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Purpose: This paper aims to understand if buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services, a digital type of credit that targets young consumers, acts as a protective or a risk factor for food insecurity among young consumers in Australia. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses survey data from a representative sample of young consumers aged 18–24 from all internal states and territories in Australia. Propensity score matching is used to test two hypotheses: BNPL drives young consumers to food insecurity, and food insecurity leads young consumers to use BNPL. Findings: There is evidence that BNPL use is driving young Australian consumers to experience food insecurity, but there is no evidence of food insecurity driving the use of BNPL services. Practical implications: The evidence of BNPL driving young consumers to experience food insecurity calls for the adoption of practices and stronger regulation to ensure that young users from being overindebted. Originality/value: Although the link with more traditional forms of credit (such as personal loans) and consumer wellbeing has been explored more broadly, this project is the first attempt to have causal evidence of the link between BNPL and food insecurity in a high-income country, to the best of the authors' knowledge. This evidence helps to fill the gap about the protective or risky nature of this type of digital financial product, as experienced by young Australians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background. A definition of healthcare-associated infections is essential also for the attribution of the restorative burden to healthcare facilities in case of harm and for clinical risk management strategies. Regarding M. chimaera infections, there remains several issues on the ecosystem and pathogenesis. We aim to review the scientific evidence on M. chimaera beyond cardiac surgery, and thus discuss its relationship with healthcare facilities. (2) Methods. A systematic review was conducted on PubMed and Web of Science on 7 May 2024 according to PRISMA 2020 guidelines for reporting systematic reviews, including databases searches with the keyword "Mycobacterium chimaera". Article screening was conducted by tree authors independently. The criterion for inclusion was cases that were not, or were improperly, consistent with the in-situ deposition of aerosolised M. chimaera. (3) Results. The search yielded 290 eligible articles. After screening, 34 articles (377 patients) were included. In five articles, patients had undergone cardiac surgery and showed musculoskeletal involvement or disseminated infection without cardiac manifestations. In 11 articles, respiratory specimen reanalyses showed M. chimaera. Moreover, 10 articles reported lung involvement, 1 reported meninges involvement, 1 reported skin involvement, 1 reported kidney involvement after transplantation, 1 reported tendon involvement, and 1 reported the involvement of a central venous catheter; 3 articles reported disseminated cases with one concomitant spinal osteomyelitis. (4) Conclusions. The scarce data on environmental prevalence, the recent studies on M. chimaera ecology, and the medicalised sample selection bias, as well as the infrequent use of robust ascertainment of sub-species, need to be weighed up. The in-house aerosolization, inhalation, and haematogenous spread deserve experimental study, as M. chimaera cardiac localisation could depend to transient bacteraemia. Each case deserves specific ascertainment before tracing back to the facility, even if M. chimaera represents a core area for healthcare facilities within a framework of infection prevention and control policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of digital companies has brought benefits to society. Nevertheless, the digital era poses significant risks to consumers' privacy. The combination, through mergers, of enormous datasets could raise further privacy concerns. It has been much discussed whether and how consumer privacy concerns should be introduced within merger assessment. This paper approaches this issue from another perspective and reflects upon the circumstances under which the EU Merger Control Regulation (EUMR) has a role to address privacy issues. Accordingly, this paper clarifies the conditions that must be satisfied in order for privacy issues to fall within the EUMR's ambit. First, privacy should be a parameter of competition on the market and second, there must be a causal link between the merger and privacy deterioration. Following this, the paper turns to critically analyse the Commission's treatment of privacy issues in objectively selected mergers involving some of the most powerful digital companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Previous studies have reported controversial relationships between circulating vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) and ischemic stroke (IS). This study aims to demonstrate the causal effect between VEGF and IS using Mendelian randomization (MR). Methods: Summary statistics data from two large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for 16,112 patients with measured VEGF levels and 40,585 patients with IS were downloaded from public databases and included in this study. A published calculator was adopted for MR power calculation. The primary outcome was any ischemic stroke, and the secondary outcomes were large-artery stroke, cardioembolic stroke, and small-vessel stroke. We used the inverse variance-weighted (IVW) method for primary analysis, supplemented by MR-Egger regression and the weighted median method. Results: Nine SNPs were included to represent serum VEGF levels. The IVW method revealed no strong causal association between VEGF and any ischemic stroke (odds ratio [OR] 1.01, 95% CI 0.99–1.04, p = 0.39), cardioembolic stroke (OR 1.04, 95% CI 0.97–1.12, p = 0.28), large-artery stroke (OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.95–1.09, p = 0.62), and small-vessel stroke (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.91–1.04, p = 0.46). These findings remained robust in sensitivity analyses. MR-Egger regression suggested no horizontal pleiotropy. Conclusions: This Mendelian randomization study found no relationship between genetically predisposed serum VEGF levels and risks of IS or its subtypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Introduction Previous studies have reported controversial relationships between circulating vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) and ischemic stroke (IS). This study aims to demonstrate the causal effect between VEGF and IS using Mendelian randomization (MR). Methods Summary statistics data from two large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for 16,112 patients with measured VEGF levels and 40,585 patients with IS were downloaded from public databases and included in this study. A published calculator was adopted for MR power calculation. The primary outcome was any ischemic stroke, and the secondary outcomes were large-artery stroke, cardioembolic stroke, and small-vessel stroke. We used the inverse variance-weighted (IVW) method for primary analysis, supplemented by MR-Egger regression and the weighted median method. Results Nine SNPs were included to represent serum VEGF levels. The IVW method revealed no strong causal association between VEGF and any ischemic stroke (odds ratio [OR] 1.01, 95% CI 0.99–1.04, p = 0.39), cardioembolic stroke (OR 1.04, 95% CI 0.97–1.12, p = 0.28), large-artery stroke (OR 1.02, 95% CI 0.95–1.09, p = 0.62), and small-vessel stroke (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.91–1.04, p = 0.46). These findings remained robust in sensitivity analyses. MR-Egger regression suggested no horizontal pleiotropy. Conclusions This Mendelian randomization study found no relationship between genetically predisposed serum VEGF levels and risks of IS or its subtypes.

The paper aims to highlight the decisive role of supranational and national courts in the recognition of a fundamental right to a healthy environment and in widening the scope of its protection. It analyses, in a critical sense, the doctrine that defines this trend as jurisprudential activism and that raises concerns regarding the principle of separation of powers.

Copyright of Revista Derecho del Estado is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

(1) Background. A definition of healthcare-associated infections is essential also for the attribution of the restorative burden to healthcare facilities in case of harm and for clinical risk management strategies. Regarding M. chimaera infections, there remains several issues on the ecosystem and pathogenesis. We aim to review the scientific evidence on M. chimaera beyond cardiac surgery, and thus discuss its relationship with healthcare facilities. (2) Methods. A systematic review was conducted on PubMed and Web of Science on 7 May 2024 according to PRISMA 2020 guidelines for reporting systematic reviews, including databases searches with the keyword “Mycobacterium chimaera”. Article screening was conducted by tree authors independently. The criterion for inclusion was cases that were not, or were improperly, consistent with the in-situ deposition of aerosolised M. chimaera. (3) Results. The search yielded 290 eligible articles. After screening, 34 articles (377 patients) were included. In five articles, patients had undergone cardiac surgery and showed musculoskeletal involvement or disseminated infection without cardiac manifestations. In 11 articles, respiratory specimen reanalyses showed M. chimaera. Moreover, 10 articles reported lung involvement, 1 reported meninges involvement, 1 reported skin involvement, 1 reported kidney involvement after transplantation, 1 reported tendon involvement, and 1 reported the involvement of a central venous catheter; 3 articles reported disseminated cases with one concomitant spinal osteomyelitis. (4) Conclusions. The scarce data on environmental prevalence, the recent studies on M. chimaera ecology, and the medicalised sample selection bias, as well as the infrequent use of robust ascertainment of sub-species, need to be weighed up. The in-house aerosolization, inhalation, and haematogenous spread deserve experimental study, as M. chimaera cardiac localisation could depend to transient bacteraemia. Each case deserves specific ascertainment before tracing back to the facility, even if M. chimaera represents a core area for healthcare facilities within a framework of infection prevention and control policies.

Copyright of Revista Digital de Derecho Administrativo is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contabilidad y Dirección is the property of ACCID and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Incorporating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into business strategy has become noteworthy, as that pertains to the discretionary initiatives a business entity undertakes to enhance its operational sphere’s societal and ecological circumstances. The evaluation of a company’s success is closely tied to its financial performance, which pertains to its capacity to produce earnings and enhance shareholder worth. The correlation between CSR and financial performance has been a topic of significant discourse, with numerous studies examining this subject from diverse perspectives. Nevertheless, establishing a causal association between the concepts above poses a formidable challenge, owing to the intricate nature of the association and the likelihood of extraneous variables exerting an effect. This study suggests a model for CSR based on Machine Learning (ML), referred to as the Machine Learning-based Corporate Social Responsibility Model (ML-CSRM). This model aims to establish a causal relationship between CSR and financial performance. The paper commences with a comprehensive exposition of CSR and its correlation with financial performance. The discourse delves into the intricacies of ascertaining the causal relationship between the two. The method under consideration utilizes Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and text clustering techniques to examine extant legal documents about CSR. The study presents the proposed method’s simulation results [Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient, precision, recall, Root-Mean-Squared Error (RMSE), and R-squared] and discusses the proposed approach’s outcomes. The outcomes of this research carry significant ramifications for both commercial enterprises and the broader community, given that they offer discernment into the correlation between CSR and economic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to highlight the decisive role of supranational and national courts in the recognition of a fundamental right to a healthy environment and in widening the scope of its protection. It analyses, in a critical sense, the doctrine that defines this trend as jurisprudential activism and that raises concerns regarding the principle of separation of powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 28 September 2022, the European Commission released its long-awaited proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Liability Directive (AILD). In contrast to the high expectations on providing a harmonised liability framework for the damage caused by AI systems, the proposed AILD only proposes minimum harmonised procedural rules to facilitate evidence disclosure and alleviate the burden of proof undertaken by claimants. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the proposed AILD and points out the problems when implementing the proposed rules. This article argues that the AILD may never reach its full potential as its name indicates. The fragmentation among Member States regarding the substantive matters may preclude the AILD from moving a step further for harmonising substantial issues. While a comprehensive risk regulation (the EU AI Act) must be followed by an effective remedy mechanism, the proposed AILD will not fill this gap in the short run.

As cases of violation of employees’ rights are becoming more and more frequent today, the issue of bringing the employer or its authorised body to justice is becoming increasingly relevant. One of the most effective ways to counteract this phenomenon is to compensate for moral damages. That is why the purpose of the article is to determine the conditions and grounds for bringing an employer to liability in the form of compensation for damage to an employee, since this issue is the most pressing one. The following scientific methods were used in the course of the study: monographic, formal and logical, legal and dogmatic, systemic and structural, and the method of summarization. It is established that compensation for non-pecuniary damage to an employee is possible subject to certain statutory conditions which are common to liability in all cases of non-pecuniary damage. Each of these conditions is examined in detail, namely: the fact of causing (presence of) non-pecuniary damage; unlawfulness of the employer’s actions; existence of a causal link between the employer’s unlawful act and the non-pecuniary damage caused to the employee; and the employer's guilt. The author proves that non-pecuniary damage occurs if the following grounds exist: the person and the perpetrator of the damage are in an employment relationship; it arose as a result of a violation of labour rights by the employer; the employee suffers moral losses in the form of emotional distress, and these negative changes have led to the loss of normal life ties and require additional efforts from the employee to organise his or her life. It is proved that the most appropriate theory for resolving the issue of the presence or absence of causation in the legal relations under consideration is the theory of direct and indirect causation. It is argued that since moral suffering always “accompanies” a violation of an employee’s legal labour rights, the presumption of moral damages should be enshrined in law. Based on the study of relevant sources and regulations, the author provides her own definition of the concept of “employer’s guilt”.

IntroductionAt present, elucidating the cortical origin of EEG microstates is a research hotspot in the field of EEG. Previous studies have suggested that the prefrontal cortex is closely related to EEG microstate C and D, but whether there is a causal link between the prefrontal cortex and microstate C or D remains unclear.MethodsIn this study, pretrial EEG data were collected from ten patients with prefrontal lesions (mainly located in inferior and middle frontal gyrus) and fourteen matched healthy controls, and EEG microstate analysis was applied.ResultsOur results showed that four classical EEG microstate topographies were obtained in both groups, but microstate C topography in patient group was obviously abnormal. Compared to healthy controls, the average coverage and occurrence of microstate C significantly reduced. In addition, the transition probability from microstate A to C and from microstate B to C in patient group was significantly lower than those of healthy controls.DiscussionThe above results demonstrated that the damage of prefrontal cortex especially inferior and middle frontal gyrus could lead to abnormalities in the spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of microstate C not D, showing that there is a causal link between the inferior and middle frontal gyrus and the microstate C. The significance of our findings lies in providing new evidence for elucidating the cortical origin of microstate C.

The Culpable Control Model assumes that causal judgments are irrational: a negative evaluative reaction to an agent would lead individuals to overestimate his causal contribution to a harm. However, the extent to which these judgments deviate from criteria of rationality remains unclear. The two present studies aimed at investigating conditions under which this effect occurs. Participants red a vignette in which the evaluative reaction was operationalized through the agent’s motives (blameworthy, laudable). We also varied the causal link between the agent’s action and the outcome (strong, weak, preempted). In both studies, we found that negative motives influenced causal judgments when a strong action-outcome link could be established. In Study 2, we replicated the effect of motives on causal judgment in the weak link condition. However, participants consistently judged the agent as less causal when the link was weak (vs. strong), regardless of the agent’s motives. These findings show that both the presence and the strength of the actual causal link between the action and the outcome moderate the detrimental effect of negative evaluative reactions on causal judgments. Thus, common sense causal judgments seem to deviate relatively little from the criteria of rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fetal inflammatory response syndrome (FIRS) represents the fetal inflammatory reaction to intrauterine infection or injury, potentially leading to multiorgan impairment, neonatal mortality, and morbidity. Infections induce FIRS after chorioamnionitis (CA), defined as acute maternal inflammatory response to amniotic fluid infection, acute funisitis and chorionic vasculitis. FIRS involves many molecules, i.e., cytokines and/or chemokines, able to directly or indirectly damage fetal organs. Therefore, due to FIRS being a condition with a complex etiopathogenesis and multiple organ dysfunction, especially brain injury, medical liability is frequently claimed. In medical malpractice, reconstruction of the pathological pathways is paramount. However, in cases of FIRS, ideal medical conduct is hard to delineate, due to uncertainty in diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of this highly complex condition. This narrative review revises the current knowledge of FIRS caused by infections, maternal and neonatal diagnosis and treatments, the main consequences of the disease and their prognoses, and discusses the medico-legal implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Understand whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the risk of different types of conflict worldwide in the context of climate change. Methodology: Based on the database of armed conflict, COVID-19, detailed climate, and non-climate data covering the period 2020–2021, we applied Structural Equation Modeling specifically to reorganize the links between climate, COVID-19, and conflict risk. Moreover, we used the Boosted Regression Tree method to simulate conflict risk under the influence of multiple factors. Findings: The transmission risk of COVID-19 seems to decrease as the temperature rises. Additionally, COVID-19 has a substantial worldwide impact on conflict risk, albeit regional and conflict risk variations exist. Moreover, when testing a one-month lagged effect, we find consistency across regions, indicating a positive influence of COVID-19 on demonstrations (protests and riots) and a negative relationship with non-state and violent conflict risk. Conclusion: COVID-19 has a complex effect on conflict risk worldwide under climate change. Implications: Laying the theoretical foundation of how COVID-19 affects conflict risk and providing some inspiration for the implementation of relevant policies.

The fact that inter-human relations find their expression in the manifestations of the virtual environment is a social reality that cannot be ignored and that requires legal regulation, because these technologies provide new opportunities for the respect of human rights and for socioeconomic development. Thus, the counterbalancing of two fundamental rights, namely the right to private life and the right to free expression, presents incidences in the field of civil law, by involving tortious civil liability, as a result of the commission of an illegal act in cyberspace. The purpose of this article is to identify some situations in judicial practice, when the institution of civil liability was put into question, related to a damage suffered through an illegal act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), has been reported to be associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD); however, the causal link between IBD and CHD is unclear. We performed Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to investigate the association between genetically predicted IBD and CHD risk. Methods: Exposure summary data were obtained from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) with cohorts of IBD (12,882 cases and 21,770 controls), UC (6968 cases and 20,464 controls), and CD (5956 cases and 14,927 controls) of European descent to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as instrumental variables. Outcome summary data were obtained from a meta-analysis of 22 GWAS including 22,233 cases and 64,762 controls of European descent. To estimate MR, four methods were used, including inverse variance-weighted (IVW), MR-Egger, simple mode, and weighted median methods. Sensitivity analysis was also performed. The Bonferroni method was used to correct the bias of multiple testing. Results: Three sets of SNPs (69 SNPs of IBD, 40 SNPs of UC, and 58 SNPs of CD) were used to estimate the causal effect between genetically predicted IBD and CHD. Using the IVW method, we found that no causal relationship between genetically predicted IBD and CHD after Bonferroni correction, and there was no causal relationship between UC/CD and the development of CHD. No evidence of significant heterogeneity and pleiotropy was found. Conclusion: The results of this study suggested that genetically predicted IBD may have no causal effect on CHD risk in a population with European ancestry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines China's complaint against the U.S. for imposing impermissible safeguards on certain solar power products, which has been dismissed by a panel of the World Trade Organization, and points out two aspects of the panel's decision that appear deficient.

Copyright of Saúde e Sociedade is the property of Universidade de Sao Paulo, Faculdade de Saude Publica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Romanian Review of Private Law / Revista Română de Drept Privat is the property of Universul Juridic Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The loss of the chance to obtain an advantage or to avoid a damage represents a new form of reparation of prejudice regulated by the Civil Code, enshrined by the provisions of Article 1385 (4) of the Civil Code, and represents a distinct category of prejudice reparable by engaging in tort civil liability, which concerns those negative consequences directly caused by the commission of an illegal act that consist in missing the real and serious possibility of the occurrence of a favourable event for the victim's life, which could have brought him fulfilment in his personal or economic life by the carrying out of some projects. Therefore, the loss of a chance means the loss by a person of the possibility to achieve a gain or, as the case may be, to avoid a damage, which may result in causing a prejudice to that person. De lege lata, we mention that the prejudice caused by the „loss of the chance to obtain an advantage” can be invoked within the framework of tort (extra-contractual) civil liability, but also in the field of contractual civil liability whenever by the non-fulfilment of the legal or contractual obligations such consequences have occurred. This prejudice could be claimed both by the direct victim of an illegal act and by those close to them if they prove that they suffered, through ricochet, such a prejudice. In order to have a reparable prejudice, the chance of occurrence of the favourable event for the victim must be as real as it is serious, which is assessed differently, whether or not the victim was in the process of taking the chance at the time when the event that compromised the possibility to achieve it occurred, and this prejudice must be in a direct causal link with the illegal act committed by the responsible person. The assessment of the chance shall be carried out in relation with two criteria, namely the examination of the circumstances in which the illegal act was committed, on the one hand, and the special situation in which the victim was at that time, on the other hand. With regard to the features of the prejudice, we specify that it must be certain (certain, unquestionable) and real (undeniable, effective, indisputable), and not an eventual one (possible, probable), the loss, therefore, must be actual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé: La perte de chance est une notion jurisprudentielle qui permet aux demandeurs d'une action de se voir octroyer des dommages et intérêts lorsqu'ils perdent une chance d'obtenir un évènement favorable. Cette notion tire son origine de la négligence professionnelle applicable en droit des contrats. Toutefois, c'est surtout dans le cadre médical que cette notion est controversée. Les juges en ont eu une interprétation large, au point que le lien causal entre la faute et le dommage ne soit pas démontré avec certitude. D'autre part, les juges ont une attitude trop complaisante à l'égard des patients. Dans un premier temps, cet article mènera une étude comparative sur la notion de perte de chance et analysera les différentes approches adoptées par pays. Dans un second temps, les conséquences juridiques et l'impact financier seront étudiés. The loss of chance is a legal theory that enables claimants to be awarded damages when they lost a chance to a better outcome. Traditionally, this theory has been related to professional negligence, but its application generates debate mainly in medical malpractice claims for being based on speculation and for the compassionate approach adopted by the judges. The article analyses first the application of the loss of chance theory both in Common law and civil law jurisdictions. It then refers to the points of criticism brought by lawyers and academics, and concludes in the legal, financial, and social consequences of such doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) has been used since its discovery to characterize vegetation photosynthesis and is an effective tool for monitoring vegetation dynamics. Its response to meteorological drought enhances our comprehension of the ecological consequences and adaptive mechanisms of plants facing water scarcity, informing more efficient resource management and efforts in mitigating climate change. This study investigates the spatial and temporal patterns of SIF and examines how vegetation SIF in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) responds to meteorological drought. The findings reveal a gradual southeast-to-northwest decline in SIF across the Yellow River Basin, with an overall increase—from 0.1083 W m-2μm−1sr−1 in 2001 to 0.1468 W m-2μm−1sr−1 in 2019. Approximately 96% of the YRB manifests an upward SIF trend, with 75% of these areas reaching statistical significance. The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at a time scale of 4 months (The SPEI-4), based on the Liang-Kleeman information flow method, is identified as the most suitable drought index, adeptly characterizing the causal relationship influencing SIF variations. As drought intensified, the SPEI-4 index markedly deviated from the baseline, resulting in a decrease in SIF values to their lowest value; subsequently, as drought lessened, it gravitated towards the baseline, and SIF values began to gradually increase, eventually recovering to near their annual maximum. The key finding is that the variability of SIF with SPEI is relatively pronounced in the early growing season, with forests demonstrating superior resilience compared to grasslands and croplands. The responsiveness of vegetation SIF to SPEI can facilitate the establishment of effective drought early warning systems and promote the rational planning of water resources, thereby mitigating the impacts of climate change. [Display omitted] • SPEI-4, best suited, characterizes the cause influencing SIF variations. • Forests exhibit greater drought resistance than grasslands and croplands. • The initial phase of vegetation growth is more drought-sensitive. • Repeated droughts cause greater damage to vegetation. • "Grain to Gree" project assists promote ecological stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fetal inflammatory response syndrome (FIRS) represents the fetal inflammatory reaction to intrauterine infection or injury, potentially leading to multiorgan impairment, neonatal mortality, and morbidity. Infections induce FIRS after chorioamnionitis (CA), defined as acute maternal inflammatory response to amniotic fluid infection, acute funisitis and chorionic vasculitis. FIRS involves many molecules, i.e., cytokines and/or chemokines, able to directly or indirectly damage fetal organs. Therefore, due to FIRS being a condition with a complex etiopathogenesis and multiple organ dysfunction, especially brain injury, medical liability is frequently claimed. In medical malpractice, reconstruction of the pathological pathways is paramount. However, in cases of FIRS, ideal medical conduct is hard to delineate, due to uncertainty in diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of this highly complex condition. This narrative review revises the current knowledge of FIRS caused by infections, maternal and neonatal diagnosis and treatments, the main consequences of the disease and their prognoses, and discusses the medico-legal implications.

Social adversity events commonly occur in our daily lives. However, an individual's perception of social adversity experienced may be more important than actual events in impacting an individual's psychological functioning and reactions. In the current study, we examined how individuals' perception of social adversity events they experienced is associated with their traumatic stress symptoms as well as mood and anxiety symptoms using the Bayesian network model. The findings indicated that individuals with a perception of social adversity events as traumatic and frequent showed an increase in the probability of displaying a high level of posttraumatic stress symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of FORO: Revista de Ciencias Juridicas y Sociales Nueva Epoca is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

When a new bug report is assigned to developers, they first need to understand what the bug report expresses (what) and why this bug occurs (why). To do so, developers usually explore different bug related data sources to investigate whether there are historical bugs with similar symptoms and causes related to the bug at hand. Automatic bug classification with respect to what and why information of bugs would enable developers to narrow down their search of bug resources and improve the bug fixing productivity. To achieve this goal, we propose an approach, BugClass, which applies a deep neural network classification approach based on Hierarchical Attention Networks (HAN) to automatically classify the bugs into different what and why categories by exploiting the bug repository and commit repository. Then, we explore the causal link relationship between what and why categories to further improve the accuracy of the bug classification. Experimental results demonstrate that BugClass is effective to classify the given bug reports into what and why categories, and can be also effectively used for identifying the why category for new bugs based on the causal link relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Ibero-Latinoamericana de Seguros is the property of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Competition law has to adapt to the challenges of the digital era, not by changing its objectives but by changing its analytical tools. At a time where the Commission contemplates going back to using exploitative abuses under Article 102 (a) TFEU, an enquiry into the use of these quite unexplored abuses for prohibiting excessive data gathering seems necessary. Considering that online advertising is the financial lungs of the zero-price economy in which platforms operate, we will address the competitive problems of third-party data processing from the standpoint of online advertising. Thus, we will analyse the functioning of advertising markets, how they interact with the consumer-facing markets as regards data extraction and what competitive problems may arise out of this interaction. The framework being set, we will give a detailed analysis of the Facebook decision from the German Competition Authority (GCA) by which it sanctioned Facebook for abuse of dominant position for its extensive data collection policy. Considering the successes and pitfalls of this attempt, we will suggest an analytical framework for approaching third-party data gathering under European competition law and Article 102 (a) TFEU in particular, taking into account exclusionary effects on the advertising side of platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issues of the delictual (tort) liability for the poor-quality provision of prenatal diagnostics. The relevance of the research can be explained as follows: the issue of recovering the expenses for lifelong treatment and caring for a child born with the pathologies that had not been revealed by prenatal diagnosis of the child’s mother has been considered for the first time in Russian science. This problem is important not only for science and practice, but for every person who can face the birth of such a child. In the course of the research, the following main result has been obtained: it is possible to recover the expenses for lifelong treatment and caring for a child born with the pathologies that had not been revealed by prenatal diagnosis of the child’s mother. In addition, the analysis of the features of the conditions for the delictual liability for this kind of poor-quality medical service provision has allowed to identify the liability limits. The results of the research play a significant role for development of the Russian judicial practice. One of the conclusions is that there has been no a single claim for the recovery of the expenses for lifelong treatment and caring for a child born with the pathologies that had not been revealed by prenatal diagnosis of the child’s mother. At the same time, state benefits are often not enough to treat such a child and care properly for it. As a result, this paper opens the way for a new direction of judicial practice. This direction can offer new opportunities for children born with the pathologies that had not been revealed by prenatal diagnosis and for their parents.

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Climate litigation is a new phenomenon, original and unpublished in law. This type of climate justice resources has expanded dramatically throughout Europe and the rest of the world since 2015 when the celebrated Urgenda affair will turn the situation around and put this type of process at the forefront of environmental studies. This article proposes a comparative, analytical and critical study of the multiplication of climatic resources. The interest in their study is plural: these resources represent a contribution to the building of the construction of a climatic law, at the same time that they allow us to see certain positive developments in the more general environmental law. At the same time, these new resources highlight the need to consider the institution of responsibility under a more flexible and dynamic prism, as well as in a general way, the very rules of the environmental process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until fairly recently, the Court of Justice of the European Union has not had the opportunity to provide much precision concerning the European Union's non-contractual liability in the field of individual restrictive measures. However, since the seminal judgment in the Safa Nicu Sepahan case, the relevant case-law seems to be increasing in quantity. The following paper, having as its starting point the case-law of the General Court, constitutes an attempt to identify any specificities in the case-law concerning non-contractual liability in the field of individual restrictive measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: At present, elucidating the cortical origin of EEG microstates is a research hotspot in the field of EEG. Previous studies have suggested that the prefrontal cortex is closely related to EEG microstate C and D, but whether there is a causal link between the prefrontal cortex and microstate C or D remains unclear., Methods: In this study, pretrial EEG data were collected from ten patients with prefrontal lesions (mainly located in inferior and middle frontal gyrus) and fourteen matched healthy controls, and EEG microstate analysis was applied., Results: Our results showed that four classical EEG microstate topographies were obtained in both groups, but microstate C topography in patient group was obviously abnormal. Compared to healthy controls, the average coverage and occurrence of microstate C significantly reduced. In addition, the transition probability from microstate A to C and from microstate B to C in patient group was significantly lower than those of healthy controls., Discussion: The above results demonstrated that the damage of prefrontal cortex especially inferior and middle frontal gyrus could lead to abnormalities in the spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of microstate C not D, showing that there is a causal link between the inferior and middle frontal gyrus and the microstate C. The significance of our findings lies in providing new evidence for elucidating the cortical origin of microstate C., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Zhao, Ran, Lv, Wang, Qiu, Wang, Xu, Guo, Gao, Mu and Yu.)

Aim: The aim of the present paper is two-fold. First, it reviews the Hippocratic collection to identify instances related to the issue of medical malpractice and medical negligence. Second, it discusses the results viewed from today's perspective, in the context of contemporary theories of liability in malpractice cases. Method: A careful review of the books of Hippocratic collection was performed, as well as a narrative review of the currently available academic literature, focusing on topics of contemporary theories of liability in malpractice cases, which correspond roughly to the medical malpractice instances identified in Hippocratic collection. Results: The Hippocratic authors touch on some issues which are essential to the contemporary theory of medical error and negligence, which, however, cannot yet unquestionably address these issues. Among others, they refer to errors that contemporarily might be viewed as technical human errors, errors of omission, or errors which were unavoidable in the context of applied ancient Greek medicine as is the case of injuries that are not based on physician's fault, or situations where the diagnosis of the particular disease or causal link between the physician's breach of duty and the damage suffered, was difficult or even impossible. Interestingly, the Hippocratic authors underscore some errors which might not be based on physician's fault. Conclusion: The passages mentioned in this paper, originating from the Hippocratic collection that refer to medical malpractice, imply an awareness of what is currently discussed as medical malpractice. This consideration may carry some weight, in particular when adopting a flexible traditionalist approach to the medical liability rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]