Country lawyer in a maverick boom town: The legal career of Harry Claiborne

The anticipated title of my doctoral dissertation in history is Country Lawyer in a Maverick Boom Town: The Legal Career of Harry Claiborne. Spanning nearly sixty years, Claiborne\u27s legal career reflected both the spirit of a young Las Vegas as well as the no-holds-barred attitude of frontier lawyers. Moving to Las Vegas initially in 1943 while in the military, he began practicing law in 1947. Claiborne participated in the evolution of the legal community during the mid-century growth period of southern Nevada. Possibly the most active trial lawyer in the state, his first jury trial was in 1947 and his last in 1993, a span of 46 years. Yet, more than longevity, his colorful and engaging style made him one of the most high-profile attorneys in Nevada history; More than a biography of Claiborne, this will be a study of the legal, and to some extent the social community, of mid-century Las Vegas as seen through Claiborne\u27s eyes. His assent to the federal bench in 1978 climaxed his career as a trial lawyer. Although Claiborne returned to private practice in 1988, he was 71 years old and his best trial years were certainly behind him. But the practice of law had changed since 1978 and, due to his age and circumstances, he was no longer at the forefront of his profession. Consequently, the Claiborne era , as I define it, runs from the post war years until his elevation to the bench; The experiences of Claiborne and his contemporaries provide a useful lens for viewing Las Vegas and its legal community at this time. These experiences, along with the backgrounds of judges, lawyers and local businessmen, contribute to our overall understanding of why Las Vegas developed as it did during that time. For example, today\u27s judges and lawyers all graduated from four-year universities and American Bar Association accredited law schools. Most had no meaningful employment until after law school graduation. This contrasts sharply with judges and lawyers practicing in Las Vegas in the 1940s when Claiborne first arrived. Many did not attend law school, or even college. Instead, they worked and studied in an office of a practicing attorney and learned the law while on the job. When ready, they took a Bar examination, which was not uniform across the country, but was prepared by local attorneys who were not trained, or even knowledgeable, about how to prepare comprehensive examinations. For many, their character was hardened by the times; the depression and military service in one of the two world wars, or both, as well as Korea; Colorful, forceful, and hardworking, he quickly established a reputation as the lawyer of choice for the most prominent companies and individuals in Las Vegas. Through Claiborne\u27s career and observations, we can look behind the scenes of landmark legal decisions such as the Thunderbird Hotel case in which the resort challenged the state\u27s authority to regulate holders of gaming licences, the licensing of the Sands Hotel and Frank Sinatra by the Nevada gaming authorities, along with the subsequent revocation proceedings against Sinatra, as well as the criminal prosecution of many high profile individuals in Nevada\u27s courts. Viewing legal history through Claiborne\u27s political career will shed light on the backroom deals, and other episodes which anecdotally help describe mid-century Nevada politics. So, this work is far more than a biography of Claiborne. It will be the story of a dynamic legal community that developed in a rogue town dominated by casino operators, often with mob connections---a legal community that came of age during Claiborne\u27s career. What better way to see that unfold, than through the eyes and ears of its most forceful and outspoken participant, Harry Claiborne

Analogs of Schur functions for rank two Weyl groups obtained from grid-like posets

In prior work, the authors, along with M. McClard, R. A. Proctor, and N. J. Wildberger, studied certain distributive lattice models for the "Weyl bialternants" (aka "Weyl characters") associated with the rank two root systems/Weyl groups. These distributive lattices were uniformly described as lattices of order ideals taken from certain grid-like posets, although the arguments connecting the lattices to Weyl bialternants were case-by-case depending on the type of the rank two root system. Using this connection with Weyl bialternants, these lattices were shown to be rank symmetric and rank unimodal, and their rank generating functions were shown to have beautiful quotient-of-products expressions. Here, these results are re-derived from scratch using completely uniform and elementary combinatorial reasoning in conjunction with some new combinatorial methodology developed elsewhere by the second listed author.Comment: 15 page

Enhancing the heavy Higgs signal with jet-jet profile cuts

The jet-jet profile, or detailed manner, in which transverse energy and mass are distributed around the jet-jet system resulting from the hadronic decay of a $Z$ boson in the process Higgs$\to ZZ$ at a proton-proton collider energy of 40\tev is carefully examined. Two observables are defined that can be used to help distinguish the $\ell^+\ell^-$-jet-jet signal from Higgs decay from the ``ordinary'' QCD background arising from the large transverse momentum production of single $Z$ bosons plus the associated jets. By making cuts on these observables, signal to background enhancement factors greater than $100$ can be obtained.Comment: 16 pages, Univ. Florida IFT-93-

The “fossilized” mitochondrial genome of Liriodendron tulipifera: ancestral gene content and order, ancestral editing sites, and extraordinarily low mutation rate

BACKGROUND: The mitochondrial genomes of flowering plants vary greatly in size, gene content, gene order, mutation rate and level of RNA editing. However, the narrow phylogenetic breadth of available genomic data has limited our ability to reconstruct these traits in the ancestral flowering plant and, therefore, to infer subsequent patterns of evolution across angiosperms. RESULTS: We sequenced the mitochondrial genome of Liriodendron tulipifera, the first from outside the monocots or eudicots. This 553,721 bp mitochondrial genome has evolved remarkably slowly in virtually all respects, with an extraordinarily low genome-wide silent substitution rate, retention of genes frequently lost in other angiosperm lineages, and conservation of ancestral gene clusters. The mitochondrial protein genes in Liriodendron are the most heavily edited of any angiosperm characterized to date. Most of these sites are also edited in various other lineages, which allowed us to polarize losses of editing sites in other parts of the angiosperm phylogeny. Finally, we added comprehensive gene sequence data for two other magnoliids, Magnolia stellata and the more distantly related Calycanthus floridus, to measure rates of sequence evolution in Liriodendron with greater accuracy. The Magnolia genome has evolved at an even lower rate, revealing a roughly 5,000-fold range of synonymous-site divergence among angiosperms whose mitochondrial gene space has been comprehensively sequenced. CONCLUSIONS: Using Liriodendron as a guide, we estimate that the ancestral flowering plant mitochondrial genome contained 41 protein genes, 14 tRNA genes of mitochondrial origin, as many as 7 tRNA genes of chloroplast origin, >700 sites of RNA editing, and some 14 colinear gene clusters. Many of these gene clusters, genes and RNA editing sites have been variously lost in different lineages over the course of the ensuing ∽200 million years of angiosperm evolution

Extensive loss of translational genes in the structurally dynamic mitochondrial genome of the angiosperm Silene latifolia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mitochondrial gene loss and functional transfer to the nucleus is an ongoing process in many lineages of plants, resulting in substantial variation across species in mitochondrial gene content. The Caryophyllaceae represents one lineage that has experienced a particularly high rate of mitochondrial gene loss relative to other angiosperms.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, we report the first complete mitochondrial genome sequence from a member of this family, <it>Silene latifolia</it>. The genome can be mapped as a 253,413 bp circle, but its structure is complicated by a large repeated region that is present in 6 copies. Active recombination among these copies produces a suite of alternative genome configurations that appear to be at or near "recombinational equilibrium". The genome contains the fewest genes of any angiosperm mitochondrial genome sequenced to date, with intact copies of only 25 of the 41 protein genes inferred to be present in the common ancestor of angiosperms. As observed more broadly in angiosperms, ribosomal proteins have been especially prone to gene loss in the <it>S. latifolia </it>lineage. The genome has also experienced a major reduction in tRNA gene content, including loss of functional tRNAs of both native and chloroplast origin. Even assuming expanded wobble-pairing rules, the mitochondrial genome can support translation of only 17 of the 61 sense codons, which code for only 9 of the 20 amino acids. In addition, genes encoding 18S and, especially, 5S rRNA exhibit exceptional sequence divergence relative to other plants. Divergence in one region of 18S rRNA appears to be the result of a gene conversion event, in which recombination with a homologous gene of chloroplast origin led to the complete replacement of a helix in this ribosomal RNA.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These findings suggest a markedly expanded role for nuclear gene products in the translation of mitochondrial genes in <it>S. latifolia </it>and raise the possibility of altered selective constraints operating on the mitochondrial translational apparatus in this lineage.</p

Phylogenetic Analyses of Vitis (Vitaceae) Based on Complete Chloroplast Genome Sequences: Effects of Taxon Sampling and Phylogenetic Methods on Resolving Relationships Among Rosids

Background The Vitaceae (grape) is an economically important family of angiosperms whose phylogenetic placement is currently unresolved. Recent phylogenetic analyses based on one to several genes have suggested several alternative placements of this family, including sister to Caryophyllales, asterids, Saxifragales, Dilleniaceae or to rest of rosids, though support for these different results has been weak. There has been a recent interest in using complete chloroplast genome sequences for resolving phylogenetic relationships among angiosperms. These studies have clarified relationships among several major lineages but they have also emphasized the importance of taxon sampling and the effects of different phylogenetic methods for obtaining accurate phylogenies. We sequenced the complete chloroplast genome of Vitis vinifera and used these data to assess relationships among 27 angiosperms, including nine taxa of rosids. Results The Vitis vinifera chloroplast genome is 160,928 bp in length, including a pair of inverted repeats of 26,358 bp that are separated by small and large single copy regions of 19,065 bp and 89,147 bp, respectively. The gene content and order of Vitis is identical to many other unrearranged angiosperm chloroplast genomes, including tobacco. Phylogenetic analyses using maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood were performed on DNA sequences of 61 protein-coding genes for two datasets with 28 or 29 taxa, including eight or nine taxa from four of the seven currently recognized major clades of rosids. Parsimony and likelihood phylogenies of both data sets provide strong support for the placement of Vitaceae as sister to the remaining rosids. However, the position of the Myrtales and support for the monophyly of the eurosid I clade differs between the two data sets and the two methods of analysis. In parsimony analyses, the inclusion of Gossypium is necessary to obtain trees that support the monophyly of the eurosid I clade. However, maximum likelihood analyses place Cucumis as sister to the Myrtales and therefore do not support the monophyly of the eurosid I clade. Conclusion Phylogenies based on DNA sequences from complete chloroplast genome sequences provide strong support for the position of the Vitaceae as the earliest diverging lineage of rosids. Our phylogenetic analyses support recent assertions that inadequate taxon sampling and incorrect model specification for concatenated multi-gene data sets can mislead phylogenetic inferences when using whole chloroplast genomes for phylogeny reconstruction