Anti-Competitive Effects of Discriminatory Licensing for Standards-Essential Patents and Antitrust Policymaking

Antitrust examination of discriminatory patent licensing fees imposed by companies who own standards-essential patents(SEPs) is a difficult issue in antitrust law enforcement. After studying Huawei's litigation against IDC and China's anti-monopoly investigation of Qualcomm, this paper creates a vertical oligopolistic game theory model to demonstrate that discriminatory licensing fees imposed by firms with patent monopoly will lead to the collection of high licensing fees from downstream low-cost firms, weaken their competitive advantage, reduce their output and market share, impede their follow-up innovations, and generally harm the social welfare. Therefore, charging high discriminatory licensing fees constitutes an act that harms competition and should be prohibited by antitrust law. Antitrust examination of discriminatory licensing fees should make assessments primarily on the basis of the FRAND principle. Antitrust examination may adopt a triple-structure method to assess the reasonableness of licensing fees, but antitrust authorities should avoid directly prescribing the level of licensing fees and should safeguard the effectiveness of transaction mechanisms based on free negotiations among micro-level entities. Antitrust remedies should follow the principle of "intervening in the price formation mechanism rather than prescribing the level of licensing fees."

Mathematical Modeling of Possibility Markov Chains by Possibility Theory

Statistical regression models are input-oriented estimation models that account for observation errors. On the other hand, an output-oriented possibility regression model that accounts for system fluctuations is proposed. Furthermore, the possibility Markov chain is proposed, which has a disidentifiable state (posterior) and a nondiscriminable state (prior). In this paper, we first take up the entity efficiency evaluation problem as a case study of the posterior non-discriminable production possibility region and mention Fuzzy DEA with fuzzy constraints. Next, the case study of the ex-ante non-discriminable event setting is discussed. Finally, we introduce the measure of the fuzzy number and the equality relation and attempt to model the possibility Markov chain mathematically. Furthermore, we show that under ergodic conditions, the direct sum state can be decomposed and reintegrated using fuzzy OR logic. We had already constructed the Possibility Markov process based on the indifferent state of this world. In this paper, we try to extend it to the indifferent event in another world. It should be noted that we can obtain the possibility transfer matrix by full use of possibility theory.

Digital Disparities:How Artificial Intelligence Can Facilitate Anti-Black Racism in the U.S.Healthcare Sector

This paper delves into the intricate interplay between artificial intelligence(AI)systems and the perpetuation of Anti-Black racism within the United States medical industry.Despite the promising potential of AI to enhance healthcare outcomes and reduce disparities,there is a growing concern that these technologies may inadvertently/advertently exacerbate existing racial inequalities.Focusing specifically on the experiences of Black patients,this research investigates how the following AI components:medical algorithms,machine learning,and natural learning processes are contributing to the unequal distribution of medical resources,diagnosis,and health care treatment of those classified as Black.Furthermore,this review employs a multidisciplinary approach,combining insights from computer science,medical ethics,and social justice theory to analyze the mechanisms through which AI systems may encode and reinforce racial biases.By dissecting the three primary components of AI,this paper aims to present a clear understanding of how these technologies work,how they intersect,and how they may inherently perpetuate harmful stereotypes resulting in negligent outcomes for Black patients.Furthermore,this paper explores the ethical implications of deploying AI in healthcare settings and calls for increased transparency,accountability,and diversity in the development and implementation of these technologies.Finally,it is important that I prefer the following paper with a clear and concise definition of what I refer to as Anti-Black racism throughout the text.Therefore,I assert the following:Anti-Black racism refers to prejudice,discrimination,or antagonism directed against individuals or communities of African descent based on their race.It involves the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over another and the systemic and institutional practices that perpetuate inequality and disadvantage for Black people.Furthermore,I proclaim that this form of racism can be manifested in various ways,such as unequal access to opportunities,resources,education,employment,and fair treatment within social,economic,and political systems.It is also pertinent to acknowledge that Anti-Black racism is deeply rooted in historical and societal structures throughout the U.S.borders and beyond,leading to systemic disadvantages and disparities that impact the well-being and life chances of Black individuals and communities.Addressing Anti-Black racism involves recognizing and challenging both individual attitudes and systemic structures that contribute to discrimination and inequality.Efforts to combat Anti-Black racism include promoting awareness,education,advocacy for policy changes,and fostering a culture of inclusivity and equality.

Contemporary Discriminatory Linguistic Expressions Against the Female Gender in the Igbo Language

The Igbo traditional society is patriarchal in nature with a prevalence of gender stereotypes. Men train their male children to grow up bold, strong, courageous, audacious and fearless while women on the other hand groom their female children to be soft-spoken, subservient and gentle. Both men and women have accepted their gender roles as a characterization which fate and destiny have bestowed on them, and are sensitized and indoctrinated in such a way that there are no conflicts between the two groups on the basis of their inherent traditional roles(cf. Ozumba, 2005). In the context of the Igbo traditional setting and within the confines of the gender stereotypes women are generally not viewed or perceived by their male counterparts as having the same status. This perception of women is often reflected in the social use of language to the extent that women are sometimes socially addressed and described with biased and discriminatory linguistic remarks and expressions. This paper descriptively examines, from semantic and pragmatic viewpoints, some discriminatory and biased Igbo linguistic expressions used by some men against women in contemporary Igbo society. The data for the study were collected mainly through oral interviews. The findings reveal that women are addressed and described with derogatory linguistic terms and imagery, portrayed as inferior to men. Based on the findings, the paper recommends a re-orientation of Igbo men from a young age, starting with parental discouragement of this trend in the home. Further studies on the general attitude towards women in contemporary Igbo society as linguistically expressed are suggested since such studies will constitute veritable sources of research information.

Dilemma and Solution for Relief in the Right to Equal Employment-From the Perspective of Rectifying Private Law with Social Law

At present,the legal remedies in terms of the right to equal employment in China are mainly related to private law,that is,laborers seek direct legal remedies for personality rights liability and infringement liability according to typical private law,supplemented by indirect remedies for labor contract liability under special private law.However,there are many challenges in private law remedies for the right to equal employment,which are manifested in the misunderstanding of the general tort identification of employment discrimination,the loopholes in the regulations on discriminatory employment,the imbalance in the burden of proof,and the limitation and alienation of the functions of civil liability and private law autonomy.The root of those problems lies in the fact that the nature of anti-employment discrimination law is not private law but social law.Equal employment involves both public and private interests,and it should be based on the public interest of society and adhere to the value orientation of prioritizing fairness while taking into account efficiency.Improving the legal relief mechanism for protecting the right to equal employment,with a focus on correcting private law with social law,is the solution to the dilemma.Specific measures include establishing the special tort liability system for equal employment,the legal mechanism against discriminatory labor contracts,the public-private integrated legal responsibility system,and an essentially fair system for the responsibility of adducing evidence.

Fatty liver index vs waist circumference for predicting non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

AIM: To determine the discriminatory performance of fatty liver index (FLI) for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).METHODS: The data of 5052 subjects aged over 18 years were analyzed. FLI was calculated from body mass index, waist circumference (WC), triglyceride, and gamma glutamyl transferase data. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the association between FLI and NAFLD. The discriminatory performance of FLI in the diagnosis of NAFLD was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic analysis. Area under the curves (AUCs) and related confidence intervals were estimated. Optimal cutoff points of FLI in the diagnosis of NAFLD were determined based on the maximum values of Youden’s index.RESULTS: The mean age of men and women in the study population were 44.8 ± 16.8 and 43.78 ± 15.43, respectively (P = 0.0216). The prevalence of NAFLD was 40.1% in men and 44.2% in women (P < 0.0017). FLI was strongly associated with NAFLD, so that even a one unit increase in FLI increased the chance of developing NAFLD by 5.8% (OR = 1.058, 95%CI: 1.054-1.063, P < 0.0001). Although FLI showed good performance in the diagnosis of NAFLD (AUC = 0.8656 (95%CI: 0.8548-0.8764), there was no significant difference with regards to WC (AUC = 0.8533, 95%CI: 0.8419-0.8646). The performance of FLI was not significantly different between men (AUC = 0.8648, 95%CI: 0.8505-0.8791) and women (AUC = 0.8682, 95%CI: 0.8513-0.8851). The highest performance with regards to age was related to the 18-39 age group (AUC = 0.8930, 95%CI: 0.8766-0.9093). The optimal cutoff points of FLI were 46.9 in men (sensitivity = 0.8242, specificity = 0.7687, Youden’s index = 0.5929) and 53.8 in women (sensitivity = 0.8233, specificity = 0.7655, Youden’s index = 0.5888).CONCLUSION: Although FLI had acceptable discriminatory power in the diagnosis of NAFLD, WC was a simpler and more accessible index with a similar performance.

A new tumor-associated antigen prognostic scoring system for spontaneous ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma after partial hepatectomy

Objective:Spontaneous hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)rupture can be fatal,and hepatic resection could achieve a favorable long-term survival among all strategies of tumor rupture.However,there is no available prognostic scoring system for patients with ruptured HCC who underwent partial hepatectomy.Methods:From January 2005 to May 2015,129 patients with spontaneous HCC rupture underwent partial hepatectomy.Preoperative clinical data were collected and analyzed.Independent risk factors affecting overall survival(OS)were used to develop the new scoring system.Harrell’s C statistics,Akaike information criterion(AIC),the relative likelihood,and the log likelihood ratio were calculated to measure the homogeneity and discriminatory ability of a prognostic system.Results:In the multivariable Cox regression analysis,three factors,including tumor size,preoperativeα-fetoprotein level,and alkaline phosphatase level,were chosen for the new tumor-associated antigen(TAA)prognostic scoring system.The 1-year OS rates were 88.1%,43.2%,and 30.2%for TAA scores of 0–5 points(low-risk group),6–9 points(moderate-risk group),and 10–13points(high-risk group),respectively.The TAA scoring system had superior homogeneity and discriminatory ability(Harrell’s C statistics,0.693 vs.0.627 and 0.634;AIC,794.79 vs.817.23 and 820.16;relative likelihood,both<0.001;and log likelihood ratio,45.21 vs.22.77 and 21.84)than the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer staging system and the Cancer of the Liver Italian Program in predicting OS.Similar results were found while predicting disease-free survival(DFS).Conclusions:The new prognostic scoring system is simple and effective in predicting both OS and DFS of patients with spontaneous ruptured HCC.

Relationship between cognitive level of ethical atmosphere for psychiatric nurses and attitude of discriminating against mental patients

Objective:To explore the relationship between mental nurses'discrimination against mental patients and the cognitive level of ethical atmosphere.Methods:Convenience sampling was adopted,147 psychiatric nurses from two psychiatric hospitals in guangdong province were selected as research subjects from march to May 2019.A discrimination against mental patients scale(DAMPS)and a ethical Climate Questionnaire(ECQ)were investigated.Results:The total score of ECQ was(87.33±10.99);the score of DAMPS was(1.94±0.60).The cognitive level of ethical atmosphere of psychiatric nurses was negatively correlated with the attitude of discriminating against psychopaths;Gender,marital status,department category,whether they are psychiatric nurses,whether they accept ethical knowledge,and the cognitive level of ethical atmosphere are the influencing factors of the attitude of psychiatric nurses to discriminate against psychiatric patients(R2=0.476,P<0.05).Conclusion:There was a negative correlation between the ethical cognition level of psychiatric nurses and the attitude of discriminating against psychopaths.Hospitals should pay attention to the improvement of the ethical atmosphere of psychiatric nurses and strengthen their ethical education.

Multi-locus genetic risk score predicts risk for Crohn's disease in Slovenian population

AIM: To develop a risk model for Crohn&#x02019;s disease (CD) based on homogeneous population.METHODS: In our study were included 160 CD patients and 209 healthy individuals from Slovenia. The association study was performed for 112 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We generated genetic risk scores (GRS) based on the number of risk alleles using weighted additive model. Discriminatory accuracy was measured by area under ROC curve (AUC). For risk evaluation, we divided individuals according to positive and negative likelihood ratios (LR) of a test, with LR &#x0003e; 5 for high risk group and LR &#x0003c; 0.20 for low risk group.RESULTS: The highest accuracy, AUC of 0.78 was achieved with GRS combining 33 SNPs with optimal sensitivity and specificity of 75.0% and 72.7%, respectively. Individuals with the highest risk (GRS &#x0003e; 5.54) showed significantly increased odds of developing CD (OR = 26.65, 95%CI: 11.25-63.15) compared to the individuals with the lowest risk (GRS &#x0003c; 4.57) which is a considerably greater risk captured than in one SNP with the highest effect size (OR = 3.24). When more than 33 SNPs were included in GRS, discriminatory ability was not improved significantly; AUC of all 74 SNPs was 0.76.CONCLUSION: The authors proved the possibility of building accurate genetic risk score based on 33 risk variants on Slovenian CD patients which may serve as a screening tool in the targeted population.

Joint multivariate statistical model and its applications to the synthetic earthquake prediction

Considering the problems that should be solved in the synthetic earthquake prediction at present, a new model is proposed in the paper. It is called joint multivariate statistical model combined by principal component analysis with discriminatory analysis. Principal component analysis and discriminatory analysis are very important theories in multivariate statistical analysis that has developed quickly in the late thirty years. By means of maximization information method, we choose several earthquake prediction factors whose cumulative proportions of total sam-ple variances are beyond 90% from numerous earthquake prediction factors. The paper applies regression analysis and Mahalanobis discrimination to extrapolating synthetic prediction. Furthermore, we use this model to charac-terize and predict earthquakes in North China (30~42N, 108~125E) and better prediction results are obtained.

Constitutional Court Dysfunction as a Guardian of Constitutional Rights of Religious Minorities in Indonesia

Right to freedom of religion and belief guaranteed by the constitution in the positive legal order, in practice, does not necessarily guarantee freedom. The Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia provides a guarantee of religious freedom for every citizen under Article 28 E of the 1945 Constitution. The Constitutional Court, which is required to protect, maintain, and ensure religious freedom for religious minorities, is deemed to fail guarding the right of religious minorities, because in addition to providing a restrictive ruling on a judicial review of the rule of law which is contrary to the basic law, it also fails to interpret legal products under the laws as part of the constitution. The Constitutional Court dysfunction as a guardian of the constitutional rights of religious minorities occurs because of the vacuum of law （recht vacuum）, a narrow interpretation of the constitution by the constitutional judges. The urgency that needs to be addressed is to provide the Constitutional Court with a more extensive authority, which is not limited only to review legal products under laws, but also includes production of Law on Freedom of Religion and Belief for protection in the application of Article 28 E of the 1945 Constitution.

Analysis of moisture and total sugar content of Huizao based on surface images

Moisture and total sugar content are two important internal qualities of Huizao.In order to explore their correlation with external qualities,a novel method of moisture and total sugar content analysis was proposed based on surface images.Firstly,five geometric features and seven texture features of Huizao were obtained to be the external quality indexes by digital image processing technology.Secondly,the wrinkle degree as an important index was extracted by marked watershed segmentation algorithm.According to the external quality the Huizao samples were grouped,and the moisture and total sugar content were determined through physical and chemical methods.Lastly,the moisture and total sugar content and twelve external indexes were all processed by step discriminatory analysis.Meanwhile,the regression models of moisture content with short diameter,contrast,and wrinkle degree and total sugar with wrinkle degree were established.The coefficients of the model were 0.9992 and 0.9978 respectively,and all the significance was less than 0.01,which show that the regression equation and regression coefficient effect are highly significant.The results indicate that the moisture and total sugar content of Huizao are greatly correlated with the wrinkle degree.The moisture and total sugar content are the highest when the wrinkle degree is at 2 to 3 grade,and they decrease gradually with the wrinkle degree increasing.Moisture content shows positive correlation with the size of Huizao.The results of model analysis agree well with the experimental results,which can provide valuable reference for improving Huizao grade diversity.

Visualization of Multivariate Metabolomic Data

Objective Although principal components analysis profiles greatly facilitate the visualization and interpretation of the multivariate data,the quantitative concepts in both scores plot and loading plot are rather obscure.This article introduced three profiles that assisted the better understanding of metabolomic data.Methods The discriminatory profile,heat map, and statistic profile were developed to visualize the multivariate data obtained from high-throughput GC-TOF-MS analysis. Results The discriminatory profile and heat map obviously showed the discriminatory metabolites between the two groups,while the statistic profile showed the potential markers of statistic significance.Conclusion The three types of profiles greatly facilitate our understanding of the metabolomic data and the identification of the potential markers.