Early adopters of the magical thinking cap: a study on do-it-yourself (DIY) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) user community

Among currently available technologies, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is one of the most promising neuroenhancements because it is relatively effective, safe, and affordable. Recently, lay people have begun to build—or purchase—the tDCS device to use it at home for treatment or as a cognitive enhancer. The tDCS device is currently not covered by the existing regulatory framework, but there are still significant potential risks of misusing this device, and its long-term effects on the brain have not been fully explored. Thus, researchers have argued the need for regulations or official guidelines for the personal use of tDCS. However, until now, no systematic research on the do-it-yourself (DIY) tDCS user community has been done. The present study explores the basic demographic characteristics of DIY tDCS users as well as why and how they are using this device through a questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews, and a content analysis of web postings on the use of tDCS. This preliminary but valuable picture of the DIY tDCS user community will shed light on future studies and policy analysis to craft sound regulations and official guidelines for the use of tDCS.     

When benefitting a patient increases the risk for harm for third persons — The case of treating pedophilic Parkinsonian patients with deep brain stimulation

This paper investigates the question whether it is ethically justified to treat Parkinsonian patients with known or suspected pedophilia with deep brain stimulation — given increasing evidence that this treatment might cause impulse control disorders, disinhibition, and hypersexuality. This specific question is not as exotic as it looks at a first glance. First, the same issue is raised for all other types of sexual orientation or behavior which imply a high risk for harming other persons, e.g. sexual sadism. Second, there are also several (psychotropic) drugs as well as legal and illegal leisure drugs which bear severe risks for other persons. We show that Beauchamp and Childress' biomedical ethics fails to derive a veto against medical interventions which produce risks for third persons by making the patients dangerous to others. Therefore, our case discussion reveals a blind spot of the ethics of principles. Although the first intuition might be to forbid the application of deep brain stimulation to pedophilic patients, we argue against such a simple way out, since in some patients the reduction of dopaminergic drugs allowed by deep brain stimulation of the nucleus subthalamicus improves impulsive control disorders, including hypersexuality. Therefore, we propose a strategy consisting of three steps: (1) risk assessment, (2) shared decision-making, and (3) risk management and safeguards.     

牢牢把住监狱安全的命门——“9·2”越狱案件对监狱工作的警示与反思

面对监狱工作总体安全，形势向好的态势，在确保安全稳定基础上，如何实现监狱职能充分发挥是摆在每一个监狱面前的一个重要课题。哈尔滨延寿县看守所“9·2”越狱案件的发生在带给我们震撼的同时，更应该带给监狱工作深刻的警示和反思——始终牢牢把握抓好民警队伍建设、始终保持警惕危机意识、不断强化制度执行力、注重环环相扣的工作链接，克服侥幸心理的工作，将奠定监狱安全稳定的基础。     

试论新联结主义的方法论

新联结主义是20世纪80年代早期认知心理学研究中所复兴的另一研究范式。相对于认知心理学的符号加工范式,新联结主义范式把"心理活动像大脑"作为其隐喻基础,这就决定了其在研究过程中必然要对大脑进行模拟研究,采用结构和功能模拟的方法。现代化研究手段不断运用于脑模拟研究,大脑的结构和功能也逐渐为人们所认识,大脑也不再是纯粹的"黑箱"系统,新联结主义就必然要采用灰箱方法。新联结主义把认知主要看成是神经网络相互作用中所突现的整体属性,因而必然会采用还原论与整体主义相融合的研究策略。     

Homer蛋白的研究进展及法医学应用

Homer蛋白由Homer 1~3基因编码,属于新发现的突触后密度蛋白家族成员,其所有剪切变异体可分为长、短两种亚型,在调控兴奋性突触的结构和功能及细胞内信号转导中发挥关键作用。作为即早基因表达产物的短亚型Homer la,在癫痫、高频刺激及发育过程中可通过海马或皮层神经元的兴奋性突触活动,快速短暂地诱导其表达增加。大鼠弥漫性脑损伤后可诱导大脑皮层神经元Homer la表达动态上调。本文简述其结构、分布、功能、研究进展、存在问题及其在法医学上的应用。     

The hooligan's mind

Football hooliganism is a world phenomenon and an everyday matter. Society spends a lot of money to prevent and control it. We need to know what hooligans think in order to anticipate their actions and prevent their violent behaviors. In this paper, I propose a theory of the hooligan's conscious mind, by analyzing the thinking of a real Italian hooligan who was my patient. I will show that violent behaviors of hooligans are not unconscious, because the mental states (both beliefs and goals) of hooligans are explicitly represented in their mind. In contrast, I will suggest that both supporting and fighting are planned (i.e., goal directed), because "recognized supremacy" is explicitly represented as the ultimate goal. In fact, hooligans support and fight in order to be recognized as good hooligans, i.e. as good supporters as well as good fighters.     

From fragile to smart consumers: Shifting paradigm for the digital era

The use of digital technologies, functioning thanks to data processing, has been conquering many sectors of the world economy and it is possible that, in the near future, only a few markets will still be excluded from this industrial revolution. Therefore, even if one chose unreasonably to disregard the many innovations that the digital economy has brought about, its development seems quite inexorable, although it is true that this new stage in human progress raises some concerns. In particular, many worry about the millions of passive and powerless digital consumers who, facing a few huge and influential companies without any education or awareness, could succumb and find themselves poorer, victimized, and manipulated. The paper proposes to react to this state of affairs without further fueling the fear of the digital revolution and without the thought that regulation can be used only as a shield to protect fragile digital consumers. Rather, by taking inspiration from some regulatory actions undertaken by the European Union, the paper bears in mind that regulation can be used as a sword in the hands of consumers to finally assign them a lead role in digital markets. New rules to empower consumers and to make them take autonomous and independent decisions as to the management of their personal data as well as to the merits of digital firms can be envisaged. After all, one of the cultural roots of Western societies is that every individual should be enabled to be faber ipsius fortunae.     

NMDA-Ca2+-NO路径与继发性脑损伤

当前,对NMDA-Ca2+-NO路径的研究仍是神经科学、生理学和生物化学研究的一个热点。从法医学角度研究该路径的意义在于,该路径能揭示出脑损伤所始发的胞外有害刺激是以何种可能方式逐步传导入损伤波及区域的神经元(细胞)内,并最终产生损害或致其死亡的。对该路径的研究可以为法医学上鉴定脑损伤后的经过时间、脑伤程度及判断预后提供分子水平的解释。     

摁住楼市“虚火”

最近几个月,房地产调控政策频出,包括房地产贷款的"两道红线"。为抑制楼市"虚火",住房和城乡建设部副部长倪虹带队赴上海、深圳等地调研督导房地产市场情况。机构统计数据显示,去年年内累计房地产调控政策次数已达97次。一些人担心,楼市会陷入越上涨越调控、越调控越上涨的"老怪圈"。     

Some conditions maximizing eyewitness accuracy: A learning/memory analogy

Jurors continue to rely heavily on eyewitness testimony despite numerous demonstrations that it is often inaccurate. As part of the effort to provide jurors with good estimates of the accuracy of any specific testimony, a study was designed to test the proposal that eyewitness accuracy is governed by the same variables and in the same way as is retention of much simpler material in classical learning and memory paradigms. Prior exposure to the criminal (trials), arousal value of the incident (drive), and delay between prior exposure and incident, and between incident and test (inner-trial intervals) all affected eyewitness accuracy in the expected manner. Correct recognitions of the criminal in a line-up ranged from 14 percent to 86 percent, depending on the particular conditions under which the incident was observed.     

信用卡诈骗罪客观方面要件的认定探讨

信用卡是个舶来品。曾几何时 ,在很多国人脑海里 ,它还只是一个抽象的概念 ,转眼间却成了很多人日常生活中不可或缺的支付手段。信用卡在日常生活中的被广泛使用与人们对信用卡有关知识的相对缺乏 ,使得信用卡成为犯罪分子可以利用来进行犯罪活动的工具。本文从客观方面对信用卡诈骗罪的定性问题进行了研究     

金属硫蛋白-Ⅰ/Ⅱ在脑损伤修复中的机制及其法医学应用

金属硫蛋白(metallothionein,MT)是一种金属结合蛋白,其中MT-Ⅰ/Ⅱ是其重要成员,能够调节脑内金属离子代谢和解毒以及清除自由基,具有抗炎症反应和抗氧化应激的作用,对脑组织有保护作用。最新研究表明,MT-Ⅰ/Ⅱ可刺激脑内抗炎因子、生长因子、神经营养因子及其受体的表达,并可促进神经元轴突延长,有利于神经元再生,在脑损伤修复过程中起重要作用。基于这些发现,本文对MT-Ⅰ/Ⅱ的结构、表达、分布、调节,在脑损伤修复中的作用及机制,同时也对其在法医学中的应用前景进行阐述,为脑损伤药物的研制和脑创伤时间的推断提供新的思路。     

Law and ethics of deep brain stimulation

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a non-destructive, adjustable, and mainly reversible method of continuously giving electrical impulses into a small area of the brain via implanted electrodes. It has been established as a standard form of treatment for specific cases of Parkinson's disease, essential tremor and dystonia. It is currently being evaluated for several mental disorders, dementia and even alcoholism. In spite of its growing practical importance, the legal issues have so far undergone almost no analysis. The article outlines both the essential legal questions of DBS from the perspective of German Law as well as major issues of the current ethical debate, and the correlation of both fields.     

现代性、经济法理念与经济法治——科学发展观语境下的解析与重塑

现代性代表着一种时代意识、理性、进步观念和反思精神,现代性运动的历史变革引起了经济法及其理念的勃兴;在社会主义市场经济条件下,科学发展观的提出引起市场经济现代性的进一步嬗变,促使了经济法理念的张扬。在市场经济现代性追求和变革的背景下推进中国经济法治进程,就要以现代经济法理念为指导,培育民众,尤其是政府的经济法治信仰,奠定经济法治形成与发展的思想基础,提高经济法律的运用水平,促进良好的经济法治秩序的形成。     

A Word to the Readers

Dear Comrades: These are difficult times—no doubt about it. They are difficult for everyday work and life, and tormenting for the mind, memory, and conscience. And they are extremely difficult for our journal as well. Like other Party publications, it too has been abandoned (of course not by us) to the caprice of fate. But it is not merely our fate or the fate of some other individual. It is essentially the fate of the entire Party. It is now obvious that the captains of this ship were the first to abandon it. Whatever ship it was, it was kept afloat thanks to millions of honest people, far from any center of power and the wielding of it, who believed in the ideals of social justice. Just yesterday they were needed, appeals were made for their help and support, but today they do not merit even parting words of appreciation and gratitude.     

有效管辖视角下中国南海海权的维护

针对当前中国南海众多岛礁被侵占、大量资源被掠夺的现实，为更好地维护中国海权从而为建设海洋强国打下良好基础，对《联合国海洋法公约》所提到有效管辖这一裁决争议领土的重要标准进行了分析，进而提出以下建议：中国应尽早确定u形线为岛屿归属线并加快制定海洋基本法等管辖依据；尽快建构起坚强有力的南沙群岛海域管辖主体；同时在管辖中实现管辖内容的丰富化、差异化、重点化。     

The invention of health law

By default, the courts are inventing health law. The law governing the American health system arises from an unruly mix of statutes, regulations, and judge-crafted doctrines conceived, in the main, without medical care in mind. Courts are ill-equipped to put order to this chaos, and until recently they have been disinclined to try. But political gridlock and popular ire over managed care have pushed them into the breach, and the Supreme Court has become a proactive health policy player. How might judges make sense of health law's disparate doctrinal standards? Scholars from diverse ideological starting points have converged toward a single answer: the law should look to deploy medical resources in a systematically rational manner, so as to maximize the benefits that every dollar buys. This answer bases the orderly development of health care law upon our ability to reach stable understandings, in myriad circumstances, of what welfare maximization requires. In this Article, I contend that this goal is not achievable. Scientific ignorance, cognitive limitations, and normative disagreements yield shifting, incomplete, and contradictory understandings of social welfare in the health sphere. The chaotic state of health care law today reflects this unruliness. In making systemic welfare maximization the lodestar for health law, we risk falling so far short of aspirations for reasoned decision making as to invite disillusion about the possibilities for any sort of rationality in this field. Accordingly, I urge that we define health law's aims more modestly, based on acknowledgement that its rationality is discontinuous across substantive contexts and changeable with time. This concession to human limits, I argue, opens the way to health policy that mediates wisely between our desire for public action to maximize the well being of the many and our intimate wishes to be treated noninstrumentally, as separate ends. I conclude with an effort to identify the goals of health law, so constructed, should pursue and to suggest how a strategy of accommodation among these goals might apply to a variety of legal controversies.     

n-Butanol in blood as the indicator of how long a dead body lay in water

n-Butanol appears in large quantities in the blood of a drowned person and a correlation exists between its quantity (concentration) and the time the body lay in water. This correlation depends on the temperature of the water but not on whether it is fresh or salt water. The time of death can be fixed within the span of 0-26 days after the event, as we have found out in our research (no longer period has been examined).     

香港警队枪械训练对内地警察武器使用训练的启示

依法使用武器是法律赋予警察的权力，是维护社会治安、惩治违法犯罪、保护人民群众和警察生命安全的有力武器。而警察武器使用的训练是一个技能与法律法规密切结合的实战训练，也是一个不断发现问题和解决问题，熟能生巧的、有制度的、严格规范的、长期的、永恒的训练过程。香港警队的警务实战训练代表了世界最先进、最科学、最实用的训练水平，他们的枪械训练为内地警察武器使用的训练提供了很好的训练思路和训练方向。在目前形势下，我们应借鉴香港警队先进的训练理念和训练模式，开拓我们的思路，促使我们的警察武器使用训练发生质的变化，走上一个崭新的台阶，使训练与实际执法真正的结合起来。     

对一起美容非法行医案件的思考

生活美容机构开展医学美容业务存在着监管难题,如在执法调查及行政处罚过程中,违法主体认定、证据收集、法律适用等关键环节都存在着诸多问题。作者通过对一起未经批准在生活美容店开展医学美容的行政处罚案例的讨论,探讨非法行医案件调查取证的难点,剖析案件查处过程中违法主体、违法事实认定及法律适用等问题,提出对此类执法工作的相关建议。