The performance of farm animal assessment

This paper argues that the current drive towards greater use of animal-based measures for welfare assessment raises important issues for how farm visits by welfare assessors are performed. As social scientists, we employ a number of contemporary social science ideas to offer a new approach to examining the practice and performance of farm animal assessment. We identify key findings from a recent study of contemporary farm assessment and speculate upon what some of the challenges of introducing animal-based measures may be. We conclude by arguing for a greater awareness of how sets of knowledge are made, circulated, practiced and become an integral component of the procedures, practices and discourses around farm animal welfare assessment in farm assuranc

Evolutionary psychology: the emperor’s new paradigm

For some evolutionary psychology is merely a field of inquiry, but for others it is a robust paradigm involving specific theories about the nature and evolution of the human mind. Proponents of this paradigm claim to have made several important discoveries regarding the evolved architecture of the mind. Highly publicized discoveries include a cheater-detection module, a psychological sex difference in jealousy, and motivational mechanisms underlying parental love and its lapses, which purportedly result in child maltreatment. In this article, I argue that the empirical evidence for these ‘discoveries’ is inconclusive, at best. I suggest that, as the reigning paradigm in evolutionary psychology has produced questionable results, the evolutionary study of human psychology is still in need of a guiding paradigm

Development of a physiologic ex vivo vessel perfusion system.

Introduction: Over time, continuous flow ventricular assist devices (VADs) have become the primary form of implanted mechanical circulatory support (MCS) due to their smaller size, higher energy efficiency, longer durability, and fewer LVAD-related complications when compared to pulsatile flow VADs. However, continuous and pulsatile flows may elicit different cellular and tissue response, particularly in the arterial vasculature, which could have a profound impact on the future operation of MCS devices. Therefore, a unique ex vivo perfusion system integrated with a mock adult circulatory system was design to study the impact of VAD-generated flow patterns on vascular function. Methods: The benefits of a mock circulatory loop and an ex vivo perfusion system were combined by designing and integrating a vessel perfusion chamber to an adult-sized mock circulatory loop as a parallel flow branch distal to VAD outflow. Testing was conducted using a mock over several physiologic conditions (normal, heart failure, and hypertension) and at various levels of VAD flow. The system was integrated into an incubator to allow for control of pH and temperature in future studies and fitted with a vessel for feasibility testing. Data was collected using a custom Labview program and analyzed using the HEART program, an automated beat-to-beat cardiovascular analysis program based in Matlab. Results: The chamber was successfully fabricated and installed in the mock circulatory system, allowing for perfusion and longitudinal stretching of bovine carotid arteries. The waveforms and values for pressures and flows created in the mock loop were similar to physiologic values under each tested condition. Under normal hemodynamic conditions (CO = 4.5 L/min, MAP = 91 mmHg) perfusion chamber flow was 0.51 L/min, while under HF conditions (CO = 3.3 L/min, MAP = 81 mmHg) it was reduced to 0.18 L/min, which are representative of in vivo carotid artery hemodynamics. Due to physiologic preloads and afterloads, VAD performance was as would be expected in clinical application. The system was found to be sufficient for future testing with bovine carotid arteries and extended perfusion times (\u3e24 hours). Conclusions: This study resulted in an ex vivo vessel perfusion system that can successfully expose bovine carotid arteries to physiologic and VAD-specific hemodynamic waveforms. The ability to combine the mock ventricle with clinically implanted VADs makes this system both unique and clinically relevant for studying the effects of continuous versus pulsatile flow on the peripheral vasculature

Copyright Infringement in the Ether: RAM Buffering and the Copyright Act’s Duration Requirement

This is the published version

A Short Wavelength GigaHertz Clocked Fiber-Optic Quantum Key Distribution System

A quantum key distribution system has been developed, using standard telecommunications optical fiber, which is capable of operating at clock rates of greater than 1 GHz. The quantum key distribution system implements a polarization encoded version of the B92 protocol. The system employs vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with emission wavelengths of 850 nm as weak coherent light sources, and silicon single photon avalanche diodes as the single photon detectors. A distributed feedback laser of emission wavelength 1.3 micro-metres, and a linear gain germanium avalanche photodiode was used to optically synchronize individual photons over the standard telecommunications fiber. The quantum key distribution system exhibited a quantum bit error rate of 1.4%, and an estimated net bit rate greater than 100,000 bits-per-second for a 4.2 km transmission range. For a 10 km fiber range a quantum bit error rate of 2.1%, and estimated net bit rate of greater than 7,000 bits-per-second was achieved.Comment: Pre-press versio

The State Response to Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier

It’s hard to predict what an average member of the public thinks when he or she hears the words “student newspaper.” Opinions vary. This Article goes beyond that public perception and demonstrates that student journalists across the country are doing work that matters. Student reporters uncover corruption, help hold government officials accountable to taxpayers and the public, and bring to light important issues that would otherwise go unreported. They allow students to develop academically, professionally, and socially. And they give a voice to developing citizens who are often disenfranchised from voting, holding elected office, or otherwise participating in politics and government. Across the country, there are two very different standards for what student journalists are free to write about and when school officials can punish them. Because of developments in federal constitutional law and related state statutes, the protections afforded student journalists vary from state to state. One group of students (those in what I refer to as “Tinker states”) has the same level of protection afforded to Mary Beth Tinker more than forty years ago, when she wore a black armband to school in protest of the war in Vietnam. These Tinker-state newspapers can only be censored if they publish unprotected speech (like libel or obscenity) or school officials reasonably forecast the publication will cause a material and substantial disruption. The other group (in what I refer to as “Hazelwood states”) has far less protection, and their student publications can be censored any time school officials’ actions are “reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.” This Article explores the differences between the two groups of student newspapers by drawing on litigation concerning states’ so-called anti-Hazelwood statutes and conducting an original study comparing the editorials of Tinker-state student newspapers and their Hazelwood-state counterparts

F03RS SGR No. 4 (JPW)

A RESOLUTION To express sincere and heartfelt condolences upon the untimely death of Jason Paul Whittle of Lacombe, Louisian

Experimental high-dimensional two-photon entanglement and violations of generalised Bell inequalities

Quantum entanglement plays a vital role in many quantum information and communication tasks. Entangled states of higher dimensional systems are of great interest due to the extended possibilities they provide. For example, they allow the realisation of new types of quantum information schemes that can offer higher information-density coding and greater resilience to errors than can be achieved with entangled two-dimensional systems. Closing the detection loophole in Bell test experiments is also more experimentally feasible when higher dimensional entangled systems are used. We have measured previously untested correlations between two photons to experimentally demonstrate high-dimensional entangled states. We obtain violations of Bell-type inequalities generalised to d-dimensional systems with up to d = 12. Furthermore, the violations are strong enough to indicate genuine 11-dimensional entanglement. Our experiments use photons entangled in orbital angular momentum (OAM), generated through spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), and manipulated using computer controlled holograms

Optimizing the use of detector arrays for measuring intensity correlations of photon pairs

Intensity correlation measurements form the basis of many experiments based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion. In the most common situation, two single-photon avalanche diodes and coincidence electronics are used in the detection of the photon pairs, and the coincidence count distributions are measured by making use of some scanning procedure. Here we analyze the measurement of intensity correlations using multielement detector arrays. By considering the detector parameters such as the detection and noise probabilities, we found that the mean number of detected photons that maximizes the visibility of the two-photon correlations is approximately equal to the mean number of noise events in the detector array. We provide expressions predicting the strength of the measured intensity correlations as a function of the detector parameters and on the mean number of detected photons. We experimentally test our predictions by measuring far-field intensity correlations of spontaneous parametric down-conversion with an electron multiplying charge-coupled device camera, finding excellent agreement with the theoretical analysis