bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Relationship between the Constitutional Right to Silence and Confessions in Nigeria
Authors: Onoja Esa O. 
Published: March 2014

Abstract
The extraction of confessions from suspects under torture by security agents is a notorious fact in Nigeria. Ironically, the Constitution of the country guarantees a right to silence, but courts in Nigeria predicate the admissibility of confessions on the common law-based Judges Rules and Evidence Act 2011 without linking it to the constitutionally guaranteed right to silence. This article reviews the legal rules on the admissibility of confessions in Nigeria and contends that without attaching constitutional flavour to the admissibility of confessions, the legislature and the courts in Nigeria unwittingly water the ground for the systemic extraction of confession from suspects in custody in Nigeria. The article suggests that the courts in the country consider the implication of the guarantee of the right to silence in the country’s constitution in the determination of the admissibility of confessions to promote fair trial in criminal cases in the country.
Crime and Public Support for the Rule of Law in Latin America and Africa
Authors: Smithey Shannon I. , Malone Mary Fran T. 
Published: March 2014

AbstractCrime poses a formidable obstacle to democratization in many parts of the developing world. New democracies in Central America and sub-Saharan Africa face some of the highest homicide rates in the world. Politicians, citizens, and policy-makers have raised the alarm about the growing tide of criminality. Public insecurity, coupled with inefficient and often corrupt justice systems, makes democratization uncertain. Even if new democracies do not revert to dictatorship, the quality of democracy may suffer if crime continues to rise. One particularly vulnerable component of democracy is the rule of law, as public insecurity may fuel support for extra-legal justice, and a willingness to disregard the law while aggressively pursuing suspected criminals. To test these relationships, we assess the ways in which criminal victimization, as well as fear of crime, affect citizen support for the rule of law. We utilize public opinion data collected in select countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa through two widely used sources – the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) and the Afrobarometer surveys.
Phenomenological Time, Historical Time, and The Writing of History
Authors: Blum Mark E. 
Published: March 2014

Abstract
Contrary to Paul Ricoeur’s claim that there is an unbridgeable chasm between phenomenological time and historical time, my studies have shown me that the former is the cognitive foundation for the latter. The temporality formed in each sentential judgment can be discerned through a stylistic analysis of its grammar. This grammatical foundation which is established at the pre-reflective level of sentence formation becomes a basis in the maturing individual for conceptual preferences. How experience is organized informally and consequently reflected upon in the everyday judgment, or more formally in the writing of history, are outcomes of this grammatical logic. What I term one’s ‘historical logic’ differs in categorically interesting ways in each person; for each person it is an invariant grammatical organization that guides attended experience informing a person’s sense of ‘history’ and its meaning over a career of thought. The grammatical organization itself stems from varying part-whole organizations that perceptually provide the form grammar then instantiates. The epistemological basis of my approach is developed from Kant and Edmund Husserl insofar as their conceptions of temporal generation in judgment. My grammatical analyses rely upon the transformational grammar of Noam Chomsky.
In this essay, I show the invariant character of two distinct historical logics through the careers of thought of two Tudor-Stuart historians, G.R. Elton and his student Arthur Joseph Slavin, and two Tudor-Stuart personalities, Edward Coke and Francis Bacon. I have found historical logics to be intergenerational. Forms of historical logic are more than likely psycho-genetic, recurring in every generation. I have provided evidence for this claim in studies I have made of adolescents who have first come to master the well-formed sentence in personal expression.
Among the implications of the findings here are that ‘objectivity’ as well as ‘historical objectivity’ are better understood as ‘multiply valid’ among the judgments of equally informed and keen observers and interpreters. There is an unbridgeable foundation that differentiates one person’s conception of temporal organization from another. Synthetically, we are separated in our judgments, even when we can arrive at analytical understandings of these differences.
Assessing Impacts of Integrating MODIS Vegetation Data in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model Coupled to Two Different Canopy-Resistance Approaches
Authors: Kumar Anil , Chen Fei , Barlage Michael , Ek Michael B. , Niyogi Dev 
Published: March 2014

AbstractThe impact of 8-day-averaged data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor—namely, the 1-km leaf area index, absorbed photosynthetic radiation, and land-use data—is investigated for use in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for regional weather prediction. These high-resolution, near-real-time MODIS data are hypothesized to enhance the representation of land–atmosphere interactions and to potentially improve the WRF model forecast skill for temperature, surface moisture, surface fluxes, and soil temperature. To test this hypothesis, the impact of using MODIS-based land surface data on surface energy and water budgets was assessed within the “Noah” land surface model with two different canopy-resistance schemes. An ensemble of six model experiments was conducted using the WRF model for a typical summertime episode over the U.S. southern Great Plains that occurred during the International H2O Project (IHOP_2002) field experiment. The six model experiments were statistically analyzed and showed some degree of improvement in surface latent heat flux and sensible heat flux, as well as surface temperature and moisture, after land use, leaf area index, and green vegetation fraction data were replaced by remotely sensed data. There was also an improvement in the WRF-simulated temperature and boundary layer moisture with MODIS data in comparison with the default U.S. Geological Survey land-use and leaf area index inputs. Overall, analysis suggests that recalibration and improvements to both the input data and the land model help to improve estimation of surface and soil parameters and boundary layer moisture and led to improvement in simulating convection in WRF runs. Incorporating updated land conditions provided the most notable improvements, and the mesoscale model performance could be further enhanced when improved land surface schemes become available.
Characteristics of Cold Season Rainfall over the Yungui Plateau
Authors: Li Jian , Yu Rucong 
Published: March 2014

AbstractThe climatic features of the distinctive cold season precipitation over the Yungui Plateau of China and the corresponding circulation background are investigated. From daily rainfall data observed with a high-density station network, it is found that the highest rainfall frequency in southern China during November–February appears over the Yungui Plateau. The rainfall intensity in this region is fairly low, and there is no remarkable rainfall-amount maximum. In comparison with the rainfall in southeastern China, the precipitation over the Yungui Plateau is more concentrated in weak events, with 85.9% of rainfall days having daily precipitation amounts of less than 3 mm. By regressing the circulation field on the rainfall frequency index, a favorable climatic background for high rainfall frequency is explored. In high-rainfall-frequency years, the surface wind exhibits southwesterly wind anomalies west of 104°E and cold air penetrates from the north on the eastern side. These two branches converge on the eastern edge of the Hengduan Mountains. In the lower troposphere, southwesterly winds prevail and anomalous water vapor fluxes converge over the Yungui Plateau. In the middle and higher troposphere, the westerly zonal wind strengthens and leads to an anomalous divergence. These dynamic and moist conditions contribute to the formation of clouds and precipitation. The northward- and eastward-facing slopes of the Yungui Plateau uplift the shallow, cold air carried by the northerly and easterly winds, and the terrain effects trigger the precipitation process. The low temperature and small specific humidity over the Yungui Plateau modulate the rainfall intensity to a low level.
Gamma Distribution Parameters for Cloud Drop Distributions from Multicylinder Measurements
Authors: Jones Kathleen F. , Thompson Gregory , Claffey Keran J. , Kelsey Eric P. 
Published: March 2014

AbstractThe liquid water content and drop diameters in supercooled clouds have been measured since the 1940s at the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire using a rotating multicylinder. Many of the cloud microphysics models in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) assume a gamma distribution for cloud drops. In this paper, years of multicylinder data are reanalyzed to determine the best-fitting gamma or monodisperse distribution to compare with parameters in the WRF cloud models. The single-moment cloud schemes specify a predetermined and constant drop number density in clouds, which leads to a fixed relationship between the median volume drop diameter and the liquid water content. The Mount Washington drop number densities are generally larger and best-fit distributions are generally narrower than is typically assumed in WRF.
Evaluation of Precipitating Hydrometeor Parameterizations in a Single-Moment Bulk Microphysics Scheme for Deep Convective Systems over the Tropical Central Pacific
Authors: Roh Woosub , Satoh Masaki 
Published: March 2014

Abstract
Cloud microphysics of deep convective systems over the tropical central Pacific simulated by a cloud system–resolving model using satellite simulators are evaluated in terms of the joint histogram of cloud-top temperature and precipitation echo-top heights. A control experiment shows an underestimation of stratiform precipitation and a higher frequency of precipitating deep clouds with top heights higher than 12 km when compared with data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission. The comparison shows good agreement for horizontal distribution and statistical cloud size distributions of deep convective systems. Biases in the joint histogram are improved by changing cloud microphysics parameters of a single-moment bulk microphysics scheme. The effects of size distribution of precipitating hydrometeors are examined. Modification of the particle size distributions of rain, snow, and graupel size distributions based on observed relationships improves cloud precipitation statistics. This study implies that a single-moment bulk cloud microphysics scheme can be improved by employing comparison of satellite observations and diagnostic relationships.
Quality Control of Weather Radar Data Using Polarimetric Variables
Authors: Lakshmanan Valliappa , Karstens Christopher , Krause John , Tang Lin 
Published: March 2014

Abstract
Because weather radar data are commonly employed in automated weather applications, it is necessary to censor nonmeteorological contaminants, such as bioscatter, instrument artifacts, and ground clutter, from the data. With the operational deployment of a widespread polarimetric S-band radar network in the United States, it has become possible to fully utilize polarimetric data in the quality control (QC) process. At each range gate, a pattern vector consisting of the values of the polarimetric and Doppler moments, and local variance of some of these features, as well as 3D virtual volume features, is computed. Patterns that cannot be preclassified based on correlation coefficient ρHV, differential reflectivity Zdr, and reflectivity are presented to a neural network that was trained on historical data. The neural network and preclassifier produce a pixelwise probability of precipitation at that range gate. The range gates are then clustered into contiguous regions of reflectivity, with bimodal clustering carried out close to the radar and clustering based purely on spatial connectivity farther away from the radar. The pixelwise probabilities are averaged within each cluster, and the cluster is either retained or censored depending on whether this average probability is greater than or less than 0.5. The QC algorithm was evaluated on a set of independent cases and found to perform well, with a Heidke skill score (HSS) of about 0.8. A simple gate-by-gate classifier, consisting of three simple rules, is also introduced in this paper and can be used if the full QC method is not able to be applied. The simple classifier has an HSS of about 0.6 on the independent dataset.
Numerical Analysis and Diagnosis of the Hydrodynamic Effects Produced by Hurricane Gordon along the Coast of Spain
Authors: Diaz-Hernandez Gabriel , Mendez Fernando J. , Mínguez Roberto 
Published: March 2014

Abstract
This paper presents a detailed hindcast for the generation and propagation of sea state variables—significant wave height Hs, peak period Tp, mean direction θ, and spectral shape γ –σ —associated with cyclonic events to numerically diagnose their possible hydrodynamic effects over the northeastern Atlantic. An example of such cyclonic events is Hurricane Gordon, which occurred during the second half of August 2012. Extreme hurricane-strength winds produced new and atypically low-frequency (about 14 s) packs of energy. The preexistent wave spectrum suddenly experienced an addition of low-frequency energy along the coast of Cádiz, Spain. This study presents the results of a comprehensive analysis developed to reconstruct the events produced by Hurricane Gordon (2012) along the coast of Cádiz. The analysis features the use of (i) parametric models for the characterization of hurricane winds and pressure fields, (ii) implementation of the Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) model for the generation and propagation of waves in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, and (iii) its coupling with the MOPLA—taken from the Spanish acronym for wave propagation model, current, and morphodynamic evolution of beaches—model for the evaluation of longshore currents. The numerical wave characterization, generation, and propagation were validated with instrumental data from deep-water and coastal buoys.
Unusual Parapharyngeal Extension of Peritonsillar Abscess to the Masticator Space
Authors: Hidaka Hiroshi , Ishida Eiichi , Suzuki Takahiro , Matsutani Sachiko , Kobayashi Toshimitsu , Takahashi Shoki 
Published: March 2014

Objective: The object was to describe 2 novel cases of peritonsillar abscess showing peculiar extension to the masticator space. Methods: The methods included clinical case records, including computed tomography and surgical approaches. Results: Both patients we encountered were suffering from systematic diseases, with case 1 involving a 75-year-old man with diabetes mellitus and case 2 involving a 90-year-old woman taking immunosuppressive medications. The abscesses were peritonsillar in origin, extending primarily to the parapharyngeal space, with unusual secondary extension to the masticator space. Extraoral drainage conducted in case 1 was useful for assessing the masticator space and surrounding spaces, but endoscopy-assisted intraoral drainage in case 2 was less invasive, obviating the need for identifying the facial nerve. Conclusions: It is important to bear in mind that patients suffering from systemic diseases may display unusual extension of deep head and neck infections, and enhanced computed tomography is a useful modality for evaluating such extensions.
Optimization of surgical ventricular restoration by in-silico simulations
Authors: Adhyapak Srilakshmi M , Menon Prahlad G , Parachuri Venkateswara Rao 
Published: March 2014

Objective A hypothesis on left ventricular aneurysms states that there is better preservation of contractile myocardium when the aneurysm geometry is rectangular as opposed to circular. Pre-surgical planning of surgical ventricular restoration was performed on the basis of this hypothesis. Methods The intraventricular patch used to exclude scarred or aneurysmal myocardium remains akinetic, hence it was used to define aneurysm geometry as circular or rectangular. Hausdorff distance analysis was carried out by mathematical computational methods on the baseline cardiac magnetic resonance images of 5 patients. Results The mean Hausdorff distance for the full range of frequencies was significantly greater after endoventricular linear patch plasty (0.474 ± 0.190 vs. 0.722 ± 0.221 mm, p = 0.047), whereas after endoventricular circular patch plasty, the difference was not significant (0.474 ± 0.190 vs. 0.594 ± 0.193, p = 0.175). The mean Hausdorff distance <0.5 mm was also significantly greater after endoventricular linear patch plasty than after endoventricular circular patch plasty: 0.258 ± 0.03 mm at baseline vs. 0.40 ± 0.16 mm after linear patch plasty ( p = 0.039) and 0.258 ± 0.03 vs. 0.32 ± 0.10 mm ( p = 0.130) after circular patch plasty. Conclusions In-silico technology using the Hausdorff distance enables pre-surgical planning and optimization of the technique for surgical ventricular restoration.
The inferior emissary vein: a reliable landmark for right adrenal vein sampling
Authors: Kohi Maureen P , Agarwal Vishal K , Naeger David M , Taylor Andrew G , Kolli K Pallav , Fidelman Nicholas , LaBerge Jeanne M , Kerlan Robert K 
Published: March 2014

Background Right adrenal vein (RAV) catheterization can be a very challenging step in adrenal venous sampling (AVS). Visualization of the inferior emissary vein (IEV) may be an indication of successful RAV catheterization. Purpose To compare the rate of successful RAV sampling in the presence of the IEV. Material and Methods Retrospective review of all consecutive patients with PA who underwent AVS between April 2009 and April 2012 was performed. A total of 30 patients were identified. Procedural images, cortisol, and aldosterone values obtained from sampling of the RAV and inferior vena cava (IVC) were reviewed. Cortisol measurements obtained from RAV samples were divided by measurements from the infra-renal IVC blood samples in order to calculate the selectivity index (SI). An SI >3 was considered indicative of technically successful RAV sampling. Results RAV sampling was considered technically successful in 29 out of 30 cases (97%). In cases of successful RAV sampling (29 patients), the IEV was identified in 25 patients (86%). The IEV was visualized in isolation in 16 patients (64%), and in conjunction with visualization of the RAV or right adrenal gland stain in nine patients (36%). The IEV was not visualized in the one case of unsuccessful RAV sampling. Visualizing the IEV had a sensitivity of 86.2% for successful RAV sampling. Conclusion The IEV may serve as a reliable landmark for the RAV during RAV sampling.
Bosniak classification system: inter-observer and intra-observer agreement among experienced uroradiologists
Authors: Graumann Ole , Osther Susanne S , Karstoft Jens , Hørlyck Arne , Osther Palle JS 
Published: March 2014

Background The Bosniak classification is a diagnostic tool for the differentiation of cystic changes in the kidney. The process of categorizing renal cysts may be challenging, involving a series of decisions that may affect the final diagnosis and clinical outcome such as surgical management. Purpose To investigate the inter- and intra-observer agreement among experienced uroradiologists when categorizing complex renal cysts according to the Bosniak classification. Material and Methods The original categories of 100 cystic renal masses were chosen as “Gold Standard” (GS), established in consensus by two experienced uroradiologists. Three experienced uroradiological readers were blinded from the previous CT reports. Weighted κ was calculated to assess agreement, defined as: fair, 0.21–0.40; moderate, 0.41–0.60; good, 0.61–0.80; and very good, 0.81–1.00. Results For readers the distribution of correctly classified lesions were as follows: BI, 95–100%; BII, 59–93%; BIIF, 54–92%; BIII, 58–95%; and B IV, 77–100% for the first review. Weighted κ for inter-observer/intra-observer variation was for Reader A: 0.85/0.99, Reader B: 0.97/0.99, and Reader C: 0.98/0.99, ( P ≤ 0.001). Conclusion According to the calculated weighted κ all readers performed “very good” for both inter-observer and intra-observer variation. Most variation was seen in cysts catagorized as Bosniak II, IIF, and III. These results show that radiologists who evaluate complex renal cysts routinely may apply the Bosniak classification reproducibly.
Serum myeloid-related protein 8/14 complex is associated with microalbuminuria in patients with type 2 diabetes
Authors: Schmaderer Christoph , Kemmner Stephan , Burkhardt Klaus , Heemann Uwe , Baumann Marcus 
Published: March 2014

Objectives: Microalbuminuria (MA) is associated independently with cardiovascular risk and progression of renal disease in patients with diabetes and the normal population. MA is an accepted factor for microvascular defects, in particular in patients with diabetes, and is associated with inflammation. Activated transmigrating macrophages are key cells in these inflammatory processes. Based on the theory that myeloid-related protein 8/14 complex (MRP8/14) is secreted by transmigrating macrophages, we hypothesized that MA was accompanied by elevated MRP8/14 and investigated whether MA predicts MRP8/14 in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: A total of 86 men with type 2 diabetes were grouped according to urinary albumin excretion in normoalbuminuria and MA. Serum MRP8/14 levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Established cardiovascular risk factors were quantified in both groups and compared with urinary albumin excretion. Results: Albuminuria (mg/day) was positively associated with MRP8/14 ( r = 0.34) and systemic blood pressure ( r = 0.33). Patients with type 2 diabetes and MA demonstrated significantly higher MRP8/14 levels than patients with normoalbuminuria [median (interquartile range), 1.24 (0.97–2.28) µg/ml versus 0.97 (0.67–1.35) µg/ml, p < 0.05]. Serum creatinine levels, systolic blood pressure (SBP), very low density lipoprotein levels and the incidence of hypertension and coronary artery disease were significantly higher in the group with MA. Both groups did not differ significantly in other cardiovascular risk factors. MA was an independent predictor of serum MRP8/14 levels ( β = 0.454) as well as SBP ( β = 0.625) and haemoglobin A1c ( β = 0.322). Conclusion: Our data demonstrate that albumin excretion is associated with the process of macrophage activation determined by MRP8/14 levels. These data not only suggest tissue inflammation as a factor for elevated cardiovascular risk in patients with type 2 diabetes, they further point to a role of macrophage activation in this process.