Jean Valjean Bank in Korea: an innovative approach to poor defendants sentenced to pay fines

ABSTRACT

This study aims to introduce Jean Valjean Bank in South Korea which is an innovative approach supporting poor defendants who cannot pay fines and accordingly are imprisoned. In Korea, it is reported that we have more than 40,000 Jean Valjeans annually. As a civil movement against the unfair criminal justice system, a non-governmental organisation Human Rights Solidarity (Inkwon Yondae in Korean) opened Jean Valjean Bank in 2015. Jean Valjean Bank targets poor defendants who are not able to pay fines and who are confined to prison because of non-payment of fines. As of December 2017, the Bank has loaned KRW1,024 million to 545 persons with an average loan per participant of KRW1,879,700. The Bank reported that, among the receivers, 84 persons completed redemption and 277 persons are redeeming loans to the Bank. This study concludes with implications for reforms in criminal justice system in Korea.     

环境保护行政执法与刑事司法衔接机制的构建

随着生态文明建设的深入推进，积极推动环境保护行政执法与刑事司法的有效衔接，有利于发挥刑事司法对环境法益的保护功能，推动生态文明和美丽中国建设。目前，我国环境保护行政执法与刑事司法衔接存在案件移送率较低、案件移送标准不明确、证据转换比较困难、检测鉴定难度大、网络信息共享平台不顺畅等问题。为了进一步完善环境保护行政执法与刑事司法衔接机制，当前应积极推进五项工作：构建考核评价机制，确保案件积极移送；制定案件移送标准，提高案例移送受理率；明确证据转换规则，提高证据采信度；健全检测鉴定机制，确保鉴定意见可信度；构建网络信息共享平台，推动信息资源共享。     

分贷统还合同的法律性质与违约风险化解

分贷统还合同为政府通过合约统一贴息实现了扶贫资金的公司化运作，有效地发挥财政扶贫资金的整体效益，但也产生了合同法律性质认定争议大、合同履行易受政策变化影响；户贷企用导致贷款用途和资金安全存在风险，公司分红还款系统性违约等弊端，如公司经营不善，贷款亏空，一旦出现系统性违约，不仅影响农村社会稳定和政府公信力，司法机关亦将面临纠纷批量涌入的现实问题。为趋利避害，分贷统还合同有必要在综合衡量扶贫目的、公司盈利及扶贫责任和银行资金安全的基础上，调整户贷企用政策，甄别债权类型，考虑违约的具体情势，从实操层面化解分贷统还合同违约风险。     

Payment by results in international development: Evidence from the first decade

Payment by results is a relatively new way of giving development aid, where a recipient's performance against pre‐agreed measures determines the amount of aid they receive. Advocates for the mechanism argue it provides donors with both a ready justification for maintaining aid budgets and better results through innovation and autonomy. It has proved popular, with most bilateral aid donors having at least experimented with the mechanism and the variety of measures stretching from individual health workers being paid for each procedure, to national governments being paid for students' test scores. However, there has not been a robust assessment of whether Payment By Results (PbR) achieves its aims for greater effectiveness. I synthesize the evidence from eight projects fully or partially funded by DFID, the recognized world leader on PbR. This represents the best evidence currently available, and is critically analysed using the leading theoretical framework that breaks each agreement into its constituent parts. I find no evidence that PbR leads to fundamentally more innovation or autonomy, with the overall range of success and failure broadly similar to other aid projects. This may partly be due to the current use of Payment by Results, with no readily identifiable examples of projects that truly meet the idealized PbR designs. Advocates of PbR may thus conclude the idea is yet to be tested. I argue PbR does not deal with the fundamental constraints that donors face, and so it is unsurprising that PbR is subject to the normal pressures that affect all aid spending.     

Inference and Decision Making for 21st-Century Drug Development and Approval

ABSTRACT

The cost and time of pharmaceutical drug development continue to grow at rates that many say are unsustainable. These trends have enormous impact on what treatments get to patients, when they get them and how they are used. The statistical framework for supporting decisions in regulated clinical development of new medicines has followed a traditional path of frequentist methodology. Trials using hypothesis tests of “no treatment effect” are done routinely, and the p-value < 0.05 is often the determinant of what constitutes a “successful” trial. Many drugs fail in clinical development, adding to the cost of new medicines, and some evidence points blame at the deficiencies of the frequentist paradigm. An unknown number effective medicines may have been abandoned because trials were declared “unsuccessful” due to a p-value exceeding 0.05. Recently, the Bayesian paradigm has shown utility in the clinical drug development process for its probability-based inference. We argue for a Bayesian approach that employs data from other trials as a “prior” for Phase 3 trials so that synthesized evidence across trials can be utilized to compute probability statements that are valuable for understanding the magnitude of treatment effect. Such a Bayesian paradigm provides a promising framework for improving statistical inference and regulatory decision making.     

Bayesian sample size determination for phase IIA clinical trials using historical data and semi‐parametric prior's elicitation

The Simon's two‐stage design is the most commonly applied among multi‐stage designs in phase IIA clinical trials. It combines the sample sizes at the two stages in order to minimize either the expected or the maximum sample size. When the uncertainty about pre‐trial beliefs on the expected or desired response rate is high, a Bayesian alternative should be considered since it allows to deal with the entire distribution of the parameter of interest in a more natural way. In this setting, a crucial issue is how to construct a distribution from the available summaries to use as a clinical prior in a Bayesian design. In this work, we explore the Bayesian counterparts of the Simon's two‐stage design based on the predictive version of the single threshold design. This design requires specifying two prior distributions: the analysis prior, which is used to compute the posterior probabilities, and the design prior, which is employed to obtain the prior predictive distribution. While the usual approach is to build beta priors for carrying out a conjugate analysis, we derived both the analysis and the design distributions through linear combinations of B‐splines. The motivating example is the planning of the phase IIA two‐stage trial on anti‐HER2 DNA vaccine in breast cancer, where initial beliefs formed from elicited experts' opinions and historical data showed a high level of uncertainty. In a sample size determination problem, the impact of different priors is evaluated.     

人工智能体刑法地位的教义学反思

随着智慧社会的到来，人工智能体广泛应用于社会各个领域，智能水平不断提升，与之相关的犯罪问题逐渐走向理论和实践的焦点。人工智能体冲击着刑法教义学主体和客体相区分的二元结构，引发了广泛的讨论和争议。探讨人工智能体的刑法地位应当改变混同分析主体性和能力性的思路，区分不法和责任两个层面进行研究。应基于人工智能的发展阶段，明确现阶段人工智能体仍然属于弱人工智能，因此其无法成为犯罪人或被害人，也无法具备责任能力或承担刑事责任。但是人工智能体日益可能成为犯罪对象，与之相关的自然人和法人犯罪也应当受到重视。探讨人工智能相关的刑法问题应当立足于教义学的基本立场与理论范式。     

基于违约鉴别能力组合赋权的小企业信用评级——基于小型工业企业样本数据的实证分析

信用评级是衡量债务违约的可能性,因此评级体系要有违约风险识别能力,能够将违约客户和非违约客户显著地区分开.通过逼近理想点的思路,构建多目标规划模型求解最优的组合权重,并对中国某区域性商业银行1 814笔小型工业企业贷款进行实证分析.本文的创新与特色一是以非违约企业的数据到正理想点的距离代数和最小为第一个目标函数,以违约企业的数据到负理想点的距离代数和最小为第二个目标函数,构建多目标非线性规划模型进行组合赋权,在满足了“非违约企业的评价得分越高、违约企业的评价得分越低”要求的目标下得到最优的组合赋权的权重系数,使赋权结果保证了评级模型能够将违约企业与非违约企业最大地区分开.改变了现有研究的组合赋权脱离评价目的的弊端,改变了现有研究中违约与非违约企业的评价得分存在大量重叠、对两类企业的区分能力低的弊端.二是通过检验“违约企业的信用得分是否显著小于非违约企业的信用得分”的J-T非参数检验,验证信用评价模型的合理性.改变现有研究忽略对信用评价模型的合理性进行验证的弊端.三是经过实证,发现本研究建立的组合赋权模型的违约鉴别能力(Z=5.546)要高于现有研究的两种常用组合赋权模型、即基于方差最大的组合赋权(Z=4.298)和基于偏差最小的组合赋权(Z=5.182)     

为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息的刑法规制

最高人民法院、最高人民检察院《关于办理侵犯公民个人信息刑事案件适用法律若干问题的解释》第六条对为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息行为进行独立规制,是新型犯罪罪状表述抽象化与罪状解释具体化、信息时代信息价值多元化与危害行为多样化、现代社会犯罪治理精细化与刑法评价精准化的内在要求.为合法经营活动而侵犯公民个人信息行为相关规范要素中的“为合法经营活动”应理解为主观超过要素,“获利五万元”应作严格解释,“曾因侵犯公民个人信息”应作广义解释,“其他情节严重”应包括信息数量标准.     

“以儒诠经”文本中伊斯兰教中国化义理辑录与解读

"以儒诠经"是明清时期伊斯兰教中国化的重要标志,辑录与解读"以儒诠经"文本中伊斯兰教中国化义理,有助于更好地了解明清时期中国伊斯兰教界眼中的伊斯兰教中国化。"以儒诠经"文本对伊斯兰教中国化应包含的内容、如何践行伊斯兰教中国化提出了若干真知灼见,许多见解与当今倡导的伊斯兰教中国化若干内容相吻合。