How Should Congress Respond to McDonnell?

Discussion of question of whether McDonnell was essentially right or wrong. Should Congress act to change the McDonnell rule? Should the Supreme Court reconsider it? What would be an alternative or a better way, if there is one, to approach the question of public corruption prosecution

Conflict between background matching and social signalling in a colour-changing freshwater fish

The ability to change coloration allows animals to modify their patterning to suit a specific function. Many freshwater fishes, for example, can appear cryptic by altering the dispersion of melanin pigment in the skin to match the visual background. However, melanin-based pigments are also used to signal dominance among competing males; thus colour change for background matching may conflict with colour change for social status signalling. We used a colour-changing freshwater fish to investigate whether colour change for background matching influenced aggressive interactions between rival males. Subordinate males that had recently darkened their skin for background matching received heightened aggression from dominant males, relative to males whose coloration had not changed. We then determined whether the social status of a rival male, the focal male's previous social status, and his previous skin coloration, affected a male's ability to change colour for background matching. Social status influenced skin darkening in the first social encounter, with dominant males darkening more than subordinate males, but there was no effect of social status on colour change in the second social encounter. We also found that the extent of skin colour change (by both dominant and subordinate males) was dependent on previous skin coloration, with dark males displaying a smaller change in coloration than pale males. Our findings suggest that skin darkening for background matching imposes a significant social cost on subordinate males in terms of increased aggression. We also suggest that the use of melanin-based signals during social encounters can impede subsequent changes in skin coloration for other functions, such as skin darkening for background matching

Colour change and assortment in the western rainbowfish

Grouping behaviour is widespread across the animal kingdom, and is known to reduce an individual's risk of predation, for example through predator confusion. Theory predicts that individuals that are different in appearance to the rest of the group are at a greater risk of predation because they are more conspicuous to predators (the ‘oddity’ effect). Thus, animals should choose group mates that are the most similar in appearance to themselves. Another common antipredator tactic is crypsis (camouflage). Fishes are capable of changing colour to match their visual background, but few studies have examined how this might influence shoaling decisions, particularly in the context of the oddity effect. We induced colour pattern changes in a colourful species of freshwater fish, the western rainbowfish, Melanotaenia australis, by maintaining fish in dark and pale aquaria for 2 weeks. Analysis of the proportion of black body pigmentation confirmed that rainbowfish in dark environments developed darker colour patterns than those held in pale environments. We then conducted behavioural observations to determine whether fish subsequently based their shoaling decisions on body coloration. We found that rainbowfish preferred to shoal with similar individuals; fish that had been held in dark aquaria preferred to shoal with other dark fish and fish from pale aquaria preferred other pale fish. Our findings are consistent with the predictions of the oddity effect and demonstrate how morphological colour pattern changes and behavioural decisions interact to mediate antipredator tactics in fish

High-pressure/high-temperature synthesis of transition metal oxide perovskites

Perovskite and related Ruddlesden-Popper type transition metal oxides synthesised at high pressures and temperatures during the last decade are reviewed. More than 60 such new materials have been reported since 1995. Important developments have included perovskites with complex cation orderings on A and B sites, multiferroic bismuth-based perovskites, and new manganites showing colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) and charge ordering properties

Workshop-Style Instruction: Comparing Achievement and Attitudes of English Only and English Language Learning Students

This study analyzed the effectiveness of the Reader’s Workshop style of instruction, its effect on students’ reading comprehension, students’ attitudes about reading, and whether the effect differentiated between students who speak English as a native or second language

Delineating demographic units of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario: cautions and insights

Delineating demographic structure across an organism’s range can reveal the extent to which population dynamics in different geographic areas are driven by local or external factors and can be crucial for effective conservation and management. Obtaining optimal data for such analyses can be time and resource-intensive and impending development and resource extraction pressures may necessitate the examination of existing data, even when they are less than ideal. We analyzed a historic telemetry dataset containing satellite radio-collar locations of 73 forest-dwelling woodland caribou in northern Ontario to determine demographic structure. We applied several clustering methods (i.e., agglomerative, divisive and fuzzy k-means) to median seasonal locations. Results were used to distinguish demographic units and minimum convex polygons and fixed-kernel density estimates were used to delineate unit boundaries and core areas. For areas where sampling was considered representative of the distribution of caribou on the landscape, we assessed demographic distinctness by evaluating intra-individual variation in cluster membership, membership strength and distance between boundaries and core areas of adjacent units. The number and composition of clusters identified was similar among methods and caribou were grouped into 6 general clusters. The distinctions between the three clusters identified in the central portion of the province (i.e., Lac Seul, Wabakimi, Geraldton) and the two clusters identified in the eastern portion of the province (i.e., Cochrane and Cochrane-Quebec) were determined to represent demographic structuring. Additional distinctions in other areas (i.e., between The Red Lake and Lac Seul clusters in the west and between the central and eastern clusters) may just be artifacts of the original sampling effort. Amongst demographic units, there was no evidence of individual flexibility in cluster membership and average membership strength was very high. There was little to no overlap between boundaries and core areas of adjacent units, but distances between adjacent unit boundaries were relatively low. Additional sampling effort is needed to further delineate demographic structure in Ontario caribou

Eine Analyse des Entscheidungsprozesses

Im Zuge der 2002 ins Leben gerufenen Hartz IV-Reform, bei der die Arbeitslosenhilfe und die Sozialhilfe zur Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende zusammengelegt wurden, entstand ein Organisationskompromiss bezüglich der Zusammenarbeit der bis dahin für die Arbeitslosenhilfe zuständigen Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) und den für die Sozialhilfe verantwortlichen Kommunen. Sowohl die BA als auch die Kommunen wurden im Zuge dieser Reform zu Trägern der neugeschaffenen Grundsicherung. Mit dem Ziel, die „Leistung aus einer Hand“ erbringen zu können, richtete man zum 01. Januar 2005 Arbeitsgemeinschaften (ARGEn) zwischen beiden Trägern ein, die die Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende als Regelfall umsetzten. Daneben wurde für 69 Kreise und kreisfreie Städte für eine Experimentierphase von sechs Jahren die Möglichkeit eröffnet, als Optionskommunen beziehungsweise zugelassene kommunale Träger (zkT) die Umsetzung der Grundsicherung in alleiniger Verantwortung zu übernehmen und alternative Eingliederungsmodelle zu testen. In seinem Urteil vom 20. Dezember 2007 sah das Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG) in der Zusammenarbeit der BA mit den Kommunen innerhalb der ARGEn eine unzulässige und mit dem Grundgesetz (GG) nicht vereinbare Mischverwaltung. Die vorliegende Arbeit analysiert den im Nachgang des Bundesverfassungsgerichtsurteils im Zeitraum von 2007 bis 2010 ablaufenden mäanderhaften und in seinem Verlauf auf den ersten Blick widersprüchlichen Entscheidungsprozess zur Neuorganisation der Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende, an dessen Ende die Verankerung der Mischverwaltung in Form der gemeinsamen Einrichtungen sowie der Verstetigung und zahlenmäßigen Ausweitung der zkT steht. Das Ergebnis des Entscheidungsprozesses wird als „problemlösungsorientierter Kompromiss des politisch und organisatorisch Machbaren“ gewertet, der berücksichtigt, dass eine am Grundsatz der eigenverantwortlichen Aufgabenwahrnehmung ausgerichtete und somit verfassungskonforme Ausgestaltung der Grundsicherung mit der komplexen Realität der politischen Einflussbestrebungen der einzelnen am Entscheidungsprozess beteiligten Akteure sowie den Anforderungen der täglichen Arbeit von und mit den Betroffenen in den einzelnen Grundsicherungsstellen, nur schwer vereinbar ist. Die Umsetzung des ursprünglichen politischen Ziels hinter der Einführung der Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende, eine bürgerfreundliche und vor allem effiziente Verwaltung in der Grundsicherung zu schaffen und die Kompetenzen der Bundes- und der kommunalen Ebene in dieser Verwaltung bündeln, konnte – so hat sich im Entscheidungsprozess gezeigt – innerhalb der föderalen Entscheidungsstruktur der Bundesrepublik und unter der Bedingung doppelter Trägerschaft nur unter Berücksichtigung der Interessen aller Beteiligten an Einflusssicherung, tragbarer Lasten- und Mitbestimmungsverteilung und unter Beachtung der komplexen politischen Verantwortlichkeiten von der kommunalen bis zur Bundesebene gewährleistet werden

Geocoding routinely collected administrative data to measure access to alcohol outlets in Wales

ABSTRACT Objectives A substantial level of excess alcohol consumption results in a wide range of harm and the potential impact on health at the population level of a reduction in consumption is considerable. A proposed policy for reducing alcohol consumption is restricting the availability of alcohol through reducing the density of alcohol outlets. We set out to create a high spatial resolution alcohol outlet dataset suitable for evaluating longitudinal changes in chronic alcohol related conditions. Approach Requests were made for the names and location of all licensed alcohol outlets within each of the 22 Unitary Authorities in Wales, between Nov 2005 and Dec 2011. Data requested for each outlet consisted of: the date permission was granted or the licence became active, the licence expiry date or an indicated date of outlet closure, whether this premise is licensed for ON and/or OFF premise sales, the hours permissible to sell alcohol or general opening hours of the outlet and the type of premise as assigned by the LA if available. Our approach included collating, geocoding and manually matching alcohol outlet data received from each unitary authority for use in a longitudinal analysis of outlet density. Results All authorities were able to provide an actual or approximate license issue date, allowing us to summarise the number of outlets annually. Several authorities were unable to provide precise outlet closure dates, so the date of the last interaction with the outlet was used to generate an approximate end date. One-half of the unitary authorities were able to provide the On/Off sales status of outlets, and 9 were able to provide opening hours. From these data we were able to geocode 53% (range 28% to 72% by local authority) using GIS, the remaining 47% were matched using Google products to verify and extract a precise geographic location. Conclusions The collation and processing of retrospective alcohol outlet data was successfully completed to enable the building of a longitudinal exposure dataset. There was considerable variation between the unitary authorities in the quality of address data, and data related to the availability of alcohol, for example opening hours. The lack of address structure required us to devise a manual address matching process to capture the addresses that could not be geocoded. To aid future data linkage based evaluations to provide policy evidence in a timely manner, local government datasets should use standardised data fields, including addresses and Point-of-Capture address verification