It is well documented that urbanization changes the hydrology of watersheds (Hammer 1972; Booth 1991; Rose and Peters 2001). Increases in runoff volume and velocity from urbanization result in stream channel degradation (Hammer 1972; Henshaw and Booth 2000; Walsh et al. 2005; Leopold et al. 2005a; Poff et al. 2006). While stormwater management measures may be implemented to reduce the impact of stormwater runoff on streams, these practices do not reverse stream channel degradation that has already occurred. Stream restoration utilizing Natural Channel Stream Design (NCD) techniques is an effective way to reverse the effects of urbanization and return natural function to a stream. The design (bankfull) discharge for an NCD stream restoration project is the cornerstone of a restoration design. Existing methodologies for determining design discharges, such as hydrologic modeling and bankfull identification, have not worked well for NCD stream restoration projects in urban watersheds. The use of hydraulic geometry relationships serves as an alternative method for determining design discharge, but the required information is not generally available for urban Northern Virginia streams. However, rural regional curves developed for the Maryland piedmont, adjusted for watershed impervious area, provide a means to determine design discharges for urban stream restoration projects in Northern Virginia. / Master of Science

With Romania's acceptance into NATO, the Republic of Moldova found itself at the frontier of the North-Atlantic Alliance. This thesis evaluates the impact of NATO and European Union enlargements on the resolution of the Transnistrian conflict in the eastern part of the Republic of Moldova. Theoretically, recent changes in the geo-political environment in Europe can bring a new impetus to the process of political settlement of the Transnistrian conflict. In the wake of these changes, Moldovan leadership is looking for new supporters to back Moldova in the stand-off against Russia on the Transnistrian issue. In this respect, NATO and the EU appear to be appropriate candidates. Either one of these two organizations, taken separately, possesses enough potential to create an asymmetry against Russia. Would these two institutions get more involved in the fate of this intra-state conflict? Possible courses of action of actors involved will be analyzed through the prisms of realism and liberal institutionalism theories of international relations. Rationale for further enlargement will be assessed against "soft power" resources, such as values, norms and knowledge, accumulated over the years and shared by member-states within both alliances.

Nowadays, the use of credit scoring models in the financial sector is a common practice. Credit scoring plays an important role in profitability and transparency of lending business. Given the high credit volumes, even a small improvement of discriminatory and predictive power of a credit scoring model may provide a substantial additional profit. Scoring models are applied on the through-the-door population, however, for creating them or adjusting already existing credit rules, it is usual to use only the data corresponding to accepted applicants for which payment discipline can be observed. This discrepancy can lead to reject bias (or selection bias in general). Methods trying to eliminate or reduce this phenomenon are known by the term reject inference. In general, these methods try to assess the behavior of rejected applicants or to obtain an additional information about them. In the dissertation thesis, I dealt with the enlargement method which is based on a random acceptance of applicants that would have been rejected. This method is not only time consuming but also expensive. Therefore I looked for the ways how to reduce the cost of acquiring additional information about rejected applicants. As a result, I have proposed a modification which I called the enlargement method with sorting variable. It was validated on real bank database with two possible sorting variables and the results were compared with the original version of the method. It was shown that both tested approaches can reduce its cost while retaining the accuracy of the scoring models.

The theme of this thesis is the enlargement of the EU and NATO, and Russia's response to such expansion. The aim of this work is to analyze whether the expansion of these institutions after the end of the Cold War is creating a new dividing line in Europe. The analysis is embedded in a constructivist theoretical perspective. I will therefore examine the distinct identities of the West (for purposes of this work represented by the EU and NATO) and Russia. These different identities should cause that the actors perceive the EU and NATO enlargements from a different perspective. Different vision of certain reality then creates tension between the two "value blocks" and thus may resemble the Cold War.

The thesis deals with NATO enlargements in 1999 and 2004 - on the examples of eligibility of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia for NATO accession. The thesis is divided into the four parts, which are analysing the issue of enlargement. This issue is viewed from a broad perspective. That's why the thesis includes the NATO enlargements during the Cold Ward. Nevertheless, the main focus is on the two enlargements waves, such as 1999 and 2004, which comprise the accession of these four mentioned states. Simultaneously, none of these would be accepted without the US approval and especially in case of Estonia also without Russian opinion. Then it could follow the in-depth analysis of eligibility of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia for NATO accession, which is based on Study on NATO Enlargement. The Study can be legitimately regarded as NATO's basic document for enlargement.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate the operation of membership criteria, which are applied against countries that wish to join the European Union (EU). More specifically, the importance of some criteria in comparison to others is considered. To answer this proposal, three questions are posed: What are the EU membership criteria? Are some criteria more important than other criteria? Does the EU treat candidate countries differently in applying the membership criteria? Three countries are used in this analysis, each country representing one recent enlargement round: Poland (2004), Romania (2007), and current candidate country Turkey. Both official documents, such as EU treaties, and unofficial documents such as statements from EU leaders are used to analyze the application of membership criteria. The method that is used in this thesis is idea analysis. The EU has both official criteria, which are found in the foundation treaties, and unofficial criteria, which are the public and political opinions among the candidate countries and current EU member states. It is suggested that none of the criteria are more important than others; a candidate country must fulfill virtually all the official and unofficial criteria in order to gain EU membership. Although all criteria must be met, the application of the criteria is uneven between candidate countries. The EU does not treat countries differently when it comes to the official criteria. However, when it comes to the unofficial criteria, Turkey is treated differently from Romania and Poland. There is greater resistance to Turkey’s future membership, making it much more difficult for Turkey to reach the stage of full EU membership.

When Turkey became a candidate of the EU in 1999 it had been a problematic applicant for forty years due to residual unpopularity with several member states for cultural, economic, security and normative reasons. However, the Helsinki European Council heralded a change of fortunes for Ankara and by 2005 accession negotiations had opened. This happened in spite of Turkey remaining an unpopular candidate with some member states. Moreover, since 2005, Turkey s standing within the EU has returned to a position akin to its pre-1999 stasis. This thesis thus asks: why did Turkey make such progress between 1999 and 2004/5? What was the specific configuration of structures, processes and actions that enabled that to happen then but not before or after? The thesis approaches this puzzle using a stretched eclectic version of Historical Institutionalism which can incorporate the effects of both structure and agency. In this way it can include the influence of wider structural factors, such as CEEC enlargement, Cyprus and ESDP as well as the agency of Turkey s advocates within the EU. It is a detailed qualitative process-tracing study which uses semi-structured interviews and documentary evidence to make a case for a given explanation. It concludes that a path dependent process, influenced by both structure and agency, can be traced from the Helsinki European Council to that in Brussels five years later which rhetorically entrapped the member states into agreeing to open accession negotiations in spite of Turkey s underlying unpopularity. By adopting this framework for analysis, the thesis makes a contribution to the literature on the Turkey-EU accession process by viewing the time period as a whole and taking a temporal rather than a snapshot approach. In so doing it is possible to explain why and how Turkey was able to make such progress between 1999 and 2004. It is also valuable in the study of present Turkey-EU relations as the ultimate conclusion has to be that there was a unique window of opportunity for both Turkey and the EU during this time and the window may now have closed.

<p>The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate the operation of membership criteria, which are applied against countries that wish to join the European Union (EU). More specifically, the importance of some criteria in comparison to others is considered. To answer this proposal, three questions are posed: What are the EU membership criteria? Are some criteria more important than other criteria? Does the EU treat candidate countries differently in applying the membership criteria? Three countries are used in this analysis, each country representing one recent enlargement round: Poland (2004), Romania (2007), and current candidate country Turkey. Both official documents, such as EU treaties, and unofficial documents such as statements from EU leaders are used to analyze the application of membership criteria. The method that is used in this thesis is idea analysis. The EU has both official criteria, which are found in the foundation treaties, and unofficial criteria, which are the public and political opinions among the candidate countries and current EU member states. It is suggested that none of the criteria are more important than others; a candidate country must fulfill virtually all the official and unofficial criteria in order to gain EU membership. Although all criteria must be met, the application of the criteria is uneven between candidate countries. The EU does not treat countries differently when it comes to the official criteria. However, when it comes to the unofficial criteria, Turkey is treated differently from Romania and Poland. There is greater resistance to Turkey’s future membership, making it much more difficult for Turkey to reach the stage of full EU membership.</p>

The life expectancy development during the past 150 years has been remarkable in many parts of the world. These developments, however, have been very different across countries. In Europe, the diverse historical and political changes lead to clusters of regions that followed different mortality developments. The aim of this study was to examine how countries that entered the European Union in 2004 and 2007 differ in terms of mortality from continuous members of the EU and from Eastern European countries that have never joined the EU. Moreover, I studied a possible convergence in mortality indicators between these groups of countries. The data used to explore mortality conditions in those groups of countries was derived from two sources: The Human Mortality Database and European Health for All Database. Descriptive statistics and calculations of average yearly pace of change for groups of countries have been applied for each mortality indicator. Furthermore, regression models have been conducted to estimate the impact of belonging to a country group on mortality indicators, adjusted for some macro-level indicators of economic progress and health expenditure. The results verified previous research implying the importance of period factors which can affect mortality in the short term. For all mortality indicators, accelerated improvements between 1995 and 1999 have been found in countries who became EU members in 2004. Moreover, life expectancy convergence was observed for life expectancy at birth but not for the older ages which could imply that the positive progress affected older ages to smaller degree. My findings confirm the importance of social environment and imply that the process of joining the EU possibly could reduce social stress and affect mortality conditions positively.

Scholars often address the process of enlargement as one-sided argument. This work provides a general theory of organizational expansion by including strategies and actions of both, applicant states and members of international organizations. It is argued that dependent on the domestic characteristics of states an organization strategically implement a set of conditions to avoid the application and admission of states, which are either not able to conform with the rules or not willing to pay the costs of membership. This process incorporates two stages. I test this theory by utilizing a Heckman-Probit-Selection Model, which accounts for this two-stage procedure. The results confirm that conditions are important to avoid costs in the process of expansion.