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Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems: The Overlooked Importance Of Administrative Accountability, Laura T. Dickinson

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The rise of lethal autonomous weapons systems creates numerous problems for legal regimes meant to insure public accountability for unlawful uses of force. In particular, international humanitarian law has long relied on enforcement through individual criminal responsibility, which is complicated by autonomous weapons that fragment responsibility for decisions to deploy violence. Accordingly, there may often be no human being with the requisite level of intent to trigger individual responsibility under existing doctrine. In response, perhaps international criminal law could be reformed to account for such issues. Or, in the alternative, greater emphasis on other forms of accountability, such as tort …

Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm: Terrorist Attacks On Transportation Systems, Gabbi Berlanti

Honors Theses

The Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm has been examined in concept, but little research has applied the theory to specific targeting of terrorist organizations. To build on this limited research, the current study analyzed the number of terrorist incidents targeting the transportation infrastructure in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia between 2001 and 2016 to ascertain if the Contemporary Terrorism Paradigm explains the variance between number of incidents and number of casualties. The use of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia created an opportunity to examine vulnerabilities in the transportation infrastructure and identify areas in the United States transportation infrastructure …

Dangerous Delegation: Explaining The Rationales And Outcomes Of State Sponsorship Of Terrorism Through The Principal-Agent Framework, Jeremy M. Berkowitz

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

State sponsorship of terrorism, where a government deliberately provides resources and material support to a terrorist organization, is common in the international system. By conceptualizing state sponsorship as a relationship between a principal and agent, I develop a consistent theoretical model that explains why states pursue this foreign policy strategy, as well as how they rationally attempt to minimize the inherent risks of delegating to violent non-state actors. I test my model by using a novel dataset on sponsorship behaviors that improves on the range, detail, and temporality of previously used measurements. My dissertation is organized into three distinct papers, …

Indigenous Pottery From Sonora, Mexico: Examining Typologies And Spatial Distribution, Hunter M. Claypatch

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

A wealth of archaeological surveys and excavations has been conducted in Sonora, Mexico within the past century. Despite the establishment of Centro INAH Sonora, and numerous binational projects, little attempt has been made to synthesize the state’s growing literature. This thesis provides the first detailed study of indigenous ceramics from Sonora, Mexico. Archaeological projects within Sonora have been bifurcated by nation-state boundaries and divergent academic schooling—both possessing their own distinct research goals and methodologies. On a pragmatic level, a synthesis of prehistoric and protohistoric Sonoran pottery is necessary to establish a methodological consensus for classifications and typologies. On a broader …

The Art Of The Spearthrower: Understanding The Andean Estólica Through Iconography, Zachary R. Critchley

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Spearthrower devices held a role around the world as a primary weapon and tool before slowly falling out of favor in certain areas for other projectile weapons. While it is widely accepted that spearthrowers were used by the people of the ancient central Andes, comparatively little research has gone into the role that they had as weapons of war, hunting tools, and objects of ceremonial reverence. In addition, the Andes developed a unique style of spearthrower and have produced many examples of spearthrowers with exceptional craftsmanship, leading me to believe that these tools were given special reverence.

This thesis compiles …

Copyrightability Of Artworks Produced By Creative Robots And Originality: The Formality-Objective Model, Shlomit Yanisky-Ravid, Luis Antonio Velez- Hernandez

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Lost Cause Textbooks: Civil War Education In The South From The 1890s To The 1920s, Earl King

Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes the origins, creation and implementation of Lost Cause history textbooks in the South in the decades following the Civil War and Reconstruction. Directed by secondary source material relating to the topic, primary source materials—magazines, newspapers, board minutes, etc.— were explored to find evidence for the motives of rewriting a history of the Civil War more favorable to the former Confederate states. These motives included the positive reflection of former Confederates by future generations of white Southerners and the advancement of white supremacy in the Jim Crow era. Several textbooks from both northern and southern authors, published in …

Brutus, Cassius, Judas, And Cremutius Cordus: How Shifting Precedents Allowed The Lex Maiestatis To Group Writers With Traitors, Hunter R. Myers

Honors Theses

In either 103 or 100 B.C., a concept known as Maiestas minuta populi Romani (diminution of the majesty of the Roman people) is invented by Saturninus to accompany charges of perduellio (treason). Just over a century later, this same law is used by Tiberius to criminalize behavior and speech that he found disrespectful. This thesis offers an answer to the question as to how the maiestas law evolved during the late republic and early empire to present the threat that it did to Tiberius' political enemies. First, the application of Roman precedent in regards to judicial decisions will be examined, …

The Impact Of Mass And Active Shooting Incidents On Residential Real Estate Values, Claire Sherman

Honors Theses

Gun control as a response to gun violence is currently at the forefront of political debate in the United States. The foundation of this paper revolves around crime and real estate supported by background literature detailing external effects on real estate prices to set up the framework for the research on mass shootings and residential real estate values. The findings in this paper are based on 73 events involving mass shootings in the United States from 1996 to 2015. I find that the effect of mass shooting events plays a significant role in the decline in real estate values following …

Cyber Security And Criminal Justice Programs In The United States: Exploring The Intersections, Brian K. Payne, Lora Hadzhidimova

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The study of cyber security is an interdisciplinary pursuit that includes STEM disciplines as well as the social sciences. While research on cyber security appears to be central in STEM disciplines, it is not yet clear how central cyber security and cyber crime is to criminal justice scholarship. In order to examine the connections between cyber security and criminal justice, in this study attention is given to the way that criminal justice scholars have embraced cyber crime research and coursework. Results show that while there are a number of cyber crime courses included in criminal justice majors there are not …

Comparative Analysis Of The Usaf F-16 And Raaf F-18 Training Programs, James D. Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As experienced fighter pilots leave the United States Air Force (USAF) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), there is a need to develop new competent pilots to meet national defense requirements. Fighter training programs are expensive for taxpayers, and the USAF and RAAF face significant resource problems developing and implementing these programs. Using policy feedback theory and punctuated equilibrium theory as the theoretical foundation, the purpose of this comparative, multi-case study of current USAF F-16 and RAAF F-18 fighter pilot training policies was to inform training policy development and efficacy of future USAF and RAAF fighter pilot training programs. Data …

Extreme Overvalued Beliefs: How Violent Extremist Beliefs Become “Normalized”, Tahir Rahman

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Treating Outer Space Like A Place: A Case For Rejecting Other Domain Analogies, Elizabeth Mendenhall

Marine Affairs Faculty Publications

The creation and augmentation of the outer space governance regime during the twentieth century was guided by the use of analogies with other planetary domains. These analogies compare the “target” domain of outer space with various “source” domains, especially airspace, the seabed, the high seas, and Antarctica. These analogies, highlighted at different times to provide guidance on the regulation of existing and emerging space activities, shaped the fundamental principles and rules of the Outer Space Treaty. A survey of contemporary literature demonstrates that analogies continue to be used to structure thinking about outer space activities. This paper argues that such …

The Failed Application Of Just War Doctrine To Cyberwarfare, Dalton E. Runyon

Research Papers

Just War Theory has not followed with the most recent evolution of warfare. The last iteration of Just War Theory was created by Michael Walzer following the evolution of the tools of war in World War II. The current status of jus ad bellum and jus in bello are only applicable to conventional warfare, as this paper will show. Many current problems exist when attempting to analyze cyber attacks including the necessity of a proper definition, the determination of use of force, and how cyber attacks can be addressed in the future. These problems must be addressed so states can …

Towards A Holistic Framework For Secure, Privacy-Aware, And Trustworthy Internet Of Things Using Resource-Efficient Cryptographic Schemes, Md Mahmud Hossain

All ETDs from UAB

The increased deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) based systems make smart devices target for malicious attacks. These devices can also be used as tools for committing crimes, such as cyber espionage and user-targeted attacks. However, IoT devices cannot adopt the conventional security protocols as is to defend against malicious activities. The existing security schemes are primarily designed for resource-rich computing devices, such as personal computers, laptops, and smartphones, while IoT devices are resource-constrained and operate in low power and lossy networks. Additionally, traditional digital forensics tools and techniques are not suitable to investigate cybercrime in IoT. These tools and …

Outlines Of The Mongolian Supremacy In Azerbaijan And The South Caucasus, Shahin Mustafayev

Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The Mongolian conquest has changed abruptly the historical evolution of the peoples of Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus. The political, economic, ethnic and cultural consequences of Mongolian supremacy in the region were so significant that they were felt for several centuries. So, the traditions of the Ilkhanid Empire, established by the Mongols with the center in Azerbaijan in 1256, largely determined the appearance of the entire Middle Eastern region in the 13th and 14th centuries and in the subsequent period. This time also marked the resurgence of political and trade ties between the Middle East and Far East along the …

Best Reference 2017, Mahnaz Dar, Maggie Knapp, Patricia Lothrop, Dave Pugl, Laurie Selwyn, Christine Sharbrough, Robert Tench

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

It’s been a robust year for reference, as reflected in our best of list. While you’ll find tried-and-true reference, such as the most recent edition of Oxford Atlas of the World, we also attempted to surface the unusual—it’s not every year we see an Atlas of Beer! Though it was a particularly good year for history texts (with books on the Renaissance, the Holocaust, and the Vietnam War), we are particularly excited about the offerings that explored subjects that have gone unacknowledged, such as the Encyclopedia of Black Comics and Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo …

Whispering Together In The Dark: Rereading Samuel Beckett's Homosociality Through Harold Pinter, Aaron Botwick

Publications and Research

In a 1960 letter to a friend, Harold Pinter wrote of Samuel Beckett, “I’ll buy his goods hook, line, and sinker, because he leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely. He brings forth a body of beauty; his work is beautiful.” What do we learn if we take the word “beautiful” seriously? Rereading Waiting for Godot backward through Betrayal, this article argues that Beckett’s landscape, typically read as a realization of postwar angst, is in fact one released of the pressures of contemporary living and for Pinter a homosocial Eden. Jerry’s joke upon discovering the adultery—“Maybe I should …

Spiritual Wellness As A Predictor For Moral Injury In Combat Veterans, Steve Zappalla

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many combat veterans face difficulties coping with their personal lives, relationships, and families when they leave the service and return to civilian life. Most studies examining the effects of combat on veterans focus on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as a collection of related consequences. Interest in the term moral injury of military veterans as a related mental health construct has grown. Researchers have investigated the effects of spiritual wellness of combat veterans. However, there is a paucity of counseling literature on the relationship between spiritual wellness and moral injury when combat veterans return to civilian life. Investigating the …

Understanding Parenting Styles Of Second-Generation Parents Of Residential School Survivors Within Treaty 8 Reserves, Judy Kim-Meneen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Approximately 150,000 First Nation, Metis, and Inuit children attended Canadian residential schools from the 1840s to 1996. Most residential school children had negative experiences of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse that led to parenting repercussions once these children became parents. These repercussions of residential schools led to a rate of neglect for First Nation children 12 times higher than non-First Nation children. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological descriptive study was to explore the lived experiences of second generation parents, who were schooled in residential schools as children and their current parenting styles. The conceptual frameworks of trauma theory and …

Indigenous Rights To Water & Environmental Protection, Robert T. Anderson

Articles

This article examines the rights of Indian nations in the United States to adequate water supplies and environmental protection for their land and associated resources. Part I of this article provides a brief background on the history of federal-tribal relations and the source and scope of federal obligations to protect tribal resources. Part II reviews the source and nature of the federal government’s moral and legal obligations to Indian tribes, which are generally referred to as the trust responsibility. Indian reserved water rights and the difficulty tribes experience in protecting habitat needed for healthy treaty resources is discussed in Part …

Fighting Rhetoric And Training Composition: Theory And Pedagogy Of Mixed Martial Arts Argument, Trevor C. Meyer

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the connections between martial arts training, rhetorical theory, and composition pedagogy. The central focus of this project is the common understanding of an argument as a “fight,” and by investigating the training practices of fighting arts, this project expands and complicates what an agonistic orientation can offer argument, teaching, and writing. This inquiry has two parts. Part one explores the importance and influence of ancient Greek martial arts practices in Platonic, Aristotelian, and Sophistic argumentation. By focusing on the “mixed” martial art of pankration, I challenge the pervasive binary of “open hand” and “closed fist” as a …

Aporetic Rhetoric: The Use Of Uncertainty In Healthcare Contexts, Adam S. Lerner

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines how uncertainty is rhetorically deployed in healthcare contexts. Investigating four major healthcare contexts, I study how different forms of uncertainty produce distinct rhetorical effects and consequences. In Chapter 1, I explore how the haphazard use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war makes it difficult for veterans to prove their exposure to this deadly chemical. In Chapter 2, I examine the rhetorical strategies of mental illness skeptics and denialists, looking at how each deploys uncertainty in different and related ways. In Chapter 3, I investigate the intersection between design, emotion, and uncertainty as it appears in the …

Critical Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, And Market Failure, John J. Chung

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What’S In A Frame? Cosmopolitan Morality, The Media And Interventionism, Nicola Katy Langdon

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis examines the media-foreign policy nexus through a specific focus on the moral framing of conflict and interventionism within British media and policy discourses. While morality has been identified as a frequently used frame through which we may understand issues, there has been little extant discussion of the nature of morality embedded within media texts, or how it may shape understanding and policy-making. This research contributes to this void through forwarding cosmopolitan morality framing as a new theoretical framework. Consideration is given to how appeals to a cosmopolitan moral consciousness can resonate and build support for or legitimise particular …

Imagining Peace And War: Plymouth 1918-1939, Glyn Potter

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

After the trench warfare of the Great War the development of aerial warfare and widespread urbanisation meant that military doctrine in any future conflict would likely bring unprecedented death and destruction to non-combatants. Therefore, war prevention became the most important foreign policy issue in Britain, and after the collapse of the disarmament conference in 1934 and the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), war preparation became the dominant concern for the decision makers and the public. Both were hotly debated at all levels of British public life in the 1920’s and 1930’s. This dissertation uses Plymouth as the case study for an …

Curating A Gentleman's Library: Practices Of Acquisition, Display And Disposal In The Cottonian Collection, 1791-1816, Susan Leedham

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis examines the book and archival holdings of the Cottonian Collection – a national designated eighteenth-century collection of fine art and books – between 1791 and 1816, the period of William Cotton II’s custodianship. Prior to this thesis, the Cottonian Collection has not been the subject of a full-length academic study. Whilst the art holdings have received some attention, the book and archival contents have not been examined. This thesis addresses this imbalance by conducting a thorough examination of the archival holdings and the history of the book collection. Taking the actions of the collection’s penultimate private owner, William …

The Significance Of The Field Of Practice ‘Learning Development’ In Uk Higher Education, John Hilsdon

Plymouth Institute of Education Theses

This thesis analyses Learning Development (LD), a field of practice designed to support students’ learning, and explores what this relatively new field can tell us about certain aspects of higher education in the UK. Theoretical work deriving from Foucault underpins the research. The empirical data is constructed from interviews, observation and reflexive autoethnographic sources, and the analytical thrust employs sociolinguistic tools from critical discourse analysis. The result is a case study of identity, offering unique insights into the field of LD itself and, through the ‘lens’ of LD, an original focus upon the production of relationships and their effects, as …

To Pry Unnecessarily Into Other Men's Secrets': Crime Writing, Private Spaces And The Mid-Victorian Police Memoir, Samuel Saunders

SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective)

This article explores connections between eighteenth/early nineteenth century forms of crime writing and police memoir-fiction – a genre that deserves greater recognition for its contribution to the development of the detective genre. It does this through examining how eighteenth/early nineteenth century crime-writing and mid-Victorian police memoirs were connected through their interest in examining private spaces associated with criminality and rendering them public, yet which remained distinct from each other through their different representations of police officers and detectives.

Legal Jurisdiction And The Deterritorialization Of Data, Paul Schiff Berman

Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc

No abstract provided.