A study of some aspects of growth and reproduction in two inbred lines of mice and their crosses : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Agricultural Science in Massey University of Manawatu

The mating of closely related individuals is generally believed to result in inferior offspring. Recognition of this danger has been suggested as the reason for evolution of human social customs. However, historical researches suggest that inbreeding unavoidably occurred in small, isolated, ancient communities, and marriage of close relatives was encouraged in the Egyptian, Greek and Hebrew civilisations (Zirkle, 1952). Inbreeding is likely to have occurred in the isolated flocks of nomads, but it is probable that inbreeding depression, as such, was not recognised until the eighteenth century when the early livestock improvers are reputed to have found that the fertility of their animals deteriorated with continued inbreeding. Hybrid vigour from cross breeding plants was described by Koelreuter (1766) and confirmed by later botanists., .After much detailed work, Darwin (1876) concluded: " •••cross fertilisation is generally beneficial and self fertilisation injurious." and that (a) Mechanisms exist widely for the avoidance of inbreeding. (b) Inbreeding has effects likely to incur selective disadvantages. No suitable hypothesis could account for the usually deleterious effects of inbreeding, or the reverse phenomenon of hybrid vigour until the rediscovery of Mendel's work in 1900. The effects of inbreeding can now be explained in terms of the dominance and recessiveness of genes. (Falconer, 1960). The aim of experiments reported in this thesis was to study growth, reproduction and mortality in two inbred lines of mice, derived from common ancestors, to find if differences between them had arisen during inbreeding. Reciprocal crosses and matings of the F1 progeny of these crosses were made to find if hybridisation of the parent lines led to improvements of these charact­eristics. This study was suggested by Drs. D.S.. Flux, M.F. McDonald and R.E. Munford to whom the author is indebted for advice and guidance. The author also wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. E. Ormsby in histological preparations, of Mr. P .S. Dale in photomicrography, and of Mr. C. Muir who drew some of the figures reproduced in this thesis. Thanks are also due to the staff of the University Library for their efforts in obtaining literature. [From Preface

Tarski monoids: Matui's spatial realization theorem

We introduce a class of inverse monoids, called Tarski monoids, that can be regarded as non-commutative generalizations of the unique countable, atomless Boolean algebra. These inverse monoids are related to a class of etale topological groupoids under a non-commutative generalization of classical Stone duality and, significantly, they arise naturally in the theory of dynamical systems as developed by Matui. We are thereby able to reinterpret a theorem of Matui on a class of \'etale groupoids as an equivalent theorem about a class of Tarski monoids: two simple Tarski monoids are isomorphic if and only if their groups of units are isomorphic. The inverse monoids in question may also be viewed as countably infinite generalizations of finite symmetric inverse monoids. Their groups of units therefore generalize the finite symmetric groups and include amongst their number the classical Thompson groups.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1407.147

First detection of a low-mass stellar halo around the young open cluster Eta Chamaeleontis

We have identified several lithium-rich low-mass (0.08<M<0.3 Msun) stars within 5.5 deg of the young open cluster Eta Chamaeleontis, nearly four times the radius of previous search efforts. Of these stars we propose 4 new probable cluster members, and 3 possible members requiring further investigation. These findings are consistent with a dynamical origin for the current configuration of the cluster, without the need to invoke an abnormal Initial Mass Function deficient in low-mass objects. Candidates were selected on the basis of DENIS and 2MASS photometry, NOMAD astrometry and extensive follow-up spectroscopy.Comment: 5 Pages. 5 Figures and 1 Table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters. Higher resolution figures available at http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~murphysj/

Troubling Vulnerability: Designing with LGBT Young People's Ambivalence Towards Hate Crime Reporting

HCI is increasingly working with ?vulnerable? people yet there is a danger that the label of vulnerability can alienate and stigmatize the people such work aims to support. We report our study investigating the application of interaction design to increase rates of hate crime reporting amongst Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender young people. During design-led workshops participants expressed ambivalence towards reporting. While recognizing their exposure to hate crime they simultaneously rejected ascription as victim as implied in the act of reporting. We used visual communication design to depict the young people?s ambivalent identities and contribute insights on how these fail and succeed to account for the intersectional, fluid and emergent nature of LGBT identities through the design research process. We argue that by producing ambiguous designed texts, alongside conventional qualitative data, we ?trouble? our design research narratives as a tactic to disrupt static and reductive understandings of vulnerability within HCI

Double trouble: the impact of multimorbidity and deprivation on preference-weighted health related quality of life - a cross sectional analysis of the Scottish Health Survey

&lt;b&gt;Objective&lt;/b&gt; To investigate the association between multimorbidity and Preference_Weighted Health Related Quality of Life (PW_HRQoL), a score that combines physical and mental functioning, and how this varies by socioeconomic deprivation and age.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Design&lt;/b&gt; The Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) is a cross-sectional representative survey of the general population which included the SF-12, a survey of HRQoL, for individuals 20 years and over.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Methods&lt;/b&gt; For 7,054 participants we generated PW_HRQoL scores by running SF-12 responses through the SF-6D algorithm. The resulting scores ranged from 0.29 (worst health) to 1 (perfect health). Using ordinary least squares, we first investigated associations between scores and increasing counts of longstanding conditions, and then repeated for multimorbidity (2+ conditions). Estimates were made for the general population and quintiles of socioeconomic deprivation. For multimorbidity, the analyses were repeated stratifying the population by age group (20--44, 45--64, 65+).&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Results&lt;/b&gt; 45% of participants reported a longstanding condition and 18% reported multimorbidity. The presence of 1, 2, or 3+ longstanding conditions were associated with average reductions in PW_HRQoL scores of 0.081, 0.151 and 0.212 respectively. Reduction in scores associated with multimorbidity was 33% greater in the most deprived quintile compared to the least deprived quintile, with the biggest difference (80%) in the 20--44 age groups. There were no significant gender differences.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Conclusions&lt;/b&gt; PW_HRQoL decreases markedly with multimorbidity, and is exacerbated by higher deprivation and younger age. There is a need to prioritise interventions to improve the HRQoL for (especially younger) adults with multimorbidity in deprived areas

Confronting Crawford: Justice Scalia, the Judicial Method, and the Limits(?) of Originalism

Crawford v. Washington, which revamped (and even revolutionized) interpretation and application of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause, just might be Justice Scalia’s most important majority opinion, for three reasons. First, its impact on the criminal justice system has been immense, and even if the case is overruled in the near future, as seems quite possible, that effect will still likely exceed the concrete impact of any other opinion that he wrote. Second, and more importantly, Crawford emphasizes the trite but crucial point that methodology matters. Crawford has generally been a boon to criminal defendants and a bane to prosecutors. When Justice Scalia was appointed to the Court in 1986, a very crude version of the “attitudinal model” dominated both academic and popular views about how Supreme Court justices were likely to decide cases. Almost everyone expected Justice Scalia to be a Warren Burger clone who would reflexively vote to lock up guilty criminals. When he instead decided some cases based on meaning and methodology rather than results, the legal community had difficulty processing the point. If that seems strange to modern eyes, so that a 2004 decision such as Crawford does not appear inexplicable, it is at least partly because of Justice Scalia’s influence in the ensuing decades, which has helped moved methodology to the forefront of jurisprudence. Third, Crawford is an outstanding exemplar of Justice Scalia’s originalist methodology in both action and inaction. Actively, the textual, structural, historical, and purposive moves in Crawford exemplify the “fair reading” interpretative methodology that Justice Scalia spent much of his life advancing. On the other hand, that methodology was applied to the “wrong” text, because Crawford (and all subsequent Confrontation Clause cases) involved state rather than federal prosecutions, to which the Sixth Amendment literally does not apply unless the most dramatic form of text-for-text incorporation is the correct original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Crawford thus focuses attention on how originalism as a method of interpretation does not always easily translate into originalism as a form of adjudication

Reconceptualizing Chevron and Discretion: A Comment on Levin and Rubin

Professors Ronald Levin and Edward Rubin want to change the way we think about important administrative law concepts. Ronald Levin\u27s paper, The Anatomy of Chevron: Step Two Reconsidered,1 argues that Chevron\u27s currently ill-defined second step ought to be reconceptualized as an application of arbitrary or capricious review. Edward Rubin\u27s paper, Discretion and Its Discontents,3 is part of his ongoing project to reconceptualize the way we think-and, more importantly, the way we talk-about the modern administrative state. Professor Rubin suggests that the oft-used word discretion does not usefully describe the bureaucratic operation of the modern managerial state and that it profitably could be replaced with vocabulary drawn from the theory of bureaucracy

Appointments and Illegal Adjudication: The AIA Through a Constitutional Lens

In 2011, Congress enacted the America Invents Act (“AIA”), largely in order to provide more effective mechanisms for invalidating, or cancelling, already-issued patents. The statute provides for inter partes review, in which patents, on the request of third parties, can be cancelled by an administrative body, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), subject to deferential judicial review. The constitutionality of this scheme is currently (as of January 9, 2018) before the Supreme Court in Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, but the arguments in that case understandably focus on the consistency of inter partes review with modern case law. This article instead looks at the Constitution’s original meaning (which, in the particulars relevant to this problem, bears only modest resemblance to modern case law) and finds two fundamental defects in the AIA. First, executive agents, such as the PTAB judges, cannot cancel vested patent rights, because such action deprives patent holders of property “without due process of law.” As an original matter, due process of law requires judicial action for a deprivation of vested rights. The federal courts recognized this basic fact in the nineteenth century with regard to both land patents and invention patents. Perhaps one can apply the inter partes mechanism to patents granted after enactment of the AIA in 2011 if one views application of this mechanism as a “defeasibility condition” built into the patent grants, but that condition did not exist for patents issued prior to 2011. Second, all but one of the PTAB officials who adjudicate patent validity are appointed by the Secretary of Commerce, in a fashion appropriate for inferior officers of the United States. But the decisions of the PTAB, which by statute take place in panels of three officers, are the final word within the executive department. There are no internal appeals to any executive body outside the PTAB. Any executive actor who issues final decisions on behalf of the United States is constitutionally a principal rather than inferior officer and must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Accordingly, all of the PTAB judges, and not merely the Director of the PTO, must be appointed as principal officers in order for the PTAB to perform its statutory function