Medical Science and the Law

There are those who say that the earliest physician was the priest, just as the earliest judge was the ruler who uttered the divine command and was king and priest combined. Modern scholarship warns us to swallow with a grain of salt these sweeping generalities, yet they have at least a core of truth. Our profession - yours and mine - medicine and law have divided with the years, yet they were not far apart at the beginning

Nuclear Structure Studies at ISOLDE and their Impact on the Astrophysical r-Process

The focus of the present review is the production of the heaviest elements in nature via the r-process. A correct understanding and modeling requires the knowledge of nuclear properties far from stability and a detailed prescription of the astrophysical environment. Experiments at CERN/ISOLDE have played a pioneering role in exploring the characteristics of nuclear structure in terms of masses and beta-decay properties. Initial examinations paid attention to far unstable nuclei with magic neutron numbers related to r-process peaks, while present activities are centered on the evolution of shell effects with the distance from the valley of stability. We first show in site-independent applications the effect of both types of nuclear properties on r-process abundances. Then, we explore the results of calculations related to two different `realistic' astrophysical sites, (i) the supernova neutrino wind and (ii) neutron star mergers. We close with a list of remaining theoretical and experimental challenges needed to overcome for a full understanding of the nature of the r-process, and the role CERN/ISOLDE can play in this process.Comment: LATEX, 38 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Hyperfine Interaction

Quantum dynamics of the avian compass

The ability of migratory birds to orient relative to the Earth's magnetic field is believed to involve a coherent superposition of two spin states of a radical electron pair. However, the mechanism by which this coherence can be maintained in the face of strong interactions with the cellular environment has remained unclear. This Letter addresses the problem of decoherence between two electron spins due to hyperfine interaction with a bath of spin 1/2 nuclei. Dynamics of the radical pair density matrix are derived and shown to yield a simple mechanism for sensing magnetic field orientation. Rates of dephasing and decoherence are calculated ab initio and found to yield millisecond coherence times, consistent with behavioral experiments

Sulfur loss from subducted altered oceanic crust and implications for mantle oxidation

© The Author(s), [year]. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Walters, J. B., Cruz-Uribe, A. M., & Marschall, H. R. Sulfur loss from subducted altered oceanic crust and implications for mantle oxidation. Geochemical Perspectives Letters, 13, (2020): 36-41, doi:10.7185/geochemlet.2011.Oxygen fugacity (fO2) is a controlling factor of the physics of Earth’s mantle; however, the mechanisms driving spatial and secular changes in fO2 associated with convergent margins are highly debated. We present new thermodynamic models and petrographic observations to predict that oxidised sulfur species are produced during the subduction of altered oceanic crust. Sulfur loss from the subducting slab is a function of the protolith Fe3+/ΣFe ratio and subduction zone thermal structure, with elevated sulfur fluxes predicted for oxidised slabs in cold subduction zones. We also predict bi-modal release of sulfur-bearing fluids, with a low volume shallow flux of reduced sulfur followed by an enhanced deep flux of sulfate and sulfite species, consistent with oxidised arc magmas and associated copper porphyry deposits. The variable SOx release predicted by our models both across and among active margins may introduce fO2 heterogeneity to the upper mantle.We thank James Connolly for modelling support and Peter van Keken for providing updated P–T paths for the Syracuse et al. (2010) models. The manuscript benefited from the editorial handling by Helen Williams and from constructive reviews of Maryjo Brounce, Katy Evans, and an anonymous reviewer. JBW acknowledges Fulbright and Chase Distinguished Research fellowships. This work was supported by NSF grant EAR1725301 awarded to AMC

Mosses of a Northern Ohio Area

Author Institution: 14,556 Superior Road, Cleveland Heights 18, Ohi

An Open Source Software Business Model For Law Enforcement And Justice Systems

Software application projects that are being developed or planned for use in environments that have typically been distributed or marketed to outside organizations may now be posed with new parameters to consider.  Not only are project managers and stakeholders confronted with the usual project constraints of scope, cost, time, and quality, but also new application development and distribution models must be given careful consideration.  By application development and distribution models, I am referring to decisions to develop, market, or procure, open source or proprietary software code.  This decision is not as much dependent on the development methodology as the distribution license used for the finished product.  There is no secret that companies that develop proprietary software, whether systems or applications, usually devise strategies to obsolete their products so that the purchase of upgraded versions will be required.  Support is often dropped from older version of software to force the purchase in new versions.  In addition, vendors often try to lock their customers into their products by forcing huge investments in specialized employees, training, special hardware, unique features, and large initial capital outlays.  Also, licenses often do not allow a sufficient timeframe to drop one product and move on to another brand.  This paper will present an example of an open source software model for law enforcement and justice systems that will attempt to prevent many of the problems associated with procuring proprietary software.  This model will describe how a federal grant can fund the development of a criminal justice suite of software that can be distributed without cost to any law enforcement or justice agency.  The first module, a jail management system, has been completed and a business model has been developed for its open deployment