<p> Mass notification systems exist to provide rapid notification to members of the public during emergency situations. Since the middle of the 20^th century, these systems have evolved to incorporate a variety of different communications methods as technology has advanced. While local governments have used mass notification systems for many years, institutions of higher education generally only began using such systems following the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. This study attempted to examine trends relating to mass notification systems and to identify differences in how they have been implemented both in local government and in higher education. While the study was not able to identify statistically valid results due to low response rates, it appears that such differences do exist and further research in this area is needed.</p>

<p> This dissertation includes three essays that present a quantitative analysis of the policy implications of gender equality and religious attitudes as predictors of terrorism at the state level using a broad dataset. Essay one focuses on impact of gender equality, especially women's political empowerment on terrorism, both domestic and transnational. The second essay examines both gender equality attitudes and actual outcomes in social, economic and political spheres, to measure their effect on terrorism. The third essay analyzes the relation of religiousness in a society with incidents and lethality of terrorism. The overall findings of this thesis suggest that attitudes and norms of gender equality matter with regard to terrorism, but practices and outcomes matter more. Results also indicate that religious attitudes of a society are associated with lethality of terror attack. These findings have important policy implications for rethinking prevention of terrorism in an effective and innovative manner. The results strongly support investment in women's rights programs, promotion of religious tolerance and provision of social services as indirect policy solutions to curb the conditions that foster terrorism.</p>

<p> Few studies have examined the intersection of charter school and special education policies. The concerns around the serving of special education students in charter schools must be carefully studied, especially as charter schools continue to grow in numbers and continue to serve a greater percentage of public school students. New policies must not only address equity in access for special education students in charter schools but must also study how charter schools can be leveraged to generate innovative and promising practices in the area of special education. </p><p> This study examines a recent policy change in the Los Angeles Unified School District that provides great autonomy and increased accountability for charter schools in their provision of special education services. This policy change promotes key tenets of charter schools: (a) autonomy and decentralization, (b) choice and competition, and (c) performance-based accountability with the aim of increasing access for students with special needs and increasing the capacity of charter schools to serve them. The research design utilizes a mixed method approach to collect qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate the goals of this major policy change within this particular school district. </p>

<p> The American healthcare system has since WWII regularly suffered seasonal shortages of blood donations. This dissertation examines, through the theories of activity systems, genres, frames and social groups, the discourses and rhetoric associated with the practice and social activity of blood donation. The history of the discourse and the activities of intermediaries responsible for recruiting blood donors are examined focusing on significant discontinuities to the activity system of blood donation such as WWII; the shift to an all-volunteer, free donation system; and the threat to the system posed by the advent of HIV/AIDS. Altruism has been posited as "the" motivation for blood donation since the US moved to an all-volunteer donation system. In spite of assurances that the use of an all-volunteer system would result in an increase in blood donations, since 1974 shortages have regularly occurred but no other appeals have been officially tested or implemented by major intermediaries such as the American Red Cross or America's Blood centers. Reasons for this resistance to consider alternatives and possible changes to the system are examined to begin to develop ideas about ways that communication might help remedy these regular shortages.</p>

<p> Should the power to address the socio-cultural and political issue of alcohol consumption and regulation lay in that of the legislators or, the legislated? I propose that when alcohol legislation and regulation - The Botswana Alcohol Tax Levy are formed without invested cooperation from the general population, often the policy is non-sustainable and subject to change. The sustainability of the policy is primarily measured on its efficiency and effectiveness at addressing alcohol consumption and abuse. The failure to both reduce alcohol consumption and fund alcohol preventative care brings forth the conversations regarding needed change. My analysis provides the local and global implications alcohol consumption and regulation has had in Botswana, the United States, and the United Kingdom with an in-depth Policy Analysis Matrix directly discussing the Botswana Alcohol Tax Levy. The Tax Levy and other regulations created by the government have often overlooked the ground-level realities of the social issues regarding alcohol consumption, at the expense of the general populace overall health. The traditions and cultural heritage of alcohol, in regards to the Botswana people, cannot be under-mined. From my analysis, most of the issues arising from legislation stem from the discrepancies found between European Western Developmental practices and Botswana Traditional practices and law. The analysis highlights that the current position the government is taking in regards to alcohol consumption and regulation is ill informed. The current Alcohol Tax Levy neither lessens the consumption patterns of the population. Nor, does the Levy help to alleviate the current social problems excessive alcohol consumption is having in Botswana.</p>

<p> This study employed a qualitative case study methodology to examine some of the challenges that are hindering the fragile state of Liberia from benefiting from the use of country public financial management (PFM) systems for donor-financed projects. The study also examined the effects that these challenges pose to the fragile state. It then explored recommended strategies and policies to resolve the challenges. The data for the study was collected from 15 participants through individual in-depth interviews. The cases of the 15 participants were cross-analyzed based on 4 themes and 13 patterns that arose from the participants' data for the challenges, 4 themes and 6 patterns that emerged from the effects of the challenges, and 5 themes and 13 patterns that emerged from the recommended strategies and policies of the participants. The findings revealed the cardinal or major challenges that, as the participants pointed out, obstruct or hinder the effective use of country PFM systems for donor-financed projects in Liberia. Amid the challenges, some were directly linked to government and others to donors. Moreover, the study observed that some of the challenges were interrelated. In addition, the findings also showed the effects that these challenges could pose to the country's future prospect in regards to country PFM systems use. The study then examined the various recommended strategies and policies for government and donors alike that could help solve the challenges the fragile state faces. The findings of this study fill a gap in practical research on fragile states, specifically Liberia, with regards to country PFM systems and add valuable information on how to effectively and efficiently deal with challenges for eventual full PFM adoption.</p>

<p> This dissertation studies refugee resettlement in the U.S. and develops a framework for understanding a city's capacity for employing refugees who resettle in the U.S. The study exposes the tension between the humanitarian mission of the U.S. Refugee Program and the objective of immediate employment after arrival. </p><p> The research questions include: 1) How do contextual factors in the destination city relate to refugee employment outcomes? 2) How might deeper consideration of the relationship between city factors and refugee economic outcomes inform policy making in refugee resettlement program? </p><p> A framework derived from the literatures on urban policy and refugees explores how place-based factors influence initial refugee employment with an embedded comparative case study research design (3 cases, 6 units each). Interview data and 2010 employment outcomes stratified by country of origin and English ability collected on-site in 2011, in addition to public data sets from the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics were analyzed. By comparing outcomes of refugees with similar demographic profiles across 3 cities, the research design explores how local policies, attitudes of the receiving community, economic opportunities, ethnic networks, and refugee resettlement organizations influence refugee employment outcomes. </p><p> The study finds that when comparing pairs of cases, higher refugee employment rates 8 months after arrival are associated with higher relevant job availability and accessibility in the metropolitan area. Job availability is characterized by lower unemployment, a larger low skill job market, a smaller ratio of refugees to metropolitan area population, resettlement agency outreach to employers, larger co-national communities, linguistic clusters in places of employment, a higher percentage of English speakers in the linguistic group, and Right-to-Work policies. The focus on place-based factors fills a gap in previous refugee literature with a general theory about how the local context of U.S. cities interact with refugee employment. The findings have implications for the U.S. Refugee Program's allocations strategy, terms of cash assistance, outcome measurement, and funding structure. Recognizing the employment capacity of a city for refugees enables program administrators to anticipate the cost implications of resettling refugees in that city.</p>

<p> Among the new technologies heralded as part of the emerging bioeconomy are plastics made from plant material, known as bioplastics. This dissertation examines the political and historical underpinnings of the bioplastics that are now being offered as an alternative to petrochemicals in the United States. As a case study of "green" technological development, bioplastics challenge dominant conceptions of innovation for sustainability. The bioplastics being developed and marketed today are the outcome of interventions in commodity crop prices, incubation of research on biomass during periods of fossil fuel dominance, and the commercialization of publicly funded research. Their origins can be traced at least as far back as the 1920s, when advocates of "chemurgy" encouraged the federal government to create research centers to discover new industrial uses of agricultural crops. </p><p> Research in science and technology studies (STS) indicates that social structures shape perceptions of problems, condition viable solutions, and limit the diversity of stakeholders and ideas present in the social construction of technology. This study examines these processes in the history and current debates about bioplastics. The dissertation asks who has influenced the social construction of bioplastics and why bioplastics have become part of a larger bioeconomic vision now. Theoretical insights are drawn from the sociological theory of the treadmill of production, which argues that environmental problems cannot be solved in a capitalist system in which the federal government, private industries, and organized labor continuously seek the expansion of production and consumption at the expense of environmental sustainability. Major players in the chemical and biotechnology industries have pursued bioplastics as a means of continuing economic growth and consumption of goods, even as petroleum becomes costly and environmentalists voice objections to petrochemicals. There are many critiques of bioplastics and their impacts at every stage of bioplastics, from sourcing feedstocks from food crops to disrupting existing recycling and composting systems. Nevertheless, the bioplastics currently on the market were not designed to resolve these environmental concerns. Increasingly, however, activists are using non-governmental institutions, particularly the development of voluntary standards, to shape the industry and technology. The study examines the extent to which such reforms might lead to the production of more sustainable alternatives to petrochemicals. </p><p> Ultimately, this dissertation presents the history and politics surrounding the field of bioplastics in order to highlight how things "might have been otherwise" and what changes in society could be useful for producing more sustainable technologies.</p>

<p> There is currently widespread debate in the psychological community with regards to research on and provision of evidence-based practices. The American Psychological Association recently developed clinical and research guidelines for the implementation and investigation of culturally appropriate treatment interventions. As of 2000, there were 562 tribal entities recognized and eligible or funding and services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Ogunwole, 2002). This United States Indigenous contingent continues to be marginalized by diagnostic classification and treatment interventions that perpetuate or discount the role of cultural oppression (Gone, 2009). Whereas current literature speaks to a relationship between colonization and intergenerational trauma (Gone &amp; Alc&aacute;ntara, 2007; Duran &amp; Duran, 1995), the reenactment of this relationship in the Evidence-Based paradigm is under-researched (Smith-Morris, 2007). </p><p> This integrative literature review (ILR) ucovers the benefits of Talking Circle for Native and Native-minded persons and communities. Advocates for the implementation of culturally-appropriate diagnostic, treatment, and research methodologies report that inclusion assists in healing socio-historical wounds (Gone &amp; Alc&aacute;ntara, 2007; Sue, Zane, Hall, &amp; Berger, 2009). This is extremely relevant for contemporary Indigenous individuals, families, and communities. </p><p> The current study presents the viability of Talking Circle for slowing the transmission of trauma by offering a compelling argument supporting its evidence-based nature through a comparison of available research on trauma-informed treatment models with published findings on Talking Circle. Assumptions, literature review, critique of the literature review, and commentary on and appraisal of potentially translatable healing rituals supports a postcolonial driven conceptual model for the treatment of the soul wound, the Native equivalent of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Disorder of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS). </p><p> This ILR assists in substantiating the logical inclusion of Talking Circle into the existing set of available evidence-based PTSD treatment interventions (as outlined in Jennings, 2004, 2008). Providing this conceptual model via an ILR allows for adequately assessing the specific aspects of the research on intergenerational trauma, available interventions, and existing needs. This project illuminates, in a multilayered way, the role of Talking Circle in indigenous life and for healing intergenerational trauma, the soul wound, in the Native community.</p>

<p> Debates over food security strategies in the Philippines have pitted the neoliberal paradigm of trade liberalization, export cropping, and chemical and biotech agricultural methods against the food sovereignty paradigm of protectionism, staple cropping, and sustainable agriculture methods. </p><p> The Philippine government has long pushed for yield increases of staples. However, there has been dissonance between governmental desires for rice self-sufficiency and pursuit of a more export-oriented agricultural economy. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank, and the World Trade Organization have pressured the government of the Philippines to adopt various tenets of neoliberalism (trade liberalization, privatization, deregulation, and budgetary austerity), which have hindered the achievement of Philippine goals for self-sufficiency in its staple foods and stunted the potential benefits of land reform. </p><p> Through ethnographic research of the social and ecological conditions in three rural villages in the province of Bukidnon, this examination of agrarian change explores how various actors&mdash;small farmers, collectives, large planters, and agribusiness corporations&mdash;have been scaling their projects in the agricultural economy. </p><p> The use of chemical inputs has damaged soils and saddled farmers with debts. In many cases, control of land has been lost to elites through sales or pawning arrangements. Relatively egalitarian corn- and rice-farming areas have given way to a stratified landscape of sugarcane and banana plantations, as former smallholders have been forced to work as wage laborers. Multinational agribusinesses have steered the area away from staple production and threatened human and environmental health with pesticide exposure and erosion. </p><p> Some farmers though have organized against these prevailing trends. Production and social reproduction have been rescaled through collective marketing, reciprocal labor arrangements, and more equitably gendered divisions of labor. Agroecological methods, such as composting, organic fertilization, seed saving, and indigenous pest control have scaled the reproduction of environmental conditions more locally and increased farmer incomes because their inputs are created on the farm. Protecting local control of the means of production&mdash;seeds, fertilizers, and especially land&mdash;has become an important method for preserving a smallholder class, maintaining more self-determination, and working toward greater food sovereignty.</p>