Rights, Performatives, and Promises in Karl Olivecrona’s Legal Theory

Karl Olivecrona (1971) maintains that right is a hollow word, and so also for some other legal terms. Right, he says, has no conceptual background. He arrives at this position after an examination of metaphysical and naturalistic accounts, including American legal realism. Some of Olivecrona\u27s arguments will be evaluated here. His position is influenced by Hagerstrom\u27s theory of legal language, but he argues that Hagerstrom fails to account for how such terms as right, duty, etc. function in legal discourse and why they are useful. A parallel approach is also found in Olivecrona\u27s book The Problem of the Monetary Unit (1957). Olivecrona is left with the problem of how such hollow terms function. His explanation is largely psychological. Going beyond J. L. Austin\u27s notion of performatory language, he introduces the idea of performatory imperatives. I propose to submit Olivecrona\u27s approach to a critical examination. It is suggested that had he started from everyday, nonlegal promises and commitments he might well have ended up with a different theory of legal language

Cues from neuroepithelium and surface ectoderm maintain neural crest-free regions within cranial mesenchyme of the developing chick

Within the developing vertebrate head, neural crest cells (NCCs) migrate from the dorsal surface of the hindbrain into the mesenchyme adjacent to rhombomeres (r)1 plus r2, r4 and r6 in three segregated streams. NCCs do not enter the intervening mesenchyme adjacent to r3 or r5, suggesting that these regions contain a NCC-repulsive activity. We have used surgical manipulations in the chick to demonstrate that r3 neuroepithelium and its overlying surface ectoderm independently help maintain the NCC-free zone within r3 mesenchyme. In the absence of r3, subpopulations of NCCs enter r3 mesenchyme in a dorsolateral stream and an ectopic cranial nerve forms between the trigeminal and facial ganglia. The NCC-repulsive activity dissipates/degrades within 5-10 hours of r3 removal. Initially, r4 NCCs more readily enter the altered mesenchyme than r2 NCCs, irrespective of their maturational stage. Following surface ectoderm removal, mainly r4 NCCs enter r3 mesenchyme within 5 hours, but after 20 hours the proportions of r2 NCCs and r4 NCCs ectopically within r3 mesenchyme appear similar

Ethical and Value Issues in Population Limitation and Distribution in the United States

Any discussion of the ethical issues in population limitation and redistribution must begin by focusing upon the definition of the problem, because how one views the problem, and its urgency and gravity, inevitably determines whether there is something that ought to be done and what it is that ought to be done. As laymen in many of the areas that are relevant to the population problem, we are forced to rely on the expert knowledge of others. It would be highly salutary if there were a body of received opinion that could be used without hesitation. Unfortunately, on many crucial matters this is not the case. We are put in the uncomfortable position of the patient who must decide what to do when his doctors disagree

Data Loam: The Future of Knowledge Systems

This was a two year collaborative research project funded by the Austrian Research Science Foundation [FWF-PEEK]. Data Loam was designed as a multi-faceted arts-based approach to one of the more intractable and urgent problems facing our contemporary digital environment today: the massive proliferation of data, and with it, a particularly nuanced set of complexities confronting our national libraries, universities, research labs as well non-academic cultural institutions and industry-oriented environments. The urgency of the problem circled around three areas: archiving (what to archive and how), accessibility (how to ensure that knowledges systems would remain, intrinsically, ‘open’ in the face of ever-increasing data) and experimental (enabling creativity, intelligence, curiosity, diversity and risk to remain as fundamental to our way of life). In so doing, Data Loam rejected the entrenched paradigm of indexicality as the only method capable of articulating the ‘how’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ of our contemporary world as the 'internet of things'. This meant rejecting also the entrenched Cold War 'binaric systematizing that tended to promote apocalyptic narratives of technology pitting ‘man’ against ‘machine’, and in so doing, taking as given the end of freedom, rule of law, governance and indeed humanity itself. Instead, Data Loam took as its starting point precisely the unruly materiality of information, with its the massive proliferation, messy logics, oddly cathected derivatives of circulation and exchange, navigational gaming, multi-dimensional visualities, crypto-economies, block-chain equivalences, and complexly sutured arenas of cultural difference. Rather than trying to compartmentalise, frame, cut-down, or force into silos or pockets of information, Data Loam foreground this exponential explosion of Big Data. It did so, first and foremost, by putting art-based research and practice at its core, emphasising the logics of sense, planes of immanence, feedback loops, multi-dimensionality, entanglement, and diffraction. Data Loam was able to reach its main goal: the articulation of how data becomes self-organised and can produce a kind of open self-governance that relies of the mass proliferation of information. On a practical level, this included developing an algorithm that could enable a new lexicographical search and tag organising system. Perhaps most significantly, »Data Loam« answered the question of ‘how’ correlations ‘matter’; that is to say, how correlations generate matter, and in so doing enable heterogeneous and local dimensionalities that ‘in-form’ aesthetic-ethical-political ecosystems. The project was linked with teaching /studio work with the MA students at the University of Applied Arts and the PHD students at the RCA (Entanglement Research Group). It was connected with RIAT (Vienna) and was rolled out in various exhibitions in Berlin, Vienna, Singapore, New Zealand and London. National libraries included: The British Library, the Austrian National Library, The German Federal Archive, the Humboldt University (Institute for Library and information Science), and Tisch School of Arts (NYU)

Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy in Twentieth-Century America - Major Themes and Developments

Adopting the perspective of the traveller, this thesis examines how travel plans are actually made in the everyday situation and how information is used and drawn on when planning the many, often unremarkable, trips of ordinary urban life. Ethnographical field studies in southern Stockholm, Sweden, employing a practice theory perspective showed that people use a vast mixture of different types of information when planning and making trips. Therefore, the concept of travel information should be defined broadly enough to encompass informal, formal, analogue and digital types of travel information. Then, and only then, is it possible to perceive the interactions between these and see their potential as a change factor for sustainable city travel. In relation to this, situations when travel information was not used, were also identified in the qualitative data and are acknowledged and discussed in the thesis. Travel planning is in everyday practice undertaken little by little, squeezed in between other activities of daily life. It is a process more extended in time, space and content than the limited search for information about the best way to get from A to B, assumed and facilitated in many existing travel information services. Travel planning is closely connected to the overall scheduling of activities (planning of life) and thus spans much larger time frames than the single trip. Planning travel also includes consideration of issues such as preparations needed (things to be done before departure/brought on the trip); managing vehicles and equipment in time and space (getting the bicycle/car home again or safely parked); the weather (current and forecast); social relations (the potential of different travel options for relationship building or conflict triggering); social norms (e.g. of 'good parenting' or 'proper behaviour on public transport'); and health issues (wanting exercise or inability to manage stairs/luggage). The qualitative data revealed that travel information is sometimes perceived and used as a security blanket, i.e. something to hold on to and give the traveller courage on the trip until they are safe at their destination. It also showed that travel planning, depending on life situation, can be experienced as either a house of cards, i.e. if anything changes the whole house collapses and has to be rebuilt to a different layout, or a prefab building, i.e. the same prefabricated pieces are joined together in more or less the same pattern every time. Recent decades have seen rapid growth in ICT services relating to transportation. Different types of travel information services have been proposed as a means to decrease the environmental impacts of transportation through effecting behavioural change. Taking the empirical 4 insights provided by this thesis into travel planning and travel information use in practice, it is clear that travel information services of tomorrow, if connected to other ICT systems in everyday life, could be designed in a way that broadens their horizon of assistance in supporting travel planning processes in everyday life. Although, as this thesis demonstrates, the role and potential of travel information services and ICT in the work of achieving sustainable mobility should be discussed from a perspective critical of overly linear perceptions and instrumental starting points.Denna avhandling tar resenärens perspektiv, och undersöker från vardagslivets horisont hur resor egentligen planeras, och hur information används när de många, ofta obemärkta, vardagsresorna görs i staden. Etnografiska fältstudier i södra Stockholm, gjorda och analyserade med ett praktikteoriperspektiv, visar att människor använder sig av många olika typer av information för att planera och genomföra sina resor. Därför bör begreppet reseinformation definieras vitt nog att rymma både informella, formella, analoga och digitala typer av reseinformation. Först då är det möjligt att iaktta interaktioner mellan dessa, och också se informationens eventuella potential som förändringsfaktor för hållbart stadsresande. Även situationer när reseinformation inte används uppmärksammas och diskuteras. Reseplanering är i vardaglig praktik något som sker lite i taget, i mellanrummen mellan andra sysslor och aktiviteter. Det är en process mer förgrenad i tid, rum och innehåll än den avgränsade sökning efter information om bästa sättet att ta sig mellan A och B som många existerande IT-baserade reseplanerare verkar förutsätta och i dagsläget assisterar. Reseplanering är starkt knutet till den övergripande planeringen av aktiviteter i livet, och reseplanering har därför oftast ett vidare tidsspann än endast en resa. Planering av resor inkluderar även hänsyn till faktorer som nödvändiga förberedelser (saker att göra innan avfärd/ta med sig på resan); hantering av fordon och bagage i tid och rum (få hem cykeln/bilen igen eller få den säkert parkerad); vädret (nuvarande och prognostiserat); sociala relationer (potentialen för konflikter/positiv samvaro vid olika färdmedelsval); sociala normer (om gott föräldraskap eller hur man för sig på kollektiva färdmedel); och hälsoaspekter (vilja till motion eller oförmåga att gå i trappor). Fältarbetet gjorde tydligt att reseinformation ibland används som en snuttefilt – något att ty sig till och hålla i handen på okänt territorium tills du har kommit till målet för din resa. Reseplanering kan också, beroende på livssituation, antingen upplevas och liknas vid husbygge med prefabricerade element – samma standardiserade, välkända bitar sammanfogas på ungefär samma sätt varje gång; eller också ett korthus – om någonting ändras brakar hela huset ihop, och måste byggas upp igen med en helt annan design. Under de senaste decennierna har det skett en snabb utveckling av IT-lösningar på transportområdet. Olika typer av reseinformationstjänster har föreslagits som ett verktyg för att ändra resebeteenden och därmed minska transporters miljöpåverkan. Med utgångspunkt från studiens 6 empiriska insikter i hur reseplanering går till i praktiken, och hur reseinformation används blir det tydligt att morgondagens reseplanerartjänster, om de kopplades ihop med andra digitala system vi använder i vår vardag, skulle kunna utformas på ett sätt som utvidgar systemets "assistanshorisont" för att bättre passa ihop med reseplaneringspraktikerna i vår vardag. Potentialen och rollen för reseinformationstjänster och IT i arbetet med att minska transporters miljöpåverkan bör diskuteras från ett perspektiv som är kritiskt till alltför linjära och instrumentella utgångspunkter, vilket denna avhandling bidrar till.QC 20141030</p

Ethical Issues in Biological Engineering

In this article I shall discuss some of the ethical issues that arise in connection with social programs of biological engineering. My treatment falls, roughly, into two parts. After presenting some preliminary background and discussing the limitations of this paper, I turn to certain general questions about social programs and our obligations to the future in sections II through IV. I then pass on to specific considerations of programs of biological engineering in sections V through VII, although there are allusions to them in earlier sections. In both parts, some issues are gone into detail, while others are merely brought to the attention of the reader. I have no pretentions that any of them is conclusively settled here

Chondroitin Sulphate-Binding Molecules May Pattern Central Projections of Sensory Axons within the Cranial Mesenchyme of the Developing Mouse

AbstractDuring mammalian hindbrain development, sensory axons grow along highly stereotyped routes within the cranial mesenchyme to reach their appropriate entry points into the neuroepithelium. Thus, trigeminal ganglion axons always project to rhombomere (r)2, whilst facial/acoustic ganglia axons always project to r4. Axons are never observed to enter the mesenchyme adjacent to r3, raising the possibility that r3 mesenchyme contains an axon growth-inhibitory activity. Conversely, in mice which lack the erbB4 receptor (normally expressed in r3), trigeminal and facial/acoustic ganglia axons misproject into r3 mesenchyme, suggesting that the putative axon barrier is absent. To investigate this hypothesis, we have developed an in vitro model in which dissociated wild-type embryonic trigeminal ganglion neurons are cultured on longitudinal cryosections of embryonic mouse head. We observed that on wild-type embryonic day 10 (E10) cryosections, neurites generally failed to grow into r3 mesenchyme from the adjacent r2 or r4 mesenchyme. This barrier was removed if cryosections were pretreated with chondroitinase or were washed with excess chondroitin 6-sulphate or hypertonic saline. By contrast, when trigeminal neurons were seeded onto cryosections of E10 erbB4 −/− embryo heads their neurites readily entered mutant r3 mesenchyme. Immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated chondroitin-sulphated proteoglycans throughout the cranial mesenchyme in both wild-type and erbB4 −/− embryos. We propose that trigeminal axons are excluded from wild-type r3 mesenchyme by a growth-inhibitory activity which associates with chondroitin-sulphated proteoglycans and that the synthesis of this activity may rely on signals transduced by erbB receptors

Commentary on Mashaw: Process and Psychology

Many computer vision tasks such as object detection, pose estimation,and alignment are directly related to the estimation of correspondences overinstances of an object class. Other tasks such as image classification andverification if not completely solved can largely benefit from correspondenceestimation. This thesis presents practical approaches for tackling the corre-spondence estimation problem with an emphasis on deformable objects.Different methods presented in this thesis greatly vary in details but theyall use a combination of generative and discriminative modeling to estimatethe correspondences from input images in an efficient manner. While themethods described in this work are generic and can be applied to any object,two classes of objects of high importance namely human body and faces arethe subjects of our experimentations.When dealing with human body, we are mostly interested in estimating asparse set of landmarks – specifically we are interested in locating the bodyjoints. We use pictorial structures to model the articulation of the body partsgeneratively and learn efficient discriminative models to localize the parts inthe image. This is a common approach explored by many previous works. Wefurther extend this hybrid approach by introducing higher order terms to dealwith the double-counting problem and provide an algorithm for solving theresulting non-convex problem efficiently. In another work we explore the areaof multi-view pose estimation where we have multiple calibrated cameras andwe are interested in determining the pose of a person in 3D by aggregating2D information. This is done efficiently by discretizing the 3D search spaceand use the 3D pictorial structures model to perform the inference.In contrast to the human body, faces have a much more rigid structureand it is relatively easy to detect the major parts of the face such as eyes,nose and mouth, but performing dense correspondence estimation on facesunder various poses and lighting conditions is still challenging. In a first workwe deal with this variation by partitioning the face into multiple parts andlearning separate regressors for each part. In another work we take a fullydiscriminative approach and learn a global regressor from image to landmarksbut to deal with insufficiency of training data we augment it by a large numberof synthetic images. While we have shown great performance on the standardface datasets for performing correspondence estimation, in many scenariosthe RGB signal gets distorted as a result of poor lighting conditions andbecomes almost unusable. This problem is addressed in another work wherewe explore use of depth signal for dense correspondence estimation. Hereagain a hybrid generative/discriminative approach is used to perform accuratecorrespondence estimation in real-time.QC 20140919</p