Merging Technology with Justice: How Electronic Courtrooms Shape Evidentiary Concerns

This Note will explore the evidentiary issues raised by the Electronic Courtroom, state how they are presently handled, and highlight the need for the adaptation of the Rules to allow for the smooth integration of such technology into the courtroom. Part I explains why the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts began funding Electronic Courtrooms and how they have grown in numbers. Part II gives details about the type of equipment typically employed in the Electronic Courtroom, using Courtroom 575 as a case study. The observable impacts of technology on a trial also will be noted. Part III contains an empirical analysis of evidentiary issues commonly raised in Electronic Courtrooms and their standard treatment under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Finally, Part IV discusses the growing discretionary area of illustrative aids, on the rise due to courtroom technology, and the need for new evidentiary procedures to adapt to the technology

Merging Technology with Justice: How Electronic Courtrooms Shape Evidentiary Concerns

This Note will explore the evidentiary issues raised by the Electronic Courtroom, state how they are presently handled, and highlight the need for the adaptation of the Rules to allow for the smooth integration of such technology into the courtroom. Part I explains why the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts began funding Electronic Courtrooms and how they have grown in numbers. Part II gives details about the type of equipment typically employed in the Electronic Courtroom, using Courtroom 575 as a case study. The observable impacts of technology on a trial also will be noted. Part III contains an empirical analysis of evidentiary issues commonly raised in Electronic Courtrooms and their standard treatment under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Finally, Part IV discusses the growing discretionary area of illustrative aids, on the rise due to courtroom technology, and the need for new evidentiary procedures to adapt to the technology

The effect of residential urban greenness on allergic respiratory diseases in youth: A narrative review

Background: Environmental exposures across the life course may be a contributor to the increased worldwide prevalence of respiratory and allergic diseases occurring in the last decades. Asthma and rhinoconjunctivitis especially contribute to the global burden of disease. Greenness has been suggested to have beneficial effects in terms of reduction of occurrence of allergic respiratory diseases. However, the available evidence of a relationship between urban greenness and childhood health outcomes is not yet conclusive. The current review aimed at investigating the current state of evidence, exploring the relationship between children's exposure to residential urban greenness and development of allergic respiratory diseases, jointly considering health outcomes and study design. Methods: The search strategy was designed to identify studies linking urban greenness exposure to asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis, and lung function in children and adolescents. This was a narrative review of literature following PRISMA guidelines performed using electronic search in databases of PubMed and Embase (Ovid) from the date of inception to December 2018. Results: Our search strategy identified 2315 articles; after exclusion of duplicates (n = 701), 1614 articles were screened. Following review of titles and abstracts, 162 articles were identified as potentially eligible. Of these, 148 were excluded following full-text evaluation, and 14 were included in this review. Different methods for assessing greenness exposure were found; the most used was Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Asthma, wheezing, bronchitis, rhinoconjunctivitis, allergic symptoms, lung function, and allergic sensitization were the outcomes assessed in the identified studies; among them, asthma was the one most frequently investigated. Conclusions: The present review showed inconsistencies in the results mainly due to differences in study design, population, exposure assessment, geographic region, and ascertainment of outcome. Overall, there is a suggestion of an association between urban greenness in early life and the occurrence of allergic respiratory diseases during childhood, although the evidence is still inconsistent. It is therefore hard to draw a conclusive interpretation, so that the understanding of the impact of greenness on allergic respiratory diseases in children and adolescents remains difficult

Exploring the low temperature tempering range of low alloy quenched and tempered steels

Abstract It is well known that quenched and tempered alloy steel components with ultimate tensile strength in excess of 1400 MPa are seldom employed as mechanical components, due to their not adequate ductility, as ascertained by multiple researches performed during World War II and soon after. Nevertheless, use of low temperature tempered steels in some niche applications, as well as researches performed on surface heat treated high carbon steels and on their behavior upon tempering in the vicinity of 200°C have stemmed into renewed interest in quenched and low temperature tempered low alloy steels. Application to 36NiCrMo16 steel bars is examined here, by means of tensile and hardness tests and fractographic and metallographic examinations after quenching and tempering in the 160 to 440 °C temperature range

Analysis of second harmonic generation in photonic-crystal-assisted waveguides

We study second harmonic generation in a planar dielectric waveguide having a low-index, polymer core layer, bounded by two multilayer stacks. This geometry allows exceptionally strong confinement of the light at the fundamental wavelength inside the core region with virtually zero net propagation losses for distances that exceed several centimeters, provided material and scattering losses are neglected. A phase-matched configuration of the waveguide is reported in which the pump signal is the lowest-order mode of the waveguide, and the generated second harmonic signal corresponds to the third propagation mode of the waveguide. Using a polymer waveguide core, having chi(2)=100 pm/V, we predict a conversion efficiency of approximately 90% after a propagation distance of 2 mm, using peak pump intensities inside the core of the waveguide of 1.35 GW/cm^2. If the waveguide core contains polymer layers with different glass transition temperatures, the layers can be poled independently to maximize the overlap integral, and similar pump depletions may be achieved over a distance of approximately 500 microns.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, 330k

Modeling of Mid-IR Amplifier Based on an Erbium-Doped Chalcogenide Microsphere

An optical amplifier based on a tapered fiber and an Er3+-doped chalcogenide microsphere is designed and optimized. A dedicated 3D numerical model, which exploits the coupled mode theory and the rate equations, is used. The main transitions among the erbium energy levels, the amplified spontaneous emission, and the most important secondary transitions pertaining to the ion-ion interactions have been considered. Both the pump and signal beams are efficiently injected and obtained by a suitable design of the taper angle and the fiber-microsphere gap. Moreover, a good overlapping between the optical signals and the rare-earth-doped region is also obtained. In order to evaluate the amplifier performance in reduced computational time, the doped area is partitioned in sectors. The obtained simulation results highlight that a high-efficiency midinfrared amplification can be obtained by using a quite small microsphere

Cambiamento sociale e attivismo giovanile nell’italia degli anni Ottanta: il caso dei centri sociali occupati e autogestiti

La storiografia contemporanea in Italia si è a lungo soffermata sul passaggio tra gli anni Settanta e gli anni Ottanta; in qualche misura ponendo su quel periodo di transizione tutto il peso dei nodi irrisolti dell’Italia repubblicana (dalla modernizzazione degli anni Sessanta ai movimenti sociali del decennio successivo).L’articolo rivisita criticamente alcuni punti di vista storiografici a riguardo, come premessa allo studio di fenomeni politici e culturali nuovi (editoria indipendente, autoproduzioni musicali, occupazioni e autogestione di centri sociali, attivismo giovanile), e individua i legami di tali esperienze con le tradizioni di movimento precedenti, sottolineando gli scambi con le contemporanee scene attivistiche internazionali, nonché i rapporti locali con la politica istituzionale e il mercato culturale.L’historiographie contemporaine en Italie s’est longtemps arrêtée sur le passage entre les années soixante-dix et les années quatre-vingt : elle a ainsi, dans un certain sens, mis sur cette période de transition tous les nœuds irrésolus de l’Italie républicaine (de la modernisation des années soixante jusqu’aux mouvements sociaux des décennies successives).Cet article développe une révision critique de certains points de vue critiques à ce propos. Et cela en tant que préambule pour aborder l’étude de phénomènes politiques et culturels nouveaux (industrie du livre indépendante, autoproductions musicales, occupations de centres sociaux autogérés et activisme juvénile), en identifiant les liens de telles expériences avec les traditions des mouvements précédents et les échanges avec les scènes activistes internationales contemporaines, mais aussi les rapports locaux avec la politique institutionnelle et le marché culturel.Italian historians have dwelled at length on the question of the transition between the seventies and the eighties, attributing to it all of Italy unresolved problems (from the incomplete modernisation of the sixties to the social movements of the following decade). This essay reviews some historical analyses in order to understand the rise of new political and cultural phenomena (independent publishing, musical self-productions, squatted social centres and youth activism). It draws attention to the relations with previous movements, and to exchanges with similar cultural activities abroad, as well as with local contexts, political institutions and the cultural market

Il ruolo della percezione di malattia nei disturbi del comportamento alimentare: una rassegna sistematica della letteratura

Background. La percezione di malattia gioca un ruolo importante nei disturbi del comportamento alimentare. Leventhal nel suo modello teorico dell’illness perception spiega che la rappresentazione di malattia si divide in diverse componenti, come la percezione di controllo e le aspettative di durata nel tempo. Obiettivo. L’obiettivo di questo elaborato è quello di realizzare una rassegna sistematica della letteratura sulle caratteristiche e le implicazioni della percezione di malattia nei disturbi del comportamento alimentare. Metodi. Per compiere la revisione sistematica della letteratura si è fatto riferimento a due banche dati: Pubmed e Scopus. Sono stati individuati articoli inerenti all’argomento trattato attraverso l’incrocio di diverse parole chiave, poi, sono stati esclusi diversi articoli non inerenti. Infine, sono stati approfonditi e confrontati tra loro i risultati dei 13 studi inclusi. Risultati. Nell’anoressia nervosa spesso il paziente non riesce a ricondurre i propri sintomi a un disturbo del comportamento alimentare e la malattia viene avvertita come parte integrante della propria vita. Questa percezione di malattia si traduce in una scarsa aderenza terapeutica. Nella bulimia nervosa si ha una scarsa identità di malattia, ma è più probabile che si riconosca di avere un problema e si cerchi un trattamento. Nel disturbo da binge-eating si ha una maggiore percezione di malattia rispetto all’anoressia nervosa. I disturbi del comportamento alimentare inoltre sono caratterizzati da una scarsa consapevolezza emotiva. Conclusioni. Prendere in considerazione questo tema è importante in quanto, in base alla percezione di malattia del paziente, lo specialista, in particolare il dietista, può modificare la terapia per adeguarla alle caratteristiche del caso specifico. Le rappresentazioni di malattia forniscono infatti al dietista informazioni utili sul livello di disagio e sulla fase di motivazione al cambiamento in cui si trova il paziente

A Complex Metabolic Network Confers Immunosuppressive Functions to Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells (MDSCs) within the Tumour Microenvironment

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) constitute a plastic and heterogeneous cell population among immune cells within the tumour microenvironment (TME) that support cancer progression and resistance to therapy. During tumour progression, cancer cells modify their metabolism to sustain an increased energy demand to cope with uncontrolled cell proliferation and differentiation. This metabolic reprogramming of cancer establishes competition for nutrients between tumour cells and leukocytes and most importantly, among tumour-infiltrating immune cells. Thus, MDSCs that have emerged as one of the most decisive immune regulators of TME exhibit an increase in glycolysis and fatty acid metabolism and also an upregulation of enzymes that catabolise essential metabolites. This complex metabolic network is not only crucial for MDSC survival and accumulation in the TME but also for enhancing immunosuppressive functions toward immune effectors. In this review, we discuss recent progress in the field of MDSC-associated metabolic pathways that could facilitate therapeutic targeting of these cells during cancer progression