This dissertation contains two studies that investigate the Mesozoic and Cenozoic tectonics of the western USA. The first study investigates shortening in the Sevier thrust belt of northeast Utah and southwest Wyoming. Cross section restoration suggests that there was ∼8-14 km of pre-Absaroka-thrust shortening above the Jurassic Preuss salt detachment (PSD), but not below it, in the hanging wall of the Absaroka thrust. Reflection seismic data show that the Crawford thrust is not offset along the PSD, indicating that the additional shortening on the Absaroka plate was transferred east before main movement on the Crawford thrust. Integration of surface and subsurface geology suggests slip from the Willard or Lost Creek thrust was transferred several tens of kilometers east along the PSD between ∼102-90 Ma.The second study investigates the low-temperature thermochronology of the Laramide Ranges. We dated 91 borehole and surface samples from basement-cored uplifts of the Rocky Mountain foreland (Wind River, Beartooth, Bighorn and Laramie Ranges), and the Uncompahgre Uplift, using the apatite (U-Th)/He system. (U-Th)/He ages generally increase with increasing elevation. Most samples show age dispersion of tens to hundreds of Myr. Several samples show correlations between (U-Th)/He age and effective U concentration (eU = [U] + 0.235[Th]), indicating that radiation damage has affected (U-Th)/He age. Many surface and near-surface samples have (U-Th)/He ages that are older than apatite fission-track ages.Forward and inverse modeling using a radiation damage diffusion model showed that (U-Th)/He ages may be widely dispersed, and may be older than apatite fission-track ages within a fossil partial retention zone. Most samples, however, do not exhibit the predicted (U-Th)/He age-eU correlation. We show that the effects of grain size can obscure (U-Th)/He age-eU correlations. Best-fit thermal histories from the inversion of age-eU pairs were extrapolated to other elevations to create model age-elevation plots. "Too-old" (U-Th)/He ages that are not within a fossil partial retention zone are likely due to He implantation from high-eU phases. Inverse modeling of (U-Th)/He age data suggests that rapid exhumation within the Laramide province began earlier in the Bighorn Mountains (before ∼71 Ma) than the Beartooth Range (before ∼58 Ma).

No description available.

U-statistics generalizes the concept of mean of independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) random variables and is widely utilized in many estimating and testing problems. The standard empirical likelihood (EL) for U-statistics is computationally expensive because of its onlinear constraint. The jackknife empirical likelihood method largely relieves computation burden by circumventing the construction of the nonlinear constraint. In this thesis, we adopt a new jackknife empirical likelihood method to make inference for the general volume under the ROC surface (VUS), which is one typical kind of U-statistics. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to show that the EL confidence intervals perform well in terms of the coverage probability and average length for various sample sizes.

Njurens funktion är bl a att reglera vätskebalansen i kroppen och elektrolytkoncentrationen. Njuren består av livsviktiga enheter så kallade nefroner. Nefronerna kan skadas och orsaka proteinläckage ut i urinen, främst albumin. Detta är vanligt vid diabetes mellitus, högt blodtryck och åderförkalkning. Kreatin bildas i njurar, lever och pankreas och transporteras med blodet till andra organ t ex muskler och hjärnan. Delar av kreatinet i musklerna omvandlas till kreatinin. Albumin i urin påverkas av patientens grundsjukdom och urinproduktion, därför används kvoten mellan kreatinin i urin (U-kreatinin) och albumin i urin (U-albumin) som en kontroll av njurens funktion. Kvoten används främst för att upptäcka mikroalbuminuri dvs ett litet läckage av albumin i urin som är ett tidigt tecken på njurskada. Syftet med arbetet var att jämföra två metoders resultat mellan instrumenten Vitros 5,1 FSoch Cobas c 702 vid analys av U-kreatinin. För tillfället analyseras U-kreatinin på Vitros 5,1 FS och U-albumin på Cobas c 702 för uträkning av U-albumin/U-kreatinin kvot. Det skulle underlätta arbetet och minska risken för t ex kontaminationer, om båda analyserna kan utföras på Cobas c 702. Analysen utfördes på 40 urinprover från patienter i olika åldrar och kön, alla prover var stickprov (morgonurin). Resultatet visade på en mycket god korrelation mellan metoderna. U-kreatinin på Cobas c 702 ger ett genomsnittligt 6 % högre värden än på Vitros 5,1 FS, vilket innebär att U-albumin/U-kreatinin kvoten minskar med 12 %. Precision var hög hos båda instrumenten. Slutsatsen är att det är möjligt att analysera U-kreatinin på Cobas c 702 istället för Vitros 5,1 FS.

This thesis considers the influence of secret intelligence on UK chemical and biological warfare related foreign policy. Using the Butler Report, published in the wake of the 2003 Iraq War as a reference, a model of intelligence and foreign policy interaction will be constructed. This model will then be used as a baseline against which to compare the interaction of intelligence and foreign policy relating to chemical and / or biological weapons from three case studies; the Soviet Union, South Africa and Libya. Specifically, this thesis will consider how, in each of the three case studies: intelligence linked to foreign policy, what role intelligence had in the termination / exposure of those programmes, what factors might be seen to affect that relationship, and whether intelligence might be seen to be representative of state power. The thesis will argue that the 2003 Iraq War, as described by Butler, marked a paradigm shift in terms of the relationship between intelligence and foreign policy. In particular, it will be argued that the lead up to that war marks a transition in the function of intelligence from something that had always worked to gather information to inform foreign policy to hunting for information to directly support or justify a foreign policy decision that has already been taken. Each of the three case studies will also show the intelligence and foreign policy relationship is further influenced by other factors including personalities, organisational structures and cultures as well as the perceived importance of that case study as a political issue. The thesis will conclude by suggesting that the case studies examined provide several policy recommendations; that HUMINT is essential in counterproliferation efforts, that the development of technical specialists with UK intelligence agencies is vital to prevent future proliferation crises, and that pre-emptive war places such rigorous demands on the intelligence agencies it seems they are at present unable to respond quickly enough – this requires urgent action if UK foreign policy is to continue to purse counter-proliferation as a key objective.

Though the civil-military relations field has seen a lot of theoretical work in recent years, the field still lacks consistent overarching theories. This dissertation argues that the field requires a new and better theoretical framework. Scholars do not agree about how to define key concepts or how these concepts affect one another. They therefore have a tendency to talk past one another when debating and developing theories of civil-military relations. This dissertation develops a new and more sophisticated theoretical framework for elite civil-military relations. The field’s current theoretical framework was developed by Samuel Huntington in The Soldier and the State. This dissertation uses his framework as a starting point for a larger conceptual analysis, where political and military sociology, international relations, political theory, and military science are used to define the key concepts of civil-military relations. There are two heterogeneous types of civil-military relations that should be studied separately: societal civil-military relations and elite civil-military relations. Political science approaches to civil-military relations, such as this dissertation, typically focus on the latter type. Elite civil-military relations consist of two separate fields of study: civilian control and military effectiveness. Elite civil-military relations function as a system that essentially depends on civilian overall preferences, the mutual trust between soldiers and civilians, the institutional set-up of the state, and the actual skills of civilian and military elites. The dissertation challenges several of the field’s established truths. It shows that one cannot claim that one civilian control policy is superior a priori. Instead, the choice of policy depends on the situational circumstances. It also shows that military professionalism plays a less significant role than commonly thought. It clarifies that civilian control depends on both the internal norms of the officer corps and the external control institutions of the state. Finally, it demonstrates that Samuel Huntington’s work, though clearly impressive for its time, lacks the sophistication needed of a modern social science theory and theoretical framework. It therefore argues that the civil-military relations field should move beyond The Soldier and the State.

This creative project consists of the design of a Master Plan for the Mbaracaju Forest Reserve, a 143,000 acre site in eastern Paraguay which is part of the devastated Atlantic Forest , an area requiring urgent conservation action. This creative project adresses site inventory and analysis, programming, land uses, site specific facility development guidelines, and three Master Plan Alternatives. The Master Plan seeks to support environmental preservation, sustainable development, and environmental education. The hypothesis of this project is that preservation and environmentally sound use of the Reserve are possible through a Master Plan that responds to the sensitivity of the various areas and its management, and to an activities program oriented towards global preservation. The Incorporation of the traditional inhabitants of the land as active participants in the Master Plan will serve as an example for Paraguay and for the world. This Master Plan, which will promote environmental preservation and biological diversity, will benefit the inhabitants of the Reserve, of Paraguay, and from around the world. For this report to the Graduate Office at Ball State University there are included the major aspects of the Master Plan. It is important to clarify that the whole report, which has 200 pages, is available in the lybrary of the College of Architecture and Planning. / Department of Landscape Architecture

There is no abstract available for this thesis. / Department of Physics and Astronomy

Trajectories of decline have been described in coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific region, with long-term losses of abundance, diversity and habitat structure. Since European settlement of the Queensland coastline in the mid-18th century, widespread changes in land use have occurred within Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchments (e.g. extensive land clearing, agriculture and grazing). Despite direct and indirect evidence indicating decline of inshore reefs, it has proven difficult to ascertain links between land use changes, terrestrial discharge, water quality and the decline of coral reefs at regional scales, and the contributions of anthropogenic influences to the disturbance regimes of inshore reefs remains highly controversial. This thesis uses palaeoecological reconstruction of coral assemblages and high-precision U-Series dating to examine changes in community structure of inshore coral reefs in the Palm Islands region across decadal and centennial scales. Comparisons of modern and historical coral assemblages provide evidence of a collapse of Acropora coral communities at Pelorus Reef in the early 20th Century. Fossil assemblages in an adjacent site at Pelorus provide further evidence of an extrinsic shift from historical Acropora assemblages to more sediment-tolerant corals in modern assemblages, a change without precedence in 800 years of record. Sediment cores (2-5m length) were extracted from Pandora and Havannah reefs to determine long-term rates of reef growth throughout the late Holocene. Computer Axial Tomography (CAT) scans of cores revealed a framework dominated by coral fragments, and U-Series dating of corals revealed rapid and continuous reef growth at both reefs throughout the last 1000 yrs. Comparisons of reef accretion (m ka-1) from cores with published accretion rates from early-mid Holocene inshore GBR reefs show that reef slope environments are now accreting at rates equal to and exceeding those of the last 8000 years. This result contradicts assumptions that inshore reefs are undergoing or have undergone natural trajectories of geomorphic decline. A bayesian approach to determine stability of coral communities from the Pandora and Havannah cores indicates that those coral communities have existed in stable states for upwards of 400yrs, punctuated by periods of instability. Contrary to some paradigms of biodiversity, the high diversity communities were unstable on centennial scales, 4 yet the low diversity assemblages did not necessarily confer stability to these assemblages. Growth rates of inshore reefs were independent of diversity or community structure. From a management perspective, these results provide a longer-term (decades to centuries) understanding of coral community dynamics on inshore reefs of the GBR that provides a basis for detecting and understanding changes following European settlement, and a baseline for the management and potential restoration of coral communities at local and regional scales.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Tulsa, 1989. / Bibliography: leaves: 122-127.