Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / In response to the 9/11 attacks and continuing threats of mass-casualty terrorism, the United States has adopted a new security strategy that emphasizes anticipatory actions including preventive war. Prevention, undertaken in the absence of an act of aggression or an imminent threat, is prohibited by modern conceptions of just war and international law. Many critics of the strategy fear that any legitimization of preventive war would endanger international stability. But an examination of the relevant ethical issues from the perspective of just war doctrine reveals contradictions within a blanket prohibition of preventive war. Preventive "strategic interventions" against illiberal regimes-states that correlate with the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction-parallel humanitarian interventions in that they have an ethical basis in the relationship between human rights and the right of state sovereignty. A widely-accepted minimum standard of human rights, incorporated into new international institutions and/or an explicit revision of the definition of just war, could serve as an ethical boundary for both preventive wars and humanitarian interventions. The formal qualification of prevention and its merger with humanitarian goals could bring enhanced international legitimacy and support to preventive actions by the United States and its allies. / Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy

[pt] A popularização dos processadores multinúcleo e de tecnologias como o hyper-threading evidencia uma mudança de foco na evolução dos processadores. Essa mudança fomenta o interesse por programação concorrente e a exploração de paralelismo para obtenção de melhor desempenho. Entretanto, os modelos atuais para programação concorrente são alvo de críticas recorrentes, o que estimula a elaboração de propostas alternativas. Este trabalho apresenta uma análise crítica do multithreading preemptivo com compartilhamento de memória, um modelo amplamente utilizado para programação concorrente, e faz um breve apanhado de trabalhos que abordam alternativas para programação concorrente. Em seguida, propõe um modelo para programação concorrente estruturado com a linguagem de programação Lua e descreve as suas principais características e vantagens. Finalmente, apresenta os resultados da avaliação de diversos aspectos de uma biblioteca desenvolvida para implementar o modelo proposto. / [en] The popularization of multi-core processors and of technologies such as hyper-threading indicates a different approach to the evolution of processors. This new approach brings about an increased interest in concurrent programming and the exploration of parallelism in order to achieve better performance. However, concurrent programming models now in use are subject to recurring criticism, which stimulates the development of alternative proposals. This work presents a critical analysis of preemptive multithreading with shared memory, which is a widely used model for concurrent programming, and brie y summarizes some studies that deal with alternatives for concurrent programming. It then, proposes a model for concurrent programming structured with the Lua programming language and describes its main characteristics and advantages. Finally, it presents the results of an evaluation of several aspects of a library developed to implement the proposed model.

O uso da Estimulação Elétrica Transcutânea do Nervo (TENS) vem sendo muito pesquisado em pós-operatórios, todavia os estudos não analisam se a TENS de baixa freqüência -- que estimula a liberação de opióides endógenos -- seria eficiente em promover analgesia preemptiva. Objetivo. Analisar se essa modalidade de TENS, aplicada antes de colecistectomias por laparotomia, poderia proporcionar analgesia preemptiva. Casuística e método. A pesquisa -- clínica, controlada, randomizada e duplamente encoberta -- foi realizada no Hospital São Domingos Sávio, e teve uma amostra de 50 pacientes, todas do sexo feminino: grupo preemptivo (n = 25) e placebo (n = 25). As pacientes do primeiro grupo foram submetidas à aplicação da TENS de baixa freqüência antes da cirurgia: e as do grupo placebo, a uma falsa estimulação. Houve a padronização do cloridrato de bupivacaína (0,5%) como droga anestésica, associado ao fentanil (2 ml) para a realização das colecistectomias; e da medicação analgésica utilizada no pós-operatório: dipirona, prescrita de 6 em 6 horas, e diclofenaco de sódio, como medicação de resgate. A intensidade de dor pós-operatória foi mensurada pela Escala Numérica de Mensuração da Dor (END), em 8 momentos (2½, 3½, 4½, 5½, 7, 8 e 16 horas após a indução do bloqueio anestésico, além de uma última verificação no momento da alta hospitalar), e pelo Questionário de Dor McGill (MPQ), aplicado 16 horas após a indução do bloqueio anestésico. Outrossim, o grau de satisfação das pacientes com o tratamento foi mensurado pela Escala de Satisfação do Paciente (ESP). Os dados foram analisados por meio de testes estatísticos descritivos, Teste de Mann-Whitney, Teste-t de Student para amostras não-pareadas e qui-quadrado, sendo o nível de significância de 5%. Resultados. A intensidade de dor, mensurada pela END, foi significantemente menor no grupo preemptivo nas terceira e quarta coletas. Não houve diferença significante quanto aos índices obtidos pelo MPQ, e nem quanto à satisfação das pacientes, o consumo de drogas analgésicas no pós-operatório e o tempo para o primeiro requerimento de diclofenaco de sódio. Conclusão. A TENS de baixa freqüência proporcionou analgesia preemptiva após colecistectomia por laparotomia. / Introduction. Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) has been searched in the postoperative period, however these studies don\'t analyze whether low frequency TENS -- that stimulates the release of endogenous opioids -- could be efficient to provide preemptive analgesia. Objective. The aim of this study was to verify whether low frequency TENS, applied before open cholecystectomies, could provide it. Cases and method. It was a controlled, randomized and double-blinded trial, carried out at the Hospital São Domingos Sávio (Aracaju city, Brazil), and had a sample of 50 patients: preemptive group (n = 25) and placebo (n = 25). The patients from the first group were submitted to the application of TENS before the surgery; and the placebo group to a false stimulation. There was the standardization of the bupivacaine (0,5 %) as anesthetic drug plus fentanyl (2 ml) for the accomplishment of the cholecystectomies; and of the analgesic medication used in the postoperative period: dipyrone, prescribed for every 6 hours, and diclofenac, only if the patients complained about pain. Pain intensity was measured by the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS), in 8 moments (2½, 3½, 4½, 5½, 7, 8 e 16 hours after inducing the anesthesia besides one last verification at the hospital discharge), and by the Brazilian version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (Br-MPQ), applied 16 hours after inducing the anesthesia. Patient satisfaction level in relation to the treatment was measured by the Patient Satisfaction Scale (PSS). The data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney Test, unpaired t-test and qui-square, being significant, those data with p < 0,05. Results. Pain intensity, measured by the NRS, was lower in the preemptive group in the third and fourth verifications. There was no difference neither in relation to the indexes obtained with the Br-MPQ, nor the PSS, consume of analgesics in the postoperative and time for the first request of diclofenac. Conclusion. Low frequency TENS provided preemptive analgesia after open cholecystectomy.

Thesis--School of Advanced Airpower Studies, AY 2001-2002. / Title from title screen (viewed on Apr. 17, 2007). "September 2004." Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-97). Full text document available on public STINET.

In the near future, the integration of GSM and GPRS services will bring the wireless personal communication networks into a new era. With the extreme growth in the number of users for contending limited resources, an efficient channel allocation scheme for GSM/GPRS users become very important. Currently, existing channel allocation schemes do not consider the various characteristics of traffic classes. Consequently, users can not obtain their optimal channel resources in delivering different types of traffic. In this thesis, a preemptive channel allocation mechanism is introduced for GSM/GPRS cellular networks. Based on the call requests, for different types of services, we classify the traffic into GSM, real-time GPRS and non-real-time GPRS. Two channel thresholds are defined. TGSM/GPRS is used to separate the channels between GSM and GPRS users, while TGPRS_rt is used to separate the channels between real-time and non-real-time GPRS users. Since the two thresholds can be dynamically adjusted based on the number of call requests, the channel utilization is increased and less resources are wasted. Note that in our proposed scheme, high-priority users¡]i.e., GSM handoff calls¡^can preempt the channels being used by low-priority users¡]i.e., non-real-time GPRS calls¡^. Hence, the call blocking probability of high-priority calls can be significantly reduced and their quality of services can be guaranteed as well. We build a 3-D Markov Chain mathematical model to analyze our proposed channel allocation schemes. The parameters of our interests include the call blocking probability, the average number of active calls, the average call completion rate and the overall channel utilization. To verify our mathematical results, we employ OPNET simulator to simulate the proposed schemes. Through the mathematical and simulation results, we have observed that with the preemptive channel allocation, the high-priority calls¡]i.e., GSM and real-time GPRS¡^can achieve relatively low blocking probability while slightly increasing the blocking probability of non-real-time GPRS calls. Besides, the overall channel utilization is greatly improved due to the appropriate channel allocation.

The study compares the use of authoritarian corporatism in Taiwan and Indonesia. The comparison is made for the purpose of obtaining a more balanced relation between the state and the society in these two countries. The adopted definitions of corporatism in the study are by Wiarda and Stepan. Wiarda defined corporatism as a system of social and political organization in which the major social and interest groups are all integrated into the government system. The integration is on a monopoly base so that the state can reach a balanced development by means of directions, protections, and control over these groups. Stepan divided corporatism into two kinds: exclusionary and inclusionary corporatism. Specifically, the study adopts the theory of exclusionary and focuses the comparison on the establishment and operation of trade union system. The research results of the study are as follows. First, both in Taiwan and Indonesia, the use of authoritarian corporatism has social and political backgrounds. The social background refers to the prevailing traditional values of Confucialism in Taiwan and Pancasila Industrial Relation in Indonesia. Both values systems place a premium on a harmonious and cooperative interaction between the employers and the labors. Therefore, the idea is denied that labors have the right to fight for their own benefits against the employers. Second, both Taiwan and Indonesia governments choose authoritarian corporatism as the tool to control the society. The choice is made not out of the need to moderate benefits of various social classes or to cope with economic crisis. Instead, it is for setting up functional, not competitive social organization systems. These organizations are the paths connecting different interest groups. At the same time, some organizations which are not favored by the state are kept from being formed. The participation in politics is limited to a certain scale. Such measure is considered preventive authoritarian corporatism. The application of the authoritarian corporatism makes the trade union systems both in Taiwan and Indonesia become the marginal parts of the political framework. It¡¦s hard then to have the labors own more rights. So the corporarism is also exclusionary authoritarian corporatism. The labor organization is naturally an expansion of the political control of the state over the labors. Third, it is found that under the framework of authoritarian corporatism, the operation of labor organizations varies according to the changing goals of state¡¦s development. However, there is a difference in the manner and extent of Taiwan¡¦s control over the operation from that of the Indonesia government. Taiwan government controls the operation in an active manner while the Indonesia government controls the operation in a passive manner. Fourth, at the end of authoritarian politics in Taiwan and in Indonesia, the demands for changes are appearing in both countries. It¡¦s inferred that there may appear inclusionary corporatism which will lead to a more balanced relation among the labors, the employers and the states both in Taiwan and Indonesia.

Thesis--School of Advanced Airpower Studies, AY 2001-2002. / "March 2004." Includes bibliographical references. Full text document available on public STINET.

Thesis (M.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2003. / Title from title screen (viewed Jan. 22, 2004). Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in paper format.

Priority based scheduling disciplines are widely used by existing computer operating systems. However, the mathematical analysis and modelling of these systems present great difficulties since priority schedulling is not compatible with exact product form solutions of queueing network models (QNM's). It is therefore, necessary to employ credible approximate techniques for solving QNM's with priority classes. The principle of maximum entropy (ME) is a method of inference for estimating a probability distribution given prior information in the form of expected values. This principle is applied, based on marginal utilisation, mean queue length and idle state probability constraints, to characterise new product-form approximations for general open and closed QNM's with priority (preemptive-resume, non-preemtive head-of-line) and non-priority (first-come-first-served, processor-sharing, last-come-first-served with, or without preemtion) servers. The ME solutions are interpreted in terms of a decomposition of the original network into individual stable GIG11 queueing stations with assumed renewal arrival processes. These solutions are implemented by making use of the generalised exponential (GE) distributional model to approximate the interarrival-time and service-time distributions in the network. As a consequence the ME queue length distribution of the stable GE/GEzl priority queue, subject to mean value constraints obtained via classical queueing theory on bulk queues, is used as a 'building block' together with corresponding universal approximate flow formulae for the analysis of general QNM's with priorities. The credibility of the ME method is demonstrated with illustrative numerical examples and favourable comparisons against exact, simulation and other approximate methods are made.

This thesis focuses on the use of the term &lsquo / failed state&rsquo / as a category in the US foreign policy discourse in the post Cold War era. The concept of &lsquo / failed state&rsquo / is critically examined in terms of its methodological and ontological flaws. It is suggested that the primary methodological flaw of the failed state discourse is its atomistic and essentialist approach which describes &lsquo / state failure&rsquo / as an internal problem which needs external solutions. By rejecting the internal/external dichotomy, the dialectical method is offered as an alternative to examine the use of the term in the US foreign policy discourse in the post Cold War era. It is argued here that failed state discourse is used as a means in the justification of an international order based on &lsquo / preemptive strikes&rsquo / and unilateral economic, political and military interventions. Building upon this ideological function of failed state discourse, the current discusssions on state failure is related to contemporary debates on imperialism.