Arbitrary Decisions Research Articles

Tissue-specific assessment of oxidative status: Wild boar as a case study.

In recent decades, there has been a fast-growing interest in using biomarkers of oxidative stress (BOS) in conservation programs of many vertebrate species. Biomarkers of oxidative stress can be measured in different biological samples (e.g., body fluids and tissues). However, since comparisons of the same battery of BOS among tissues of the same individual are scarce in the literature, the chosen target tissues regularly rely on arbitrary decisions. Our research aimed to determine if the oxidative status of free-ranging wild boar (Sus scrofa) naturally infected with Mycobacterium spp (etiological agent of tuberculosis, TB), varies depending on the sample where it was quantified. We compared antioxidant p-nitrophenyl esterase activity (EA), glutathione peroxidase (GPX) concentrations, and total oxidative status (TOS) in serum, lung, spleen, kidney, and muscle of 63 wild boar hunter-harvested in central Spain. Biomarkers of oxidative stress in serum had higher concentrations than in other tissues. The poor agreement between serum and other tissues highlights the importance of running complete BOS assessments in the same fluid or tissue. Further, low concentrations of BOS in tissues of TB-affected individuals were observed, and significant differences between healthy and sick boar were only detected in the serum of individuals developing mild TB and in the muscle of individuals with mild or severe disease status. However, all organs from wild boars affected with mild TB were not in oxidative imbalance compared to healthy control animals, suggesting that wild boars may cope well with TB. Our data indicate that serum and other tissues can be used as BOS in field conservation programs to monitor wildlife population health. Still, context-specific validations are needed to determine the most appropriate samples to use.

An Empirical Analysis of Credibility Assessment in German Asylum Cases

AbstractThis study analyzes empirically how 236 German court decisions assess the credibility of asylum seekers’ accounts of their persecution. In their reasoning, the courts rely on generally accepted content-based credibility criteria, including consistency, level of detail, and timeliness of the claim. But they also rely on conduct-based criteria, which have been resoundingly discredited in the relevant scientific literature. Too rarely, the courts considered confounding factors such as cultural distance or interpreter mistakes. They need to be more aware of their duty to confront applicants with negative credibility criteria. Article 4 (5) Qualification Directive played no role whatsoever in the sample analyzed in this study, which can be explained by specifics of German asylum law.The human judgment that is required in the balancing of credibility criteria and confounding factors is problematic for its subjectivity but unavoidable. Attempts at replacing this human credibility assessment with seemingly objective technical means have led to arbitrary decisions and encroached gravely on applicants’ human rights. While the credibility assessment procedure employed in German courts is far from flawless, it can produce convincing decisions. It should be further refined and provided with safeguards to arrive at decisions that are as rational and objective as possible.

How much do large whales eat?

Estimates of the amount of prey consumed by cetaceans have been used in ecological models and also directly compared to human fisheries yields. Most of these estimates have been based on assumptions about energy requirements. However, the lack of direct measurements for large whales has necessitated extrapolation beyond the data points available from smaller species. A number of different parameterisations of general regressions in which energy requirements or consumption are estimated as proportional to body mass raised to some power B, were compared with estimates of Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) from the widely used Kleiber equation. The choice of values has a large impact on estimates, which can differ by an order of magnitude, but modellers are frequently forced to make rather arbitrary decisions due to lack of data. Nevertheless, neither data nor theory appear to support values of B >0.75. Although some parameter values have obtained status through common usage, these have not always been based on actual data and estimates of consumption by whales need to reflect this uncertainty. Comparison of generalised relationships with data from other sources, including rates of filter feeding, oxygen consumption and seasonal changes in energy stores, suggest upper bounds on average daily metabolic rate of large whales. Estimates based on stomach contents also indicated average daily metabolic rates of less than four times the BMR from the Kleiber formula, but these are critically dependent on estimates of digestion time for which there appear to be little data. Estimates of stored energy suggest that large whales that migrate to seasonally productive feeding areas either have relatively low energy requirements for their size or need to meet a considerable proportion of their annual energy requirements outside of the feeding grounds.

Tying research question and analytical strategy when variables are affected by medication use.

Ill-defined research questions could be particularly problematic in an epidemiological setting where measurements fluctuate over time due to intercurrent events, such as medication use. When a research question fails to specify how medication use should be handled methodologically, arbitrary decisions may be made during the analysis phase, which likely leads to a mismatch between the intended question and the performed analysis. The mismatch can result in vastly different or meaningless interpretations of estimated effects. Thus, a research question such as "what is the effect of X on Y?" requires further elaboration, and it should consider whether and how medication use has affected the measurements of interest. In our study, we will discuss how well-defined questions can be formulated when medication use is involved in observational studies. We will distinguish between a situation where an exposure is affected by medication use and where the outcome of interest is affected by medication use. For each setting, we will give examples of different research questions that could be asked depending on how medication use is considered in the estimand and discuss methodological considerations under each question.

Divided Towns, Integration and Cross-border Cooperation. The Cases of Cieszyn/Český Těšín and Słubice/Frankfurt (Oder)

ABSTRACT Divided towns are specific urban units that were once single cities before their subsequent division through the drawing of new state borders based on arbitrary political decisions. The specific nature of such towns thus originates primarily from their common history and their location on a border. This article focuses on two examples from Central and Eastern Europe, one situated on the Polish-Czech border (Cieszyn and Český Těšín) and the other on the Polish-German border (Słubice and Frankfurt an der Oder), in order to provide a comparative analysis of cross-border cooperation. Based on an analysis of secondary data and literature, we explore the factors deemed most essential in the literature for the integration of and cooperation between divided towns today – namely historical legacies, cultural and political factors, (a)symmetries and border/periphery locations – to investigate what similarities and differences can be observed in the analysed towns.

The free objective evaluation of the evidence in European criminal law

The Court must, when it gives reasons for its decision and it reports on the discovered facts, the evidence obtained and set as the basis of its findings, the claims of the parties and particularly of the accused, which must be answered, and the legal considerations for the interpretation and application of the rule of law, further act a free and objective assessment of evidence. This means, among other things, that it must give reasons for giving or not giving a certain faith to certain evidence and in particular to explain why it chose those as the basis of its findings, although there were others which gravitated to the opposite version. In each case this assessment and justification should respect to the rules of logic, the lessons of common experience and the safe diagnoses of science and technique. These are objective criterias for the evaluation of the evidence, which introduce some limitations on the principle of free assessment of evidence, so that it does not lead to arbitrary and unfair decisions.

Consciousness of evidence-based medicine in public health emergencies.

Consciousness of evidence-based medicine in public health emergencies.

Actual practice of linguist expert within the speech offenses: Relevance and problems

This article raises the problem of the uncertainty of legal norms related to speech offenses, which can be traced, in particular, in Art. 5.61 “Insult” of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation in relation to the concepts of a generalized negative assessment and indecent form of expression. The author believes that the adoption of a new wording of the plot of this article did not eliminate the existing uncertainty, on the contrary, new, even more uncertain elements led to the danger of an arbitrary broad interpretation of this legal norm and equally arbitrary judicial decisions in cases of insult. The article emphasizes that under such conditions, linguistic expertise becomes of particular importance as an important way to establish the essential signs of insult. However, despite the fact that, in relation to the le gal sphere, one can quite confidently speak of the already established institution of linguistic expertise, nevertheless, in cases involving personal insults, linguistic experts continue to face a number of problems. Difficulties are associated with the assessment of a particular word as subject to the disposition of an insult, with the definition of decency/indecency of a linguistic form of expression, with the inability to codify the norms of morality and morality, with the use of various linguistic approaches by experts, as a result of which many questions remain debatable. Examples of such situations are also given in the article. According to the author, the legislator should clearly define the conceptual content of all components of the objective side of offenses related to personal insult, at the same time, professional linguists should develop a common understanding and a common strategy in solving these problems. This article is an attempt to take a step in this direction.

Paid Plasma versus Voluntary Nonremunerated Plasma Collection for Plasma-Derived Medicine

Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization (IBTO) established in 1975 has been the sole responsible entity for blood adequacy and safety in Iran. It has been the same in case of providing recovered plasma. At the same time, the first commercial plasma center was authorized by IBTO to operate in the capital Tehran to contribute to the main purpose that was the investment of the private sector in fulfilling fractionation purposes and the construction of a fractionation plant. The goal that unfortunately did not materialize. To make remedies based on a well-calculated plasma document, in 2015, a plasma program developed in Iran by IBTO by which new donor centers were opened or already blood center were equipped to allow for the collection of voluntary nonremunerated source plasma. It had in it capacities of plasma collection for IBTO recovered, commercial source, and IBTO voluntary source. The latter third was a gradually growing program that lasted just 3 years and showed progress but the managerial changes and invalid arbitrary and sudden decisions brought it to the end. Whilst the paid private centers grew and ruined the voluntary nonremunerated sense that IBTO always pursued and was against the Ministry of Health requirements for what the commercial private sectors should have abided by. Safe voluntary nonremunerated source plasma collection that almost all countries pursue to grow along with existing recovered plasma share was terminated with consequences that are detailed in the present article.

Implicit coordination in an <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">$ n $</tex-math></inline-formula>-player target selection game

We show that a class of target selection games has a unique symmetric mixed strategy Nash equilibrium $ x^\ast $. We also present a simple recursion that computes $ x^\ast $ within a finite number of iterations. Along the way, we introduce the concept of value compactness that points directly to the properties of the unique symmetric mixed strategy equilibrium, including the fact that the unique equilibrium does not force any player to make an arbitrary decision about associating positive probability with subsets of targets having a particular utility– a property that we refer to as implicit coordination.

Revisiting Neuroscientific Skepticism about Free Will

Benefiting from recent work in neuroscience, this paper rebuts a pair of neuroscience-based arguments for the non-existence of free will. Well-known neuroscientific experiments that have often been cited in support of skepticism about free will are critically examined. Various problems are identified with attempts to use their findings to support the claim that free will is an illusion. It is argued on scientific grounds that certain assumptions made in these skeptical arguments are unjustified—namely, assumptions about the times at which decisions are made and the times at which the point of no re­turn for the making of a decision is reached. It is argued as well that alleged findings about decisions of the kind featured in these experiments—arbitrary decisions made in the absence of conscious reasoning about what to do—fail to support certain crucial claims about non-arbitrary decisions made after careful deliberation. The paper also examines a fallback position for skeptics about free will. Some scientific skeptics about free will contend that free will, by definition, depends on the existence of immaterial souls. Survey-style studies that bring free will down to earth are brought to bear on this contention.

외국의 구속제도와 영장항고사건의 판례 분석과 구속기준심의위원회의 신설, 영장항고제도의 도입 등

There are broad deviations in the perspectives of stakeholders in the application and request for an arrest warrant, as well as other related processes, including the dismissal and issuance of the warrant. The deviations can be attributed to the imbalance of power between stakeholders, including the police’s dependence on the prosecution’s request for supplementary investigation for warrant application, return and request, internal conflict between the prosecution and the court due to the court’s power to dismiss or issue the arrest warrant requested by the prosecution and conflicting standards for arrest warrant applications. This is a consequence of the varying and ambiguous standards for applying, requesting and issuing a warrant.
 In Korea, the conflict between the prosecution and the court over the request for warrants and dismissals have been ongoing over a long time, resulting in the aggravation and intensity of the people’s distrust in the judicial system.
 As the grounds for arrest are abstract and ambiguous in the Criminal Procedure Law, it is unavoidable to depend on the judge’s arbitrary decision. In order to avoid this issue, appeals to the warrant judge’s decision should be allowed. However, precedents set by the Supreme Court and the position of appeal disapproval oppose such a proposal.
 The major cause for such issues is the fact that a warrant judge is a case-accepting judge. Thus, to have an appeal or quasi-appeal, the judge is required to become a ‘court’ of Article 402, which is not applied to these circumstances. In the case of warrant dismissal, there is a system called the reapplication for warrant. If the appeal is allowed, the suspects’ unstable state will continue for a long time, which can seriously violate the suspects’ freedom and human rights.
 However, in the interpretation of Clause 1 of Article 101 of the Constitution, and Clause 1 of Article 5 and Clause 4 of Article 7 of the Court Organization Act, a case-accepting judge as a single judge becomes a ‘court’ similar to that of a collegiate panel, so the warrant dismissal is not an order, but a decision. The reapplication for a warrant should not be considered as disobedience of a decision of dismissal. The reapplication for a warrant by reinforcing the reason for warrant request after dismissal does not prevent the warrant judge’s arbitrary judgment. The reapplication for a warrant with no limitation in time can cause greater anxiety in respect to the violation of freedom and human rights.
 Based on statistical analysis, since the introduction of the arrest warrant examination system in 1997, the current total arrest warrant request rate in 2019 has decreased by 78%, and the warrants directly requested by prosecutors has also decreased by 70%. Despite the great decrease in the request for warrants, the warrant dismissal rate increased almost 30% in 2019, which was 4.6 times greater than in 1997. Even though this is caused by the consistent emphasis of guaranteeing suspects’ freedom and defense rights, the national risk of crime has relatively increased. In order to limit the warrant judges’ arbitrary judgment on the decision of warrant dismissal, the United States and United Kingdom, and the continental countries such as Germany, France and Japan are already operating the warrant appeal system.
 Meanwhile, the partial revision of the Criminal Procedure Act in 2007 resulted in the prosecution and the court being conflicted over the warrant appeal system. After establishing the appeal system on the decision to dismiss a request for evidence preservation in Clause 4 of Article 184, proposed by the Presidential Commission on Judicial Reform, the discussion of the warrant appeal system was postponed.
 This was approximately 14 years prior to today. Now, the discussion to introduce the warrant appeal system can no longer be postponed.

Multiverse analyses in the classroom

Most empirical papers in psychology involve statistical analyses performed on a new or existing dataset. Sometimes the robustness of a finding is demonstrated via data-analytical triangulation (e.g., obtaining comparable outcomes across different operationalizations of the dependent variable), but systematically considering the plethora of alternative analysis pathways is rather uncommon. However, researchers increasingly recognize the importance of establishing the robustness of a finding. The latter can be accomplished through a so-called multiverse analysis, which involves methodically examining the arbitrary choices pertaining to data processing and/or model building. In the present paper, we describe how the multiverse approach can be implemented in student research projects within psychology programs, drawing on our personal experience as instructors. Embedding a multiverse project in students’ curricula addresses an important scientific need, as studies examining the robustness or fragility of phenomena are largely lacking in psychology. Additionally, it offers students an ideal opportunity to put various statistical methods into practice, thereby also raising awareness about the abundance and consequences of arbitrary decisions in data-analytic processing. An attractive practical feature is that one can reuse existing datasets, which proves especially useful when resources are limited, or when circumstances such as the COVID-19 lockdown measures restrict data collection possibilities.

Entrepreneurs Confronting the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis: from Powerlessness in the Face of the Government’s Policies to Protests

Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a crisis affecting many spheres of socio-economic life. Both the authorities and entrepreneurs found themselves in a new and unusual situation. The lockdown introduced in the Polish economy in March 2020 has changed drastically environment and conditions for entrepreneurs and companies in Poland. The article touches on the problem of changes in the system of formal and informal institutions during that period. An attempt was made to answer the question: to what extent was the institutional state order compatible with the spontaneous order during that period, did the paths of entrepreneurs and the government meet and an agreement was reached in the name of setting a common policy direction to support the economy in the difficult period of the pandemic, or did the paths of these parties diverge? The research hypothesis requiring verification was that the institutional crisis in Poland deepened during the Covid-19 pandemic, as reflected in the slow erosion of the principles of institutional governance. The analysis shows that the progressing institutional weakness of the state during the period under review deepened the crisis of institutions. Its symptom was the gradual disappearance of social dialogue and arbitrary decisions taken by the government. The rules of law did not take into account the needs of entrepreneurs. Over time, the trust in the government and the law has declined. In a response to the prolonged lockdown in many sectors of the Polish economy, some desperate entrepreneurs took steps to circumvent the law, and there were active protests of entrepreneurs against the government’s decisions. The government might defend its authority only with ineffective repressions applied to entrepreneurs.

Dasgupta's Detonation

Dasgupta's Detonation

Disguised Disciplinary Sanctions and Public Service in Jordanian and French Law

Abstract Disguised disciplinary sanctions are methods used by public administrators or decision-makers to punish a public servant despite the latter not having violated regulations or laws. Instead, such punishment is motivated by personal resentments. The administration may impose arbitrary decisions on their employees while claiming that said decisions serve the public interest, hiding their true intentions. This study employs a descriptive-analytical method to shed light on the position of the Jordanian and French administrative judicial authorities on disguised disciplinary sanctions. The study considers and compares the relevant laws and jurisprudence of judicial authorities in Jordan and France; it further determines the role of these authorities in revealing disguised sanctions absent a specified list of disciplinary violations in the Civil Service Regulations in both jurisdictions.

Czynniki rozwoju języka polskiego w Chinach

FACTORS AFFECTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLISH LANGUAGE IN CHINA
 The main issue of the paper is the analysis of the key factors which affect the development of the Polish language in China. Each of these factors has been discussed in this article against the background of language policy and power of Polish language in mainland China. The author, starting with a review of important concepts on this subject, tries to indicate the factors determining the creation of new Polish studies faculties and Polish studies centres in mainland China. Political and economic factors, the task-oriented approach of Chinese institutions in combination with a far-reaching profit planning strategy, factors related to regional cooperation between Poland and China, as well as sentimental and historical ones are considered to be the most significant aspects. The author tries to find a common denominator for the actions of Polish public diplomacy and often arbitrary decisions of the Chinese authorities in promoting Polish language in China. He points out some challenges and threats related to the dynamic development of Polish in China.

Operant conditioning of stochastic chemical reaction networks.

Adapting one's behavior to environmental conditions and past experience is a key trait of living systems. In the biological world, there is evidence for adaptive behaviors such as learning even in naturally occurring, non-neural, single-celled organisms. In the bioengineered world, advances in synthetic cell engineering and biorobotics have created the possibility of implementing lifelike systems engineered from the bottom up. This will require the development of programmable control circuitry for such biomimetic systems that is capable of realizing such non-trivial and adaptive behavior, including modification of subsequent behavior in response to environmental feedback. To this end, we report the design of novel stochastic chemical reaction networks capable of probabilistic decision-making in response to stimuli. We show that a simple chemical reaction network motif can be tuned to produce arbitrary decision probabilities when choosing between two or more responses to a stimulus signal. We further show that simple feedback mechanisms from the environment can modify these probabilities over time, enabling the system to adapt its behavior dynamically in response to positive or negative reinforcement based on its decisions. This system thus acts as a form of operant conditioning of the chemical circuit, in the sense that feedback provided based on decisions taken by the circuit form the basis of the learning process. Our work thus demonstrates that simple chemical systems can be used to implement lifelike behavior in engineered biomimetic systems.

Exploring reliability heterogeneity with multiverse analyses: Data processing decisions unpredictably influence measurement reliability

Analytic flexibility is known to influence the results of statistical tests, e.g. effect sizes and p-values. Yet, the degree to which flexibility in data processing decisions influences measurement reliability is unknown. In this paper I attempt to address this question using a series of 36 reliability multiverse analyses, each with 288 data processing specifications, including accuracy and response time cut-offs. I used data from a Stroop task and Flanker task at two time points, as well as a Dot Probe task across three stimuli conditions and three timepoints. This allowed for broad overview of internal consistency reliability and test-retest estimates across a multiverse of data processing specifications. Largely arbitrary decisions in data processing led to differences between the highest and lowest reliability estimate of at least 0.2, but potentially exceeding 0.7. Importantly, there was no consistent pattern in reliability estimates resulting from the data processing specifications, across time as well as tasks. Together, data processing decisions are highly influential, and largely unpredictable, on measure reliability. I discuss actions researchers could take to mitigate some of the influence of reliability heterogeneity, including adopting hierarchical modelling approaches. Yet, there are no approaches that can completely save us from measurement error. Measurement matters and I call on readers to help us move from what could be a measurement crisis towards a measurement revolution.

Diverging lay intuitions about concepts related to free will in arbitrary and deliberate decisions.

Philosophical accounts of free will frequently appeal to deliberate, consequential, and purposeful decisions. However, some recent studies have found that laypeople attribute more freedom to arbitrary than to deliberate decisions. We hypothesized that these differences stem from diverging intuitions about concepts surrounding free will-especially freedom, being in control, and the ability to decide otherwise. In two studies, we found that laypeople attributed high levels of free will, freedom, and control to both arbitrary and deliberate decisions. However, subjects surprisingly attributed reduced ability to decide otherwise when faced with an "easy" decision with one clearly superior option. Furthermore, laypeople attributed greater free will, freedom, and control to "easy" than "hard" decisions with no clearly superior option. Our results suggest that laypeople have diverging intuitions about these different, free-will-related concepts. Therefore, a scientific account of free will may require integrating results from studies on different types of decision-making.