Marriage as a Message: Same-Sex Couples and the Rhetoric of Accidental Procreation

In his dissent in the 2003 case Goodridge v. Department of Health, Justice Robert Cordy of the Massachusetts Supreme Court introduced a novel argument in support of state bans on same-sex marriage: that marriage is an institution designed to create a safe social and legal space for accidental heterosexual reproduction, a space that is not necessary for same-sex couples who, by definition, cannot accidentally reproduce. Since 2003, every state appellate court considering a same-sex marriage case has adopted Justice Cordy\u27s dissent until the recent California Supreme Court decision In Re Marriage Cases. In case after case, courts have held that marriage allows states to send a message to potentially irresponsible procreators that marriage is a (normatively) necessary part of their procreative endeavor and that same-sex couples do not need marriage because they only procreate after considerable effort and forethought. This article examines the accidental procreation argument through the lenses of anthropological theory, history, literature, and constitutional law. We conclude that marriage has sometimes been used to channel male heterosexuality into reproduction, but to argue that this goal is the sine qua non of marriage is to vastly oversimplify its history in both law and culture. We then undertake a genealogy of the accidental procreation argument and speculate about its possible effects on the institution of marriage. We suggest that if courts continue to insist upon a definition of marriage that is so distinct from the actual practice of the institution, the law may actually be less and less influential in regulating intimate behavior

The Role of Behavioral Dynamics in Determining the Patch Distributions of Interacting Species

The effect of the behavioral dynamics of movement on the population dynamics of interacting species in multipatch systems is studied. The behavioral dynamics of habitat choice used in a range of previous models are reviewed. There is very limited empirical evidence for distinguishing between these different models, but they differ in important ways, and many lack properties that would guarantee stability of an ideal free distribution in a single-species system. The importance of finding out more about movement dynamics in multispecies systems is shown by an analysis of the effect of movement rules on the dynamics of a particular two-species–two-patch model of competition, where the population dynamical equilibrium in the absence of movement is often not a behavioral equilibrium in the presence of adaptive movement. The population dynamics of this system are explored for several different movement rules and different parameter values, producing a variety of outcomes. Other systems of interacting species that may lack a dynamically stable distribution among patches are discussed, and it is argued that such systems are not rare. The sensitivity of community properties to individual movement behavior in this and earlier studies argues that there is a great need for empirical investigation to determine the applicability of different models of the behavioral dynamics of habitat selection

Chimera states in networks of phase oscillators: the case of two small populations

Chimera states are dynamical patterns in networks of coupled oscillators in which regions of synchronous and asynchronous oscillation coexist. Although these states are typically observed in large ensembles of oscillators and analyzed in the continuum limit, chimeras may also occur in systems with finite (and small) numbers of oscillators. Focusing on networks of $2N$ phase oscillators that are organized in two groups, we find that chimera states, corresponding to attracting periodic orbits, appear with as few as two oscillators per group and demonstrate that for $N>2$ the bifurcations that create them are analogous to those observed in the continuum limit. These findings suggest that chimeras, which bear striking similarities to dynamical patterns in nature, are observable and robust in small networks that are relevant to a variety of real-world systems.Comment: 13 pages, 16 figure

Swept volumes and their use in viewpoint computation in robot work-cells

This paper discusses the automatic computation of viewpoints for monitoring objects and features in an active robot work-cell. An important step in the authors' algorithm for finding viewpoints is the computation of the volumes swept by polyhedral objects moving through space. A method for approximating these volumes for arbitrarily moving polyhedra is presented. Some swept volume results are presented and methods for integrating these results into the authors' automated machine vision planning (MVP) system are discussed

When Clients Complain: Bureaucratic Responsiveness in Large Federal Agencies

High error rates in entitlements and slow responses to client complaints by Federal agencies are analyzed from a r.arket-power frame of reference focusing on the relative powerlessness of agency clients in relation to agencies which hold monopolies of life sustaining benefits. Data from a survey of Members of Congress are presented to provide an estimate of error rates. Three alternative structural solutions to the problem of unresponsiveness are assessed, including increased congressional casework service, ombudsmen services, and use of Federal Information Centers to aid clients. Necessary quality control procedures to facilitate each solution are described

Hydra Effects in Stable Communities and Their Implications for System Dynamics

A hydra effect occurs when the mean density of a species increases in response to greater mortality. We show that, in a stable multispecies system, a species exhibits a hydra effect only if maintaining that species at its equilibrium density destabilizes the system. The stability of the original system is due to the responses of the hydra-effect species to changes in the other species’ densities. If that dynamical feedback is removed by fixing the density of the hydra-effect species, large changes in the community make-up (including the possibility of species extinction) can occur. This general result has several implications: (1) Hydra effects occur in a much wider variety of species and interaction webs than has previously been described, and may occur for multiple species, even in small webs; (2) conditions for hydra effects caused by predators (or diseases) often differ from those caused by other mortality factors; (3) introducing a specialist or a switching predator of a hydra-effect species often causes large changes in the community, which frequently involve extinction of other species; (4) harvest policies that attempt to maintain a constant density of a hydra-effect species may be difficult to implement, and, if successful, are likely to cause large changes in the densities of other species; and (5) trophic cascades and other indirect effects caused by predators of hydra-effect species can exhibit amplification of effects or unexpected directions of change. Although we concentrate on systems that are originally stable and models with no stage-structure or trait variation, the generality of our result suggests that similar responses to mortality will occur in many systems without these simplifying assumptions. In addition, while hydra effects are defined as responses to altered mortality, they also imply counterintuitive responses to changes in immigration and other parameters affecting population growth

Role of tacrolimus prolonged release in the prevention of allograft rejection

Successful management of the solid-organ transplant recipient begins with prevention of rejection and achieving a balance between insufficient and excessive immunosuppression. Standard tacrolimus therapy for prevention of solid-organ transplant rejection consists of 2 divided doses per day. In an effort to simplify tacrolimus dosing to once daily, a new formulation (tacrolimus prolonged release [PR]) was chosen for its combination of a similar extent of bioavailability and a substantially reduced rate of clearance. Several clinical conversion studies have now been completed using PR to clarify its pharmacokinetics, efficacy at prevention of allograft rejection, and safety profiles in solid-organ transplant patients. A cohort of 67 stable kidney transplant recipients was converted from standard tacrolimus to PR in an open-label, multicenter study in the United States and Canada. A second open-label, multicenter study was performed in liver transplant recipients with stable graft function on standard tacrolimus therapy converted to PR. A third conversion study was performed as an open-label study at 5 centers in the United States in stable pediatric liver transplant recipients. As medication noncompliance can significantly contribute to the incidence of graft rejection and graft loss in transplant recipients, a potentially significant advance in the transplant community’s ongoing mission to optimize prevention of rejection occurred with the development of a once-daily tacrolimus PR. The results of these preliminary studies suggest that select solid-organ transplant recipients converted to PR can be safely maintained using the same monitoring and patient care techniques historically used for standard tacrolimus therapy

Editorial: Contextualizing Culturally Relevant Science and Mathematics Teaching for Indigenous Learning

No abstract availabl

Computing camera viewpoints in a robot work-cell

Automatically planning a camera viewpoint for tasks such as inspection in an active robot work-cell is a difficult problem. This paper discusses new methods for computing viewpoints which meet the feature detectability constraints of focus, field-of-view, visibility, and resolution. A theoretical outline of the method is presented, followed by experimental results and a discussion of future work