Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Tension has been the most significant and constant factor in the relationship between North and South Korea over the past sixty years. The differences in the political systems and the economic disparity between the two countries have resulted in what was once one nation moving in two radically divergent directions. These differences have led to a state of imbalance and resulted in constant political instability that has been playing out within the boundaries of the two countries, explicitly in no-man’s land, the demilitarized zone (DMZ). As one of the world’s most heavily militarized borderline, the DMZ embodies a wide range of political and social tensions. Among these is the action-reaction relationship between the Imnam Dam of North Korea and the Peace Dam of South Korea; the Imnam Dam was built as an act of offence to flood Seoul by bombing the dam down, and the Peace Dam was built as an act of defense to prevent overflow of water into Seoul. The historical and present conditions of this relationship maximize the military limitations and the possibilities of greater exchange between the two Koreas in creating a mutually beneficial relationship. In this thesis, this relationship is realized through “faction space”, a specific space situated in a fictional reality that does not reflect on its immediate surroundings, but of its own world, a speculative fictional idea of what it could become. Four different types of borderline conditions are studied to find out how these conditions can be translated into opportunities of creating spaces not only for the military, but also for the public. Each condition focuses on a topic derived from the existing surroundings. The final faction spaces perform as architectural stimuli within the feuding landscape of the two Koreas, striving to relieve or intensify the social and political tension between each other. Conditions of these faction spaces may begin to exist in various places around the DMZ, redefining the borderscape. A time may come when the most heavily militarized zone in the world shifts its focus to become a space for reciprocity.

The purpose of this research is to propose effective ways to select areas for biodiversity conservation in the CCZ (Civilian Control Zone) and the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). To define “biodiversity,” I discuss the key concepts and their historical applications in the field of planning and related fields. After critiques on intuitive and conventional approaches to biodiversity conservation planning, I apply an integrative approach that combines systematic area selection process and information on human perspectives. The study focuses on the case of the CCZ and the DMZ in South Korea, where the invaluable natural environment recovered from the ruins of battle and biodiversity has thrived since the cease-fire of Korean War in 1953. However, despite a recent increase of public awareness on the significance of conservation in the CCZ and the DMZ, extremely limited access for military security and buried landmines, and the lack of data have been significant barriers for effective biodiversity conservation. It is also controversial about how to measure the value of biodiversity in the region to select areas for conservation, while simultaneously considering local residents’ concerns in the CCZ. Thus, I examine historical efforts and methods developed for area selections for biodiversity conservation in the CCZ, and explore ways to apply integrative approaches in the context of the CCZ. The integrative method is based on using systematic area selection algorithms for biodiversity content analysis and a qualitative research to understand local residents’ perspectives. Information about local residents’ values toward social and physical environment is obtained from a focus group study, which identified useful criteria in terms of spatial configuration and socio-cultural issues. The multiple criteria are carefully interpreted and applied to evaluate area network options produced from the computer-based area selection analysis. The final area networks represent the best selections based on available data and multiple criteria directly associated with spatial configuration. Adhering to the principles of systematic conservation planning, the integrative method proposed in this study may provide a more flexible framework that can be adapted in the dynamic social context of the CCZ and the DMZ. / text

Tension has been the most significant and constant factor in the relationship between North and South Korea over the past sixty years. The differences in the political systems and the economic disparity between the two countries have resulted in what was once one nation moving in two radically divergent directions. These differences have led to a state of imbalance and resulted in constant political instability that has been playing out within the boundaries of the two countries, explicitly in no-man’s land, the demilitarized zone (DMZ). As one of the world’s most heavily militarized borderline, the DMZ embodies a wide range of political and social tensions. Among these is the action-reaction relationship between the Imnam Dam of North Korea and the Peace Dam of South Korea; the Imnam Dam was built as an act of offence to flood Seoul by bombing the dam down, and the Peace Dam was built as an act of defense to prevent overflow of water into Seoul. The historical and present conditions of this relationship maximize the military limitations and the possibilities of greater exchange between the two Koreas in creating a mutually beneficial relationship. In this thesis, this relationship is realized through “faction space”, a specific space situated in a fictional reality that does not reflect on its immediate surroundings, but of its own world, a speculative fictional idea of what it could become. Four different types of borderline conditions are studied to find out how these conditions can be translated into opportunities of creating spaces not only for the military, but also for the public. Each condition focuses on a topic derived from the existing surroundings. The final faction spaces perform as architectural stimuli within the feuding landscape of the two Koreas, striving to relieve or intensify the social and political tension between each other. Conditions of these faction spaces may begin to exist in various places around the DMZ, redefining the borderscape. A time may come when the most heavily militarized zone in the world shifts its focus to become a space for reciprocity.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / Don M. Gruenbacher / Caterina M. Scoglio / Cybersecurity is playing a vital role in today's network. We can use security devices, such as a deep packet inspection (DPI) device, to enhance cybersecurity. However, a DPI has a limited amount of inspection capability, which cannot catch up with the ever-increasing volume of network traffic, and that gap is getting even larger. Therefore, inspecting every single packet using DPI is impractical. Our objective is to find a tradeoff between network security and network performance. More explicitly, we aim at maximizing the utilization of security devices, while not decreasing network throughput. We propose two prototypes to address this issue in a demilitarized zone (DMZ) architecture. Our first prototype involves a flow-size based DMZ criterion. In a campus network elephant flows, flows with large data rate, are usually science data and they are mostly safe. Moreover, the majority of the network bandwidth is consumed by elephant flows. Therefore, we propose a DMZ prototype that we inspect elephant flows for a few seconds, and then we allow them to bypass DPI inspection, as long as they are identified as safe flows; and they can be periodically inspected to ensure they remain safe. Our second prototype is a congestion-aware DMZ scheme. Instead of determining whether a flow is safe or not by its size, we treat all flows identically. We measure the data rates of all flows, and use a global optimization algorithm to determine which flows are allowed to safely bypass a DPI. The objective is to maximize DPI utilization. Both prototypes are implemented using OpenFlow in this work, and extensive experiments are performed to test both prototypes' feasibility. The results attest that the two prototypes are effective in ensuring network security while not compromising network performance. A number of tools for SDN network configuring and testing are also developed.