Transmission and Reflection in a Double Potential Well: Doing it the Bohmian Way

The Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics is applied to a transmission and reflection process in a double potential well. We consider a time dependent periodic wave function and study the particle trajectories. The average time, eventally transmitted particles stay inside the barrier is the average transmission time, which can be defined using the causal interpretation. The question remains whether these transmission times can be experimentally measured.Comment: 19 page

Quantile Motion and Tunneling

The concepts of quantile position, trajectory, and velocity are defined. For a tunneling quantum mechanical wave packet, it is proved that its quantile position always stays behind that of a free wave packet with the same initial parameters. In quantum mechanics the quantile trajectories are mathematically identical to Bohm's trajectories. A generalization to three dimensions is given.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, elsart, 3 ps figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

The direct perception hypothesis: perceiving the intention of another’s action hinders its precise imitation

We argue that imitation is a learning response to unintelligible actions, especially to social conventions. Various strands of evidence are converging on this conclusion, but further progress has been hampered by an outdated theory of perceptual experience. Comparative psychology continues to be premised on the doctrine that humans and nonhuman primates only perceive others’ physical ‘surface behavior’, while mental states are perceptually inaccessible. However, a growing consensus in social cognition research accepts the Direct Perception Hypothesis: primarily we see what others aim to do; we do not infer it from their motions. Indeed, physical details are overlooked – unless the action is unintelligible. On this basis we hypothesize that apes’ propensity to copy the goal of an action, rather than its precise means, is largely dependent on its perceived intelligibility. Conversely, children copy means more often than adults and apes because, uniquely, much adult human behavior is completely unintelligible to unenculturated observers due to the pervasiveness of arbitrary social conventions, as exemplified by customs, rituals, and languages. We expect the propensity to imitate to be inversely correlated with the familiarity of cultural practices, as indexed by age and/or socio-cultural competence. The Direct Perception Hypothesis thereby helps to parsimoniously explain the most important findings of imitation research, including children’s over-imitation and other species-typical and age-related variations

Verrucous venous malformation

Verrucous venous malformation, also known as verrucous hemangioma, is a superficial vascular malformation with a variable degree of hyperkeratosis that is composed of capillaries and veins in the dermis and sometimes subcutaneous tissue. We describe a 53-year-old man who presented with a large hyperkeratotic plaque of the left dorsal and plantar foot. Biopsy revealed verrucous acanthosis of the epidermis and a proliferation of thin-walled vessels in the dermis. We provide a brief review of the clinical and histopathologic presentation, differential diagnosis, and management of this rare entity

Salecker-Wigner-Peres clock and average tunneling times

The quantum clock of Salecker-Wigner-Peres is used, by performing a post-selection of the final state, to obtain average transmission and reflection times associated to the scattering of localized wave packets by static potentials in one dimension. The behavior of these average times is studied for a gaussian wave packet, centered around a tunneling wave number, incident on a rectangular barrier and, in particular, on a double delta barrier potential. The regime of opaque barriers is investigated and the results show that the average transmission time does not saturate, showing no evidence of the Hartman effect (or its generalized version).Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Beyond Blame—Mens Rea and Regulatory Crime

In the first part of this Article, the Author briefly outlines the conceptual underpinnings of the common law approach to mens rea, with its blame focus, and the Supreme Court\u27s early efforts to develop a different approach in interpreting regulatory criminal statutes. The Author begins the second part of this Article with Lambert v. California, in which the Court staked out the constitutional limits for the employment of strict liability in public welfare or regulatory crimes, and, first employed notice-based mens rea. This part goes on to examine the ensuing cases in which the Court, at least implicitly, fleshes out the notice analysis that should guide the courts in deciding whether Congress intended strict liability or some level of mens rea in enacting regulatory criminal statutes. The Author concludes with Liparota v. United States, the case in which the Court departed from the emerging construct, which had distinguished blame-based and notice-based mens rea. This part then charts the doctrinal confusion that has resulted from this conflation of blame and notice in the Court\u27s mens rea analysis, confusion that is apparent not only in its own cases but also those of the circuit courts as they confront this vexatious problem

Bohmian description of a decaying quantum system

We present a Bohmian description of a decaying quantum system. A particle is initially confined in a region around the origin which is surrounded by a repulsive potential barrier. The particle leaks out in time tunneling through the barrier. We determine Bohm trajectories with which we can visualize various features of the decaying system.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Beyond Blame—Mens Rea and Regulatory Crime

In the first part of this Article, the Author briefly outlines the conceptual underpinnings of the common law approach to mens rea, with its blame focus, and the Supreme Court\u27s early efforts to develop a different approach in interpreting regulatory criminal statutes. The Author begins the second part of this Article with Lambert v. California, in which the Court staked out the constitutional limits for the employment of strict liability in public welfare or regulatory crimes, and, first employed notice-based mens rea. This part goes on to examine the ensuing cases in which the Court, at least implicitly, fleshes out the notice analysis that should guide the courts in deciding whether Congress intended strict liability or some level of mens rea in enacting regulatory criminal statutes. The Author concludes with Liparota v. United States, the case in which the Court departed from the emerging construct, which had distinguished blame-based and notice-based mens rea. This part then charts the doctrinal confusion that has resulted from this conflation of blame and notice in the Court\u27s mens rea analysis, confusion that is apparent not only in its own cases but also those of the circuit courts as they confront this vexatious problem

STATE CONSTITUTIONALISM: STATE-COURT DEFERENCE OR DISSONANCE?

This Article focuses on the debate concerning state constitutional expansion of criminal-procedure protections. It examines two such rights: (1) the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures; and (2) the right to the assistance of counsel in defending a criminal case. Each of these rights is embodied in both the federal and most, if not all, state constitutions. Each right is thus doubly applicable to the states, first, through the federal version by virtue of its incorporation into the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protection and, second, through the state constitution’s version of the cognate right. So focused, the question is, what deference if any does a state court owe the Supreme Court in interpreting state constitutional provisions protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures and affording the criminally accused the right to counsel? This Article explores the question of deference in the context of a particular state, Massachusetts, employing that focus for three reasons. First, the Commonwealth’s Declaration of Rights— which has remained virtually unchanged since its adoption in 1780—served as a principal model for the federal Bill of Rights, leaving no doubt but that textually and historically the federal and state provisions at issue here are essentially the same. This poses the interpretive question most starkly; in each case, we are considering federal and state versions of what was to their respective framers the same normative protection. Second, unlike most state court judges, the justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court are appointed and have lifetime tenure, putting them in the same, politically-insulated position as their federal counterparts. This poses the issue of decisional legitimacy in bold relief, forcing consideration of the counter-majoritarian aspects of judicial review. Finally, the Supreme Judicial Court has been quite active over the past three decades in this area of state constitutionalism, much of this activity in the area of criminal procedure. Its jurisprudence in state constitutionalism is thus well rehearsed and provides a good backdrop for this discussion of such state-court decision making