Koszul duality and mixed Hodge modules

We prove that on a certain class of smooth complex varieties (those with "affine even stratifications"), the category of mixed Hodge modules is "almost" Koszul: it becomes Koszul after a few unwanted extensions are eliminated. We also give an equivalence between perverse sheaves on such a variety and modules for a certain graded ring, obtaining a formality result as a corollary. For flag varieties, these results were proved earlier by Beilinson-Ginzburg-Soergel using a rather different construction.Comment: 26 pages. v4: added Proposition 3.9; streamlined Section 4; other minor correction

Don\u27t Break the Safety Valve\u27s Heart: How the Seventh Circuit Superimposes Substantial Assistance on the Mandatory Minimum Safety Valve\u27s Complete Truthful Disclosure Requirement

Congress passed the safety valve to mitigate the disparate and often harsh sentences mandatory minimums impose on low-level drug defendants. But judicial interpretation continues to impose disparate sentences. In 2014, in United States v. Acevedo-Fitz, the Seventh Circuit reaffirmed its position in an ongoing circuit split regarding the safety valve. The safety valve requires defendants to meet five criteria, the fifth—sometimes called the heart of the safety valve—requires defendants provide complete truthful disclosure to prosecutors prior to sentencing. Judges interpret this requirement as imposing a burden on defendants to prove they met all five criteria without requiring the government to prove a defendant failed to provide complete truthful disclosure. The circuit split regards whether a defendant may lie before telling the truth and still qualify for the safety valve. The Seventh Circuit holds one lie precludes safety valve relief. It imposes an additional restriction, essentially adding a prerequisite that defendants substantially assist prosecutors. However, Congress passed the safety valve because the substantial assistance provision failed to assist low-level defendants, and the plain language of the safety valve imposes no requirements that the truthful disclosure assist the government. This reading frustrates Congressional intent, as many other circuits recognize. To comport with Congressional intent, the Seventh Circuit should utilize a plain-language reading of the statute, and not superimpose a substantial assistance prerequisite on the fifth element of the safety valve

Go to Jail - Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Pay Civil Damages: The United States’ Hesitation Towards the International Convention on Cybercrime’s Copyright Provisions, 1 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 364 (2002)

The problem of combating copyright infringement increases tenfold when considered in light of today’s global and digital environment. As more authors seek copyright protection, others seek to get around it by evading jurisdictional reach. The Council of Europe has developed the world’s first International Convention on Cybercrime, which incorporates harsh substantive copyright provisions but neglects to include effective enforcement protocols. This Comment proposes that the United States not rush to adopt the Council of Europe’s Convention, but rather seek a more definitive and effective solution in a singularly-focused agreement on intellectual property rights in a global economic context

Don\u27t Break the Safety Valve\u27s Heart: How the Seventh Circuit Superimposes Substantial Assistance on the Mandatory Minimum Safety Valve\u27s Complete Truthful Disclosure Requirement

Congress passed the safety valve to mitigate the disparate and often harsh sentences mandatory minimums impose on low-level drug defendants. But judicial interpretation continues to impose disparate sentences. In 2014, in United States v. Acevedo-Fitz, the Seventh Circuit reaffirmed its position in an ongoing circuit split regarding the safety valve. The safety valve requires defendants to meet five criteria, the fifth—sometimes called the heart of the safety valve—requires defendants provide complete truthful disclosure to prosecutors prior to sentencing. Judges interpret this requirement as imposing a burden on defendants to prove they met all five criteria without requiring the government to prove a defendant failed to provide complete truthful disclosure. The circuit split regards whether a defendant may lie before telling the truth and still qualify for the safety valve. The Seventh Circuit holds one lie precludes safety valve relief. It imposes an additional restriction, essentially adding a prerequisite that defendants substantially assist prosecutors. However, Congress passed the safety valve because the substantial assistance provision failed to assist low-level defendants, and the plain language of the safety valve imposes no requirements that the truthful disclosure assist the government. This reading frustrates Congressional intent, as many other circuits recognize. To comport with Congressional intent, the Seventh Circuit should utilize a plain-language reading of the statute, and not superimpose a substantial assistance prerequisite on the fifth element of the safety valve

Development of cavernous haemangioma following radical chemo-radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Objective: We report an adult case of nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated with radical chemo-radiotherapy, with subsequent development of a histologically proved temporal cavernous haemangioma within the radiation field. Method: Case report and review of the current literature concerning radiation-induced, secondary, space-occupying lesions. Conclusion: The increasing role of radiotherapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma treatment, together with improved patient survival, is likely to lead to radiation-induced, secondary, space-occupying lesions being encountered more frequently. We emphasise the need to be vigilant for this important but relatively rare complication, which has significant associated morbidity

Micro-Analysis of D/H Ratios in Mantle Minerals by Carrier-Gas Mass Spectrometry

Isotopic analysis of water released by vacuum heating of hydrous minerals and sub-marine basaltic glasses indicates that they vary in δD_(SMOW) between ca. +10 and -115 per mil (e.g., [1]). However, with few exceptions variations within that range are not well correlated with other geochemical and geologic properties and it is debated whether they reflect isotopic heterogeneity in the mantle, fractionations produced during ascent to the surface, or sub-solidus alteration. This ambiguity is at least partly due to the large sample size and slow rate of conventional analyses, which precludes linking isotopic ranges to grain-scale petrographic variables or constructing large data bases (many 10’s of samples) in a reasonable period of time. Ion microprobe methods provide one solution to these problems, although they suffer from analytical uncertainties nominally 5 to 10 times worse than conventional measurements and large fractionations that can be a source of systematic error

Effect of nitriding time on the structural evolution and properties of austenitic stainless steel nitrided using high power pulsed DC glow discharge Ar/N2 plasma

A high power pulsed DC glow discharge plasma (HPPGDP) system was employed to perform fast nitriding of AISI 316 austenitic stainless steel in Ar and N2 atmosphere. In-situ optical emission spectroscopy and Infrared pyrometer measurements were used during the plasma nitriding to investigate the effect of dynamic plasma on the nitriding behaviour. SEM and EDX, XRD, Knoop indentation, and tribo-tests were used to characterise microstructures and properties of the nitrided austenitic stainless steel samples. HPPGDP produced high ionization of both Ar and N2 in the plasma that corresponded to dense ion bombardment on the biased steel samples to induce effective plasma surface heating and to form high nitrogen concentration on the biased steel surfaces, and therefore fast nitriding (> 10µm/hour) was achieved. Various phases were identified on the nitrided stainless steel samples formed from a predominantly a single phase of nitrogen supersaturated austenite to a multi-phase structure comprising chromium nitride, iron nitride and ferrite dependent on the nitriding time. All the nitrided AISI 316 austenitic stainless steel samples were evaluated with high hardness (up to 17.3 GPa) and exceptional sliding wear resistance against hardened steel balls and tungsten carbide balls

Implementation of duty of candour within neurosurgery: a national survey and framework for improved application in clinical practice

INTRODUCTION: Statutory duty of candour was introduced in November 2014 for NHS bodies in England. Contained within the regulation were definitions regarding the threshold for what constitutes a notifiable patient safety incident. However, it can be difficult to determine when the process should be implemented. The aim of this survey was to evaluate the interpretation of these definitions by British neurosurgeons. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All full (consultant) members of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons were electronically invited to participate in an online survey. Surgeons were presented with 15 cases and asked to decide in the case of each one whether they would trigger the process of duty of candour. Cases were stratified according to their likelihood and severity. RESULTS: In all, 106/357 (29.7%) members participated in the survey. Responses varied widely, with almost no members triggering the process of duty of candour in cases where adverse events were common (greater than 10% likelihood) and required only outpatient follow-up (7/106; 6.6%), and almost all members doing so in cases where adverse events were rare (less than 0.1% likelihood) and resulted in death (102/106; 96.2%). However, there was clear equipoise in triggering the process of duty of candour in cases where adverse events were uncommon (0.1-10% likelihood) and resulted in moderate harm (38/106; 35.8%), severe harm (57/106; 53.8%) or death (49/106; 46.2%). CONCLUSION: There is considerable nationwide variation in the interpretation of definitions regarding the threshold for duty of candour. To this end, we propose a framework for the improved application of duty of candour in clinical practice

Effects of combined conservation practices on soil and water quality in the Central Mississippi River Basin

Conventional cultivation of claypan soils leads to soil and water quality degradation because of high runoff and associated soil erosion. The Goodwater Creek Experimental Watershed, which is part of the USDA Agricultural Research Service Benchmark Conservation Effects Assessment Project, Watershed Assessment Studies, was established to address these issues. Plot studies have highlighted trade-offs between erosion control and herbicide or nutrient runoff. There is a need for long-term field-scale evaluation of combined practices that reduce sediment, nutrient, and herbicide losses by runoff. A 36 ha field located in Missouri was under a conventional corn (Zea mays L.)-soybean (Glycine max L.) system from 1993 to 2003 with fertilizer application and tillage prior to planting in the spring. A precision agriculture system defined by two main management zones was implemented from 2004 to 2014: Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and soybean in 60% of the field, and corn and soybean in the remaining 40%. The system included no-till, cover crops, atrazine split-applications based on weed pressure, variable rates of nitrogen (N), and variable rates of fall-applied phosphorus (P). The objective of this study was to compare runoff water quality from the two management systems, based on flow and load duration curves, cumulative distribution functions, and conclusions from replicated plot studies. The precision agriculture system did not affect annual runoff, but it did increase the frequency of low flows. Sediment losses were reduced by 87% as a result of no-till and cover crops. Atrazine and P losses were lower than expected, despite the lack of incorporation into the soil. Atrazine losses were possibly lower because of the wheat area acting as a buffer, greater atrazine adsorption and retention in the field, and faster decay. Dissolved P losses as a fraction of applied remained the same, likely because of greater adsorption and lower runoff risk when applying P. Finally, nitrate-N (NO3-N) losses decreased and resulted in an overall decrease of N losses despite a slight increase of ammonium-N (NH4-N) losses. Explanations includeincluded a greater soil water content, a different timing of N applications, and N uptake by cover crops. Building on these successes, an aspirational management system is proposed to further improve on the performance and practicality of the precision agriculture system