scholarly journals Status prawny zwierząt a ich kategoryzacja biologiczna

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Michał Janowski
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Functions ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Animal Protection ◽  
Linguistic Ability ◽  
Polish Law ◽  
Higher Cognitive Functions

Polish legal regulations protecting animals are inconsistent. The Act of 21 August 1997 on Animal Protection and the Act of 15 January 2015 on the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific or Educational Purposes accord protection to different categories of animals. These regulations should be harmonized due to the underlying values. In addition, the current model of animal protection in Poland requires consideration. Polish regulations protecting animals have not been preceded by a reflection on the special features of some groups of animals. In particular, Polish law does not take account of the fact that some animals have higher cognitive functions, including non-linguistic ability to recognize themselves – awareness of self. The article characterizes the phenomenon of animal self-awareness, which should be relevant in discussions on the legal status of some animals.

scholarly journals Legal Status of the Animal as a Determinant of Its Humanitarian Protection

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-79
Author(s):  
Justyna Goździewicz-Biechońska ◽  
Eliza Jachnik
Keyword(s):  
Animal Welfare ◽  
General Principle ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Domestic Animals ◽  
Animal Protection ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Polish Law ◽  
The Relationship

The article concerns the humanitarian protection of animals in Polish law. It is of a scientific and research nature and its purpose is to define the relationship between the legal status of an animal and the nature and the scope of its humanitarian protection. The legal status of an animal is determined by the Animal Protection Act, through dereification and the general principle of humane treatment of animals. In the light of legal provisions, two basic categories of animals can be distinguished in the context of their humanitarian protection: domestic animals and working animals. The latter are then divided into further subcategories. The scope of humanitarian protection varies depending on belonging to a given category, because legal provisions differently define the scope and degree of obligations regarding animal welfare. However, the premises for classifying a given animal as belonging to one of those types, result not only from the scope of legal acts. The decisive role in this regard has the status that is given by a man, usually determined by the man’s attitude towards the animal and its utility for the man. This attitude is shaped individually in a specific case and is the actual source of the legal status of the animal and consequently its protection.

Organisational aspects of spatial information infrastructure in Poland

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elzbieta Bielecka ◽  
Agnieszka Zwirowicz-Rutkowska
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Information ◽  
Information Infrastructure ◽  
Class Diagram ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Organisational Structure ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
Polish Law

Abstract One of the more important elements of spatial information infrastructure is the organisational structure defining the obligations and dependencies between stakeholders that are responsible for the infrastructure. Many SDI practitioners and theoreticians emphasise that its influence on the success or failure of activities undertaken is significantly greater than that of technical aspects. Being aware of the role of the organisational structure in the creating, operating and maintenance of spatial information infrastructure (SII), Polish legislators placed appropriate regulations in the Spatial Information Infrastructure Act, being the transposition of the INSPIRE Directive into Polish Law. The principal spatial information infrastructure stakeholders are discussed in the article and also the scope of cooperation between them. The tasks and relationships between stakeholders are illustrated in UML, in both the use case and the class diagram. Mentioned also are the main problems and obstructions resulting from imprecise legal regulations.

scholarly journals Embryoid research calls for reassessment of legal regulations

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Hengstschläger ◽  
Margit Rosner
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Embryonic Stem Cells ◽  
Human Embryonic Stem Cells ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Embryonic Stem ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Human Embryos ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractIt is known that in countries, in which basic research on human embryos is in fact prohibited by law, working with imported human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can still be permitted. As long as hESCs are not capable of development into a complete human being, it might be the case that they do not fulfill all criteria of the local definition of an embryo. Recent research demonstrates that hESCs can be developed into entities, called embryoids, which increasingly could come closer to actual human embryos in future. By discussing the Austrian situation, we want to highlight that current embryoid research could affect the prevailing opinion on the legal status of work with hESCs and therefore calls for reassessment of the regulations in all countries with comparable definitions of the embryo.

scholarly journals Legal Status of Minor Testator’s Parents Deprived of Parental Authority in Intestate Succession. Some Remarks on the Solutions in Polish, Russian, and Italian Law

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 107-134
Author(s):  
Hanna Witczak
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Parental Authority ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Italian Law ◽  
Parental Obligations ◽  
Legal Situation ◽  
Polish Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
A Minor

The legal situation of minor testator’s parents in intestate succession poses a significant legal and social problem. In Polish law, parents who have been deprived of parental authority continue to enjoy their civil-law status; in other words, they maintain the right to inherit from their child under statute. Meanwhile, the reasons for which the court applied the strictest possible “sanction” in the form of deprivation of authority of parents who, in exercising their rights under parental authority, seriously violated the child’s interest or grossly neglected parental obligations, which is noticeable even to an ordinary bystander, seem to be sufficient “proof” that family ties, which are decisive for the statutory title to inherit, do not exist. If these ties are severed or seriously disrupted, the consequences should be seen in all areas of life. Simply put, persons who deliberately break apart the family should not enjoy the advantages that the law provides for testator’s closest relatives. In such a case, to consider the effect of deprivation of parental authority by “releasing” its holders from any obligation towards the child may not be considered a sufficient civil sanction, especially given that in the vast majority of cases, the reason for such deprivation is gross neglect of parental duties by one or both parents. The consequences of this type of negligence should also, if not primarily, consist in the deprivation of pecuniary benefits that the parents of a minor could enjoy after his or her death. The current legal solutions governing this area undoubtedly need to be revised. Such imperfect normative solutions adopted in Polish law prove the need to propose de lege ferenda recommendations. In this context, it is worthwhile to have a look at the normative solutions adopted in foreign legal systems and whether they can be grafted on Polish law. The reference to the Russian and Italian legal systems seems particularly recommendable due to the fact that their normative solutions directly allude to the institution of deprivation of parental authority in the context of admissibility of the title to inherit.

scholarly journals Voluntary control of illusory contour formation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J Harrison ◽  
Reuben Rideaux
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Cognitive Functions ◽  
Image Features ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Voluntary Attention ◽  
Visual Appearance ◽  
Visual Form ◽  
Neural Computations ◽  
Novel Variant ◽  
Higher Cognitive Functions

ABSTRACTThe extent to which visual inference is shaped by attentional goals is unclear. Voluntary attention may simply modulate the priority with which information is accessed by higher cognitive functions involved in perceptual decision making. Alternatively, voluntary attention may influence fundamental visual processes, such as those involved in segmenting an incoming retinal signal into a structured scene of coherent objects, thereby determining perceptual organisation. Here we tested whether the segmentation and integration of visual form can be determined by an observer’s goals by exploiting a novel variant of the classical Kanizsa figure. We generated predictions about the influence of attention with a machine classifier, and tested these predictions with a psychophysical response classification technique. Despite seeing the same image on each trial, observers’ perception of illusory spatial structure depended on their attentional goals. These attention-contingent illusory contours directly conflicted with equally plausible visual form implied by the geometry of the stimulus, revealing that attentional selection can determine the perceived layout of a fragmented scene. Attentional goals, therefore, not only select pre-computed features or regions of space for prioritised processing, but, under certain conditions, also greatly influence perceptual organisation and thus visual appearance.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThe extent to which higher cognitive functions can influence perceptual organisation is debated. The role of voluntary spatial attention, the ability to focus on only some parts of a scene, has been particularly controversial among neuroscientists and psychologists who aim to uncover the basic neural computations involved in grouping image features into coherent objects. To address this issue, we repeatedly presented the same novel ambiguous image to observers and changed their attentional goals by having them make fine spatial judgements about only some elements of the image. We found that observers’ attentional goals determine the perceived organisation of multiple illusory shapes. We thus reveal that voluntary spatial attention can control the fundamental processes that determine perceptual organisation.

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