An Unexpected Threat: How a Short Stretch of the Northern New York Border with Canada Could Provide a New Avenue for Terrorist Attacks

Al Qaeda and many other terrorist groups have openly stated their intentions to acquire and use some form of nuclear device in an attack on the United States. As many recent terrorist attacks have demonstrated, terrorists will attempt to exploit any weakness in the line of defense in order to execute their stated intentions. The northern border area on and around the Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation in Northeastern New York and Canada has been an ongoing smuggling conduit and national security vulnerability. This paper will examine how this area could be exploited in order to smuggle a type of nuclear device known as a Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) or “dirty bomb” into the United States and how despite increases in security along the border and within major cities in the United States, terrorists might successfully be able to overcome these security measures and launch an attack

Fighting Terrorism: Assessing Israel\u27s Use of Force in Response to Hezbollah

The Israel-Lebanon conflict has highlighted difficult questions surrounding military responses to terrorist attacks. While Israel\u27s response was forceful, this Comment argues that it was legitimate under international law. There are inevitable problems that arise when a nation faces a terrorist militia that hides among civilians and generally operates outside the confines of international law. The wisdom of maintaining rigid laws of war given changing battlefield norms is a topic that is outside the scope of this Comment. Instead, this Comment will closely analyze Israel\u27s controversial actions both under the international customary rules of war and the sometimes aspirational Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions. If found to have been in violation of international law, the individuals carrying out the attacks on behalf of Israel could be held criminally or civilly liable under customary international law. Part II of this Comment explores the background and history of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Part III examines the history and development of the rules of war from early Christian theories of just war to the modern codification of the rules of war. Part IV focuses on the doctrine of proportionality, particularly the different methods commonly employed to determine whether a response is proportionate. Part IV also suggests an appropriate definition of proportionality in the context of combating international terrorism. Part V considers the doctrine of military necessity with particular analysis of identifying military targets and interpreting definite military advantage. Finally, Part VI addresses the doctrines of humanity and distinction with regard to the method of attack used in strikes and the weapons used to distinguish between military and civilian populations

Examining the Coping Resources of Polyvictimized Youth and Young Adults

Bullying represents a significant concern for many youth and young adults in the United States and abroad. However, the growth of technology has allowed for new platforms in which perpetrators can engage in bullying behaviors, such as text and video messaging, social media applications, and online gaming. In addition, research has suggested that the majority of cyberbullied individuals experience co-occurring in-person victimization as well. These trends are concerning, given that findings within both the traditional and cyberbullying literatures place victimized youth at-risk for a host of social and emotional concerns. However, research has yet to fully explore the unique experiences and psychosocial correlates of polyvictimized youth and young adults. Research on traditional and cyberbullying has typically utilized theoretical orientations that consider environmental, relational, and cognitive factors that contribute to the likelihood of involvement in bullying. These same factors should be considered when exploring how youth cope with these experiences. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation study was to further explore the internalizing symptomology associated with various victimization experiences (e.g., cyberbullying only, traditional bullying only, polyvictimization), as well as the potential buffering impact of participants’ perceptions of their coping resources (e.g., coping ability, friend and family support). Results from the current study found that polyvictimized youth and young adults reported experiencing significantly worse anxiety and depressive symptomology when compared to those who were bullied by only one form or did not report experiencing victimization within the last year. Additionally, the current study found that higher perceptions of resilient coping, friend support, and family support predicted less severe internalizing symptomology regardless of victimization experiences. These results suggest that victims of co-occurring forms of bullying are at-risk for severe internalizing symptomology and highlight the need to measure both forms of bullying in future research. In addition, fostering positive appraisals of one’s ability to cope and seek support should be considered important clinical goals, particularly for polyvictims due to their heightened risk of significant anxious and depressive symptoms. Adviser: Susan M. Sweare

Antiphospholipid syndrome

This issue of eMedRef provides information to clinicians on the pathophysiology, diagnosis, and therapeutics of antiphospholipid syndrome

Open-Source Synthesizable Analog Blocks for High-Speed Link Designs: 20-GS/s 5b ENOB Analog-to-Digital Converter and 5-GHz Phase Interpolator

Using digital standard cells and digital place-and-route (PnR) tools, we created a 20 GS/s, 8-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for use in high-speed serial link applications with an ENOB of 5.6, a DNL of 0.96 LSB, and an INL of 2.39 LSB, which dissipated 175 mW in 0.102 mm2 in a 16nm technology. The design is entirely described by HDL so that it can be ported to other processes with minimal effort and shared as open source.Comment: 2020 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuit

Ground Testing of the EMCS Seed Cassette for Biocompatibility with the Cellular Slime Mold, Dictyostelium Discoideum

The European Modular Cultivation System, EMCS, was developed by ESA for plant experiments. To expand the use of flight verified hardware for various model organisms, we performed ground experiments to determine whether ARC EMCS Seed Cassettes could be adapted for use with cellular slime mold for future space flight experiments. Dictyostelium is a cellular slime mold that can exist both as a single-celled independent organism and as a part of a multicellular colony which functions as a unit (pseudoplasmodium). Under certain stress conditions, individual amoebae will aggregate to form multicellular structures. Developmental pathways are very similar to those found in Eukaryotic organisms, making this a uniquely interesting organism for use in genetic studies. Dictyostelium has been used as a genetic model organism for prior space flight experiments. Due to the formation of spores that are resistant to unfavorable conditions such as desiccation, Dictyostelium is also a good candidate for use in the EMCS Seed Cassettes. The growth substratum in the cassettes is a gridded polyether sulfone (PES) membrane. A blotter beneath the PES membranes contains dried growth medium. The goals of this study were to (1) verify that Dictyostelium are capable of normal growth and development on PES membranes, (2) develop a method for dehydration of Dictyostelium spores with successful recovery and development after rehydration, and (3) successful mock rehydration experiments in cassettes. Our results show normal developmental progression in two strains of Dictyostelium discoideum on PES membranes with a bacterial food source. We have successfully performed a mock rehydration of spores with developmental progression from aggregation to slug formation, and production of morphologically normal spores within 9 days of rehydration. Our results indicate that experiments on the ISS using the slime mold, Dictyostelium discoideum could potentially be performed in the flight verified hardware of the EMCS ARC Seed Cassettes