The Islamic State as a Unique Social Movement: Exploiting Social Media in an Era of Religious Revival

The Islamic State (IS) is a reminder that religious terrorism in the Middle East remains a threat. However, this organization has been unique in its ability to emerge so aggressively, recruit large numbers of fighters from abroad, and establish a semi-functioning political state. In this thesis, I will explore this unprecedented phenomenon, focusing especially on the ways that trends of modernization, globalization, and sacralization have shaped the movement. As part of this work, I will specifically consider IS’ use of social media to recruit members and disseminate information and how this new technology has operated in tandem with the aforementioned trends to frame IS as a unique terrorist organization

Critical loads of sulphur and nitrogen for surface waters in Northern Ireland

A survey of 140 surface waters (lakes, streams and reservoirs) across Northern Ireland was carried out in March 2000. One site was selected to represent each 10km OS NI grid square in Northern Ireland using a map of freshwater sensitivity to identify the most acid sensitive water body in each grid squar

Revisiting Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Primordial Magnetic Fields

In view of several conflicting results, we reanalyze the effects of magnetic fields on the primordial nucleosynthesis. In the case the magnetic field is homogeneous over a horizon volume, we show that the main effects of the magnetic field are given by the contribution of its energy density to the Universe expansion rate and the effect of the field on the electrons quantum statistics. Although, in order to get an upper limit on the field strength, the weight of the former effect is numerically larger, the latter cannot be neglected. Including both effects in the PN code we get the upper limit $B \le 1\times 10^{11}$ Gauss at the temperature $T = 10^9~^oK$. We generalize the considerations to cases when instead the magnetic is inhomogeneous on the horizon length. We show that in these cases only the effect of the magnetic field on the electrons statistics is relevant. If the coherence length of the magnetic field at the end of the PN is in the range $10 \ll L_0 \ll 10^{11}$ cm our upper limit is $B \le 1\times 10^{12}$ Gauss.Comment: 12 pages LaTex file with two included ps fig

Reconciling Present Neutrino Puzzles: Sterile Neutrinos as Mirror Neutrinos

We suggest that recent neutrino puzzles that are the solar and atmospheric neutrino deficits as well as the possible neutrino oscillations reported by the LSND experiment and the possibility of massive neutrinos providing the hot component of the cosmological dark matter, can all be naturally explained by assuming existence of a mirror world described by an ``electroweak'' gauge symmetry $[SU(2)\times U(1)]'$, with the breaking scale larger by about factor of 30 than the scale of the standard $SU(2)\times U(1)$ model. An interesting aspect of this model is that the sterile neutrinos arise from the hidden mirror sector of the theory and thus their lightness is more natural than in the usual neutrino mass scenarios. The needed pattern of the neutrino mass matrix in this model is obtained by assuming a conserved ZKM-type global lepton number $\bar L=L_e+L_\mu-L_\tau$, which is violated by Planck scale effects. One implication of our proposal is that bulk of the dark matter in the universe is a warm dark matter consisting of few KeV mass particles rather than the 100 GeV range particles of the currently popular cold dark matter scenarios.Comment: 10 pages, Latex, no figure

Spatial variability of nitrate concentration in lakes in Snowdonia, North Wales, UK

International audienceAt a regional scale, high nitrate (NO3?) concentrations in upland surface waters generally occur in tandem with high nitrogen (N) deposition levels. However, significant differences in the patterns of surface water NO3? concentration have been observed within areas of similar N deposition yet relatively few studies have been undertaken which examine within-region variation of NO3? concentrations. A study of 76 lakes in Snowdonia, north Wales, an area of high deposition and sensitive catchments, was undertaken to assess variation in surface water NO3? concentration across a 20 x 20 km grid square and to identify catchments vulnerable to NO3? leaching. Nitrate concentrations vary considerably, particularly during winter when values range from 0.7 to 70 ?eq l-1. Although retention by vegetation and soil microbes in summer reduces the amount of NO3? reaching the lakes, 37 % of sites are characterised by NO3? concentrations greater then 4 ?eq l-1. The elevated concentrations occurring in summer suggests that N breakthrough has occurred. By examining the ratio of NO3? to total strong acid anions, it is shown that NO3? contributes significantly to freshwater acidity, particularly during the winter. Redundancy analysis shows that NO3? leaching is greatest, both in winter and summer, in catchments with high proportions of bare rock where soil and vegetation cover is limited. Nitrogen cycling in these catchments, generally at higher altitudes, may no longer be governed by seasonal biological controls. They are likely to be saturated with respect to nitrogen (i.e. incapable of further N retention) as a result of the elevated deposition levels in the area. The contribution of NO3? to acidity is also greatest at these sites. In winter, significant positive relationships are also evident between NO3? concentration and soil pH and coniferous woodland. The study demonstrates the importance of catchment factors in modifying the relationship between N deposition and N leaching in upland catchments

Magnetic fields in the early universe in the string approach to MHD

There is a reformulation of magnetohydrodynamics in which the fundamental dynamical quantities are the positions and velocities of the lines of magnetic flux in the plasma, which turn out to obey equations of motion very much like ideal strings. We use this approach to study the evolution of a primordial magnetic field generated during the radiation-dominated era in the early Universe. Causality dictates that the field lines form a tangled random network, and the string-like equations of motion, plus the assumption of perfect reconnection, inevitably lead to a self-similar solution for the magnetic field power spectrum. We present the predicted form of the power spectrum, and discuss insights gained from the string approximation, in particular the implications for the existence or not of an inverse cascade.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Detailed study of BBN implications of neutrino oscillation generated neutrino asymmetries in some four neutrino models

We re-examine the evolution of neutrino asymmetries in several four neutrino models. The first case involves the direct creation of $L_{\nu_e}$ by $\nu_e \leftrightarrow \nu_s$ oscillations. In the second case, we consider the mass hierarchy $m_{\nu_\tau} \gg m_{\nu_\mu}, m_{\nu_e}, m_{\nu_s}$ where $\nu_\tau \leftrightarrow \nu_s$ oscillations generate a large $L_{\nu_\tau}$ and some of this asymmetry is converted into $L_{\nu_e}$ by $\nu_{\tau} \leftrightarrow \nu_{e}$ oscillations. We estimate the implications for BBN for a range of cosmologically interesting $\delta m^2$ values. The present paper improves on previous published work by taking into account the finite repopulation rate and the time dependence of the distortions to the neutrino momentum distributions. The treatment of chemical decoupling is also improved.Comment: Expanded discussion on the sign of the neutrino asymmetr