The Challenges of ISIS and the Modern Nation-State

This essay examines the challenges that the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, pose to the contemporary state system. The rise of ISIS in the territories of Iraq and Syria raises two fundamental questions, one conceptual the other directly political: First, ISIS’s claim to be a state and world powers’ resistance to this claim raises the question of what constitutes a state in today’s international system. Second, as a unique form of political organization that has become successful in the Middle East in a relatively short time, ISIS raises a number of practical political questions such as, what it takes to defeat ISIS or, at least, to prevent it from spreading further around the region and world. The essay outlines the specific inner workings of ISIS and attempts to offer possible long-term solutions to the problems that ISIS has given rise to. I argue that a political organization can be considered a state only if it has territorial sovereignty, legitimacy, and international recognition. With this template, ISIS is much closer to being a state than any other terror network before it, but falls short of meeting all the necessary requirements for statehood. Because of this, the international community must deal with ISIS in a new and different manner compared to past strategies with groups such as al-Qaeda

Superconducting Thin Films for The Enhancement of Superconducting Radio Frequency Accelerator Cavities

Bulk niobium (Nb) superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities are currently the preferred method for acceleration of charged particles at accelerating facilities around the world. However, bulk Nb cavities have poor thermal conductance, impose material and design restrictions on other components of a particle accelerator, have low reproducibility and are approaching the fundamental material-dependent accelerating field limit of approximately 50MV/m. Since the SRF phenomena occurs at surfaces within a shallow depth of ~1 µm, a proposed solution to this problem has been to utilize thin film technology to deposit superconducting thin films on the interior of cavities to engineer the active SRF surface in order to achieve cavities with enhanced properties and performance. Two proposed thin film applications for SRF cavities are: 1) Nb thin films coated on bulk cavities made of suitable castable metals (such as copper or aluminum) and 2) multilayer films designed to increase the accelerating gradient and performance of SRF cavities. While Nb thin films on copper (Cu) cavities have been attempted in the past using DC magnetron sputtering (DCMS), such cavities have never performed at the bulk Nb level. However, new energetic condensation techniques for film deposition, such as High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS), offer the opportunity to create suitably thick Nb films with improved density, microstructure and adhesion compared to traditional DCMS. Clearly use of such novel technique requires fundamental studies to assess surface evolution and growth modes during deposition and resulting microstructure and surface morphology and the correlation with RF superconducting properties. Here we present detailed structure-property correlative research studies done on Nb/Cu thin films and NbN- and NbTiN-based multilayers made using HiPIMS and DCMS, respectively

Investigating antimicrobial resistance mechanisms in Neisseria gonorrhoeae using peptide probes

The continuing evolution of antibiotic resistance strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae coupled with the paucity of new antimicrobial agents makes the treatment of gonococcal infections challenging. A major cause of resistance is the expression of a multidrug efflux pump termed MtrCDE, which exports a wide range of antimicrobial agents. Efflux pumps are membrane-bound systems and consequently challenging to study and target with drugs. The transcriptional regulator (MtrR) of the efflux pump, however, is a soluble protein and therefore more amenable to study and drug target validation investigations. This thesis serves to investigate the hypothesis that substrates for the MtrCDE efflux pump are also ligands for the regulator MtrR. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) was used to show that MtrR binds commercial antibiotics and antimicrobial peptides. -lactam antibiotics not only bind MtrR but are hydrolysed by the multidrug protein. Evidence for this novel enzymatic activity is provided by ITC, mass spectrometric and microbiological techniques. A series of peptides derived from LL-37 were synthesised and screened for binding to MtrR. A key region of LL-37 with a higher affinity to MtrR than the natural product was then identified. The peptide binding site in MtrR was elucidated via a photoactivated peptide binding study. Electrophoresis mobility shift assays indicated that the peptides do not induce derepression of the genes controlled by MtrR, although the peptide derivatives of LL-37 were shown to be substrates for the MtrCDE efflux pump

Corneal blindness: Prevention, treatment and rehabilitation

Blindness from corneal disease is a major ophthalmic public health problem. There are three important elements to addressing corneal blindness: prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation

BIOMARKERS OF XENO-OESTROGEN EXPOSURE IN DECAPOD CRUSTACEANS

Many anthropogenic chemicals, most notably xeno-oestrogens, are known to have the potential to disrupt vertebrate endocrine systems. Induction of the female-specific protein vitellogenin (Vtg) in male fish, for example, is a well-known effect of exposure to xeno-oestrogens and serves as a biomarker of such exposure. There have been few comparable studies of putative biomarkers of endocrine disruption in decapods. The current study aimed to establish if reproduction and development of two decapods, the prawn, Palaemon elegans and the crab, Carcinus maenas, were affected following exposure to known oestrogenic chemicals and whether a biomarker approach, analogous to that for vertebrates, could be adopted. The xeno-oestrogen 4-n-nonylphenol (4-NP) was acutely toxic to P. elegans (48h-LC5o, 34.3-96.1 µg Lˉ¹) and C. maenas larvae (48h-LC50, 116-507.3 µg Lˉ¹ ), with P. elegans among the most sensitive species reported. Other than a small, but significant, increase in the mortality of P. elegans larvae exposed to 4-NP at 2 µg Lˉ¹ , neither 4-NP nor the natural oestrogen, 17β-oestradiol (E2) significantly affected growth, development or survival of P. elegans at environmentally realistic concentrations (<0.2-20 µg Lˉ¹ ). Similar results were obtained with C. maenas larvae, but they must be viewed with caution as survival, including that of the controls, was poor. Vitellin-like proteins were identified in the adults and larval stages of both P. elegans and C. maenas using polyclonal antisera to lipovitellin and apolipovitellin. Vtg was female-specific in both species and expression was restricted to females undergoing vitellogenesis. No induction of Vtg was observed in males, from either species, following laboratory exposure to E2, and 4-NP. Likewise, no Vtg was detected in the haemolymph of male C. maenas which had been collected from sites known to be contaminated with oestrogenic chemicals. The titres of the vitellin-like proteins in P. elegans larvae, determined using an indirect ELISA, were significantly affected, in a concentration-independent manner, following exposure to both E2 and 4- NP. Exposure to 4-NP, at 0.2-20 µg Lˉ¹ , resulted in a 5-18% increase in the levels of vitellin-like proteins. Exposure to E2, at 0.2 and 20 µg Lˉ¹ however, reduced levels by up to 11%. Further development of the ELISA is required to assess comparable effects in C. maenas larvae. Overall, while it remains questionable whether these effects result from endocrine disruption, an oestrogen receptor-mediated effect is unlikely. Increased mortality may have been due to toxic effects and no causal link has been established between the parent/exposure compounds and the induced alterations in protein profiles. This study emphasised the necessity for long term multi-faceted studies to determine the real impacts of pollutants at distinct organisational levels.The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdo

Clearing the trichiasis backlog: experiences in Amhara, Ethiopia.

Globally, there were estimated to be around 7.3 million people in 2009 with trachomatous trichiasis (TT). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends surgery to reduce the risk of sight loss. In the last decade, only about 50% of the annual global surgical targets have been achieved. At the current rate, it has been estimated that the trichiasis backlog would not be adequately addressed until 2032, twelve years after the Global Elimination of Trachoma (GET) 2020 target date to eliminate blinding trachoma

Distinguishing fungal and bacterial keratitis on clinical signs.

In many settings, laboratory support for the diagnosis of the type of microbial keratitis is not available. Experienced ophthalmologists have long maintained that it is sometimes possible to distinguish fungal from bacterial microbial keratitis on the basis of clinical signs. Formal data to support this view are limited, and it is important to establish the validity of such claims to understand whether signs can reliably guide clinical decisions. In addition, antifungal treatment is often in limited supply and prohibitively expensive. Therefore, it is not feasible or desirable to prescribe empirical antifungal therapy to every patient who presents with microbial keratitis in tropical regions, where fungal infections are more frequent. Here we review research to determine whether it is possible to reliably distinguish bacterial and fungal infection clinical features alone

Fantasy Football Week 14

The full Fantasy Football Week 14 video is available on the GWU-Today YouTube Channel.https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gwu-today/1099/thumbnail.jp