Thesis (M.A.)--University of Regina, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-143).

Thesis--Portland State U. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-46). Also available via Internet as PDF file through Southern Oregon Digital Archives: http://soda.sou.edu. Search First Nations/Tribal Collection.

This thesis examines the massacres of the Plains Indian Wars in the United States (1851-1890) and how they relate to contemporary theories of genocide. By using the Plains Indian Wars as a case study, a critique can be made of theories which inform predictive models and genocide policy. This thesis analyzes newspaper articles, histories, congressional investigations, presidential speeches, and administrative policies surrounding the four primary massacres perpetrated by the United States during this time. An ideology of racial superiority and fears of insecurity, impurity, and insurgency drove the actions of the white settler-colonialists and their military counterparts. Still, despite the theoretical emphasis on massacre in genocide theory, massacres on the Plains were relatively rare compared to the use of other genocidal tactics. This demonstrates that contemporary genocide theorists must be careful not to unintentionally limit thinking on genocide to strict military or militia led violence.

The central problem addressed in this thesis was formulated in 1965 and 1966 during participation in a study of administrative and other problems relating to the Indians of Canada. As it is now generalized, it has become a problem of conceptualization posed by population aggregates within any larger polity. Most studies of contemporary Indians in Canada and the United States employ as a major model and unit of analysis concepts such as society and community, in which spatial and social boundaries are treated as coterminous. In the first chapter of this thesis, I have discussed the limitations of these concepts when they are applied to smaller population aggregates such as Indian bands or reserve populations. In the second chapter, I have constructed an alternative framework in which the conceptual distinction between people and systems of social relationship is made a central feature. In this model the unit of analysis is an aggregation of people either spatially or socially distinct, for which I have used the term population in an attempt to avoid the unwanted connotations of such terms as "community". The population is regarded not as having a social system in the way that societies and communities are conceived, but as being a nexus of many systems of social relationship, some of which may be contained within its boundaries and some extending far beyond them. The population is thus envisaged as the context or social field within which individuals act. The systems of social relationship intersecting in a population are conceived of as existing as models in the minds of the actors and the observer, with each actor holding at least two: an ideal model of his social context as he would like it to be, and a concrete model of how he believes it actually to be. Actors make choices of behaviour within the framework of constraints and incentives provided by these models, their situation, and the choices of others. In Chapters III, IV, and V, three Indian Reserve populations are described and discussed in terms of this conceptual scheme, using data I collected in 1965 and 1966. The potential of the scheme for explaining and interpreting behaviour and events is demonstrated in Chapter VI, where the position of the bands in the larger polity is analysed, and interaction between Indians and government personnel, the formation of reserve power groups, factionalism, and the quality of reserve life are discussed as further tests of the scheme's utility. In Chapter VII, it is concluded that in spite of differences in organization, location, cultural heritage, and economic activity, the three reserve populations have many features in common, and that these features may be accounted for in terms of the particular interconnections of systems that they represent. It is further concluded that the framework of concepts developed in Chapter II provides an improved model for the description, analysis, and comparison of aggregations of people that do not fit the standard definitions of community and society. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Background: Due to the rising popularity of autonomous unmanned vehicles, and the lack of well-defined rules to follow, a solution is needed when the physical space is crowded to a point where it becomes a hazard. Partitioning space discretely is currently done in some cases, allowing vehicles to reserve partitions to operate within. This idea is expanded upon to ultimately propose a blockchain-based solution to the inefficiency of safety margins. Objectives: The main objective was to explore whether a blockchain-based system can be used by vehicles to automatically reserve the volumes of space they need for a limited time. The solution to congestion becomes a method for vehicles to communicate between each other to exchange the remainder of their reservations once they are no longer needed, even while disconnected from the main blockchain network, in exchange for the same currency used to reserve the volumes. Methods: An Ethereum private blockchain network is set up, and a smart contract is developed and deployed onto this blockchain. An emulation program used the smart contract functions to reserve and exchange volumes to evaluate the functionality, several isolated tests evaluated the network performance, and aspects that could not be tested were theoretically analyzed. Results: The system functions as intended, although a level of trust is required during exchanges. There is no risk of two vehicles reserving the same volume at the same time. The results indicate that some performance aspects will be affected by an increasing number of users, although the entire effect can be placed on synchronization time if the network parameters are adjusted. This likely affects the overall efficiency but not as much as it would with the original parameters. Conclusions: The proposed solution is viable to use, although further development is necessary before it is ready for release. The necessity currently is not evident, although projections suggest that this solution, or a similar one, will be necessary in the future.

The aim of my study was to try to bring forth the basic aspects and characteristics of the Siletz Reservation as it was in the nineteenth century. Concentration was placed on the life activities and concerns of a typical resident, while at the same time extremes in behavior and actions were also noted. Thus an entire spectrum of human life was recreated. Government policies and events and changes of the time were noted as to how they affected the life at the reservation. I did not include all of the information available to me .and all information is not known by any single authority or source of information. I feel that I have presented a broad and, satisfactory picture of my topic. It is hoped that someday more information and insight will be presented that will add depth to my initial study. Also out of necessity I could only briefly cover many topics which could easily be worthwhile covering in more detail. Thus there is more ground to cover. Despite its importance, there is correspondingly not much written about the Siletz Reservation. This is largely probably due to the fact that the reservation fades fast from a center of attention. The population fell below five hundred by the turn of the century, thus making the place far from a population center. A second factor was that the people became a new people in a new world and so, instead of continuing to be a home to change Indians, it was merely a home for people who lived like other Americans but were Indian by heart and appearance. Aside from a few studies and sources of information, there are two main sources of information. The first is the annual reports sent to the Secretary of Interior. These can be found in any major library. The second source is the manuscripts. These are the records and correspondence of the agency. The Siletz Manuscripts are in six boxes at the Oregon Historical Society Library in Portland. The material is unorganized and much of it is damaged. There is also material not related to Siletz. Some of Joel Palmer's Indian Treaties are there as well as quite a lot of records of the Grand Ronde Reservation. Unfortunately, it is largely correspondence to the Agency rather than that sent out. The government archives may have some of the correspondence. As every student and author knows, writing poses many problems. There are any number of ways to put together a study of this kind. I divided mine into three basic parts. The first section is a year by year analysis. The second is topic by topic, and finally the third is again yearly. This helped me keep on the general topic of the reservation itself while still being able to diverge and enlarge on important issues. It was a challenging and rewarding task which I hope will be enjoyed by others and will add to their knowledge and understanding of the Siletz Indians and their life on the Reservation.

This thesis examines the default application of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties reservation rules to reservations to human rights treaties. The contemporary practice of formulating reservations allows states to unilaterally modify their treaty obligations following the conclusion of negotiations. Though multilateral treaties address a broad spectrum of subjects and are negotiated using a variety of methods, all treaties are governed by the same residual reservation rules of the Vienna Convention when there is not a treaty-specific reservation regime in place. The Vienna Convention system is only engaged if a state seizes the opportunity to determine whether a reservation is valid pursuant to default rules or if a challenge regarding the validity of a reservation is brought before another competent mechanism of review, such as a dispute resolution mechanism. Even when applied, the Vienna Convention rules are ambiguous at best and have been criticised since their inception due to the high degree of flexibility in their application, especially in relation to human rights treaties. In light of the inherent flaws of the Vienna Convention reservation regime and the structural characteristics of human rights treaties, rarely will a reserving state be deprived of the benefit of the reservation even if it is determined to be invalid by another State Party. Though the consequences of an invalidity determination are more concrete when the decision is taken by a dispute resolution mechanism, such as a court, seldom are disputes over the validity of a reservation to a human rights treaty submitted to a competent mechanism. Using the core UN human rights treaties as a case study this research highlights that the past thirty years have revealed a practical impasse in treaty law when the default reservation rules are relied upon to regulate reservations to human rights treaties. Reservations of questionable validity gain the same status as valid reservations because the Vienna Convention rules do not address the consequence for a reservation determined to be invalid outwith the traditional inter se application of the reservation between the reserving and objecting states, which is not logical in the context of a human rights treaty. Against this background, this thesis examines whether the default reservation rules adequately govern reservations to human rights treaties. The conclusion affirms that the Vienna Convention reservation regime can regulate reservations to human rights treaties but only if there is a clearly defined final view on the validity of a reservation taken by an organ other than the state. Therefore, it is argued that treaty-specific supervisory mechanisms attached to each of the core UN human rights treaties should be invested with the competency to serve a determinative function with respect to evaluating reservations to human rights treaties in order to facilitate a stronger basis for the international human rights system.

This paper looks at economic factors and water rights quantification on 95 Native American reservations economies in the western United States (U.S.). The study looks at the issues in two parts: (1) the characteristics of reservations quantifying their water rights compared to those who do not and (2) the effects of water rights quantification on reservation economic characteristics. Data was compiled from the U.S. Census Bureau, USDA, water specialists, court decrees, news articles, and scholarly papers. Results found that tribes who operate casinos and have higher revenues from agricultural goods are more likely to have quantified their water rights. Tribes with quantified water rights also had increased income levels. This study can help tribes design policies to create sustainable water management policies and economies on tribal reservations.

<p>The emergence of Grid computing infrastructures enables researchers to share resources and collaborate in more efficient ways than before, despite belonging to different organizations and being distanced geographically. While the Grid computing paradigm offers new opportunities, it also gives rise to new difficulties. One such problem is the selection of resources for user applications. Given the large and disparate set of Grid resources, manual resource selection becomes impractical, even for experienced users. This thesis investigates methods, algorithms and software for a Grid resource broker, i.e., a scheduling agent that automates the resource selection process for the user. The development of such a component is a non-trivial task as Grid resources are heterogeneous in hardware, software, availability, ownership and usage policies. A wide range of algorithmically difficult issues must also be solved, including characterization of jobs, prediction of resource performance, data placement considerations, and, how to provide Quality of Service guarantees. One contribution of this thesis is the development of resource brokering algorithms that enable resource selection based on Grid job performance predictions and use advance reservations to provide Quality of Service guarantees. The thesis also includes an algorithm for coallocation of sets of jobs. This algorithm guarantees a simultaneous start of each subjob, as required e.g., when running larger-than-supercomputer simulations that involve multiple resources.</p><p>We today have the somewhat paradoxal situation where Grids, originally aimed to overcome interoperability problems between different computing platforms, themselves struggle with interoperability problems caused by the wide range of interfaces, protocols and data formats that are used in different environments. The reasons for this situation are obvious, expected and almost impossible to avoid, as the task of defining appropriate standards, models and best-practices must be preceded by basic research, proof-of-concept implementations and real-world testing. We address the interoperability problem with a generic Grid resource brokering architecture and job submission service.</p><p>By using (proposed) standard formats and protocols, the service acts as an interoperability-bridge that translates job requests between clients and resources running different Grid middlewares. This concept is demonstrated by the integration of the service with three different Grid middlewares. The service also enables users to both fine-tune the existing resource selection algorithms and plug in custom brokering algorithms tailored to their requirements.</p>

Software Transactional Memory (STM) helps programmers write correct concurrent code by allowing them to identify atomic sections rather than focusing on the mechanics of concurrency control. Given code with atomic sections, the compiler and STM runtime can work together to ensure proper controlled access to shared memory. STM runtimes use either lazy or eager version management. Lazy versioning buffers transaction updates, whereas eager versioning applies updates in-place. The current set of primitives suit lazy versioning since memory needs to be accessed through the runtime. We present a new set of runtime primitives that better suit eager versioned STM. We propose a novel extension to the compiler/runtime interface, consisting of memory reservations and memory releases. These extensions enable optimizations specific to eager versioned runtimes. A memory reservation allows a transaction to perform instrumentation-free access on a memory address. A release allows a read-only address to be modified by another transaction. Together, these reduce the instrumentation overhead required to support STM and improve concurrency between readers and writers. We have implemented these primitives and evaluated its performance on the STAMP benchmarks. Our results show strong performance and scalability improvements to eager versioned algorithms.