Judges, Racism, and the Problem of Actual Innocence

The facts and data are in and the conclusion they compel is bleak: the American criminal justice system and its showpiece, the criminal trial, harbor at their core a systemic racism. For decades, criminologists, law professors, sociologists, government statisticians, and others have been collecting and collating data on crime, punishment, and incarceration in the United States. These intrepid scholars have looked at crime, criminals, and the justice system from all angles—the race of defendants and victims; the relationship of poverty to criminality; severity of crime; severity of punishment; incarceration rates for different racial groups; sentencing and sentence disparities; and so on. When this information, reflecting thoughtful examinations of crime and incarceration statistics over forty years, is combined with the results of recent investigations into the tragic phenomena of the erroneous convictions of actually innocent people, it becomes apparent that something is drastically broken—especially relative to race—within our criminal justice system. Judges may have theories and political philosophies about everything from the maldistribution of wealth and resources in this country and the ludicrously low poverty line defined by the government ($18,600 for a family of four), but we are powerless as judges to do anything about it. We can, however, bring an awareness of these problems into the courtroom. So with practical limitations in mind, it is worth exploring what an alert judge with an informed conscience can do to confront racism in the criminal trial. I hasten to add that I am mindful that more than 90% of the criminal accusations lodged in this country are resolved by plea bargains, but the fact that most prisoners end up behind bars without a trial does not vitiate my criticisms. I submit that seasoned defense attorneys—whether members of the private bar or public defenders\u27 offices—and their clients are either consciously aware of or intuit the problems and defects of the criminal trial I discuss in this essay, and they make their decisions within the shadows of these problematic realities

Разработка системы телемеханики куста № 3 Северо-Сильгинского газоконденсатного месторождения

ПРОЕКТ, СЕПАРАТОР ЦЕНТРОБЕЖНЫЙ ВИХРЕВОЙ, ТЕМПЕРАТУРА, ДАВЛЕНИЕ, ДАТЧИКИ, ИСПОЛНИТЕЛЬНЫЕ МЕХАНИЗМЫ, АВТОМАТИЗИРОВАННОЕ РАБОЧЕЕ МЕСТО, МНЕМОСХЕМА, SCADA - InTouch. Объектом исследования является газовый центробежный сепаратор СЦВ-7-159(1200) / 130. Цель работы – разработка системы телемеханики с использованием программируемого логического контроллера, на основе выбранной SCADA системы. В данном проекте была разработана система телемеханики в комплексе с системой контроля и управления технологическим процессом сепарации газа на базе промышленного контроллера Siemens S7-1200, с применением SCADA – системы InTouch.не

Rigidity percolation in a field

Rigidity Percolation with g degrees of freedom per site is analyzed on randomly diluted Erdos-Renyi graphs with average connectivity gamma, in the presence of a field h. In the (gamma,h) plane, the rigid and flexible phases are separated by a line of first-order transitions whose location is determined exactly. This line ends at a critical point with classical critical exponents. Analytic expressions are given for the densities n_f of uncanceled degrees of freedom and gamma_r of redundant bonds. Upon crossing the coexistence line, n_f and gamma_r are continuous, although their first derivatives are discontinuous. We extend, for the case of nonzero field, a recently proposed hypothesis, namely that the density of uncanceled degrees of freedom is a ``free energy'' for Rigidity Percolation. Analytic expressions are obtained for the energy, entropy, and specific heat. Some analogies with a liquid-vapor transition are discussed. Particularizing to zero field, we find that the existence of a (g+1)-core is a necessary condition for rigidity percolation with g degrees of freedom. At the transition point gamma_c, Maxwell counting of degrees of freedom is exact on the rigid cluster and on the (g+1)-rigid-core, i.e. the average coordination of these subgraphs is exactly 2g, although gamma_r, the average coordination of the whole system, is smaller than 2g. gamma_c is found to converge to 2g for large g, i.e. in this limit Maxwell counting is exact globally as well. This paper is dedicated to Dietrich Stauffer, on the occasion of his 60th birthday.Comment: RevTeX4, psfig, 16 pages. Equation numbering corrected. Minor typos correcte

Preterm Birth in Caucasians Is Associated with Coagulation and Inflammation Pathway Gene Variants

Spontaneous preterm birth (<37 weeks gestation—PTB) occurs in ∼12% of pregnancies in the United States, and is the largest contributor to neonatal morbidity and mortality. PTB is a complex disease, potentially induced by several etiologic factors from multiple pathophysiologic pathways. To dissect the genetic risk factors of PTB a large-scale high-throughput candidate gene association study was performed examining 1536 SNP in 130 candidate genes from hypothesized PTB pathways. Maternal and fetal DNA from 370 US Caucasian birth-events (172 cases and 198 controls) was examined. Single locus, haplotype, and multi-locus association analyses were performed separately on maternal and fetal data. For maternal data the strongest associations were found in genes in the complement-coagulation pathway related to decidual hemorrhage in PTB. In this pathway 3 of 6 genes examined had SNPs significantly associated with PTB. These include factor V (FV) that was previously associated with PTB, factor VII (FVII), and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). The single strongest effect was observed in tPA marker rs879293 with a significant allelic (p = 2.30×10−3) and genotypic association (p = 2.0×10−6) with PTB. The odds ratio (OR) for this SNP was 2.80 [CI 1.77–4.44] for a recessive model. Given that 6 of 8 markers in tPA were statistically significant, sliding window haplotype analyses were performed and revealed an associating 4 marker haplotype in tPA (p = 6.00×10−3). The single strongest effect in fetal DNA was observed in the inflammatory pathway at rs17121510 in the interleukin-10 receptor antagonist (IL-10RA) gene for allele (p = 0.01) and genotype (p = 3.34×10−4). The OR for the IL-10RA genotypic additive model was 1.92 [CI 1.15–3.19] (p = 2.00×10−3). Finally, exploratory multi-locus analyses in the complement and coagulation pathway were performed and revealed a potentially significant interaction between a marker in FV (rs2187952) and FVII (rs3211719) (p<0.001). These results support a role for genes in both the coagulation and inflammation pathways, and potentially different maternal and fetal genetic risks for PTB

ANALOG-1 ISS - The first part of an analogue mission to guide ESA's robotic moon exploration efforts

The METERON project is a European initiative to prepare for future human-robotic exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies. The project aims to implement infrastructure and tools to test and evaluate communications, operations and robotic control strategies in the context of future exploration missions. It is in collaboration between three directorates of the European Space Agency (ESA); Human and Robotic Exploration (HRE), Technology, Engineering and Quality (TEC), Operations (OPS). This paper presents the first part of the on-going ANALOG-1 experiment which is the culmination of the METERON project, implementing the knowledge gained in the 12 distinct METERON experiments between 2011 and 2020. These all address aspects of teleoperating a robotic asset from an orbital platform, i.e. technical implementation, user interfaces, autonomy and operations. The ANALOG-1 technology demonstration and operations concept experiment is based upon the surface mission scenario segment of the notional EL3 sample return mission. This segment focuses on the control of a lunar surface robotic asset from the Earth and from the Lunar Gateway. In November 2019, the first part of this experiment was successfully completed from the ISS. It assessed the effectiveness of a state-of-the-art robotic control interface to control a complex mobile robot from orbit, as well as evaluating the scientific interactions, during robotic-assisted geology exploration, between crew in orbit and scientists on the ground. Luca Parmitano drove this robot in a lunar analogue site in the Netherlands, and controlled its arms, while he was on the ISS. For this experiment, a complex control station had been installed on the ISS, including a sigma.7 haptic device. This device allowed the astronaut to feel forces felt by the robotic arm. The experiment demonstrated the advantage of having an immersive control station and high level of robotic dexterity, with Luca finishing all his assigned and secondary geology targets ahead of time. The second part of Analog-1 extends the ISS experiment with a full ground-based analogue, in which further technical experiments and a full mission scenario will be played out. The analogue is in cooperation with the DLR ARCHES space demo mission, and includes a rover operations centre based at ESOC as well as an outdoor lunar analogue site on Mount Etna. The astronaut, in this case, is on ground. We expect to further demonstrate the advantages of a state-of-the art interface for both fully teleoperated and semi-autonomous rover and robotic arm control for lunar missions, in order to guide ESA's Moon exploration efforts