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<p>Is North America vulnerable to widespread electrical blackout from natural or man-made disasters? Yes. Are electric utilities and critical infrastructure (CI) operators prepared to maintain CI operations such as, hospitals, sewage lift stations, food, water, police stations etc., after electrical blackout to maintain National security and sustainability? No. Why? Requirements to prioritize electrical restoration to CI do not exist as a requirement or regulation for electrical distribution operators. Thus, the CI operators cannot maintain services to the public without electricity that provides power for the critical services to function. The problem is that electric utilities are not required to develop or deploy a prioritized systematic plan or procedure to decrease the duration of electrical outage, commonly referred to as blackout. The consequence of local blackout to CI can be multi-billion-dollar financial losses and loss of life for a single outage event attributed to the duration of blackout. This study utilized the review of authoritative literature to answer the question: “Can a plan be developed to decrease the duration of electrical outage to critical infrastructure”. The literature revealed that electric utilities are not required to prioritize electrical restoration efforts and do not have plans available to deploy minimizing the duration of blackout to CI. Thus, this study developed a plan and subsequent model using Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) to decrease the duration of blackout by providing incremental electrical service to CI.</p>

Al Qaeda killings, posttraumatic stress, and the Gothic together triangulate a sizable space in recent American fiction that is still largely uncharted by critics. This thesis maps that shared territory in four novels written between 2005 and 2007 by writers who were born in America, and whose protagonists are the survivors in New York City after the World Trade Center falls. Published in the city of their tragedy and reviewed in its media, the novels surveyed here include Don DeLillo’s _Falling Man_ (2007), Jonathan Safran Foer’s _Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_ (2005), Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s _The Writing on the Wall_ (2005), and Jess Walter’s _The Zero_ (2006). The thesis issues a challenge to the large number of negative and dismissive reviews of the novels under consideration, making a case that under different criteria, shaped by trauma theory and psychoanalysis, the novels succeed after all in making readers feel what it was to be alive in September 2001, enduring the posttraumatic stress for months and years later. The thesis asserts that 9/11 fiction is too commonly presented in popular journals and scholarly studies as an undifferentiated mass. In the same critical piece a journalist or an academic may evaluate narratives in which unfold a terrorist's point of view, a surviving or a dying New York City victim's perspective, and an outsider's reaction set thousands of miles away from Ground Zero. What this thesis argues for is a separation in study of the fictive strands that meditate on the burning towers, treating the New York City survivor story as a discrete body. Despite their being set in one of the most known cities of the Western world, and the terrorist attack that they depict being the most- watched catastrophe ever experienced in real-time before, these fictions have not yet been critically ordered. Charting the salient reappearing conflicts, unsettling descriptions, protagonist decay, and potent techniques for registering horror that resurface in this New York City 9/11 fiction, this thesis proposes and demonstrates how the peculiar and affecting Gothic tensions in the works can be further understood by trauma theory, a term coined by Cathy Caruth in Unclaimed Experience (1996: 72). Though the thesis concentrates on developments in trauma theory from the mid 1990s to 2015, it also addresses its theoretical antecedents: from the earliest voices in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that linked mental illness to a trauma (Charcot, Janet, Breuer, Freud), to researchers from mid-twentieth century (Adler, Lindemann) who studied how catastrophe affects civilian minds not previously trained to either fight war or withstand cataclysm. Always keeping at the fore the ancient Greek double-meaning of trauma as both unhealing “wound” and “defeat,” the thesis surveys tenets of the trauma theorists from the very first of those who studied the effects on civilian survivors of disaster (of what is still the largest nightclub fire in U.S. history, which replaced front page coverage of World War II for a few days: the Cocoanut Grove blaze in Boston, 1942) up to those theorists writing in 2015. The concepts evolving behind trauma theory, this thesis demonstrates, provide a useful mechanism to discuss the surprising yearnings hiding behind the appearance of doppelgängers, possession ghosts, terrorists as monsters, empty coffins, and visitants that appear to feed on characters’ sorrow, guilt, and loneliness within the novels under discussion. This thesis reappraises the dominant idea in trauma studies of the mid-1990s, namely that trauma victims often cannot fully remember and articulate their physical and psychic wounds. The argument here is that, true to the theories of the Caruthian school, the victims in these novels may not remember and express their trauma completely and in a linear fashion. However, the victims figured in these novels do relate the horrors of their memory to a degree by letting their narration erupt with the unexpectedly Gothic images, tropes, visions, language, and typical contradictions, aporias, lacunae, and paradoxes. The Gothic, one might say, becomes the language in which trauma speaks and articulates itself, albeit not always in the most cogent of signs. One might easily dismiss these fleeting Gothic presences that characters conjure in the fictions under consideration as anomalous apparitions signalling nothing. However, this thesis interrogates these ghostly traces of Gothicism to find what secrets they hold. Working from the insights of psychoanalysis and its post-Freudian re-inventers and challengers, it aims to puzzle out the dimensions of characters’ mourning in its “traumagothic” reading of the texts. Characters’ use of the Gothic becomes their way of remembering, a coded language to the curious. This thesis holds that unexpressed grief and guilt are the large constant in this grouping of novels. Characters’ grief articulation and guilt release, or the desire for symbolic amnesia, take paths that the figures often were suspicious of before 9/11: a return to organized religion, a belief in spirits, a call for vengeance, psychotherapy, substance abuse, splitting with a partner, rampant sex with nearby strangers, torture of suspects, and killing. All the earnest attempts through the above means by the characters to express grief, vent rage, and alleviate survivor guilt do so without noticeable success. True closure towards their trauma is largely a myth. No reliable evidence surfaces from the close reading of the texts that those affected by trauma ever fully recover. However, as this thesis demonstrates, other forms of recompense come from these searches for elusive peace and the nostalgic longing for the America that has been lost to them.

In response to the events on September the Eleventh, various media attempted to make sense of the seemingly radical altered political landscape. Comic books, though traditionally framed as low brow pulp, were no exception. This thesis is a work of rhetorical criticism. It applies Walter Fisher's Narrative Paradigm to a specific set of artifacts: John Ney Rieber and John Cassaday's six-part comic series, collectively titled Captain America: The New Deal (2010). The question that is the focus of this thesis is: Does The New Deal, framed as a response to the events surrounding September the Eleventh, form a rhetorically effective narrative? The analysis that follows demonstrates the importance of meeting audience expectations when presenting them with controversial viewpoints. / Graduation date: 2012

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The Iraq War and the War on Terror were pivotal issues in the presidential race for the White House in 2004. Competing frames about the meaning of September 11, 2001, terrorism, and American power were constructed by the rival candidates and established a limited debate that marginalized alternative interpretations of war and peace. It is likely that the dilemma over U.S. forces in Iraq and the War on Terror will continue to be a major issue in the upcoming 2008 Presidential Election. Therefore, the campaign speeches of the presidential candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, during the 2004 Election regarding terrorism were important to understanding the themes that initiated public debate in the U.S. about the conflict in Iraq and the War on Terror. In this document analysis, these candidates’ public addresses illustrated how the role of the U.S. power to combat terrorism shaped a particular perspective about the post-9/11 world. Ideas that challenged “official” debate about war and national security were excluded from mainstream media coverage of the campaign. In order to examine the narrow debate over terrorism and how alternative “ways of seeing” war have been and continue to be marginalized, this study compared how the candidates framed the war in contrast to anti-war voices. Cindy Sheehan, who is an emergent leader in the peace and social justice movement, and more “official” voices of dissent like Representative Dennis Kucinich, have criticized “official” framing of the war. Dissenting perspectives about the Iraq War and the War on Terror invite a different understanding about U.S. hegemony, terrorism, and the consequences of the War on Terror for foreign and domestic policies. The impact of the war upon domestic policy and national crises, such as the widely televised and heavily criticized federal response to Hurricane Katrina Summer 2005, were examined to explore how domestic crises undermine “official” framing of the Iraq War and the War on Terror and empower alternative understandings of war and peace.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / While the Arab spring succeeded in ousting the long-term dictator led governments from power in many Arab countries, leading the way to a new democratic process to develop in the Arab world, it did not end the old suspicions between Arab Muslims and the West. This research investigates the beginning of the relations between the Arab Muslims and the West as they have developed over time, and then focuses its analysis on perceptions from both sides beginning with 9/11 through the events known as the Arab spring. The framework for analysis is a communication perspective, as embodied in the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM). According to CMM, communication can be understood as forms of interactions that both constitute and frame reality. The study posits the analysis that the current Arab Muslim-West divide, is often a conversation that is consistent with what CMM labels as the ethnocentric pattern. This analysis will suggest a new pathway, one that follows the CMM cosmopolitan form, as a more fruitful pattern for the future of Arab Muslim-West relations. This research emphasizes the factors fueling this ethnocentric pattern, in addition to ways of bringing the Islamic world and the West to understand each other with a more cosmopolitan approach, which, among other things, accepts mutual differences while fostering agreements. To reach this core, the study will apply a direct communicative engagement between the Islamic world and the West to foster trusted relations, between the two.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T19:20:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Kleber Maia Marinho.pdf: 1018489 bytes, checksum: b40b9e97f51276133e093a50b2f37632 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-06-22 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / As a whole, the present dissertation lies at the intersection between religion and politics. Religion was embedded in the political scenario of the US at the onset of the nation and, since then, religion and politics have been intertwined into a complex system of coexistence that has strongly influenced the country s destiny. Although the debate regarding the amalgam between religion and politics in the US has been ongoing among the most diverse sectors of information and research, both locally and internationally, it was after the inauguration of George W. Bush and the attacks on 9/11, that such issue gained global repercussion, at a level never before seen in history. In this regard, the present work intends to analyze the relation of historical-cultural, sociological and psychological facts on the political-religious events, particularly those related to the international political scenario, which is hereby represented by the US. Thus, the subject of this investigation focuses on analyzing the presence of religious concepts as found in the speeches of President George W. Bush, during his two terms in office. More specifically, this dissertation examines the phenomena that are deeply rooted in the culture of the United States and have played a key role in supporting Bush s political actions. In this way, it evaluates the degree to which the events on 9/11 served as a bulwark for the religious rhetoric in Bush s discourse and became a tool to legitimate the war against Iraq, his political modus operandi and, ultimately, lead him to reelection. It is therefore concluded that, the ethical, moral and religious factors, deeply set in the culture of the United States throughout its history, together with the trauma caused by the events on 9/11, contributed to the acceptance of Bush s political decisions. The theoretical basis for the work is the hermeneutic methodology, built on a theoretical and bibliographic tripartite design that is sociological, philosophical-linguistic as well as psychological. The first line of investigation is based on the concept of Civil Religion, first developed by Robert Bellah and later expanded by other theoreticians; the second one follows Chaïm Perelman s theory of the New Rhetoric, and the third rests on C. G. Jung s Archetype. / Em termos gerais, a presente dissertação localiza-se na confluência da religião com a política. A inserção da religião na esfera política dos EUA fez-se presente desde o início de sua fundação e desde então, ambas permaneceram imbricadas constituindo um complexo sistema de convívio, cuja influência foi determinante nos desígnios da nação. Embora o debate acerca do amálgama entre religião e política nos EUA nunca ter cessado entre os mais diferentes setores de informação e pesquisa na sociedade nacional e internacional, foi, todavia, a partir da posse de George W. Bush e, após os atentados de 11 de setembro, que tal assunto ganhou repercussão mundial como talvez jamais antes na história. Nesse sentido, o presente trabalho tem como propósito analisar os fatos histórico-culturais, sociológicos e psicológicos na análise de eventos político-religiosos, mais precisamente, relativos à política internacional representada aqui pelos EUA. Por essa via, o objeto de investigação em questão refere-se à análise da presença da concepção religiosa encontrada nos discursos do presidente George W. Bush durante o período de seus dois mandatos de governo. Em termos específicos, esta dissertação debruçou-se sobre o estudo de fenômenos arraigados na cultura estadunidense que foram preponderantes na sustentação da política de Bush. Assim, buscou-se avaliar até que ponto o 11 de setembro serviu de ênfase na retórica religiosa do discurso de Bush, servindo de meio instrumentário para legitimar a guerra no Iraque, seu modus operandi político e, eventualmente, ajudá-lo na reeleição. Concluímos que fatores ético-morais e religiosos profundamente incutidos na cultura estadunidense ao longo do processo histórico, aliados ao trauma do 11 de setembro, foram facilitadores para a adesão à política de Bush. Para tanto, valemo-nos, como procedimento teórico, da metodologia hermenêutica, construída em cima de uma linha teórico-bibliográfica ancorada por três frentes: sociológica, filosófico-lingüística e psicológica. A primeira embasa-se no conceito de Religião Civil inicialmente desenvolvida por Robert Bellah e, depois, ampliada por outros teóricos; a segunda pauta-se na teoria da Nova Retórica de Chaïm Perelman e a última, no conceito de Arquétipo de C. G. Jung.