CFIUS in the Age of Chinese Investment

As China’s economy has developed, its companies, both state-owned and privately held, have moved to expand their operations in the United States to the point where many now seek to invest in—and on occasion, acquire—U.S. counterparts. This trend has set off alarm bells over fears that China’s unique political and economic system, which gives the state extensive influence over all corporations regardless of their ownership structure, renders such transactions national security threats. Recent hostility toward Chinese-led inbound investment is not a new trend; Congress has attempted to assert itself into the screening process undertaken by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) since its establishment. This Note examines both the framework the U.S. government has utilized to screen potential national security threats posed by foreign investment and how the eccentricities of China’s state-capitalist system present unique challenges to that framework. It argues for an executive order to mandate CFIUS review for transactions in sensitive industries which touch upon national security issues, particularly telecommunications in an age of increasing cyberwarfare. This will prepare CFIUS to handle the challenges posed by increasing investment in the United States by Chinese corporations without needlessly constructing barriers to the same where no real security threat exists

Dear Mentor: A Reflection on the Impact of Mentorship in Higher Education

The purpose of this paper is to understand the importance of mentoring in the field of student affairs in order to help potential and emerging professionals in various ways. Mentoring has strong implications for the proliferation of the field as well as the resilience of emerging professionals and the reduction of professional attrition. In constructing this narrative, the author chose to use two approaches. First, the author created a scholarly personal narrative to understand the effects of mentorship as is reflected in scholarship. Second, through the collection of letters, the author designed a qualitative content analysis to understand how mentors have helped current professionals gain insight, confidence, and direction. Key themes identified in the analysis are the modeling of professional behaviors and success, belief, empowerment and validation, challenge and support, and identity development

Reclaiming Sacred Space

I wrote this piece for myself as a hybrid of personal discovery and academic inquiry, and I hope it can guide and empower others like myself. In this piece, I examine the intersections of queer identity with religious and spiritual identity development and discuss how practitioners can help students reclaim sacred space. Foregrounding my personal narrative and expanding with scholarship, I show why this development deserves attention from student affairs professionals. I give both programmatic and institutional considerations to review when centering religious and spiritual development for LGBTQ students

The Determinants of Crime in the United States: Testing Rational Choice Crime Theory

The relationship between labor market conditions and the crime rate is a highly important topic of discussion that holds policy relevance for countries around the world. Article 3 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”, and high crime rates, particularly violent crime, directly violate these fundamental human rights. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Crime in the US report, in 2015, an estimated 1,197,704 violent crimes were committed in the United States. In the same year, property crimes resulted in losses estimated at 14.3 billion. Although the US witnessed a rapid decline in the rates of violent crime in the 1990s, these figures, coupled with incarceration rates among the highest in the world, demonstrate that crime reduction is still very much an ongoing process. Understanding the determinants of crime from an economic, demographic and sociological perspective is key to lowering the incidence of crime in the US. This research adds to the vast body of crime literature by asking an age-old research question and adapting an empirical approach to the 21st century– what determines the rates of violent and non-violent crime in the United States

Collaborative problem-solving: Assessment and reporting

This practical session will present a live administration of interactive collaborative problem-solving assessment and reporting. The presenter will demonstrate example tasks and reports. Audience representatives will have the opportunity to role-play as students being assessed across a range of social and cognitive skills associated with collaborative problem-solving. The discussion will then explore how these social and cognitive skills can be incorporated into the teaching program, enabling higher-order skills to be assessed in key learning areas across the curriculum

Interview with Patrick Griffin by Brien Williams

Biographical NotePatrick J. Griffin was born June 22, 1949, in New York to Daniel and Edith Griffin. He attended St. Peter’s College in New Jersey, then the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for graduate studies in urban policy. He worked as a Health, Education and Welfare fellow for a year, then spent a year on the Senate Budget Committee staff before becoming a member of Senator Byrd’s leadership staff, the Democratic Policy Committee staff, and later a Senate Floor staffer, where he met Senator Mitchell. He held the position of secretary of the Democratic Caucus, an elected position. He later started a lobbying firm with David Johnson, returning to politics to join the Clinton administration. SummaryInterview includes discussion of: family, educational, and career background; responsibilities of Senate floor staff; majority leader race an Inouye; Iran-Contra; Acid Rain and Senator Byrd; Crime Bill; Byrd’s decision to move to the Appropriations Committee; Griffin’s relationship with Senator Byrd; experiences in the Clinton White House; health care debate; Mitchell-Clinton relationship; background on the Northern Ireland appointment and Clinton conversation; comparison of several majority leaders; and Tip O’Neill

Master of Science

thesisThe purpose of this thesis was to determine if low-power switching power supplies can be made on-chip using integrated components. Integrated switching supplies are an emerging field that has followed the rise of systems-on-chip devices - especially in the biomedical field. Switching supply theory and implementation were examined systematically to determine the feasibility of such switching supplies. Classical switching power supply theory was presented first, including fundamental principles of operation and essential analysis techniques. Due to the unique constraints placed on integrated power supplies as a result of the small component size, the classical treatment had to be updated and modified. The result was a new methodology for calculating ripple current and voltage, circuit losses, and efficiency of switching supplies in both continuous and discontinuous conduction modes. Integrated and micro-scale switching supply components were then examined. Most importantly, the design of integrated inductors was discussed. Double-layer coils were found to be the best choice for integrated inductors with a small number of coils as they offered four times the inductance and only twice the resistance of similar single-layer coils. Six boards were tested using a variety of loads with manual switching cycle control. The test boards effectively modeled the behavior of integrated supplies and confirmed predictions about power loss and transfer. Using the test results and the equations previously derived, three test cases were simulated. The results were efficiencies of 75.16%, 75.09%, and 75.10% using 2 and 5 turn double spirals, and an external 120 nH coil, respectively. With these results, it should be possible to build integrated switching power supplies that meet or exceed the efficiency of linear supplies

The Flow of Liquid Polymers Through Fibrous Reinforcements

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/1275 on 14.02.2017 by CS (TIS)Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM), at present, is a semi-automated, low volume production process for fibre reinforced plastics with much work being undertaken to achieve full automation and medium volume production. The efficient and consistent impregnation of thermosetting resin into a reinforcement pack are key requirements in the development of RTM. For mass production and automation accurate predictions of mould fill times are critical in order to plan production. At present, the fill times are predicted by assuming Darcy's law and using experimentally determined permeability value. Permeability measurements display a large amount of scatter which affects the accuracy of simulations of mould filling. Commercial fabrics such as 'Injectex' are now available which achieve high permeability to resin flow through a modified microstructural architecture of fibre tows. This thesis seeks to examine the relationship between microstructure and permeability in these fabrics in the context of possible decreases in mechanical properties which may result from non-uniform fibre distribution. An image analysis technique is used to characterise and quantify the regions of flow within the fabric architecture which are then correlated with a series of permeability measurements determined experimentally. This then leads onto a mathematical model for the prediction of the permeability of the fibre pack