Neither “Celtic” nor “Dacian”: The Site of Židovar at the Edges of La Tène, Carpathian and Roman Worlds

The paper reviews long-standing interpretation of the late Iron Age site of Židovar as “Celtic”, “Dacian” and “Celto-Dacian”. Arguing that this standpoint is derived from biased culture-historical ethno-determinism, the evidence is reconsidered from excavation journals of Branko Gavela and published research on Židovar. Evidential basis is discussed, such as sratigraphic difficulties and chronology, as well as some common misconceptions of the site’s characteristics. Deadlocks are emphasized regarding the conclusions on its ethnic belonging. The paper calls for a new approach that goes beyond ethno-cultural determinism and urges the employment of “relational locality”. This perspective considers the site and its immediate surroundings as the first order community, i.e. the spatio-social focal point entangled in diverse, multidirectional and supra-regional relational networks. This would mean that the community of Židovar actively mediated different templates coming from the “globalized” koines of La Tène Pannonian, Danubian-Carpathian and Roman worlds, and bricolaged them in distinctive local ways.

Liable for Unlawful Assembly and Riot by Virtue of Liking or Comment on Social Media Platforms?

In Secretary of Justice v Tong Wai Hung [2021] HKCA 404, the Hong Kong Court of Appeal affirmed that the doctrine of joint enterprise, as a matter of statutory construction, is applicable onwards to the offences of unlawful assembly and riot under the Public Order Ordinance (Cap. 245), and physical presence at the crime scene is not a pre-requisite to establish liability. The Court argued that such an interpretation strikes a balance between public order concerns and the need to avoid the risk of over-charging. This note contends that the Court of Appeal’s decision will risk exposing numerous citizens, who can hardly be said to share culpability comparable to that of the actual and principal perpetrators of unlawful and riotous assemblies, to prosecution and conviction on questionable legal and evidential basis.

Follow *the* science? On the marginal role of the social sciences in the COVID-19 pandemic

In this paper, we use the case of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe to address the question of what kind of knowledge we should incorporate into public health policy. We show that policy-making during the COVID-19 pandemic has been biomedicine-centric in that its evidential basis marginalised input from non-biomedical disciplines. We then argue that in particular the social sciences could contribute essential expertise and evidence to public health policy in times of biomedical emergencies and that we should thus strive for a tighter integration of the social sciences in future evidence-based policy-making. This demand faces challenges on different levels, which we identify and discuss as potential inhibitors for a more pluralistic evidential basis.

De-Biasing Legal Factfinders

This chapter examines the psychological studies of biases and de-biasing measures in human decision-making with special reference to adjudicative factfinding. Research shows that factfinders are prone to cognitive biases (such as anchoring, framing, base-rate neglect, and confirmation bias) as well as social biases. Driven by this research, multiple studies have examined the extent to which those biases can be mitigated by de-biasing measures like “consider the opposite” and “give reasons.” After a brief overview of the research, the author points to the problematic evidential basis and identifies future research needs, and concludes that empirical research on de-biasing measures has so far delivered less than one would hope for.

Everything is Self-Evident

Plausible probabilistic accounts of evidential support entail that every true proposition is evidence for itself. This paper defends this surprising principle against a series of recent objections from Jessica Brown. Specifically, the paper argues that: (i) explanationist accounts of evidential support convergently entail that every true proposition is self-evident, and (ii) it is often felicitous to cite a true proposition as evidence for itself, just not under that description. The paper also develops an objection involving the apparent impossibility of believing P on the evidential basis of P itself, but gives a reason not to be too worried about this objection. Establishing that every true proposition is self-evident saves probabilistic accounts of evidential support from absurdity, paves the way for a non-sceptical infallibilist theory of knowledge and has distinctive practical consequences.

Extended therapy and secondary prevention of venous thromboembolic complications

Venous thromboembolic complications (VTEC) are acute and time-limited diseases. However, the recurrence rate after a first episode of VTEC is high and potentially life-threatening. Developed deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and thromboembolism of pulmonary artery (TEPA) are inevitably associated with use of anticoagulant therapy (ACT). A peculiarity of the modern clinical management of patients with VTEC is determination of duration of ACT. Aim. To study possibilities of prolonged anticoagulation therapy and secondary prevention of venous thromboembolic complications taking into consideration modern variants of drug therapy, on the basis of literature data. Search for literature was conducted in Medline and Elibrary databases including materials published in 2020. Randomized clinical and observational studies and meta-analyses, concerning prolonged therapy and secondary prevention of VTEC with vitamin K antagonists (VKA), peroral anticoagulants (POAC), sulodexide and aspirin, were analyzed. As it is evidenced by patho-physiological and epidemiological data, risk of VTEC recurrence in most patients is not resolved after the first 6 months of treatment with anticoagulants. In such situations it is reasonable to prolong anticoagulation for an indefinite period of time. However, sometimes a limiting factor for prolonged therapy with anticoagulants is bleedings caused by prolonged anticoagulation, sometimes leading to lethal outcome. Therefore, duration of treatment in the long-term period after an acute episode may rest on the balance between the risk of development of recurrence of venous thrombosis and bleeding, evaluated with the help of scales. The main achievement of recent years regarding prolonged therapy and secondary prevention of VTEC, are POAC, which in fact are new and alternative drugs that permitted the emergence of serious evidential basis in the range of means for treatment of this category of patients, sulodexide drug has appeared characterized by the minimal rate of development of large and clinically significant bleedings. Conclusion. The emergence of serious evidential basis for POAC with improved safety profiles, different pharmacokinetic profiles and dosage regimens, including sulodexide that has been actively used in recent years for secondary prevention of VTEC, will permit clinicians to differentially approach treatment of different clinical variants of venous thrombosis, to improve the results of therapy taking into account evaluation of the individual risk and comorbid diseases, and compliance of patients.

Dynamic Assessment and second language development

This timeline is concerned with Dynamic Assessment (henceforth, DA) as it has been taken up and elaborated in contexts involving the teaching, learning, and assessment of learners of second languages (L2s). DA is distinguished by its insistence that an individual's independent performance of assessment tasks reveals only part of his/her abilities, namely those that have completed their development at the time of the assessment; insights into abilities that have begun to emerge but have not yet fully developed can be determined according to an individual's responsiveness to particular kinds of support, referred to as mediation (e.g., reminders, leading questions, hints, provision of a model, feedback), offered during the assessment as difficulties arise (Haywood & Lidz, 2006). In this respect, DA differs from more conventional distinctions in assessment, such as that between assessments concerned with the results of previous learning (‘summative assessment’) and those intended to provide information relevant to subsequent instruction (‘formative assessment’). Instead, the embedding of an interactive, instructional element within the assessment procedure allows for the possibility of expanding the evidential basis upon which summative interpretations of learner abilities are made; that is, the results encompass previous learning that has resulted in both complete and partial understanding of relevant concepts. At the same time, DA serves a formative function in so far as interaction allows insights into the underlying sources of learner difficulties and the kind of support to which they are most responsive (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002).

Confirmation bias without rhyme or reason

Having a confirmation bias sometimes leads us to hold inaccurate beliefs. So, the puzzle goes: why do we have it? According to the influential argumentative theory of reasoning, confirmation bias emerges because the primary function of reason is not to form accurate beliefs, but to convince others that we’re right. A crucial prediction of the theory, then, is that confirmation bias should be found only in the reasoning domain. In this article, we argue that there is evidence that confirmation bias does exist outside the reasoning domain. This undermines the main evidential basis for the argumentative theory of reasoning. In presenting the relevant evidence, we explore why having such confirmation bias may not be maladaptive.

Predicting Serial Position Effects1

Chapter four provides details of a meta-analysis conducted into serial position effects. The meta-analysis also identified whether there are any significant differences in the proportion of bias under different analytical conditions between belief adjustment conducted in an intelligence scenario and belief adjustment conducted in non-intelligence scenarios. The chapter argues that there is no compelling evidential basis to suggest that serial position effects or confirmation bias affect intelligence analysis differently from non-intelligence analysis. It will show that the analytical conditions of volume of information, reliance on recall, accountability and type of information likely have an impact on serial position effects. The results undermine key assumptions in predominant predictions models. This includes the belief-adjustment model for serial position effects (Hogarth and Einhorn 1992).