In my thesis, I compare the short story sequences of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and John Cheever's The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories. Within these texts, I examine the ways in which authors depict the pervasive sense of homelessness and isolation within American communities during the 20th century.

Using a linear quasi-geostrophic model of large scale spiraling flow and vertical density gradient in the eastern North Pacific, we evaluate the complex dispersion relationships for quasi-geostrophic waves. Our calculations indicate that the geostrophic circulation of the eastern North Pacific can locally convert potential energy to mesoscale kinetic energy on a scale comparable to the observed space and time scale and should be a source of eddy energy, distant from the eddies spawned by the Kuroshio and near the topographic features. But the local growth rates by linear stability analysis do not relate to the observed features of eddy kinetic energy in the eastern ocean; eddy kinetic energy increases to the south and has a maximum in the subtropical region. The non-linear baroclinic instability is analyzed using a three-layer quasi-geostrophic numerical model. Three experiments with different idealized initial mean flow are performed. Local energetics are calculated to highlight the difference between the southward return flow and westward return flow regions. It is found that the boundary flux of mean to eddy kinetic energy conversion is the main differences between two regions: it is large in the westward return flow region but is small in the southward return flow region. Two waves with different characteristics are found: the short waves (periods of 120 days), that propagate to the west and form several wave trains parallel to the southern boundary, and the long waves (periods of 200 days), that propagate to the south-west. These two waves are remarkably similar to the measurements of open ocean eddies at 28°N and 152°W. It is shown that there are high eddy activities in the southward return flow regions by influxes of eddies from other areas, but the southward return flow region is vacant in eddies by outflows of the westward and south-westward propagating waves. / Graduation date: 1987

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Continental growth may be accomplished at active convergent margins through tectonic accretion and orogeny. Accretionary processes believed to add material to continents include the collision of island arcs and other unsubductable crustal blocks. Using the Intermontane belt as a case study for assessing accretionary processes, it is concluded that island-arc collision and accretion was the principal mechanism for continental growth with relatively minor contributions from 'sliced-off oceanic seamounts and/or plateaux. Fold and thrust belt formation in the northern Intermontane belt records a Middle Jurassic orogenic event that can be attributed to the collision of island-arc highlighting the importance of island-arc collision for causing orogenesis in the North American Cordillera. However, not all orogenic events in the North American Cordillera can be readily attributed to a collisional event. The leading model for driving Laramide orogenesis in the United States is flat-slab subduction, and thermal modelling indicates that subduction of a relatively buoyant oceanic plateau/aseismic ridge may have been responsible for the shallow trajectory. In the Canadian and Mexican portions of the Laramide, the coeval development of a magmatic arc within 300 km of the trench refutes the existence of flat-slab subduction in these regions, and therefore the processes responsible for this orogeny remain enigmatic and require resolution.

The North Korean nuclear weapons program poses a challenge to stability in Northeast Asia. The United States' foreign policy with North Korea takes a hard-line position, and cannot solve this problem unilaterally and must rely on support from the other countries in the region. Solving this nuclear issue is only one piece of the stability challenge in this region. North Korea's nuclear program gained international attention when it signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1985, threatened to withdraw in 1993, withdrew in 2003, and stated it has a nuclear weapons capability in 2005. The Six-Party Talks were initiated with the goal of stopping and dismantling North Korea's entire nuclear weapons program, and has had limited success. Previous negotiations between North Korea and the United States have ended with one party, usually North Korea, failing to uphold its part of the agreement. The Six-Party Talks may be successful, but may take decades. It comes down to the question, is the United States pursuing the best foreign policy toward North Korea? This thesis examines North Korea's nuclear program history, how it perceives itself and others, reviews the current U.S. policy, recommends a flexible policy, and proposes a method of implementation. / US Army (USA) author.