This thesis examines how secrecy and absence shape the representation of covert counter-terrorism in the public sphere. Contemporary covert practices, from missile strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles to special forces 'kill/capture' operations, have come to exemplify U.S. counter-terrorism in public debate. This is significant because these practices shift the ethical stakes of witnessing state warfare. Previous scholarship on war and news media has argued that public glimpses of state violence, alongside official declarations, can demonise or dehumanise the targets of such violence, and thus prompt witnesses to accept the state's rationalisation of these actions and the use of secrecy. News coverage of contemporary covert action, however, offers no such glimpses. Instead, coverage draws primarily upon residue: the rumours and debris left behind. By applying this concept of residue to drone strikes, the special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and kidnap rescue efforts in the Sahara-Sahel, the thesis argues that it is all this speculation, rubble, and empty space, rather than the state itself, which signifies to newsreaders the possibility of state secrecy. That suspicion of secrecy then frames the absences in this residue, the conspicuous lack of certain bodies and objects. Secrecy makes those absences appear suggestive, in that the latter cannot publicly corroborate different aspects of these unseen events. This allows residue to intimate – to hint at unverifiable ideas about that which is absent, in a way which can undermine more explicit claims and justifications of what has taken place. To examine how this dynamic reframes the ethics of witnessing, the thesis develops an historical affiliation, a method of linking disparate practices of violence based on similar representational qualities, in order to examine whether witnessing is being shaped by these qualities in obscured or unspoken ways. This affiliation is made between representations of covert counter-terrorism and those of lynching in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite their differences, in both cases unseen violence and absent bodies are represented as significant in their being disconnected from wider society and difficult to comprehend, to understand how and why the violence takes place. This occurs in today's counter-terrorism through hints and allusions from absence, which represent these covert events as physically intangible. As with lynching, violence and its casualties are implicitly represented in their absence as reflecting the public's intellectual and moral distance from the practice. This takes covert counter-terrorism beyond a binary of fostering assent or dissent towards the state. Instead of prompting newsreaders' complicity with state narratives for its actions, residue intimates doubts and unspoken possibilities about these events that curtail their rationalisation. Insodoing, however, these representations marginalise the violence inflicted upon casualties from ethical consideration. They do so while obscuring how that marginalisation occurs, as newsreaders are prompted to see themselves as distanced from these events and to focus upon that distance, rather than on how absences are being given significance in the public sphere. Using the historical affiliation with lynching, the thesis concludes that an ethical witnessing of covert counter-terrorism through its residue cannot be based on an attempt to recognise and 'recover' lived experiences of suffering from rumours and debris. Rather, ethical witnessing would involve an awareness of how distance is constructed through that residue, and how this gives unspoken meaning to absence.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering / Douglas S. McGregor / The 3He gas shortage for neutron detection has caused an increase in research efforts to develop viable alternative technologies. 3He neutron detectors cover areas ranging from 10–1000 cm2 in cylindrical form factors and are ideal for many nuclear applications due to their high intrinsic thermal neutron detection efficiency (> 80%) and gamma-ray discrimination (GRR ≤ 1 x 10-6) capabilities. Neutron monitoring systems for nuclear security applications include Radiation Portal Monitors (RPM’s), backpack, briefcase, and hand-held sensors. A viable replacement technology is presented here and compares three neutron detectors, each with different neutron absorber materials, to current 3He standards. These materials include Li and/or B silica aerogels, LiF impregnated foams, and metallic Li foils. Additionally, other neutron absorbing materials were investigated in this work and include LiF coated Mylar, B foils, BN coated carbon foam, and BN coated plastic honeycomb. From theoretical calculations, the Li foil material showed the greatest promise as a viable 3He alternative, thus a majority of the research efforts were focused on this material. The new neutron detector was a multi-wire proportional counter (MWPC) constructed using alternating banks of anode wires and 95% enriched 6Li foils sheets spaced 1.63 cm apart. In total, six anode banks and five layers of foil were used, thus an anode wire bank was positioned on each side of a suspended foils. Reaction products from the 6Li(n,α)3H reaction were able to escape both side of a foil sheet simultaneously and be measured in the surrounding gas volume concurrently. This new concept of measuring both reaction products from a single neutron absorption in a solid-form absorber material increased the intrinsic thermal neutron detection efficiency and gamma-ray discrimination compared to coated gas-filled detectors. Three different sizes of Li foil MWPC neutron detectors were constructed ranging from 25–1250 cm2 and included detectors for RPM’s, backpacks, and hand-held systems. The measured intrinsic thermal neutron detection efficiency of these devices was approximately 54%, but it is possible to exceed 80% efficiency with additional foils. The gamma-ray discrimination abilities of the detector exceeded 3He tubes by almost three orders of magnitude (GRR = 7.6 x 10-9).

abstract: Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) have a polarizing effect in the US. The first commercially viable GMO was Roundup Ready Soy, introduced by Monsanto in 1996, to be used in conjunction with Roundup herbicides. This thesis investigated and delineated the development and deployments of the discourse of Monsanto’s agricultural assemblage of Roundup Ready seeds and Roundup herbicides and its resistant discourses. Monsanto builds its discourse around the safety and necessity of Roundup Ready seeds through federal regulation and toxicology studies. Resistant discourses deployed by Monsanto’s critics problematize Roundup safety and reject Monsanto’s contention that GMOs are necessary for meeting world’s food demands. The discourse analysis pursued in this thesis explored interactions between the dominant discourse and counter discourses and charted their deployments in Colorado’s and Oregon’s 2014 ballot measures that would have required mandatory GMO labeling. Analysis suggested counter discourses were successful in mobilizing people to engage civically. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Communication Studies 2015

A partir da difusão e fragmentação das escritas de vida pela Comunicação no contemporâneo, esta dissertação busca discutir tal fenômeno à luz do conceito de biografema, conforme elaborado por Roland Barthes. Propomos que as narrativas midiáticas vêm praticando um resgate e um desgaste de tal forma semiótica, calcada na descrição de detalhes e pequenas idiossincrasias de suas personagens – jogo de enunciação biográfica visível desde sua formalização com Plutarco, no Século X, até a corrente definição de espaço biográfico, fendido pelo crescente interesse em detalhamentos e escritas menores. Identificado tal cenário em dispersão, a pesquisa tomou como seu objetivo geral distinguir os usos do biografema pelos discursos comunicacionais contemporâneos por meio do mapeamento de suas diversas funções semióticas, observáveis na análise de fragmentos narrativos. Tal distinção é organizada aqui, metodologicamente, a partir da arqueologia de Michel Foucault, na tentativa de localizar os regimes de dizibilidade que instauram e modelam as formas semióticas de enunciação da vida e o modo como se alteram em seu trânsito. Desse painel, partimos para uma observação de certas escrituras concretas capazes de encarnar as forças formativas, levando a uma investigação sobre discursos midiáticos como Caetano estaciona carro no Leblon nesta quinta-feira e Bela, recatada e ‘do lar’, contrapostos ao dispositivo crítico dos livros Anjo noturno, Inverdades, La literatura nazi en America, O concerto de João Gilberto no Rio de Janeiro, Um homem burro morreu, Vida e Vésperas. Desmontados a partir da sua enunciação de traços biografemáticos, tais textos são remontados em nossa análise a partir da identificação de três estratégias semióticas que animam a circulação do biográfico pelos meios de comunicação. Foi possível ler aí três principais usos estratégicos a modelizar a palavra biografemática: a palavra de ordem, voltada a tomar a descrição do biografado como realização de injunções de poder; a palavra mítica, forma de organização sígnica específica desse uso, dedicada a naturalizar os intuitos estratégicos a que serve; e a palavra fágica, que apropria para a mídia a forma crítica do biografema, mas também opera o movimento inverso, reiniciando essa semiose. Na disposição dessas formas de lidar com os traços biografemáticos, podemos inferir o caráter volátil da linguagem envolvida na constituição do biografema e das biografias; linguagem cujo uso desvela uma condição parasita da Comunicação, estruturada pela produção de signos e de regimes poéticos e políticos. / Based on the diffusion and fragmentation of the life’s writings by Communication in the contemporany, this dissertation seeks to discuss such phenomenon in light of the concept of biographeme, as elaborated by Barthes. We propose that the media’s narratives have been practicing a rescue and a detrition of this semiotic form, based on the description of details and little idiosyncrasies of his characters – a game of biographical writing visible since its formalization with Plutarch, in the Xth century, to the current definition of biographical space, cracked by the growing interest in smaller writings and details. Identified the dispersion of such scenario, the research took as its general objective to distinguish the uses of the biographeme by the contemporary communicational discourses, mapping its diverse semiotic functions, observable in the analysis of narrative fragments. Such distinction is methodologically organized with the arche-genealogy of Michel Foucault, in an attempt to locate the regimes of readability that establish and model the semiotic forms of enunciation of life and how they change in their transit. From this panel, we set out for an observation of certain concrete writings capable of embodying this formative forces, leading to an investigation into media discourses such as Caetano estaciona carro no Leblon nesta quinta-feira and Bela, recatada e ‘do lar’ opposed to the critical apparatus of the books Anjo noturno, Inverdades, La literatura nazi en America, O concerto de João Gilberto no Rio de Janeiro, Um homem burro morreu, Vida e Vésperas. Disassembled in their enunciation of biographematical traces, in our analysis these texts are traced back to the identification of three semiotic strategies that animated the circulation of the biographical in the media. It was possible to read in these three main strategic uses modeling the biographematical word: the word of order, aimed at taking the description of the biography as concretion of injunctions of power; the mythical word, an specific form of symbolic organization, dedicated to naturalize the strategic purposes that it serves; and the phagic word, which appropriates to the media the critical form of biographeme, but also operates the reverse movement, restarting this semiosis. Laying out these ways of dealing with the biographematical traces, we can infer the volatile character of the language involved in the constitution of the biographeme and the biographies; the language whose use unveils a parasitic condition of Communication, structured by the production of signs and poetic and political regimes.

abstract: The effects of over-the-counter drug (OTC) use on college students' health has been debated in the field of psychology with researchers arguing that poor sleep quality among college students is the result of polysubstance use. However, this explanation is not a foregone conclusion. These researchers have not adequately addressed the issue poor sleep quality among college students and its relationship to polysubstance use. This is an important issue because prolonged unsupervised OTC drug use and poor sleep quality can impact long-term health and lessen students' likelihood of being successful in college. This paper addresses the issue of OTC drug use with special attention to sleep quality. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index Scores were collected to assess subjective sleep quality and its relationship to OTC drug use. Several other risk factors including binge drinking, marijuana use, and illicit drug use were also accounted for in this model. This study argues that, although the current literature suggests that poor sleep quality is the effect of drug use rather than the cause; the relationships between these factors are still unclear. This study aims to fill a gap in the college drug use literature by establishing a relationship between poor sleep quality and OTC drug use in a college sample. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Psychology 2014

Cette étude vise à mettre en évidence le caractère contradictoire et problématique de la mémoire collective américaine à travers l'évolution intergénérationnelle de différentes ethnies. Avec l'exploration de l'Histoire commune des Américains, qui transcende la barrière raciale, sera étudié l'idéal du melting-pot dans ses projets et ses effets.D'ores et déjà, il apparaît qu'une partie des Américains porte aujourd'hui encore les stigmates de l'esclavage. des violences raciales, des injustices du passé. Les événements de la vie sociale révèlent, bien souvent, que les victimes des atrocités d'hier ne sont pas parvenues à faire leur deuil, puisque les Afro-Américains et les Amérindiens sont encore trop souvent rattrapés par ces drames. L'analyse des effets de la transmission psychique intergénérationnelle de cette population meurtrie, fait ressurgir le spectre d'une communauté noire se percevant à la fois comme victime et comme coupable jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Les tabous qui entourent l'historiographie des États-Unis témoignent du poids de la contre-mémoire. parce que les identités culturelles et linguistiques des minorités leur ont été longtemps déniées. De la même façon. le fait qu'un quart d'Américains blancs descende d'ancêtres asservis a longtemps plongé la société américaine dans une situation de souffrance psychique et de conflits dont la source était occultée. Le thème de notre étude crée le lien entre les méfaits et le refoulement issu des circonstances historiques défavorables à certains groupes ethniques avec la face cachée d'une Amérique soumise aux résurgences des démons de son passé. Loin de parvenir à l'idéal d'une société post-raciale tant rêvée, les États-Unis continuent de s'exposer sans cesse (aux souffrances du passé à travers la projection haineuse et douloureuse du racisme, en dépit du progrès multiracial et multiculturel que veut promouvoir l'image officielle. / This study aims to highlight the contradictory and problematic features of U.S. collective memory, across the generational evolution of the different ethnies. First and foremost, the present study ponders about the viability of American shared History transcending the racial bulwark, as well as the melting-pot ideal. Nowadays, a part of the American citizens bears the scars of slavery, of racial violence, and of the past injustices. The victims of such crimes have failed to mourn for them away, since those tragedies still catch up African-Americans and Native~Americans. By annlyzing the effects of intergenerational and psychic transmission within the upset Black community, it is obvious that we aIso enlighten the way the laltter entertains the feeling of being both a victim and a culprit. Finally. the silence surrounding the United States' historiography shows the signiticant part of a counter-memory, inasmuch as the cultural and linguistic identical labels of those minorities have been gradually denieed. lt thus transpires that a quarter of white Americans descend from enslaved ancestors, which has long turned into psychic pains and lasting conflicts. This dissertal'ion therefore establishes the link between the plight sufferecl by some ethnic groups and the hidden side of America wrestling with the ghosts of her history. Far from reaching a post-racial society. the USA keep on facing again their past days' hardship and sufferings through the hateful scope of racism, despite the multiracial and multicultural policy boasted by the country's official image.

The potential of countercurrent chromatography (CCC) as a small footprint bioreactor/separator for manufacture of enantiopure chiral molecules was explored, using as a model reaction the isolation of L-amino butyric acid (L-ABA) from a DL-ABA racemate and the enantioselectivity of D-amino acid oxidase (DAAO). Bioconversion of D-ABA to ketobutyric acid (KBA) by DAAO, immobilised by selective partitioning in the stationary phase of the CCC centrifuge, was accompanied by separation of unreacted L-ABA from KBA by the countercurrent action of the centrifuge. For effective bioreactor/separator action, a high partition of the biocatalyst to the stationary phase was required in order to retain the biocatalyst in the coil, with differing partitions of substrates and products between the stationary phase (SP) and mobile phase (MP) so that these could be separated. Aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) were the major two-phase systems used to provide SP and MP, as these are well reported to be effective in preserving enzyme activity. The distribution ratios of DL-ABA, KBA and DAAO were measured in a range of phases with polyethylene glycols (PEGs) of different molecular weights, different salts, and different compositions of PEG and salt, using an automated robotic method, developed for the purpose. A system of 14% w/w PEG 1000/ 14% w/w potassium phosphate, pH 7.6, gave the best combination of distributions ratios (CPEG phase/Csalt phase = CSP/CMP) for ABA, KBA and biocatalyst (DAAO) of 0.6, 2.4 and 19.6 respectively. A limited number of aqueous-organic and ionic liquid two-phase systems were also reviewed, but found unsatisfactory. CCC operating conditions such as substrate concentration, biocatalyst concentration, the mobile phase flow rate (residence time in the CCC coil), temperature, rotational speed and operational modes (single flow and multiple-dual flow) and types of mixing (cascade and wave-like) were optimised to produce total conversion of D-ABA to KBA, which was then completely separated from unreacted, enantiomerically pure (>99% ee), LABA. Advantages of the CCC bioreactor over conventional technology include reduced equipment footprint, cheaper running costs, and faster purifications. However, in its current format the drawbacks, such as enzyme instability and excessive optimisation time, reduce its commercial appeal. Additional investigations into the use of whole cell preparations of biocatalyst in the CCC bioreactor showed potential to overcome the problem of enzyme instability and this may in the future give the CCC bioreactor a place in the enantioseparation field.

While the limited number of scholars in the field of EU intelligence cooperation tend to have a rather state-centric view and focus on the normative (trust) or the functional (efficieny) dimension of intelligence cooperation, this study contributes to the field by focusing solely on the institutional structure of Europol. The purpose of this study is to examine why the Europol established the European Counter Terrorism Centre and why it is not addressing the interconnectedness between terrorism and organized crime. In order to address these questions, the theoretical framework of historical institutionalism has been applied and the notion of path dependency plays a vital role.  The study rests on a qualitative single case study design and the disciplined configurative-model is used to fulfill the research objective. The researcher traces the process in a historically chronological order and uses pre-existing materials in order to uncover explanatory findings. The study concludes that the theoretical framework of historical institutionalism and the notion of path dependency can explain the research problem and the research questions. The findings prove that Europol is a highly reactive institution in terms of its counter-terrorism arrangements and that historical perceptions play a significant role and inevitable leads the institution onto a path dependent track.

Class of 2011 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: Accidental ingestions of medications in children under five years old are an increasing problem faced by parents and caregivers. This study will determine which medications are most commonly ingested and which cause more harmful side effects. METHODS: A descriptive, retrospective study was performed by obtaining data from electronic patient charts from the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center (APDIC). Subjects were selected if they were younger than five years old and had ingested a medication during 2009. Age and gender were analyzed by calculating percentages and means and comparing them using an independent t-test. Adverse effects of medications were compared using a Chi Square test. RESULTS: A total of 4,373 cases met inclusion criteria for analysis, including 2,019 females and 2,354 males. The average age of patients was 2.2 years. Of 3,275 cases (74.4%) involving OTC medications, 119 patients (3.6%) developed minor effects and 20 patients (0.6%) developed moderate effects. Of 1,129 children (25.6%) ingesting prescription medications, 78 patients (6.9%) developed minor effects, 35 patients (3.1%) developed moderate effects and 1 patient (0.1%) developed a major effect (p=0.003). CONCLUSION: Males were more likely to have unintentional ingestions than females. The incidence of OTC ingestions was higher than prescription ingestions. Toddlers tended to have more ingestions than infants or older children. Unintentional prescription medication ingestions resulted in significantly more adverse effects than unintentional OTC ingestions.

The death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in London in April 2009 triggered a haemorrhaging of public confidence in public order policing. The protests were swiftly followed by a plethora of official inquiries and reports tasked with investigating the legitimacy of existing public order policing tactics and the associated mechanisms of accountability. Events since Tomlinson’s death indicate that this is an issue that is unlikely to dissipate any time soon. Dramatic footage taken during the 2010-11 student protests, including police officers charging protesters on horseback and dragging a disabled activist from his wheelchair, attracted widespread condemnation. The on-going revelations into the activities of undercover police officers suggest that such practices may be the tip of the iceberg. These disclosures have caused a serious crisis of legitimacy for an institution supposedly founded on a principle of ‘policing by consent’. Paradoxically, these developments have occurred during a period in which the right to protest is for the first time reflected in law. In October 2000 the much trumpeted Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA 1998) came into force in England and Wales, incorporating into domestic law the rights and freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Although the ECHR does not establish a legal right to protest per se, it does guarantee positive rights to “freedom of expression” and “freedom of peaceful assembly”, as well as prohibiting arbitrary state interferences with an individual’s liberty and security, thought, conscious and religion and right to privacy. The HRA 1998 appeared to mark a radical departure from the traditional approach and was celebrated as signalling a “constitutional shift” in the state’s approach towards public protest. A principle aim of this thesis is to examine the impact of the HRA 1998 on the regulation of public protest in England and Wales. Whilst a growing body of academic literature has analysed public order law and policy against abstract human rights principles, relatively few have attempted to ground the analysis in the experiences of protesters. This thesis seeks to begin to fill this lacuna. Moving away from a doctrinal analysis of human rights law, I utilise a socio-legal framework to examine contemporary developments in the regulation of public protest in the context of a view from below. Drawing on extensive ethnographic data and analyses of policy documents, newspaper reports, case-law, legislation and Hansard, I adopt a critical normative perspective to assess the legitimacy of the current restrictive interpretations of human rights principles in legal, political and policing-policy discourses.