The Guilty Mind

The doctrine of mens rea can be expressed in this way: MRP: If A is culpable for performing phi, then A performs phi intentionally in circumstances in which it is impermissible to perform phi. The Sermon on the Mount suggests the following principle: SMP: If A intends to perform phi in circumstances in which it would be impermissible for A to perform phi, then A’s intending to perform phi makes A as culpable as A would be were A to perform phi. MRP and SMP are principles representative of intentionalism, a family of views that emphasizes the importance of intention to judgments about culpability. This essay examines an intentionalist’s defense of MRP with respect to lying, strict criminal liability, and the distinction between intention and foreseeability, along with a defense of SMP with respect to failed attempts, and self-defens

Optical properties and bioavailability of dissolved organic matter along a flow-path continuum from soil pore waters to the Kolyma River mainstem, East Siberia

The Kolyma River in northeast Siberia is among the six largest Arctic rivers and drains a region underlain by vast deposits of Holocene-aged peat and Pleistocene-aged loess known as yedoma, most of which is currently stored in ice-rich permafrost throughout the region. These peat and yedoma deposits are important sources of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to inland waters that in turn play a significant role in the transport and ultimate remineralization of organic carbon to CO2 and CH4 along the terrestrial flow-path continuum. The turnover and fate of terrigenous DOM during offshore transport largely depends upon the composition and amount of carbon released to inland and coastal waters. Here, we measured the ultraviolet-visible optical properties of chromophoric DOM (CDOM) from a geographically extensive collection of waters spanning soil pore waters, streams, rivers, and the Kolyma River mainstem throughout a  ∼  250 km transect of the northern Kolyma River basin. During the period of study, CDOM absorption coefficients were found to be robust proxies for the concentration of DOM, whereas additional CDOM parameters such as spectral slopes (S) were found to be useful indicators of DOM quality along the flow path. In particular, the spectral slope ratio (SR) of CDOM demonstrated statistically significant differences between all four water types and tracked changes in the concentration of bioavailable DOC, suggesting that this parameter may be suitable for clearly discriminating shifts in organic matter characteristics among water types along the full flow-path continuum across this landscape. However, despite our observations of downstream shifts in DOM composition, we found a relatively constant proportion of DOC that was bioavailable ( ∼  3–6 % of total DOC) regardless of relative water residence time along the flow path. This may be a consequence of two potential scenarios allowing for continual processing of organic material within the system, namely (a) aquatic microorganisms are acclimating to a downstream shift in DOM composition and/or (b) photodegradation is continually generating labile DOM for continued microbial processing of DOM along the flow-path continuum. Without such processes, we would otherwise expect to see a declining fraction of bioavailable DOC downstream with increasing residence time of water in the system. With ongoing and future permafrost degradation, peat and yedoma deposits throughout the northeast Siberian region will become more hydrologically active, providing greater amounts of DOM to fluvial networks and ultimately to the Arctic Ocean. The ability to rapidly and comprehensively monitor shifts in the quantity and quality of DOM across the landscape is therefore critical for understanding potential future feedbacks within the Arctic carbon cycle

All the (Air) Rage: Legal Implications Surrounding Airline and Government Bans on Unruly Passengers in the Sky

RESUMEN EJECUTIVO El tema de tesis que aquí se presenta se denomina: “Análisis de la jurisprudencia que la Corte de Constitucionalidad de Guatemala ha fijado en relación con el auto de procesamiento”. Específicamente, este trabajo busca ahondar y dar a conocer los nuevos criterios jurisprudenciales que la doctrina legal de la Corte de Constitucionalidad de Guatemala ha fijado en cuanto al presupuesto procesal de la definitividad con relación al auto de procesamiento. Para poder verificar estos razonamientos que dicho Tribunal Constitucional empleó en esta nueva doctrina legal, se realizó un análisis jurisprudencial en tres sentencias de apelación de amparos, identificadas con los números de expedientes 5744-2016, 5875-2016 y 5879-2016. Estas se convierten en la génesis de la innovación jurisprudencial de la Corte de Constitucionalidad. Sin embargo, previo a determinar tal doctrina, la presente tesis aborda un somero análisis de la jurisprudencia sobre la doctrina legal anterior, para luego desarrollar la innovación doctrinal relacionada. Aunado a ello, se precisa de la realización de un trabajo de campo en ciertos órganos del sistema de justicia penal. El objeto de esta fue encuestar a ciertos funcionarios públicos para determinar el conocimiento o no de la nueva innovación jurisprudencial

Dialogue Macrogame Theory

Theory, a method for describing the organization of certain kinds of dialogues. Dialogue Macrogame Theory (DMT) is a successor to a theory sometimes called Dialogue Game Theory, developed in the 1970s and 1980s at USC-Information Sciences Institute (ISI). DMT is able to describe substantially more dialogues than its predecessor, and it identifies kinds of mechanisms not included in the predecessor. DMT is a step toward accounting for the coherence of entire dialogues. The major structures in DMT are based on intentions which are imputed to dialogue participants. The focus of this paper is on mechanisms. Dialogue Macrogames are defined