Characterisation of variant alleles at the HumD21S11 locus implies unique Australasian genotypes and re-classification of nomenclature guidelines

Several variant alleles of the HumD21S11 locus have only been reported in Australasian population samples. Fifteen such alleles were observed in Caucasian and Australian Aborigine sub-population databases compiled from residents of the state of Western Australia. Each variant was sequenced to authenticate the allelic designation and determine the structural conformation. Nine novel structural variants are described. The structure of the repeat region of these rare alleles combined with the STR designation brings aspects of the HumD21S11 nomenclature guidelines into question, in particular the designation of common incomplete repeats (or "0.2's"). The conformation of the sequences provides evidence in support of a genetic relationship between the Australian Aborigine and the Papuan people.     

EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS: PROBLEMS OF ASSESSMENT

Abstract: The paper focuses on the Coombs Commission's recommendations on efficiency and effectiveness in the Commonwealth Public Service. The recommendations involve the allocation of organizational responsibility for efficiency and effectiveness to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Public Service Board, Treasury and the Auditor-General and individual responsibility to the departmental manager through the establishment of a "Forward Estimating Budgetary" process. However the Commission has given little guidance in the matter of the technological tools which must be developed in order to secure its implementation.
The Commonwealth Public Service Board has developed over the last two years a program of Staff Utilization Reviews (S. U. Rs) as one of its management improvement programs. The paper canvases the technological aspects of efficiency and effectiveness drawing upon the development and operational experience of the S.U.R. program. It concludes that much resource-intensive work must be done before the Commission's recommendations can be implemented but Australian and overseas experience confirms the potential fruitfulness of that work.     

Legal deduction,legal predicates and expert systems

Much of the text which follows was first presented to the Conference of the Legal Expert System Association at Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, in August 1987, and followed by a similar argument, slightly differently angled, at a Symposium in honour of Ota Weinberger in Graz, whose proceedings remain for the moment unpublished. I have also received valuable criticisms through discussions of the latter version at meetings of an Esprit Working Group on Foundations of Legal Reasoning convened by Dr. Tim Flanagan of Cambridge, 1988–91.