The Emerging Death Penalty Jurisprudence of the Roberts Court

[Excerpt] “In 1976, four years after finding the nation’s death penalty laws to be constitutionally flawed, the U.S. Supreme Court established the parameters of modern American death penalty jurisprudence. Since then the Court has gone through several phases. The Court proceeded cautiously from 1977 to 1982, limiting the death penalty to those who committed murder in a manner deemed especially heinous and despicable by judges and juries, requiring even-handedness and consistency in capital sentencing, and insisting that sentencing authorities examine the individual characteristics of each offender and the particular circumstances of his crime. From 1983 to 2001, however, the Court took a more aggressive stance in favor of capital punishment. The Justices rejected major constitutional challenges to the fairness of death penalty laws and upheld the constitutionality of executing mentally retarded offenders, sixteen- and seventeen-year-old offenders, and felony accomplices who neither killed nor intended to kill. Beginning in 2002, the Justices once again began to scrutinize death penalty statutes and procedures closely and with a critical eye. The Court reversed its holdings permitting the executions of mentally retarded offenders and juvenile offenders, tightened standards for appellate review of the competence of capital defense attorneys, and invalidated sentencing procedures that seemed likely to produce arbitrary or discriminatory life-ending verdicts.

In the eye of the storm: T cell behavior in the inflammatory microenvironment.

Coordinated unfolding of innate and adaptive immunity is key to the development of protective immune responses. This functional integration occurs within the inflamed tissue, a microenvironment enriched with factors released by innate and subsequently adaptive immune cells and the injured tissue itself. T lymphocytes are key players in the ensuing adaptive immunity and their proper function is instrumental to a successful outcome of immune protection. The site of inflammation is a "harsh" environment in which T cells are exposed to numerous factors that might influence their behavior. Low pH and oxygen concentration, high lactate and organic acid content as well as free fatty acids and reactive oxygen species are found in the inflammatory microenvironment. All these components affect T cells as well as other immune cells during the immune response and impact on the development of chronic inflammation. We here overview the effects of a number of factors present in the inflammatory microenvironment on T cell function and migration and discuss the potential relevance of these components as targets for therapeutic intervention in autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases

Application of remote sensing to study nearshore circulation

Immediate use of drogued buoy tracking was made when the Virginia State Highway Department requested assistance in selecting the best route for a new bridge-tunnel complex across the James River at Newport News. The result was that the Highway Department acted and chose a preferred route from several alternatives. It was also observed that the drogues did not follow the channel as predicted by the James River hydraulic model. This permitted telling the Navy why it is that part of their channel always silts up. The Hampton Roads Sanitation District asked help locate the best route and position of an ocean sewer outfall. Biological activities are focused primarily on delineating biological interaction between the marsh and continental shelf waters on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Information derived is helpful in categorizing the relative biological value of different marsh areas so that meaningful use and management decisions can be made concerning their eventual disposition

Comparison of classical and second quantized description of the dynamic Stark shift

We compare the derivation of the dynamic Stark shift of hydrogenic energy levels in a classical framework with an adiabatically damped laser-atom interaction, which is equivalent to the Gell-Mann-Low-Sucher formula, and a treatment based on time-independent perturbation theory, with a second-quantized laser-atom dipole interaction Hamiltonian. Our analysis applies to a laser that excites a two-photon transition in atomic hydrogen or in a hydrogenlike ion with low nuclear charge number. Our comparisons serve to demonstrate why the dynamic Stark shift may be interpreted as a stimulated radiative correction and illustrates connections between the two derivations. The simplest of the derivations is the fully quantized approach. The classical and the second-quantized treatment are shown to be equivalent in the limit of large photon numbers.Comment: 5 page

Epidemiology of dark leaf spot caused by Alternaria brassicicola in organic seed production of cauliflower

Dark leaf spot caused by Alternaria brassicicola is a seed-borne disease of Brassicae. Production of healthy seed is essential for the organic vegetable production. Literature on the epidemiology of the disease in organic seed production of Brassica was reviewed and an epidemiological field experiments was carried out. External and internal contamination of seeds with A. brassicicola increased steadily during their development. Colonisation of pod tissues as quantified by TaqMan-PCR increased exponentially. The developed knowledge can be used for optimizing cropping systems for organic seed production with lower risks for seed contamination by Alternaria spp. and to develop critical control points for disease management