This research explores cult formation and sect-like worship in the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), around the figures of both the priest and guerrilla fighter Camilo Torres (1929-1966), and Fabio Vásquez, leader and founder of the group in 1963-1978. I examine the relationship between authority and obedience that shaped political leadership in Colombia since the late 19th century. In particular, I consider how collective moral and individual values become ritualized in daily practices and moral discourses fostered by leaders that promoted drastic social change along Colombian history. This analysis of authority and obedience facilitates interpretations into how leaders create allegiances and legitimize violence as a strategy to bring about change in Colombian politics. I argue that the politics of magnicidio demonstrates how the formation of leadership is hampered by the use of selective violence, as a strategy to dismantle or deter political opponents from participation. This happens in both mainstream politics and within insurgent groups. In this vein, I argue that by approaching the figure of Camilo Torres and the reverence to his memory, it is possible to understand the importance of leadership and authority both in a guerrilla group, and in social mobilization, particularly the student movement, intellectual sectors, and the youth. I sustain that reverence to Camilo Torres has been fostered primarily outside the ELN. Although the ceremonies around his figure and the revolutionary project progressively furnished the group with a consistent pattern of belief for individual and group interaction, his leadership in the groups was not substantial. I demonstrate how Camilo Torres surrendered to the leadership of Fabio Vásquez in an attempt to become a suitable guerrillero. I argue that beyond claims for Camilo Torres' political legacy, guerrilla fighters in the ELN used his thought to challenge and undermine Fabio Vásquez' personalistic leadership in 1967-1974. Although the figure of Camilo Torres created internal cohesion, the ELN‘s re-conceptualization of the revolutionary project used his life only as a paradigm of commitment, sacrifice and revolutionary redemption, ignoring the priest's political ideals and assertions on social justice, charity and love. I conclude by exploring Camilo Torres' thought and actions in order to demonstrate how the ELN selectively interprets his legacy, and thereby justify the last months of his life to legitimize radical left leaning fighting. / Ph. D.

In Latin America, a social revolution is statistically far more likely to fail than to succeed. Yet there is little understanding as to the contributory factors of revolutionary failure or success. Many researchers look for commonalities by examining multiple revolutions across the region or even around the globe and throughout large periods of time, but their analysis frequently lacks commonality in the underlying conditions of the insurgencies. The case of Peru, however, provides a unique opportunity to examine multiple revolutions in the fairly homogenous environment of one state during a short and constrained timeframe of thirty years. In the history of the Republic of Peru, there have been only four social revolutions. These insurgencies were contained within two discreet periods of time: the MIR and ELN in the 1960’s, and Shining Path and MRTA in the 1980’s to 1990’s. While each of these revolutions experienced varying levels of success, each ultimately failed due, in no small part, to a particular set of structural and socioeconomic variables. / text

<p>Colombia vive un conflicto armado desde hace más de cuarenta años, involucrando grupos guerrilleros, paramilitares y el gobierno. Los grupos armados ilegales están muy involucrados en actividades económicas ilícitas. Por eso resulta interesante investigar la tesis de Collier y Hoeffler de que las insurgencias son motivadas principalmente por avaricia, aplicándola al caso colombiano, ya que esta tesis ha influenciado mucho la discusión sobre los movimientos insurgentes en la última década.</p>

The congestion control mechanisms of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) are very effective in providing best effort service in wired networks, where packet losses are mainly due to congestion in the network. In wireless mobile networks, more often than not, loss of packets is because of corruption of data on the wireless link. The TCP sender responds to these losses as if they are due to congestion, by reducing its congestion window, thereby reducing the rate of flow of packets. The reduction in congestion window is a necessity when network is experiencing congestion to avoid congestion collapse but it is not required if packet losses occur due to corruption of data on the wireless link. This unnecessary reduction in congestion window for corruption losses is the main reason for poor throughput of data transfer in wireless networks. The reduction in congestion window for corruption losses can be avoided if TCP can successfully differentiate between packet losses due to congestion and corruption. We suggest enhancements to TCP that, if implemented, will help the TCP receiver in separately identifying corruption losses and congestion losses. The enhancements are suggested over and above standard TCP NewReno and we call this new scheme as "NewRenoEln (NewReno with Explicit Loss Notification)". We suggest that the TCP sender attach a separate checksum for the TCP header with the packet. Since the length of the TCP header is much smaller as compared to the length of the TCP packet, there is a large probability that the TCP receiver will receive the header portion of the TCP packet without error even if the data portion of the packet is corrupted. Once the header information is found to be correct for a corrupted packet, the receiver can generate reliable Explicit 5oss Notification (ELN) for the sender. We derive an expression for the probability of a receiver generating successful Explicit Loss Notification, assuming a generic link layer protocol that is used for data transfer over wireless link. With this analysis, we show that there is large probability that receiver will generate successful ELN for various channel conditions We also suggest modifications to the sender behavior on receiving successful Explicit Loss Notification from the receiver. With these modifications, the TCP sender will recover from corruption losses without any reduction in congestion window. There is also a need to develop a unified analytical approach for the evaluation of TCP performance. We develop an analytical approach for the performance evaluation of NewRenoEln scheme. We compare the throughput results obtained by analytical calculations with results obtained by simulation and find them to be very close to each other. We also compare the performance of the proposed scheme NewRenoEln and the standard NewReno TCP via simulation as well as analytical approach, and find considerable improvement in throughput over wireless links.

Colombia vive un conflicto armado desde hace más de cuarenta años, involucrando grupos guerrilleros, paramilitares y el gobierno. Los grupos armados ilegales están muy involucrados en actividades económicas ilícitas. Por eso resulta interesante investigar la tesis de Collier y Hoeffler de que las insurgencias son motivadas principalmente por avaricia, aplicándola al caso colombiano, ya que esta tesis ha influenciado mucho la discusión sobre los movimientos insurgentes en la última década.

Submitted to the faculty of the School of Informatics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science in Chemical Informatics (Laboratory Informatics Specialization), Indiana University, June 2006 / Industry and academic laboratories have long resisted conversion to electronic laboratory notebooks (ELN) while at the same time integrating many other kinds of information systems, most notably laboratory information management systems (LIMS), chromatography data systems (CDS), and scientific data management systems (SDMS), within laboratory operations. Scientists in both academia and industry stand to gain important functionality unavailable with paper notebooks with the adoption of ELNs such as comprehensive searching of notebooks (keyword, result, and molecular structure/substructure searching, for example); distributed availability; and long term access to data. Currently, most laboratory information systems operate independently, requiring manual data entry by users into each individual system. This process creates data and information disparities as well as creating poor referential integrity within experimental metadata. Electronic laboratory notebooks would provide a logical point around which experiment details and observations could be centered electronically. Through an ELN, experimental documentation or metadata could be communicated automatically with a LIMS, SDMS, or CDS without analyst involvement. This “electronically connected” system would allow analysts to perform their responsibilities without the interruption of independent information systems thus increasing analyst productivity and reducing user entry errors into data management systems. The thesis project consisted of two phases: the first phase was the implementation of an ELN and the second phase was the development of a software developer kit (SDK) for LABTrack based on Web Services. In the first phase of the project the adoption of an ELN, was studied within a classroom laboratory (G823 Introduction to Cell Biology) over the course of one academic semester. In the second phase of the project an SDK for LABTrack was developed to allow the importation of information from custom developed applications into LABTrack. Finally, a web portal integrating LABTrack and NuGenesis was developed to demonstrate the capabilities of the LABTrack SDK and existing capabilities of the NuGenesis SDK.

L'objectif de mon travail de thèse était de développer des outils bio informatiques permettant d'améliorer la traditionnelle gestion de l'information scientifique au sein d'un grand centre de recherche et en particulier au sein d'une plateforme de génomique. Trois outils ont été développés: un cahier de laboratoire électronique, un système de gestion de l'information de laboratoire pour des applications de génomique dont le séquençage de nouvelle génération, ainsi qu'un système de gestion des échantillons pour de grandes bio-banques. Ce travail a été réalisé en étroite collaboration avec des biologistes, épidémiologistes et informaticiens. Il a également inclus la mise en place d'interactions entre les différents outils pour former un système informatique intégré. Les trois outils ont été rapidement adoptés par l'ensemble des scientifiques du centre de recherche et sont désormais utilisés au quotidien pour le suivi de toutes les activités de laboratoire mais aussi plus globalement pour les autres activités scientifiques du centre de recherche. Ces outils sont transposables dans d'autres instituts de recherche / The aim of my thesis work was to develop bioinformatics tools to improve the traditional scientific information management within a large research centre and especially within a genomics platform. Three tools have been developed: an electronic laboratory notebook, a laboratory information management system for genomics applications including next generation sequencing, as well as a sample management system for large biobanks. This work has been conducted in close collaboration with biologists, epidemiologists and IT specialists. It has also included the setup of interactions between the different tools to make an integrated IT system. The three tools have been rapidly adopted by all the scientists of the research centre and are now daily used for the tracking of all the laboratory’s activities but also more globally for the research centre’s other scientific activities. These tools are transposable in other research institutes

Corporations in the resource extraction industry are frequently criticized and their operations opposed by local communities demanding more benefits, compensation for negative consecuences or oppose resource extraction altogether. Research has focused extensively on nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns that target state and quasi-state actors attempting regime change or self-determination. However, campaigns targeting corporations have received little attention so far. This thesis addresses this gap. I argue that nonviolent campaigns have a strategic advantage over violent campaigns in building leverage and forcing corporations to fulfill their demands because they are able to mobilize more numerous and diverse support and have a higher tactical diversity. I test the hypothesis that nonviolent campaigns are more likely to succeed in achieving their objectives and the expected causal mechanism in a qualitative comparative case study using the structured focused comparison method and aspects of process tracing. Applying a most- similar case selection, I select nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns targeting (multinational) corporations in Nigeria and Colombia. I find partial support for the hypothesis. However, limited data availability does not allow for a conclusive evaluation of the theorized causal mechanism. Findings indicate the value of studying resistance campaigns targeting corporations. In particular, future research should use a more fine-grained analysis of causal mechanisms linking the type and outcome of campaigns in this context. Additionally, applying large-n research designs allowing for greater generalizability of findings would be a valuable contribution in the future.

Although a relatively new research field, many quantitative studies have over the past decade been undertaken examining rebel governance as an insurgent practice in intrastate conflicts around the globe. Nevertheless, gaps persist in the understanding of how common aspects of rebel governance, such as inclusive service provision, affect competing non-state actors in multi-rebel group conflict landscapes. Hitherto, this is the research puzzle of interest. This study asks the question: how is rebel group violence against civilians affected by a rival rebel group practising inclusive service provision? The hypothesis is that the level of violence against civilians practised by a rebel group decreases if a rival rebel group engages in inclusive service provision. The applied research method is a qualitative structured focused comparison between ELN in Colombia and GIA in Algeria from 1994 to 1999. The study does not find support for the hypothesised causal relationship, although forms of attempted emulation and outbidding of rival actors seem present in both studied cases. Further research is needed to fully dismiss the possibility of rival rebel group inclusive service provision sharing a negative variable relationship with rebel group violence against civilians.