Wherefore Art Thou Guidelines? An Empirical Study of White-Collar Criminal Sentencing and How the Gall Decision Effectively Eliminated the Sentencing Guidelines

[Excerpt] “Until the passage of the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1984, federal judges had relatively wide discretion in sentencing federal offenders up to the statutory maximum. This judicial discretion led to a disparity in the sentences of similarly situated offenders, particularly in white-collar cases. The Guidelines attempted to eliminate this disparity by establishing maximum and minimum sentences for certain offenses based on the characteristics of the crime. An important feature of the Guidelines system was its mandatory nature, which decreased and structured the judiciary‘s discretion within bounds set by Congress. The mandatory application of the Guidelines resulted in stiff sentences for white-collar criminals, effectively reducing the disparity in sentencing that had existed prior to implementation. However, in January of 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held in United States v. Booker that the Guidelines‘ mandatory use of enhancing factors not found by a jury was unconstitutional, and the proper remedy for this constitutional error was to sever the provisions from the statute that made the Guidelines mandatory, rendering the Guidelines advisory. Then, in December of 2007, the Court effectively eliminated the mandatory guideline sentencing entirely in Gall v. United States. Although the Gall decision impacts all sentencing within the federal court system, a significant group of criminal defendants that one should expect to be impacted are high-ranking corporate officers convicted of financial crimes. Theoretically, those defendants should now expect to receive lighter sentences, in part because of the subjective factors available to district court judges during sentencing which were expressly rejected by appellate courts prior to Gall. Additionally, because judges often articulate the view that white-collar crime lacks violence and identifiable victims — a belief that tends to obscure the severity of the harm caused by white-collar crimes — their personal views often influence white-collar defendants‘ sentences. Although one of the motivating factors behind Congress‘s passage of the Guidelines was the relatively light sentences given to white-collar criminals, recent trends demonstrate that judges have increasingly imposed more lenient sentences upon white-collar defendants since the Booker decision, a trend which Gall could help accelerate. This note will theoretically analyze why one should expect lighter sentences for defendants convicted of financial crimes, and it will test that theory by examining sentences imposed on Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) from 1998 to 2007.

Brocap trap to control the coffee berry borer in Indonesia

The coffee berry borer (CBB, Hypothenemus hampei Ferr.) is the most serious insect pest on coffee in Indonesia. It causes significant yield losses in terms of coffee production, but also reduces coffee bean quality, resulting in low productivity and the poor quality of Indonesian coffee. On average, CBB infestation on Indonesian coffee is more than 20%, and it results in yield losses of more than 10%. Using traps is the new CBB control method and the Brocap trap, developed by CIRAD and PROCAFE in El Salvador, is specially designed for Hypothenemus hampei. The trap is considered as a useful addition to IPM for CBB control in Indonesia. (Résumé d'auteur

Radar Z-R relationship for summer monsoon storms in Arizona

Radar-based estimates of rainfall rates and accumulations are one of the principal tools used by the National Weather Service (NWS) to identify areas of extreme precipitation that could lead to flooding. Radar-based rainfall estimates have been compared to gauge observations for 13 convective storm events over a densely instrumented, experimental watershed to derive an accurate reflectivity-rainfall rate (i.e., Z-R) relationship for these events. The resultant Z-R relationship, which is much different than the NWS operational Z-R, has been examined for a separate, independent event that occurred over a different location. For all events studied, the NWS operational Z-R significantly overestimates rainfall compared to gauge measurements. The gauge data from the experimental network, the NWS operational rain estimates, and the improved estimates resulting from this study have been input into a hydrologic model to "predict" watershed runoff for an intense event. Rainfall data from the gauges and from the derived Z-R relation produce predictions in relatively good agreement with observed streamflows. The NWS Z-R estimates lead to predicted peak discharge rates that are more than twice as large as the observed discharges. These results were consistent over a relatively wide range of subwatershed areas (4-148 km2). The experimentally derived Z-R relationship may provide more accurate radar estimates for convective storms over the southwest United States than does the operational convective Z-R used by the NWS. These initial results suggest that the generic NWS Z-R relation, used nationally for convective storms, might be substantially improved for regional application. © 2005 American Meteorological Society

Decoherence-protected memory for a single-photon qubit

The long-lived, efficient storage and retrieval of a qubit encoded on a photon is an important ingredient for future quantum networks. Although systems with intrinsically long coherence times have been demonstrated, the combination with an efficient light-matter interface remains an outstanding challenge. In fact, the coherence times of memories for photonic qubits are currently limited to a few milliseconds. Here we report on a qubit memory based on a single atom coupled to a high-finesse optical resonator. By mapping and remapping the qubit between a basis used for light-matter interfacing and a basis which is less susceptible to decoherence, a coherence time exceeding 100 ms has been measured with a time-independant storage-and-retrieval efficiency of 22%. This demonstrates the first photonic qubit memory with a coherence time that exceeds the lower bound needed for teleporting qubits in a global quantum internet.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Embedded direct numerical simulation for aeronautical CFD

AbstractA method is proposed by which a direct numerical simulation of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations may be embedded within a more general aeronautical CFD code. The method may be applied to any code which solves the Euler equations or the Favre-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. A formal decomposition of the flowfield is used to derive modified equations for use with direct numerical simulation solvers. Some preliminary applications for model flows with transitional separation bubbles are given.</jats:p

Accurate photonic temporal mode analysis with reduced resources

The knowledge and thus characterization of the temporal modes of quantum light fields is important in many areas of quantum physics ranging from experimental setup diagnosis to fundamental-physics investigations. Recent results showed how the auto-correlation function computed from continuous-wave homodyne measurements can be a powerful way to access the temporal mode structure. Here, we push forward this method by providing a deeper understanding and by showing how to extract the amplitude and phase of the temporal mode function with reduced experimental resources. Moreover, a quantitative analysis allows us to identify a regime of parameters where the method provides a trustworthy reconstruction, which we illustrate experimentally

Spatial patterns in thunderstorm rainfall events and their coupling with watershed hydrological response

Weather radar systems provide detailed information on spatial rainfall patterns known to play a significant role in runoff generation processes. In the current study, we present an innovative approach to exploit spatial rainfall information of air mass thunderstorms and link it with a watershed hydrological model. Observed radar data are decomposed into sets of rain cells conceptualized as circular Gaussian elements and the associated rain cell parameters, namely, location, maximal intensity and decay factor, are input into a hydrological model. Rain cells were retrieved from radar data for several thunderstorms over southern Arizona. Spatial characteristics of the resulting rain fields were evaluated using data from a dense rain gauge network. For an extreme case study in a semi-arid watershed, rain cells were derived and fed as input into a hydrological model to compute runoff response. A major factor in this event was found to be a single intense rain cell (out of the five cells decomposed from the storm). The path of this cell near watershed tributaries and toward the outlet enhanced generation of high flow. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis to cell characteristics indicated that peak discharge could be a factor of two higher if the cell was initiated just a few kilometers aside. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Life cycle studies of the hexose transporter of Plasmodium species and genetic validation of their essentiality

A Plasmodium falciparum hexose transporter (PfHT) has previously been shown to be a facilitative glucose and fructose transporter. Its expression in Xenopus laevis oocytes and the use of a glucose analogue inhibitor permitted chemical validation of PfHT as a novel drug target. Following recent re-annotations of the P. falciparum genome, other putative sugar transporters have been identified. To investigate further if PfHT is the key supplier of hexose to P. falciparum and to extend studies to different stages of Plasmodium spp., we functionally analysed the hexose transporters of both the human parasite P. falciparum and the rodent parasite Plasmodium berghei using gene targeting strategies. We show here the essential function of pfht for the erythrocytic parasite growth as it was not possible to knockout pfht unless the gene was complemented by an episomal construct. Also, we show that parasites are rescued from the toxic effect of a glucose analogue inhibitor when pfht is overexpressed in these transfectants. We found that the rodent malaria parasite orthologue, P. berghei hexose transporter (PbHT) gene, was similarly refractory to knockout attempts. However, using a single cross-over transfection strategy, we generated transgenic P. berghei parasites expressing a PbHT–GFP fusion protein suggesting that locus is amenable for gene targeting. Analysis of pbht-gfp transgenic parasites showed that PbHT is constitutively expressed through all the stages in the mosquito host in addition to asexual stages. These results provide genetic support for prioritizing PfHT as a target for novel antimalarials that can inhibit glucose uptake and kill parasites, as well as unveiling the expression of this hexose transporter in mosquito stages of the parasite, where it is also likely to be critical for survival

Convergence à la frontière rhénane: les mode de contacts entre les populations frontalières (Ier s. de n. è.)

El artículo se centra en las diferentes modalidades de contactos entre los grupos romanos y no romanos en la frontera del Rin. Puesto que en esta región dichas modalidades, se estudian generalmente a través de los datos materiales, la autora se propone examinarlas a través de los datos literarios. El artículo examina las interacciones militares, políticas, diplomáticas, económicas, sociales y culturales. Se concluye con una reflexión sobre el papel de las fuentes literarias para comprender el pasado.This paper, entitled Converging at the Rhine Frontier : Modes of Contact between Border Populations (1st century A.D.), focuses on the various modes of contact between Roman and non-Roman groups in the Rhine Frontier. Since modes of contact in this region have usually been studied through material data, the author proposes to examine them through literary data. The paper examines military, political, diplomatic, economic, and social-cultural interactions. It concludes on a reflection about the role of literary sources to understand the past