We present a training module in AI ethics designed to prepare a broad group of professionals to recognize and address potential ethical challenges of AI applications in healthcare. Training materials include a two-page checklist, a brief glossary, and three practical case studies. While we have developed and applied this framework for training Research Ethics Committee members in France and South Africa, it can also be helpful in university courses ranging from public health and healthcare law to biomedical engineering and applied ethics.

A common challenge in studying Italian parliamentary discourse is the lack of accessible, machine-readable, and systematized parliamentary data. To address this, this article introduces the ItaParlCorpus dataset, a new, annotated, machine-readable collection of Italian parliamentary plenary speeches for the Camera dei Deputati, the lower house of Parliament, spanning from 1948 to 2022. This dataset encompasses 470 million words and 2.4 million speeches delivered by 5830 unique speakers representing 77 different political parties. The files are designed for easy processing and analysis using widely-used programming languages, and they include metadata such as speaker identification and party affiliation. This opens up opportunities for in-depth analyses on a variety of topics related to parliamentary behavior, elite rhetoric, and the salience of political themes, exploring how these vary across party families and over time.

Colonialism has produced the global health system, and decoloniality must inform global health law. This article considers the foundational impact of colonialism on the global health system and advocates for adopting decoloniality as a crucial framework to reshape global health law. Through a historical lens, it examines how European colonialism established power dynamics and structures that continue to influence contemporary global health governance. This article calls for overcoming enduring challenges by emphasizing the urgency of dismantling outdated and unjust systems that perpetuate health inequities and hinder effective interventions. It argues for a paradigm shift toward epistemically inclusive, ethical, and equitable practices, emphasizing the active participation of marginalized communities in health policymaking. By addressing the root causes of health disparities and decoupling health systems from racial capitalism, a decolonial approach promises a more just and effective future for global health law.

I have been investigating and reporting on image manipulation in the bioscience literature since 2011. During this time, several new tools have emerged to streamline the processes of image analysis and reporting. When presenting and discussing examples of scientific image manipulation, a common question is “how do you find this stuff?” Herein, I outline common software and other utilities — a toolbox for discovery and reporting of problematic scientific images and other data. This may serve as a useful reference for those seeking to enhance the effective removal of problematic papers from the bioscience literature.

Massachusetts Bill H.2333, An act to establish the Massachusetts incarcerated individual bone marrow and organ donation program, was introduced in February 2023 and sparked immediate controversy. In their analysis of the proposed legislation, Albertsen et al. raise the ethical issue of unequal opportunity for sentence reduction and examine Bill H.2333 relative to mainstream theories of punishment. This commentary broadens the lens to the landscape of parole and medical parole, underscoring the complex demands placed on incarcerated individuals seeking sentence reduction in Massachusetts.

The proliferation of satellite technology has ushered in an era of opportunity and challenge for the existing international legal framework of space law. International regulatory bodies have looked to existing treaties governing space activities like the Outer Space Treaty, the Liability Convention, and the Registration Convention. In this new era, the challenges that have emerged cannot be enforced by the broad language of the treaties and outdated terms. For example, the deployment of large constellations of smaller satellites poses new challenges, like orbital debris damage and evasive responsibility, which the legal landscape for outer space must address. Space law stresses geopolitical considerations and strategic international legal frameworks that work to reduce the militarization of space and ensure that space is for all. This paper explores current treaties and challenges and proposes legal and policy solutions for the satellite industry’s responsible use of outer space.

Nathan Witkin, in his article The Cost of Closed Doors…, attempts to reframe the question of whether child dependency proceedings should be open or closed to the public and press by positing a balancing test between “dependent families seeking privacy…and the macro-level benefits of a more transparent system.” Witkin’s hypothesis is that opening dependency proceedings educates the public that child welfare spending must be increased, that transparency leads to “greater per capita” spending in open versus closed dependency systems, and finally, that more child welfare spending will result in fewer per capita child welfare fatalities in open court states. This article will examine both sides of Witkin’s proposed balancing test to demonstrate that his approach fails to prove his hypotheses. First, it will discuss how Witkin’s almost total reliance on twenty-five to thirty-year-old psychological studies rather than on contemporary mental health research substantially understates the potential dangers to child abuse victims, especially LGBTQ+ and polyvictimized children, from opening child dependency proceedings. Second, it will present evidence that the welfare budgets did not constantly increase in some closed court states that were later opened to the public, but rather fluctuated through sporadic ups and downs which over time resulted in almost no net longitudinal budgetary increases. Second, those originally closed courts that were later opened had their child fatality rates actually increase which is the opposite of Witkin’s predictions.

Comic opera from the first half of the eighteenth century borrowed many of the structural and formal features of the dramma per musica. The arias of early comic opera were almost exclusively set in da capo form, which had become ubiquitous near the end of the seventeenth century. Although commentators and librettists frequently lamented the banality of this inherited convention, it persisted until about 1750, when, over the course of approximately a decade, it was replaced by a much more flexible approach to the formal organization of arias. This article investigates that period of experimentation and identifies the individuals who drove the innovations. I argue that two singers in particular, Francesco Baglioni and Serafina Penna, provided the impetus to break away from da capo form. Their desire for arias that displayed their dramatic and musical abilities to the greatest advantage led the librettist Carlo Goldoni to provide them with textual prompts that required new approaches to musical form. By emphasizing the connection between singers and librettists, I draw attention to the collaborative nature of operatic production. This approach also demonstrates the ways in which musical form, usually considered the purview of the composer, is in fact rooted in the features of the libretto and inspired by the inclinations and abilities of singers.

L’œuvre du philosophe australien Thom van Dooren dessine une approche originale de l’animalité fondée sur la prise en compte de l’urgence de sa crise à l’heure de l’effondrement de la biodiversité. Alors que ses premières enquêtes portaient sur les oiseaux, depuis longtemps au centre de nombreux débats sur les risques d’extinction d’espèces, il s’est ensuite tourné vers les escargots, petits mollusques terrestres longtemps négligés mais au bord de l’extinction dans de nombreuses régions du monde. Son approche consiste à suivre les scientifiques et éthologues spécialistes des diverses espèces, tout en confrontant leurs observations aux récits historiques de transformations environnementales de certains territoires afin de mieux comprendre les multiples enchevêtrements interspécifiques entre espèces, humaines et non humaines. Les récits de crise et d’extinctions d’espèces présentés par le philosophe australien questionnent les approches historiennes de l’animal et ouvrent de riches perspectives et réflexions méthodologiques pour renouveler à la fois la compréhension des phénomènes d’extinction et les enjeux éthiques des crises environnementales en cours. L’étude des phénomènes d’extinction des espèces animales proposée par T. van Dooren inaugure par ailleurs un champ de recherche pluridisciplinaire original qui entend apporter une contribution à partir des sciences sociales à l’étude contemporaine de la crise de la biodiversité et au fonctionnement des interactions interspécifiques qui façonnent les trajectoires de vie et de mort des espèces.