The Status of Queen Conch, Strombus gigas, Research in the Caribbean

Today there are approximately 230 published scientific papers on queen conch, Strombus gigas. Publication on this species began in the 1960's and increased rapidly during the 1980's and 1990's (Fig. 1). The increase in publication after 1980 was associated with three particular areas ofendeavor. First, many articles were published to document the rapid depletion of conch stocks throughout the Caribbean Sea. Second, substantial progress was made in understanding processes related to growth, mortality, and reproduction in queen conch. Third, because of the apparent and widespread decline in conch, several research laboratories, especially in Florida, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the Turks and Caicos Islands began experiments related to hatchery production of juvenile conch. The primary intent was to replenish wild stocks by releasing hatchery-reared animals. Today, hatchery production has been relatively well perfected, and the increase in numbers of scientific papers related specifically to culture has slowed. A thorough review of the history of conch mariculture was provided by Creswell (1994), and Davis (1994) summarized the details of larval culture technique

Prediction of discard mortality for Alaskan crabs after exposure to freezing temperatures, based on a reflex impairment index

Millions of crabs are sorted and discarded in freezing conditions each year in Alaskan fisheries for Tanner crab (Chionoecetes bairdi) and snow crab (C. opilio). However, cold exposures vary widely over the fishing season and among different vessels, and mortalities are difficult to estimate. A shipboard experiment was conducted to determine whether simple behavioral observations can be used to evaluate crab condition after low-temperature exposures. Crabs were systematically subjected to cold in seven different exposure treatments. They were then tested for righting behavior and six different ref lex actions and held to monitor mortality. Crabs lost limbs, showed ref lex impairment, and died in direct proportion to increases in cold exposure. Righting behavior was a poor predictor of mortality, whereas reflex impairment (scored as the sum of reflex actions that were lost) was an excellent predictor. This composite index could be measured quickly and easily in hand, and logistic regression revealed that the relationship between reflex impairment and mortality correctly predicted 80.0% of the mortality and survival for C. bairdi, and 79.4% for C. opilio. These relationships provide substantial improvements over earlier approaches to mortality estimation and were independent of crab size and exposure temperature

Development of large diameter T-111 /Ta-8W-2Hf/ tubing Final report

Large diameter T-111 tubing processed from seamless and welded tube shell

The Form of Summons under the Recent Michigan Judicature Act

It would be rather remarkable if in revising such a large portion of the statutes as was undertaken by the Commission on Revision and Consolidation of Statutes of the State of Michigan, appointed in 1913, which reported to the legislature the recently enacted Judicature Act (Public Acts of Michigan, 1915, § 314), some ambiguity or uncertainty were not to appear in the revision. The Judicature Act is no exception to the general rule, as the lawyer who attempts to begin suit by summons under it will discover at the very outset

Pleading Estoppel

No subject is fraught with more difficulties for the pleader than that of estoppel. The problems of when and how to plead seem never so perplexing as when they arise in connection with this subject. That these problems are not confined to any day or age is evidenced by the reports from the time of Lord COKE down to the latest advance sheets of the present day reporter systems, and the lawyers of no generation have been wholly agreed on their solution. No system of pleading yet established has been free from these questions and with each general change in system they seem to spring up with their usual, if not added, perplexity. Conceding this to be the situation, one who attacks the subject with the avowed purpose and intention of clearing up all of the difficulties in it, at the outset, convicts himself of inexperience and temerity. It is with no such expectation that the writer has undertaken this article; he does hope, however, to bring the matter before his readers in such a way by the collection of, and some comment on, the authorities, especially the later ones, as to present and in a small way assist in a solution of, some of the problems as they arise today in pleading cases involving estoppel either as a part of the plaintiff\u27s case or as a defense thereto

Liability of Public Officer for the Loss of Private Funds Entrusted to His Keeping

There is much contrariety of decision concerning the liability of public officers for the loss of funds with which they have been entrusted. A recent case illustrates some of the more important phases of the law of such a situation. People for use of Hoyt et al. v. McGrath et al. (Ill. 1917), I17 N. E. 74. In this case the public brought an action of debt on the official bond of the clerk of court for the use of Hoyt and others. Usees had tendered into court a sum of money which the clerk took under the court\u27s order to receive and hold it, but refused to pay it over to the usees as directed by a later order of the court, claiming the money had been received by him in his individual capacity and had been lost without his fault by the failure of the bank in which it had been deposited. Held, that as a public officer is liable as an insurer for private funds received by virtue of his office, the failure of the clerk to pay over the money in question constituted a breach of his official statutory bond

Influence of Social and Economic Ideals on the Law of Malicious Torts

The existence and the alteration of human institutions, says DICEY, must in a sense, always and everywhere depend upon the beliefs or feelings, or, in other words, upon the opinion of the society in which such institutions flourish. 1 Undoubtedly, law, as much as any other human institution, has felt this influence of public opinion. The political, economical and ethical ideals of a people find expression in their laws. True it is that public opinion is usually, if not always, in the lead, but in a truly happy and contented society the distance is never great. As MAINE says, in progressive societies it may be laid down that social necessities and social opinions are always more or less in advance of the law. We may come indefinitely near to the closing of the gap between them but it has a perpetual tendency to reopen. Law is stable; the societies we are speaking of are progressive. The greater or less happiness of a people depends on the degree of promtitude with which the gulf is narrowed. 2 According to DICEY, this is less true of judge-made law than of statutes. Three reasons are assigned for this conclusion, (1) that judicial legislation, more than the enactments of the law-giving body, aims at the maintenance of the logic or symmetry of the law; (2) that it aims at securing the certainty, rather than at amending the deficiencies of the law; and (3) that, because of the age and training of our judges, the ideas of expediency or policy accepted by the courts may differ materially from the ideas which, at a given time, having acquired predominant influence among the general public, guide the legislative body in making the statutes.3 Had he been writing with regard to our country instead of England, he might have added as a fourth reason, the peculiar influence which our express constitutional separation of powers-legislative, judicial and executive-may have upon our judges. It is not strange that under such a constitution judges should give more weight to precedent and consistency in reaching conclusions, even when they feel that such conclusions are not in accord with modem thinking, than they would under a system of government where the division between judicial and legislative powers is not so clearly marked. The natural result of such an express division of powers is to make the judiciary slow to render decisions which cause a marked change in the interpretation of laws and so have the practical effect of legislation-it has a tendency to compel care on the part of the judges lest they encroach upon the domain of the legislative body. Conceding that these reasons are effective and that judge-made law is less likely than statute law to be representative of public ideals and opinion, there is one very pertinent reason why this should be less true here than in England. In four-fifths, or more, of our states the judiciary is chosen periodically by popular election. Even though we may deplore this condition, we must concede that this method of choice affects the judge in like manner as it does the legislator, i.e., it tends to make his decisions coincide with public opinion in his section of the country. The different view-points of the typical English and American judges on this matter is well illustrated by the following quotations. Justice PARK, in his opinion in Mirehouse v. Rennell,4 said, Our common law system consists in the applying to new combinations of circumstances those rules of law which we derive from legal principles and judicial precedents; and for the sake of attaining uniformity, consistency and certainty, we must apply those rules, where they are not plainly unreasonable and inconvenient, to all cases which arise; and we are not at liberty to reject them, and to abandon all analogy to them, in those to which they have not yet been judicially applied, because we think that the rules are not as convenient and reasonable as we ourselves could have devised. It appears to me to be of great importance to keep this principle of decision steadily in view, not merely for the determination of the particular case, but for the interests of law as a science. Here the emphasis is laid on uniformity and consistency. Compare with this the following extract from the opinion of Justice ELIOTT in Tuttle v. Buck,5 It must be remembered that the common law is the result of growth and that its development has been determined by the social needs of the community which it governs. It is the resultant of conflicting social forces, and those forces which are for the time dominant leave their impress upon the law. It is of judicial origin, and seeks to establish doctrines and rules for the determination, protection, and enforcement of legal rights. Manifestly it must change as society changes and new rights are recognized. To be an efficient instrument, and not a mere abstraction, it must gradually adapt itself to changed conditions. Necessarily its form and substance have been greatly affected by prevalent economic theories. In this statement it is the adaptability to social needs that is emphasized. We may be, then, not unwarranted in expecting to find the decisions of our courts reflecting with a greater or less degree of faithfulness the economic and social ideals of the public. Will an examination of the American decisions on some one branch of the law justify this conclusion? Let us seek the answer to this question by a thorough consideration of the law of malicious torts. This particular subject is chosen for the field of our investigation for two reasons, first, because the law respecting it is almost entirely the product of judicial decision, and, second, because within this division of the field of law falls a large proportion of the cases dealing with business competition and the use of the boycott in disputes between labor and capital. These two questions are the subject of present public interest and a prolific source of recent litigation. Consequently the law relating to both of these matters has been developed largely within the last decade, and promises large future development, and for this reason, alone, is well suited to our purpose

Recovery of Salary by a De Facto Officer

The de facto doctrine in the law of officers has been a continual source of difficulty to the courts for more than a century. Many questions connected with the application of this doctrine to this branch of the law have been settled beyond controversy. Even the phase of this question which the writer proposes to discuss cannot be classed as new or novel. Recent years, however, have seen the development of certain tendencies on the part of some of the American courts in the application of this doctrine, which will furnish the subject for the major part of our consideration

Compulsory Service in Office

It was the policy of prudent antiquity, as Lord COKE has said, that officers did ever give a grace to the place, and not the place only grace (to) the officer. 1 A modern expression of a similar thought is found in the maxim, the office should seek the man and not the man, the office. Have we Americans reversed the process? Have we lost sight of these ideals? Certain it is that some popular notions which are not consistent with the spirit of these maxims have grown up in this country. Offices have come to be regarded too much as prizes to be awarded to the favorite of the majority of the electors. Campaigns and elections are thought of as contests between individual office-seekers rather than earnest attempts on the part of citizens and voters to select competent men to serve the state

A design study of hydrazine and biowaste resistojets

A generalized modeling program was adapted in BASIC on a personal computer to compare the performance of four types of biowaste resistojets and two types of hydrazine augmenters. Analyzed biowaste design types were: (1) an electrically conductive ceramic heater-exchanger of zirconia; (2) a truss heater of platinum in cross flow; (3) an immersed bicoiled tubular heater-exchanger; and (4) a nonexposed, refractory metal, radiant heater in a central cavity within a heat exchanger case. Concepts 2 and 3 are designed to have an efficient, stainless steel outer pressure case. The hydrazine design types are: (5) an immersed bicoil heater exchanger and (6) a nonexposed radiant heater now with a refractory metal case. The ceramic biowaste resistojet has the highest specific impulse growth potential at 2000 K of 192.5 (CO2) and 269 s (H2O). The bicoil produces the highest augmenter temperature of 1994 K for a 2073 K heater giving 317 s at .73 overall efficiency. Detailed temperature profiles of each of the designs are shown. The scaled layout drawings of each are presented with recommended materials and fabrication methods