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The Nciter Newsletter: October 2021, National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, And Education Center

Newsletters

NCITE (National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education) is the Department of Homeland Security's center of excellence for terrorism prevention and counterterrorism research. They are a federally funded academic consortium based in Omaha, Nebraska. Their newsletters covers the current news, activities, and updates of the center and the latest in counterterrorism research. NCITEr newsletter covers specifically center updates.

#Blacklivesmatter: From Protest To Policy, Jamillah Bowman Williams, Naomi Mezey, Lisa Singh

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

We find that the protests of 2020 did indeed begin a paradigm shift in the social awareness of racialized police violence, and this important and significant social change has in turn already inspired political change and some degree of legal and policy change. However, the movement remains in a precarious position and it is uncertain how enduring these changes will be. While many state legislators and local officials have responded to the protests with policy reforms, policy action at the federal level is mostly stalled. In addition, it is unclear whether the state and local policy changes will lead to …

Consideration For Scaffolding Open-Ended Engineering Problems: Instructor Reflections After Three Years, J. Swenson, M. Rola, A. Johnson, Emma Treadway, A. Nitingale, H. Koushyar, J. W. Lee, K. Wingate

Engineering Faculty Research

This full research-to-practice paper is a collaboration between researchers and instructors to examine the scaffolding of open-ended problems. Most assigned homework problems are closed-ended with one correct answer and are unlike the ill-defined problems practicing engineers solve in the workplace. To begin bridging this gap, our research team of engineering education researchers and instructors have been designing and implementing ill-defined, open-ended homework problems for the past three years. This study presents instructor reflections on considerations for scaffolding open-ended problems, made after examining survey data from their own students. We present the results in six practices of scaffolding that better support …

Ursinus Magazine, Fall 2021, Jill Leauber Marsteller, Ed Moorhouse, Jennifer Meininger Wolfe, Abigail Peabody, Ann Karreth

Ursinus Magazine, 1995–Present

Search for our 19th President • Dedicating the Commons • Partnership honors Lenape people • COVID-19 and inequity • Ursinus selected for passport program • Getting to know: Alan Morrison • Keeper of Atlanta's great apes • Leading with grace • Unfinished business • Ursinus College's leading lady • Welcome Week 2021 • Family Weekend 2021 • In memoriam • Class notes • Marriages • Births • Burning question: What keeps women from running for public office?

Religion's Impact On Sexual Experiences And Attitudes Among Women: Exploring Sexual Satisfaction And Sex Guilt, Maria Lytle

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Sexual satisfaction has been linked to higher self-esteem, marital stability, and general relationship satisfaction. The combination of religious values, sex attitudes, and experiences of sex guilt have been shown to significantly impact women’s sexual satisfaction. Two theories of religious values have been defined: identification, a religious perspective which considers sexuality to be a valuable and sacred experience, as well as introjection, which views sexuality as inherently sinful and a symptom of human weakness. This study included 85 female participants; they completed a survey on their experiences of sexual satisfaction, sex guilt, religion (identification or introjection), and sex values. The findings …

Osha’S Comprehensive Failure To Protect Workers During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Nancy M. Modesitt

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Under the Trump Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”), failed to protect workers from COVID-19, which has led to deadly workplace outbreaks of the virus. OSHA’s failures began when it refused to produce legally-binding rules, known as emergency temporary standards, that would mandate the most basic step of requiring masks in the workplace to protect workers from the risks of infection on the job. In addition, while OSHA did produce non-binding guidance for employers, that guidance was unclear and fundamentally deficient in failing to require masks in all workplaces and failing to require recordkeeping that would identify potential …

When Fast-Tracking Slows You Down: Reconsidering Nationwide Permit 12 Use For Large-Scale Oil Pipelines, Megan Rulli

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The consumption of oil pervades everyday life in America. The network of pipelines transporting oil from field to consumer is largely invisible. Until a major news event bursts pipelines onto headlines, this indispensable and invisible system fuels the country without fanfare. At the same time, concern over global climate change has made new large-scale projects for fossil fuel extraction and consumption highly controversial. The Keystone XL (“KXL”) pipeline was originally designed to transport crude oil extracted from oil sands in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico for international export. After more than a decade of false starts, the project currently …

Equality, Non-Interference, And Sovereignty: President Ahmadou Ahidjo And The Making Of Cameroon-U.S. Relations, Julius A. Amin

History Faculty Publications

Scholars often dismiss the importance of local archives in the reconstruction of postcolonial African history, stating that they are superficial, unorganized, and unreliable. Amin challenges that notion and argues that those archives are central to the study of African diplomatic history. Based on extensive and previously unused documents, he argues that Cameroon’s Ahmadou Ahidjo leveraged his U.S. policy to develop his country and protect its sovereignty while maintaining a firm grip on power. This reappraisal of Ahidjo’s actions engages debates about the contours of U.S.-African foreign policy and the challenges new nations face as they navigate external relations.

Assessing The Feasibility Of A Belt Based Continuously Varied Transmission For Bicycles, Ethan Wicko

Holster Scholar Projects

The objective of this project is to establish the feasibility of a new drivetrain that decreases maintenance and decreases rider effort compared to current widely used derailleur-based drivetrains by utilizing a belt based continuously varied transmission. With further development, this technology will make cycling more accessible by reducing the mechanical knowledge required to maintain a functional bike and facilitate bicycle riding by increasing durability and providing infinite gear ratios within that range, potentially increasing the health and quality of life for many.

A Comparative Study On Feature Extraction And Classification/Clustering Of Fake News And Conspiracy Theories From Twitter Data, Deb Shana

Theses and Dissertations

Fake news and conspiracy theories have become largely abundant in the expanding world of social media. They predominantly affect the beliefs and thoughts of the public, resulting in chaos. They have always existed throughout the last few decades. They have been linked to prejudice, revolutions and genocide across history. They have also been known to have propelled people to reject mainstream medicines to an extent where some diseases are recurring in some parts of the world. They impose a serious impact since they are capable of spreading very fast Thus, it is very important to find suitable ways to detect …

The Black Box: Close Reading Literary Life, Scott Jarvie

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This paper reimagines a quintessential literary practice: close reading.The autoethnographic inquiry examines the relationship between a single text and my experience with it as teacher, student, reader and writer: Jennifer Egan’s short story “Black Box”. In doing so I make a case for the literary as a useful mode for being and teaching in classrooms, and for the literariness of the lives caught up in those classrooms. I examine various properties of the text, including the story’s unusual form, the implications of its content and genre, the narrative voice, and the central metaphor of a black box. Reading through these, …

An Automated Ar-Based Annotation Tool For Indoor Navigation For Visually Impaired People, Pei Du, Nirupama Bulusu

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Low vision people face many daily encumbrances. Traditional visual enhancements do not suffice to navigate indoor environments, or recognize objects efficiently. In this paper, we explore how Augmented Reality (AR) can be leveraged to design mobile applications to improve visual experience and unburden low vision persons. Specifically, we propose a novel automated AR-based annotation tool for detecting and labeling salient objects for assisted indoor navigation applications like NearbyExplorer. NearbyExplorer, which issues audio descriptions of nearby objects to the users, relies on a database populated by large teams of volunteers and map-a-thons to manually annotate salient objects in the environment like …

Thirsty Places, Priya Baskaran

Utah Law Review

The United States, among the wealthiest and most prosperous nations in the world, regularly fails to provide clean, potable water to many of its citizens. Recent water crises occur within communities categorized as Geographically Disadvantaged Spaces (“GDS”), which often encompass urban and rural areas. What is more, people of color and economically vulnerable populations are often located within GDS, disproportionately burdening these groups with the economic and public health consequences of failing water infrastructure. This Article provides a novel, comparative analysis of communities lacking potable water in Flint, Michigan, and southern West Virginia. This analysis highlights entrenched structural problems present …

Enhanced Detection Of Desmoplasia By Targeted Delivery Of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles To The Tumour-Specific Extracellular Matrix, Meenu Chopra, Jiansha Wu, Yen Ling Yeow, Louise Winteringham, Tristan D. Clemons, Martin Saunders, Venkata Ramana Kotamraju, Ruth Ganss, Kirk W. Feindel, Juliana Hamzah

Faculty Publications

Diagnostic imaging of aggressive cancer with a high stroma content may benefit from the use of imaging contrast agents targeted with peptides that have high binding affinity to the extracellular matrix (ECM). In this study, we report the use of superparamagnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles (IO-NP) conjugated to a nonapeptide, CSGRRSSKC (CSG), which specifically binds to the laminin-nidogen-1 complex in tumours. We show that CSG-IO-NP accumulate in tumours, predominantly in the tumour ECM, following intravenous injection into a murine model of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour (PNET). In contrast, a control untargeted IO-NP consistently show poor tumour uptake, and IO-NP conjugated to a pentapeptide. …

Sperm Repository For A Breeding Program Of The Eastern Oyster Crassostrea Virginica: Sample Collection, Processing, Cryopreservation, And Data Management Plan, Huiping Yang, Yuanzi Huo, Jayme C. Yee, Scott Rikard, William C. Walton, Eric A. Saillant

Faculty Publications

The Eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica (Family Ostreidae) is one of the most important fishery and aquaculture species in the U.S. and is a keystone species for coastal reefs. A breeding program was initiated in 2019 to support the fast-growing aquaculture industry culturing this species in the Gulf of Mexico. Oysters from 17 wild populations in embayment along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico coast from southwest Florida to the Matagorda Bay, Texas were used as broodstock for the program to maximize genetic diversity in the base population. A sperm repository of the broodstock was established to support the breeding project. The …

Socio-Technical Changes For Sustainable Rice Production: Rice Husk Amendment, Conservation Irrigation, And System Changes, Benjamin R. K. Runkle, Angelia L. Seyfferth, Matthew C. Reid, Matthew A. Limmer, Beatriz Moreno-Garcia, Colby W. Reavis, Jasquelin Pena, Michele L. Reba, M. Arlene A. Adviento-Borbe, Shannon R. M. Pinson, Chris Isbell

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Rice is a staple food and primary source of calories for much of the world. However, rice can be a dietary source of toxic metal(loid)s to humans, and its cultivation creates atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions and requires high water use. Because rice production consumes a significant amount of natural resources and is a large part of the global agricultural economy, increasing its sustainability could have substantial societal benefits. There are opportunities for more sustainable field production through a combination of silicon (Si) management and conservation irrigation practices. As a Si-rich soil amendment, rice husks can limit arsenic and cadmium uptake, …

Sustainable Business Law? The Key Role Of Corporate Governance And Finance, Jason J. Czarnezki, Colin Meyers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Lawyers, law schools, and corporate entities have shown an increased interest in sustainable business strategies. This is reflected by the increase in sustainability practice groups, law school courses, and textbooks focusing on the relationship between sustainability and business law; lawyers moving into executive-level sustainability positions in the private sector; and the proliferation of corporate sustainability policies, as well as increased interest in mitigating climate risk and engaging in sustainable finance. But what exactly is sustainable business law, and what role do lawyers play in advancing sustainability in the corporate world? This Article argues that “sustainable business law” has emerged as …

Conductive Polymer Spark Gap Igniters, Miranda P. Mcconnell, Allison K. Murray, Bryan W. Boudouris, I. Emre Gunduz, Steven F. Son, George T.-C. Chiu, Jeffrey F. Rhoads

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Electrodes fabricated from electronically active polymers offer some benefits over those fabricated with common metals, including an appreciable resistance to corrosion and lower density. These benefits, and potentially others, manifest the advantages of using conductive polymers in lieu of metals for the mass production of ignition systems. In this work, spark gap igniters were fabricated using a potentially low-cost, roll-to-roll compatible process utilizing the doped conductive polymer polyaniline as the electrode material. Subsequently, nanothermite was printed on the spark gap igniters between the organic leads and ignited using a high voltage source to demonstrate the effectiveness of the device. All …

Shale Investment Dashboard In Ohio Q3 And Q4 2020, Andrew R. Thomas, Mark Henning, Samuel Owusu-Agyemang

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

This report presents findings from an investigation into shale-related investment in Ohio, looking at up, mid and downstream activities. The investment estimates are from July through December of 2020. The report also includes an estimate of cumulative investment in shale in Ohio from 2012 through December 2020. Prior biannual investments are included in previously posted reports that are available from Cleveland State University.

Psychological Data Breach Harms, Ido Kilovaty

North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

Agchain: Deploying A Public Utility Blockchain To Unveil The Missing Links Between Food Origin And Destination, Jacob D. Farrell

North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology

No abstract provided.

Bradley Family Funds Innovation Center At Andrews University, Moriah Mcdonald

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Examination Of The Impact Of Economic Structural Change On Income Inequality: Dynamic Heterogeneous Panel Approach, Maha Elhini, Rasha Hammam

Economics

This paper employs structural growth perspective to the analysis of income inequality in 43 countries over the period 2003-2017.The study utilizes two different panel estimation techniques. First, the panel least squares regression examines the relevance of Kuznets effect of the different economic sectors; agriculture, manufacturing and services on income inequality. Second, the pooled mean group (PMG) estimation of dynamic heterogeneous panels gauges the long run impact of the change in sectoral value added as a proxy for structural change on inequality. PMG presents short run adjustments to be country-specific due to the widely different impacts of macroeconomic conditions and vulnerability …

Consensus Revisited: Quantifying Scientific Agreement On Climate Change And Climate Expertise Among Earth Scientists 10 Years Later, Krista F. Myers, Peter T. Doran, John Cook, John E. Kotcher, Teresa A. Myers

Faculty Publications

The scientific consensus on human-caused global warming has been a topic of intense interest in recent decades. This is in part due to the important role of public perception of expert consensus, which has downstream impacts on public opinion and support for mitigation policies. Numerous studies, using diverse methodologies and measures of climate expertise, have quantified the scientific consensus, finding between 90% and 100% agreement on human-caused global warming with multiple studies converging on 97% agreement. This study revisits the consensus among geoscientists ten years after an initial survey of experts, while exploring different ways to define expertise and the …

Qualified Immunity: Round Two, Andrew Coan, Delorean Forbes

Washington and Lee Law Review

For the first time in its fifty-year history, the future of qualified immunity is in serious doubt. The doctrine may yet survive for many years. But thanks largely to the recent mass movement for racial justice, major reform and abolition are now live possibilities. This development raises a host of questions that have been little explored in the voluminous literature on qualified immunity because its abolition has been so difficult to imagine before now. Perhaps the most pressing is how overworked federal courts will respond to a substantial influx of new cases fueled by qualified immunity’s curtailment or demise. Might …

Creating Cryptolaw For The Uniform Commercial Code, Carla L. Reyes

Washington and Lee Law Review

A contract generally only binds its parties. Security agreements, which create a security interest in specific personal property, stand out as a glaring exception to this rule. Under certain conditions, security interests not only bind the creditor and debtor, but also third-party creditors seeking to lend against the same collateral. To receive this extraordinary benefit, creditors must put the world on notice, usually by filing a financing statement with the state in which the debtor is located. Unfortunately, the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.) Article 9 filing system fails to provide actual notice to interested parties and introduces risk of heavy …

Swimming Upstream: Getting To The Root Causes Of Infant Mortality And Life Expectancy Outcomes In Cleveland, Ohio And The U.S., Richey Piiparinen, Joshua Valdez

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

Health mostly happens outside of the hospital and the doctor’s office. This reality is called “the social determinants of health” (SDOH). SDOH’s impact can be understood a number of ways. This analysis shows that great local healthcare doesn’t preclude poor population health, exhibited by high infant mortality and low life expectancy rates.

The analysis found that while Ohio and Cuyahoga County have world-class healthcare, they also have third-world health outcomes.

• Ohio’s life expectancy (76.8) ranks 12th worst nationally, well below Midwestern peers. Cuyahoga County’s life expectancy (77) ranks 41st out of 89 counties in the State.

• Black Cuyahoga …

Southern Harm: Analyzing The Criminal Enforcement Of Environmental Law In The Southern United States, 1983-2019, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa L. Jarrell

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

When violations of environmental laws involve significant harm or culpable conduct, the application of criminal enforcement tools is required. Yet, our understanding of how environmental laws have been criminally enforced historically in the Southern United States remains poor. Our goal is to analyze historical charging and sentencing patterns and show the broader themes that emerge in environmental crime prosecutions over time in the region. Through content analysis of all 2,588 criminal prosecutions resulting from U.S. EPA criminal investigations, 1983–2019, we select all 799 prosecutions occurring in the Southern United States. Results show that 44% of prosecutions focus on water pollution, …

Write Free Or Die: Vol. 08, No. 01, Unh Writing Programs

Writing Program Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Retention Of Nursing Assistants In Assisted Living Using Stay Interviews: A Qualitative Case Study, Daphne H. Dominguez

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The expectation of the impact of an aging population and the future availability of nursing staff is a significant challenge for senior living communities around the world. Lack of nursing staff retention has driven managers to hire quickly, denying residents living in long-term care communities the care they need. Exploratory, qualitative design, using case study research, was used for this study to learn what motivates resident care attendants (RCAs) to stay employed in assisted living communities of senior living. Richard Finnegan’s five stay interview questions were used to interview nine RCAs from various assisted living communities in Louisiana. The data …