Suchergebnisse

Der Mord am früheren libanesischen Ministerpräsidenten Rafiq al-Hariri am 14.2.2005 führte nach wochenlangen Massenprotesten und einer internationalen Kampagne gegen das der Tat beschuldigte Syrien zum Abzug der seit 1976 im Land stationierten syrischen Truppen sowie, nach einer schweren innenpolitischen Krise, zur Rückkehr des mit dem Großteil der anti-syrischenOpposition verbündeten Hariri-Lagers an die Macht. Inmitten einer Serie blutiger Anschläge, die ebenfalls dem syrischen Regime angelastet wurden, kehrten die alten Syriengegner Michel Aoun und Samir Geagea ins politische Leben des Landes zurück. Das traditionell enge syrisch-libanesische Verhältnis wurde durch diese Entwicklungen schwer in Mitleidenschaft gezogen. (DOI/DÜI)

Legal compliance is an important part of certifying the correct behaviour of a business process. To be compliant, organizations might hard-wire regulations into processes, limiting the discretion that workers have when choosing what activities should be executed in a case. Worse, hard-wired compliant processes are difficult to change when laws change, and this occurs very often. This paper proposes a model-driven approach to process compliance and combines a) reference models from laws, and b) business process models. Both reference and process models are expressed in a declarative process language, The Dynamic Condition Response (DCR) graphs. They are subject to testing and verification, allowing law practitioners to check consistency against the intent of the law. Compliance checking is a combination of alignments between events in laws and events in a process model. In this way, a reference model can be used to check different process variants. Moreover, changes in the reference model due to law changes do not necessarily invalidate existing processes, allowing their reuse and adaptation. We exemplify the framework via the alignment of laws and business rules and a real contract change management process, Finally, we show how compliance checking for declarative processes is decidable, and provide a polynomial time approximation that contrasts NP complexity algorithms used in compliance checking for imperative business processes. All-together, this paper presents technical and methodological steps that are being used by legal practitioners in municipal governments in their efforts towards digitalization of work practices in the public sector.

COVID-19 has changed the world at unprecedented pace. The measures imposed by governments across the globe for containing the pandemic have severely affected all facets of economy and society, including scientific progress. Сonservation research has not been exempt from these negative effects, which we here summarize for the BioRescue project, aiming at saving the northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), an important Central African keystone species, of which only two female individuals are left. The development of advanced assisted reproduction and stem-cell technologies to achieve this goal involves experts across five continents. Maintaining international collaborations under conditions of national shut-down and travel restrictions poses major challenges. The associated ethical implications and consequences are particularly troublesome when it comes to research directed at protecting biological diversity – all the more in the light of increasing evidence that biodiversity and intact ecological habitats might limit the spread of novel pathogens.

Background: In the early phase of the pandemic, some guidelines recommended the use of corticosteroids for critically ill patients with COVID-19, whereas others recommended against the use despite lack of firm evidence of either benefit or harm. In the COVID STEROID trial, we aimed to assess the effects of low-dose hydrocortisone on patient-centred outcomes in adults with COVID-19 and severe hypoxia. Methods: In this multicentre, parallel-group, placebo-controlled, blinded, centrally randomised, stratified clinical trial, we randomly assigned adults with confirmed COVID-19 and severe hypoxia (use of mechanical ventilation or supplementary oxygen with a flow of at least 10 L/min) to either hydrocortisone (200 mg/d) vs a matching placebo for 7 days or until hospital discharge. The primary outcome was the number of days alive without life support at day 28 after randomisation. Results: The trial was terminated early when 30 out of 1000 participants had been enrolled because of external evidence indicating benefit from corticosteroids in severe COVID-19. At day 28, the median number of days alive without life support in the hydrocortisone vs placebo group were 7 vs 10 (adjusted mean difference: −1.1 days, 95% CI −9.5 to 7.3, P =.79); mortality was 6/16 vs 2/14; and the number of serious adverse reactions 1/16 vs 0/14. Conclusions: In this trial of adults with COVID-19 and severe hypoxia, we were unable to provide precise estimates of the benefits and harms of hydrocortisone as compared with placebo as only 3% of the planned sample size were enrolled. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04348305. European Union Drug Regulation Authorities Clinical Trials (EudraCT) Database: 2020-001395-15.

Background: In the early phase of the pandemic, some guidelines recommended the use of corticosteroids for critically ill patients with COVID-19, whereas others recommended against the use despite lack of firm evidence of either benefit or harm. In the COVID STEROID trial, we aimed to assess the effects of low-dose hydrocortisone on patient-centred outcomes in adults with COVID-19 and severe hypoxia. Methods: In this multicentre, parallel-group, placebo-controlled, blinded, centrally randomised, stratified clinical trial, we randomly assigned adults with confirmed COVID-19 and severe hypoxia (use of mechanical ventilation or supplementary oxygen with a flow of at least 10 L/min) to either hydrocortisone (200 mg/d) vs a matching placebo for 7 days or until hospital discharge. The primary outcome was the number of days alive without life support at day 28 after randomisation. Results: The trial was terminated early when 30 out of 1000 participants had been enrolled because of external evidence indicating benefit from corticosteroids in severe COVID-19. At day 28, the median number of days alive without life support in the hydrocortisone vs placebo group were 7 vs 10 (adjusted mean difference: −1.1 days, 95% CI −9.5 to 7.3, P =.79); mortality was 6/16 vs 2/14; and the number of serious adverse reactions 1/16 vs 0/14. Conclusions: In this trial of adults with COVID-19 and severe hypoxia, we were unable to provide precise estimates of the benefits and harms of hydrocortisone as compared with placebo as only 3% of the planned sample size were enrolled. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04348305. European Union Drug Regulation Authorities Clinical Trials (EudraCT) Database: 2020-001395-15.