The U.S. Public Health Service led human-subject experiments in Guatemala during the late 1940s in which the researchers intentionally infected prisoners, soldiers, and psychiatric patients with venereal disease to study prophylaxis and treatment for syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid. The U.S. doctors also conducted a serological study in an attempt to standardize blood testing methods for venereal disease in Central America. This thesis argues that the PHS went to Guatemala not just for the opportunities it presented for research, but also because the organization was seeking to expand its influence in Latin America during this time period. Through experimentation and serological testing in relation to venereal disease, this thesis suggests that the U.S. doctors sought to produce knowledge about venereal disease in Central Americans as part of their goal to augment their role as medical authorities in the region. / text

The National Response Plan (NRP) was developed to provide support during national disasters. The U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Corps is 1 of the 7 uniform services and contributes to the mission of the (NRP). The USPHS Commissioned Corps (CC) Officers may be deployed for national disasters at any time and they must be ready to deploy. The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences of USPHS CC Nurse Officers who have deployed in response to disasters in the United States. This study addressed the gap in literature related to the deployment perception of USPHS Nurse Officers and may lead to an increase in deployment readiness. The lifeworld theory was used to guide the study that addressed the question of how nurse officers of the USPHS CC described their clinical nursing experience while deployed. Selection criteria used to recruit the 10 participants included USPHS Nurse Officers in non-clinical billets that have deployed in support of hurricane responses in 2017. In-depth interviews were conducted, and data were organized and analyzed using NVivo analysis software. The themes that emerged from the data included characteristics of nurse officers, clinical preparedness, training needs, challenges, and lessons learned. USPHS Nurse Officers perceived other nurse officers as resourceful, skillful educators, felt comfortable and prepared during the deployment, recommended additional training to benefit future Corps deployments, and identified physical and emotional challenges they experienced. These findings may assist in promoting positive social change within nursing practice of the USPHS Nurse Officers as it may enhance and improve readiness training, and USPHS policies for deployment readiness.

Thesis (D.Min.)--Asbury Theological Seminary, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-193).

Despite shifts toward a more collaborative approach to emergency management, little scholarly attention has focused on the roles of local public organizations and nonprofits that do not have explicit emergency management missions in disaster response. Scholars and government officials call for identifying key local actors and developing a more collaborative emergency preparedness approaches prior to disaster situations. In practice, emergency officials seldom recognize post-disaster efforts of these local actors. Efforts to anticipate the potential decisions and actions of organizations that do not routinely deal with disasters necessitate a better understanding of how managers perceive their post-disaster related roles and what may account for such perceptions. Focusing on public libraries in the U.S., this study draws on information gathered through surveys and semi-structured interviews with library managers and directors operating in Hampton Roads, Virginia. To further investigate variations in willingness to engage in emergency response among local jurisdictions, the study explores context-related characteristics such as organizational arrangements and features of the policy environment in which library managers operate as well as factors related to individual managerial practices. The study finds that library officials' perceptions vary across libraries. Variations range from a more defensive approach to a more proactive approach. Efforts to account for the extent to which officials would be willing to engage in a more proactive approach should consider both the emergence of individual-managers' entrepreneurial spirit and their involvement in community-based disaster planning. / Ph. D. / This study examines how public managers in organizations that do not routinely deal with emergencies perceive the role of their organizations in responding to natural disasters and explores what may help explain such perceptions. Focusing on public libraries in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, I found that managers’ entrepreneurial spirit combined with their sense of recognition and inclusion in the local emergency preparedness network were associated with willingness to engage in a more proactive approach to disaster response.

This thesis studies a case of U.S. mediated public diplomacy in Romania by analyzing the Romanian media framing as compared to the U.S. embassy’s framing of a public diplomacy crisis. It seeks to participate in the discussion about public diplomacy in general and mediated public diplomacy in particular. The case, from 2004, concerns the death of Romanian rock star, Teo Peter, in a car accident caused by an American marine serving in the U.S. embassy. A public diplomacy crisis situation focuses on the U.S. mediated public diplomacy efforts to prevent damaging its image; and also intensifies media’s interest on writing about the subject. The analysis in this study is based on the investigation of the similarities and differences in the frames used in the press releases and news articles to construct the image of the same event. The thesis employs Entman’s concept of U.S. mediated public diplomacy when analyzing the framing process of two of the major actors presented in his model: the target nation media and the U.S. public and media diplomacy (U.S. officials in that country). Benoit’s model is used to better explain the press releases’ framing. Framing analysis was chosen as a qualitative research method, as this study aims to explore the images created by mass media or by public diplomacy efforts (through the press releases) when they construct a specific reality for the same public diplomacy crisis. Three major Romanian national, daily newspapers and the U.S. embassy’s press releases were analyzed. The findings revealed that the Romanian media framed the public diplomacy crisis in a different way than the U.S. officials framed it. It seems that the U.S. failed in promoting its framing of the public diplomacy crisis to the Romanian media and therefore the public.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2004. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2937. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as 3 preliminary leaves (iii-v). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-54).

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This study addresses the question: "What are the incentives and disincentives for conflict prevention and mitigation in the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and how do they factor into Reclamation's management of water in the western United States?" Incentives and disincentives for conflict prevention (i.e., actions taken to avoid conflict) and mitigation (i.e., actions taken to resolve, manage, or temper a conflictive situation after conflict has occurred) are identified through a survey and focus groups of Reclamation employees. The two dominant disincentives identified are a lack of resources and Reclamation's organizational culture--specifically its reliance on crisis management, water delivery tunnel vision, and being slow to change. Other disincentives include a lack of forward planning, the existence of an acceptable bandwidth or level of conflict, a perception that conflict is unavoidable or entrenched, politics, and limits on acceptable actions associated with the legal authorization of Reclamation projects. Fewer incentives for conflict prevention and mitigation were identified, but include, pressure from higher management, the promotion of collaboration within the Bureau, and a desire to avoid litigation. The institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework offers some insight into how these incentives and disincentives factored into the implementation of the Water2025 Initiative, and Reclamation’s experience with the Middle Rio Grande silvery minnow and the Endangered Species Act. As attributes of the community and rules-in-use, incentives and disincentives such as organizational culture, politics, funding availability, the desire to avoid litigation, the promotion of collaboration within the agency, and a lack of planning effort offer possible explanations of why Reclamation chose to act as it did. / Graduation date: 2012

中國的國力及影響力在本世紀以來顯著地上升，使得美中關係成為國際事務中最重要的議題。本研究試圖從決策層次的角度來檢視美中關係，透過對一系列意見調查數據的分析及歸納，分別描繪出「美國公眾」及「美國菁英」兩個團體對中國崛起的認知樣貌，並且說明此種認知之內涵與意義。 本研究發現，美國公眾與美國菁英對於中國崛起的認知皆帶有濃厚的務實主義（pragmatism）色彩：他們雖然對美中之間日益接近的經濟力量、中國的軍事發展及以人權狀況感到憂慮，卻同時也認知到中國日益高漲的國際影響力及其所帶來的經濟利益對美國的重要性，因此支持政府與中國進行經濟上的交往，並在能源及亞太安全等議題上合作，而非與之正面衝突。而這樣的務實看法形塑了美國的中國政策，鼓勵了中國在國際體系中的制度性崛起，將可能的衝突來源轉化為兩國間之共同利益，以降低中國的威脅性。值得注意的是，由於美國公眾與美國菁英對外交事務的思考有著層次之別，使得他們在對中國的貿易政策上抱持差異化的觀點；雖然公眾與菁英皆將貿易視為美中之間最大的共同利益，贊同市場開放，但是前者對開放所造成的工作外移感到威脅，在經濟環境惡化時，容易將這樣的認知轉化為對中國的負面觀感，然而，這樣的情況卻容易為後者所忽略。 / The power and influence of China have been rising significantly in this era, and made U.S.-China relation the most important issue among international affairs. This study tried to watch the relationship between U.S.-China from decision-making level, drawing the pattern of perception of U.S. public and elite on a rising China separately through summarizing, reasoning and analyzing series of survey of public and elite opinion. This study found that U.S. public and elite both hold a pragmatic perception toward a rising China. Though these two groups feel worried about the narrowing economic strength between U.S. and China, and the development of Chinese military, they also perceive the rising influence of China and the importance of huge economic interest that it brings. Therefore, they both support the government to engage and cooperate with China on trade, energy and security of Asia-Pacific region issues instead of rigid confrontation, which directly formed the China Policy of U.S., encouraged China to develop institutionally in international system. In addition, U.S. public and elite think differently about the trade policy to China due to their basic belief of foreign affairs: The former particularly feels threatened by outsourcing brought by the open market, and this kind of feeling will get stronger when the economy goes down, which easily ignored by the latter.

From 1990-2010 ecoterrorist attacks by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) created an anomaly in the U.S. with millions of dollars in property destruction. Interestingly, in a post 9/11 era, the FBI warns that the number one threat to U.S. national security is not religious terrorism, but rather environmental-group terrorism. When examining this topic further, there is a void in analysis between examining ecoterrorist attacks and U.S. public policy. Is there a statistical significant relationship between terrorist attacks by ALF/ELF and U.S. public policy towards terrorism? Is per capita income an influence on the attacks occurring in specific states? This study seeks to analyze such relationships through an exploratory analysis and case study approach. I conducted a trend analysis on attacks by ELF/ALF from 1990-2010 and the subsequent adoption of U.S. public policy towards terrorism. I analyzed per-capita income by region and its relationships to attacks occurring. I performed chi^2 hypothesis testing in order to determine the statistical significant relationships between ELF/ALF attacks/U.S. public policy and per capita income by State. The findings of this study suggest that the definition of terrorism is ambiguous and can lead to alternative interpretations, which can affect U.S. public policy towards terrorism. Attacks by ALF/ELF are not deterred by U.S. public policy. Also, a majority of attacks by ALF/ELF are most likely to occur in states that rank in the top 20th percentile regarding per capita income and occur mainly on the west coast. The statistical significance of the relationships between ELF/ALF attacks and U.S. public policy demonstrate that these two entities are mutually exclusive. Per capita income levels by states and ELF/ALF attacks are also mutually exclusive. This study creates an improved understanding of what constitutes terrorism and an understanding of the radical elements in the environmental movement and its place in a post 9/11 America. The significance of this study is to provide a model for analysis of terrorist attacks and government responses and provide a framework of inquiry for the fields of terrorism,public policy and conflict studies.