Regulatory roles and functions in information-based regulation: a systematic review

Information-based regulation occurs when regulators use information to drive changes in behaviours in order to achieve public policy objectives. Information-based regulation has emerged as an alternative way to regulate firms compared with more traditional direct command-and-control and market-based policy instruments within the contemporary regulatory state. Despite growing international interest, challenges remain in understanding the roles for regulators in information-based regulation, the functions of regulators in shaping and leveraging information flows, and the administrative capacities required to fulfil them. Based on a systematic review methodology, this article synthesises the findings of 130 peer-reviewed articles in the environmental, energy and food policy areas. It develops a typology of functions for regulators and outlines the new administrative capacities required in the contemporary regulatory state, particularly in standard setting, assurance and intermediation, and smart data management. Points for practitioners: Regulation by information is becoming popular in many part of the world beyond its original genesis in the US and other developed countries. The design and implementation of such schemes creates new challenges for regulators. Our review integrates relevant research in three policy areas (environment, food and energy) and develops a new typology of functions performed by regulators. The article is the first to discuss how the roles and functions of regulators need to change in the contemporary information and regulatory environment. It also emphasises the importance of regulatory involvement in information-based regulation, which has traditionally been seen as a deregulatory approach

Benefits and risks of psychiatric actions and the patientʼs right of self-determination

The history of psychiatry shows that a right of self-determination of the mentally ill was widely unknown in the nineteenth century and became known in medicine through the juridical concept of informed consent as late as in the second half of the twentieth century. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century this human right has been increasingly recognized and respected in medical practice. This change of recognition is contributing to a change from a paternalistic to a participative medical attitude. In the context of an emancipatory development of society the increasing possibilities of effective therapies, which are rarely without risks, stimulate the necessity to inform the patient about the intended benefits and the potential risks of the recommended intervention. This gives the patient the opportunity to exercise the right of self-determination. Furthermore, by the transition from very successful acute medicine, although often with only short-term contact between physician and patient to long-term therapies of chronic diseases, the possibilities to understand the patient are increased, particularly in the mentally ill patient. This also enables the individual characteristics to be recognized better, both the restrictions and capabilities, to experience the patient as an individual, as a human being with individual peculiarities and to respect the right of self-determination by helping the patient to understand the benefits and risks of a recommended intervention and to balance them in a self-determined mode.Die Geschichte der Psychiatrie zeigt, dass ein Selbstbestimmungsrecht des psychisch Kranken im 19. Jahrhundert weitgehend unbekannt war, erst spät in der 2. Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts mit dem rechtlichen Konzept der Einwilligung nach Aufklärung, dem „informed consent“, in der Medizin bekannt wurde und seit Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts in der medizinischen Praxis zunehmend wahrgenommen und respektiert wird; diese Wahrnehmungsänderung trägt zu einem Wandel von einer paternalistischen zu einer partizipativen ärztlichen Einstellung bei. Im Kontext einer emanzipatorischen Entwicklung der Gesellschaft nimmt mit den wachsenden Möglichkeiten wirksamer Therapien, die selten ohne Risiken sind, die Notwendigkeit zu, den Patienten über den intendierten Nutzen und potenzielle Risiken der empfohlenen Intervention zu informieren und ihm damit die Voraussetzung zu schaffen, sein Selbstbestimmungsrecht wahrzunehmen. Zudem wachsen mit dem Übergang von einer sehr erfolgreichen Akutmedizin mit allerdings oft nur kurzem Arzt-Patienten-Kontakt zur Langzeitmedizin chronischer Erkrankungen die Möglichkeiten, den Patienten, insbesondere den psychisch Kranken, seine individuellen Eigenheiten, seine Einschränkungen und Fähigkeiten besser wahrzunehmen, ihn als Individuum, als Menschen in seiner jeweiligen Eigenart zu erleben und sein Selbstbestimmungsrecht zu respektieren, indem wir ihm dabei helfen, Nutzen und Risiken einer empfohlenen Intervention zu verstehen und selbstbestimmt abzuwägen

A New Boson with a Mass of 125 GeV Observed with the CMS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

The Higgs boson was postulated nearly five decades ago within the framework of the standard model of particle physics and has been the subject of numerous searches at accelerators around the world. Its discovery would verify the existence of a complex scalar field thought to give mass to three of the carriers of the electroweak force-the W+, W-, and Z 0 bosons-as well as to the fundamental quarks and leptons. The CMS Collaboration has observed, with a statistical significance of five standard deviations, a new particle produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The evidence is strongest in the diphoton and four-lepton (electrons and/or muons) final states, which provide the best mass resolution in the CMS detector. The probability of the observed signal being due to a random fluctuation of the background is about 1 in 3 x 106. The new particle is a boson with spin not equal to 1 and has a mass of about 1.25 giga-electron volts. Although its measured properties are, within the uncertainties of the present data, consistent with those expected of the Higgs boson, more data are needed to elucidate the precise nature of the new particle