The T-Rex Without Teeth: Evolving Strickland v. Washington and the Test for Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

In Strickland v. Washington the United States Supreme Court formulated the test for determining whether counsel in a criminal case is ineffective. When the Court decided Strickland it created a doctrine of enormous proportions, but with little impact--a legal tyrannosaurus rex without teeth. In the last decade, by using American Bar Association (“ABA”) standards to evaluate counsel\u27s performance, the Court has given the T-Rex some sizable incisors. The purposes of this article are to: (1) determine how frequently the United States Supreme Court uses ABA standards in its decisions and describe briefly for what purposes the Court uses those standards; (2) describe in some detail the decision of Strickland v. Washington and its test for determining whether counsel was ineffective; (3) describe the decisions of Williams v. Taylor, [FN4] Wiggins v. Smith, [FN5] and Rompilla v Beard, [FN6] and their implications on the test formulated in Strickland as to how the ABA standards relate to defense counsel\u27s duty to investigate; (4) report on the ABA\u27s efforts to discover and describe the causes of ineffective assistance; and (5) suggest changes that tighten the Strickland test, giving it more traction as a guide for the courts in measuring counsel\u27s performance

Between a rock and a hard place: Vulnerability and precarity in rural Nepal

Drawing on a local study on Nepal’s Terai, this paper explores the nature of livelihood exposure to shocks and stresses among rural households in two Village Development Committees in Sunsari District. The primary data are derived from a 117 household survey supplemented by 19 purposefully sampled follow-up interviews. The paper opens with a discussion of the changing nature of exposure in the global South, distinguishing between inherited vulnerability and produced precarity. We then provide background to the research site and the research methods. In the core empirical part of the paper we unravel and distinguish between the livelihood threats and opportunities faced by households in the area and use these to reflect on the nature of ’exposure’, its historical origins and contemporary (re)production. The final part of the paper uses the Nepal case to build a more general argument, proposing that if we are to understand the puzzle of continued livelihood exposure and uncertainty in the context of aggregate economic expansion we need to identify and interrogate the processes that may, at the same time, produce wealth and reduce vulnerability, while also generating precarity

Economic viability of alternative horizontal axis tidal turbine concepts: operation and maintenance simplicity is the key?

A recent dti funded study[1] examined the difference in power capture between a variety of concept horizontal axis tidal turbines (HATT). The aim of the work was to examine the trade-off between design complexity and expected economic cost over the lifetime of tidal turbine farm. Two types of mechanical complexity were examined. The first assumed that the device was free to yaw as the tidal current changes direction. In this case the difference in power capture came from the use of either an optimum uni-directional blade or for a fixed device a bi-directional blade design developed at the University of Southampton. The second complexity was whether the blades would have a controllable pitch. For the basis of the comparison it was assumed that the basic turbine would have a fixed diameter of 20m and be sited in 40m water depth with a spring mean maximum tidal current of 2.5m/s. The methodology adopted was to analyse the hydrodynamic performance and tidal cycle energy capture using a blade element momentum code. In order to make a best-case comparison a blade shape design optimisation was carried out for both the uni and bi-directional blades by searching of the order of 50,000 combinations of chord and twist distributions. A range of alternative blade rpm control strategies were examined to see how this would influence the energy capture. A detailed mechanical system representation was developed so that the reliability and availability of each turbine within the farm could be assessed with a stochastic Monte-Carlo simulation applied to examine variability. The result of the work based on the establishment of a systematic framework, using realistic assumptions was the extent to which the loss in energy conversion efficiency of the simpler concepts was counterbalanced by a reduction in capital and O&amp;M costs. It was concluded that such a simple system is technically feasible and is competitive on a life cycle cost basis and worthy of further consideration<br/

Suitability of Magnesium Oxide as a Visar Window

Impedance matching of a velocity interferometer for any reflector (VISAR) window to a material under study helps simplify a shock experiment by effectively allowing one to measure an in situ particle velocity. The shock impedance of magnesium oxide (MgO) falls roughly midway between those of sapphire and LiF, two of the most frequently used VISAR window materials. A series of symmetric impact experiments was performed to characterize the suitability of single crystal, (100) oriented magnesium oxide as a VISAR window material. These experiments yielded good results and show the viability of MgO as a VISAR window up to 23 GPa. Results were used to determine window correction factors and, subsequently, to estimate the pressure induced change in index of refraction. In many of the shots in this work we exceeded the Hugoniot elastic limit (HEL) of MgO, and both elastic and plastic waves are evident in the velocity profiles. The presence of both waves within the VISAR window complicates the typical VISAR window correction analysis. Preliminary analysis of the elastic and plastic contributions to the window correction is presented

Hot startup experience with electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuel

The treatment of spent metal fuel from the EBR-II fast reactor commenced in June of 1996 at the Fuel Conditioning Facility on the Argonne-West site in Idaho, USA. During the first year of hot operations, 20 fuel assemblies entered processing and 6 low enrichment uranium product ingots were produced. Results are presented for the various process steps with decontamination factors achieved and equipment operational history reported

Qualitative evaluation of a deferred consent process in paediatric emergency research: a PREDICT study

Background: A challenge of conducting research in critically ill children is that the therapeutic window for the intervention may be too short to seek informed consent prior to enrolment. In specific circumstances, most international ethical guidelines allow for children to be enrolled in research with informed consent obtained later, termed deferred consent (DC) or retrospective consent. There is a paucity of data on the attitudes of parents to this method of enrolment in paediatric emergency research. Objectives: To explore the attitudes of parents to the concept of DC and to expand the knowledge of the limitations to informed consent and DC in these situations.MethodChildren presenting with uncomplicated febrile seizures or bronchiolitis were identified from three separate hospital emergency department databases. Parents were invited to participate in a semistructured telephone interview exploring themes of limitations of prospective informed consent, acceptability of the DC process and the most appropriate time to seek DC. Transcripts underwent inductive thematic analysis with intercoder agreement, using Nvivo 11 software. Results: A total of 39 interviews were conducted. Participants comprehended the limitations of informed consent under emergency circumstances and were generally supportive of DC. However, they frequently confused concepts of clinical care and research, and support for participation was commonly linked to their belief of personal benefit. Conclusion: Participants acknowledged the requirement for alternatives to prospective informed consent in emergency research, and were supportive of the concept of DC. Our results suggest that current research practice seems to align with community expectations.</jats:sec

Phenology of brown bear breeding season and related geographical cues

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited[EN] Knowledge about breeding biology is often incomplete in species with complex reproductive strategies. The brown bear Ursus arctos is a polygamous seasonal breeder inhabiting a wide variety of habitats and environmental conditions. We compiled information about brown bear breeding season dates from 36 study areas across their distribution range in the Palearctic and Nearctic regions and investigated how their breeding phenology relates to geographical factors (latitude, photoperiod, altitude and region). Brown bear matings were observed for 8 months, from April to November, with a peak in May–July. We found a 59-day difference in the onset of bear breeding season among study areas, with an average 2.3 days delay for each degree of latitude northwards. The onset of the breeding season showed a strong relationship with photoperiod and latitude, but not with region (i.e. Palearctic vs Nearctic) and altitude. First observations of bear mating occurred earlier in areas at lower latitudes. Photoperiod ranged between 14 and 18 hours at the beginning of the season for most of the study areas. The duration of the breeding season ranged from 25 to 138 days among study areas. None of the investigated factors was related to the length of the breeding season. Our results support the relevance of photoperiod to the onset of breeding, as found in other ursids, but not a shorter breeding season at higher latitudes, a pattern reported in other mammals. Our findings suggest a marked seasonality of bear reproductive behaviour, but also certain level of plasticity. Systematic field observations of breeding behaviour are needed to increase our knowledge on the factors determining mating behaviour in species with complex systems and how these species may adapt to climate change.SIWe thank Marjan Artnak, Peter Bajc, Matic Brenk, Tomáš Flajs, Uroš Grželj, Robert Hlavica, Aleš Jagodnik, Peter Klančar, Anton Marinčič, Mariusz Nędzyński, Borut Semenič and Vladimir Vician for providing information about their observations of bear mating. Robert Gatzka assisted with data collection in the Biezszcady Mountains. We thank Jon Swenson and Jumpei Tomiyasu for their help in the literature search. AGR and NS were supported by the BearConnect project funded by the National Science Centre in Poland (2016/22/Z/NZ8/00121) through the 2015-2016 BiodivERsA COFUND call for research proposals, with the national funders ANR/DLR-PT/UEFISCDI/NCN/RCN. Additional funding from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (project NN304- 294037, NS, IEC, KB), the National Science Centre in Poland (project DEC-2013/08/M/NZ9/ 00469, NS), the National Centre for Research and Development (GLOBE, POL-NOR/198352/85/ 2013, NS, TZK, FZ) and Slovenian Research Agency (P4-0059, MK) is acknowledged. AGR and NS conceived the study and wrote a first draft of the paper; AGR and NS compiled the data, AGR analyzed the data; all authors provided data and comments that improved the manuscript. We thank two anonymous reviewers for useful comments on the previous versions of the manuscript