No Time to Waste: Can a State Prevent Nuclear Waste Transportation Within Its Borders Once Yucca Mountain Becomes Operational?

Following the drop of the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, the United States seriously began contemplating the use of atomic energy not just as a weapon, but as an efficient energy source. President Eisenhower delivered his “Atoms for Peace” speech in front of the United Nations eight years later, effectively launching a massive American campaign to build numerous nuclear power plants to generate enough clean energy to power the entire nation. As these plants were being constructed, however, policymakers and lawmakers who were champions of this endeavor failed to consider the problem of nuclear waste generated by these plants. Unlike fossil fuel burning plants, where particulates are emitted into the air following combustion, burning uranium produces numerous volatile isotopes that are released into a retention pool within the confines of a nuclear plant. Although some of these isotopes can be recycled to produce more energy, a majority of these highly radioactive particles are eventually removed from the pool and stored in concrete casks on the grounds of the nuclear plant where they were produced. The half-lives of these isotopes, like uranium-235 and uranium-238, range from 700 million to four billion years. Despite these alarming statistics, none of the leading technicians or scientists running the “Atoms for Peace” campaign developed a comprehensive plan to contain nuclear waste for millions of years. Only following the partial nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, did the scientific community and prominent lawmakers start to seriously assess long-term challenges associated with nuclear waste storage. This Note will examine two legal challenges to Virginia that could arise once Yucca Mountain has been finalized as the permanent, highlevel nuclear waste repository for the United States. Regardless of the mode of ground transportation, high-level nuclear waste produced at Surry and Santa Anna will travel through the city limits of Richmond and cross the Blue Ridge Mountains into West Virginia based on current federal guidelines. The legal challenges would either be initiated by the United States in response to the Governor of Virginia declaring a statewide emergency or initiated by Virginia in response to a finalized promulgation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (“NWPA”). In either scenario, the first legal challenge would assess whether federal law preempted Virginia law and the second challenge would evaluate whether Virginia’s police power to protect the public health, safety, welfare, and morals of its residents would substantially interfere with the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause. The Court would likely rule that federal laws, like the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (“AEA”) and NWPA, would not preempt the Virginia Emergency Services and Disaster Law of 2000 (“Emergency Law”). However, the Court would likely strike down Virginia’s attempt to prevent the transportation of high-level radioactive waste within its borders due to preemption by the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act (“HMTA”) and Dormant Commerce Clause violations. Part I will discuss the history of how Yucca Mountain became designated as the only permanent repository for high-level radioactive waste. Part II will explore the main dispute over the legal authority of the Governor of Virginia to ban the transportation of nuclear waste within Virginia by an emergency declaration. Section A will analyze whether a state of emergency declaration in Virginia would be superseded by any federal law concerning nuclear waste, such as the AEA, NWPA, and HMTA. Section B will analyze whether a Virginia state of emergency declaration would withstand the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, assuming there was no federal preemption. The Conclusion will overview all the legal disputes that could arise of the Virginia Governor’s emergency declaration and reflect upon the current state of nuclear waste in the United States

What the hack is a hacker?

The purpose of this study is to examine the historical tendencies and characteristics of hackers to create a holistic definition of what it means to be a hacker. By analyzing the contents of the “Hacker Classics” list, it was determined that there is not a single, all-encompassing definition of what it means to be a hacker. Although there are common motivations and ideologies shared between many hackers, the definition of “hacker” continues to change as time and technology does

An Empirical Study of Law Journal Copyright Practices, 16 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 207 (2017)

This article presents an empirical study of the copyright practices of American law journals in relation to copyright ownership and fair use, based on a 24-question survey. It concludes that many American law journals have adopted copyright policies that are inconsistent with the expectations of legal scholars and the scope of copyright protection. Specifically, many law journals have adopted copyright policies that effectively preclude open-access publishing, and unnecessarily limit the fair use of copyrighted works. In addition, it appears that some law journals may not understand their own copyright policies. This article proposes the creation of a Code of Copyright Best Practices for Law Journals in order to encourage both open-access publishing and fair use

Planning for a Managed Retreat: Moving in a New Direction

Climate change is altering the United States’ coastline in both subtle and extreme ways. The threat is especially pressing in the Commonwealth of Virginia, which is experiencing sea levels rising faster than the global average. As global sea level rise continues to increase, coastal communities across the country must make difficult decisions about their futures. Instead of waging an endless war with the tide, one option for them to consider is the process of managed retreat, which provides a long-term solution by relocating communities away from vulnerable areas. Low to moderate income communities face a variety of additional social and equitable concerns related to managed retreat and other efforts to adapt to climate change. This paper summarizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Flood Insurance Program, as well as current buyout programs at the federal and state level. Next is focuses on several managed retreat and relocation case studies with an eye toward guiding low- to moderate-income communities faced with preparing for managed retreat. After analyzing these case studies, this paper proposes how these lessons can be applied to the process of managed retreat for coastal Virginia, and particularly low and moderate income communities. This abstract has been taken from the authors\u27 introduction

The recognition, frequency, and taxonomic association of skeletal pathology from selected Plio-Pleistocene-aged sites from the Cradle of Humankind, Witwatersrand, South Africa

Skeletal pathology has been largely unexplored from South African Plio-Pleistocene cave contexts. As a result, there is little known about the types of pathology present in these assemblages or the frequencies at which they occur. This study was designed to identify and analyze skeletal pathology from two sites in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. Over 7000 postcranial fossils, representing the broad range of macromammalian taxa from the early hominid sites of Cooper‟s D and Swartkrans (Members 1-3), were examined for evidence of gross skeletal pathology. Frequencies of pathology were recorded at order and family levels and the elements were categorized to skeletal section to identify possible trends in the anatomical location of lesions. Chi-square and randomization tests for goodness-of-fit were conducted at family level and by skeletal section to note any significant disagreement between observed and expected frequencies of pathology. Pathological fossils were described and lesions were identified to broad diagnostic categories. In total, twenty-four pathological fossils were identified from Cooper‟s D and forty from Swartkrans. Joint disease, trauma and enthesopathy are the most common disease types from both sites. For the Swartkrans fauna there is the additional presence of neoplasia. The frequency of pathology at order level is similar for both sites, with artiodactyls showing the lowest frequency, followed by carnivores and primates. Pathology by family occurs at frequencies of between 0 and 6%. Hominids fall outside of this range, occurring at a frequency of 100% for Cooper‟s D and 16% for Swartkrans. For both sites there is a significant disagreement between the observed and expected frequencies of pathology for bovids, felids and hominids. This indicates that pathology does not occur in equal proportion throughout the assemblage, but rather occurs at high frequency for felids and hominids and low frequency for bovids, possibly correlated to the trophic roles of the different taxa. It was, however, found that pathology predominantly occurred on the same elements for all families, specifically the vertebrae and distal-limb. Chi-square and randomization tests by skeletal section revealed a non-significant result for Cooper‟s D (P = 0.07) and a significant result for Swartkrans (P = 0.03). For Swartkrans there is a significant disagreement between the observed and expected frequencies of pathology for distal-limb and hindlimb elements. This result may be due to the high frequency of pathology on hominid distal elements, explained, in part, by a mechanical stress aetiology involving activity related to hominid grip and grasping

High-Throughput Genotyping Analyses and Image-based Phenotyping in Sorghum bicolor

Sorghum bicolor is a valuable plant grown commercially for grain, forage, sugar, and lignocellulosic biomass production. Increasing yields for these applications without increasing inputs is necessary to sustainably meet future food and fuel demand. The generation of superior plant cultivars that produce more without increased input is facilitated by methods that can rapidly and accurately acquire plant genotypic and phenotypic data, and this dissertation describes the development and application of genomic and phenomic methods to improve crop productivity. The sensitivity and specificity with which genetic variants are called from sorghum genomic sequence data was improved by developing a variant calling workflow; this workflow interrelates different sources of genomic sequence data to inform the modern machine learning techniques implemented within the Broad Institute's Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK). Genetic variants called in this manner have been used to dissect the genetic basis of agriculturally important traits and improve the sorghum reference genome assembly. Additionally, to increase the rate at which the morphology of plants can be evaluated, an image-based phenotyping platform was developed to acquire measurements of sorghum shoot architecture traits using a depth camera. Depth images of plants are used to generate 3D reconstructions, and these reconstructions are used to measure phenotypes, to identify the genetic bases of shoot architecture, and as input to plant and crop modeling applications. This research facilitates the rapid and accurate acquisition of the data necessary to increase the rate of crop improvemen

Lower Bounds on the Distance Domination Number of a Graph

For an integer $k \ge 1$, a (distance) $k$-dominating set of a connected graph $G$ is a set $S$ of vertices of $G$ such that every vertex of $V(G) \setminus S$ is at distance at most~$k$ from some vertex of $S$. The $k$-domination number, $\gamma_k(G)$, of $G$ is the minimum cardinality of a $k$-dominating set of $G$. In this paper, we establish lower bounds on the $k$-domination number of a graph in terms of its diameter, radius, and girth. We prove that for connected graphs $G$ and $H$, $\gamma_k(G \times H) \ge \gamma_k(G) + \gamma_k(H) -1$, where $G \times H$ denotes the direct product of $G$ and $H$

Machine learning differentiates enzymatic and non-enzymatic metals in proteins

Metalloenzymes are 40% of all enzymes and can perform all seven classes of enzyme reactions. Because of the physicochemical similarities between the active sites of metalloenzymes and inactive metal binding sites, it is challenging to differentiate between them. Yet distinguishing these two classes is critical for the identification of both native and designed enzymes. Because of similarities between catalytic and non-catalytic metal binding sites, finding physicochemical features that distinguish these two types of metal sites can indicate aspects that are critical to enzyme function. In this work, we develop the largest structural dataset of enzymatic and non-enzymatic metalloprotein sites to date. We then use a decision-tree ensemble machine learning model to classify metals bound to proteins as enzymatic or non-enzymatic with 92.2% precision and 90.1% recall. Our model scores electrostatic and pocket lining features as more important than pocket volume, despite the fact that volume is the most quantitatively different feature between enzyme and non-enzymatic sites. Finally, we find our model has overall better performance in a side-to-side comparison against other methods that differentiate enzymatic from non-enzymatic sequences. We anticipate that our model’s ability to correctly identify which metal sites are responsible for enzymatic activity could enable identification of new enzymatic mechanisms and de novo enzyme design

An examination of the functional role of TMEFF2 in prostate cancer and the translational regulatory mechanisms controlling its expression

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in American men and accounts for approximately 11% of cancer-related deaths. Although promising treatment strategies have been developed and are currently being tested in clinical trials, standard practices in the treatment of prostate cancer remain inadequate. This is due in large part to the heterogeneous and multifocal nature of prostate tumors which severely complicates efforts to stratify patients and to identify therapeutic targets to effectively treat prostate cancer. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that drive prostate cancer initiation and progression to advanced stages is needed in order to design effective diagnostic and treatment strategies.   The transmembrane protein with EGF-like and two follistatin domains 2 (TMEFF2) is selectively expressed in the adult brain and the prostate and is overexpressed in prostate cancer, suggesting a potential role in the establishment and/or progression of the disease. Previous reports on TMEFF2 function have revealed a complex biology with seemingly diverse cellular effects, and its role in prostate cancer has remained unclear. The studies presented here examine the biological function of TMEFF2 in prostate cancer in order to evaluate its potential as a molecular target for prostate cancer or as a diagnostic/prognostic biomarker. Data obtained using prostate cancer cell lines pointed to a role for TMEFF2 as a tumor suppressor as its overexpression resulted in a potent inhibition of anchorage-independent growth, reduced proliferation rates, the promotion of apoptosis, and a decrease in invasion. The tumor suppressor function of TMEFF2 was further demonstrated through the inhibition of subcutaneous tumor development in a TRAMP-C2 allograft model.   Evidence that TMEFF2 expression can be upregulated by androgen stimulation in a post-transcriptional fashion suggests a potential mechanism by which its expression can be modulated in prostate cancer. We therefore investigated the post-transcriptional regulatory pathway controlling the expression of TMEFF2 in prostate cancer cells and its connection with androgen signaling. The presence of conserved upstream open reading frames (uORFs) in the 5' leader region of its mRNA transcript prompted us to investigate the possibility that androgen signaling stimulates TMEFF2 translation through these regulatory sequences. Our results show that TMEFF2 translation is inhibited by its uORFs under normal conditions; however, the uORFs mediate a translational increase in TMEFF2 expression in response to androgen stimulation through the phosphorylation of the initiation factor eIF2α. This effect is dependent on a functional androgen receptor (AR). During the course of prostate tumorigenesis, the selective translational increase in uORF-containing transcripts by androgen signaling may represent a mechanism by which certain transcripts are selectively regulated to influence tumor progression.   As a tool to study role of TMEFF2 in prostate tumorigenesis in vivo and to evaluate its potential as a biomarker, we generated and initiated the characterization of a novel transgenic mouse model with TMEFF2 expression exclusively in the prostate epithelium. Ultimately this model will be used to study the function of TMEFF2 in the development/function of the prostate gland and in prostate cancer.  Ph.D