The Decline of the Virginia (and American) Death Penalty

The American death penalty is disappearing. Death sentences and executions have reached the lowest levels seen in three decades. Even the states formerly most aggressive in pursuit of death sentences have seen death sentences steadily decline. Take Virginia, which has the highest rate of executions of any death penalty state, and which has executed the third highest number of prisoners since the 1970s. How times have changed. There has not been a new death sentence in Virginia since 2011. Only seven counties have imposed death sentences in the past decade in Virginia. There are now two or fewer trials a year at which a judge or jury considers imposing the death penalty. Still more surprising, at over one half of those trials the judge or jury chooses a sentence of life without parole (eleven of twenty-one cases from 2005 to 2015 at which there was a capital sentencing hearing resulted in a life sentence). Why is this happening-and in Virginia of all places? In this study, I examine every capital trial from 2005 to 2015-twenty-one trials-and I compare a group of twenty capital trials from 1996 to 2004. The law on the books has not meaningfully changed. However in 2004, the legislature created regional defense resource centers to handle capital cases. From 1996 to 2004, the crucial sentencing phase, at which the judge or jury decided whether to impose the death penalty, was typically cursory, averaging less than two days long. In the more recent trials, the average was twice that-four days-and still more striking was the increase in the numbers of defense witnesses called, the greater use of expert witnesses, and the added complexity of sentencing proceedings. Improved capital defense resources may explain this sharp and sudden decline in death sentences. North Carolina, which created a similar state capital defense resource office, experienced a decline that tracks Virginia\u27s, and yet in states like Florida, lacking statewide defense resources, the rate with which death sentences are imposed has remained fairly stable. This evidence: (1) raises heightened Eighth Amendment arbitrariness concerns with the scattered state of the American death penalty, including that death sentences may result from local failures to provide adequate defense resources; (2) demonstrates that those same failures implicate Sixth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel claims in individual cases and in systematic challenges in states that fail to provide adequate resources; and (3) strongly supports the establishment of statewide capital-and non-capital-public defender offices

Inputs and outputs: engagement in digital media from the maker's perspective

In the process of developing a technology assembly that can objectively measure engagement on a moment-by-moment basis, subjective responses to stimuli must be shown to correlate with the component technologies, such as motion capture or psychophysiology. Subjective scales for engagement are not all consistent in segregating the measurement of causes (inputs to the audience) and effects (outputs from the audience); this lack of separation can obscure appropriate inferences in the relationship between cause and effect. Inputs to the audience are scripted, and are controllable by the maker. An output is what the designed experience engenders in the end-user, and outputs can include both mental states (satisfaction) and physical activities (heart rate) during the stimulus and subsequently. Inputs can be maximised by design, whereas to optimise outputs from the end-user, one needs an empirical process because outputs are dependent upon an interpretive process or entry into a biological system. Outputs will be highly dependent on audience and context, and they will often be quite variable, even in individuals from a similar audience profile. It is critical that, in instruments assessing the relationship between inputs and outputs, controllable inputs to the end-user must not be conflated with outputs engendered in the end-user

No quick fixes : four interacting constraints to advancing agroecology in Uganda

A century after its inception, agroecology has entered mainstream development debates as a more sustainable alternative to conventional agricultural modernization of relevance not least for improving smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Agroecology is a broad concept considered to have transformative potential, yet as a research field it has often been technology-centred and focused at the local level. Building on the experiences of Ugandan agroecologists working in an array of agricultural professions throughout the country, this paper identifies and discusses major barriers to agroecology in Uganda. Inductive analysis of qualitative data from interviews and focus groups generated four types of interacting barriers; constraints at farmer level, an agricultural knowledge system favouring conventional approaches, adverse and intertwined political and economic interests, and cross-cutting ideological and discursive pressures. These broad challenges become manifest in the accounts presented, making clear that barriers to and therefore also appropriate strategies for advancing agroecology must be treated as contextual even if a ‘global movement’ is emerging around it. The discussion suggests theoretical lenses for further inquiry into agroecology and its realization in light of these constraints

Objective assessment of drawer test in cruciate ligament rupture in dogs

Cranial cruciate ligament rupture (CCLR) is one of the most common orthopaedic diagnosesin dogs. There are different methods to diagnose CCLR, but only a few can be considered as both noninvasive and objective. This pilot study aimed to assess software for motion analysis, intended to be used for objective assessment of movements of tissue in investigation of CCLR in dogs. Seven cadavers were used in this study, and veterinary students performed the drawer test. The study was blinded for students and for analysis. Areas over the knees were shaved, temporary tattoos with a doted pattern were placed over the stifle joints and the drawer test was performed during video recording. The software, from the company Kneedly, generated an automatic analysis and a colour sheet for evaluation. Sensitivity of the automatic analysis were 0.67 and specificity 0.84. Results for manual analysis of the colour sheets was 0.57 and 0.79 respectively. The test persons had a sensitivity of 0.51 and a specificity of 0.72. The sensitivity and specificity of the software, for both manual and automatic analysis, were higher compared to those achieved by students, which may indicate that the software could be helpful for diagnosing CCLR in an educational setting. There was a high risk that the results for sensitivity and specificity of the software were falsely low. The reason was the drawer tests performed by students were, subjectively, not always correctly performed. The software may potentially also be useful for teaching and assessment. Further studies are needed to develop the program and to better estimate the efficiency of the software

The micrometeorite flux to Earth through the Phanerozoic Eon : Reconstructed using sediment-dispersed extraterrestrial spinels

The purpose of this thesis is to add an astronomical component to the history and evolution of Earth by reconstructing the micrometeorite flux to Earth at different time intervals during the Phanerozoic Eon, using sediment-dispersed extraterrestrial spinel group minerals as a proxy. Chromite and chrome spinel are common refractory members of the spinel group, occurring in both extraterrestrial and terrestrial rocks. Their chemistry is indicative both of the petrogenesis of the rock and type of host meteorite. A meteorite on Earth’s surface decays relatively quickly, and with the exception of chrome spinel the minerals composing the meteorite are replaced. By the dissolution of large samples of condensed pelagic sediments, and the extraction and analysis of chrome spinel, the flux of different meteorite types in different geological times can be determined.Covered in nine papers, nine sedimentary sections located in Sweden, Italy, Austria, United States, France, and Russia, deposited during seven different time windows were studied: the mid-Ordovician, late Silurian, late Devonian, early and late Cretaceous, and early Paleogene. The main objectives in this thesis are to search for spinel grains and describe the flux of micrometeorites in: late Silurian sediments following the L-chondrite parent body (LCPB) breakup in the mid-Ordovician (paper II); Turonian (late Cretaceous) sediments in the Bottaccione section, Italy, within and below the “K3” 3He-anomaly, possibly linked to dust from large lunar impacts (paper III); and Albian-Aptian (early Cretaceous) sediments in search for the lunar Tycho crater ejecta, formed ~109 Ma ago (paper VIII). Additional aims of this thesis, are to search for spinel grains and describe the flux of micrometeorites in: early Cretaceous, with the potential of finding grains from the LL chondritic Baptistina family-forming event (paper I); late Devonian, during a large biotic crisis (paper V); a multiproxy-approach to resolve the timing of the LCPB breakup and the causality with terrestrial climatic and biotic turnovers (paper VI); early Paleogene after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction 66 Ma ago (paper VII), including a zircon provenance study that helps to resolve the origin of terrestrial chrome spinels (paper IV); and lastly the terrestrial crater record is compared to the spinel data from the Phanerozoic (paper IX).Results: in the late Silurian, L chondrites still dominate the flux of ordinary chondrites but is almost back to background levels; in the Turonian 3He anomaly, no lunar grains were found but there is a dominance of H chondritic grains and a ca. 5-fold increase in achondritic grains that could be signs of perturbations and smaller collisions in the asteroid belt. Several levels contain translucent Fe-rich MgAl spinel not previously detected; in the Aptian and Albian, only one tentatively lunar grain was found indicating that the Tycho-forming event could be older than 109 Ma. In summary, from the extracted equilibrated ordinary chondritic spinels, only one major breakup event is recorded during the Phanerozoic, the LCPB breakup. The flux of micrometeorites from this event continues well into the Devonian Period. The record is intercepted with a few minor, factor of two increase of H-chondritic grains during the time between ca. 60 and 170 Ma ago, and 500 Ma ago. The flux of achondritic micrometeorites were likely more common in earlier times. The sediment-dispersed spinel approach has proven to be a reliable proxy for the micrometeorite flux during geological time. The development to also characterize the flux in smaller size fractions and that of carbonaceous micrometeorites would improve the characterization of the overall flux in ancient times

Analytical and Numerical Study of Thermally Stratified Flow above a forest

In order for our energy consumption to be sustainable, we need to rely more and more on renewable energy resources, such as solar power and wind power. In Sweden, 69% of the land area is covered in forest. To open up the possibility of exploiting these forested areas for wind power production, it is desired to gain a better knowledge of the flow situation above forests. An analytical and a numerical study has been carried out, in order to investigate the flow above forests. The thermal stratification of the atmospheric boundary layer has been taken into account to investigate its influence on the characteristics of the flow. The analytical study was performed by analyzing meteorological measurements collected by Göteborg Energi at a site near Töreboda, Sweden, which is mostly covered in forest. In the numerical study, Large Eddy Simulations were carried out. The results obtained from the numerical study were compared to the results of the analytical study. The results showed that the characteristics of the flow varies with thermal stratifiaction. The wind shear was highest with stable stratification, while the turbulence intensity was highest with unstable stratification. The results from the Large Eddy Simulations showed some agreement with the results from the analytical study, but further improvements are needed for better agreement. When investigating the effect of the flow, the results showed that the forest increased both the wind shear and the turbulence intensity. At the site in Töreboda, there were high occurrence of non-favourable wind conditions for wind power, with high wind shear and high turbulence intensity

Unpacking cultural orientations: representations of the person and the self

This thesis aims to disentangle the concept of culture; more specifically it identifies different facets of cultural orientations. It looks at how cultural and national groups differ on these dimensions and their impact on individuals and societies. It is argued that we need a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of culture that goes beyond focusing on values. Chapter 1 discusses definitions of culture and identifies three significant facets of culture—values, beliefs and constructions of the self. It is noted that research into the latter two facets is far less developed. Chapter 2 outlines research into cross-cultural variation in beliefs, more specifically beliefs about personhood, and notes that little is known about beliefs that define individualism-collectivism (I-C). Chapter 3 reviews self-construal theory and highlights a range of remaining issues which point to the need to explore self-construals further. Chapter 4 provides a methodological overview of the research. Chapter 5 reports results from two large-scale cross-cultural questionnaire studies and presents the construct, and a measure, of contextualism, referring to beliefs about the importance of the context in understanding people. Contextualism is shown to be a facet of cultural collectivism and a predictor of national variation in ingroup favouritism, trust and corruption. Chapter 6 presents a new seven-dimensional model of self-construals, which can be organised into three higher-order dimensions at the cultural level of analysis: self-differentiation, other-focus and self-containment. Variation in self-differentiation is shown to be best explained by differences in I-C, other-focus by differences in national wealth and self-containment by religious heritage. Based on a smaller study in four nations, Chapter 7 investigates the seven self-construal dimensions at the individual level and tests how they differentially predict outcomes related to socio-emotional adjustment. Chapter 8 summarises the findings and discusses implications and directions for future research