Sipping Coffee with a Serial Killer: On Conducting Life History Interviews with a Criminal Genius

As part of my Ph.D. research on criminal genius, I conducted 44 semi-structured interviews. One of the 44 subjects, in particular, stood out. This noteworthy individual claimed that he had killed 15 people. His story was particularly interesting because unlike most social research involving serial killers he claimed that he had never been arrested or convicted for his homicides. Compelled by his account, I met with this subject on five additional occasions, and gradually compiled his criminal life history. Ethical and legal considerations limited inquiry into several dimensions of this subjects life history, but over time, an interesting and richly textured narrative emerged. This article first describes the life experiences of this offender and then describes the methodological choices that shaped the research. Because criminologists almost never establish research access with offenders of this kind, his story articulated here in the form of a criminal life history is a valuable contribution to social science literature

Effects of therapeutic ultrasound on osteoblast gene expression

Ultrasound (US) is commonly used as a physiotherapy aid for a number of types of injury to soft connective tissues and for fracture healing. However, the precise effects of therapeutic US on tissue healing processes are not clearly understood, although they are likely to involve changes in key cellular functions. The present study has therefore examined the effects of several US intensity levels on the activity of two bone-associated proteins, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and osteopontin (OP) in a human cell line, MG63, using RT-PCR. ALP showed progressively higher expression with increasing US intensities, whereas OP responded differently, showing down-regulation at 120 mW/cm2, the lowest US exposure. OP expression was considerably less affected overall compared with the relative response of ALP to the same US doses. The results show that there is a differential response to therapeutic levels of US, since ALP and OP clearly exhibited gene-specific response profiles. These findings suggest that modifying the parameters of US exposure could be used to improve repair and regeneration processes and enhance the clinical efficacy of implanted biomaterials for tissue engineering

Imaging Flux Vortices in MgB2 using Transmission Electron Microscopy

We report the successful imaging of flux vortices in single crystal MgB2 using transmission electron microscopy. The specimen was thinned to electron transparency (350 nm thickness) by focussed ion beam milling. An artefact of the thinning process was the production of longitudinal thickness undulations of height 1-2 nm in the sample which acted as pinning sites due to the energy required for the vortices to cross them. These had a profound effect on the patterns of vortex order observed which we examine here. Supplementary information can be downloaded from http://www-hrem.msm.cam.ac.uk/people/loudon/#publicationsComment: 3 pages, 2 figures to appear in Physica C. Supplementary information can be downloaded from http://www-hrem.msm.cam.ac.uk/people/loudon/#publications. The discussion of the vortex-free region near the sample edge has been revised in response to referees' comments. Changes have been made to clarify that the specimen thickness is 250nm parallel to the c-axis but 350nm parallel to the electron bea

Landscape equivalent of the shoving model

It is shown that the shoving model expression for the average relaxation time of viscous liquids follows largely from a classical "landscape" estimation of barrier heights from curvature at energy minima. The activation energy involves both instantaneous bulk and shear moduli, but the bulk modulus contributes less than 8% to the temperature dependence of the activation energy. This reflects the fact that the physics of the two models are closely related.Comment: 4 page

Open Heterotic Strings

We classify potential cosmic strings according to the topological charge measurable outside the string core. We conjecture that in string theory it is this charge that governs the stability of long strings. This would imply that the SO(32) heterotic string can have endpoints, but not the E_8 x E_8 heterotic string. We give various arguments in support of this conclusion.Comment: 15 pages. v.2: typos, references correcte

A Representation of Quantum Measurement in Nonassociative Algebras

Starting from an abstract setting for the Lueders - von Neumann quantum measurement process and its interpretation as a probability conditionalization rule in a non-Boolean event structure, the author derived a certain generalization of operator algebras in a preceding paper. This is an order-unit space with some specific properties. It becomes a Jordan operator algebra under a certain set of additional conditions, but does not own a multiplication operation in the most general case. A major objective of the present paper is the search for such examples of the structure mentioned above that do not stem from Jordan operator algebras; first natural candidates are matrix algebras over the octonions and other nonassociative rings. Therefore, the case when a nonassociative commutative multiplication exists is studied without assuming that it satisfies the Jordan condition. The characteristics of the resulting algebra are analyzed. This includes the uniqueness of the spectral resolution as well as a criterion for its existence, subalgebras that are Jordan algebras, associative subalgebras, and more different levels of compatibility than occurring in standard quantum mechanics. However, the paper cannot provide the desired example, but contribute to the search by the identification of some typical differences between the potential examples and the Jordan operator algebras and by negative results concerning some first natural candidates. The possibility that no such example exists cannot be ruled out. However, this would result in an unexpected new characterization of Jordan operator algebras, which would have a significant impact on quantum axiomatics since some customary axioms (e.g., powerassociativity or the sum postulate for observables) might turn out to be redundant then.Comment: 14 pages, the original publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

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Retroviral gene transfer is inhibited by chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans/glycosaminoglycans in malignant pleural effusions

Gene therapy may be an important adjuvant for treating cancer in the pleural space. The initial results of retroviral gene transfer to cancer cells in malignant pleural effusions revealed that transduction was markedly inhibited, and studies to characterize the inhibitory factor(s) were performed. The inhibition was contained within the soluble, rather than cellular, components of the effusions and was demonstrated with amphotropic, gibbon ape leukemia virus, and vesicular stomatitis virus-glycoprotein pseudotyped retroviral vectors. After excluding complement proteins, a series of studies identified chondroitin sulfates (CSs) as the inhibitory substances. First, treatment of the effusions with mammalian hyaluronidase or chondroitinases, but not Streptomyces hyaluronidase, abolished the inhibitory activity. Second, addition of exogenous CS glycosaminoglycans mimicked the inhibition observed with pleural effusions. Third, immunoassays and biochemical analyses of malignant pleural effusion specimens revealed CS in relevant concentrations within pleural fluid. Fourth, proteoglycans/glycosaminoglycans isolated from the effusions inhibited retroviral gene transfer. Analyses of the mechanism of inhibition indicate that the chondroitin sulfates interact with vector in solution rather than at the target cell surface. These results suggest that drainage of the malignant pleural effusion, and perhaps enzymatic pretreatment of the pleural cavity, will be necessary for efficient retroviral vector mediated gene delivery to pleural metastases

Spatial variation in the responses of the surface external and induced magnetic field to the solar wind

We analyse the spatial variation in the response of the surface geomagnetic field (or the equivalent ionospheric current) to variations in the solar wind. Specifically, we regress a reanalysis of surface external and induced magnetic field (SEIMF) variations onto measurements of the solar wind. The regression is performed in monthly sets, independently for 559 regularly‐spaced locations covering the entire northern polar region above 50° magnetic latitude. At each location, we find the lag applied to the solar wind data that maximises the correlation with the SEIMF. The resulting spatial maps of these independent lags and regression coefficients provide a model of the localised SEIMF response to variations in the solar wind, which we call ‘Spatial Information from Distributed Exogenous Regression’ (SPIDER). We find that the lag and regression coefficients vary systematically with ionospheric region, season, and solar wind driver. In the polar cap region the SEIMF is best described by the By component of the interplanetary magnetic field (50–75% of total variance explained) at a lag ∼20–25 min. Conversely, in the auroral zone the SEIMF is best described by the solar wind ϵ function (60–80% of total variance explained), with a lag that varies with season and magnetic local time (MLT), from ∼15–20 min for dayside and afternoon MLT (except in Oct‐Dec) to typically 30–40 min for nightside and morning MLT, and even longer (60–65 min) around midnight MLT