Expanded View of Recidivism in Alaska

This article also appeared on pp. 6–8 of the Winter 2018 print edition.This article describes findings on recidivism over an eight-year period for individuals released from Alaska Department of Corrections facilities in 2007. These findings emerged from the Alaska Results First (RF) analysis released by Alaska Justice Information Center (AJiC) in October 2017. In general, the RF findings corroborate previous analyses which examined recidivism patterns one to three years after release, but by following offenders for eight years, AJiC is expanding our understanding of recidivism patterns in Alaska for a large group of offenders, beyond any prior study.Differences among offense-based cohorts / Least likely to recidivate: Sex offenders / Most likely to recidivate: DV [domestic violence] / DUI offenders [driving under the influence] / Felons versus misdemeanants / Conclusion / Reference

Supernovae Shedding Light on Gamma-Ray Bursts

We review the observational status of the Supernova (SN)/Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) connection. In section 2 we provide a short summary of the observational properties of core-collapse SNe. In sections 3-6 we review the circumstantial evidences and the direct observations that support the existence of a deep connection between the death of massive stars and GRBs. Present data suggest that SNe associated with GRBs form a heterogeneous class of objects including both bright and faint Hypernovae and perhaps also `standard' Ib/c events. In section 7, we provide an empirical estimate of the rate of Hypernovae, for a ``MilkyWay-like'' galaxy, of about $\sim 2.6\times 10^{-4}$ yr$^{-1}$ that may imply the ratio GRB/Hypernovae to be in the range $\sim 0.03-0.7$. In the same framework we find the ratio GRB/SNe-Ibc to be $\sim 0.008\div 0.05$. In section 8 we discuss the possible existence of a lag between the SN explosion and the associated gamma-ray event. In the few SN/GRB associations so far discovered the SN explosions and GRB events appear to go off simultaneously. In section 9 we present the conclusions and highlight the open problems that Swift hopefully will allow us to solve.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, invited review at the 4th Workshop Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era, Rome,18-22 October 2004. Editors: L. Piro, L. Amati, S. Covino, and B. Gendre. Il Nuovo Cimento, in pres