Through the U.S. Lend-Lease program, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to keep Joseph Stalin's Red Army fighting Adolf Hitler's forces to prevent a separate peace and Nazi Germany's colonization of Soviet territory and strategic resources during the Second World War. Yet after the Red Army's 1943 counterattacks, Roosevelt unnecessarily increased Soviet Lend-Lease aid, oversupplying Stalin's soldiers with more armament than they required for the Soviet Union's defense and enabling their subsequent conquest of East Central Europe and large parts of East Asia. Roosevelt's underestimation of the Red Army's capabilities, his tendency to readily rely on Soviet-influenced advisers, and his unquestioning acceptance of Stalin's implicit threats to forge a separate peace all contributed to his excessive arming of Moscow from 1943 forward. Expanding on the findings of other scholars, this work identifies and explains the impact of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty on Roosevelt's reasoning, the key role of the Arctic convoys in delivering material to the Red Army, and how the unnecessary aid routes through Iran and Alaska resulted in the oversupplying of Stalin's troops. Had Roosevelt not opened these unnecessary routes, the Arctic convoys could have continued to sufficiently supply the Red Army's defensive efforts without empowering it to aggressively spread Communism at gunpoint.

The proposed 42,000 square foot facility is envisioned to be a satellite office for both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as a digital research institute. The institute seeks to provide integrated collaboration with the NEA and NEH, although it is also open to collaboration with other organizations related to arts and humanities scholarship. The proposed site is located at the intersection of 14th Street and Park Rd NW, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. At this time, the neighborhood is experiencing a revival in development that began approximately 10-15 years ago. Community residents describe the site as being the "core area" of the neighborhood and also consider it to be the number one priority area for redevelopment of the entire neighborhood. Strategically locating the building at the main intersection of the neighborhood facilitates community involvement and cognition as well as encourages the surrounding arts and humanities related organizations to become more closely involved with the NEA and NEH and their research. This development is meant to be a cultural marker. Functionally, this facility will utilize the most advanced information technology and the most extensive humanities and arts related databases as tools for scholarly research. / Master of Architecture

The forest avian community of the Ray Roberts Greenbelt (Denton Co., Texas) was characterized for two years using point count station sampling, from fall 1998 to summer 2000. Richness data for both breeding seasons were correlated with two-spatial metrics: width of the riparian forest and distance to the nearest edge. There were significant correlations between forest interior species richness and both spatial metrics, for both breeding seasons. Based on these data, a minimum riparian forest width threshold of 400-meters is suggested to provide habitat for forest interior species, which have lost considerable habitat through forest fragmentation. Partners in Flight breeding bird priority concern scores were used to create a habitat priority index for the Trinity River bottomland hardwood forest system

La thèse traite des questions énergétiques et géopolitiques relatives à deux États centre-eurasiatiques, l’Azerbaïdjan et le Turkménistan. Au premier niveau d’analyse, la thèse se concentre sur la place de l’Azerbaïdjan et du Turkménistan dans les rivalités de pouvoirs et les rapports de force régionaux. Elle met en évidence les deux types de compétitions qui existent autour des hydrocarbures de l’Azerbaïdjan et du Turkménistan. Premièrement, il s’agit de la compétition géopolitique qui oppose la Russie, acteur régional à deux acteurs extrarégionaux, les États-Unis et l’Union Européenne. Deuxièmement, il s’agit de la compétition commerciale qui existe entre les sociétés énergétiques, d’une part et d’une autre part, des tensions qui émergent entre les premières et les pouvoirs politiques de leurs pays d’origine. Au second niveau d’analyse, la thèse se focalise sur le rôle de l’Azerbaïdjan et du Turkménistan dans les compétitions régionales. Elle s’intéresse à la façon dont les deux États utilisent leurs ressources énergétiques, leurs positions géographiques et l’environnement géopolitique pour promouvoir leurs intérêts de politique étrangère. La thèse explore cette situation par le prisme du Nouveau Grand Jeu. Ce concept y est employé pour souligner les antagonismes existants entre les puissances régionales et extrarégionales au sujet du transport des hydrocarbures de l’Azerbaïdjan et du Turkménistan. La chronologie de la thèse s’étend sur la période comprise entre le moment de la chute de l’URSS et le présent. Cette période est structurée en deux étapes comprenant les années 1991-2006 et 2006-2013 qui sont désignées comme l’âge du pétrole et respectivement, l’âge du gaz. / This dissertation focuses on the energy and geopolitical issues of two Central-Eurasian countries, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. At the first level of analysis, the dissertation looks at the place of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan in the great power rivalries in Central Eurasia. It emphasizes the existence of two types of competition over the energy resources of these two post-soviet countries. Firstly, it analyzes the geopolitical competition among regional and extra-regional actors, Russia, the United States and the European Union. Secondarily, the dissertation emphasizes the commercial competition among major international energy companies. It also identifies the existing tensions between these multinational actors and the political authorities in their home countries. At the second level of analysis, the dissertation is focused on the role played by Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan in the geopolitical and commercial rivalries. The dissertation analyzes the way that the two countries use their energy resources, geographical positions and sensitive geopolitical context in order to promote and defend their foreign policy interests. The dissertation looks at this complex situation through the lens of the New Great Game. This concept is used with a view to underlining the antagonism between regional and extra-regional powers regarding the oil and gas export routes of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. In terms of chronology, the dissertation covers the period from the collapse of the USSR until the present day. This period is divided into two so-called epochs: the Age of Oil (1991-2006) and the Age of Gas (2006-present day).

Ce travail de recherche traite de la problématique des transports dans les villes d’Indonésie, Jakarta et Bandung, mais également de la grande concurrence modale du trajet Jakarta-Bandung et Bandung-Jakarta. Les préférences des passagers sont des variables très importantes à connaître en raison de leurs impacts pour choisir un mode de transport parmi d’autres. Dans les transports, le modèle Logit est largement utilisé comme une méthode pour aborder la problématique du choix de transport multimodal comportant de multiples variables, mais dans la présente recherche, ces modèles ne sont pas appropriés pour la résolution de nos problèmes, car il y a des variables particulières à identifier et à prendre en compte. Par conséquent, nous avons développé pour nos besoins le modèle « Logit Mixed Multinomial Adapté (LMMA) » comme outil dédié à l’analyse décisionnelle dans le choix des modes de transport des passagers. La première partie de nos travaux de recherches porte sur l’identification et la compréhension des problèmes de transports intra-cité d’origine et de destination pour le choix du mode de transport entre Jakarta et Bandung (et puis entre Bandung et Jakarta). La seconde partie concerne le processus de décision final en proposant et en analysant les résultats d’un questionnaire adressé à de nombreux utilisateurs de la liaison Jakarta-Bandung (et Bandung-Jakarta). L’analyse permet pour chaque situation d’origine et de destination, et en tenant compte des services offerts par chaque mode inter-cité, d’identifier quel est le mode le plus compétitif. / An ideal city or intercity transport system is one where all the transport networks, involving in general different modes of transport, could serve together the cities connections to fulfill a passenger demand and satisfaction. Each transport network should have a logical layout (as possible with minimum discontinuities) to meet the required demands. Also in that ideal system, the different modes of transport should not only have their own good performances but also the exchange between modes should be done with harmony. The conditions as mentioned above are worldwide challenges. The present work deals with the transportation problematic between two Indonesian cities, and also with the high modal competition on the Jakarta-Bandung corridor. On that corridor, road transport is currently the main demanding mode for passengers transportation. The airlines cannot compete and discontinued their operations to this route. Nowadays, railway transport is decaying. Passengers preferences are the main variables for the final modal choice. It is necessary to know preferences due to their decisions impacts to choose one mode over the others. Those preferences are in fact not simple to express in a complex city and intercity transport system. In transportation, the Logit model is widely used as a method to explore the problematic of modal choices involving a lot of different variables. There are several Logit models already developed, such as “General Extreme Value”, “Probit”, and “Nested model”, but in this research, they are not compatible to solve our defined problems because there are some particular identified variables to be taken into account. Therefore we propose the "Adapted Mixed Multinomial Logit (AMML)" Model as a tool for analysis towards passenger's decision in modal choices. On the Jakarta-Bandung corridor, modal choices are influenced by the encountered problems in intercity transport at origin and destination. One part on this research deals with identification and understanding of the intracity transport problems of origin and destination on the choice of transport mode in Jakarta-Bandung corridor (Jakarta-Bandung and Bandung-Jakarta direction). The second part of this research deals with the final decision process by analyzing the results of questionnaires addressed to many users of the Jakarta-Bandung corridor. The five main variables of the last questionnaire are travel time, overall cost, security conditions, quality of travel information and connectivity conditions relevant to intercity transport and intracities transport conditions as well. After validation of the questionaires, this research uses the AMML model to get final decision result by comparing one mode among three intercity transport mode (train, minibus, and car) using the values of the variables. Taking into account the characteristics of each intercity mode of transportation, the analysis identifies the most competitive intercity transport mode for each situation from departure city to arrival city. Using alternative public and private transport modes policies, one could in the future modify passenger choice on intercity transport mode. Therefore, this study is relevant for improving of intracity and intercity transport systems.

The dissertation summarises the result of the study of small terrestrial mammals (Eulipotyphla, Rodentia) along natural (watercourses) and anthropogenic (road, highway) landscape barriers. It points to an interesting phenomenon of road drainage ditches as a transitional migration environment, further it assesses the level of locomotion activity, the rate of structure of subpopulations and the frequency of crossing watercourses in the case of selected rodent species. It contributes with its results to solving problems concerning the effect of these landscape structures on the species diversity, ground mobility or genetic structure of small terrestrial mammals. ˙˙˙˙

Text in English / Corridor disease is an economically important tick-borne disease of cattle in southern Africa. The disease is caused by Theileria parva and transmitted by the vectors, Rhipicephalus appendiculatus and R. zambeziensis. There is currently no vaccine to protect cattle against T. parva that is permitted in South Africa. To develop recombinant anti-tick vaccines against Corridor disease, comprehensive databases of genes expressed in the tick’s salivary glands are required. Therefore, in Chapters 2 and 3, mRNA from the salivary glands of R. appendiculatus and R. zambeziensis was sequenced and assembled using next generation sequencing technologies. Respectively, 12 761 and 13 584 non-redundant protein sequences were predicted from the sialotranscriptomes of R. appendiculatus and R. zambeziensis and uploaded to public sequence domains. This greatly expanded the number of sequences available for the two vectors, which will be invaluable resources for the selection of vaccine candidates in future. Further, in Chapter 3, differential gene expression analysis in R. zambeziensis revealed dynamic expression of secretory protein transcripts during feeding, suggestive of stringent transcriptional regulation of these proteins. Knowledge of these intricate expression profiles will further assist vaccine development in future. In Chapter 4, comparative sialotranscriptomic analyses were performed between R. appendiculatus and R. zambeziensis. The ticks have previously shown varying vector competence for T. parva and this chapter presents the search for correlates of this variance. Phylogenetic analyses were performed using these and other publically available tick transcriptomes, which indicated that R. appendiculatus and R. zambeziensis are closely related but distinct species. However, significant expression differences were observed between the two ticks, specifically of genes involved in tick immunity or pathogen transmission, signifying potential bioinformatic signatures of vector competence. Furthermore, nearly four thousand putative long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) were predicted in each of the two ticks. A large number of these showed differential expression and suggested a potential transcriptional regulatory function of lncRNA in tick blood feeding. LncRNAs are completely unexplored in ticks. Finally, in Chapter 5, concluding remarks are given on the potential impact the R. appendiculatus and R. zambeziensis sialotranscriptomes may have on future vaccine developments and some future research endeavours are discussed. / Life and Consumer Sciences / Ph. D. (Life Sciences)

Like many other economic and social activities that are infrastructure-intensive, the transport sector is an important component of the economy impacting on national, regional and local development as well as the welfare of citizens. An efficient transport infrastructure provides a multitude of socioeconomic opportunities and benefits with positive multiplier effects such as better accessibility to markets, employment, education and health. If it is well managed, transport infrastructure transforms the quality of life of residents through dynamic externalities it generates. But when infrastructure is deficient in terms of capacity, efficiency or reliability, it can have unwarranted economic costs due to reduced or missed opportunities. Despite its central role in rural development, little is known about the extent and impact of the various benefits that arise from the development of roads, particularly in developing countries. A large body of literature exists documenting the spatial patterns of socioeconomic development which can be induced by road infrastructure development processes and are in most cases dynamic and temporal. The impacts of a given road infrastructure development can also be analysed at the local, regional or national perspectives. The local impact is expected to be limited to the immediate neighbourhoods of the highway including tukuls, towns and villages to be found on both sides of the road within a distance of 5kms defining the influence zone. Based on this, the main objective of this research is to assess socioeconomic impacts of road infrastructure development of three newly developed highways on their respective surrounding communities 5-10 years after the interventions. Two of the highways are gravel surfaced and one is paved type. The respective study names are: Gendewuha – Gelago road (Corridor 1), Mile – Weldiya road (Corridor 2) and Ginchi – Kachisi road (Corridor 3). Their respective lengths are 165; 125; and 105 kilometres, while the study refers 10 kilometres on both sides of the roads. The study had focused on primary data on selected variables that describe socioeconomic conditions both before and after the intervention by using mixed methods of data collection considering quasi experimental design (QED). The main methods of analysis employed are descriptive and inferential statistics. Models such as: Random model approach and double-difference regression were used. The research had utilized two types of impact analyses (temporal and spatial) for comparison and also tested by using paired sample t tests: First: for each of the three corridors, comparisons between current conditions and the situation before the road intervention and, second: comparing conditions in the zone of influence (ZOI) situated within 5kms with control zone (COZ) situated beyond 5kms which are considered not to benefit much from road improvements during the period covered by the study. The research is based on data collected from 392 household heads, 77 key informants, 69 FGD participants from seven different localities, traffic counts from seven points, physical observations, outputs of GIS analysis utilizing satellite imageries and vast secondary data. The findings show that there are more positive and less negative temporal and spatial socioeconomic impacts generated by the three corridors notwithstanding disparities among the different locations. Accordingly, the paved highway is found to have more powerful positive impacts than the gravel roads, which are of low standards and functioning poorly. The status of truck and bus terminals which should have been integrated in the highway development projects are still underdeveloped with obvious effects on the sustainability of their socioeconomic impacts in the study areas. Furthermore, certain natural and more importantly manmade factors are found to have pre-empted the realization of certain positive socioeconomic impacts to be obtained from road interventions. In a nutshell, the dissertation had proofed the importance of conducting impact evaluation in the study areas by answering the questions of ‘what works and what doesn’t? and what is the extent of the impact?; measuring the impacts and relating the changes in the dependent variables to developmental policies; investigating the positive and negative effects of road development interventions and their sustainability; producing information that is relevant from transparency and accountability perspective; and finally contributing to individual and organizational level learning that can be inspired by conducting impact evaluations from the perspectives of change theory, programme theory and central place theory. These also offer possibilities of informing decision makers as to whether to expand, or improve road development related interventions by way of programmes, projects and policies. Therefore, from the perspective of Transport Geography, it is the primary interest of the researcher to contribute towards filling the aforementioned gaps in the existing body of the knowledge in Ethiopia and elsewhere. / Geography / D. Litt. et Phil. (Geography)

The assignment of diploma thesis was the design of a sustainable urban structure based on a medieval city in Náměšť nad Oslavou. As part of the work, I tried to find the best solution for this solved area, which is isolated by a railway corridor and suggest a new city district based on the principle of a medieval city, which will be linked to the existing city. The proposed development of city blocks is built on a system of platforms that level the terrain within the blocks and enable optimal parking spaces and the use of commercials. This development is complemented by several blocks with villa houses and a city SPA complex. The proposal supports the construction of cycle paths that connect parts of the solved area with the Rathan recreation pond. The design also includes a large park with a lookout tower and a sports ground on the city horizon ner the SPA complex. The accent was also placed on the public area near the new railway station, which serves to gather people for cultural and entertainment opportunities. This public space should not compete with an existing Masaryk square, which fulfills a representative and administration function.

The thesis deals with design of the tram power collecting route and the tram track of the route no. 3 in reconstruction area recently called “Zbrojovka Brno”. Connection to the present infrastructure is also considered. Housing, resting, administration sectors and tram stops are designed for easy availability in the new area. Because the railroad bounds the area on the East and will be extended in the future, joining the tram transport with integrated transport system in Židenice is possible. Design includes the new bridge across Svitava river and connection with surrounding areas. If we divide individual car transport (IAD) from the tram route, the trolley car transportation is designed in place IAD.