Note and Comment

Bradley Martin Thompson - For a second time within the year death has claimed a member of the Faculty of the Law School. Professor Jerome C. Knowlton died in January, and now on September 29th last, Professor Bradley M. Thompson has completed his life-work

Book Reviews

This is an admirable book for the use of students in any properly organized law\u27school; that is, a school possessing an instructor able to so develop the subject of Titles to Real Property as neither to confuse the student with a mass of historical- detail, nor, on the other hand, to lead him to believe that in considering the modern law of. Real Property -he may ignore *ihat is obsolete in. practice. The book can well be used, as the editor seems to have intended it-to be used, as, the basis of the- beginning course in Property Both the arrangement of the topics and the selection of cases and readings are well adapted to show the true relation between the past and the present. The cases are judiciously. selected, from ;a wide field: of the three hundred in the book about one-fourth in number are English, yet almost every American State is represented; though, for obvious reasons, decisions from the reports of New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania predominate. Very recent decisions have not been overlooked, and the inclusion of these must cause the student to appreciate the fact that ancient principles have often an interesting and unexpected application to modem conditions. The order in which the topics are discussed, from Seisin to the Conveyance Operating under Modem Statutes, is scientific and will aid the student in obtaining a correct perspective. The notes will prove most helpful to the teacher and willinducb the industrious student to investigate. There seems to be no valid reason for the omission of an index from a case book; this volume has an index which adds much to its utility. The General Editor of the American Casebook Series is to be congratulated on adding to his valuable list such an excellent work as Professor Aigler\u27s Volume on Titles to Real Propert

Importance of Baseline Specification in Evaluating Conservation Interventions and Achieving No Net Loss of Biodiversity

There is an urgent need to improve the evaluation of conservation interventions. This requires specifying an objective and a frame of reference from which to measure performance. Reference frames can be baselines (i.e., known biodiversity at a fixed point in history) or counterfactuals (i.e., a scenario that would have occurred without the intervention). Biodiversity offsets are interventions with the objective of no net loss of biodiversity (NNL). We used biodiversity offsets to analyze the effects of the choice of reference frame on whether interventions met stated objectives. We developed 2 models to investigate the implications of setting different frames of reference in regions subject to various biodiversity trends and anthropogenic impacts. First, a general analytic model evaluated offsets against a range of baseline and counterfactual specifications. Second, a simulation model then replicated these results with a complex real world case study: native grassland offsets in Melbourne, Australia. Both models showed that achieving NNL depended upon the interaction between reference frame and background biodiversity trends. With a baseline, offsets were less likely to achieve NNL where biodiversity was decreasing than where biodiversity was stable or increasing. With a no‐development counterfactual, however, NNL was achievable only where biodiversity was declining. Otherwise, preventing development was better for biodiversity. Uncertainty about compliance was a stronger determinant of success than uncertainty in underlying biodiversity trends. When only development and offset locations were considered, offsets sometimes resulted in NNL, but not across an entire region. Choice of reference frame determined feasibility and effort required to attain objectives when designing and evaluating biodiversity offset schemes. We argue the choice is thus of fundamental importance for conservation policy. Our results shed light on situations in which biodiversity offsets may be an inappropriate policy instrumen

EFSA NDA Panel (EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nut rition and Allergies ) , 2013. Scientific Opinion on the substantiation of a health claim related to the c onsum ption of 2 g/day of plant stanols (as plant stanol ester s ) as part of a diet low in saturated fat and a two - fold greater reduction in blood LDL - chol esterol concentrations compared to the consumption of a diet low in saturated fat alone pursuant to Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006

Following an application from McNeil Nutritionals and Raisio Nutrition Ltd, submitted for authorisation of a health claim pursuant to Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 via the Competent Authority of the United Kingdom, the Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) was asked to deliver an opinion on the scientific substantiation of a health claim related to the consumption of 2 g/day of plant stanols (as plant stanol esters) as part of a diet low in saturated fat and a two-fold greater reduction in blood LDL-cholesterol concentrations compared to the consumption of a diet low in saturated fat alone. The food that is the subject of the health claim, plant stanol esters, is sufficiently characterised. The applicant provided five human intervention studies for the scientific substantiation of the claim. The Panel notes that the design of the studies submitted did not allow an evaluation of the quantitative effects of diets low in saturated fat per se on blood LDL-cholesterol concentrations. Therefore, the effect of consuming 2 g/day plant stanols as part of a diet low in saturated fat relative to the effect of consuming a diet low in saturated fat alone cannot be determined on a quantitative basis. The Panel considers that the evidence provided by the applicant does not establish that the consumption of 2 g/day of plant stanols (as plant stanol esters) as part of a diet low in saturated fat results in a two-fold greater reduction in LDL-cholesterol concentrations compared with consuming a diet low in saturated fat alone. A claim on plant stanol esters and reduction of blood LDL-cholesterol concentrations (irrespective of the background diet) has already been authorised in the European Union

Whooping Cranes and Piping Plovers: Watershed Problem Solving on the Platte

21 pages. Includes illustrations, maps, and biographical information for Gordon W. Fassett and James S. Lochhead. Habitat for species listed as endangered under federal law along the Platte River in Nebraska has been adversely affected by decreased river flows, resulting in federal legal barriers to further water development throughout the basin in three states. In June 1994 state and federal officials entered an agreement to develop a basin-wide recovery plan. Elizabeth Rieke, Assistant Secretary for Water & Science, Dept. of Interior, will discuss federal perspectives. Gordon (Jeff) Fassett, Wyoming State Engineer, and J. Michael (Mike) Jess, Nebraska Director of Water Resources, will comment on their states’ concerns and what they expect from Colorado. Moderator: Jim Lochhead, Colorado Dept. of Natural Resources

Whooping Cranes and Piping Plovers: Watershed Problem Solving on the Platte

21 pages. Includes illustrations, maps, and biographical information for Gordon W. Fassett and James S. Lochhead. Habitat for species listed as endangered under federal law along the Platte River in Nebraska has been adversely affected by decreased river flows, resulting in federal legal barriers to further water development throughout the basin in three states. In June 1994 state and federal officials entered an agreement to develop a basin-wide recovery plan. Elizabeth Rieke, Assistant Secretary for Water & Science, Dept. of Interior, will discuss federal perspectives. Gordon (Jeff) Fassett, Wyoming State Engineer, and J. Michael (Mike) Jess, Nebraska Director of Water Resources, will comment on their states’ concerns and what they expect from Colorado. Moderator: Jim Lochhead, Colorado Dept. of Natural Resources

A psychology based approach for longitudinal development in cognitive robotics.

A major challenge in robotics is the ability to learn, from novel experiences, new behavior that is useful for achieving new goals and skills. Autonomous systems must be able to learn solely through the environment, thus ruling out a priori task knowledge, tuning, extensive training, or other forms of pre-programming. Learning must also be cumulative and incremental, as complex skills are built on top of primitive skills. Additionally, it must be driven by intrinsic motivation because formative experience is gained through autonomous activity, even in the absence of extrinsic goals or tasks. This paper presents an approach to these issues through robotic implementations inspired by the learning behavior of human infants. We describe an approach to developmental learning and present results from a demonstration of longitudinal development on an iCub humanoid robot. The results cover the rapid emergence of staged behavior, the role of constraints in development, the effect of bootstrapping between stages, and the use of a schema memory of experiential fragments in learning new skills. The context is a longitudinal experiment in which the robot advanced from uncontrolled motor babbling to skilled hand/eye integrated reaching and basic manipulation of objects. This approach offers promise for further fast and effective sensory-motor learning techniques for robotic learning

limma powers differential expression analyses for RNA-sequencing and microarray studies

limma is an R/Bioconductor software package that provides an integrated solution for analysing data from gene expression experiments. It contains rich features for handling complex experimental designs and for information borrowing to overcome the problem of small sample sizes. Over the past decade, limma has been a popular choice for gene discovery through differential expression analyses of microarray and high-throughput PCR data. The package contains particularly strong facilities for reading, normalizing and exploring such data. Recently, the capabilities of limma have been significantly expanded in two important directions. First, the package can now perform both differential expression and differential splicing analyses of RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data. All the downstream analysis tools previously restricted to microarray data are now available for RNA-seq as well. These capabilities allow users to analyse both RNA-seq and microarray data with very similar pipelines. Second, the package is now able to go past the traditional gene-wise expression analyses in a variety of ways, analysing expression profiles in terms of co-regulated sets of genes or in terms of higher-order expression signatures. This provides enhanced possibilities for biological interpretation of gene expression differences. This article reviews the philosophy and design of the limma package, summarizing both new and historical features, with an emphasis on recent enhancements and features that have not been previously describe