The ECHR’s upholding of the French face-veil ban sets a very worrying precedent for the freedom of religious expression

The former President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, instituted a ban on covering one’s face in a public area. It was interpreted as targeting the Muslim community, and since its implementation has had the biggest impact there. The case was challenged, and eventually upheld by the European Court of Human Rights. Daniel Barton argues that the ease with which the French Government got around the relevant human rights limitations should worry us all

Ecological Causes of Life History Variation Tested by Meta-analysis, Comparison, and Experimental Approaches

The ecological causes of life history variation among taxa and the arrangement of such variation along geographic gradients is enigmatic despite the proximity of life history traits to fitness and implications for understanding basic and applied population ecology. One classic explanation for the arrangement of avian life histories along a `slow-fast\u27 gradient, where species at low latitudes have `slow\u27 life history traits (low fecundity and mortality) and species at high latitudes have `fast\u27 life history traits (high fecundity and mortality), is the increase in seasonality of resources with increasing latitude (Ashmole\u27s hypothesis). Despite broad acceptance, this hypothesis has been supported only indirectly. I tested two key predictions of this hypothesis - that most mortality occurs in winter and that most mortality is caused by starvation - using meta-analysis. Surprisingly, in many populations, the season of greatest mortality was summer, and most mortality was caused by predation. These results suggest alternative explanations for life history variation should remain under consideration despite support for Ashmole\u27s hypothesis. The relationship between provisioning behavior and offspring number was long recognized to integrate key life history tradeoffs between number and quality of offspring and between current and future reproductive success. Studies of the response of parental provisioning behavior to brood size variation played a formative role in the development of life history theory. Yet, the inference of such experiments for explaining among-species differences has always been limited by lack of comparative context. I expanded predictions of alternative ecological explanations (food limitation, nest predation, adult mortality) for life history variation to an among-species context and test these predictions using a comparative-experimental design across a broad range of bird species from three continents. I found resource limitation and adult mortality risk interact to explain variation among species in responses to natural and experimental variation in brood size, with the degree of food limitation appearing to vary across a gradient of adult mortality risk. This result helps to explain the potentially conflicting results of previous studies and suggests a pluralistic approach to understanding what factors explain life history variation may be fruitful. Understanding variation among species in mortality rates may thus be pivotal to understanding ecological causes of life history variation. To this end, I compared differences in spatiotemporal variance in survival among three temperate-breeding species with differing migratory strategy. I found that migratory behavior may be associated with reduced spatial variance in annual survival because resident species disperse less, reducing population connectivity. I also found that migratory behavior is associated with increased temporal variance in survival, counter to expectations of general theory. Given the potential importance of mortality risk in life history evolution, expanded geographic comparisons of annual and within-year patterns of variance in survival rates is likely key to understanding variation among species in life history traits

Applying Quantitative Reasoning to Clarify Arc Measurements

The importance of reasoning quantitatively is reflected in both mathematics education research and mathematical standards for K-12 students. In this article, we detail how a quantitative reasoning framework can be used to help differentiate two quantities we have found students often struggle with: arc length and the measure of a central angle. We argue that taking the time to define all four components of a quantity can support students’ understanding of theorems involving these quantities

Campus Kitchen Project at IUPUI

The Campus Kitchens Project (CKP) is a national leader in community engagement and service through student-led initiatives to decrease waste in campus cafeterias. This is accomplished through food rescue and repurposing with the intention of distributing this food to those in need. Based in Washington D.C., Campus Kitchens Project has been working with 34 universities and colleges to establish student-run kitchen operations. This establishment of a CKP at IUPUI will not only recycle unused food and decrease waste on campus but will also create student leadership and community service opportunities. In addition, IUPUI students will receive hands on training in non-profit management and development of community partnerships. Additionally, this will expand IUPUI’s capacity to have an impact in surrounding communities and empower students with a commitment to service upon graduation. The effort to bring a CKP to IUPUI began in 2012 when Nancy Barton, a faculty member in the School of Physical Education and Tourism Management began a course redesign of her Consumer Health class to encourage students to explore topics of food rescue and hunger relief. In the resulting course, a feasibility study was conducted and a CKP was identified as an appropriate next step in addressing hunger in Indianapolis. Currently, the project is being developed by the Office of Sustainability and Service Learning Assistants in order to identify community partners and arrange for implementation at IUPUI. The CKP has now received administrative support and is scheduled to begin as a pilot project in the summer and fall semesters of 2014

Modal Analysis of a Two-Parachute System

The Orion capsule is designed to land under a nominal configuration of three main parachutes; however, the system is required to be fault tolerant and land successfully if one of the main parachutes fails to open. The Capsule Parachute Assembly System (CPAS) Team performed a series of drop tests in order to characterize the performance of the system with two main parachutes. During the series of drop tests, several distinct dynamical modes were observed. The most consequential of these is the pendulum mode. Three other modes are benign: flyout (scissors), maypole, and breathing. The actual multi-body system is nonlinear, flexible, and possesses significant cross-coupling. Rather than perform analysis of this highly complex system directly, we conduct analysis of each dynamical mode observed during flight, based on first principles. This approach is analogous to traditional aircraft flight dynamics analysis in which the full nonlinear behavior of the airframe is decomposed into longitudinal dynamics (phugoid and short-period modes) and lateral dynamics (spiral, roll-subsidence, and dutch-roll modes). This analysis is intended to supplement multi-body nonlinear simulations in order to provide further insight into the system

Characterisation of the genomic architecture of human chromosome 17q and evaluation of different methods for haplotype block definition

BACKGROUND: The selection of markers in association studies can be informed through the use of haplotype blocks. Recent reports have determined the genomic architecture of chromosomal segments through different haplotype block definitions based on linkage disequilibrium (LD) measures or haplotype diversity criteria. The relative applicability of distinct block definitions to association studies, however, remains unclear. We compared different block definitions in 6.1 Mb of chromosome 17q in 189 unrelated healthy individuals. Using 137 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), at a median spacing of 15.5 kb, we constructed haplotype block maps using published methods and additional methods we have developed. Haplotype tagging SNPs (htSNPs) were identified for each map. RESULTS: Blocks were found to be shorter and coverage of the region limited with methods based on LD measures, compared to the method based on haplotype diversity. Although the distribution of blocks was highly variable, the number of SNPs that needed to be typed in order to capture the maximum number of haplotypes was consistent. CONCLUSION: For the marker spacing used in this study, choice of block definition is not important when used as an initial screen of the region to identify htSNPs. However, choice of block definition has consequences for the downstream interpretation of association study results

Systems biology of energetic and atomic costs in the yeast transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome

Proteins vary in their cost to the cell and natural selection may favour the use of proteins that are cheaper to produce. We develop a novel approach to estimate the amino acid biosynthetic cost based on genome-scale metabolic models, and directly investigate the effects of biosynthetic cost on transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic data in _Saccharomyces cerevisiae_. We find that our systems approach to formulating biosynthetic cost produces a novel measure that explains similar levels of variation in gene expression compared with previously reported cost measures. Regardless of the measure used, the cost of amino acid synthesis is weakly associated with transcript and protein levels, independent of codon usage bias. In contrast, energetic costs explain a large proportion of variation in levels of free amino acids. In the economy of the yeast cell, there appears to be no single currency to compute the cost of amino acid synthesis, and thus a systems approach is necessary to uncover the full effects of amino acid biosynthetic cost in complex biological systems that vary with cellular and environmental conditions