The Use of Scientific Evidence in Rape Prosecutions

Rape is defined as unlawful sexual intercourse with a female without her consent. The crime has three basic elements: lack of consent, penetration, and identification of the assailant. Successful rape prosecutions are increasingly utilizing scientific evidence to investigate and prove the elements of rape. The purpose of this paper is to explore the many uses of scientific evidence with an eye towards providing a useful checklist to aid attorneys involved in a rape prosecution

The Gribov Ambiguity for Maximal Abelian and Center Gauges in SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory

We present results for the fundamental string tension in SU(2) lattice gauge theory after projection to maximal abelian and direct maximal center gauges. We generate 20 Gribov copies/configuration. Abelian and center projected string tensions slowly decrease as higher values of the gauge functionals are reached.Comment: 3 pages, latex, 1 postscript figure, presented at Lattice 2000(Topology and Vacuum

The Attorney-Client Privilege

History suggests that the attorney-client privilege is the oldest of the evidentiary privileges. It probably arose at common law during the 1500\u27s, concurrent with the right to trial by jury. Judges initially viewed the privilege as a vindication of the oath and the honor of the attorney. However, during the late 1700\u27s, courts began to assert that the privilege\u27s purpose was to encourage clients to make full disclosure to their counsel, by providing subjectively for the client\u27s freedom of apprehension. In 1871, the Virginia Supreme Court5 stated that [i]f the privilege did not exist at all, every one would be thrown upon his own legal resources; deprived of all professional assistance, a man would not venture to consult any skillful person, or would only dare to tell his counsel half his case. Today, courts continue to state that the benefits of full disclosure justify the privilege, and frequently assert that without such full disclosure an attorney may not be able to adequately advise his client

Ultra-high energy cosmic rays may come from clustered sources

Clustering of cosmic-ray sources affects the flux observed beyond the cutoff imposed by the cosmic microwave background and may be important in interpreting the AGASA, Fly's Eye, and HiRes data. The standard deviation, sigma, in the predicted number, N, of events above 10^{20} eV is sigma/N = 0.9(r_0/10 Mpc)^{0.9}, where r_0 is the unknown scale length of the correlation function (r_0 = 10 Mpc for field galaxies). Future experiments will allow the determination of r_0 through the detection of anisotropies in arrival directions of ~ 10^{20} eV cosmic-rays over angular scales of Theta ~ r_0/30 Mpc.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa

The Maximal Abelian Gauge, Monopoles, and Vortices in SU(3) Lattice Gauge Theory

We report on calculations of the heavy quark potential in SU(3) lattice gauge theory. Full SU(3) results are compared to three cases which involve gauge-fixing and projection. All of these start from the maximal abelian gauge (MAG), in its simplest form. The first case is abelian projection to U(1)xU(1). The second keeps only the abelian fields of monopoles in the MAG. The third involves an additional gauge-fixing to the indirect maximal center gauge (IMCG), followed by center projection to Z(3). At one gauge fixing/configuration, the string tensions calculated from MAG U(1)xU(1), MAG monopoles, and IMCG Z(3) are all less than the full SU(3) string tension. The projected string tensions further decrease, by approximately 10%, when account is taken of gauge ambiguities. Comparison is made with corresponding results for SU(2). It is emphasized that the formulation of the MAG is more subtle for SU(3) than for SU(2), and that the low string tensions may be caused by the simple MAG form used. A generalized MAG for SU(3) is formulated.Comment: 22 pages, latex, 2 postscript figures. Replaced version has added data at beta=6.0, analysis of Gribov ambiguities, extended tables of results, discussion of scalin

Of Echo Chambers and Contrarian Clubs:Exposure to Political Disagreement Among German and Italian Users of Twitter

Scholars have debated whether social media platforms, by allowing users to select the information to which they are exposed, may lead people to isolate themselves from viewpoints with which they disagree, thereby serving as political “echo chambers.” We investigate hypotheses concerning the circumstances under which Twitter users who communicate about elections would engage with (a) supportive, (b) oppositional, and (c) mixed political networks. Based on online surveys of representative samples of Italian and German individuals who posted at least one Twitter message about elections in 2013, we find substantial differences in the extent to which social media facilitates exposure to similar versus dissimilar political views. Our results suggest that exposure to supportive, oppositional, or mixed political networks on social media can be explained by broader patterns of political conversation (i.e., structure of offline networks) and specific habits in the political use of social media (i.e., the intensity of political discussion). These findings suggest that disagreement persists on social media even when ideological homophily is the modal outcome, and that scholars should pay more attention to specific situational and dispositional factors when evaluating the implications of social media for political communication

The critical periphery in the growth of social protests

Social media have provided instrumental means of communication in many recent political protests. The efficiency of online networks in disseminating timely information has been praised by many commentators; at the same time, users are often derided as “slacktivists” because of the shallow commitment involved in clicking a forwarding button. Here we consider the role of these peripheral online participants, the immense majority of users who surround the small epicenter of protests, representing layers of diminishing online activity around the committed minority. We analyze three datasets tracking protest communication in different languages and political contexts through the social media platform Twitter and employ a network decomposition technique to examine their hierarchical structure. We provide consistent evidence that peripheral participants are critical in increasing the reach of protest messages and generating online content at levels that are comparable to core participants. Although committed minorities may constitute the heart of protest movements, our results suggest that their success in maximizing the number of online citizens exposed to protest messages depends, at least in part, on activating the critical periphery. Peripheral users are less active on a per capita basis, but their power lies in their numbers: their aggregate contribution to the spread of protest messages is comparable in magnitude to that of core participants. An analysis of two other datasets unrelated to mass protests strengthens our interpretation that core-periphery dynamics are characteristically important in the context of collective action events. Theoretical models of diffusion in social networks would benefit from increased attention to the role of peripheral nodes in the propagation of information and behavior

Structural insights into the calcium-dependent interaction between calbindin-D28K and caspase-3

AbstractThe regulation of apoptosis involves a complicated cascade requiring numerous protein interactions including the pro-apoptotic executioner protein caspase-3 and the anti-apoptotic calcium-binding protein calbindin-D28K. Using isothermal titration calorimetry, we show that calbindin-D28K binds caspase-3 in a Ca2+-dependent fashion. Molecular docking and conformational sampling studies of the Ca2+-loaded capase-3/calbindin-D28K interaction were performed in order to isolate potentially crucial intermolecular contacts. Residues in the active site loops of caspase-3 and EF-hands 1 and 2 of calbindin-D28K were shown to be critical to the interaction. Based on these studies, a model is proposed to help understand how calbindin-D28K may deactivate caspase-3 upon binding.Structured summary of protein interactionsCalbindin-D28K and Caspase-3 bind by isothermal titration calorimetry (View interaction

Of echo chambers and contrarian clubs: Exposure to political disagreement among German and Italian users of Twitter

Scholars have debated whether social media platforms, by allowing users to select the information to which they are exposed, may lead people to isolate themselves from viewpoints with which they disagree, thereby serving as political “echo chambers.” We investigate hypotheses concerning the circumstances under which Twitter users who communicate about elections would engage with (a) supportive, (b) oppositional, and (c) mixed political networks. Based on online surveys of representative samples of Italian and German individuals who posted at least one Twitter message about elections in 2013, we find substantial differences in the extent to which social media facilitates exposure to similar versus dissimilar political views. Our results suggest that exposure to supportive, oppositional, or mixed political networks on social media can be explained by broader patterns of political conversation (i.e., structure of offline networks) and specific habits in the political use of social media (i.e., the intensity of political discussion). These findings suggest that disagreement persists on social media even when ideological homophily is the modal outcome, and that scholars should pay more attention to specific situational and dispositional factors when evaluating the implications of social media for political communication