Theoretical Underpinnings of Jury Decision Making in Excuse Defense Cases

In the typical criminal trial, a defendant is trying to prove he/she is not guilty because they were not the individual that committed the crime. However, another type of defense exists in which the defendant admits they were the culprit, but provides an excuse in an attempt to avoid criminal punishment. These so called excuse defenses include insanity, involuntary intoxication, age, and entrapment. In all cases, juries are required to determine whether the defendant had sufficient mental capacity to form the intent to commit the crime. Although jury decision making is a popular research area in psychology, relatively little has been done to examine excuse defenses. In the following paper, three theoretical areas were discussed in relation to excuse defenses: excuses in interpersonal relationships, the traditional jury decision making Story Model, and Social Attribution Theory. A combined theory designed to specifically explain jury decision making in excuse defense cases was postulated and two experiments were performed to test this theory. In Experiment 1, participants read a trial summary in which the type of excuse defense and aspects of Attribution Theory were varied. Experiment 1 found weak support for the importance of Attribution Theory in jury decision making. The strongest predictor of participants\u27 verdicts was the Crime Control versus Due Process Orientation. Conclusions based on Experiment 1 should be limited however due to a significant number of participant problems. Experiment 2 utilized a card selection task in which participants chose which evidence they wished to view. Experiment 2 found strong support that Attribution Theory plays an important part in jury decision making and that the importance of evidence changes depending on the type of excuse defense used. For Entrapment, Consensus and Distinctiveness are both important, however, for Brain Damage, Distinctiveness evidence takes priority. The proposed theory was discussed with regard to the evidence provided in the current experiments and implications for individuals working in the legal system were suggested

Listening in the Living Room: The Pursuit of Authentic Spaces and Sounds in Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Punk Rock

In the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) do-it-yourself (DIY) punk scene, participants attempt to adhere to notions of authenticity that dictate whether a band, record label, performance venue, or individual are in compliance with punk philosophy. These guiding principles champion individual expression, contributions to one's community (scene), independence from the mainstream music industry and consumerism, and the celebration of amateurism and the idea that everyone should "do it yourself." While each city or scene has its own punk culture, participants draw on their perceptions of the historic legacy of punk and on experiences with contemporaries from around the world. For this thesis, I emphasize the significance of performance spaces and the sonic aesthetic of the music in enacting and reinforcing notions of punk authenticity. The live performance of music is perceived as the most authentic setting for punk music, and bands go to great lengths to recreate this soundscape in the recording studio. Bands achieve this sense of liveness by recording as a group, rather than individually for a polished studio sound mix, or by inviting friends and fans into the studio to help record a live show experience. House venues have been key to the development of the DFW scene with an emphasis on individual participation through hosting concerts in their homes. This creates a stronger sense of community in DIY punk performance. Through participation observation, interviews, analysis of source materials, as well as research in previous Punk scholarship, questions of authenticity, consumerism, and technology and sound studies, this thesis updates work on the experience of sound, listening, and the importance of space in DIY punk communities today

Detection of Medium-Sized Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons via Fluorescence Energy Transfer

Reported herein is the use of proximity-induced non-covalent energy transfer for the detection of medium-sized polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). This energy transfer occurs within the cavity of γ-cyclodextrin in various aqueous environments, including human plasma and coconut water. Highly efficient energy transfer was observed, and the efficiency of the energy transfer is independent of the concentration of γ-cyclodextrin used, demonstrating the importance of hydrophobic binding in facilitating such energy transfer. Low limits of detection were also observed for many of the PAHs investigated, which is promising for the development of fluorescence-based detection schemes

Biaryl Anion Radical Formation by Potassium Metal Reduction of Aryl Isocyanates and Triaryl Isocyanurates

The potassium metal reduction of aryl isocyanates(aryl = phenyl, p-tolyl, 3,5-dimethylphenyl, 4-biphenylyl, and 1-naphthyl) in THF with 18-crown-6 or in HMPA results in the formation of the corresponding triaryl isocyanurate anion radicals. Continued exposure to potassium results in loss of the isocyanurate anion radical and the eventual formation of the respective biaryl anion radical. The 1,1′-binaphthyl anion radical is found to undergo a cyclodehydrogenation reaction, which leads to formation of the perylene anion radical. When authentic triaryl isocyanurates are reduced with metal, the heterocyclic ring undergoes fragmentation with elimination of carbon monoxide to produce a triarylbiuret dianion. This ring opening reaction is initiated by the two-electron reduction of the neutral isocyanurate species. The biaryl anion radical is formed when the biuret dianion is reduced further with metal. A possible mechanism for biaryl formation involves a heterolytic cleavage of an aryl C−N bond and release of an aryl radical once the triarylbiuret dianion is further reduced. A subsequent intermolecular reaction between two aryl radicals forms the corresponding biaryl, which can then be reduced to the anion radical. Notably, when a mixture of two different triaryl isocyanurate compounds is reduced in solution, the corresponding mixed biaryl anion radical is generated

Identification of similar regions of protein structures using integrated sequence and structure analysis tools

BACKGROUND: Understanding protein function from its structure is a challenging problem. Sequence based approaches for finding homology have broad use for annotation of both structure and function. 3D structural information of protein domains and their interactions provide a complementary view to structure function relationships to sequence information. We have developed a web site and an API of web services that enables users to submit protein structures and identify statistically significant neighbors and the underlying structural environments that make that match using a suite of sequence and structure analysis tools. To do this, we have integrated S-BLEST, PSI-BLAST and HMMer based superfamily predictions to give a unique integrated view to prediction of SCOP superfamilies, EC number, and GO term, as well as identification of the protein structural environments that are associated with that prediction. Additionally, we have extended UCSF Chimera and PyMOL to support our web services, so that users can characterize their own proteins of interest. RESULTS: Users are able to submit their own queries or use a structure already in the PDB. Currently the databases that a user can query include the popular structural datasets ASTRAL 40 v1.69, ASTRAL 95 v1.69, CLUSTER50, CLUSTER70 and CLUSTER90 and PDBSELECT25. The results can be downloaded directly from the site and include function prediction, analysis of the most conserved environments and automated annotation of query proteins. These results reflect both the hits found with PSI-BLAST, HMMer and with S-BLEST. We have evaluated how well annotation transfer can be performed on SCOP ID's, Gene Ontology (GO) ID's and EC Numbers. The method is very efficient and totally automated, generally taking around fifteen minutes for a 400 residue protein. CONCLUSION: With structural genomics initiatives determining structures with little, if any, functional characterization, development of protein structure and function analysis tools are a necessary endeavor. We have developed a useful application towards a solution to this problem using common structural and sequence based analysis tools. These approaches are able to find statistically significant environments in a database of protein structure, and the method is able to quantify how closely associated each environment is to a predicted functional annotation

Oxidative Cross-Coupling of sp\u3csup\u3e3\u3c/sup\u3e- and sp\u3csup\u3e2\u3c/sup\u3e-Hybridized C–H Bonds: Vanadium-Catalyzed Aminomethylation of Imidazo[1,2-\u3ci\u3ea\u3c/i\u3e]pyridines

The vanadium-catalyzed oxidative coupling of substituted 2-arylimidiazo[1,2-a]pyridines to N-methylmorpholine oxide, which acts as both a coupling partner and an oxidant, has been achieved. This reaction was applied to various substituted imidiazo[1,2-a]pyridine and indole substrates, resulting in yields as high as 90%. Mechanistic investigations indicate that the reaction may proceed via a Mannich-type process. This work demonstrates how oxidative aminomethylation can be used as a useful method to introduce tertiary amines into heterocycles, thus providing an alternative method for conventional Mannich-type reactions

Integrating HIP and homogenisation heat treatment and its effect on the workability of a conventional peritectic TiAl alloy

The aim of this study was to understand how consolidation and homogenisation, as well as the possibility of integrating the two processes, influences the pre-compression microstructure and subsequent compression behaviour of an industry accepted, peritectic solidifying titanium aluminide ingot alloy; 45XD. This study differs from existing work with its emphasis on understanding the effect of integrating consolidation and homogenisation on workability, as well as how these processes influence the pre-and postcompression microstructure individually. This was assessed by the material’s strain rate sensitivity in primary and secondary compression. The target microstructure was identified from the literature as being capable of a strain rate sensitivity of ≥0.3. The results presented here show that it is possible to integrate the consolidation and homogenisation stages, and this proved beneficial, namely achieving a high lamellar content and elementally homogeneous microstructure presented prior to compression. Subsequent deformation generated high values of dynamic recrystallisation fraction and globularisation returned upon primary compression, and the highest strain rate sensitivity at secondary compression, in comparison to material processed by the traditional approach. This is thought to be due to pressure and temperature during the integrated process reducing both segregation, seen through casting, and so the B2/β0 content compared to consolidated material. The integrated consolidation and homogenisation approach also prevented the grain growth seen in the traditional route; this is anticipated to be due to the two slow cooling stages involved in the traditional process rather than the effect of isostatic pressure

Dexamethasone modulates Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium infection in vivo independently of the glucocorticoid-inducible protein annexin-A1.

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) infection causes an inflammatory response through activation of Toll-like receptor 4 by lipopolysaccharide. Dexamethasone, a glucocorticoid analogue, suppresses inflammatory responses by many mechanisms including inhibition of the lipopolysaccharide-induced production of proinflammatory mediators. There is little information on the effect of glucocorticoids on murine salmonellosis. In this study, we treated susceptible BALB/c mice by subcutaneous implantation of slow-release dexamethasone pellets before infection with S. Typhimurium. Dexamethasone promotes bacterial growth early in infection and induces a dose-dependent increase in bacterial growth within mouse livers and spleens. The bacterial load in organs from infected placebo-treated mice was lower than that in dexamethasone-treated mice. Glucocorticoids inhibit lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammation partially through the steroid-inducible protein annexin-A1 (ANXA1). Infection of wild-type and ANXA1 knock-out mice with S. Typhimurium led to similar organ bacterial loads. ANXA1 also did not affect the bacterial load in organs from infected dexamethasone-treated mice. This suggests that glucocorticoids, independently of ANXA1, accelerate S. Typhimurium growth in vivo in susceptible BALB/c mice

Hydrologic and Agricultural Earth Observations and Modeling for the Water-Food Nexus

In a globalizing and rapidly-developing world, reliable, sustainable access to water and food are inextricably linked to each other and basic human rights. Achieving security and sustainability in both requires recognition of these linkages, as well as continued innovations in both science and policy. We present case studies of how Earth observations are being used in applications at the nexus of water and food security: crop monitoring in support of G20 global market assessments, water stress early warning for USAID, soil moisture monitoring for USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service, and identifying food security vulnerabilities for climate change assessments for the UN and the UK international development agency. These case studies demonstrate that Earth observations are essential for providing the data and scalability to monitor relevant indicators across space and time, as well as understanding agriculture, the hydrological cycle, and the water-food nexus. The described projects follow the guidelines for co-developing useable knowledge for sustainable development policy. We show how working closely with stakeholders is essential for transforming NASA Earth observations into accurate, timely, and relevant information for water-food nexus decision support. We conclude with recommendations for continued efforts in using Earth observations for addressing the water-food nexus and the need to incorporate the role of energy for improved food and water security assessment