An Integrative Alternative For America\u27s Privacy Torts

Rugg and Smith encapsulate a transition between two approaches to tort protection of privacy. Rugg reflects the unitary-tort theory, which recognizes a single tort and seeks only to determine if the plaintiff\u27s interest in privacy has been breached by the defendant\u27s behavior. Smith reflects the multiple-tort approach that recognizes four torts, encompassing four ways in which privacy is breached, that have in common only an interference with a loosely defined understanding of privacy. This understanding of the privacy tort was lifted from the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1977), which adopted a construct first proffered by Dean William Prosser in a 1960 law review article. This Comment argues that the flexibility envisioned by the Restatement can best be achieved through an alternative offered by the Government of Ireland in the summer of 2006. The Irish proposal recognizes a single tort for invasion of privacy, defining the degree of privacy that an individual may expect as that which is reasonable under all the circumstances. It lists a series of factors to consider when evaluating all the circumstances, as well as defenses and recognized violations. The Irish integrative approach seeks to incorporate the elasticity of the unitary-tort approach with the clarity of the multiple-tort approach in a single statute. Adoption of the Irish approach would allow American jurisdictions to more clearly articulate the privacy tort and to better channel the adaptive powers of American common law. Part I of this Comment explains that modern American privacy-tort law is the result of the tension between two conflicting viewpoints on invasion-of-privacy torts. Part II shows how the widespread acceptance of the four tort structure in the United States has stunted the development of the privacy tort. Part III surveys the provisions of the Irish proposal, while Part IV analyzes the benefits offered by the Irish integrative approach. Part V explores how an American jurisdiction can utilize a structure like that in the Irish bill to take advantage of these benefits. Finally, Part VI concludes that the Irish proposal offers an opportunity for American privacy-tort jurisprudence to embrace the adaptive and evolutionary power of the common law

An Integrative Alternative For America\u27s Privacy Torts

Rugg and Smith encapsulate a transition between two approaches to tort protection of privacy. Rugg reflects the unitary-tort theory, which recognizes a single tort and seeks only to determine if the plaintiff\u27s interest in privacy has been breached by the defendant\u27s behavior. Smith reflects the multiple-tort approach that recognizes four torts, encompassing four ways in which privacy is breached, that have in common only an interference with a loosely defined understanding of privacy. This understanding of the privacy tort was lifted from the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1977), which adopted a construct first proffered by Dean William Prosser in a 1960 law review article. This Comment argues that the flexibility envisioned by the Restatement can best be achieved through an alternative offered by the Government of Ireland in the summer of 2006. The Irish proposal recognizes a single tort for invasion of privacy, defining the degree of privacy that an individual may expect as that which is reasonable under all the circumstances. It lists a series of factors to consider when evaluating all the circumstances, as well as defenses and recognized violations. The Irish integrative approach seeks to incorporate the elasticity of the unitary-tort approach with the clarity of the multiple-tort approach in a single statute. Adoption of the Irish approach would allow American jurisdictions to more clearly articulate the privacy tort and to better channel the adaptive powers of American common law. Part I of this Comment explains that modern American privacy-tort law is the result of the tension between two conflicting viewpoints on invasion-of-privacy torts. Part II shows how the widespread acceptance of the four tort structure in the United States has stunted the development of the privacy tort. Part III surveys the provisions of the Irish proposal, while Part IV analyzes the benefits offered by the Irish integrative approach. Part V explores how an American jurisdiction can utilize a structure like that in the Irish bill to take advantage of these benefits. Finally, Part VI concludes that the Irish proposal offers an opportunity for American privacy-tort jurisprudence to embrace the adaptive and evolutionary power of the common law

Recombination rate and protein evolution in yeast

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Theory and artificial selection experiments show that recombination can promote adaptation by enhancing the efficacy of natural selection, but the extent to which recombination affects levels of adaptation across the genome is still an open question. Because patterns of molecular evolution reflect long-term processes of mutation and selection in nature, interactions between recombination rate and genetic differentiation between species can be used to test the benefits of recombination. However, this approach faces a major difficulty: different evolutionary processes (i.e. negative versus positive selection) produce opposing relationships between recombination rate and genetic divergence, and obscure patterns predicted by individual benefits of recombination.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We use a combination of polymorphism and genomic data from the yeast <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </it>to infer the relative importance of nearly-neutral (i.e. slightly deleterious) evolution in different gene categories. For genes with high opportunities for slightly deleterious substitution, recombination substantially reduces the rate of molecular evolution, whereas divergence in genes with little opportunity for slightly deleterious substitution is not strongly affected by recombination.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These patterns indicate that adaptation throughout the genome can be strongly influenced by each gene's recombinational environment, and suggest substantial long-term fitness benefits of enhanced purifying selection associated with sexual recombination.</p

Sex differences in deleterious mutational effects in Drosophila melanogaster: combining quantitative and population genetic insights

Fitness effects of deleterious mutations can differ between females and males due to: (i) sex differences in the strength of purifying selection; and (ii) sex differences in ploidy. Although sex differences in fitness effects have important broader implications (e.g., for the evolution of sex and lifespan), few studies have quantified their scope. Those that have belong to one of two distinct empirical traditions: (i) quantitative genetics, which focusses on multi-locus genetic variances in each sex, but is largely agnostic about their genetic basis; and (ii) molecular population genetics, which focusses on comparing autosomal and X-linked polymorphism, but is poorly suited for inferring contemporary sex differences. Here, we combine both traditions to present a comprehensive analysis of female and male adult reproductive fitness among 202 outbred, laboratory-adapted, hemiclonal genomes of Drosophila melanogaster. While we find no clear evidence for sex differences in the strength of purifying selection, sex differences in ploidy generate multiple signals of enhanced purifying selection for X-linked loci. These signals are present in quantitative genetic metrics—i.e., a disproportionate contribution of the X to male (but not female) fitness variation—and population genetic metrics—i.e., steeper regressions of an allele’s average fitness effect on its frequency, and proportionally less nonsynonymous polymorphism on the X than autosomes. Fitting our data to models for both sets of metrics, we infer that deleterious alleles are partially recessive. Given the often-large gap between quantitative and population genetic estimates of evolutionary parameters, our study showcases the benefits of combining genomic and fitness data when estimating such parameters

Evolutionary Consequences of Sex Linkage and Sex-Specific Selection.

Males and females make equal genetic contributions to each generation, yet each sex is exposed to different, sometimes opposing forces of natural and sexual selection. Because males and females are part of a common gene pool, “sex-specific selection” – selection differing between males and females in strength and/or direction – can potentially have major population genetic and adaptive consequences for sexually reproducing species. When selection follows the same trajectory in both sexes and acts more strongly in males, sex-specific selection facilitates adaptation. However, opposing selection between the sexes can also generate genomic conflict over the outcome of evolution. Such “sexually antagonistic selection” represents an adaptive constraint for sexually reproducing species. Despite its potential importance, theoretical and empirical studies in evolutionary genetics often overlook sex-specific selection. Though this neglect is beginning to be remedied, a thorough understanding of the adaptive consequences of sex-specific selection is currently lacking. This dissertation represents an attempt to better understand the evolutionary genetic consequences of sex-specific selection, and specifically focuses on three related questions: (A) Is adaptation enhanced or constrained by sex-linked inheritance, which theory predicts should enhance opportunities for sex-specific selection? (B) How do sex linkage and processes of sex-specific selection interact to influence patterns of fitness heritability between parents and offspring? (C) What are the long-term adaptive consequences of sexual reproduction on population fitness and the genetic load of deleterious mutations? These questions are addressed using a combination of mathematical theory, bioinformatics and comparative genomics techniques, and quantitative genetic experiments using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. The theoretical and empirical aspects of the dissertation confirm that sex-specific selection is an important evolutionary consideration and that it generates both adaptive benefits and adaptive costs for sexually reproducing species.Ph.D.Ecology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64677/1/tconnal_3.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64677/2/tconnal_1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64677/3/tconnal_2.pd

Polygenic signals of sex differences in selection in humans from the UK Biobank

Sex differences in the fitness effects of genetic variants can influence the rate of adaptation and the maintenance of genetic variation. For example, “sexually antagonistic” (SA) variants, which are beneficial for one sex and harmful for the other, can both constrain adaptation and increase genetic variability for fitness components such as survival, fertility, and disease susceptibility. However, detecting variants with sex-differential fitness effects is difficult, requiring genome sequences and fitness measurements from large numbers of individuals. Here, we develop new theory for studying sex-differential selection across a complete life cycle and test our models with genotypic and reproductive success data from approximately 250,000 UK Biobank individuals. We uncover polygenic signals of sex-differential selection affecting survival, reproductive success, and overall fitness, with signals of sex-differential reproductive selection reflecting a combination of SA polymorphisms and sexually concordant polymorphisms in which the strength of selection differs between the sexes. Moreover, these signals hold up to rigorous controls that minimise the contributions of potential confounders, including sequence mapping errors, population structure, and ascertainment bias. Functional analyses reveal that sex-differentiated sites are enriched in phenotype-altering genomic regions, including coding regions and loci affecting a range of quantitative traits. Population genetic analyses show that sex-differentiated sites exhibit evolutionary histories dominated by genetic drift and/or transient balancing selection, but not long-term balancing selection, which is consistent with theoretical predictions of effectively weak SA balancing selection in historically small populations. Overall, our results are consistent with polygenic sex-differential—including SA—selection in humans. Evidence for sex-differential selection is particularly strong for variants affecting reproductive success, in which the potential contributions of nonrandom sampling to signals of sex differentiation can be excluded

Association between Sex-Biased Gene Expression and Mutations with Sex-Specific Phenotypic Consequences in Drosophila

Genome-wide mRNA transcription profiles reveal widespread molecular sexual dimorphism or “sex-biased” gene expression, yet the relationship between molecular and phenotypic sexual dimorphism remains unclear. A major unresolved question is whether sex-biased genes typically perform male- and female-specific functions (whether these genes have sex-biased phenotypic or fitness consequences) or have similar functional importance for both sexes. To elucidate the relationship between sex-biased transcription and sex-biased fitness consequences, we analyzed a large data set of lethal, visible, and sterile mutations that have been mapped to the Drosophila melanogaster genome. The data permitted us to classify genes according to their sex-specific mutational effects and to infer the relationship between sex-biased transcription level and sex-specific fitness consequences. We find that mutations in female-biased genes are (on average) more deleterious to females than to males and that mutations in male-biased genes tend to be more deleterious to males than to females. Nevertheless, mutations in most sex-biased genes have similar phenotypic consequences for both sexes, which suggests that sex-biased transcription is not necessarily associated with functional genetic differentiation between males and females. These results have interesting implications for the evolution of sexual dimorphism and sex-specific adaptation

Hot and dry conditions predict shorter nestling telomeres in an endangered songbird:Implications for population persistence

Climate warming is increasingly exposing wildlife to sublethal high temperatures, which may lead to chronic impacts and reduced fitness. Telomere length (TL) may link heat exposure to fitness, particularly at early-life stages, because developing organisms are especially vulnerable to adverse conditions, adversity can shorten telomeres, and TL predicts fitness. Here, we quantify how climatic and environmental conditions during early life are associated with TL in nestlings of wild purple-crowned fairy-wrens (Malurus coronatus), endangered songbirds of the monsoonal tropics. We found that higher average maximum air temperature (range 31 to 45 °C) during the nestling period was associated with shorter early-life TL. This effect was mitigated by water availability (i.e., during the wet season, with rainfall), but independent of other pertinent environmental conditions, implicating a direct effect of heat exposure. Models incorporating existing information that shorter early-life TL predicts shorter lifespan and reduced fitness showed that shorter TL under projected warming scenarios could lead to population decline across plausible future water availability scenarios. However, if TL is assumed to be an adaptive trait, population viability could be maintained through evolution. These results are concerning because the capacity to change breeding phenology to coincide with increased water availability appears limited, and the evolutionary potential of TL is unknown. Thus, sublethal climate warming effects early in life may have repercussions beyond individual fitness, extending to population persistence. Incorporating the delayed reproductive costs associated with sublethal heat exposure early in life is necessary for understanding future population dynamics with climate change

Complex coordination of cell plasticity by a PGC-1α-controlled transcriptional network in skeletal muscle

Skeletal muscle cells exhibit an enormous plastic capacity in order to adapt to external stimuli. Even though our overall understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie phenotypic changes in skeletal muscle cells remains poor, several factors involved in the regulation and coordination of relevant transcriptional programs have been identified in recent years. For example, the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) is a central regulatory nexus in the adaptation of muscle to endurance training. Intriguingly, PGC-1α integrates numerous signaling pathways and translates their activity into various transcriptional programs. This selectivity is in part controlled by differential expression of PGC-1α variants and post-translational modifications of the PGC-1α protein. PGC-1α-controlled activation of transcriptional networks subsequently enables a spatio-temporal specification and hence allows a complex coordination of changes in metabolic and contractile properties, protein synthesis and degradation rates and other features of trained muscle. In this review, we discuss recent advances in our understanding of PGC-1α-regulated skeletal muscle cell plasticity in health and disease

Recombination dynamics of a human Y-chromosomal palindrome:rapid GC-biased gene conversion, multi-kilobase conversion tracts, and rare inversions

The male-specific region of the human Y chromosome (MSY) includes eight large inverted repeats (palindromes) in which arm-to-arm similarity exceeds 99.9%, due to gene conversion activity. Here, we studied one of these palindromes, P6, in order to illuminate the dynamics of the gene conversion process. We genotyped ten paralogous sequence variants (PSVs) within the arms of P6 in 378 Y chromosomes whose evolutionary relationships within the SNP-defined Y phylogeny are known. This allowed the identification of 146 historical gene conversion events involving individual PSVs, occurring at a rate of 2.9-8.4×10(-4) events per generation. A consideration of the nature of nucleotide change and the ancestral state of each PSV showed that the conversion process was significantly biased towards the fixation of G or C nucleotides (GC-biased), and also towards the ancestral state. Determination of haplotypes by long-PCR allowed likely co-conversion of PSVs to be identified, and suggested that conversion tract lengths are large, with a mean of 2068 bp, and a maximum in excess of 9 kb. Despite the frequent formation of recombination intermediates implied by the rapid observed gene conversion activity, resolution via crossover is rare: only three inversions within P6 were detected in the sample. An analysis of chimpanzee and gorilla P6 orthologs showed that the ancestral state bias has existed in all three species, and comparison of human and chimpanzee sequences with the gorilla outgroup confirmed that GC bias of the conversion process has apparently been active in both the human and chimpanzee lineages