Design of Radiation Tolerant Materials Via Interface Engineering

A novel interface engineering strategy is proposed to simultaneously achieve superior irradiation tolerance, high strength, and high thermal stability in bulk nanolayered composites of a model face-centered-cubic (Cu)/body-centered-cubic (Nb) system. By synthesizing bulk nanolayered Cu-Nb composites containing interfaces with controlled sink efficiencies, a novel material is designed in which nearly all irradiation-induced defects are annihilated.United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Energy Frontiers Research Center. Award 2008LANL1026

THE KIDS WERE ALT-RIGHT: RADICAL RIGHT YOUTH ACTIVISM AND THE ORIGINS OF THE WHITE POWER MOVEMENT, 1960-1980

This dissertation explores the young people—primarily young men—involved and weaponized within the radical racist Right during the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. This project argues that young people were an active bedrock of support within racist and antisemitic organizations such as the American Nazi Party, the National Alliance, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and others, and created a unique coalition that ultimately developed into a revolutionary racist Right and eventual white power movement by the 1980s. This dissertation makes a significant intervention in scholarship on the radical Right’s development over the past sixty years and serves as a historical foundation and origin for the youth-driven and internet dwelling alt-right and right-wing militias in the twenty-first century. This project reorients the scholarly lens of the genesis of the white power movement to decades prior to the militia movements of the 1980s, in dialogue with the social movements of the New Left and with attention to American youth as drivers of the movement. This analysis purposefully uses radical racist Right instead of far Right to describe a political identity based in a racist and antisemitic movement to dismantle liberal democracy, and demonstrates how youth involvement within the radical racist Right made up a significant counterculture movement of their own. The Kids Were Alt-Right argues that youth activism within the radical racist Right began—in part—as a cooptation to leftist social movement organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), reappropriated leftist movement methods, organizational framework, and political language, but eventually metastasized as a unique revolutionary coalition. The deployment of youth culture by adult leadership, detailed primarily as racist jokes and humor, produced a unique youth identity that gravitated young people to these organizations. By the 1970s, the youth identity embraced a politics of violent rebellion and the youth dominated radical racist Right transitioned into the revolutionary racist Right. Using personal correspondence, organizational publications, newspapers, and extensive files from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this dissertation chronologically examines the youth involved within radical racist Right organizations and the adult leadership that incorporated and mobilized young people and a youth identity for their own political purposes. Beginning in 1960 with the formation of Young Americans for Freedom as a reactionary conservative student movement—and whose membership later moved towards more openly racist and antisemitic organizations, The Kids Were Alt-Right chronicles the youth and youth identities within the adult-led radical racist Right organizations like the American Nazi Party and the National Youth Alliance, the youth leadership in the 1970s revolutionary racist Right, and culminates in the paramilitary alliance that ignited in bloodshed at the Greensboro massacre in 1979 and the formation of a violent white power movement

Reflections From a Lifetime of Activism. An Interview with Chip Berlet

Chip Berlet is a widely published independent scholar who studies right-wing movements in the United States and Europe, as well as the global spread of conspiracy theories. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and photographer. Since the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, Berlet has appeared frequently in the media to discuss these issues. For over twenty years, Berlet was a senior analyst at Political Research Associates (PRA), a non-profit think tank in the United States that tracks right-wing networks. Berlet is co-author (with Matthew N. Lyons) of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort (Guilford 2000) and more recently editor of Trumping Democracy: From Reagan to the Alt-Right (Routledge 2019). Despite a lack of a college degree, Berlet has served on the advisory board of the Journal of Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions (now Politics, Religion & Ideology); and the advisory board for the Center of Millennial Studies at Boston University. He also served for over twenty years on the board of predecessor groups of what is now the Defending Dissent Foundation. He is active in the American Sociological Association in the sections on Collective Behavior and Social Movements and Marxism. Berlet’s main website is at http://www.researchforprogress.us/

Exploring electronic effects on the partitioning of actinides(III) from lanthanides(III) using functionalised bis-triazinyl phenanthroline ligands

The first examples of 4,7-disubstituted 2,9-bis(5,5,8,8-tetramethyl-5,6,7,8-tetrahydro-1,2,4-benzo-triazin-3-yl)-1,10- phenanthroline (CyMe4 -BTPhen) ligands are reported herein. Evaluating the kinetics, selectivity and stoichiometry of actinide(III) and lanthanide(III) radiotracer extractions has provided a mechanistic insight into the extraction process. For the first time, it has been demonstrated that metal ion extraction kinetics can be modulated by backbone functionalisation and a promising new CHON compliant candidate ligand with enhanced metal ion extraction kinetics has been identified. The effects of 4,7- functionalisation on the equilibrium metal ion distribution ratios are far more pronounced than those of 5,6-functionalisation. The complexation of Cm(III) with two of the functionalised ligands was investigated by TRLFS and, at equilibrium, species of 1:2 [M:L] stoichiometry were observed exclusively. A direct correlation between the ELUMO-EHOMO energy gap and metal ion extraction potential is reported, with DFT studies reaffirming experimental findings

A threshold model for receptor tyrosine kinase signaling specificity and cell fate determination [version 1; referees: 4 approved]

Upon ligand engagement, the single-pass transmembrane receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) dimerize to transmit qualitatively and quantitatively different intracellular signals that alter the transcriptional landscape and thereby determine the cellular response. The molecular mechanisms underlying these fundamental events are not well understood. Considering recent insights into the structural biology of fibroblast growth factor signaling, we propose a threshold model for RTK signaling specificity in which quantitative differences in the strength/longevity of ligand-induced receptor dimers on the cell surface lead to quantitative differences in the phosphorylation of activation loop (A-loop) tyrosines as well as qualitative differences in the phosphorylation of tyrosines mediating substrate recruitment. In this model, quantitative differences on A-loop tyrosine phosphorylation result in gradations in kinase activation, leading to the generation of intracellular signals of varying amplitude/duration. In contrast, qualitative differences in the pattern of tyrosine phosphorylation on the receptor result in the recruitment/activation of distinct substrates/intracellular pathways. Commensurate with both the dynamics of the intracellular signal and the types of intracellular pathways activated, unique transcriptional signatures are established. Our model provides a framework for engineering clinically useful ligands that can tune receptor dimerization stability so as to bias the cellular transcriptome to achieve a desired cellular output

Evolution of grain boundary network topology in 316L austenitic stainless steel during powder hot isostatic pressing

The grain boundary network evolution of 316L austenitic steel powder during its densification by hot isostatic pressing (HIPing) was investigated. While the as-received powder contained a network of random high angle grain boundaries, the fully consolidated specimen had a large fraction of annealing twins, indicating that during densification, the microstructure evolves via recrystallization. By interrupting the HIPing process at different points in time, microstructural changes were tracked quantitatively at every stage using twin boundary fractions, distribution of different types of triple junctions, and the parameters associated with twin related domains (TRDs). Results revealed that, with increase in temperature, (i) the fraction of annealing twins increased steadily, but they mostly were not part of the grain boundary network in the fully consolidated specimen and (ii) the average number of grains within a TRD, the length of longest chain, and twinning polysynthetism increased during HIPing and (iii) the powder characteristics and the HIPing parameters have a strong influence on the development of grain boundary network. Based on the results obtained, possible alterations to the HIPing process are discussed, which could potentially allow twin induced grain boundary engineering

Enabling a Multi-Purpose High-Energy Neutron Source Based on High-Current Compact Cyclotrons

The current and future need for high-energy neutrons has been a subject of increasing discussion and concern. Immediate applications for such an intense neutron source include medical isotope production, high-energy physics (HEP) research, and for materials development and to support qualification for fission reactors. Also, and of the utmost importance, is the need for such a source to inform critical gaps in our understanding of the transmutation materials science issues facing fusion power reactors. A 14 MeV fusion prototypical neutron source (FPNS) has been a critical, yet unresolved need of the fusion program for more than 40 years. Given the narrowing timeline for construction of pilot and fusion power plants the urgency and necessity of such a neutron source has become increasingly time sensitive. One possibility to address this need is a scaled-down version of IFMIF technology ("IFMIF-Lite"), operating at 125 mA with the beam and target technology leveraging technology developed under the IFMIF/EVEDA program. Within this white paper, a blueprint of necessary R&D to enable a transformational change in both the capital and operating cost of this IFMIF-Lite driver concept is presented. Enabling this transformation is the replacement of the historic RFQ/LINAC components with multiple compact 35+ MeV D+ drivers, based on compact cyclotrons