Aharon Barak’s Concept of Human Dignity and the Notion of Dignity in Jurisprudence of Polish Constitutional Court

Israeli scholar and judge, Aharon Barak rejects the position that dignity is an axiomatic, universal concept. Moreover, he is in favor of “spacious” understanding of the right to dignity, making it a vast and broad category. The aim of the paper is to examine whether the concept of dignity presented by Barak is useful to understand the approach to human dignity as a legal concept in those Central European legal systems which have been influenced by German constitutional theory. In that regard the jurisprudence of Polish Constitutional Court is examined. The author is not fully convinced by Barak’s approach to dignity. The conclusion is drawn, however, that Barak is right when claiming that the status of an absolute right granted to the right to dignity means also that its scope is defined in a restrictive way.

Extracellular miRNA biomarkers in neurologic disease: is cerebrospinal fluid helpful?

Aim: The aim of our work is to aggregate data from publications of cerebrospinal fluid extracellular miRNA to identify candidate diagnostic biomarkers, and those warranting further study. Materials & methods: Data were pooled from nine studies, encompassing 864 patients across 16 diseases. Unsupervised clustering grouped patients by a broad category of diseases. Results & conclusion: Compared with healthy controls, in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, hsa-miR-767-5p was overexpressed (p < 0.001) and in patients with Huntington’s disease, hsa-miR-361-3p was underexpressed (p < 10-4). We also define a subset of extracellular miRNA as candidate biomarkers that are robustly detected across patients, studies and diseases; thereby, warranting further study.

Rethinking singing on screen: the case for contemporary American ‘screensong’ across the film musical, music television and the music video

The last 20 years have seen extensive scholarship on changing audiovisual aesthetics and the blurring boundaries between all screen media. This article draws on this scholarship and engages with critical debates around the musical genre to examine contemporary song-based screen media. While song and singing have a long history across film, television and video, the digital convergence era has engendered new types of song performance and song-based screen formats. To understand the complex connections and exchanges between different forms of singing on screen, this article develops a new evaluative and conceptual framework. I propose the term screensong to refer to audiovisual representations of singing performance across screen-based media. This article understands screensong as both a broad category of song-based screen texts, genres and formats and as a particular type of song-driven, highly commodified, audiovisual and narrative unit – the screensong – prevalent in contemporary American popular screen media.

Clinical Situations in Which the Diagnosis of Autism is Debatable: An Analysis and Recommendations

The “autism spectrum disorder” (ASD) construct and its current diagnostic criteria have led to the inclusion of increasingly heterogeneous and decreasingly atypical individuals under its definition. This broad category, based on the polymorphic clinical expression of common genetic variants underpinning the risk of autism, is likely beneficial for certain individuals. However, determining the boundaries between ASD and typical individuals, as well as those with other neurodevelopmental conditions, remains an issue of which the importance is growing with the increase in ASD prevalence. We identified four clinical contexts associated with a questionable, poorly justified, or unhelpful ASD diagnosis: (1) those in which diagnostic instruments raise uncertainties, (2) in the context of a subclinical presentation, (3) when early autistic signs tend to fade away during development, and (4) when comorbidities are prominent. We argue that in certain cases, a diagnosis of ASD may not be the most suitable, timely, or helpful medical act and provide recommendations for clinical practice when facing such situations.

The Road Less Travelled: Using Administrative Data To Understand Inequalities By Sexual Orientation

Understanding the processes contributing to equality of opportunity and outcomes in contemporary societies is at the core of the discipline of sociology. This paper illustrates the value of administrative data to underpin research aimed at identifying, monitoring, and addressing socio-economic disparities between population groups. To accomplish this, I draw on three case studies of recent empirical research leveraging administrative data to examine processes contributing to the (re)production of inequalities by sexual orientation. Collectively, the three case studies exemplify how data sources that fall within the broad category of ‘administrative data’ can help social researchers generate new, policy-relevant knowledge on socio-economic inequalities, as well as robust information to contextualize public and legislative debate. The paper concludes with a discussion of the promises and challenges of using administrative data to understand inequalities by sexual orientation, as well as inequalities between other minority and majority groups.

“Toward a Shamanic Daily Life”

This article contributes to the discussion on reactions and responses to the coronavirus pandemic in Japan, with specific reference to the field of “new spirituality” and, within this broad category, of shamanic spirituality. The case of the dance therapist, or “dance movement shaman,” Ms. Hiroda demonstrates how she managed to keep in contact with her practitioners and to design new ways to help them cope with the situation. The solution she offers, in line with the characteristics of shamanic spirituality, is to help each individual to acknowledge the importance of interconnectedness. In particular, Ms. Hiroda emphasizes body, community, and nature: to become aware of one’s own body again and of the necessity of connection with others and nature, especially in times of interpersonal distancing and crisis. Her response to the first wave of COVID-19 is thus to offer a strategy to live peacefully with—and despite—the virus.

Further Objections

Chapter 2 discusses objections to the definition of terrorism from Chapter 1 that criticize it for being either too narrow or too broad. The narrowness criticisms object that (a) there are terrorist acts that target combatants, (b) there are terrorist acts that do not involve a political motive, such as certain criminal or religious acts, and (c) some non-intentional violence afflicting non-combatants should be encompassed by the definition. The “too broad” category of objections argues that (a) the tactical definition should include an ingredient of intentionally provoking fear, (b) the definition’s encompassing terrorist acts by states is mistaken, (c) including non-combatant property in the definition is mistaken, and (d) this approach simply defines terrorist acts as murder and loses what is distinctive of such acts. These objections are criticized and rejected for the most part, though some elicit concessional comments about their possible ancillary benefits in relation to the preferred tactical definition.

Locating Creativity in Differing Approaches to Musical Robotics

The field of musical robotics presents an interesting case study of the intersection between creativity and robotics. While the potential for machines to express creativity represents an important issue in the field of robotics and AI, this subject is especially relevant in the case of machines that replicate human activities that are traditionally associated with creativity, such as music making. There are several different approaches that fall under the broad category of musical robotics, and creativity is expressed differently based on the design and goals of each approach. By exploring elements of anthropomorphic form, capacity for sonic nuance, control, and musical output, this article evaluates the locus of creativity in six of the most prominent approaches to musical robots, including: 1) nonspecialized anthropomorphic robots that can play musical instruments, 2) specialized anthropomorphic robots that model the physical actions of human musicians, 3) semi-anthropomorphic robotic musicians, 4) non-anthropomorphic robotic instruments, 5) cooperative musical robots, and 6) individual actuators used for their own sound production capabilities.

Five Functions, and Two Kinds, of Mens Rea

This chapter sketches how mens rea serves at least five different functions, which can be grouped into two broad categories. Within the first category, it helps to establish that the defendant’s offence was an instance of culpable wrongdoing. It does this in three different ways. First, and most obviously, it contributes to findings of culpability. Secondly, it can help to identify what kind of action a person is performing: in these cases, the finding of mens rea is integral to the moral wrongness of the action for which a person is being held responsible. Thirdly, mens rea affects the availability of justifications. Whether a person’s pro tanto wrong was, all things considered, wrongful—unjustified—and an instance of wrongdoing—depends on the reasons why they did it. The other broad category concerns the principle of legitimate enactment. Mens rea has important roles to play in articulating, and notifying, the limits of citizens’ freedom. More specifically, a fourth function of mens rea is to secure fair warning to defendants, ensuring they have sufficient advance notice that, by their conduct, they risk violating the criminal law. Finally, mens rea plays a key mediating role in criminalization, being part of the trade-off between the protection of potential victims and the preservation of liberties for potential defendants.