Use of registered donkeys on the areas of natural constraint scheme in Ireland

Data concerning the numbers, locations and types of donkeys being officially registered (passported) in Ireland (32 counties) via horse passport issuing organisations were gathered. The numbers of agricultural area aid scheme (Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC)) applicants registering passported donkeys (as compared with horses) as livestock units (LUs), the numbers of donkeys they registered and the value of payments that thus accrued to the applicants are also reported for each of 26 counties for the years 2012 to 2014 inclusive. Equids have not been eligible for equivalent agricultural schemes in the six counties of Northern Ireland. Horse Sport Ireland registration data shows that two-thirds of almost 8000 donkey passport applicants over a 10-year period came from counties Galway and Mayo and that only one-third of donkeys registered were male. As per ANC figures reported here for 2014, there were over 2500 donkeys registered as LUs on ANC, at a payment value to their keepers (in the 26 counties) of almost €1.6M. Future iterations of the ANC scheme are currently under review with regard to limiting donkey eligibility criteria, for example, to females and neutered males. The future monetary value of (some) donkeys could be adversely affected by restrictions in eligibility and by the uncertainty engendered by the prospect of change with the potential for unintended consequences.

The Coherence of Public Reason

Theories of public reason face a dilemma. If their standard of reasonableness is low, the view will be unacceptably anarchic and self-refuting, while if it is high, the exclusion of unreasonable views will manifest unequal treatment. This paper shows how to avoid this dilemma by distinguishing two models of public reason. The coercion model is vulnerable to the worry about anarchy but not self-defeat, while the reasons model is vulnerable to self-defeat but not anarchy. The coercion model can avoid anarchy without idealizing heavily via aggregation of individual policies into packages. The reasons model can avoid self-refutation by making acceptance of public reason one of the conditions for counting as fully reasonable, which is a natural constraint if the justification of the principle is relational.

Analytical BPS Maxwell-Higgs Vortices

We have established a prescription for the calculation of analytical vortex solutions in the context of generalized Maxwell-Higgs models whose overall dynamics is controlled by two positive functions of the scalar field, namely,fϕandwϕ. We have also determined a natural constraint between these functions and the Higgs potentialUϕ, allowing the existence of axially symmetric Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) solutions possessing finite energy. Furthermore, when the generalizing functions are chosen suitably, the nonstandard BPS equations can be solved exactly. We have studied some examples, comparing them with the usual Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen (ANO) solution. The overall conclusion is that the analytical self-dual vortices are well-behaved in all relevant sectors, strongly supporting the consistency of the respective generalized models. In particular, our results mimic well-known properties of the usual (numerical) configurations, as localized energy density, while contributing to the understanding of topological solitons and their description by means of analytical methods.

Physical Constraint and Tiller Growth in Wheat

Young wheat seedlings were subjected to mild physical constraint by placing short plastic collars with internal diameters of 1.5, 1.7 and 2.0 mm around the coleoptile close to the grain. In others the natural constraint of the coleoptile was reduced experimentally by making a vertical slit just above the site of the coleoptile tiller. The narrowest of the plastic collars reduced the growth of the primary shoot, but the others did not. Collars of all sizes prevented the emergence of all tillers sited immediately within them, though the coleoptile tiller, and occasionally the first tiller 'escaped' through the coleoptile or leaf sheath tissues below the collar. The coleoptile tillers of about half of the surgically treated seedlings grew vigorously, but those of the control plants did not. The results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that physical constraint can be an impor- tant determinant of developmental events within shoot apical systems.