Legal Limits on Religious Conversion in India

In contemporary India, government assessments of the legitimacy of conversions tend to rely on two assumptions: first, that people who convert in groups may not have freely chosen conversion, and second, that certain groups are particularly vulnerable to being lured into changing their religion. These assumptions, which pervade the anticonversion laws as well as related court decisions and government committee reports, reinforce social constructions of women and lower castes as inherently naive and susceptible to manipulation. Here, Jenkins contends to carefully scrutinized the assumptions since like protective laws in many other contexts, such laws restrict freedom in highly personal, individual choices

Does personality effect emotion facial recognition? A comparison between Ekman’s Emotion Hexagon Test and a newly created measure

Recent research has highlighted one possible problem faced when it comes to assessing the recognition of emotion in the human face. Previous research has suggested that the images used in the methods of assessment are becoming too familiar within the psychological research domain. They therefore suggest new ways of creating images to look at facial emotion recognition. To investigate this issue, the current study created a new emotion recognition task (Laura’s Emotion Hexagon Task) and compared this to the older Ekman’s Emotion Hexagon Test. 60 participants completed both tasks along with the IPIP-NEO. This measure looked at whether personality could predict the scores for the two facial emotion recognition tasks. Results showed that the agreeableness and extraversion personality were significant predictors of Laura’s Emotion Hexagon Task. Discussions of the findings are in relation to previous research about methodological issues surrounding facial emotion recognition, and results are discussed in relation to previous findings of how personality can effect facial emotion recognition

Why do our feelings about politics matter - and do they matter more now?

It is too simplistic to argue that current heated debates about politics, especially in the context of Brexit and Trump, are due to the fact that our emotions about politics matter more now than before. Laura Jenkins argues that our feelings about politics have always mattered. In fact, these recent unexpected political outcomes could prove to be an example of what happens when people's feelings about politics are neglected for too long

Angry faces may capture attention but do they hold it?

The Anger Superiority Effect refers to an individual’s tendency to avoid an angry face after locating it in a crowd situation. Previous literature has used different methodologies, consisting of cartoon like facial images [9] and real life photographs [20] to look at this effect. The aim of the current study was to also look at the Anger Superiority Effect but in a different way to the past research. Researchers aim to use the method of eye tracking [20] to try and provide a new line of evidence towards Anger Superiority. 20 participants (7 male and 13 female) from the area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne were asked to complete a simple emotive face memory task whilst having their eye movements tracked. Researchers wanted to find out if participants avoided angry faces after locating them, and also if there were any areas of the angry faces themselves that were of particular interest. Results demonstrated that participants did not avoid the angry face after focusing on it, contradicting the previous literature. It was also demonstrated that angry faces were fixated less quickly than other emotions, again not supporting past literature. All results were discussed in relation to the past Anger Superiority studies and improvements in relation to future research were suggested

The detection of smaller changes in visual working memory arrays

The Shared Resource Account of visual working memory defines working memory capacity in terms of a memory resource shared equally between the items in a memory array. This enables an unlimited amount of small details to be remembered within visual working memory, naming this type of memory as qualitative visual working memory. Previous research has suggested that people can store multiple items within qualitative memory, including the storage of precise details, such as the size of a shape or the exact hue (colour) of an object. One question remains from this research, as to how small these changes in visual working memory can be and how the precise nature of visual working memory can be measured when visual elements such as colour are not used. The aim of the current research, therefore, was to produce an updated qualitative visual working memory task, in the hope of reducing working memory errors and to investigate the degree to which people can accurately remember the small, qualitative features, such as the size of a shape in memory. Researchers implemented a qualitative change detection task which asked participants to identify whether a shape size had changed, with size changes ranging from 5% to 25% in size change. Results demonstrated that people could detect size changes of all types, however ceiling effect were presented for the 25% size changes. This has enabled researchers to question whether 25% is really a small change in visual memory or whether this is more of a categorical, quantitative change. Results of the current study were discussed in terms of the Shared Resource Account to qualitative visual working memory and suggestions of future task use were discusse

Creating Calibration Curves using In Situ X-ray Diffraction to Determine the Shock Pressure Experienced by Clinopyroxene

This work extends on two quantitative methods for evaluating shock metamorphism to include clinopyroxene using X-ray diffraction (XRD). Clinopyroxene samples experimentally shocked to known shock pressures were studied with XRD. Lattice strain (ε) and strain-related mosaicity (SRM) were measured for each sample and plotted against their known shock pressures, creating a ε versus shock pressure calibration curve and an SRM versus shock pressure calibration curve. These calibration curves were applied to three meteorites: Nakhla, Zagami, and ALHA 77005. The SRM calibration curve gave peak shock pressures of 12±8 GPa for Nakhla, 44±8 GPa for Zagami, and 68±8 GPa for ALHA 77005. The SRM calibration curve is inaccurate because high SRM values weren’t adequately sampled. The ε calibration curve gave peak shock pressures of 8±12 GPa for Nakhla, 36±12 GPa for Zagami, and 90±12 GPa for ALHA 77005. The ε calibration curve is effective when sufficient amounts of data are used

The Touch of Nature Has Made the Whole World Kin: Interspecies Kin Selection in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

The unequal distribution of legal protections on endangered species has been attributed to the “charisma” and “cuteness” of protected species. However, the theory of kin selection, which predicts the genetic relationship between organisms is proportional to the amount of cooperation between them, offers an evolutionary explanation for this phenomenon. In this thesis, it was hypothesized if the unequal distribution of legal protections on endangered species is a result of kin selection, then the genetic similarity between a species and Homo sapiens is proportional to the legal protections on that species. This hypothesis was tested by analyzing the taxonomic classifications of species protected in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The results of this analysis support the hypothesis, for organisms with greater genetic similarity to Homo sapiens (i.e. Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Primates, and Hominidae species) were afforded more legal protections in CITES than organisms with less genetic similarity to Homo sapiens. These results indicate CITES is not an ecocentric law that recognizes the intrinsic worth of non- Homo sapiens, but an anthropocentric law that recognizes the genetic worth non-Homo sapiens have in increasing the indirect fitness of Homo sapiens. Also, these results suggest kin selection can operate between species as opposed to just within species, which indicates the existence of interspecies kin selection. Finally, the existence of interspecies kin selection suggests kin selection could play a role in interspecies cooperation

Religious Freedom and the Right to Convert: Laws against Forcible or Induced Conversion in India (abstract)

In early 2015 several Hindu nationalist leaders India have called for a national law against forcible or induced conversion. Laws against “forcible conversion” have been proposed and enacted an increasing number of Indian states in recent years. Some laws include higher penalties for conversions of lower castes or women, reinforcing paternalistic assumptions that they lack the agency or ability to determine their own religion. Based on their timing, anti-conversion laws seem to be politically motivated, used to rally the Hindu majority during elections by playing on fears of their declining numbers and potential threats of mass conversions. Both proponents and critics of these laws make religious freedom arguments. India’s 1950 constitution, still in effect today, emerged from heated debates in the Constituent Assembly (1946-1950) about conversion rights and religious freedoms, against the backdrop of the developing Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Despite India’s substantial constitutional protections for religious freedoms and longstanding commitment to religious pluralism, recent UN rapporteurs on religious freedom have critiqued state-level laws restricting conversions and periodic persecution of religious minorities. It may be an easier political project to protect the rights of discrete minority groups (difficult as this sometimes is) than to protect the rights of people to change groups. Scholars have increasingly recognized that religions and religious communities are dynamic rather than static; yet religious rights frameworks seem to prioritize preservation rather than change. Some advocates of religious freedom privilege the maintenance of religious traditions and communities. This emphasis can make conversion a threat to freedom rather than central to freedom

Paradise Lost: The Effect of Judicial Review on Congressional Debate

How does judicial supremacy affect constitutional deliberation in Congress? Normative critics of judicial supremacy argue that judicial supremacy warps congressional debate by disincentivizing members of Congress from independently considering the moral and legal issues at stake in legislation. As this dissertation’s quantitative analysis, topic modeling, and qualitative textual analysis show, the Supreme Court’s decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) disincentivized members of Congress from engaging in independent constitutional interpretation and normative argumentation. Before the Supreme Court’s decision in Sebelius, members of both parties debated the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and used constitutional discourse as scaffolding for normative argumentation. However, as seen in this dissertation’s quantitative analysis, topic modeling, and qualitative textual analysis, Sebelius reduced the quantity of constitutional deliberation over the Commerce Clause and the quality of constitutional deliberation over the Taxing and Spending Clause. Post-Sebelius, most members of Congress expressed their acceptance of Sebelius and used the decision as a justification for character attacks on their political opponents. Finally, Congress’ inability to independently consider the legal issues at stake in the Affordable Care Act shaped the Affordable Care Act’s interpretative effects and undermined Republicans’ long-term policy goal of entrenching the individual responsibility model of health care. This dissertation advances (with empirical evidence) two claims: that constitutional deliberation in Congress is significant for both normative and practical reasons. This dissertation argues that constitutional deliberation in Congress is normatively desirable because constitutional discourse can serve as scaffolding for normative argumentation in congressional debate. This dissertation finds evidence that judicial supremacy warps this normatively desirable debate in Congress and therefore provides empirical support for the normative claims of critics of judicial supremacy that judicial supremacy has negative effects on the United States’ constitutional system. This dissertation also argues that constitutional deliberation in Congress is practically significant because constitutional discourse can affect policy implementation, policy entrenchment, and a policy’s interpretative effects. Constitutional discourse in Congress matters

Children's expressions of pain and bodily sensation in family mealtimes

This study applied conversation analysis for the first time to episodes in which children express pain and bodily sensations in the everyday setting of family mealtimes. It focuses on the components of children s expressions, the character of parents responses, and how the sequence is resolved. Three families who had a child with a long term health condition were recruited through voluntary support groups and agreed to film 15-17 mealtimes. In total 47 mealtimes were recorded totalling 23 hours of data. Each family had two children aged 15 months to nine years and included a heterosexual married couple. This data was supplemented by archives in the Discourse and Rhetoric Group: a further nine hours of mealtime recordings by two families each with two children aged three to seven years. The analysis describes four key components of children s expressions of bodily sensation and pain: lexical formulations; prosodic features; pain cries and embodied actions, revealing the way in which they can be built together to display different aspects of the experience. The results highlight the nature of these expressions as initiating actions designed in and for interaction. An examination of the sequence that follows demonstrates the negotiated character of pain. Descriptions of the nature of the child s pain and its authenticity are produced, amended, resisted or accepted in the turns that follow. During these sequences participant orientations reveal the pervasive relevance of eating related tasks that characterises mealtime interaction. The discussion concludes by describing the unique insights into the negotiated rather than private nature of a child s pain demonstrated by this study, and the way in which pain can be understood as produced and dealt with as part of the colourful tapestry of everyday family life in which everyday tasks are achieved, knowledge and authority is claimed and participants are positioned in terms of their relationship to one another