A Comparative Study on Death Penalty Statutes and Their Effects on Certain Minority Groups in Light of Furman v. Georgia

Part One of this comment will address the recent history of the death penalty in the United States, focusing on Furman v. Georgia, which placed a four-year moratorium on the death penalty in 1972. Part Two examines which states still have death penalty statutes and the reasons for choosing the selected states for further analysis. Part Two also addresses the difference between facial and as-applied attacks on the state statutes and the reason for analyzing the statutes under as applied unconstitutionality. Part Three explains the thought behind choosing to examine the death penalty’s effect on racial minorities, low socio-economic classes, and those with mental disorders, and these groups’ history with the death penalty. Part Four analyzes three specific state statutes (Alabama, Ohio, and Texas) in light of the constitutional qualifications set by Furman v. Georgia and how those statutes negatively impact racial minorities, low socioeconomic classes, and those with mental disorders. Ultimately, this comment argues that the remaining death penalty statutes are unconstitutional under the elements set forth in Furman v. Georgia. While the statutes may seem legal on its face, an examination of the as-applied effects on the three aforementioned groups reveals that the statutes are invalid and should be replace

Are the causes of bank distress changing? can researchers keep up?

Since 1990, the banking sector has experienced enormous legislative, technological, and financial changes, yet research into the causes of bank distress has slowed. One consequence is that traditional supervisory surveillance models may not capture important risks inherent in the current banking environment. After reviewing the history of these models, the authors provide empirical evidence that the characteristics of failing banks have changed in the past ten years and argue that the time is right for new research that employs new empirical techniques. In particular, dynamic models that use forward-looking variables and address various types of bank risk individually are promising lines of inquiry. Supervisory agencies have begun to move in these directions, and the authors describe several examples of this new generation of early-warning models that are not yet widely known among academic banking economists.Bank supervision ; Risk management

Culprit or Accomplice: Observations on the Role and Perception of Music in Violent Contexts in the Sierra Leone War

The article focuses on the role of music among RUF combatants fighting in the Sierra Leone civil war. It touches on some widely held notions of music and a general reluctance towards the idea that music can be instrumentalised for violent means. Furthermore, it will address in what way the research focus on music was conducive to qualitative interview sessions and direct interactions with former RUF members. Special focus lies on the songs that inspired rebel fighters and how these songs were used to prepare for and accompany violent attacks. The article concludes by exploring and comparing how perpetrators, victims and musicians assess the appropriation of music in the context of violence and how they feel about the songs today.L'article examine le rôle de la musique pour les combattants du RUF qui se battent dans la guerre civile en Sierra Leone. Il interroge certaines notions générales sur la musique ainsi que la réticence à l'idée que la musique puisse être instrumentalisée à des fins violentes. En outre, il explique de quelle manière le biais de la recherche sur la musique a été propice à des séances d'entretiens qualitatifs et à des interactions directes avec d'anciens membres du RUF. Il prête une attention particulière aux chansons qui ont inspiré les combattants rebelles et sur la façon dont ces chansons ont été utilisées pour préparer et accompagner des attaques violentes. L'article conclut en analysant et en comparant la façon dont les auteurs de violences, les victimes et les musiciens évaluent l'appropriation de la musique dans un contexte violent et ce qu'ils ressentent aujourd’hui à propos de ces chansons

Enhancing Intelligent Agents with Episodic Memory.

In this dissertation, we explore the effects of adding an episodic memory to an intelligent agent. First, we define the design space for episodic memory systems and the properties that any implementation must have in order to be integrated into a cognitive architecture. We then describe our exploration of this space including two major implementations of an architectural episodic memory as well as several refinements to those implementations and their impact on agent performance. We also present a series of cognitive capabilities that are facilitated by virtue of an agent possessing an episodic memory. We hypothesize that these capabilities improve an agent’s ability to effectively sense its environment, reason and learn. We then demonstrate five of these cognitive capabilities using a specific task in one of two different virtual environments.Ph.D.Computer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57720/2/anuxoll_1.pd

Hash Functions for Episodic Recognition and Retrieval

Episodic memory systems for artificially intelligent agents must cope with an ever-growing episodic memory store. This paper presents an approach for minimizing the size of the store by using specialized hash functions to convert each memory into a relatively short binary code. A set of desiderata for such hash functions are presented including locale sensitivity and reversibility. The paper then introduces multiple approaches for such functions and compares their effectiveness

CcpA regulates arginine biosynthesis in Staphylococcus aureus through repression of proline catabolism.

Staphylococcus aureus is a leading cause of community-associated and nosocomial infections. Imperative to the success of S. aureus is the ability to adapt and utilize nutrients that are readily available. Genomic sequencing suggests that S. aureus has the genes required for synthesis of all twenty amino acids. However, in vitro experimentation demonstrates that staphylococci have multiple amino acid auxotrophies, including arginine. Although S. aureus possesses the highly conserved anabolic pathway that synthesizes arginine via glutamate, we demonstrate here that inactivation of ccpA facilitates the synthesis of arginine via the urea cycle utilizing proline as a substrate. Mutations within putA, rocD, arcB1, argG and argH abolished the ability of S. aureus JE2 ccpA::tetL to grow in the absence of arginine, whereas an interruption in argJBCF, arcB2, or proC had no effect. Furthermore, nuclear magnetic resonance demonstrated that JE2 ccpA::ermB produced (13)C(5) labeled arginine when grown with (13)C(5) proline. Taken together, these data support the conclusion that S. aureus synthesizes arginine from proline during growth on secondary carbon sources. Furthermore, although highly conserved in all sequenced S. aureus genomes, the arginine anabolic pathway (ArgJBCDFGH) is not functional under in vitro growth conditions. Finally, a mutation in argH attenuated virulence in a mouse kidney abscess model in comparison to wild type JE2 demonstrating the importance of arginine biosynthesis in vivo via the urea cycle. However, mutations in argB, argF, and putA did not attenuate virulence suggesting both the glutamate and proline pathways are active and they, or their pathway intermediates, can complement each other in vivo