A roadmap to nomination: the predicitive power of United States Attorney short lists

United States Attorneys are some of the most important actors in the American justice system. While strong research does exist about US Attorneys, it focuses primarily on their behavior in office, once they are already past the nomination process. The literature discusses the nomination process for US Attorneys, but prior to this research, no data existed on US Attorney short lists. Short lists are immensely important in understanding who gets chosen for a Presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed post and why they were seen as the best choice. This research collected data on 10 randomly selected judicial districts' US Attorney short lists. Various independent variables were used to compare trends across time and space and measure how these variables influenced the selection process

The forensic analysis of soils and sediment taken from the cast of a footprint

The routine production of a cast of a shoe-print taken in soil provides information other than shoe size and gait. Material adhering to the surface of the cast represents the preservation of the moment of footprint impression. The analysis of the interface between the cast and soil is therefore a potentially lucrative source of information for forensic reconstruction. These principles are demonstrated with reference to a murder case which took place in the English Midlands. The cast of a footprint provided evidence of a two-way transfer of material between the sole of a boot and the soil of a recently ploughed field. Lumps of soil, which had dried on a boot, were deposited on the field as the footprints were made. Pollen analysis of these lumps of soil indicated that the perpetrator of the imprint had been standing recently in a nearby stream. Fibre analysis together with physical and chemical characteristics of the soil suggested a provenance for contamination of this mud prior to deposition of the footprint. Carbon/nitrogen ratios of the water taken from the cast showed that distilled water had been used thus excluding the possibility of contamination of the boot–soil interface. It was possible to reconstruct three phases of previous activity of the wearer of the boot prior to leaving the footprint in the field after the murder had taken place. This analysis shows the power of integrating different independent techniques in the analysis of hitherto unrecognised forensic materials

The diameter of the commuting graph of a finite group with trivial centre

The commuting graph of a finite group with trivial centre is examined. It is shown that the connected components of the commuting graph have diameter at most 10

The role of forensic geoscience in wildlife crime detection

The increase in both automation and precision in the analysis of geological materials has had significant impact upon forensic investigations in the last 10 years. There is however, a fundamental philosophical difference between forensic and geological enquiry. This paper presents the results of forensic geoscientific investigations of three cases of wildlife crime. Two cases involve the analysis of soils recovered after incidents of illegal badger baiting in the United Kingdom. The third case involves the illegal importation of Eleonora's Falcon (Falco eleonorae) into the United Kingdom from the Mediterranean. All three cases utilise the analysis of soils by a variety of physical, chemical and biological techniques. These involve mineral and grain size analyses, cation and anion compositions, pH, organic content and pollen analysis.The independent analysis undertaken by specialists in each of these three main fields conclude firstly, that there is a significant similarity between sediments taken at the crime site at both badger setts and with sediments recovered from various spades, shovels and clothing belonging to suspects and secondly, that the soils analysed associated with the removal of the falcon eggs in the Mediterranean contained characteristics similar in many respects to the soils of the breeding areas of E eleonorae on the cliffs of Mallorca. The use of these independent techniques in wildlife crime detection has great potential given the ubiquitous nature of soils and sediments found in association with wildlife sites. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Goddamn Tidewater

Abstract This paper was originally an assignment for my CMP 100: Effective Composition with Dr. Clemens. After I turned it in, she suggested, after some cleaning up, that I should submit it to the Composition Conference on campus. My paper is a short story about a personal life experience I had relating to my father. My father passed away in 2012 when I was 11 years old, and ever since then I have been thinking about ways I can commemorate him. When I was 16, I came up with the idea of getting a tattoo so that it would be with me forever. In this piece, I describe the background behind my tattoo, and the day I actually got it done

The effects of close binaries on the magnetic activity of M dwarfs as probed using close white dwarf companions

I present a study of close white dwarf (WD) and M dwarf (dM) binary systems (WD+dM) to examine the effects that close companions have on the magnetic field generation in dMs. Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 8 spectroscopic database, I construct a sample of 1756 WD+dM high-quality pairs. I show that high-mass dMs (≤M4) in close binary systems are more likely to be magnetically active (as measured by Hα emission) and are able to remain active longer than field dMs. At lower masses (≥M5), where dMs become fully convective, the activity fraction and activity lifetimes of WD+dM binary systems become more comparable to those of the field dMs. The implications of having a close binary companion may include, increased stellar rotation through disk disruption, tidal effects, and/or angular momentum exchange. Thus, the similarity in activity between late-type field dMs and late-type dMs with close companions is likely due to the mechanism generating magnetic fields being less sensitive to the effects caused by a close companion; namely, increased stellar rotation. Using a subset of 181 close WD+dM pairs, matched to the time-domain SDSS Stripe 82 catalog, I show that enhanced magnetic activity extends to the flaring behavior of dMs in close binaries. Specifically, early spectral type dMs (M0-M1), in close WD+dM pairs, are two orders of magnitude more likely to flare than field dMs, whereas mid-type dMs (M2-M3) and late-type dMs (M4-M6) flare as frequently or less than the mid- to late-type field dM sample. To test whether the presence of a close companion leads to star-star interactions, I search for correlations between the WD occultations and flares from the dM member in KOI-256, an eclipsing WD+dM system from Kepler I find no correlations between the flaring activity of the dM and the WD occultations, indicating the there are no obvious signs of star-star interactions at work. In addition, the dM member of KOI-256 flares more than any other dM observed by Kepler and shows evidence for solar-like magnetic activity cycles, a feature not seen in many dMs to date

SPORT-BASED INTERVENTIONS AND SOCIAL INCLUSION: INSIGHTS ON THE ‘POWER OF SPORT’

Sport is often promoted as a vehicle through which a variety of social policy outcomes can be achieved, one of the most common of which is the enhancement of social inclusion opportunities for marginalized youth populations. However, more critical literature has questioned the potential of sport-based interventions to act as a ‘panacea’ to address youth marginalization and has called for more nuanced research that examines the mechanisms within such programs that may enable positive outcomes. Drawing upon research findings from studies of sport-based interventions that aim to engage and assimilate marginalized young people, this chapter seeks to examine some of the key mechanisms within such interventions that enable the social assimilation and inclusion of young people. In doing so, the chapter seeks to challenge popular notions associated with the instrumental use of sport within such contexts highlighting how those involved in the operationalization of sport-based interventions are critical to the harnessing of ‘the power of sport’ in terms of social inclusion