Elements, Sentencing Factors, and the Right to a Jury Trial: An Analysis of Legislative Power and Its Limits

A criminal defendant\u27s sentence is determined not only by facts that must be proven to a jury at trial ( elements of an offense), but also by facts proven to a judge at a sentencing hearing ( sentencing factors ). Perhaps surprisingly, sentencing factors, such as how a firearm was used, may account for a greater proportion of a defendant\u27s term of imprisonment than elements of the offense. This is worrisome because sentencing hearings are procedurally relaxed in comparison to trials and because the government does not include sentencing factors in its indictment, which means a defendant cannot predict how sentencing factors could impact his or her length of imprisonment

Atypical Actors and Tort Law\u27s Expressive Function

The longstanding rule that tort law ignores a person’s cognitive disability in determining whether the person’s conduct was negligent has been consistently criticized as unfair and illogical. This Article challenges those common criticisms. Focusing on the law’s expressive function and the goals of the disability rights movement, the Article argues that the current rule is potentially more progressive than the alternative. However, the rule’s articulated justifications may inadvertently perpetuate stereotypes about cognitive disability. Thus, the Article suggests ways in which courts can retain the current rule without causing expressive harm

Trimethylornithine Membrane Lipids: Discovered in Planctomycetes and Identified in Diverse Environments

Intact polar membrane lipids (IPLs) are the building blocks of all cell membranes. There is a wide range of phosphorus-free IPL structures, including amino acid containing IPLs, that can be taxonomically specific. Trimethylornithine membrane lipids (TMOs) were discovered in northern wetland Planctomycete species that were isolated and described in the last decade. The trimethylated terminal nitrogen moiety of the ornithine amino acid in the TMO structure gives the lipid a charged polar head group, similar to certain phospholipids. Since their discovery, TMOs have been identified in various other recently described northern latitude Planctomycete species, and in diverse environments including tundra soil, a boreal eutrophic lake, meso-oligotrophic lakes, and hot springs. The majority of environments or enrichment cultures in which TMOs have been observed include predominately heterotrophic microbial communities involved in the degradation of recalcitrant material and/or low oxygen methanogenic conditions at primarily northern latitudes. Other ecosystems occupied with microbial communities that possess similar metabolic pathways, such as tropical peatlands or coastal salt marshes, may include TMO producing Planctomycetes as well, further allowing these lipids to potentially be used to understand microbial community responses to environmental change in a wide range of systems. The occurrence of TMOs in hot springs indicates that these unique lipids could have broad environmental distribution with different specialized functions. Opportunities also exist to investigate the application of TMOs in microbiome studies, including forensic necrobiomes. Further environmental and microbiome lipidomics research involving TMOs will help reveal the evolution, functions, and applications of these unique membrane lipids

Determination of the glycoforms of human chorionic gonadotropin b-core fragment by matrix-assisted laser desoption/ionisation time of flight mass spectrometry

Background: Metabolism of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) in the serum and kidney yields the terminal urinary product hCG ß-core fragment (hCGßcf), comprising two disulfide-linked peptides (ß6-ß40 and ß55-ß92) of which one (ß6-ß40) retains truncated N-linked sugars. Hyperglycosylated hCGßcf may indicate choriocarcinoma or Down syndrome, but the glycosylation profile of hCGßcf has not been thoroughly evaluated. Methods: hCGßcf, purified from pregnancy urine, was reduced by "on-target" dithiothreitol (DTT) reduction and analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). The mass ([M+H]+) of the primary sequence of the glycosylated peptide ß6-ß40 was subtracted from the m/z values of the discrete peaks observed to give the masses of the carbohydrate moieties. Carbohydrate structure was predicted by sequentially subtracting the masses of the monosaccharide residues corresponding to N-linked carbohydrates of the hCG ß-subunit reported in the literature. Results: Mass spectra of hCGßcf revealed a broad triple peak at m/z 8700–11300. After reduction, the triple peak was replaced by a discrete set of peaks between m/z 4156 and 6354. A peak at m/z 4156.8 corresponded to the nonglycosylated peptide (ß55-ß92). The remaining nine peaks indicated that urinary hCGßcf comprises a set of glycoforms smaller and larger than the trimannosyl core. Conclusions: hCGßcf comprises a wider set of glycoforms than reported previously. Peaks of highest mass indicate evidence of hyperglycosylated carbohydrate moieties. The data support previous reports that hCGßcf oligosaccharides lack sialic acid and galactose residues. No indication was found of a ß6-ß40 peptide that was entirely devoid of carbohydrate

Record of cases presented to the class in the Jefferson Medical College

In addition to Eli K. Carithers\u27 original notes, notebook contains 1944 inscription from Harold R. Watkins of Bloomington, IN to Lewis C. Scheffeyhttps://jdc.jefferson.edu/medicalnotebooks/1018/thumbnail.jp

The Sensitivity of Multidimensional Nova Calculations to the Outer Boundary Conditions

Multidimensional reactive flow models of accreted hydrogen rich envelopes on top of degenerate cold white dwarfs are very effective tools for the study of critical, non spherically symmetric, behaviors during the early stages of nova outbursts. Such models can shed light both on the mechanism responsible for the heavy element enrichment observed to characterize nova envelope matter and on the role of perturbations during the early stages of ignition of the runaway. The complexity of convective reactive flow in multi-dimensions makes the computational model itself complex and sensitive to the details of the numerics. In this study, we demonstrate that the imposed outer boundary condition can have a dramatic effect on the solution. Several commonly used choices for the outer boundary conditions are examined. It is shown that the solutions obtained from Lagrangian simulations, where the envelope is allowed to expand and mass is being conserved, are consistent with spherically symmetric solutions. In Eulerian schemes which utilize an outer boundary condition of free outflow, the outburst can be artificially quenched.Comment: 12 Pages 3 figures; Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Three-Dimensional Stress Concentration Around a Cylindrical Hole in a Semi-Infinite Elastic Body

This paper contains a three-dimensional solution, exact within classical elastostatics, for the stresses and deformations arising in a half space with a semi-infinite transverse cylindrical hole, if the body -- at infinite distances from its cylindrical boundary -- is subjected to an arbitrary uniform plane field of stress that is parallel to the bounding plane. The solution presented is in integral form and is deduced with the aid of the Papkovich stress functions by means of an especially adapted, unconventional, integral-transform technique. Numerical results for the non-vanishing stresses along the boundary of the hole and for the normal displacement at the plane boundary, corresponding to several values of Poisson's ratio, are also included. These results exhibit in detail the three-dimensional stress boundary layer that emerges near the edges of the hole in the analogous problem for a plate of finite thickness, as the ratio of the plate-thickness to the diameter of the hole grows beyond bounds. The results obtained thus illustrate the limitations inherent 1n the two-dimensional plane-strain treatment of the spatial plane problem; in addition, they are relevant to failure considerations and are of interest 1n connection with experimental stress analysis

Computational inverse method for constructing spaces of quantum models from wave functions

Traditional computational methods for studying quantum many-body systems are "forward methods," which take quantum models, i.e., Hamiltonians, as input and produce ground states as output. However, such forward methods often limit one's perspective to a small fraction of the space of possible Hamiltonians. We introduce an alternative computational "inverse method," the Eigenstate-to-Hamiltonian Construction (EHC), that allows us to better understand the vast space of quantum models describing strongly correlated systems. EHC takes as input a wave function $|\psi_T\rangle$ and produces as output Hamiltonians for which $|\psi_T\rangle$ is an eigenstate. This is accomplished by computing the quantum covariance matrix, a quantum mechanical generalization of a classical covariance matrix. EHC is widely applicable to a number of models and in this work we consider seven different examples. Using the EHC method, we construct a parent Hamiltonian with a new type of antiferromagnetic ground state, a parent Hamiltonian with two different targeted degenerate ground states, and large classes of parent Hamiltonians with the same ground states as well-known quantum models, such as the Majumdar-Ghosh model, the XX chain, the Heisenberg chain, the Kitaev chain, and a 2D BdG model.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 1 table; new example in results section; updated supplement; additional references; other minor change