Multiple Petty Offenses With Serious Penalties: A Case for the Right to Trial by Jury

This Note outlines the history and development of the petty offense exception and the Supreme Court\u27s jury trial entitlement jurisprudence. In particular, it discusses the fundamental principle of gauging criminal seriousness by the length of a penalty as authorized by statute. This Note sets out the Circuit split and explains why the courts are divided on the aggregation issue. It argues that courts must aggregate maximum penalties for multiple petty offenses charged together to accurately reflect legislative determinations of criminal seriousness. It also criticizes the use of pre-trial sentencing stipulations to circumvent trial by jury when it would otherwise be required

Quantum Confinement Induced Molecular Mott Insulating State in La4_4Ni3_3O8_8

The recently synthesized layered nickelate La$_4$Ni$_3$O$_8$, with its cuprate-like NiO$_2$ layers, seemingly requires a Ni1 ($d^8$)+2Ni2 ($d^9$) charge order, together with strong correlation effects, to account for its insulating behavior. Using density functional methods including strong intra-atomic repulsion (Hubbard U), we obtain an insulating state via a new mechanism: {\it without charge order}, Mott insulating behavior arises based on quantum coupled, spin-aligned Ni2-Ni1-Ni2 $d_{z^2}$ states across the trilayer (rather than based on atomic states), with antiferromagnetic ordering within layers. The weak and frustrated magnetic coupling between cells may account for the small spin entropy that is removed at the N\'eel transition at 105 K and the lack of any diffraction peak at the N\'eel point.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Metal-insulator transition through a semi-Dirac point in oxide nanostructures: VO2_2 (001) layers confined within TiO2_2

Multilayer (TiO$_2$)$_m$/(VO$_2$)$_n$ nanostructures ($d^1$ - $d^0$ interfaces with no polar discontinuity) show a metal-insulator transition with respect to the VO$_2$ layer thickness in first principles calculations. For $n$ $\geq$ 5 layers, the system becomes metallic, while being insulating for $n$ = 1 and 2. The metal-insulator transition occurs through a semi-Dirac point phase for $n$ = 3 and 4, in which the Fermi surface is point-like and the electrons behave as massless along the zone diagonal in k-space and as massive fermions along the perpendicular direction. We provide an analysis of the evolution of the electronic structure through this unprecedented insulator-to-metal transition, and identify it as resulting from quantum confinement producing a non-intuitive orbital ordering on the V $d^1$ ions, rather than being a specific oxide interface effect. Spin-orbit coupling does not destroy the semi-Dirac point for the calculated ground state, where the spins are aligned along the rutile c-axis, but it does open a substantial gap if the spins lie in the basal plane.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Theoretical and experimental study of AC loss in HTS single pancake coils

The electromagnetic properties of a pancake coil in AC regime as a function of the number of turns is studied theoretically and experimentally. Specifically, the AC loss, the coil critical current and the voltage signal are discussed. The coils are made of Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10/Ag (BiSCCO) tape, although the main qualitative results are also applicable to other kinds of superconducting tapes, such as coated conductors. The AC loss and the voltage signal are electrically measured using different pick up coils with the help of a transformer. One of them avoids dealing with the huge coil inductance. Besides, the critical current of the coils is experimentally determined by conventional DC measurements. Furthermore, the critical current, the AC loss and the voltage signal are simulated, showing a good agreement with the experiments. For all simulations, the field dependent critical current density inferred from DC measurements on a short tape sample is taken into account.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures; contents extended (sections 3.2 and 4); one new figure (figure 5) and two figures replaced (figures 3 and 8); typos corrected; title change