Perfect colourings of isonemal fabrics by thin striping

Perfect colouring of isonemal fabrics by thin striping of warp and weft and the closely related topic of isonemal prefabrics that fall apart are reconsidered and their relation further explored. The catalogue of isonemal prefabrics that fall apart is extended to order 20 for those of even genus.Comment: 25 pages, 20 figure

Research note: Measuring cultural values - The case of residents' attitudes to the Saltaire Festival

This research note discusses the findings and methodological issues arising from a cultural values survey of residents, particularly in relation to civic pride. In addition to offering insights to the particular case - the Saltaire Festival in the north of England - it provides an approach that might be used elsewhere

Liberty and Property in the Patent Law

Patents have seldom troubled civil libertarians. A specialized form of property, patents seemed pertinent to the technologies of traditional industry but little else. Patent instruments offered their readers mere technical documentation; patent cases presented no more than the mapping of a text onto an instantiated artifact; patent policy was principally oriented toward economic optimization of the length and scope of protection. Unbound from technology, contemporary patent law now seems a more robust discipline. Modern patent instruments appropriate a diverse array of techniques that span the entire range of human endeavor. Patent claims, cut loose from physical moorings, have grown more abstract and oriented toward human behavior. We have yet to realize fully the consequences of postindustrial patenting, but the potential impact of the patent law upon personal liberties is becoming more apparent and more worthy of concern. Although the principles of the patent canon demonstrate sufficient flexibility to regulate uses of such inventions as software, business methods, and genetic fragments, they persist in bearing little regard for civil rights. The private rule making, made possible through the patent law, holds the potential to impinge upon individual liberties in ways not previously considered possible

The Path to Gun Control in America Goes through Political Philosophy

This essay argues that gun control in America is a philosophical as well as a policy debate. This explains the depth of acrimony it causes. It also explains why the technocratic public health argument favored by the gun control movement has been so unsuccessful in persuading opponents and motivating supporters. My analysis also yields some positive advice for advocates of gun control: take the political philosophy of the gun rights movement seriously and take up the challenge of showing that a society without guns is a better society, not merely a safer one

An obstructed bundle on a Calabi-Yau 3-fold

Mirror symmetry suggests that on a Calabi-Yau 3-fold moduli spaces of stable bundles, especially those with degree zero and indivisible Chern class, might be smooth (i.e. unobstructed, though perhaps of too high a dimension). This is because smoothly embedded special lagrangian cycles in the mirror have unobstructed deformations. As there does not seem to be a counterexample in the literature we provide one here, showing that such a Tian-Todorov-McLean-type result cannot hold.Comment: Corrected mistake pointed out by Yukinobu Tod

Genetics and insurance in the United Kingdom 1995-2010: the rise and fall of scientific discrimination

Around the millennium there was extensive debate in the United Kingdom of the possible use of predictive genetic tests by insurance companies. Many insurance experts, geneticists and public policymakers appeared to believe that genetic test results would soon become widely used by the insurance industry. This expectation has not been borne out. This article outlines the history of exaggerated perceptions of the significance of genetic test results to insurance, with particular reference to the United Kingdom, suggesting reasons why they arose and also why they have declined. The article concludes with some speculation about how policy on genetics and insurance might develop in future