Religious Freedom in Global Context

This article examines the concept of universalism as it relates to the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion (FoRB). To this end it explores the extent to which the refinement of the jurisprudence surrounding FoRB in Western Liberal democracies may threaten the conceptualisation of religious freedom as a universal right, when compared to the understanding of the concept outside Western contexts. Having identified a gap between Western and other contexts, it questions whether FoRB can still be considered, aspirationally at least, as a universal fundamental right. It considers whether the more recent international religious freedom accords stemming from the Muslim world provide the tools to bolster a core understanding of FoRB such that its claim to universalism might be supported on an ongoing basis

Valence Effects in Reasoning About Evaluative Traits

Reasoning about evaluative traits was investigated among a group of 7- and 8-year-olds (N = 34), a group of 11- to 13-year olds (N = 25), and a group of adults (N = 23) to determine whether their inferences would be sensitive to the valence of social and academic traits. Four aspects of trait-relevant beliefs were examined: (1) malleability, (2) stability over time, (3) origin in terms of nature versus nurture, and (4) an inference criterion that concerns how readily traits are inferred. Although there was evidence of an age-related decrease in the tendency to emphasize positive information, participants of all ages responded that positive traits are less malleable and more stable over time than negative traits, that the positive influences of biological and environmental factors are likely to override the negative influences, and that competence can be more readily inferred from positive outcomes than from negative outcomes

The Law and Religion Cases Catchwords List

This ‘Law and Religion Cases Catchwords List’ sets out a list of the catchwords, in alphabetical order according to subject matter, of law and religion cases from the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion between 2012-2018

The Interrelationship between Freedom of Thought Conscience and Religion and The Rule of Law

This article explores the connection between the rule of law and the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion (FTCR) from an empirical and theoretical perspective. It posits that the two are not merely interdependent, but that FTCR is foundational for embedding the rule of law. To support this thesis, the article first identifies a conundrum facing states seeking to embed FTCR as a constitutional right. This is that FTCR requires the maximization of an individual’s freedom to follow one’s own ethical framework. At the same time, a state will want to build common consensus to encourage compliance with societies’ core norms. It further posits that a state needs to facilitate FTCR to encourage the exploration of virtue to inform consensus around societies’ common norms. This virtue building role of FTCR gives it its foundational role for embedding the rule of law. This is based on Martin Krygier’s analysis of the sociological conditions necessary to embed the rule of law. Krygier argues that any given society needs to have accepted the norms which lay the ground for more than mere isomorphic mimicry in rule of law implementation. Having explored the theoretical links between FTCR and the rule of law, the article moves on to explore whether the foundational nature of FTCR for the rule of law is born out in practice. A comparison is undertaken of the worldwide rule of law, religious freedom and happiness indexes. The conclusion is that the data demonstrates a strong but not exhaustive correlation. This leads to an intermediate conclusion that global rule of law measures ought to include a weighted measure of religious freedom in any given state. A key problem identified in the theoretical and empirical analysis is that current approaches to FTCR and the rule of law carry a Western bias with an individualistic approach which potentially and ultimately undermines of the rule of law. To address this, the article then explores an expanded theory to support FTCR to bolster its acceptance as universal right. The theory of common grace is proposed, together with Rowan Williams’ other-regarding, communal approach to rights. This is then situated in the framework for plural living together proposed by Herman Dooyeweerd. This article proposes that Dooyeweerd’s Christian theological approach could be adapted with a plural metanarrative to accommodate dialogue around virtue building and dispute resolution within societies with very different outlooks. This approach would potentially support a universal approach supporting the interconnection between FTCR and the rule of law

Performance test of QU-fitting in cosmic magnetism study

QU-fitting is a standard model-fitting method to reconstruct distribution of magnetic fields and polarized intensity along a line of sight (LOS) from an observed polarization spectrum. In this paper, we examine the performance of QU-fitting by simulating observations of two polarized sources located along the same LOS, varying the widths of the sources and the gap between them in Faraday depth space, systematically. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach is used to obtain the best-fit parameters for a fitting model, and Akaike and Bayesian Information Criteria (AIC and BIC, respectively) are adopted to select the best model from four fitting models. We find that the combination of MCMC and AIC/BIC works fairly well in model selection and estimation of model parameters in the cases where two sources have relatively small widths and a larger gap in Faraday depth space. On the other hand, when two sources have large width in Faraday depth space, MCMC chain tends to be trapped in a local maximum so that AIC/BIC cannot select a correct model. We discuss the causes and the tendency of the failure of QU-fitting and suggest a way to improve it.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, submitted to MNRA

Repurposing metformin for cancer treatment: current clinical studies.

In recent years, several studies have presented evidence suggesting a potential role for metformin in anti-cancer therapy. Preclinical studies have demonstrated several anticancer molecular mechanisms of metformin including mTOR inhibition, cytotoxic effects, and immunomodulation. Epidemiologic data have demonstrated decreased cancer incidence and mortality in patients taking metformin. Several clinical trials, focused on evaluation of metformin as an anti-cancer agent are presently underway. Data published from a small number of completed trials has put forth intriguing results. Clinical trials in pre-surgical endometrial cancer patients exhibited a significant decrease in Ki67 with metformin monotherapy. Another interesting observation was made in patients with breast cancer, wherein a trend towards improvement in cancer proliferation markers was noted in patients without insulin resistance. Data on survival outcomes with the use of metformin as an anti-cancer agent is awaited. This manuscript will critically review the role of metformin as a potential cancer treatment