Empowering equitable data use partnerships and indigenous data sovereignties amid pandemic genomics

The COVID-19 pandemic has inequitably impacted Indigenous communities in the United States. In this emergency state that highlighted existing inadequacies in US government and tribal public health infrastructures, many tribal nations contracted with commercial entities and other organization types to conduct rapid diagnostic and antibody testing, often based on proprietary technologies specific to the novel pathogen. They also partnered with public-private enterprises on clinical trials to further the development of vaccines. Indigenous people contributed biological samples for assessment and, in many cases, broadly consented for indefinite use for future genomics research. A concern is that the need for crisis aid may have placed Indigenous communities in a position to forego critical review of data use agreements by tribal research governances. In effect, tribal nations were placed in the unenviable position of trading short-term public health assistance for long-term, unrestricted access to Indigenous genomes that may disempower future tribal sovereignties over community members' data. Diagnostic testing, specimen collection, and vaccine research is ongoing; thus, our aim is to outline pathways to trust that center current and future equitable relationship-building between tribal entities and public-private interests. These pathways can be utilized to increase Indigenous communities' trust of external partners and share understanding of expectations for and execution of data protections. We discuss how to navigate genomic-based data use agreements in the context of pathogen genomics. While we focus on US tribal nations, Indigenous genomic data sovereignties relate to global Indigenous nations regardless of colonial government recognition

OVERHEATED SECURITY? The Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security

Since the mid-2000s, climate change has become one of the defining security issues in political as well as academic debates and amongst others has repeatedly been discussed in the UN Security Council and countless high level government reports in various countries. Beyond the question whether the characterisation as ‘security issue’ is backed up by any robust empirical findings, this begs the question whether the ‘securitisation’ of climate change itself has had tangible political consequences. Moreover, within this research area there is still a lively discussion about which security conceptions apply, how to conceptualise (successful) securitisation and whether it is a (politically and normatively) desirable approach to deal with climate change. The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on these issues and particularly to contribute to a more thorough understanding of different forms or ‘discourses’ of securitisation and their political effects on a theoretical and empirical level. Theoretically, it conceptualises securitisation as resting on different forms of power, which are derived from Michel Foucault’s governmentality lectures. The main argument is that this framework allows me to better capture the ambiguous and diverse variants of securitisation and the ever-changing concept of security as well as to come to a more thorough understanding of the political consequences and powerful effects of constructing issues in terms of security. Empirically, the thesis looks at three country cases, namely the United States, Germany and Mexico. This comparative angle allows me to go beyond the existing literature on the securitisation of climate change that mostly looks at the global level, and to come to a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of different climate security discourses and their political consequences. Concerning the main results, the thesis finds that climate change has indeed been securitised very differently in the three countries and thus has facilitated diverse political consequences. These range from an incorporation of climate change into the defence sector in the US, the legitimisation of far-reaching climate policies in Germany, to the integration of climate change into several civil protection and agricultural insurance schemes in Mexico. Moreover, resting on different forms of power, the securitisation of climate change has played a key role in constructing specific actors and forms of knowledge as legitimate as well as in shaping certain identities in the face of the dangers of climate change. From a normative perspective, neither of these political consequences is purely good or bad but highly ambiguous and necessitates a careful, contextual assessment

FATIGUE, FRACTURE, AND CRACK GROWTH BEHAVIOR OF FIVE CANDIDATE STEELS FOR WIND TOWER APPLICATION

Fatigue, fracture toughness, and crack propagation tests were performed on five candidate steels for wind tower applications. Normally, these steels are ordered to meet ASTM A572/A709 Grade 50 or EN 10025-2 Grade S355 in the normalized condition. Five steels with varying carbon content and alloy additions focusing on niobium and vanadium content are investigated. Two of the five steels are in the normalized condition to check the EN 10025-2 requirement while the rest are in the as-rolled condition. Fatigue tests were performed to determine the endurance limit using a constant amplitude loading at a constant load ratio. Fracture toughness testing using the J integral method was performed to determine the critical fracture energy, Jc. This value is then converted to the critical plain strain stress intensity factor if requirements are met. Three fracture toughness tests were performed for each material at room temperature using a C(T) specimen. Crack propagation tests were performed to determine the Paris constants using a contoured double cantilever beam specimen. The steels with niobium give better results in fatigue and displayed smaller grain diameters than the steels with vanadium. The fatigue results for the low carbon steel with niobium are comparable to another HPS steel. Overall, the low carbon steel with niobium provides better toughness, fatigue resistance, and weldability than the steels that are normalized to meet the EN 10025-2 requirement for wind tower plates.M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, July 201

Federal Restrictions on Tribal Customary Law: The Importance of Tribal Customary Law in Tribal Courts

This article examines the adverse effects of federal case law and legislation on tribal courts and tribal courts’ ability to incorporate tribal customary law. Tribal customary law is the law given to tribes by holy deities which governs tribal ways of life. It is important to maintain tribal customary law because it strengthens tribal communities’ identities and cultural foundations. While Supreme Court precedent has, at different times, both restricted and promoted tribes’ ability to use tribal customary law to adjudicate the cases of tribal members, federal legislation including the Major Crimes Act, the Indian Civil Rights Act, the Tribal Law and Order Act, and the Violence Against Women Act continues to restrict tribes’ ability to apply customary law in tribal courts. To illustrate one way in which current federal Indian policy limits tribes’ ability to use customary law, the author highlights the ways in which two-spirit tribal members are excluded and ignored by the protections established in the Violence against Women Act. As the use of tribal customary law is critical to the maintenance of tribal sovereignty, this article advocates for corrections to these legislative restrictions to promote tribal court’s use of tribal customary law