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Purpose Methods and materials Results Conclusion Personal information References, Purpose: The introduction in the clinical practice of anti-angiogenic therapies aiming at preventing tumour growth, spread, and capability of generating metastasis, has highly improved efficacy of cancer treatment [1]. Since the effects of these therapies...

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Aims and objectives Methods and materials Results Conclusion Personal information References, Aims and objectives: In the last few decades, the introduction in the clinical practice of anti-angiogenic therapies aiming at preventing tumour growth, spread, and capability of generating metastasis, has highly improved efficacy of cancer treatment [1]. Differently...

The program of communicative legislation has developed in response to the deficiencies of traditional, democratic top down legislation. It assumes more horizontal relations between the legislator and the citizen. Compliance is seen as based not on commands backed up by sanctions, but on the positive symbolic effects of persuasion.In this text, which relies on sociological insights, I question some presumptions of the communicative program. In line with Habermas, I will maintain that in current complex societies the coercive power of the state and the formal procedural legitimacy of the law should be seen as building blocks of communicatively structured compliance. I also suggest that compliance may be based on symbolic effects other than persuasion. The signal-effects are an illustration of this. Finally, I will show that especially in circumstances in which the law contributes to overcoming problems of collective action, its effect will rely on the simultaneous impact of deterrent effects and persuasion-based effects. This is another illustration of the fact that the coercive power of the state and the formal procedural legitimacy of law can help to foster a persuasion-based acceptance of the law.

The legitimacy of the law is not to be found, as is often claimed, in procedural justice, but in the core function of the law: the symbolic insertion of every new generation into the community of legal subjects. This symbolic function is most ambitiously expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” This insertion has a transcendent character, since the legal community refers to another world, where freedom, equality and dignity eventually will prevail. This transcendent dimension of the law reflects the human desire for redemption from the human condition, from suffering, imperfections and evil. But the law not only provokes the desire for redemption, it structures that desire at the same time, by subjecting people to rules and dogmatism. In this way the law prevents that human desire for a counterfactual world will become unlimited, delirious or even destructive. However, the humanistic faith in civilization by law has given place to a faith in redemption from human suffering and evil by biotechnology. Why change and civilize the phenotype of man if the genotype can be optimized by genetic manipulation? Why inserting man into a transcendent, symbolic community of legal subjects, promising ultimate salvation from human suffering, if that salvation can be realized in the here-and-now? According to post-humanist philosophers, the transcendent dimensions of the law, in particular the transcendent principle of human dignity, are an obstacle to the inevitable development of a new, genetic modified, human species. The appeal of post-humanists to strip the law of its transcendent dimensions is not without risks. These dimensions should be upheld as far and as long as critical standards, like human dignity, can be derived from it. Without this practical wisdom the legitimacy of the law might ultimately disappear.

This chapter addresses the tension between ending conflict and stimulating dynamics, while at the same time seeking to avoid a repetition of arguments from earlier debates between opponents and proponents of communicative approaches to law. It does so by exploring the opportunities that an ethos of controversies can create in a two-track approach to the development of legal norms. An ethos of controversies is developed in response to failures in consensus-thinking that arise when addressing complex issues with a strong moral impact, such as developments in biotechnology. This ethos focuses primarily on structuring decision-making around complex issues in situations when aiming for consensus is premature. The two-track approach consists of a legal track, in which legal decisions can be made, and a moral track, in which moral debate may continue even after a decision has been made. It is argued that an interplay between these two approaches ensures that norm development can continue whenever the context requires, while legal conflicts can also be brought to an end. To that extent, the tension between ending conflict and stimulating dynamics need not be as great as often assumed.

Complex policy issues pose a conundrum for liberal democratic governments. Disagreement about complex policy issues can often be traced back to fundamental value differences and governments aim to avoid heavy political conflicts based on these, while at the same time they face the need for expedient decision making. One solution is to seek advice of or even defer decisions to expert committees, in particular ethics committees. In this paper, we focus on the role of ethics committees by putting the role of ethicists as experts up for discussion. We argue that governments and the public foster wrong expectations regarding the role and mandate of ethics committees. Normative expertise is essentially different from scientific expertise. Lumping them together has resulted in false expectations and an overvaluation of the role of various types of experts. It is therefore necessary to explicate the roles the various players have and to define what is to be expected from them.

Symbolic legislation commonly has a bad name. In critical sociological studies, it refers to instances of legislation that are to a large extent ineffective and that serve other political and social goals than the goals officially proclaimed. Since the nineties of the last century another concept of symbolic legislation is developed, in particular in Dutch legislation theory. In this more recent and more positive understanding, symbolic legislation is an alternative legislative technique that differs from the traditional top-down approach. The question that is addressed in this chapter, is whether there is a real – in the sense of epistemologically real – difference between the two concepts of symbolic legislation. On what grounds can the allegedly negative and positive concepts be differentiated from each other? Is it possible that one instance of legislation can be classified as symbolic legislation both in the negative sense and in the positive sense? Are they two sides of the same coin or do they constitute mutually exclusive categories? As will be shown, the distinction between the two concepts cannot be made on scientific grounds only, but involves considerations of a political kind.

In dit project richten wij ons op het gebrek aan up-to-date 3D indoormodellen voor een groot aantal openbare gebouwen. Deze modellen zijn voor vele stakeholders, maar vooral voor organisaties die zorg moeten dragen voor het managen van de veiligheid van openbare gebouwen, inclusief de BHV (Bedrijfshulpverleners), de brandweer en de veiligheidsregio’s, cruciaal. De enige ruimtelijke indoorgegevens, die momenteel voor de meeste gebouwen beschikbaar zijn, zijn 2D bouwtekeningen of ontwerp-BIMs (Building Information Models) voor de nieuwe gebouwen. Deze geven de staat van het gebouw ‘zoals ontworpen’ weer, die kan verschillen van de staat van het gebouw ‘zoals gebouwd’ of ‘zoals het is’. Tijdens operaties in de hulpverlening is kennis over verbouwingen (bijv. verlaagde plafonds of verhoogde vloeren), hoogte van de kamers en gangen en aanwezig meubilair van cruciaal belang voor brandbestrijders. Dergelijke informatie kan alleen verkregen worden via een up-to-date 3D indoormodel van het gebouw. Het project richt zich op verscheidene thema’s, die elders afzonderlijk behandeld zijn, maar nooit als één geheel. Het project streeft er naar een brug te slaan tussen onderzoek op het gebied van 3D indoorreconstructie variërend van puntenwolken, 3D indoormodellen (geometrie, semantiek en topologie) en 3D indoornavigatie ten behoeve van gebruikers. Op dit moment bestaat er geen procedure voor halfautomatische of automatische 3D reconstructie uit puntenwolken Puntenwolken zijn de data die vergaard worden nadat een apparaat een scan heeft uitgevoerd van alle hoeken en gaten van het gebouw. De puntenwolk wordt vertaald in een uitgebreid 3D-model dat verder kan worden onderverdeeld of geaggregeerd om verschillende gebruikers en activiteiten in crisissituaties te ondersteunen

This essay argues that the position of the State is pivotal for a clear understanding of crimes against humanity. By either actively oppressing its own citizens, or by blatantly failing to protect them against such systematic violence, the state forsakes its primary duty to protect its nationals and forfeits its sovereign claims. This provides the prime justification for the international community to pierce the sovereign veil and take over powers of criminal law enforcement. Taking stock of the two principles - security principle and international harm principle - which Larry May has developed to gauge the legitimacy of international interference in the realm of criminal law enforcement, the author argues that the security principle actually encapsulates the international harm principle. The oppression by the state of its own population bereaves that population from a vital capacity - to engage in politics - and arouses the concern of all humanity, because the essential destruction of the political realm reflects upon us all. Assuming that the international community has a right to intervene in case of crimes against humanity, it still requires explanation why international tribunals should engage in criminal law enforcement. If one is prepared to accept that norm expression is an important aim of international criminal justice, it follows that one should also accept the primacy of international criminal tribunals, at least as far as crimes against humanity are concerned. Norm expression requires that courts write historical accounts and international tribunals are better equipped than domestic courts to do this, as the former are better able to resist the temptation of getting involved in partisan disputes.