You're a crook, Captain Hook: Criminal liability for maritime disasters causing death in Australian territorial waters

The world is seeing more maritime disasters every year, in a variety of jurisdictions around the world. Many of these disasters cause a large number of deaths. As a result of those deaths, there is often pressure on the relevant authorities to prosecute the parties responsible. The master of the vessel may be the most obvious party to charge, but there may have been other parties responsible for the operation and management of the vessel whose negligent or reckless conduct contributed to the vessel’s demise. Despite the contributions of other parties, the master of a vessel may become a scapegoat, and, as a result, bear the brunt of any prosecution. There are several reasons why the master may receive the most blame in these situations. One of those may be that the law in force within the relevant jurisdiction does not provide particular criminal charges that apply to parties other than the master. This paper asks whether Australian law encourages prosecuting bodies to scapegoat the master of a vessel and whether this is demonstrative of the wider problem of seafarer criminalisation worldwide. Criminal law will be fit for its intended purpose if it provides prosecuting authorities with the means to prosecute those truly responsible for damage caused, and to prosecute those parties in an appropriate manner. In 2012, the Australian government spearheaded sweeping changes to domestic maritime law. Those changes brought several new criminal charges relevant to maritime disasters causing death, and amended previous charges. This paper looks to the law in Australia applicable to maritime disasters causing death and asks whether the laws are fit for their intended purpose. The research conducted is doctrinal, focussing particularly on the Navigation Act 2012 (Cth), the Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law Act 2012 (Cth), and the Crimes at Sea Act 2000 (Cth)

Three-dimensional imaging of bacterial microcolonies

Previous research into microbial colonies and biofilms shows a significant gap in our current understanding of how bacterial structures develop. Despite the huge body of research undertaken into the formation, genetic makeup, composition, and optimal growth conditions of colonies, no study has been successful in identifying all individual bacteria in a colony in three-dimensions as a function of time. This lack of bacterial cell lineage in such a simple class of organisms is conspicuous in the light of what is known about other organisms, such as Caenorhabditis elegans [1]. In this thesis I show that using laser scanning confocal microscopy in conjunction with developments in sample preparation and post acquisition image analysis, it is possible to fully reconstruct all individual bacteria within an Escherichia coli (E. coli ) microcolony grown in viscoelastic media. Additionally, I show that by further pushing the resolution of confocal microscopes, commercial systems are capable of extracting three-dimensional information on protein structures inside bacteria at early stages of growth. This thesis is in three parts. The first part shows that by pushing the resolution of a commercial laser scanning confocal microscope system it is possible to achieve single cell resolution of a bacterial colony growing in three dimensions in a viscoelastic medium (agarose) from a seed bacterium. The growth of individual bacteria is examined as the concentration of agarose in the media is altered. Results show there is a nonlinear dependence between the rate of growth of a bacterium and the concentration of the agarose in the media with a peak in growth rate at 3% (weight) concentrations of agarose in M9 media. The second part of this work presents a study of how an initially two-dimensional colony growing between a glass slide and agarose gel suddenly invades the third spatial dimension by buckling. The results show that the cells within the centre of the colony flex and buckle, due to confinement by their neighbours, creating additional layers. Indeed, flexing is not limited to the buckling event but occurs throughout the early growth cycle of a colony. The final part of this thesis shows that by further pushing the resolution of confocal microscopes, commercial systems are capable of extracting three-dimensional information about the temporal evolution of the spatial distribution of the FtsZ septation ring within the cell. As the bacterial colony grows from a seed bacterium to a microcolony, the error in placing the division accurately at the cell centre is seen to increase as the number of bacteria within the colony increases and spatial confinement occurs

Teaching Violence and Video Games with Joystick Warriors

This set of lesson plans shows how the Media Education Foundation film Joystick Warriors can be utilized by instructors in an Intro to Media Studies Course. By building on earlier course conversations on media effects, overdetermination, representation, political economy, and violence, these lesson plans provide a conceptual framework and a series of activities to help utilize Joystick Warriors in a critical-cultural Media Studies curriculum. By pairing Joystick Warriors with a series of lectures and readings on the relationship between violence and video games, this set of lesson plans can help teachers encourage students to have complex, critical conversations about video games role' in sustaining cultures of violence, militarism, and hegemonic masculinity

Teaching Violence and Video Games with Joystick Warriors

This set of lesson plans shows how the Media Education Foundation film Joystick Warriors can be utilized by instructors in an Intro to Media Studies Course. By building on earlier course conversations on media effects, overdetermination, representation, political economy, and violence, these lesson plans provide a conceptual framework and a series of activities to help utilize Joystick Warriors in a critical-cultural Media Studies curriculum. By pairing Joystick Warriors with a series of lectures and readings on the relationship between violence and video games, this set of lesson plans can help teachers encourage students to have complex, critical conversations about video games role' in sustaining cultures of violence, militarism, and hegemonic masculinity

Urbanization as a limiter and catalyst of watershed-scale sediment transport: Insights from probabilistic connectivity modeling

The conversion of rural lands to urban areas exerts considerable influence on the hydrologic processes governing sediment transport at the watershed scale. While the effects of urbanization on hydrology have been well-studied, the corresponding impact to the spatial and temporal variability of sediment detachment, transport, and connectivity is less certain. To address this knowledge gap, we apply process-based hydrologic simulation, probabilistic connectivity modeling, and in situ turbidity sensing to five watersheds positioned along a steep land use gradient in Kansas, USA. Connectivity modeling results show that urbanization systematically decreases the maximal extent of watershed-scale connectivity on the wettest days of the study period, from 51 % in the most rural watershed to 28 % in the most urban watershed. On the other hand, urbanization focuses sediment transport into fewer, more frequently wetted pathways, such as roadway drainage networks, which are activated 3.5 times more frequently than the equivalent pathways in rural basins. In this way, urbanization limits maximal connectivity as impervious surfaces indefinitely disconnect source zones from the sediment cascade, but also catalyzes hot spots of connectivity as these same impervious areas generate excess runoff and channel it to drainage systems. The 23.9 ± 4.2 % of days that exhibit watershed-scale functional connectivity account for 85.0 ± 9.5 % of sediment export with most of the export tied to a few highly connected days. Sensing results show that increases in watershed-scale connectivity only translate to larger fluvial sediment loads after a connectivity threshold (the median connected day) has been exceeded, suggesting a transition from functional to structural connectivity control on sediment dynamics after sufficient wetting. This study highlights the role of land use impacts on the sources and mechanisms of sediment transport, which will be an important consideration for land managers as urban areas continue to expand to accommodate global migration patterns

The refined inviscid stability condition and cellular instability of viscous shock waves

Combining work of Serre and Zumbrun, Benzoni-Gavage, Serre, and Zumbrun, and Texier and Zumbrun, we propose as a mechanism for the onset of cellular instability of viscous shock and detonation waves in a finite-cross-section duct the violation of the refined planar stability condition of Zumbrun--Serre, a viscous correction of the inviscid planar stability condition of Majda. More precisely, we show for a model problem involving flow in a rectangular duct with artificial periodic boundary conditions that transition to multidimensional instability through violation of the refined stability condition of planar viscous shock waves on the whole space generically implies for a duct of sufficiently large cross-section a cascade of Hopf bifurcations involving more and more complicated cellular instabilities. The refined condition is numerically calculable as described in Benzoni-Gavage--Serre-Zumbrun

Skeletal disproportion in girls with Turner syndrome and longitudinal change with growth promoting therapy

Objective: Short stature in Turner Syndrome (TS) may be accompanied by skeletal disproportion. This retrospective study investigates growth and disproportion from early childhood to adult height. Study design: Data were collected from 59 girls prior to growth hormone (rhGH) treatment and in 30 girls followed‐up longitudinally. Standard deviation scores (SDS) for height (Ht), sitting height (SH) and sub‐ischial leg length (LL) were compared and a disproportion score (SH SDS – LL SDS) calculated. Results: In 59 girls, mean (SD) age 6.6 (2.1) years prior to rhGH treatment, LL SDS of ‐3.4 (1.1) was significantly lower than SH SDS of ‐1.2 (0.8) [p<0.001]. In girls with Ht SDS < ‐2.0, disproportion score was > +2.0 in 27 (63%), cf eight (50%) with Ht SDS ≥ ‐2.0. For the longitudinal analysis, skeletal disproportion prior to rhGH was +2.4 (1.1) and +1.7 (1.0) on rhGH but prior to introduction of oestrogen [p<0.001]. Disproportion at adult height was +1.1 (0.8), less marked than at the earlier time points [p<0.001 for both comparisons]. Change in disproportion SDS over the first two years of rhGH predicted overall change in disproportion from baseline to adult height [R2 51.7%, p<0.001]. Conclusion: TS is associated with skeletal disproportion, which is more severe in the shortest girls and present in only half of those with milder degrees of short stature. Growth promoting therapy may improve disproportion during both the childhood and pubertal phases of growth. Change in disproportion status two years after starting rhGH helps predict disproportion at adult height

A stability index for detonation waves in Majda's model for reacting flow

Using Evans function techniques, we develop a stability index for weak and strong detonation waves analogous to that developed for shock waves in [GZ,BSZ], yielding useful necessary conditions for stability. Here, we carry out the analysis in the context of the Majda model, a simplified model for reacting flow; the method is extended to the full Navier-Stokes equations of reacting flow in [Ly,LyZ]. The resulting stability condition is satisfied for all nondegenerate, i.e., spatially exponentially decaying, weak and strong detonations of the Majda model in agreement with numerical experiments of [CMR] and analytical results of [Sz,LY] for a related model of Majda and Rosales. We discuss also the role in the ZND limit of degenerate, subalgebraically decaying weak detonation and (for a modified, ``bump-type'' ignition function) deflagration profiles, as discussed in [GS.1-2] for the full equations.Comment: 36 pages, 3 figure

Light-Dependent Changes in the Spatial Localization of Metabolites in Solenostemon scutellarioides (Coleus Henna) Visualized by Matrix-Free Atmospheric Pressure Electrospray Laser Desorption Ionization Mass Spectrometry Imaging

The visualization of foliage color in plants provides immediate insight into some of the compounds that exist in the leaf. However, many non-colored compounds are also present; their cellular distributions are not readily identifiable optically. In this study we evaluate the applicability of mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) via electrospray laser desorption ionization (ELDI) to reveal the spatial distribution of metabolites. ELDI-MSI is a matrix free, atmospheric pressure ionization method that utilizes a UV laser coupled with supplemental ionization by electrospray. We specifically applied ELDI-MSI to determine the spatial distribution of metabolites in Coleus Henna half leaves that were grown with half-sections either fully illuminated or shaded. We monitored dynamic changes in the spatial distribution of metabolites in response to the change of illumination every 7 days for a 28 day period. A novel source-sink relationship was observed between the 2 halves of the experimental leaf. Furthermore, Coleus Henna leaves present visually recognizable sectors associated with the differential accumulation of flavonoids. Thus, we correlated the effect of differential illumination and presence or absence of flavonoids with metabolic changes revealed by the accumulation of carbohydrates, amino acids, and organic acids. The results show the potential of ELDI-MSI to provide spatial information for a variety of plant metabolites with little sample preparation