<p> The aim of this thesis is to analyze the human rights violations against one minority group in Myanmar &ndash; the Rohingya &ndash; by the majority Buddhist Rakhinese population with central government support, in order to call the international community to pursue immediate, cohesive diplomatic action to address this humanitarian crisis in Rakhine state. The scope of this thesis, which is organized in five chapters, focuses on the early 21^st century from 2000 &ndash; 2014, but it includes earlier background information on Myanmar and the plight of the Rohingya. This thesis includes a Preface, which contains maps and images of Myanmar and its people, for the benefit of the reader.</p><p> Chapter I, "Background Information on the Ethnic and Religious Conflict," sets the stage for understanding this problem from pre-colonial times to 1999. Chapter II, "Evidence of Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide Against the Rohingya in Myanmar," examines the implicit government policies from 2000 - 2014 that target the Rohingya for extermination. This chapter analyzes Myanmar's political, economic, and socio-cultural intolerance for the Rohingya that have left them stateless and forced them to flee Myanmar for security in neighboring states like Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia. Chapter III, "Responsibility to Protect the Rohingya," challenges the international community, consisting of the United States (US), European Union (EU), United Nations (UN), and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to pursue all peaceful means available to end the abuse of the Rohingya under the international norm of the responsibility to protect (RtoP). Chapter IV, "A Recommended Peacebuilding Plan for Ending the Plight of the Rohingya," identifies possible paths for integrating the Rohingya politically, economically, and socio-culturally into the fabric of Myanmar society as citizens of the country, with protection from different forms of persecution. Chapter V, "Conclusion," stresses that reconciliation with the Muslim Rohingya will pave the way for more peaceful relations between Myanmar's majority Buddhist population and its diverse minority ethnic and religious groups. Without peaceful relations with these minority groups, like the Rohingya, Myanmar's tenuous transition to democracy will not fully succeed. </p>

<p> This dissertation explores the obstacles for US formal military bases in Latin America. While in the past, the United States managed to establish bases in several countries in the region, despite Washington's efforts every negotiation to open new bases has failed since 2000, and older bases have been terminated, as in the case of Ecuador. Using evidence from Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, and other countries in the region, the dissertation finds that shifts in government preferences do not explain this failure. Instead, domestic challenges to host governments in Latin America systematically appear as blocking mechanisms that impede the establishment of foreign military bases, even when leaders support them. </p><p> The dissertation builds on the work of Alexander Cooley and others and develops a model of base politics to explain how domestic political calculations affect foreign basing negotiations. Furthermore, the dissertation finds that when formal bases have not succeeded, interested governments have worked around domestic constrains to establish alternative and informal arrangements that allow US military presence and operations in their countries. These alternative arrangements, or quasi-bases, have advanced US security interests in Latin America even in the absence of formal base leases, while at the same time their secrecy and informality protects Latin American leaders from domestic contestation.</p>

<p> This study explores the link between democracy and bureaucracy using Japan as the critical case study. The research question is whether competition by multiple principals creates opportunities for bureaucratic drift. This project hypothesizes that policy settings including multiple principals (independent variable) are more likely to manifest bureaucratic drift (dependent variable). At the same time, policy settings excluding multiple principals (independent variable) are more likely to manifest less bureaucratic drift (dependent variable). Variation in agent discretion is the critical effect of the independent variable (i.e., number of principals) on the dependent variable (bureaucratic drift). </p><p> Evaluating the exercise of discretion of administrators is feasible if one's evidence is primarily from the administrators themselves. To test these hypotheses, therefore, this project adopts a research design based on a qualitative case study methodology. The case studies include four of Japan's ministries: the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), the Ministry of Land, Industry, Transportation, and Tourism (MLITT), and the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW). Likewise, the role of the National Personnel Authority (NPA) in the administrative system is also evaluated. Research participants include both participants in the Mike Mansfield Fellowship Program along with NPA administrators.</p><p> This study contributes to the extant corpus of research in a number of salient respects. First, this project proposes a different dependent variable in that most studies are focused on administrative reform whereas the focus here is on bureaucratic drift. Second, this project discusses the important effect of bureaucratic discretion. Third, while relevant to the quality of the Japanese democracy in particular, these findings may be leveraged to a larger conversation about the relationship between bureaucracy and democracy in the Asian context and perhaps beyond. Finally, this project provides an explicit policy recommendation for contemporary Japanese politics proposing that greater authority be delegated to administrative agents, albeit supervised by a powerful intermediary, to minimize bureaucratic drift.</p>

<p> Several researchers have found a link between inequality across groups within a country and armed conflict. However, this research has focused almost exclusively on inequalities in income and political access, forsaking other key societal dimensions such as education. In this article, I examine the link between educational inequality across groups within a country and armed conflict. I use data from the Worldwide Inequality Database on Education to create measures of educational inequality by gender, wealth, and country region for developing countries across the world. I combine these measures with data on income and political inequality in order to better establish the unique association between educational inequality and armed conflict. Overall, I find a positive association between educational inequality and the likelihood that a group within a given country and year will be involved in armed conflict. This association is particularly strong across gender groups and country regions. These findings have implications for conflict prediction, preventative diplomacy efforts, and domestic and international organizations focused on educational and human development.</p>

<p> The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model has demonstrated the influencing factors for various business technology uses within the organizational system. However, in the context of African American small businesses (AASB), there was very little evidence of research to determine factors affecting the intention to use social media based on the UTAUT model. This quantitative study investigated factors that were expected to influence the intention of AASB owners to use social media based on modified constructs of the UTAUT model. The modified constructs represented several independent variables, namely performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), and facilitating conditions (FC) as moderated by age, gender, and experience in using social media tools. A random sampling method was used for the study. African American small business owners (<i>n</i> = 152) between the ages of 21 and 64 years participated in the study. Results showed that PE, SI, and FC were positively related to the AABB owners' intention to use and use of social media, while age, gender, and experience showed no evidence of any significant interactions. This study shed new lights on research of acceptance and use of social media by AASB owners. As a result, it is expected that knowledge gained will encourage increased use of social media tools by AASB, not only for social value but also as a vital socioeconomic option for a competitive advantage.</p>

<p> Preferences and behaviors for privacy management with mobile applications are difficult to capture. Previous measures are mostly based on self-report data, which often does not accurately predict actual user behavior. A deeper understanding was sought, gleaned from observing actual practices. This thesis analyzes 11,777 applications from the Google Play marketplace in order to determine the impact of privacy settings on purchase behavior. This was done by looking at the effect of the number of privacy concessions as well as the effect of individual concessions and category on number of downloads. It was found that users of paid applications do not have a preference for fewer privacy concessions. This study further reinforces the disconnect between the user's often stated preference for privacy and their actual behavior -- a discrepancy known as the &ldquo;privacy paradox &rdquo;. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.</p>

<p> The purpose of the study was to determine the impact that community-based group mentoring had on improving academic efficacy and personal efficacy of 31 African American male participants. The study measured the influence of the group-mentoring program, which was arranged around an attribution-retraining curriculum. Participants attended a summer academy where they were exposed to a series of attribution retraining seminars allowing them to engage in activities making connections to attribution retraining concepts. The study aimed to determine if the participant's perceptions about their intelligence would be positively influenced by the attribution-retraining curriculum administered over a course of the 2-week summer academy. Survey responses from a pretest and posttest as related to motivational dimensions of attribution were analyzed. The quantitative results revealed a marginally significant change noted by <i>t</i>(29) = 1.82, <i>p</i> = 0.080, (.05 = statistically significant) for the two-tailed t-test reflecting that the participants' perceptions changed slightly regarding their ability to grow their intelligence. A correlational exploration was also conducted, which revealed that the group mentoring seminars influenced the participants' motivation to make better choices and to feel better about their ability to control their academic and personal destiny. Implications of the study include establishing attribution-retraining curriculum as part of group mentoring models in nonprofit organizations. Also, using attribution-retraining curricula with African American males as a motivational concept for academic and personal success was determined a worthwhile endeavor to mitigate the challenges African American male adolescents face including broken family structure, poverty, poor academic performance, high dropout rates, and behavioral challenges. </p>

<p> When the Supreme Court grants new rights, public awareness is a crucial part of enforcement. Gerald N. Rosenberg and Michael J. Klarman famously criticized minority rights organizations for attempting to gain new rights through the judiciary. The crux of their argument relied heavily on the American media's scanty coverage of Court issues and subsequent low public awareness of Court cases. Using the 2013 <i>United States v. Windsor</i> and <i> Hollingsworth v. Perry</i> rulings as a case study, I suggest that the media environment has changed so much since Rosenberg and Klarman were writing that their theories warrant reconsideration. Minority rights groups now have access to social media, a potentially powerful tool with which to educate the public about the Supreme Court and new rights granted by the Court.</p>

<p> As nations have become far more interconnected by means of globalization in the 21st century, the issues that affect one nation often have affects upon others. As India is a nation with a population of more than 1.2 billion, the issues that affect the nation also affect others. As an assault in Delhi, India made international news on December 16, 2012, the international community has become more aware of the incidents of gender-based violence that exist within the country. The ramifications of the international community's knowledge of the assault included a drastic decrease in both its international reputation and its tourism industry. As tourism provided 6.6% of its total GDP in 2012, it is an industry that is integral to the development of the nation. In order for India to increase its reputation and its tourism industry, gender-based violence in the form of assault and trafficking must be eradicated. This thesis will discuss the roots of gender-based violence specifically in India, and a case study of India's fight against colonialism will be used as an example of how a sense of nationalism was essential in meeting the goal of the nation at that time. As colonialism and gender-based violence are both 'enemies' to a nation's autonomy and reputation, this thesis will analyze the fact that the nation's ability to form a cohesive national identity, as it did during British rule, is essential for it to achieve its 2013 goals.</p>

Coronary artery disease is one of the most pernicious diseases around the world and early identification of vascular disease can help to reduce morbidity and mortality. Assessment of the degree of vascular obstruction, or stenosis, is critical for classifying the risks of the future vascular events. Automatic detection and quantification of stenosis are important in assessing coronary artery disease from medical imagery, especially for disease progression. Important factors affecting the reproducability and robustness of accuarate quantification arise from the partial volume effect and other noise sources. The main goal of this study is to present a fully automatic approach for detection and quantification of the stenosis in the coronary arteries. The proposed approach begins by building a 3D reconstruction of the coronary arterial system and then making accurate measurement of the vessel diameter from a robust estimate of the vessel cross-section. The proposed algorithm models the partial volume effect using a Markovian fuzzy clustering method in the process of accurate quantification of the degree of stenosis. To evaluate the accuracy and reproducibility of the measurement, the method was applied to a vascular phantom that was scanned using different protocols. The algorithm was applied to 20 CTA patient datasets containing a total of 85 stenoses, which were all successfully detected, with an average false positive rate of 0.7 per scan.