Appeals from Pleas of Guilty and Nolo Contendere: History and Procedural Considerations.

The changing history of appeal rights—made through decisional interpretation by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals—highlights the importance of staying current on interpretations of procedural and substantive rules. Lawyers owe their clients a duty to understand the history of the right to appeal from a conviction following a guilty plea. Additionally, they owe their clients a duty to understand substantive and procedural requirements for maintaining such appeals, as well as to stay abreast of changes affecting these appeals. Recently, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals handed down several opinions drastically reshaping the landscape for appeals following pleas of guilty and nolo contendere. In Texas, statutes grant criminal defendants the right to appeal. According to the 1965 Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, a defendant’s right to appeal includes appealing convictions from pleas of guilty or nolo contendere. In 1985, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals promulgated the original Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure. The Rules allowed for the repeal of certain articles of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure that previously governed post-trial, appellate, and review procedures in criminal cases. Then, in 1997, the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals amended the Rules of Appellate Procedure. Consequently, there are several important historical and procedural considerations to be aware of when filing appeals from pleas of guilty and nolo contendere. Lawyers practicing criminal law should keep in mind the pace at which changes have developed and prepare for future changes in order to effectively represent their clients

Application of Ligninolytic Enzymes in the Production of Biofuels from Cotton Wastes

The application of ligninolytic fungi and enzymes is an option to overcome the issues related with the production of biofuels using cotton wastes. In this dissertation, the ligninolytic fungus and enzymes were evaluated as pretreatment for the biochemical conversion of Cotton Gin Trash (CGT) in ethanol and as a treatment for the transformation of cotton wastes biochar in other substances. In biochemical conversion, seven combinations of three pretreatments (ultrasonication, liquid hot water and ligninolytic enzymes) were evaluated on CGT. The best results were achieved by the sequential combination of ultrasonication, hot water, and ligninolytic enzymes with an improvement of 10% in ethanol yield. To improve these results, alkaline-ultrasonication was evaluated. Additionally, Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) and principal component analysis (PCA) were employed as fast methodology to identify structural differences in the biomass. The combination of ultrasonication-alkali hydrolysis, hot liquid water, and ligninolytic enzymes using 15% of NaOH improved 35% ethanol yield compared with the original treatment. Additionally, FT-IR and PCA identified modifications in the biomass structure after different types of pretreatments and conditions. In thermal conversion, this study evaluated the biodepolymerization of cotton wastes biochar using chemical and biological treatments. The chemical depolymerization evaluated three chemical agents (KMnO4, H2SO4, and NaOH), with three concentrations and two environmental conditions. The sulfuric acid treatments performed the largest transformations of the biochar solid phase; whereas, the KMnO4 treatments achieved the largest depolymerizations. The compounds released into the liquid phase were correlated with fulvic and humic acids and silicon compounds. The biological depolymerization utilized four ligninolytic fungi Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Ceriporiopsis subvermispora, Postia placenta, and Bjerkandera adusta. The greatest depolymerization was obtained by C. subvermispora. The depolymerization kinetics of C. subvermispora evidenced the production of laccase and manganese peroxidase and a correlation between depolymerization and production of ligninolytic enzymes. The modifications obtained in the liquid and solid phases showed the production of humic and fulvic acids from the cultures with C. subvermispora. The results of this research are the initial steps for the development of new processes using the ligninolytic fungus and their enzymes for the production of biofuels from cotton wastes

Coupled nonlinear Schroedinger equations.

We consider a linearly coupled system of nonlinear Schrodinger equations (CNLSE) in one space dimension, arbitrary discrete dimension d, and power nonlinearity with exponent $2\sigma + 1.$ Such systems arise in nonlinear optics, where the cubic case $(\sigma = 1)$ models an array of coupled optical fiber waveguides. These systems are like the nonlinear Schrodinger equations (NLS) in R\sp{d + 1} with d dimensions discretized. Many of the CNLSE results are shown to have their analog in the Discrete Self-Trapping equation, a system of ordinary differential equations also known as the Discrete Nonlinear Schrodinger equation, or Discrete Self-Trapping Equation. We construct ground state solutions by solving the minimization problem I\sb{\nu} = \min\{{\cal H}:{\cal P} = \nu\} where ${\cal H}$ is the hamiltonian and ${\cal P}$ is the L\sp2 norm squared. The Concentration Compactness Principle of P. L. Lions is used to show that ground states exist when I\sb{\nu} 0. For \sigma\sb{\*}(d)\le\sigma \nu\sb{c}. This is proved via a relation found between the threshold and optimal constants in continuous-discrete interpolation inequalities of Sobolev-Nirenberg-Gagliardo type. For the DST, the critical nonlinearity is found exactly to be \sigma\sb{\*} = 2/d. Various other results are collected about ground states. The case of periodic arrays with discrete laplacian coupling is considered. For small power, the ground state on the periodic array is the uniform state, which has a single NLS soliton on each fiber. Bifurcations for these uniform states have been reported in the optics literature. We rigorously derive these bifurcations and show that the uniform solution loses stability at the bifurcation point.Ph.D.MathematicsPure SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130876/2/9811229.pd

Towards the Next Generation Operational Meteorological Radar

AbstractThis article summarizes research and risk reduction that will inform acquisition decisions regarding NOAA’s future national operational weather radar network. A key alternative being evaluated is polarimetric phased-array radar (PAR). Research indicates PAR can plausibly achieve fast, adaptive volumetric scanning, with associated benefits for severe-weather warning performance. We assess these benefits using storm observations and analyses, observing system simulation experiments, and real radar-data assimilation studies. Changes in the number and/or locations of radars in the future network could improve coverage at low altitude. Analysis of benefits that might be so realized indicates the possibility for additional improvement in severe-weather and flash-flood warning performance, with associated reduction in casualties. Simulations are used to evaluate techniques for rapid volumetric scanning and assess data quality characteristics of PAR. Finally, we describe progress in developing methods to compensate for polarimetric variable estimate biases introduced by electronic beam-steering. A research-to-operations (R2O) strategy for the PAR alternative for the WSR-88D replacement network is presented.National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA