Am I Under Arrest? Why the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Need a Strict Definition of What Constitutes an Intervening Arrest

Congress provided for the creation of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines to promote fairness and produce proportional and uniform sentences. The Guidelines provide judges with a guideline range for sentencing based on a defendant’s criminal history score and the offense level of the defendant’s criminal conduct. A defendant’s prior “intervening arrests” are considered in computing her criminal history score. But the current version of the Guidelines does not clearly define what constitutes an intervening arrest for the purposes of calculating an offender’s score. Consequently, a split has developed between circuit courts as to whether a criminal traffic citation constitutes an intervening arrest when determining a defendant’s criminal history score. This Note analyzes the different definitions of an intervening arrest within the circuit courts. It then outlines reasons why the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s definition of an intervening arrest should prevail. Finally, this Note proposes that the U.S. Sentencing Commission should revise the Guidelines to provide a clearer explanation of the term intervening arrest in order to resolve disagreement among the circuit courts and achieve greater fairness in sentencing

Am I Under Arrest? Why the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Need a Strict Definition of What Constitutes an Intervening Arrest

Congress provided for the creation of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines to promote fairness and produce proportional and uniform sentences. The Guidelines provide judges with a guideline range for sentencing based on a defendant’s criminal history score and the offense level of the defendant’s criminal conduct. A defendant’s prior “intervening arrests” are considered in computing her criminal history score. But the current version of the Guidelines does not clearly define what constitutes an intervening arrest for the purposes of calculating an offender’s score. Consequently, a split has developed between circuit courts as to whether a criminal traffic citation constitutes an intervening arrest when determining a defendant’s criminal history score. This Note analyzes the different definitions of an intervening arrest within the circuit courts. It then outlines reasons why the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s definition of an intervening arrest should prevail. Finally, this Note proposes that the U.S. Sentencing Commission should revise the Guidelines to provide a clearer explanation of the term intervening arrest in order to resolve disagreement among the circuit courts and achieve greater fairness in sentencing

Individual differences and basic logic ability

The study of reasoning and information processing in cognitive science has often used problems derived from classical propositional logic inference rules in order to see how people make decisions, often comparing the qualities of those that can and cannot successfully complete these tasks. However, the majority of research that has been done has only focused on one inference rule: the material conditional. This narrow focus does not allow for inferences to be made about the role of logical ability simpliciter in cognitive science research. In order to better understand the relationship between cognitive ability and successfully completing tasks based on four binary logical connectives (conjunction, disjunction, material implication, and biconditional), 338 participants were given the Propositional Logic Test (PLT), a N-Back task, a Belief Bias Syllogisms Task, and the Cognitive Reflection Test, that latter two of which have been used in support of a dual-process theory of reasoning. Because no previous research exists examining the dimensionality of the PLT, multiple confirmatory factory analyses (CFA) were performed on the PLT to determine its factor structure. The best fitting model was a 2-factor model with a disjunction factor and conditionals factor, indicating that the PLT is multi-dimensional and there are limitations on its use as a summed score. Multiple regression analyses were then performed on the PLT and the two factors present to reveal what differences between participants may be masked by using the PLT as a summed score. The results indicate that ability to properly make the deductive inferences on the PLT is strongly associated with measures of Type 2 thinking and moderately associated with general intelligence. Furthermore, the disjunction factor was moderately related to both traditional measures of cognitive ability and Type 2 processing, and the conditionals factor was strongly related to the ability to engage in Type 2 processing and only weakly related to traditional measures of cognitive ability. Thus, the ability to engage in specific types of deductive inferences requires different cognitive abilities, and the ability to engage in basic logical reasoning is significantly predicted by measures of general intelligence, but this alone is not sufficient

ABO, D Blood Typing and Subtyping Using Plug-Based Microfluidics

A plug-based microfluidic approach was used to perform multiple agglutination assays in parallel without crosscontamination and using only microliter volumes of blood. To perform agglutination assays on-chip, a microfluidic device was designed to combine aqueous streams of antibody, buffer, and red blood cells (RBCs) to form droplets 30-40 nL in volume surrounded by a fluorinated carrier fluid. Using this approach, proof-of-concept ABO and D (Rh) blood typing and group A subtyping were successfully performed by screening against multiple antigens without cross-contamination. On-chip subtyping distinguished common A1 and A2 RBCs by using a lectinbased dilution assay. This flexible platform was extended to differentiate rare, weakly agglutinating RBCs of A subtypes by analyzing agglutination avidity as a function of shear rate. Quantitative analysis of changes in contrast within plugs revealed subtleties in agglutination kinetics and enabled characterization of agglutination of rare blood subtypes. Finally, this platform was used to detect bacteria, demonstrating the potential usefulness of this assay in detecting sepsis and the potential for applications in agglutination-based viral detection. The speed, control, and minimal sample consumption provided by this technology present an advance for point of care applications, blood typing of newborns, and general blood assays in small model organisms

Integrated analysis of topographically high Mafic exposures at Apollo-17 landing site using data from imaging sensors of Chandrayaan-1

This article does not have an abstract

Curie: Constraining Solar System Bombardment Using In Situ Radiometric Dating

The Curie mission would constrain the existence of the putative cataclysm by determining the age of samples directly sourced from the impact melt sheet of a major pre-Imbrium lunar basin. The measurements would also enable further understanding of lunar evolution by characterizing new lunar lithologies far from the Apollo and Luna landing sites, including the very low-Ti basalts in Mare Crisium and potential olivine rich lithologies in the margins of both Mare Nectaris and Mars Crisium. Equipped with a mass spectrometer and a LIBS, Curie would also be well-placed to survey volatile components of the lunar regolith, including surface-bound hydrogen