Don’t Ask a Neuroscientist about Phases of the Moon

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 712-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE SHATS ◽  
TIMOTHY BRINDLEY ◽  
JAMES GIORDANO

Abstract:Ongoing developments in neuroscientific techniques and technologies—such as neuroimaging—offer potential for greater insight into human behavior and have fostered temptation to use these approaches in legal contexts. Neuroscientists are increasingly called on to provide expert testimony, interpret brain images, and thereby inform judges and juries who are tasked with determining the guilt or innocence of an individual. In this essay, we draw attention to the actual capabilities and limitations of currently available assessment neurotechnologies and examine whether neuroscientific evidence presents unique challenges to existing frameworks of evidence law. In particular, we focus on (1) fundamental questions of relevance and admissibility that can and should be posed before the tests afforded in Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals or Frye v. U.S. are applied and (2) how these considerations fit into the broader contexts of criminal law. We contend that neuroscientific evidence must first be scrutinized more heavily for its relevance, within Daubert and Federal Rule of Evidence 702, to ensure that the right questions are asked of neuroscientists, so as to enable expert interpretation of neuroscientific evidence within the limits of their knowledge and discipline that allows the judge or jury to determine the facts at issue in the case. We use the analogy provided by the Daubert court of an expert on the phases of the moon testifying to an individual’s behavior on a particular night to ensure that we are, in fact, asking the neuroscientific expert the appropriate question.

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-69
Author(s):  
Aishath Muneeza ◽  
Zakariya Mustapha

Limitations of action designate extent of time after an event, as set by statutes of limitations, within which legal action can be initiated by a party to a transaction. No event is actionable outside the designated time as same is rendered statute-barred. This study aims to provide an insight into application and significance of Limitations Act 1950 and Limitation Ordinance 1952 to Islamic banking matters in Malaysia as well as Shariah viewpoint on the issue of limitation of action. In conducting the study, a qualitative research methodology is employed where reported Islamic banking cases from 1983 to 2018 in Malaysia were reviewed and analysed to ascertain the application of those statutes of limitations to Islamic banking. Likewise, relevant provisions of the statutes as invoked in the cases were examined to determine possible legislative conflicts between the provisions and the rule of Islamic law in governing the right and limitation of action in Islamic banking cases under the law. The reviewed cases show the extent to which statutes of limitations were invoked in Malaysian courts in determining validity of Islamic banking matters. The limitation provisions so referred to are largely sections 6(1)(a) and 21(1) Limitations Act 1953 and section 19 Limitation Ordinance 1953, which do not conflict with Shariah viewpoint on the matter. This study will prove invaluable to financial institutions and their customers alike in promoting knowledge and creating awareness over actionable event in the course of their transactions.


Author(s):  
Deep K. Datta-Ray

The history of Indian diplomacy conceptualises diplomacy racially—as invented by the West—and restrictively—to offence. This is ‘analytic-violence’ and it explains the berating of Indians for mimicking diplomacy incorrectly or unthinkingly, and the deleting, dismissing, or denigrating, of diplomatic practices contradicting history’s conception. To relieve history from these offences, a new method is presented, ‘Producer-Centred Research’ (PCR). Initiating with abduction, an insight into a problem—in this case Indian diplomacy’s compromised historicisation—PCR solves it by converting history’s racist rationality into ‘rationalities’. The plurality renders rationality one of many, permitting PCR’s searching for rationalities not as a function of rationality but robust practices explicable in producer’s terms. Doing so is exegesis. It reveals India’s nuclear diplomacy as unique, for being organised by defence, not offence. Moreover, offence’s premise of security as exceeding opponent’s hostility renders it chimerical for such a security is, paradoxically, reliant on expanding arsenals. Additionally, doing so is a response to opponents. This fragments sovereignty and abdicates control for one is dependent on opponent’s choices. Defence, however, does not instigate opponents and so really delivers security by minimising arsenals since offence is eschewed. Doing so is not a response to opponents and so maintains sovereignty and retains control by denying others the right to offense. The cost of defence is courage, for instance, choosing to live in the shadow of nuclear annihilation. Exegesis discloses Balakot as a shift from defence to offence, so to relieve the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) leadership of having to be courageous. The intensity of the intention to discard courage is apparent in the price the BJP paid. This included equating India with Pakistan, permitting it to escalate the conflict, and so imperiling all humanity in a manner beyond history.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Warren ◽  
Edward Frongillo ◽  
Shana Alford ◽  
Erin McDonald ◽  
Jessica Escobar-Alegria

Abstract Objectives The objective of this study was to understand needs among seniors for food and food assistance and to develop a comprehensive taxonomy for these needs. Methods A total of 147 seniors were purposively sampled from 12 food-assistance programs in 9 states. Of the 12 programs, 10 provided unprepared foods and 2 provided pre-cooked meals. Data were semi-structured qualitative interviews. Coding and analysis of transcripts followed an inductive qualitative analysis approach. A series of thematic summaries were prepared to reflect the content of the interviews for discussion and refinement of the analytic approach. Results An emergent taxonomy comprised 3 categories consisting of abilities and ranges or variants of those abilities. The category of physical ability consists of physical strength, the ability to prepare food, the ability to walk or stand, and health status. These relate to an individual's functional abilities to live and act independently and may be considered pre-conditions for program uptake and benefit distinct from dietary and food security-related needs and limitations. The category of consuming food consists of preferences, accessibility, affordability, and dietary needs. This category highlights the relationship between economic constraints and dietary needs that often necessitates meaningful tradeoffs in consuming the right foods for their health. The category of access and use of transportation consists of own means, friends or family, and public or private services. This category highlights challenges in accessing programs and provides insight into seniors’ experiences of poverty, declining functional abilities, social networks and connectedness, geography, and public services. Conclusions The process used to develop the taxonomy and the taxonomy itself provide an exemplar for implementation research when the nature of need is complex and programs integrated across sectors are required to address the need. The taxonomy provides structure to facilitate the identification of key factors in program engagement—and insight into the economic and social environments in which they occur—that translate into needs relevant to the design, targeting, and uptake of food assistance in a diverse population of seniors. Funding Sources Enterprise Rent-a-Car Foundation.


2020 ◽  
pp. 108705472096456
Author(s):  
Yue Yang ◽  
Gang Peng ◽  
Hongwu Zeng ◽  
Diangang Fang ◽  
Linlin Zhang ◽  
...  

Objective: The present study aimed to examine the effects of SNAP25 on the integration ability of intrinsic brain functions in children with ADHD, and whether the integration ability was associated with working memory (WM). Methods: A sliding time window method was used to calculate the spatial and temporal concordance among five rs-fMRI regional indices in 55 children with ADHD and 20 healthy controls. Results: The SNAP25 exhibited significant interaction effects with ADHD diagnosis on the voxel-wise concordance in the right posterior central gyrus, fusiform gyrus and lingual gyrus. Specifically, for children with ADHD, G-carriers showed increased voxel-wise concordance in comparison to TT homozygotes in the right precentral gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, postcentral gyrus, and middle frontal gyrus. The voxel-wise concordance was also found to be related to WM. Conclusion: Our findings provided a new insight into the neural mechanisms of the brain function of ADHD children.


Author(s):  
I. Mytrofanov

The article states that today the issues of the role (purpose) of criminal law, the structure of criminal law knowledge remain debatable. And at this time, questions arise: whose interests are protected by criminal law, is it able to ensure social justice, including the proportionality of the responsibility of the individual and the state for criminally illegal actions? The purpose of the article is to comprehend the problems of criminal law knowledge about the phenomena that shape the purpose of criminal law as a fair regulator of public relations, aimed primarily at restoring social justice for the victim, suspect (accused), society and the state, the proportionality of punishment and states for criminally illegal acts. The concepts of “crime” and “punishment” are discussed in science. As a result, there is no increase in knowledge, but an increase in its volume due to new definitions of existing criminal law phenomena. It is stated that the science of criminal law has not been able to explain the need for the concept of criminal law, as the role and name of this area is leveled to the framework terminology, which currently contains the categories of crime and punishment. Sometimes it is not even unreasonable to think that criminal law as an independent and meaningful concept does not exist or has not yet appeared. There was a custom to characterize this right as something derived from the main and most important branches of law, the criminal law of the rules of subsidiary and ancillary nature. Scholars do not consider criminal law, for example, as the right to self-defense. Although the right to self-defense is paramount and must first be guaranteed to a person who is almost always left alone with the offender, it is the least represented in law, developed in practice and available to criminal law subjects. Today, for example, there are no clear rules for the necessary protection of property rights or human freedoms. It is concluded that the science of criminal law should develop knowledge that will reveal not only the content of the subject of this branch of law, but will focus it on new properties to determine the illegality of acts and their consequences, exclude the possibility of using its means by legal entities against each other.


Author(s):  
Shaughnelene Smith

The goal of this project was to investigate the genetic heritability of hippocampal volume using twin pairs and assess the neuroanatomical structures of the hippocampus and how these properties relate to memory in humans. Data for this project was obtained from the Human Connectome Project: a data bank established to provide neural images to the public. MRI scans were used to obtain brain images of each of the participants and basic cognitive tasks were used to obtain memory ability. To date, 506 subjects have been analyzed: 66 monozygotic twin pairs, 44 dizygotic twin pairs, and 47 sibling pairs. The data collection for of this project was three-fold. First, segmentations were performed to calculate the volume of the anterior and posterior regions of the hippocampus. Secondly, the magnitudes of hippocampus dentations were recorded within the three segments – the head, body, and tail – of the hippocampus. Lastly, visual inspection was used to asses incomplete inversions, which was defined as an atypical anatomical pattern in the hippocampus. The results of this project showed a strong heritability observed on the right anterior hippocampus (hb2=1.365) and right amygdala (hb2=1.315), moderate heritability observed on the left posterior hippocampus (hb2=0.765), and weak heritability observed on the right posterior hippocampus (hb2=0.2654). This indicates that hippocampal volumetric heritability showed strong genetic control for the right hemisphere and strong environmental control for the left hemisphere. The project is still in the process of correlating the anatomical structures to the memory capabilities of the participants. 


Author(s):  
Rachel L. Klima ◽  
Noah E. Petro

Water and/or hydroxyl detected remotely on the lunar surface originates from several sources: (i) comets and other exogenous debris; (ii) solar-wind implantation; (iii) the lunar interior. While each of these sources is interesting in its own right, distinguishing among them is critical for testing hypotheses for the origin and evolution of the Moon and our Solar System. Existing spacecraft observations are not of high enough spectral resolution to uniquely characterize the bonding energies of the hydroxyl molecules that have been detected. Nevertheless, the spatial distribution and associations of H, OH − or H 2 O with specific lunar lithologies provide some insight into the origin of lunar hydrous materials. The global distribution of OH − /H 2 O as detected using infrared spectroscopic measurements from orbit is here examined, with particular focus on regional geological features that exhibit OH − /H 2 O absorption band strengths that differ from their immediate surroundings. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The origin, history and role of water in the evolution of the inner Solar System’.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document