The Anatomy of Discretion: An Analysis of Prosecutorial Decision Making

Prosecuting attorneys enjoy exceptionally broad discretion in making decisions that influence criminal case outcomes. They make pivotal decisions throughout the life of a case with little public or judicial scrutiny. With support from the National Institute of Justice, the Vera Institute of Justice undertook research to better understand how prosecutors make decisions. Vera researchers combined statistical analyses with qualitative analyses, examining initial case screening and charging decisions, plea offers, sentence recommendations, and post-filing dismissals for multiple offense types in two moderately large prosecutors' offices. In addition to a technical report, the study produced a summary report and four podcasts

The Feasibility of Using Thermography to Detect Subsurface Voids in Painted Wooden Panels

Thermography is a technique whereby the structure or condition of an object is studied by means of precisely measuring temperature variations over the surfaces of the object. The research which is described in this thesis was undertaken to determine whether thermographic techniques could be applied to the field of art conservation to detect subsurface voids within painted wooden panels. It must be stressed, however, that this research was carried out as a feasibility study with no attempt being made to establish or refine a technique that could be immediately applied to the examination of works of art. The text of this thesis is divided into four sections. The first of these sections, the Introduction, is an attempt to establish a need for a technique capable of detecting subsurface voids within panel paintings. The second section entitled The Theoretical Basis for Thermographic Analyses of Subsurface Voids explains why voids can be detected through the measurement of surface temperatures, and the equipment necessary to make these temperature measurements is explained. The section entitled Experimental Procedures and Results describes the research carried out for this thesis and contains a number of photographs which illustrate the effectiveness of thermography in detecting subsurface voids. The final section of the text entitled Conclusions summarizes the findings of the research and relates these findings to the possible future application of thermography to the analysis of actual works of art

Demographic Considerations and Population Policies in Development Planning: A Survey of Third World Countries With Case Studies of Bangladesh and Pakistan.

This thesis seeks to determine the attention and importance given to population growth in the overall strategy of development planning. The first part of the thesis analyzes the population content of the national development plans of 60 developing countries. The findings indicate a surprising dearth of demographic data in development plans of the Third World. With a few exceptions, the data found in these plans are inadequate and are not presented in forms easily used by planners. The recognition of population problems is substantial: two-thirds of the countries studied mention a wide spectrum of population problems in their plans. Forty- three per cent of the countries studied propose some policy to reduce the rate of population growth. Still, the most important conclusion is that too few plans are preparing to accommodate for the inevitable growth of the population. The second part of the thesis is an investigation of population and development on a national level for the countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The analysis of Pakistan's and Bangladesh's development plans presents a picture of population planning in extremely adverse circumstances. Even though the plans did propose programmes to reduce population growth, implementation was difficult because of little demand for contraceptives, adminstrative and political obstacles and logistical complexities. Four conceptual frameworks incorporating theories of fertility decline, when analyzed for their relevance and utility in Pakistan and Bangladesh, all reveal theoretical or practical flaws. The family planning approach, the policy mainly relied on, has so far not been efficiently administered or demographically effective. A detailed analysis of a planning framework which incorporates population, income distribution and the evaluation of alternative development strategies illustrates the importance of the distributive aspect of development strategy, but reveals that the model lacks both the sophistication and the appropriate data to be analytically useful

Molecule Microscopy

Contains reports on two research projects.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAABO7-74-C-0630)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 PO1 HL14322-04

Selection of patients with cystic fibrosis for lung transplantation

Journal ArticleLung transplantation is the most aggressive therapy available for end-stage lung disease from cystic fibrosis (CF). A new predictive survival model of CF uses demographic, FEV1, nutritional, microbiologic, and acute exacerbation data to produce precise estimates of 5-year survival

Cornell Researchers Study Publish or Perish Notion

Publication of results has long been an integral part of research activity, and the information explosion of the past 30 years has focused recurring attention on aspects of communications among scientists

Persistent Policy Pathways: Inferring Diffusion Networks in the American States

The transmission of ideas, information, and resources forms the core of many issues studied in political science, including collective action, cooperation, and development. While these processes imply dynamic connections among political actors, researchers often cannot observe such interdependence. One example is public policy diffusion, which has long been a focus of multiple subfields. In the American state politics context, diffusion is commonly conceptualized as a dyadic process whereby states adopt policies (in part) because other states have adopted them. This implies a policy diffusion network connecting the states. Using a dataset of 187 policies, we introduce and apply an algorithm that infers this network from persistent diffusion patterns. The results contribute to knowledge on state policy diffusion in several respects. Additionally, in introducing network inference to political science, we provide scholars across the discipline with a general framework for empirically recovering the latent and dynamic interdependence among political actors

Land loss in the Mississippi River Delta: Role of subsidence, global sea-level rise, and coupled atmospheric and oceanographic processes

The Mississippi River Delta in coastal Louisiana has suffered large-scale land loss during the historic period and is representative of a global phenomenon where low-elevation deltaic coasts are increasingly at risk because of disrupted sediment supply and accelerated global sea-level rise. Land loss is a natural part of deltaic evolution over time, and most of the land loss in the Mississippi River Delta occurred after individual delta-plain headlands were abandoned as active constructional landscapes, but before 1932 when collection of air photos would make repeat land loss measurements possible. A coastwide land loss of ∼5000 km2 is now well documented for the period 1932 to 2016, which corresponds to a mean rate of ∼57 km2 yr−1. We use a LiDAR digital topobathymetric model to hindcast land-area changes through time for 1950–2010 by incrementally restoring elevation lost due to subsidence, global sea-level rise, and annual anomalies in mean sea level. Our results support the view that the magnitude and spatial distribution of 20th century land loss can be explained by an unfortunate convergence of ongoing subsidence, greatly reduced sediment dispersal due to levee construction, and acceleration of global sea-level rise. Other factors have contributed to land loss on local scales, but the magnitude of land loss that has occurred would have occurred anyway due to subsidence, lack of sediment input, and accelerated sea-level rise. Multidecadal accelerations and decelerations in land loss from 1950 to 2010 have been observed, and attributed to accelerations and decelerations in subsidence due to subsurface fluid withdrawals. However, non-linear land loss represents measurements that were made when water levels varied due to annual to multidecadal anomalies in mean sea level. Anomalies in mean sea level are driven by flux of water into and out of the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic, as well as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which produces precipitation anomalies in the Gulf of Mexico drainage area, anomalies in Mississippi River discharge to the Gulf of Mexico, and changes in wind directions that serve to trap water along the coast and elevate coastal sea level, or advect water away from the coast to lower coastal sea level. Sea-level anomalies of the scale described here amplify or suppress the secular trend of global sea-level rise and its impacts on low-elevation delta plains as they respond to ongoing subsidence and anthropogenic disruption of sediment dispersal

Electron Optics

Contains reports on one research project.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAB07-74-C-0630