The Obama Doctrine: The LICI Foreign Policy Perspective

Every U.S. President has maintained and crafted a prescriptive set of policies with which they conduct international affairs. All Presidents have left their historical mark- what they believe to be America’s position in the world, and its commensurate role. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world transformed as America achieved international hegemony as the sole superpower and subsequent victor of the Cold War. However, many today question U.S. primacy shifting the debate toward questioning if and how America should act in the world. Barack Obama’s foreign policy eludes the confines of a single political ideology and philosophy. After being elected President, Barack Obama was bequeathed several entrenched problems (e.g. the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Great Recession), and encountered new ones along the way (e.g. the Libyan intervention, Arab uprisings). A rhetorical analysis of his major speeches, beginning with several of his campaign speeches and ending at the present time, elucidates that his foreign policy is largely shaped by three major International Relations philosophical frameworks. This Capstone thesis contends that Obama’s rhetoric- i.e. speeches, foreign policy writings, books, addresses, and educational background- about America’s position and subsequent role in the world today indicates that his foreign policy is a combination of Liberal Internationalism, Constructivism, and Institutionalism (LICI). They have overlapping features that reaffirm each other\u27s validity, and all are substantiated further by several subcategories. The subcategories this paper draws upon to illustrate how Obama’s rhetoric reflects and, in many ways, constructs his foreign policy are: Pragmatism, Progressivism, Cosmopolitanism, Soft-power and global engagement, and multilateralism. Obama’s rhetoric is indicative of what he believes America’s role in the world could be, and should be

Multi-Temporal InSAR Structural Damage Assessment: The London Crossrail Case Study

Spaceborne multi-temporal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (MT-InSAR) is a monitoring technique capable of extracting line of sight (LOS) cumulative surface displacement measurements with millimeter accuracy. Several improvements in the techniques and datasets quality lead to more effective, near real time assessment and response, and a greater ability of constraining dynamically changing physical processes. Using examples of the COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) system, we present a methodology that bridges the gaps between MT-InSAR and the relative stiffness method for tunnel-induced subsidence damage assessment. The results allow quantification of the effect of the building on the settlement profile. As expected the greenfield deformation assessment tends to provide a conservative estimate in the majority of cases (~ 71% of the analyzed buildings), overestimating tensile strains up to 50%. With this work we show how these two techniques in the field of remote sensing and structural engineering can be synergistically used to complement and replace the traditional ground based analysis by providing an extended coverage and a temporally dense set of data

Guided Bone Regeneration with Occlusive Titanium Barrier: A Case Report and Clinical Considerations.

The need to obtain adequate bone volumes for prosthetic rehabilitation supported by implants, using different techniques and materials, represents an urgent need in modern dentistry. We report a case regarding the management of implant-prosthetic rehabilitation of the first and second upper right molars, in which no less than 4 mm of crestal bone remained to insert two implants. Regeneration of the residual bone was previously performed using a customized titanium barrier and a filler of a blood clot with tricalcium beta phosphate. The bone gain (3 mm) was evaluated by comparing CBCT images, while the implant stability (mean 70) was assessed with the ISQ measurement. A regenerated bone sample was taken for histological analysis. Guided bone regeneration obtained with a titanium barrier and blood clot allowed for the insertion of stable implants in a mature bone without heterologous material

On the coupling between spinning particles and cosmological gravitational waves

The influence of spin in a system of classical particles on the propagation of gravitational waves is analyzed in the cosmological context of primordial thermal equilibrium. On a flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric, when the precession is neglected, there is no contribution due to the spin to the distribution function of the particles. Adding a small tensor perturbation to the background metric, we study if a coupling between gravitational waves and spin exists that can modify the evolution of the distribution function, leading to new terms in the anisotropic stress, and then to a new source for gravitational waves. In the chosen gauge, the final result is that, in the absence of other kind of perturbations, there is no coupling between spin and gravitational waves.Comment: 4 pages, to appear in Proceedings of the II Stueckelberg Workshop - Int. J. Mod. Phys.

El rol de la educación en sociedades competitivas

El presente trabajo analiza los planteos de Fred Hirsch en su obra Los límites sociales al crecimiento [1985], para tratar particularmente las consecuencias negativas que presenta un sistema educativo en donde prime una función de selección o tamizado. Esto es importante para pensar el rol que tiene la educación en las sociedades contemporáneas, pero particularmente en las sociedades desiguales. Un sistema educativo que se plantea como una carrera de obstáculos conlleva irremediablemente un gasto social que no es beneficioso para la sociedad como un todo, aunque sí podría servir para el individuo aislado y bien posicionado económicamente, que puede sacar provecho de un sistema educativo competitivo. La pregunta a responder, siguiendo esta línea, es si el sistema educativo en una sociedad desigual sirve como mecanismo de movilidad social o si simplemente reproduce el statu quo; si es posible que el sueño de mejorar el status social se dé o sólo sea una quimera. ¿Pueden todas las clases ascender socialmente en una sociedad desigual o ello implica una contradicción en los términos?Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació