4,201 research outputs found
The Sanford Underground Research Facility at Homestake
The former Homestake gold mine in Lead, South Dakota is being transformed
into a dedicated laboratory to pursue underground research in rare-process
physics, as well as offering research opportunities in other disciplines such
as biology, geology and engineering. A key component of the Sanford Underground
Research Facility (SURF) is the Davis Campus, which is in operation at the
4850-foot level (4300 m.w.e) and currently hosts three projects: the LUX dark
matter experiment, the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR neutrinoless double-beta decay
experiment and the CUBED low-background counter. Plans for possible future
experiments at SURF are well underway and include long baseline neutrino
oscillation experiments, future dark matter experiments as well as nuclear
astrophysics accelerators. Facility upgrades to accommodate some of these
future projects have already started. SURF is a dedicated facility with
significant expansion capability.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, Proceedings of the VII International Conference
on Interconnections between Particle Physics and Cosmology (PPC2013),
Deadwood, SD, July 8-13, 201
State Criminal Appeals Revealed
Every state provides appellate review of criminal judgments, yet little research examines which factors correlate with favorable outcomes for defendants who seek appellate relief. To address this scholarly gap, this paper exploits the Survey of Criminal Appeals in State Courts (2010) dataset, recently released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for State Courts (hereinafter, “NCSC Study”). The NCSC Study is the first and only publicly available national dataset on state criminal appeals and includes unprecedented information from every state court in the nation with jurisdiction to review criminal judgments. We focus on two subpools of state criminal appeals: a defendant’s first appeal of right, and defense appeals to courts of last resort with the discretion to grant or deny review. Error correction, of course, is paramount in the first context, for typically an appeal of right is a defendant’s only chance at review. By contrast, courts of last resort with discretionary jurisdiction emphasize law development, selecting cases to clarify or alter legal rules, resolve conflicts, and remedy the most egregious mistakes. Our findings imply that defense appellate success rates may have declined in recent decades. In appeals of right, defendants who challenge a sentence enjoy a greater likelihood of success, as do those who have legal representation, file a reply brief or secure oral argument, and appellants from Florida. In high courts of last resort, appeals from sex offenses, raising certain trial issues, and appellants represented by publicly funded attorneys appear to fare better than others. Also notable is the absence of a relationship between defense success and factors including most crime types and claims raised, the court’s workload, and, for all but one model, whether the appellate judges were selected by election
State Criminal Appeals Revealed
Every state provides appellate review of criminal judgments, yet little research examines which factors correlate with favorable outcomes for defendants who seek appellate relief. To address this scholarly gap, this Article exploits the Survey of Criminal Appeals in State Courts (2010) dataset, recently released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for State Courts (hereinafter, NCSC Study ). The NCSC Study is the first and only publicly available national dataset on state criminal appeals and includes unprecedented information from every state court in the nation with jurisdiction to review criminal judgments
New BeppoSAX-WFC results on superbursts
Presently seven superbursters have been identified representing 10% of the
total Galactic X-ray burster population. Four superbursters were discovered
with the Wide Field Cameras (WFCs) on BeppoSAX and three with the All-Sky
Monitor and Proportional Counter Array on RXTE. We discuss the properties of
superbursters as derived from WFC observations. There are two interesting
conclusions. First, the average recurrence time of superbursts among X-ray
bursters that are more luminous than 10% of the Eddington limit is 1.5 yr per
object. Second, superbursters systematically have higher alpha values and
shorter ordinary bursts than most bursters that have not exhibited superbursts,
indicating a higher level of stable thermonuclear helium burning. Theory
predicts hitherto undetected superbursts from the most luminous neutron stars.
We investigate the prospects for finding these in GX~17+2.Comment: Submitted in January 2004 for the Proceedings of the meeting 'X-Ray
Timing 2003: Rossi and Beyond', eds. P. Kaaret, F. K. Lamb, & J. H. Swank
(Melville, NY: American Institute of Physics
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