You might also like to have a look at this paper on using HMMs to convert a (continuous) chromatographic signal into (discrete) base pairs "calls" during DNA sequencing: Link. The problem seems similar to the one you are working on, in many respects.

It sounds a little implausible, but perhaps I am unaware of the forensic issues. Due to massive improvements in DNA sequencing, it costs less than $10,000 to acquire a full genome (see https://www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts/ ). So, back-of-the-envelope:

(a) $20k to acquire both genomes, plus
(b) some computational effort to identify interesting DNA polymorphisms ($0 - $1000 ???), plus
(c) PCR'ing out and sequencing of a region of the crime-scene DNA (cheap; less than $100).

So $22k, not counting labor costs?

IAAMB (I am a molecular biologist), but not a forensic one. Maybe it just doesn't work that way. Anyone have other information?

Just thinking off the top of my head here: Perhaps you could set it up to enumerate theorems, construct a 'dependence' graph to see (i.e. "Theorem 2354 relies on Theorems 54, 272,1102 and 2208") and publish an automated paper on any "bottleneck" theorem that is required to demonstrate many future theorems? Or, failing that, if you can prove things in multiple ways, looking for theorems that reduce the number of dependencies on earlier axioms/theorems.

Thanks for your good reply to GP. However, you should always try to bother with citations, in case others are reading the thread. Here are some citations:

• American Cancer Society
• CDC
• Surgeon General's Office
• Zhu et al. "Secondhandsmoke stimulates tumor angiogenesis and growth" Cancer Cell (2003)

Central authentication is probably overkill. Most travelers probably embark at the same handful of stations every time. I imagine that if fare cards were set up to store metadata plus an HMAC (to prevent tampering with the payload) and stations configured to alarm if the same metadata was ever seen twice locally, at that station, that it would eliminate most fraud. Under that scheme any given card-payload could only be used once per station. (And, n.b. that the inclusion of a HMAC prevents arbitrary card payload choice, since only the station authority can issue a valid HMAC for a given metadata payload).

I guess attackers could still swap known-valid metadata+payload information online to use at multiple stations, but at that point the cost of simply allowing the tiny fraction of abusers to win is probably less than the cost of building out a bunch of infrastructure.

Hrm? Entangled particles can exhibit correlations in some measurements that would (apparently) require them to exchange information faster-than-light. However, these correlations are only observable when measurements from distant locations are subsequently compared and - as far as I am aware - can not be used to actually send a message faster-than-light. No information is recoverable by observing only one data set. It is a complicated issue.

Are you kidding me? All human lives are valuable, without exception. Any other belief is, frankly, uncivilized and reeks of a primitive us-versus-them mentality. What's worse is that prisoners are explicitly under the protection of the state. If an unarmed prisoner is injured in an act of violence, it ought to be interpreted as a total fuck-up and a warden had better lose his job.

Medicine has a strong connection to science. Most of the major initial contribution to the life sciences were made by physician-scientists. Having studied medicine (I am an MD/PhD student), I can tell you that it is essentially impossible to "memorize textbooks and regurgitate on command" without building a mental model of the underlying biology or physiology. While there is a strong need to build a base of knowledge, there is also a continuing need to be able to critically evaluate the scientific literature. I would say that any medical program that doesn't promote critical thinking and scientific literacy is a program in need of reform. My experience with the basic sciences faculty, however, has been that they spend a fair amount of time thinking about how to best train students to be critically evaluate scientific ideas.

This is an empirical question. A quick Google search reveals this study on withdrawal in daily marijuana users: Marijuana abstinence effects in marijuana smokers maintained in their home environment (PDF link). Bottom line is that clinically significant withdrawal symptoms were observed in that population.

I couldn't find find a really good source for addictive potential in the literature (which is not to say there isn't a good source).

However, you may find this article in the Lancet (Pubmed link) to be of interest. The study is "Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse". One criterion used was abuse potential. Long story short: (a) cannabis ranked as a middle-of-the-road substance in terms of harms, and (b) legal classification of drugs in the UK does not correlate well with degree of harms.

Seriously? Everything you describe in your post is destructive: you slam doors (literally and figuratively), are abusive for no purpose and overall take pride in acting out of hatred instead of out of compassion. The world is rarely improved by destruction. A more constructive approach would be to figure out (a) what are the forces that drove criminality in the first place, and (b) how you can help that person avoid taking the wrong path next time. Were I in the position you describe of meeting this man, I hope that I would do my best to reach out and help a human in a tough spot.

All humans - without exception - have worth. I'm not content to have our system chew up a human and spit him out so that he can 'serve as a warning to others'. It's would be act of cowardice to sacrifice a human just so others might fear the law and you might gain some small bit of security. The better solution is to treat everyone with humanity - giving people the benefit of the doubt - so that those who have chosen wrong can sincerely regret it and return to civilization. Don't you wish others would give you the benefit of the doubt when you've screwed up?

I do not speak to offend (and apologize if my diplomacy skills are insufficient to have prevented that), but to see if I might point out that perhaps your plan isn't the best and to honestly ask you re-assess how you would treat other humans.

Agreed this is the best solution. Do you really think it's only ~30 bucks? I run a linux server 24/7 and assuming power consumption of about 100 watts (=.1 kW) and 10 cents /kw-hr I calculate: .1 kW * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year * $0.1/kw-hr = $87. Still low obviously. I am wondering if my power estimate (100 W) is off by a lot. Without busting out some tools to measure it, I'm mostly left guessing.

Sorry, I don't mean to be pedantic; I'm actually just curious if you think the back-of-the-envelope calculation is accurate. I'd be nice to have an estimate for it.

Yes, I'd agree with this. Nobody reads man pages for fun, but will happily read them to figure out why things aren't working when they have a goal in mind. Give them a basic (interesting!) project to do (parse some data to do something neat or somesuch?), tell them about man pages and other internet resources and let them have at it. Be around to help if things don't work though: don't forget how incredibly frustrating getting stuck during debugging in an unfamiliar system can be.

As a fellow biomedical researcher, I think you're correct that most of us wouldn't want any applicable science to be withheld from anyone on the basis of their ideology. However, I think you're still wrong that you'd rather see people living up to their beliefs when the result is morbidity or mortality. I'd much rather encourage a person to accept treatment (that from my point of view is ethical) and live as a hypocrite if the alternative is to die because we advise them to stick to their beliefs. Life is too valuable.