Breaking the Mexican Cartels: A Key Homeland Security Challenge for the Next Four Years

Although accurate statistics are hard to come by, it is quite possible that 60,000 people have died in the last six-plus years as a result of armed conflict between the Mexican cartels and the Mexican government, amongst cartels fighting each other, and as a result of cartels targeting citizens. And this figure does not even include the nearly 40,000 Americans who die each year from using illegal drugs, much of which is trafficked through the U.S.-Mexican border. The death toll is only part of the story. The rest includes the terrorist tactics used by cartels to intimidate the Mexican people and government, an emerging point of view that the cartels resemble an insurgency, the threat—both feared and realized—of danger to Americans, and the understated policy approach currently employed by the U.S. government. This short article only scratches the surface by identifying the Mexican Situation as a pressing U.S. homeland security issue requiring a renewed strategic effort by the United States over the next four years. Involving a complex web of foreign policy, law enforcement, intelligence, military, border security, drug consumption and public policy considerations, breaking the Mexican cartels is no easy feat. But it is a necessary one to secure our southern border, eliminate the presence of dangerous cartels in our cities, reduce Americans’ contribution to the drug trade and resulting violence, and play our role in restoring the Mexican citizenry to a society free from daily terror

Comparison of passive microwave and modeled estimates of total watershed SWE in the continental United States

In the U.S., a dedicated system of snow measurement stations and snowpack modeling products is available to estimate the snow water equivalent (SWE) throughout the winter season. In other regions of the world that depend on snowmelt for water resources, snow data can be scarce, and these regions are vulnerable to drought or flood conditions. Even in the U.S., water resource management is hampered by limited snow data in certain regions, as evident by the 2011 Missouri Basin flooding due in large part to the significant Plains snowpack. Satellite data could potentially provide important information in under‐sampled areas. This study compared the daily AMSR‐E and SSM/I SWE products over nine winter seasons to spatially distributed, modeled output SNODAS summed over 2100 watersheds in the conterminous U.S. Results show large areas where the passive microwave retrievals are highly correlated to the SNODAS data, particularly in the northern Great Plains and southern Rocky Mountain regions. However, the passive microwave SWE is significantly lower than SNODAS in heavily forested areas, and regions that typically receive a deep snowpack. The best correlations are associated with basins in which maximum annual SWE is less than 200 mm, and forest fraction is less than 20%. Even in many watersheds with poor correlations between the passive microwave data and SNODAS maximum annual SWE values, the overall pattern of accumulation and ablation did show good agreement and therefore may provide useful hydrologic information on melt timing and season length

Gender, visible bodies and schooling: cultural pathologies of childhood

In this paper I consider two interrelated problems. The first concerns the issues and difficulties involved in studying how children think about their bodies, in the schooling setting. The second involves an attempt to bring together a series of phenomena around which gendered media and social panics are being constructed in the UK and elsewhere. I discuss the problems concerned with the practicalities of studying children’s bodies in a setting in which the body is effaced. I argue that the problems arising from this effacement are compounded by children’s embarrassment about their bodies, particularly in a situation in which bodies are supposed to be invisible. Related to this, I argue that children’s and young people’s bodies that are made visible in schools and other public or semi-public arenas are rendered pathological by that very visibility. I suggest that we can see all these metaphorically pathological bodies in terms of a failure of or resistance to the disciplinary institutions of the school and the family, and that such an understanding of ‘problematic’ bodies can help us to see what they have in common. I conclude with suggestions for future research

Calling for Peace, Preparing for War: The Revolutionary Voice of Saint Genevieve during the Fronde

Propagandists on both sides of the French civil wars known as the Fronde drew upon religious symbols and traditions to rally their readers to condemn or support the rebellion against Queen Anne d’Autriche, regent for young King Louis XIV, and her chief minister Cardinal Jules Mazarin. The cult of the saints remained strong during the Fronde. After a spectacular procession of the relics of Saint Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, failed to bring peace to the kingdom in June 1652, multiple writers gave voice to this legendary figure. This essay examines four Mazarinades (the political pamphlets of the Fronde) in which Saint Genevieve speaks directly, either to press for peace or raise threats of revolution. It argues that the use, by turns, of maternal and militaristic aspects of this female saint demonstrates the symbolic power of gendered voices in a time of political crisis

Creating a Tobacco-Free Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Facility: A Toolkit for Designing an Effective Intervention

Individuals with a substance addiction and/or mental illness use tobacco at rates much higher than the general population. Approximately 21% of the U.S. population smokes, yet 40%-80% of substance abuse and mental health patients smoke and consume more than 44% of all the cigarettes sold in the United States each year. As a result, these individuals experience increased tobacco related morbidity and mortality. Tobacco use is common and accepted within this population, and has become a norm even within treatment programs. Only 30%-40% of treatment facilities offer smoking cessation resources, and many organizations are hesitant to address cessation or to adopt a tobacco-free campus policy. This toolkit addresses the unique barriers and challenges that a residential substance addiction facility will face when adopting a tobacco-free policy. A tobacco-free campus policy protects all individuals from dangerous secondhand smoke and promotes the health and recovery of clients from all addictions, including nicotine. This toolkit provides step-by-step information and resources to allow a facility to become tobacco-free and implement a full smoking cessation program over a six month time period. This project helps fill a need for specific resources related to concurrent smoking cessation and substance abuse/mental health treatment. This resource will be made available to residential substance abuse facilities in Georgia and will be provided to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration’s Smoking Cessation Leadership Center

Enhancing the Radiative Rate in III-V Semiconductor Plasmonic Core-Shell Nanowire Resonators

We investigate the radiative properties of plasmonic core-shell nanowire resonators and, using boundary element method calculations, demonstrate enhanced radiative decay rate by up to 3500 times in nanoscale compound semi-conductor/metal cavities. Calculation of the local density of optical states enables identification of new types of modes in cavities with mode volumes on the order of 10^(-4)(λ/n)^3. These modes dramatically enhance the radiative decay rate and significantly modify the polarization of far-field emission

Not All Antibodies Are Created Equal: Factors That Influence Antibody Mediated Rejection.

Consistent with Dr. Paul Terasaki's "humoral theory of rejection" numerous studies have shown that HLA antibodies can cause acute and chronic antibody mediated rejection (AMR) and decreased graft survival. New evidence also supports a role for antibodies to non-HLA antigens in AMR and allograft injury. Despite the remarkable efforts by leaders in the field who pioneered single antigen bead technology for detection of donor specific antibodies, a considerable amount of work is still needed to better define the antibody attributes that are associated with AMR pathology. This review highlights what is currently known about the clinical context of pre and posttransplant antibodies, antibody characteristics that influence AMR, and the paths after donor specific antibody production (no rejection, subclinical rejection, and clinical dysfunction with AMR)