It’s About Time: Tennessee’s Modernization of Juvenile Sentencing and Where to Go from Here

Tennessee has long been considered the harshest in the nation regarding its treatment of minors convicted of first-degree murder. After the United States Supreme Court determined that automatic life sentences for juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment in Miller v. Alabama, many states began the process of reforming their sentencing statutes. Tennessee did not follow this trend, as the law on the books did not prescribe a “life sentence” to youthful homicide offenders. Rather, Tennessee’s sentencing statute automatically sentenced juveniles convicted of first-degree murder to a lengthy “term of years,” and as a result, did not fall within the reach of the Miller decision. However, in the November 2022 decision in State v. Booker, the Tennessee Supreme Court reviewed the statute and determined that it was, in fact, unconstitutional. This note will provide a background of the relevant juvenile jurisprudence prior to Booker, examine why Booker was necessary and what it means for juveniles convicted of first-degree murder in Tennessee, and discuss possible directions for Tennessee to move forward following Booker

A Bayesian technique for improving the sensitivity of the atmospheric neutrino L/E analysis

This paper outlines a method for improving the precision of atmospheric neutrino oscillation measurements. One experimental signature for these oscillations is an observed deficit in the rate of $\nu_{\mu}$ charged-current interactions with an oscillatory dependence on $L_{\nu}/E_{\nu}$, where $L_{\nu}$ is the neutrino propagation distance, and $E_{\nu}$ is the neutrino energy. For contained-vertex atmospheric neutrino interactions, the $L_{\nu}/E_{\nu}$ resolution varies significantly from event to event. The precision of the oscillation measurement can be improved by incorporating information on $L_{\nu}/E_{\nu}$ resolution into the oscillation analysis. In the analysis presented here, a Bayesian technique is used to estimate the $L_{\nu}/E_{\nu}$ resolution of observed atmospheric neutrinos on an event-by-event basis. By separating the events into bins of $L_{\nu}/E_{\nu}$ resolution in the oscillation analysis, a significant improvement in oscillation sensitivity can be achieved.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Nucl. Instrum. Methods A, accompanies arXiv:1208.2915 [hep-ex

A methodology for determining amino-acid substitution matrices from set covers

We introduce a new methodology for the determination of amino-acid substitution matrices for use in the alignment of proteins. The new methodology is based on a pre-existing set cover on the set of residues and on the undirected graph that describes residue exchangeability given the set cover. For fixed functional forms indicating how to obtain edge weights from the set cover and, after that, substitution-matrix elements from weighted distances on the graph, the resulting substitution matrix can be checked for performance against some known set of reference alignments and for given gap costs. Finding the appropriate functional forms and gap costs can then be formulated as an optimization problem that seeks to maximize the performance of the substitution matrix on the reference alignment set. We give computational results on the BAliBASE suite using a genetic algorithm for optimization. Our results indicate that it is possible to obtain substitution matrices whose performance is either comparable to or surpasses that of several others, depending on the particular scenario under consideration

Pair production of the heavy leptons in future high energy linear e^{+}e^{-} colliders

The littlest Higgs model with T-parity predicts the existence of the T-odd particles, which can only be produced in pair. We consider pair production of the T-odd leptons in future high energy linear $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider ($ILC$). Our numerical results show that, as long as the T-odd leptons are not too heavy, they can be copiously produced and their possible signals might be detected via the processes $e^{+}e^{-}\to \bar{L}_{i}L_{j}$ in future $ILC$ experiments.Comment: Discussions added, typos and references correcte

Horseplay, care and hands on hard work: gendered strategies of a project manager on a construction site

The discourse of managerial expertise favours rational analysis and masculine ideals but contemporary management literature also recognises the value of well-being and employee voice in the workplace. Drawing upon narrative analysis of interview data, we share unique insights into the lived experiences of Laura, one female project manager who recently managed a construction site in the Midlands in the UK. In contrast to previous research which indicates that female managers tend to conform to quite a traditional set of gender behaviours, Laura embraces a range of workplace appropriate gendered strategies, such as hard work and horseplay, together with sensitivity and caring. She draws from this mix of gendered strategies in negotiating between two different discourses of construction; one professional and one tough and practical. Her behaviour both reproduces the masculine ideals (through horseplay and heroic management) and opens up possibilities for modernising construction management (by caring). It is this combination of strategies that is at the heart of tacit expertise for Laura. Theoretically, the discussion adds to the development of a more nuanced understanding of management expertise as situated and person specific knowledge that draws on both the explicit and tacit. Specifically, the centrality of gendered strategies beyond the masculine ideals to success on site is highlighted

Some remarks on the dynamical systems approach to fourth order gravity

Building on earlier work, we discuss a general framework for exploring the cosmological dynamics of Higher Order Theories of Gravity. We show that once the theory of gravity has been specified, the cosmological equations can be written as a first-order autonomous system and we give several examples which illustrate the utility of our method. We also discuss a number of results which have appeared recently in the literature.Comment: 19 pages, LaTe

Dynamics of liquid He-4 in confined geometries from Time-Dependent Density Functional calculations

We present numerical results obtained from Time-Dependent Density Functional calculations of the dynamics of liquid He-4 in different environments characterized by geometrical confinement. The time-dependent density profile and velocity field of He-4 are obtained by means of direct numerical integration of the non-linear Schrodinger equation associated with a phenomenological energy functional which describes accurately both the static and dynamic properties of bulk liquid He-4. Our implementation allows for a general solution in 3-D (i.e. no symmetries are assumed in order to simplify the calculations). We apply our method to study the real-time dynamics of pure and alkali-doped clusters, of a monolayer film on a weakly attractive surface and a nano-droplet spreading on a solid surface.Comment: q 1 tex file + 9 Ps figure

Discretion in accounting for pensions under IAS 19: using the ‘magic telescope’?

We use a panel data set of UK-listed companies over the period 2005 to 2009 to analyse the actuarial assumptions used to value pension plan liabilities under IAS 19. The valuation process requires companies to make assumptions about financial and demographic variables, notably discount rate, price inflation, salary inflation, and mortality/life expectancy of plan members/beneficiaries. We use regression analysis to analyse the relationships between these key assumptions (except mortality, where disclosures are limited) and company-specific factors such as the pension plan funding position and duration of pension liabilities. We find evidence of selective ‘management’ of the three assumptions investigated, although the nature of this appears to differ from the findings of US authors. We conclude that IAS 19 does not prevent the use of managerial discretion, particularly by companies whose pension plan funding positions are weak, thereby reducing the representational faithfulness of the reported pension figures. We also highlight that the degree of discretion used reflects the extent to which IAS 19 defines how the assumptions are to be determined. We therefore suggest that companies should be encouraged to justify more explicitly their choice of assumptions

Dimensionless cosmology

Although it is well known that any consideration of the variations of fundamental constants should be restricted to their dimensionless combinations, the literature on variations of the gravitational constant $G$ is entirely dimensionful. To illustrate applications of this to cosmology, we explicitly give a dimensionless version of the parameters of the standard cosmological model, and describe the physics of Big Bang Neucleosynthesis and recombination in a dimensionless manner. The issue that appears to have been missed in many studies is that in cosmology the strength of gravity is bound up in the cosmological equations, and the epoch at which we live is a crucial part of the model. We argue that it is useful to consider the hypothetical situation of communicating with another civilization (with entirely different units), comparing only dimensionless constants, in order to decide if we live in a Universe governed by precisely the same physical laws. In this thought experiment, we would also have to compare epochs, which can be defined by giving the value of any {\it one} of the evolving cosmological parameters. By setting things up carefully in this way one can avoid inconsistent results when considering variable constants, caused by effectively fixing more than one parameter today. We show examples of this effect by considering microwave background anisotropies, being careful to maintain dimensionlessness throughout. We present Fisher matrix calculations to estimate how well the fine structure constants for electromagnetism and gravity can be determined with future microwave background experiments. We highlight how one can be misled by simply adding $G$ to the usual cosmological parameter set