Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

A positive predator-prey population dynamics is important to sustain a healthy ecosystem. When this gap is widened it can have adverse effect on the particular ecosystem. Predators play an important role to keep the population of prey species in check. Predation also influences the size of the prey population by acting as a control. Predator and prey evolve together in a constant bid for survival. A healthy population of the apex predators also gives an indication of the health of the ecosystem. In an environment which is rapidly altered by humans for commercial and recreational needs it becomes extremely important to study the prey-predator interaction and the effects it has on the ecosystem. The effect of large carnivores is thought to extend down the food web to herbivores and to plants causing a trophic cascade. In the Czech Republic where the forests play a vital role economically there was a need to assess this Impact. We carried out some research in the west Carpathian Mountains which fall in the eastern part of Czech Republic to assess the impact large carnivores have on forest regeneration. The Beskydy Mountains is home to 3 large carnivore species namely Wolf (Canis lupus), Lynx (Lynx lynx), and Brown bear (Ursus arctos). The remaining carnivore species are not considered here, but we acknowledge that also they can play an important and varied role in communities. The prey species include Red deer (Cervus elaphus), Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), and Wild boar (Sus scrofa) while other small herbivores were not considered.

This study poses the question of why national conflicts persist in the context of increasing transnational integration. From the early 1970's and especially since the end of the 'Cold War', nationalism has gained increased global significance. At the same time, seemingly hand-in-hand with the upsurge in nationalism, there has been an acceleration in transnational integration. This apparent paradox is explored in several ways: first by developing a theoretical framework for linking nationalism and transnationalism, second by analysing a particular case of national conflict in its transnationalised setting, and third by investigating the interpretation and re-interpretation of 'national' interests by key political actors. The case chosen is the national conflict in Ireland in the context of transnational integration in the European Union. In Ireland the two global tendencies - of national division and transnational integration - are focussed to a high degree of intensity. The transnational integrative process is at its most advanced in the European Community which, in 1993, became the 'European Union', one of the most ambitious examples of inter-state and trans-state regional integration to date. The national conflict in Ireland meanwhile, is more deeply entrenched than in any other Western European state and was, until the IRA ceasefire on 31 August 1994, the most highly militarised conflict in Western Europe. This study suggests that the relationships between transnational integration and national conflict are becoming a defining factor in Ireland's political development and that such relationships also pattern developments in the wider EU. Indeed, to the extent that the process of EU integration is seen as an antidote to nationalism in Western Europe, the impact of the EU in Ireland's national conflict could be interpreted as a test case of EU integration.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF ASTERIOS STAMATIKOS, for the Master of Philosophy degree in Philosophy, presented on October 14, 2014, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. "FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT: ΘΎΜΟϚ IN THE REPUBLIC" MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Thomas Alexander This paper shows that the spirted part of the soul should be ranked above the appetitive part of the soul, according to the standards Plato set forth in The Republic. Plato exalted the rational part of the soul, but he likened the spirited part of the soul to the rational part in various ways. The moral goodness of the spirited part of the soul can be shown through the ways it is similar to the rational part. These ways include the similarities between the regimes based on the rational and spirited part of the soul, as well as the characteristics of the spirited part of the soul, which make it auxiliary to the rational part of the soul. The spirited part of the soul fights against injustice within the soul, allying itself with the rational part against the desirous part; spiritedness also rises up when it perceives evil external to the soul. The way in which Plato exalted the rational part of the soul allows for an argument like this to be made. One way he shows the superiority of the rational part of the soul is by condemning the other two parts. Plato praised the spirited part of the soul for the most part though, and some of the characteristics he attributed to the spiritedness were in accord with the virtues and social order of classical Athens.

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Between 1914 and 1919, Germans and Austrians experienced previously unimaginable sociopolitical transformations: four years of war, military defeat, the collapse of the Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies, the creation of democratic republics, and the redrawing of the map of Central Europe. Through an analysis of new state symbols and the staging of political and cultural celebrations, this dissertation explores the multiple and conflicting ways in which Germans and Austrians sought to reconceptualize the relationships between nation, state and politics in the wake of the First World War. Whereas the political right argued that democracy was a foreign imposition, supporters of democracy in both countries went to great lengths to refute these claims. In particular, German and Austrian republicans endeavored to link their fledgling democracies to the established tradition of großdeutsch nationalism – the idea that a German nation-state should include Austria – in an attempt to legitimize their embattled republics. By using nineteenth-century großdeutsch symbols and showing continued support for an Anschluss (political union) even after the Entente forbade it, republicans hoped to create a transborder German national community that would be compatible with a democratic body politic. As a project that investigates the entangled and comparative histories of Germany and Austria, this dissertation makes three contributions to the study of German nationalism and modern Central European history. First, in revealing the pervasiveness of großdeutsch ideas and symbols at this time, I point to the necessity of looking at both Germany and Austria when considering topics such as the redefinition of national identity and the creation of democracy in post-World War I Central Europe. Second, it highlights the need to move beyond the binary categorizations of civic and ethnic nationalisms, which place German nationalism in the latter category. As the republicans’ use of großdeutsch nationalism demonstrates, the creation of a transborder German community was not simply the work of the extreme political right. Third, it contributes to recent scholarship which seeks to move past the entrenched question of why interwar German and Austrian democracies failed. Instead of simply viewing the two republics as failures, it investigates the ways in which citizens engaged with the new form of government, as well as the prospects for the success of democracy in the wake of military defeat. In drawing attention to the differences between the German and Austrian experiments with democracy, this dissertation points to the relative strengths of the Weimar Republic when compared to the First Austrian Republic.

The diploma thesis deals with the competitiveness of Czech and Slovak Republic. The aim of the thesis is to compare the competitiveness of both economies based on the subjectively chosen factors (sources) of competitiveness. The selection of analyzed factors is related to the World Economic Forum concept. The intention is to find out, how the level of competitiveness of both countries has evolved in a specific time period. The level of competitiveness is analyzed from the perspective of the complex multicriteria approach to competitiveness.

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