Rethinking Electoral Reform Processes after the Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP Voting System

The 2012 Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP system recommended that several changes be made to the way in which future parliaments are elected in New Zealand. The lack of legislative response to the recommendations highlighted an issue inherent in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements - that changes to electoral rules are designed and enacted by politicians, and there is no mechanism through which citizens can initiate or meaningfully engage with electoral reform processes. This paper looks at whether there is a better way that such proposals for electoral rule changes could be managed, proposing the use of ‘citizen initiated’ Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform

When is secession legitimate?

Secession claims are not sufficiently dealt with at international law. Similarly theoretical analyses of the moral justifications for secession widely differ, with little scholarly agreement on, for example, whether there is a primary right to secede, a remedial right only, or no right to secede at all. This paper reviews the scholarly debate on legal, moral and constitutional legitimacy of secession, and develops five criteria for assessing the overall legitimacy of a secession claim: (1) nationhood and claim to territory; (2) self-determination and autonomy; (3) treatment at the hands of the state; (4) viability of the proposed state ; and (5) position of the existing state. Applying these criteria to three very different but equally topical possible secession claims - Scotland from the United Kingdom, Catalonia from Spain, and Novorossiya from Ukraine - the interplay between these criteria is demonstrated

Performing vaginal lavage, crystal violet staining, and vaginal cytological evaluation for mouse estrous cycle staging identification

A rapid means of assessing reproductive status in rodents is useful not only in the study of reproductive dysfunction but is also required for the production of new mouse models of disease and investigations into the hormonal regulation of tissue degeneration (or regeneration) following pathological challenge. The murine reproductive (or estrous) cycle is divided into 4 stages: proestrus, estrus, metestrus, and diestrus. Defined fluctuations in circulating levels of the ovarian steroids 17-β-estradiol and progesterone, the gonadotropins luteinizing and follicle stimulating hormones, and the luteotropic hormone prolactin signal transition through these reproductive stages. Changes in cell typology within the murine vaginal canal reflect these underlying endocrine events. Daily assessment of the relative ratio of nucleated epithelial cells, cornified squamous epithelial cells, and leukocytes present in vaginal smears can be used to identify murine estrous stages. The degree of invasiveness, however, employed in collecting these samples can alter reproductive status and elicit an inflammatory response that can confound cytological assessment of smears. Here, we describe a simple, non-invasive protocol that can be used to determine the stage of the estrous cycle of a female mouse without altering her reproductive cycle. We detail how to differentiate between the four stages of the estrous cycle by collection and analysis of predominant cell typology in vaginal smears and we show how these changes can be interpreted with respect to endocrine status

Interfacial Bonding between a Crystalline Metal-Organic Framework and an Inorganic Glass.

The interface within a composite is critically important for the chemical and physical properties of these materials. However, experimental structural studies of the interfacial regions within metal-organic framework (MOF) composites are extremely challenging. Here, we provide the first example of a new MOF composite family, i.e., using an inorganic glass matrix host in place of the commonly used organic polymers. Crucially, we also decipher atom-atom interactions at the interface. In particular, we dispersed a zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) within a phosphate glass matrix and identified interactions at the interface using several different analysis methods of pair distribution function and multinuclear multidimensional magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. These demonstrated glass-ZIF atom-atom correlations. Additionally, carbon dioxide uptake and stability tests were also performed to check the increment of the surface area and the stability and durability of the material in different media. This opens up possibilities for creating new composites that include the intrinsic chemical properties of the constituent MOFs and inorganic glasses

Telemediations

Postprin

Rethinking Electoral Reform Processes after the Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP Voting System

The 2012 Report of the Electoral Commission on the Review of the MMP system recommended that several changes be made to the way in which future parliaments are elected in New Zealand. The lack of legislative response to the recommendations highlighted an issue inherent in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements - that changes to electoral rules are designed and enacted by politicians, and there is no mechanism through which citizens can initiate or meaningfully engage with electoral reform processes. This paper looks at whether there is a better way that such proposals for electoral rule changes could be managed, proposing the use of ‘citizen initiated’ Citizens’ Assemblies on Electoral Reform

When is secession legitimate?

Secession claims are not sufficiently dealt with at international law. Similarly theoretical analyses of the moral justifications for secession widely differ, with little scholarly agreement on, for example, whether there is a primary right to secede, a remedial right only, or no right to secede at all. This paper reviews the scholarly debate on legal, moral and constitutional legitimacy of secession, and develops five criteria for assessing the overall legitimacy of a secession claim: (1) nationhood and claim to territory; (2) self-determination and autonomy; (3) treatment at the hands of the state; (4) viability of the proposed state ; and (5) position of the existing state. Applying these criteria to three very different but equally topical possible secession claims - Scotland from the United Kingdom, Catalonia from Spain, and Novorossiya from Ukraine - the interplay between these criteria is demonstrated