Taking “Blind Shots at a Hidden Target”: Witness Anonymity in the United Kingdom

Witness intimidation has become an increasing problem in the United Kingdom, and as a result, British courts have allowed witnesses to testify anonymously in cases where they are fearful of testifying. Recently, the House of Lords overturned a murder conviction based on anonymous witness testimony on the grounds that it rendered that trial unfair. Parliament responded by codifying the power to grant witness anonymity as it existed before the Law Lords’ decision. The use of anonymous witnesses raises questions about the right of a defendant to confront the witnesses before him or her, a right that has its history in English common law and is guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. This Comment argues that the use of anonymous witness testimony violates a defendant’s right to confrontation, and proposes possible alternatives

In the muck and the mire

At the core of my practice lies my fascination with my body; how I exist in relation to others and my surroundings, how much space I take up, how close I am to others, how much distance exists between us. I am interested in intimacy and bodily contact, which I explore through objects that bridge the gap between human embodiment and otherness. My works, made out of paper pulp, simultaneously stimulate a hyperawareness of one’s own body and a dissolution of the self. Their human scale immediately places them in relation to the viewer and creates space for empathy. As amorphous growths and biomorphic bodies, they adapt to their environment while existing in a constant state of controlled chaos. In this thesis, I will provide autobiographical information that points to the origins of my interests, and a view into the processes, methods, symbols, and materials that comprise my project

To Have and to Hold: The Future of DNA Retention in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom’s National DNA Database, in existence since 1995, is now in jeopardy after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the United Kingdom’s DNA retention policy violates a person’s right to a private life under the European Convention on Human Rights. The retention program is the most sweeping in the world and had previously withstood a number of challenges in British courts. The ECHR decision now presents the United Kingdom with the problem of complying with the judgment while protecting the Database it has built over the last three decades. The question that remains is whether the United Kingdom can do both

Immortality of the Spirit: Chinese Funerary Art from the Han and Tang Dynasties Exhibition Catalogue

Exhibition cataloguehttps://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/immortality_ephemera/1000/thumbnail.jp

Immortality of the Spirit: Chinese Funerary Art from the Han and Tang Dynasties Didactic Panels

Didactic wall panels.https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/immortality_ephemera/1006/thumbnail.jp

U.S. Military Transformation and the Rise of China: Restructuring Regional Alliances

Thesis advisor: Robert S. RossThe United States military is currently carrying out a transformation in its war fighting strategy aimed at countering threats to America and maintaining a long term balance of power. As the lone superpower in the world, the United States seeks to secure its global supremacy by dealing with threats to the status quo in all regions of the world. In recent years, the major target of this transformation has been the rise of China, an event that could destabilize both the East Asian balance of power and the global one. The goal of this transformation is to improve upon American capabilities and deployment time to structure our forces in a way that allows them to be rapidly deployable to almost anywhere at any time. At the same time, the U.S., through a series of unilateral deployments, forward positioning of troops and equipment, and a restructuring of regional alliances in East and Southeast Asia, the United States is actively working to promote a peaceful rise of China.Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007.Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: College Honors Program

Stable Integration of Transgenes Delivered by a Retrotransposon–Adenovirus Hybrid Vector

Helper-dependent adenoviruses show great promise as gene delivery vectors. However, because they do not integrate into the host chromosome, transgene expression cannot be maintained indefinitely. To overcome these limitations, we have inserted an L1 retrotransposon/transgene element into a helper-dependent adenovirus to create a novel chimeric gene delivery vector. Efficient adenovirus-mediated delivery of the L1 element into cultured human cells results in subsequent retrotransposition and stable integration of the transgene. L1 retrotransposition frequency was found to correlate with increasing multiplicity of infection by the chimeric vector, and further retrotransposition from newly integrated elements was not observed on prolonged culture. Therefore, this vector, which utilizes components of low immunogenic potential, represents a novel two-stage gene delivery system capable of achieving high titers via the initial helper-dependent adenovirus stage and permanent transgene integration via the retrotransposition stage.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63154/1/104303401750298571.pd

Identification of multiple transcription initiation, polyadenylation, and splice sites in the Drosophila melanogaster TART family of telomeric retrotransposons

The Drosophila non-long terminal repeat (non-LTR) retrotransposons TART and HeT-A specifically retrotranspose to chromosome ends to maintain Drosophila telomeric DNA. Relatively little is known, though, about the regulation of their expression and their retrotransposition to telomeres. We have used rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) to identify multiple transcription initiation and polyadenylation sites for sense and antisense transcripts of three subfamilies of TART elements in Drosophila melanogaster. These results are consistent with the production of an array of TART transcripts. In contrast to other Drosophila non-LTR elements, a major initiation site for sense transcripts was mapped near the 3′ end of the TART 5′-untranslated region (5′-UTR), rather than at the start of the 5′-UTR. A sequence overlapping this sense start site contains a good match to an initiator consensus for the transcription start sites of Drosophila LTR retrotransposons. Interestingly, analysis of 5′ RACE products for antisense transcripts and the GenBank EST database revealed that TART antisense transcripts contain multiple introns. Our results highlight differences between transcription of TART and of other Drosophila non-LTR elements and they provide a foundation for testing the relationship between exceptional aspects of TART transcription and TART's specialized role at telomeres