The Enlightened Barbarity of Inclusive Fitness and Wrongful Death: Biological Justifications for an Investment Theory of Loss in \u3cem\u3eWycko v. Gnodtke\u3c/em\u3e

Wrongful death laws should permit and encourage courts and juries to consider the survivors\u27 investment in decedents when determining wrongful death damages, given new biological justifications for this theory of loss. The investment theory of damages, which permits an award of damages based on the investment of financial resources relatives make in one another, originated in Michigan\u27s courts in the early 1 960s, but as of present day has been largely abrogated. In the context of modern understandings of evolutionary biology, including kin selection theory and sociobiology, the investment theory of recovery accords with the goals of corrective justice as it restores plaintiffs to the resource state they were in prior to making an investment in the decedent and enables plaintiffs to reinvest those same resources in other relatives to recoup lost fitness

Vol. 27, No. 4

Contents: Public Sector Furloughs: Player Perspectives, Strategies, and Grounds for Challenge, by Ryan Shannon Recent Developmentshttps://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/iperr/1052/thumbnail.jp

Vol. 27, No. 4

Contents: Public Sector Furloughs: Player Perspectives, Strategies, and Grounds for Challenge, by Ryan Shannon Recent Developmentshttps://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/iperr/1052/thumbnail.jp

A GIS Analysis of Potential Wetland Mitigation Opportunities in the Brandywine Creek Watershed, Chester County, Pennsylvania

Wetlands provide innumerous functions and values that are beneficial to both the natural environment and economic systems. Historically these habitats have suffered significant losses and it is crucial to preserve existing wetlands and plan for future restoration opportunities. This research examines six sub-watersheds within the Brandywine Creek watershed within Chester County, Pennsylvania to determine where potential wetland mitigation opportunities occur. Using a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis, three wetland characteristics including watercourse locations, existing National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) wetlands, and hydric soils were mapped throughout each of the watersheds. Areas of agricultural easements and steep slopes were used to exclude areas from the study. Based on the occurrence of these characteristics, eight sites were selected for ground-truthing investigations. To support findings from these processes, a review of aerial imagery was performed to understand how the site and surrounding landscape have changed over time. Of the eight selected sites, two were deemed suitable for immediate potential wetland mitigation opportunities, four were determined to have the potential for wetland mitigation pending further analysis, and two were determined to be unsuitable for wetland mitigation. The lack of access to private property, presence of agricultural activities, and availability of GIS data provided limitations for a complete and thorough study. This research shows that GIS analysis could be a useful tool in determining where potential wetland mitigation opportunities lie and can serve to benefit future wetland mitigation planning activities, regulating agencies, conservation organizations, as well as the natural and human environments

Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris (MMOD) Shield Ballistic Limit Analysis Program

This software implements penetration limit equations for common micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) shield configurations, windows, and thermal protection systems. Allowable MMOD risk is formulated in terms of the probability of penetration (PNP) of the spacecraft pressure hull. For calculating the risk, spacecraft geometry models, mission profiles, debris environment models, and penetration limit equations for installed shielding configurations are required. Risk assessment software such as NASA's BUMPERII is used to calculate mission PNP; however, they are unsuitable for use in shield design and preliminary analysis studies. The software defines a single equation for the design and performance evaluation of common MMOD shielding configurations, windows, and thermal protection systems, along with a description of their validity range and guidelines for their application. Recommendations are based on preliminary reviews of fundamental assumptions, and accuracy in predicting experimental impact test results. The software is programmed in Visual Basic for Applications for installation as a simple add-in for Microsoft Excel. The user is directed to a graphical user interface (GUI) that requires user inputs and provides solutions directly in Microsoft Excel workbooks

The Effects of Priming Eruca sativa Seeds with Short-Chain AHL C6-HSL at Bard Farm

Many gram-negative bacteria use quorum sensing to assess population densities and cooperate with another. The quorum sensing autoinducers N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) have been found to cause altered gene expression patterns in plants, resulting in increased root and shoot growth as well as induced pathogenic resistance in various species. Researchers have begun exploring the ways AHLs may be used in agricultural systems to reduce the use of environmentally harmful synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. In this study, the effect of priming arugula (Eruca sativa) seeds with the short-chain AHL C6-HSL was investigated at Bard Farm in Annandale-On-Hudson, New York. Leaf lengths of AHL-primed, water-primed and control plants were compared to investigate the effect of AHL seed priming on arugula growth. The study sought to also analyze the effects C6-HSL may have on the bacterial diversity and dominant functional groups present in root and root soil samples collected from the plants, though metagenomic analysis ultimately could not be performed due to COVID-19 related delays in DNA sequencing. Soil moisture and temperature was measured three times over the course of the experiment to contextualize results. Soil samples of the experiential plot were also collected before and after the in-field portion of the experiment for metagenomic analysis. The study ultimately found C6-HLS seed priming to have no significant effect on leaf length (P=1.57). Metagenomic analysis will be performed once the sequenced samples are available

Minimizing the Pervasiveness of Women’s Personal Experiences of Gender Discrimination

Given the Rejection-Identification Model (Branscombe, et al., 1999) which shows that perceiving discrimination to be pervasive is a negative experience, it was suggested that there would be conditions under which women would instead minimize the pervasiveness of discrimination. Study 1 (N = 91) showed that when women envisioned themselves in a situation of academic discrimination, they defined it as pervasive but when they experienced a similar laboratory simulation of academic discrimination, its pervasiveness was minimized. Study 2 (N = 159) showed that women who envisioned themselves experiencing discrimination minimized its pervasiveness more so than women reading about discrimination happening to someone else. Further, mediation analysis showed that minimizing the pervasiveness enhanced positive affect about personal discrimination. Implications for minimizing on both an individual and social level are discussed

Beyond Man vs. Nature: Utilizing Book Clubs on Nature and Climate Change to Create Engaged Citizens of the Anthropocene

In this article, we consider the following question: What’s next for ELA? Over the next 10 years, how will our students change? How might we need to change? Which traditions and practices will (or should) grow obsolete, and which should be preserved? Our aim is to help teachers find ways to bring climate literacy into their classrooms and to help teachers recognize the central role that ELA as a discipline can play in educating students about the environment and climate change. We see this topic as highly engaging for students, and we want teachers to reconsider and reanimate older approaches to teaching about man vs. nature through literature, nonfiction, and multimodal texts