Ballistic Missile Defense in South Korea: Separate Systems Against a Common Threat

Some of the most enduring disagreements in the alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) concern ballistic missile defenses (BMD). At the same time that South Korea has expanded its conventional offensive missile program, it has declined American proposals for a regionally integrated BMD architecture, insisting on developing its own national system in parallel to the defenses operated by U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). American appeals for interoperability between U.S. and ROK systems have been received cautiously, as were proposals to enhance its own BMD in Korea by introducing the Terminal HighAltitude Area Defense (THAAD) to the Peninsula for several years. A desire for expanded autonomy in national security appears to underpin Seoul’s attitudes on BMD. Rather than rely passively on American protection against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, South Korea’s military leaders have focused on developing precision-strike capabilities to intimidate Pyongyang, and resisted simply accepting an American BMD umbrella. Even more than they desire greater independence from their American patron-ally, South Koreans are suspicious of entanglements with Japan, their former colonial master, whose own defensive systems are already integrated with the American regional BMD architecture. This outlook encourages the pursuit of independent defense capabilities and discourages institutionalizing trilateral security arrangements

Carbon Free Boston: Waste Technical Report

Part of a series of reports that includes: Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report; Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report; Carbon Free Boston: Technical Summary; Carbon Free Boston: Buildings Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Transportation Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Energy Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Offsets Technical Report; Available at http://sites.bu.edu/cfb/OVERVIEW: For many people, their most perceptible interaction with their environmental footprint is through the waste that they generate. On a daily basis people have numerous opportunities to decide whether to recycle, compost or throwaway. In many cases, such options may not be present or apparent. Even when such options are available, many lack the knowledge of how to correctly dispose of their waste, leading to contamination of valuable recycling or compost streams. Once collected, people give little thought to how their waste is treated. For Boston’s waste, plastic in the disposal stream acts becomes a fossil fuel used to generate electricity. Organics in the waste stream have the potential to be used to generate valuable renewable energy, while metals and electronics can be recycled to offset virgin materials. However, challenges in global recycling markets are burdening municipalities, which are experiencing higher costs to maintain their recycling. The disposal of solid waste and wastewater both account for a large and visible anthropogenic impact on human health and the environment. In terms of climate change, landfilling of solid waste and wastewater treatment generated emissions of 131.5 Mt CO2e in 2016 or about two percent of total United States GHG emissions that year. The combustion of solid waste contributed an additional 11.0 Mt CO2e, over half of which (5.9 Mt CO2e) is attributable to the combustion of plastic [1]. In Massachusetts, the GHG emissions from landfills (0.4 Mt CO2e), waste combustion (1.2 Mt CO2e), and wastewater (0.5 Mt CO2e) accounted for about 2.7 percent of the state’s gross GHG emissions in 2014 [2]. The City of Boston has begun exploring pathways to Zero Waste, a goal that seeks to systematically redesign our waste management system that can simultaneously lead to a drastic reduction in emissions from waste. The easiest way to achieve zero waste is to not generate it in the first place. This can start at the source with the decision whether or not to consume a product. This is the intent behind banning disposable items such as plastic bags that have more sustainable substitutes. When consumption occurs, products must be designed in such a way that their lifecycle impacts and waste footprint are considered. This includes making durable products, limiting the use of packaging or using organic packaging materials, taking back goods at the end of their life, and designing products to ensure compatibility with recycling systems. When reducing waste is unavoidable, efforts to increase recycling and organics diversion becomes essential for achieving zero waste. [TRUNCATED]Published versio

Carbon Free Boston: Technical Summary

Part of a series of reports that includes: Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report; Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report; Carbon Free Boston: Buildings Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Transportation Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Waste Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Energy Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Offsets Technical Report; Available at http://sites.bu.edu/cfb/OVERVIEW: This technical summary is intended to argument the rest of the Carbon Free Boston technical reports that seek to achieve this goal of deep mitigation. This document provides below: a rationale for carbon neutrality, a high level description of Carbon Free Boston’s analytical approach; a summary of crosssector strategies; a high level analysis of air quality impacts; and, a brief analysis of off-road and street light emissions.Published versio

Carbon Free Boston: Buildings Technical Report

Part of a series of reports that includes: Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report; Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report; Carbon Free Boston: Technical Summary; Carbon Free Boston: Transportation Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Waste Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Energy Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Offsets Technical Report; Available at http://sites.bu.edu/cfb/OVERVIEW: Boston is known for its historic iconic buildings, from the Paul Revere House in the North End, to City Hall in Government Center, to the Old South Meeting House in Downtown Crossing, to the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill, to 200 Clarendon (the Hancock Tower) in Back Bay, to Abbotsford in Roxbury. In total, there are over 86,000 buildings that comprise more than 647 million square feet of area. Most of these buildings will still be in use in 2050. Floorspace (square footage) is almost evenly split between residential and non-residential uses, but residential buildings account for nearly 80,000 (93 percent) of the 86,000 buildings. Boston’s buildings are used for a diverse range of activities that include homes, offices, hospitals, factories, laboratories, schools, public service, retail, hotels, restaurants, and convention space. Building type strongly influences energy use; for example, restaurants, hospitals, and laboratories have high energy demands compared to other commercial uses. Boston’s building stock is characterized by thousands of turn-of-the-20th century homes and a postWorld War II building boom that expanded both residential buildings and commercial space. Boston is in the midst of another boom in building construction that is transforming neighborhoods across the city. [TRUNCATED]Published versio

Missile Defense, Extended Deterrence, and Nonproliferation in the 21st Century

The following papers were commissioned as part of the Missile Defense, Extended Deterrence, and Nonproliferation in the 21st Century project supported by the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (PASCC). The papers have two general purposes: 1) to create a body of work that provides an overview of the missile defense developments in major regions of the world; and 2) to provide emerging scholars the opportunity to conduct research, publish, and connect with each other. We believe we have succeeded on both counts. The papers written for this project will be valuable for academics and policymakers alike, and will be published and disseminated by the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. This element of the project has also been successful in further bringing together a new cadre of experts in the field and developing the next generation of academics and public servants who will benefit from their participation in this project. These papers were completed in the Fall of 2016

Altered Resting-State Functional Connectivity of the Frontal-Striatal Reward System in Social Anxiety Disorder

We investigated differences in the intrinsic functional brain organization (functional connectivity) of the human reward system between healthy control participants and patients with social anxiety disorder. Functional connectivity was measured in the resting-state via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). 53 patients with social anxiety disorder and 33 healthy control participants underwent a 6-minute resting-state fMRI scan. Functional connectivity of the reward system was analyzed by calculating whole-brain temporal correlations with a bilateral nucleus accumbens seed and a ventromedial prefrontal cortex seed. Patients with social anxiety disorder, relative to the control group, had (1) decreased functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens seed and other regions associated with reward, including ventromedial prefrontal cortex; (2) decreased functional connectivity between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex seed and lateral prefrontal regions, including the anterior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices; and (3) increased functional connectivity between both the nucleus accumbens seed and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex seed with more posterior brain regions, including anterior cingulate cortex. Social anxiety disorder appears to be associated with widespread differences in the functional connectivity of the reward system, including markedly decreased functional connectivity between reward regions and between reward regions and lateral prefrontal cortices, and markedly increased functional connectivity between reward regions and posterior brain regions.Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Janet and Sheldon Razin Fellowship

High-Redshift Starbursting Dwarf Galaxies Revealed by GRB Afterglows

We present a study of 15 long-duration gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies at z>2. The GRBs are selected with available early-time afterglow spectra in order to compare interstellar medium (ISM) absorption-line properties with stellar properties of the host galaxies. In addition to five previously studied hosts, we consider new detections for the host galaxies of GRB050820 and GRB060206 and place 2-sigma upper limits to the luminosities of the remaining unidentified hosts. We examine the nature of the host galaxy population and find that (1) the UV luminosity distribution of GRB host galaxies is consistent with expectations from a UV luminosity weighted random galaxy population with a median luminosity of =0.1 L*; (2) there exists a moderate correlation between UV luminosity and SiII 1526 absorption width, which together with the observed large line widths of W(1526)>1.5 Ang for a large fraction of the objects suggests a galactic outflow driven velocity field in the host galaxies; (3) there is tentative evidence for a trend of declining ISM metallicity with decreasing galaxy luminosity in the star-forming galaxy population at z=2-4; (4) the interstellar UV radiation field is found ~ 35-350 times higher in GRB hosts than the Galactic mean value; and (5) additional galaxies are found at < 2" from the GRB host in all fields with known presence of strong MgII absorbers, but no additional faint galaxies are found at < 2" in fields without strong MgII absorbers. Our study confirms that the GRB host galaxies (with known optical afterglows) are representative of unobscured star-forming galaxies at z>2, and demonstrates that high spatial resolution images are necessary for an accurate identification of GRB host galaxies in the presence of strong intervening absorbers.Comment: 24 emulateapj pages, 24 figures, ApJ in press; full-resolution version available at http://lambda.uchicago.edu/public/tmp/ghost.pd