Forced to Play and Forced to Pay: The Indigent Counsel Fee in Massachusetts as a Cost of Being Charged with a Crime

When indigent defendants in Massachusetts are charged with a crime and receive a court-appointed lawyer, they are also charged something else: a fee. This $150 fee is imposed on criminal defendants by the state as soon as they receive a constitutionally guaranteed free legal defense. The Article focuses on this inherent contradiction and identifies its far-reaching effects in undermining individuals’ constitutional protections. Massachusetts’s indigent counsel fee chills the right to counsel, creating a straightforward result for indigent individuals who are faced with a choice between paying for a free lawyer and not disclaiming their constitutional right to one. The deeper problem is that this fee cuts across the presumption that every person is innocent until proven guilty. The Article then argues that the presumption of innocence is violated by obliging individuals to pay, or alternatively perform community service for free, by virtue of the state\u27s decision to bring criminal charges against them. Therefore, being charged with a crime already carries consequences and signals that the defendant is no longer considered fully innocent in a flagrant violation of the premise of a just legal system. There should be no grey area concerning the interpretation of either the presumption of innocence or for constitutional rights. There should be no fee for having been dragged into the criminal justice system by the government\u27s unilateral decision

Non-monotonic spontaneous magnetization in a Sznajd-like Consensus Model

Ising or Potts models of ferromagnetism have been widely used to describe locally interacting social or economic systems. We consider a related model, introduced by Sznajd to describe the evolution of consensus in a society. In this model, the opinion or state of any spins can only be changed through the influence of neighbouring pairs of similarly aligned spins. Such pairs can polarize their neighbours. We show that, assuming the global dynamics evolve in a synchronous manner, the two-state Sznajd model exhibits a non-monotonically decreasing overall orientation that has a maximum value when the system is subject to a finite value of noise. Reinterpreting the model in terms of opinions within a society we predict that consensus can be increased by the addition of an appropriate amount of random noise. These features are explained by the presence of islands of complete orientation that are stable in the absence of noise but removed via the presence of added noise.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

The qq-neighbor Ising model on multiplex networks with partial overlap of nodes

The $q$-neighbor Ising model for the opinion formation on multiplex networks with two layers in the form of random graphs (duplex networks), the partial overlap of nodes, and LOCAL\&AND spin update rule was investigated by means of the pair approximation and approximate Master equations as well as Monte Carlo simulations. Both analytic and numerical results show that for different fixed sizes of the $q$-neighborhood and finite mean degrees of nodes within the layers the model exhibits qualitatively similar critical behavior as the analogous model on multiplex networks with layers in the form of complete graphs. However, as the mean degree of nodes is decreased the discontinuous ferromagnetic transition, the tricritical point separating it from the continuous transition and the possible coexistence of the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic phases at zero temperature occur for smaller relative sizes of the overlap. Predictions of the simple homogeneous pair approximation concerning the critical behavior of the model under study show good qualitative agreement with numerical results; predictions based on the approximate Master equations are usually quantitatively more accurate, but yet not exact. Two versions of the heterogeneous pair approximation are also derived for the model under study, which, surprisingly, yield predictions only marginally different or even identical to those of the simple homogeneous pair approximation. In general, predictions of all approximations show better agreement with the results of Monte Carlo simulations in the case of continuous than discontinuous ferromagnetic transition.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figure

QQ-voter model with independence on signed random graphs: homogeneous approximations

The $q$-voter model with independence is generalized to signed random graphs and studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations and theoretically using the mean field approximation and different forms of the pair approximation. In the signed network with quenched disorder, positive and negative signs associated randomly with the links correspond to reinforcing and antagonistic interactions, promoting, respectively, the same or opposite orientations of two-state spins representing agents' opinions; otherwise, the opinions are called mismatched. With probability $1-p$, the agents change their opinions if the opinions of all members of a randomly selected $q$-neighborhood are mismatched, and with probability $p$, they choose an opinion randomly. The model on networks with finite mean degree $\langle k \rangle$ and fixed fraction of the antagonistic interactions $r$ exhibits ferromagnetic transition with varying the independence parameter $p$, which can be first- or second-order, depending on $q$ and $r$, and disappears for large $r$. Besides, numerical evidence is provided for the occurrence of the spin-glass-like transition for large $r$. The order and critical lines for the ferromagnetic transition on the $p$ vs. $r$ phase diagram obtained in Monte Carlo simulations are reproduced qualitatively by the mean field approximation. Within the range of applicability of the pair approximation, for the model with $\langle k \rangle$ finite but $\langle k \rangle \gg q$, predictions of the homogeneous pair approximation concerning the ferromagnetic transition show much better quantitative agreement with numerical results for small $r$ but fail for larger $r$. A more advanced signed homogeneous pair approximation is formulated which distinguishes between classes of active links with a given sign connecting nodes occupied by agents with mismatched opinions...Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

Performing C-T Measurements

An IBM computer, a HP4145B parametric analyzer, a Micromanipulator 410 capacitance meter, and a Keithley 230 voltage source were networked together to form a test setup to measure the recombination and generation lifetimes of minority carriers. The Zerbst relationships were used to calculate lifetimes. Results indicate that the test setup~has the ability to take accurate data, but when the capacitance-time data was analyzed, the calculated lifetimes were not believable. The problem seems to be the quality of the fabricated capacitors and not the setup

Statistical properties of short term price trends in high frequency stock market data

We investigated distributions of short term price trends for high frequency stock market data. A number of trends as a function of their lengths was measured. We found that such a distribution does not fit to results following from an uncorrelated stochastic process. We proposed a simple model with a memory that gives a qualitative agreement with real data.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, in ver. 2 one chapter adde

Neuropsychological, academic, and adaptive functioning in children who survive inhospital cardiac arrest and resuscitation

Children suffering cardiac arrest (CA) are not uncommon in certain pediatric populations. Due to the increasing suruival rates of child CA patients, there is a growing interest in, and concern for, their long-term intellectual, academic, emotional, and adaptive functioning. This article describes the possible neurologic sequelae of CA in children and presents standardized assessment results on 25 children, 2 to 15 years of age, who suruived a CA while in the hospital. A majority of these children exhibited low-average to deficient levels of performance on neuropsychologic, achievement, and adaptive behavior measures. Duration of cardiac arrest and a medical risk score were significantly correlated with decreased functioning in child CA patients. Children who suffer a cardiac arrest are at high risk for academic struggles, and many may need special education seruices

Information flow between composite stock index and individual stocks

We investigate the strength and the direction of information transfer in the U.S. stock market between the composite stock price index of stock market and prices of individual stocks using the transfer entropy. Through the directionality of the information transfer, we find that individual stocks are influenced by the index of the market.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure