprudence for human rights. However, references to “stakeholders” may both be made in the context of narrow stakeholder theory and broad stakeholder theory. Since the U.N. does not specify its commitment by naming the theory it credits for its conversion, the authors of the article embark on a comparative analysis, so as to be able to try the two frameworks for fit. The hypothesis is that it is the philosophy and methodology of broad stakeholder theory that best matches the norms and strategies of the U.N. While this is the case, certain challenges nevertheless present themselves. As a consequence of these, the U.N. has to – as a minimum – take things under renewed consideration.
The results of the microscopic transport calculations of -nucleus interactions within a GiBUU model are presented. The dominating mechanism of hyperon production is the strangeness exchange processes → γπ and → ΞK. The calculated rapidity spectra of Ξ hyperons are significantly shifted to forward rapidities with respect to the spectra of S = −1 hyperons. We argue that this shift should be a sensitive test for the possible exotic mechanisms of -nucleus annihilation. The production of the double Λ-hypernuclei by Ξ− interaction with a secondary target is calculated.
The problem of this paper is prompted by the claim of Zagreb University students residing in government subsidized dormitories that their duty to act for free as dorm night porters amounts to forced labour. After a preliminary note on the nature and types of legal scholarship, the paper restates jurisprudential arguments against student rights and analyses limitations inherent in legal scholarship in action, or jurisprudence, that make it unresponsive to student rights: a limited normative framework and a limited subject-matter, most notably a limited focus of inquiry when it comes to force or coercion. A glimpse at an analysis of force in international law indicates that the naked force typical of elementary criminal law has dissolved long ago into phenomena remotely related to naked force, such as economic pressure and ideological propaganda. Two legal and social contexts of force are of primary interest to understanding student rights. The first is legal recognition of the vulnerability of children to naked force. The second is the blind eye of jurisprudence for the vulnerability of workers to economic need. The belief in economic necessity and subjugation of the state to capital has resulted in a bizarre reversal of the roles of corporations and students. Jurisprudence cannot change the world but can interpret it more sensibly. What is required is a re-examination of maturity and emancipation within the emerging world law.
Scientific and technical achievements can cause deep changes in spheres of morals and law. I am going to discuss some philosophical conclusions which follow from two significant ideas of contemporary civilization. First of them is a thesis about indistinguishability of natural from artificial, and the second one is an opportunity of creation of artificial human.
The first thesis is a consequence of the principle of relativity of physical reality to conditions and a way of observation, on which both interpretations of quantum theory and Einstein’s theories of relativity are based. I show that the given principle deprives us of objective criteria to distinguish natural from artificial, freedom from necessity, freedom from violence.
Today power of technique is directed not only on the external world, but also on a person. Due to information technology, and biotechnology an opportunity of creation of artificial and controlled individual increases. So human loses many features of a person and transforms to a part of a collective super individual subject. In modern time a search of the transcendental basis of law and power leads to impersonal human and recognition of super individuality.
Traditional belief about natural rights will disappear. There is necessity of revision of such concept as right of freedom. Liberal belief about freedom as a condition of human existence is changing. Prospects of technical development make justified R. Dworkin's reflections about superiority of right of equality in comparison with right of freedom.
Technocracy is usually opposed to democracy. Here, another perspective is taken: technocracy is countered with the rule of law. In trying to understand the contemporary dynamics of the rule of law, two main types of legal systems (in a broad sense) have to be distinguished: firstly, the legal norm, studied by the science of law; secondly, the scientific laws (which includes the legalities of the different sciences and communities). They both contain normative prescriptions. But their differ in their subjects‘ source: while legal norms are the will’s expression of the normative authority, technical prescriptions can be derived from scientific laws, which are grounded over the commonly supposed objectivity of the scientific knowledge about reality. They both impose sanctions too, but in the legal norm they refer to what is established by the norm itself, while in the scientific legality they consist in the reward or the punishment derived from the efficacy or inefficacy to reach the end pursued by the action. The way of legitimation also differs: while legal norms have to have followed the formal procedures and must not have contravened any fundamental right, technical norms‘ validity depend on its theoretical foundations or on its efficacy. Nowadays, scientific knowledge has become and important feature in policy-making. Contradictions can arise between these legal systems. These conflicts are specially grave when the recognition or exercise of fundamental rights is instrumentally used, or when they are violated in order to increase the policies‘ efficacy. A political system is technocratic, when, in case of contradiction, the scientific law finally prevails.
The improvement of accident prevention technology in many fields of social life has spurred new challenges to the doctrinal tools of fault and strict based civil liability in the law of torts. Amid these challenges lies the identification of the proper scope of the respective criteria of liability in a changing factual environment, their suitability as doctrinal tools, as well as their actual application to concrete cases given the amount of information which would be needed to render adequate judgments. Precedents and old laws should be assessed with caution, taking into account the tacit cost-benefit analysis embedded in them, for they may or may not serve the interests of welfare maximization in an environment with constantly renewed accident prevention technology.
The use of most if not all technologies is accompanied by negative side effects, While we may profit from today’s technologies, it is most often future generations who bear most risks. Risk analysis therefore becomes a delicate issue, because future risks often cannot be assigned a meaningful occurance probability. This paper argues that technology assessement most often deal with uncertainty and ignorance rather than risk when we include future generations into our ethical, political or juridal thinking. This has serious implications as probabilistic decision approaches are not applicable anymore. I contend that a virtue ethical approach in which dianoetic virtues play a central role may supplement a welfare based ethics in order to overcome the difficulties in dealing with uncertainty and ignorance in technology assessement.
Democratic rule of law has been struggling with the occurring problem of pluralism of values. It is therefore still faced with the dilemma of ordering the relationship of law and ethics, namely with the question whether in the issue of legal solutions the priority is granted to ethics or to law. In the case of dominance of the positivist paradigm, it is all the more important because the ethical issue is marginalized in it. It turns out that the same authority, deciding on similar issues, at the junction of two areas: ethics and law, can make mutually contradictory decisions: once giving priority to ethics, whereas - at different times - to positive law. On a closer analysis, this contradiction proves illusory because under the guise of protection of a positive paradigm, the hidden fact is that the axiological decision underlies the resolution concerning law. This decision protects the values that have priority in the scale of preferential value of decision-making body. The example considered in the article concerns the interface between ethical and legal norms against selected rulings of the Constitutional Court. The doubts that arise in this context may be in future avoided or perhaps, if necessary, resolved by adopting a two-aspect model of legal norm. This model in its vertical approach has an evaluative element. This allows to deem the seemingly contradictory decision in similar cases as justified one. It also shows that in practice the rightness of the resolution takes precedence both over ethics as well as over law.
The paper is concerned with the Hartian idea that the justification of law’s normativity can be traced back to the exquisite social fact, viz. special kind of social convention. After discussing the view that the rule of recognition is a coordinative convention A. Marmor’s idea of constitutive convention is introduced. Relying on J. Dickson’s brilliant enquiry I finally argue that this latter idea is deprieved of any explanatory power, which was pressuposed by H.L.A. Hart when he himself reffered to the conventional rule of recognition as social fact having full normative significance.
The bare life and (the) modern law : a journey to some key concepts or conceptions of Agamben
(2012)
This text is imitating a journey which tries to explore what is completely unknown. It starts Homo Sacer and traces some key concepts namely der Muselmann, bare life, state of exception, sovereignty and nihilism in law. Doing so, it hopes to reach a general picture of biopolitics or biopower according to Agamben. So, first part of this text generally tries to clarify some fundamental concepts or conceptions in order to use them for its aim. The second part suggests an alternative reading of Agamben, centered around his concept of der Muselmann which is the ultimate figure defined by Primo Levi and Agamben chooses the term because of its resemblance to or representation of Homo Sacer. Der Muselmann was a derogatory term in its origin and very meaning has still been unclear today. So, the second part tries to clarify the meaning of der Muselmann (and unbaptized babies) from a different outlook, not from outside but inside of the referred concept. It tries to show a Muslim’s image of a non Muslim world in order to reveal what are the very meanings of sovereignty, law and biopolitics. So at the end of the journey, this text hopes to reach a different picture of modern life and a modern law.
Occasionally, in pursuing their adjudicative duties over the course of a legal hearing, judges are called upon to acquire new concepts – that is, concepts which they did not possess at the commencement of the hearing. In performing their judicial role they are required to learn new things and, as a result, conceptualise the world in a way which differs from the way they conceived of things before the hearing commenced. Some theorists have argued that either as a general matter or as a matter specific to judicial practice and the legal context, judges are, with some degree of necessity, incapacitated from acquiring certain kinds of concepts. Such concepts include those possessed by the members of culturally different minority groups. Drawing on contemporary trends in analytic and naturalistic philosophy of mind, this paper explores the extent to which a judge might be incapacitated from acquiring new concepts over the course of a legal hearing and identifies those factors which condition the success or failure of that process.
The concept of biopolitics has its origin on the Michel Foucault works developped since 1975 to 1979. In this period, the author introduced the foundations for a new approach about the modern government, based in both crescent enpowerment on individuals and the control of populations. The theme has attracted the attentions of some critical political studies, with many practical uses. However, I believe there is not enough consolidation about biopolitics as a concept and a comprehensive theory of the new political mechanisms. This uncertainness is more evident when the very role of Law is questioned in a biopolitical model, due to the archaic nature that Foucault gives to it. So the aim of the paper is to identify the theorical comprehension of biopolitics in a contemporary author as Giorgio Agamben to demonstrate his oppositions and proximities from the original idea of Michel Foucault. I propose that Agamben has the same difficulties of Foucault to deal with legal theory and Law inside biopolitics. Nevertheless, after a critical review on the works of this two authors, my conclusion is that a settlement of the concepts of Law and biopolitics depends of the surpassing of the Foucaldian version of Law as sovereignity, a clear delimitation of a common core between the authors and their differences and the research and affirmation of the concept of Law in Agamben, more well-refined than Foucault's one.
The development of laboratory animal science and animal care of legislation and the consummation
(2012)
Laboratory animal science is the use of non-human animals in experiments to obtain new knowledge and new technologies in biomedical research and testing. In order to develop science and technology, the human carried out a large number of animal experiments, these experiments greatly expanded the vision of related research field, and make a great contribution to human beings. Meanwhile, animal experiments also bring us a certain extent of negative effects. Countries around the world have adopted legislative measures to regulate behavior of animal experiments, but in the process of legislation and enforcement are not wholly satisfactory. On the basis of present situation of laboratory animal science and existing problems, with the comparison of animal welfare act between Europe and China, the author puts forward the ideas of perfecting experimental animals’ laws and its enforcement proposals.
In assessing the aftermath of the fraudulent presidential election of 2009 in Iran, one question has received less critical analysis than other complexities of this event: What can explain the remarkable non-violent character of the Green Movement in Iran? I propose that the answer, inter alia, lies with the following three learning experiences: 1) The experience of loss brought about by the Iran/Iraq war; 2) the experience of relative opening during Khatami’s presidency; and 3) the experience of modernization of faith in the work of the post-Islamist thinkers that aimed to make political Islam compatible with democracy. Together, these learning processes fostered a new mode of thinking that is civil and non-violent in character.
The requalification of Habermas’ discussions on political philosophy and legal theory after the publication of Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion (2005), and his most recent texts and debates on religion and the public sphere, suggest a revision of the Habermasian theory of rationalization as it was firstly presented in Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns (1982), especially on what concerns the processes of dessacralization and the linguistification of religious authority. In search of contributing to this revision, this paper intends to focus on the problem of a supposedly “lost” aesthetic-expressive understanding of religious authority in Habermas’s theory of rationalization, which may have contributed to a theory of law in Faktizität und Geltung (1992) that does not give satisfactory account to the aesthetical-expressive character of the modern understanding of legal authority. A better understanding of this special character, however, may contribute not only to the avoidance of fundamentalisms and new attempts of “aesthetization of politics”, but also to a rational strengthening of the solidarity of the citizens of democratic constitutional states.
Agamben has claimed to work inside the tradition inaugurated by the archaeological method of Michel Foucault but not to fully coincide with it. “My method is archaeological and paradigmatic in a sense which is very close to that of Foucault, but not completely coincident with it. The question is, facing the dichotomies that structuralize our culture, to go beyond the exceptions that have been producing the former, however, not to find a chronologically originary state, but to be able to understand the situation in which we are. Archaeology is, in this sense, the only way to access present” (interview to Flavia Costa, trad. Susana Scramim, in Revista do Departamento de Psicologia – Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, v. 18 - n. 1, 131-136, Jan./Jun. 2006, 132, translated by the author). However, the aspects in which Agamben follows Foucault's method and the ones he does not were never very clear. This situation seems to change with the edition of Agamben's most extensive and explicit texts on method, Signatura Rerum. Sul Metodo (2008, italian edition). The goal of this article is to identify the points of intersection between their methods and some points in which they differ.
In information society, legal norm communications have been never established in certain fields for a long time. That is, a few legal norms have never obeyed in the fields. Above all, legal norms which relate to data protection, information contents and information security, would often infringed. Most violation would be conducted by using information technologies. Information technologies would often be used in these infringing incidents. It can be said that these infringing incidents would have never been conducted without information technology. These infringing incidents include hacking actions, personal data abuse, personal information disclosure, unauthorized access, infringing copyrights, infringing privacy rights, and so on. A way of preventing those infringements is to raise the level of punishment against the violators. But, it will prove to be disappointing. Furthermore, it would be an ex post facto measure to the last. It would be needed to invent an ex ante measure, if it is possible. As the ex ante measure, the author proposes a fusion of law and information technology. An information technology will lead people to a lawful deed when they conduct actions in using computers and networks. They say that information technology cures information technology. After all, the fusion will aim at realizing laws, and it will contribute to recover a social justice.
The doubt about certainty like an absolute value in law and as an ideal full in legal system (argument about impossibility) is a controversial fact in contemporary legal theory. In this text I examine some contemporary doctrines about the classic understanding (in critical sense) of this ideal. I have selected the most representative doctrines: doctrine about "open texture of Law" (H.L.A. Hart), starting point in this discussion; doctrine about "Il Diritto mite" (G. Zagrebelsky), from the continental European legal tradition at present; and doctrine about "vagueness in Law" (T.A.O. Endicott), this doctrine is the most recent, from the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. Finally, in Conclusions, I analyze if this doubt (argument about impossibility) contaminates (in some sense) to the concept of law or to the characteristics that describe law in the contemporary Constitutional State.
The very idea of the European Convention on Human Rights is to bring the laws of contracting states into line with fundamental human rights principles. Where the Convention is not explicit, the Court should never rule restrictively so as to reduce the scope of a general right. In the case of homeschooling, the Convention sets forth the general principle that “the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” It must not, therefore, allow a contracting state to eliminate a means of achieving this desired by parents—unless the state can show that the means in question is ineffective.
From chaos to chaos theory, from the primordial perception of the world as disorderly to the scientific research of disorder a long distance has been covered. This path implies openness of mind and scientific boldness which connect mythological perceptions of the world with philosophical and scientific interpretations of phenomena throughout the world in a quite distinctive way resting on the creation of a model and application of computing. Owing to this, for the first time instead of asking What awaits us in the future? we can ask What can be done in the future? and get a reliable scientific answer to the question.