Race, Brain Science, and Critical Decision-Making in the Context of Constitutional Criminal Procedure

This article surveys current and emerging neuroscience research that is uncovering deep cognitive-level and unconscious connections between race or racial constructs, perception, and decision making. Using those findings as a platform for consideration, the article addresses several implications that these cognitive patterns might have for the particular kinds of perceptual experiences and decision making opportunities that are relevant in the context of criminal law enforcement and police procedure, and begins to evaluate the influence that these cognitive trends may have on the development of specific legal regulatory mechanisms and their application to the larger law enforcement complex

Letting Katz out of the Bag: Cognitive Freedom and Fourth Amendment Fidelity

What would life be like if it became impossible to keep a secret? We may find out with the advent of a new technology called Brain Fingerprinting and other technologies that allow access to our very thoughts. This Article first discusses the advent of technology like Brain Fingerprinting and its kin, and their impact on cognitive autonomy. The Article then posits the question, what would the Constitution have to say about evidentiary inquiries into the mind through the use of such technology? The author argues that current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, including Katz v. United States, is inadequate to address such a question, and concludes with a call to reevaluate our understanding of the Fourth Amendment and to seek alternative methods that offer more satisfying resolution of these issues

How Privacy Killed Katz: A Tale of Cognitive Freedom and the Property of Personhood as Fourth Amendment Norm

With each passing day, new technologies push the horizons of official government investigative and surveillance activity deeper and deeper into the mind and consciousness of the surveilled subject. While law enforcement agencies have always relied on observing the behavior and activity of suspicious targets, and there has been little judicial ink spent preserving the confidentiality of such observable activity, the law has been slow to respond to rapid increases in the capacity or scope of official observation that the advance of technologically sophisticated surveillance techniques helped facilitate. The sampling of techniques at the center of this Article allow the operators to analyze, with a very high degree of accuracy, the cognitive activity occurring within the human brain, certain types of substantive information that may be stored there, and even the likely decision-making processes the brain has engaged in or will in the future engage. Because these techniques allow access to the cerebral and neurological landscape of the subject, from an individual’s emotional and ethical profile to her memories and intentions, I have chosen to label this class of information-gathering methods as cognitive camera technology (CCT) for convenience

The Constitutional and Statutory Framework Organizing the Office of the United States Attorney

The U.S. Attorney position is one characterized by a broad delegation of the duty to enforce the laws of the United States, and to appear on behalf of the government in any civil action involving the United States or its revenues. This delegation of duties necessarily entails the exercise of discretion, and that exercise of discretion necessarily depends on the United States Attorneys\u27 independence of judgment. The U.S. Attorney can thus be described as an agent with multiple principles, or a servant of two masters: the U.S. Attorneys clearly serve at the pleasure of the President, must be responsive to the Department of Justice, and must also consider local conditions, and yet the Attorneys\u27 ultimate duty is to serve, advance, and enforce the law while ensuring uniform application of just principles

The Constitutional and Statutory Framework Organizing the Office of the United States Attorney

The U.S. Attorney position is one characterized by a broad delegation of the duty to enforce the laws of the United States, and to appear on behalf of the government in any civil action involving the United States or its revenues. This delegation of duties necessarily entails the exercise of discretion, and that exercise of discretion necessarily depends on the United States Attorneys\u27 independence of judgment. The U.S. Attorney can thus be described as an agent with multiple principles, or a servant of two masters: the U.S. Attorneys clearly serve at the pleasure of the President, must be responsive to the Department of Justice, and must also consider local conditions, and yet the Attorneys\u27 ultimate duty is to serve, advance, and enforce the law while ensuring uniform application of just principles

Neutral Nitrogen Acceptors in ZnO: The \u3csup\u3e67\u3c/sup\u3eZn Hyperfine Interactions

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) is used to characterize the 67Zn hyperfine interactions associated with neutral nitrogen acceptors in zinc oxide. Data are obtained from an n-type bulk crystal grown by the seeded chemical vapor transport method. Singly ionized nitrogen acceptors (N−) initially present in the crystal are converted to their paramagnetic neutral charge state (N0) during exposure at low temperature to 442 or 633 nm laser light. The EPR signals from these N0 acceptors are best observed near 5 K. Nitrogen substitutes for oxygen ions and has four nearest-neighbor cations. The zinc ion along the [0001] direction is referred to as an axial neighbor and the three equivalent zinc ions in the basal plane are referred to as nonaxial neighbors. For axial neighbors, the 67Zn hyperfine parameters are A‖ = 37.0 MHz and A⊥ = 8.4 MHz with the unique direction being [0001]. For nonaxial neighbors, the 67Zn parameters are A1 = 14.5 MHz, A2 = 18.3 MHz, and A3 = 20.5 MHz with A3 along a [10ˉ10] direction (i.e., in the basal plane toward the nitrogen) and A2 along the [0001] direction. These 67Zn results and the related 14N hyperfine parameters provide information about the distribution of unpaired spin density at substitutional neutral nitrogen acceptors in ZnO

Interstitial Silicon Ions in Rutile TiO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e Crystals

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) is used to identify a new and unique photoactive silicon-related point defect in single crystals of rutile TiO2. The importance of this defect lies in its assignment to interstitial silicon ions and the unexpected establishment of silicon impurities as a major hole trap in TiO2. Principal g values of this new S=1/2 center are 1.9159, 1.9377, and 1.9668 with principal axes along the [¯110],[001], and [110] directions, respectively. Hyperfine structure in the EPR spectrum shows the unpaired spin interacting equally with two Ti nuclei and unequally with two Si nuclei. These silicon ions are present in the TiO2 crystals as unintentional impurities. Principal values for the larger of the two Si hyperfine interactions are 91.4, 95.4, and 316.4 MHz with principal axes also along the [¯110],[001], and [110] directions. The model for the defect consists of two adjacent Si ions, one at a tetrahedral interstitial site and the other occupying a Ti site. Together, they form a neutral nonparamagnetic [Siint−SiTi]0 complex. When a crystal is illuminated below 40 K with 442-nm laser light, holes are trapped by these silicon complexes and form paramagnetic [Siint−SiTi]+ defects, while electrons are trapped at oxygen vacancies. Thermal anneal results show that the [Siint−SiTi]+ EPR signal disappears in two steps, coinciding with the release of electrons from neutral oxygen vacancies and singly ionized oxygen vacancies. These released electrons recombine with the holes trapped at the silicon complexes

Sandstone matrix acidizing knowledge and future development

To meet rising global demands for energy, the oil and gas industry continuously strives to develop innovative oilfield technologies. With the development of new enhanced oil recovery techniques, sandstone acidizing has been significantly developed to contribute to the petroleum industry. Different acid combinations have been applied to the formation, which result in minimizing the near wellbore damage and improving the well productivity. A combination of hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid (HF:HCl) known as mud acid has gained attractiveness in improving the porosity and permeability of the reservoir formation. However, high-temperature matrix acidizing is now growing since most of the wells nowadays become deeper and hotter temperature reservoirs, with a temperature higher than 200 °F. As a result, mud acid becomes corrosive, forms precipitates and reacts rapidly, which causes early consumption of acid, hence becoming less efficient due to high pH value. However, different acids have been developed to combat these problems where studies on retarded mud acids, organic-HF acids, emulsified acids, chelating agents have shown their effectiveness at different conditions. These acids proved to be alternative to mud acid in sandstone acidizing, but the reaction mechanism and experimental analysis have not yet been investigated. The paper critically reviews the sandstone acidizing mechanism with different acids, problems occurred during the application of different acids and explores the reasons when matrix stimulation is successful over fracturing. This paper also explores the future developing requirement for matrix acidizing treatments and new experimental techniques that can be useful for further development, particularly in developing new acids and acidizing techniques, which would provide better results and information of topology, morphology and mineral dissolution and the challenges associated with implementing these “new” technologies

Noninvasive Quantification of Fluid Mechanical Energy Losses in the Total Cavopulmonary Connection with Magnetic Resonance Phase Velocity Mapping

A major determinant of the success of surgical vascular modifications, such as the total cavopulmonary connection (TCPC), is the energetic efficiency that is assessed by calculating the mechanical energy loss of blood flow through the new connection. Currently, however, to determine the energy loss, invasive pressure measurements are necessary. Therefore, this study evaluated the feasibility of the viscous dissipation (VD) method, which has the potential to provide the energy loss without the need for invasive pressure measurements. Two experimental phantoms, a U-shaped tube and a glass TCPC, were scanned in a magnetic resonance (MR) imaging scanner and the images were used to construct computational models of both geometries. MR phase velocity mapping (PVM) acquisitions of all three spatial components of the fluid velocity were made in both phantoms and the VD was calculated. VD results from MR PVM experiments were compared with VD results from computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations on the image-based computational models. The results showed an overall agreement between MR PVM and CFD. There was a similar ascending tendency in the VD values as the image spatial resolution increased. The most accurate computations of the energy loss were achieved for a CFD grid density that was too high for MR to achieve under current MR system capabilities (in-plane pixel size of less than 0.4 mm). Nevertheless, the agreement between the MR PVM and the CFD VD results under the same resolution settings suggests that the VD method implemented with a clinical imaging modality such as MR has good potential to quantify the energy loss in vascular geometries such as the TCPC