Liability for animals a comparative study: south African and German law

The field of' Liability for Animals' appears at first sight to be only of minor interest to academics. This, however, is a false syllogism as incidents involving animals are frequent, and courts constantly deal with claims regarding damages for injuries caused by animals. Indeed, in many countries the law of animals forms special subject. With respect to English law for instance Lord Simonds, using the metaphor of a train, remarked that the Common Law of torts has developed historically in separate compartments and that beasts have travelled in a compartment of their own. 1 However, it is also true, that within this "tort-train" a few animals lurking in the other compartments marked 'Negligence or Nuisance' may also be found

Targeted expression of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand TRAIL in skin protects mice against chemical carcinogenesis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gene ablation studies have revealed that tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL, Apo2L, TNFSF10) plays a crucial role in tumor surveillance, as TRAIL-deficient mice exhibit an increased sensitivity to different types of tumorigenesis. In contrast, possible tumor-protective effect of increased levels of endogenous TRAIL expression <it>in vivo </it>has not been assessed yet. Such models will provide important information about the efficacy of TRAIL-based therapies and potential toxicity in specific tissues.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To this aim, we engineered transgenic mice selectively expressing TRAIL in the skin and subjected these mice to a two-step chemical carcinogenesis protocol that generated benign and preneoplastic lesions. We were therefore able to study the effect of increased TRAIL expression at the early steps of skin tumorigenesis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results showed a delay of tumor appearance in TRAIL expressing mice compared to their wild-type littermates. More importantly, the number of tumors observed in transgenic animals was significantly lower than in the control animals, and the lesions observed were mostly benign. Interestingly, Wnt/β-catenin signaling differed between tumors of wild-type and TRAIL transgenics.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Altogether, these data reveal that, at least in this model, TRAIL is able on its own to act on pre-transformed cells, and reduce their tumorigenic potential.</p

Benefits, Costs, and Financing of Truck-Only Highway Lanes

As increasing amounts of intercity freight are transported by trucking firms, the possibility of constructing truck-only lanes along selected rural Interstate highways warrants consideration. On heavily traveled sections, there is potential for improvements in safety and productivity if such lanes were added. In this paper, we explore the conditions under which investment in truck-only lanes could be considered and what sorts of benefits may accrue to both occupants of passenger vehicles and to operators of heavy trucks. Then we examine the available evidence regarding the nature and magnitude of these benefits to gain insight into the willingness of highway users to pay for these lanes. We conclude that the willingness to pay for truck-only lanes on the part of occupants of passenger vehicles appear to be quite limited and that support for these lanes on the part of trucking firms is likely to depend upon their being allowed to operate longer-combination vehicles (LCVs) on them. Trucking firms could be assessed tolls to travel in truck-only lanes, with these tolls representing some fraction of the increased productivity gained through being allowed to operate LCVs. Finally, we pose several questions that would need to be answered before an investment in truck-only lanes might be considered along a given Interstate segment

Attentional and Judgement Biases Associated With Body Weight Preoccupation in Children and Adolescents.

Most cognitive behavioral theories of the eating disorders emphasize the influences of beliefs and attitudes related to body weight and shape on the development and maintenance of pathological eating and weight control behaviors. Recent research has found support for the theories and specifically for the presence of attentional, judgement, and memory biases in individuals diagnosed with eating disorders as well as women who are preoccupied with body weight (Williamson, Muller, Reas, & Thaw, 1999). This research has focused almost without exception on adult populations. However, eating disorders as well as preoccupation with body size and shape have increased in preadolescent and adolescent girls across the last few decades (Rolland, Farnill, & Griffiths, 1997; Feingold & Mazzella, 1998). The purpose of the present study was to apply methodologies used to assess biased attentional and judgement processes in adults to children and adolescents. Participants included 98 female children aged 9 to 15 years who completed an ambiguous homophones task assessing judgement biases to body, shape, and weight information as well as an emotional Stroop task modified specifically to assess body and weight attentional biases. Body shape concerns were associated with biased processing on the homophones task specific to negative body shape related information. An attentional bias was not found using the Stroop task. A reference group of 65 college-aged females also completed the experimental protocol. This group was included as a test for the homophones and Stroop task as both tasks have been used to find biased processing in this age group. Results for both tasks were consistent with previous research. The results are discussed in the context of the developmental processes underlying cognitive biases in psychological disorders

Democratic Dissent and the Politics of Rescue during the Twenty-first Century’s “Inhospitable” EU Migration “Crisis”

This article uses critical approaches to examine the ways in which dissenters have objected to the European Union’s current “politics of rescue.” The authors argue that the term “hospitality” has been a key term in liberal theorizing about mobility since the Enlightenment, but that various neo-liberal “pull” theories, worries about securitization and the militarization of rescue efforts in the Mediterranean have converged in ways that have turned Europe into an “inhospitable” place for foreigners. The authors use three short case studies—of maritime captains’ and sailors’ rescue efforts, academic critiques of FRONTEX, and vernacular reactions to the iconic Kurdi image—to put on display the contradictions that exist when illiberal decisions are made by EU communities that are supposed to be democratically governed by hospitality principles. They also argue that the focus on the social agency of “traffickers” deflects attention away from the structural and colonial facets of these migration “crises.

The Programmer's Assistant: Conversational Interaction with a Large Language Model for Software Development

Large language models (LLMs) have recently been applied in software engineering to perform tasks such as translating code between programming languages, generating code from natural language, and autocompleting code as it is being written. When used within development tools, these systems typically treat each model invocation independently from all previous invocations, and only a specific limited functionality is exposed within the user interface. This approach to user interaction misses an opportunity for users to more deeply engage with the model by having the context of their previous interactions, as well as the context of their code, inform the model's responses. We developed a prototype system -- the Programmer's Assistant -- in order to explore the utility of conversational interactions grounded in code, as well as software engineers' receptiveness to the idea of conversing with, rather than invoking, a code-fluent LLM. Through an evaluation with 42 participants with varied levels of programming experience, we found that our system was capable of conducting extended, multi-turn discussions, and that it enabled additional knowledge and capabilities beyond code generation to emerge from the LLM. Despite skeptical initial expectations for conversational programming assistance, participants were impressed by the breadth of the assistant's capabilities, the quality of its responses, and its potential for improving their productivity. Our work demonstrates the unique potential of conversational interactions with LLMs for co-creative processes like software development.Comment: 43 pages, 3 figures. To be published in IUI 202