The self-reported impact of legal and non-legal sanctions on a group of recidivist drink drivers

Concern remains regarding the efficacy of legal sanctions to reduce drink driving behaviours among repeat offenders. The present study examined the impact of traditional legal sanctions (e.g., fines and licence disqualification periods), nonlegal sanctions, alcohol consumption and the frequency of recent offending behaviour(s) on intentions to re-offend for a group of recidivist drink drivers (N=166). The analysis indicated that participants perceived legal sanctions to be severe, but not entirely certain nor swift. In addition, self-reported recent drink driving behaviours and alcohol consumption levels were identified as predictors of future intentions to drink and drive. The findings of the study confirm the popular assumption that some repeat offenders are impervious to the threat and application of legal sanctions and suggests that additional interventions such as alcohol treatment programs are required if the drinking and driving sequence is to be broken for this population. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Carrier lifetime and exciton saturation in a strain-balanced InGaAs/InAsP multiple-quantum-well

The bleaching of the n = 1 heavy-hole and light-hole exciton absorption has been studied at room temperature and zero bias in a strain-balanced InGaAs/InAsP multiple quantum well. Pump-probe spectroscopy was used to measure the decay of the light-hole absorption saturation, giving a hole lifetime of only 280 ps. As only 16 meV separates the light- and heavy-hole bands, the short escape time can be explained by thermalization between these bands followed by thermionic emission over the heavy-hole barrier. The saturation density was estimated to be 1 × 1016 cm-3; this is much lower than expected for tensile-strained wells where both heavy and light holes have large in-plane masses. © 1998 American Institute of Physics.

The retromer coat complex coordinates endosomal sorting and dynein-mediated transport, with carrier recognition by the trans-Golgi network

Early endosome-to-trans-Golgi network (TGN) transport is organized by the retromer complex. Consisting of cargo-selective and membrane-bound subcomplexes, retromer coordinates sorting with membrane deformation and carrier formation. Here, we describe four mammalian retromers whose membrane-bound subcomplexes contain specific combinations of the sorting nexins (SNX), SNX1, SNX2, SNX5, and SNX6. We establish that retromer requires a dynamic spatial organization of the endosomal network, which is regulated through association of SNX5/SNX6 with the p150(glued) component of dynactin, an activator of the minus-end directed microtubule motor dynein; an association further defined through genetic studies in C. elegans. Finally, we also establish that the spatial organization of the retromer pathway is mediated through the association of SNX1 with the proposed TGN-localized tether Rab6-interacting protein-1. These interactions describe fundamental steps in retromer-mediated transport and establish that the spatial organization of the retromer network is a critical element required for efficient retromer-mediated sorting.

Rayleigh noise mitigation in DWDM LR-PONs using carrier suppressed subcarrier-amplitude modulated phase shift keying

We demonstrate a novel Rayleigh interferometric noise mitigation scheme for applications in carrier-distributed dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) passive optical networks at 10 Gbit/s using carrier suppressed subcarrier-amplitude modulated phase shift keying modulation. The required optical signal to Rayleigh noise ratio is reduced by 12 dB, while achieving excellent tolerance to dispersion, subcarrier frequency and drive amplitude variations.

Novel real-time homodyne coherent receiver using a feed-forward based carrier extraction scheme for phase modulated signals

We report a novel real-time homodyne coherent receiver based on a DPSK optical-electrical-optical (OEO) regenerator used to extract a carrier from carrier-less phase modulated signals based on feed-forward based modulation stripping. The performance of this non-DSP based coherent receiver was evaluated for 10.66Gbit/s BPSK signals. Self-homodyne coherent detection and homodyne detection with an injection-locked local oscillator laser was demonstrated. The performance was evaluated by measuring the electrical signal-to-noise (SNR) and recording the eye diagrams. Using injection-locking for the LO improves the performance and enables homodyne detection with optical injection-locking to operate with carrier-less BPSK signals without the need for polarization multiplexed pilot-tones.

Novel synchronous DPSK optical regenerator based on a feed-forward based carrier extraction scheme

We experimentally demonstrate a novel synchronous 10.66Gbit/s DPSK OEO regenerator which uses a feed-forward carrier extraction scheme with an injection-locked laser to synchronize the regenerated signal wavelength to the incoming signal wavelength. After injection-locking, a low-cost DFB laser used at the regenerator exhibited the same linewidth characteristics as the narrow line-width transmitter laser. The phase regeneration properties of the regenerator were evaluated by emulating random Gaussian phase noise applied to the DPSK signal before the regenerator using a phase modulator driven by an arbitrary waveform generator. The overall performance was evaluated in terms of electrical eye-diagrams, BER measurements, and constellation diagrams.