The Tenth Circuit: Playing by the Rules

[Excerpt] In 1994, the Tenth Circuit published more than four dozen opinions construing the guidelines and joined the majority of circuits in adopting the One- Book rule. The Court continued to refrain from interfering with the exercise of discretion by district judges, but made clear that it does not give district courts carte blanche. Four issues in decisions covered in this review are the retroactive application of amendments to the guidelines; the standards used in characterizing a defendant as a major or minor player for purposes of increasing or decreasing the sentence; the impact of post-arrest efforts at rehabilitation on sentencing-at least in drug cases; and the elements of obstruction of justice for purposes of increasing a sentence

Be All You Can Be (Without the Protection of the Constitution)

[Excerpt] “Despite the generous inclusion by President Reagan of the many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in the concept of the people of this republic, it is not altogether dear whether one whose status has changed from ordinary citizen to a member of the armed forces can legitimately claim any of the constitutional protections of citizenship until he or she is no longer a member of the armed forces. In the course of this nation\u27s history the Supreme Court has denied some or all of the protection of the Constitution to many groups of people, including African-Americans, 2 women,3 Native Americans, 4 Americans of Japanese ancestry,5 aliens, 6 and more recently to members of the armed forces. Just six months after President Reagan spoke the words quoted above, the Court overturned a precedent of nearly twenty years and held, in Solorio v. United States,7 that a member of the armed forces could be tried by a court-martial for virtually any offense without regard to the impact the alleged offense may, or may not, have had on the military or the ability of that service member to function in the military. While the decision may seem fairly innocuous at first blush, this article will demonstrate that the judicial mindset demonstrated by the Solorio holding is ill-conceived from the point of view of the soldier8 who is the accused at a court-martial. Moreover, the Supreme Court has demonstrated a judicial myopia which threatens the very form of government conceived by the framers of the Constitution. The decision perpetuates legal class distinctions which should not play a part in a democracy or in the administration of criminal justice and it paves the way for the creation of a warrior class with fewer rights in criminal proceedings.

Examining the Overlapping Traits of Athletes and Entrepreneurs Through a Series of Case Studies

Today’s psychologists have paid close attention to personality and how it can affect many areas of a person’s life. From career success to criminal behavior psychologists continuously are trying to define key characteristics that may be contributing factors in the prediction of future happenings. This paper will look closely at theories regarding personality traits that are key to success. Those traits are identified in eight case studies relating to both entrepreneurial and athletic success with the findings showing a possible link between success and some key traits and an overlap of some traits between athletes and entrepreneurs

Quantum graphs with spin Hamiltonians

The article surveys quantization schemes for metric graphs with spin. Typically quantum graphs are defined with the Laplace or Schrodinger operator which describe particles whose intrinsic angular momentum (spin) is zero. However, in many applications, for example modeling an electron (which has spin-1/2) on a network of thin wires, it is necessary to consider operators which allow spin-orbit interaction. The article presents a review of quantization schemes for graphs with three such Hamiltonian operators, the Dirac, Pauli and Rashba Hamiltonians. Comparing results for the trace formula, spectral statistics and spin-orbit localization on quantum graphs with spin Hamiltonians.Comment: 17 pages, typos corrected, references and comments adde

The impact of AGN on their host galaxies

In these proceedings I briefly: (1) review the impact (or "feedback") that active galactic nuclei (AGN) are predicted to have on their host galaxies and larger scale environment, (2) review the observational evidence for or against these predictions and (3) present new results on ionised outflows in AGN. The observational support for the "maintenance mode" of feedback is strong (caveat the details); AGN at the centre of massive halos appear to be regulating the cooling of hot gas, which could in turn control the levels of future star formation (SF) and black hole growth. In contrast, direct observational support for more rapid forms of feedback, which dramatically impact on SF (i.e., the "quasar mode"), remains elusive. From a systematic study of the spectra of approx. 24000 z<0.4 AGN we find that extreme ionised gas kinematics are common, and are most prevalent in radio bright AGN (L[1.4GHz] >10^23 W/Hz). Follow-up IFU observations have shown that these extreme gas kinematics are extended over kilo-parsec scales. However, the co-existence of high-levels of SF, luminous AGN activity and radio jets raises interesting questions on the primary drivers and impact of these outflows. Galaxy-wide, high-mass outflows are being observed in an increasing number of AGN and are a plausible mechanism for the depletion of gas; however, there is still much work to be done to determine the physical processes that drive these outflows and to measure the level of impact that they have on their host galaxies.Comment: Invited contribution to appear in: Proceedings of the IAU Symposium No. 304, "Multiwavelength AGN Surveys and Studies". 7 pages, 2 figure

Impact of supermassive black hole growth on star formation

Supermassive black holes are found at the centre of massive galaxies. During the growth of these black holes they light up to become visible as active galactic nuclei (AGN) and release extraordinary amounts of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum. This energy is widely believed to regulate the rate of star formation in the black holes' host galaxies via so-called "AGN feedback". However, the details of how and when this occurs remains uncertain from both an observational and theoretical perspective. I review some of the observational results and discuss possible observational signatures of the impact of super-massive black hole growth on star formation.Comment: Invited Review for Nature Astronomy - accepted for publication. 11 pages 6 figure

UK regional scale modelling of natural geohazards and climate change

For over 10 years, the British Geological Survey (BGS) has been investigating geotechnical and mineralogical factors controlling volume change behaviour of UK clay soils and mudrocks. A strong understanding of the relationship between these parameters and the clays' shrink-swell properties has been developed. More recently, partly resulting from concerns of users of this knowledge, a study of the relationships between climate change and shrink-swell behaviour over the last 30 years has been carried out. Information on subsidence insurance claims has been provided by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and the UK Meteorological Office (UKMO) historical climate station data has also been utilised. This is being combined with the BGS's GeoSure national geohazard data, to build a preliminary GIS model to provide an understanding of the susceptibility of the Tertiary London Clay to climate change. This paper summarises the data analysis and identifies future work for model construction and refinement

Vacuum energy, spectral determinant and heat kernel asymptotics of graph Laplacians with general vertex matching conditions

We consider Laplace operators on metric graphs, networks of one-dimensional line segments (bonds), with matching conditions at the vertices that make the operator self-adjoint. Such quantum graphs provide a simple model of quantum mechanics in a classically chaotic system with multiple scales corresponding to the lengths of the bonds. For graph Laplacians we briefly report results for the spectral determinant, vacuum energy and heat kernel asymptotics of general graphs in terms of the vertex matching conditions.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to proceedings of QFEXT09, minor corrections made