SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS AND THE 2014-16 EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE OUTBREAK IN GUINEA, LIBERIA, AND SIERRA LEONE INTRODUCTION: Ebola virus disease (EVD) is an infectious disease transmitted by close contact with an estimated case fatality rate fluctuating around 50%. The most affected countries by the 2013-16 West African Ebola outbreak were Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. These countries reported a total of 28616 probable, suspected and confirmed cases. However, we are still learning about the sociodemographic factors that contributed to the outbreak characteristics at the subnational level. METHODS: Data were collected from the World Health Organization, Demographic Health Surveys, and Global Data Lab for 37 districts (8 for Guinea, 15 for Liberia, and 14 for Sierra Leone). The outcome of interest was epidemic size at the district level for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (cumulative number of EVD patient confirmed and probable cases). Socio-demographic predictors included household density, sanitation level, mobility, and wealth status. We also controlled for the timing of the start of the outbreak across districts. Pearson’s correlation and multiple linear regression were employed in our analyses. Model building was informed by a review of the relevant literature. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess the impact of potential outliers. RESULTS: In the final multivariable regression model, wealth status and household density were positively associated with the epidemic size while sanitation level and the difference in the outbreak start dates were negatively associated with the outcome. These results did not change in the sensitivity analyses. The regression model explained 57% of the variance in epidemic size (Adj R-Sq=0.57), with the largest contribution from the international wealth index (semi-partial R-square=0.22). CONCLUSION: District sociodemographic characteristics such as household density, wealth and sanitation levels contributed to the EVD outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, which is in agreement with recent studies. However, further research should consider other sociodemographic indicators as well as the role of migration and connectivity among regions.

This thesis is the result of ethnographic research carried out in an Israeli academic institution, located in the West-Bank of Israel/Palestine. Focusing on the social science department, the research examines the content and context of the study of social anthropology in this institute namely, The Academic College of Judea & Samaria ('The ACJS'), and analyses the ways in which Israeli identity is being understood and imagined by its students. Part One of the thesis examines the broad academic and geo-political context of the study of social anthropology in The Academic College of Judea & Samaria (The ACJS). This part includes three chapters: The first chapter presents an historical analysis of 'Israeli Social Anthropology' as a (Zionist) national tradition of ethnographic research. The second chapter is an introduction to the research of citizenship in Israel/Palestine and to the related concept of Israeliness as a 'culture of citizenship'. It includes an analysis of the West-Bank of Israel/Palestine as a disputed geo-political entity and a (political) no man's land within the international system of nation-states. The third chapter is an outline of the Jewish-Israeli settlement project in the West-Bank of Israel/Palestine, and also introduces the reader to the WB settlers. Part Two of the thesis is ethnographic and includes three chapters. The first chapter is ethnography of the West-Bank settlement-town where the ACJS is located, Ariel 'Settlementown'. This chapter incorporates a new descriptive method in political anthropology or, in the 'anthropology of the political', that of ‘sensing the political’ (Navaro-Yashin, 2003). The second and third chapters of the ethnographic part describe and analyze 'everyday life' in the ACJS itself, focusing on its social sciences department. It examines the way in which social anthropology is taught in the ACJS, and the ways in which Israeli identity is imagined and understood by its students. The summary of the thesis includes a triple hierarchical model of Israeli citizenship, based on this research, as well as suggestions for further research in the field of political anthropology and the anthropology of citizenship. The analytical focus of this research is Israeli citizenship and the concept of Israeliness as a 'culture of citizenship'. The research set itself as a search for the ways in which Israeliness was expressed and practiced in the 'everyday life' of people in the ACJS, and especially among its social science students and faculty. Studying Israeliness as a culture of citizenship implies adopting a new and different way of conceptualizing and understanding Israeli identity. Instead of adopting the Zionist political image of a (Jewish) national community, a view which, as has been the situation also in Israeli Social Anthropology, excludes non-Jewish citizens of Israel, the concept of Israeliness as a 'culture of citizenship' offers a new image of an Israeli political identity/community, one that includes all citizens of the State of Israel, regardless of their ethnic/religious identity and belonging. Thus, it is intended that the main contribution of this thesis will be to 'Israeli Social Anthropology' in filling these methodological and theoretical Lacunae, and in showing a way out of what appears to be a conceptual dead-end which it had reached concerning the interpretation and representation of Israeli identity. This intention seems even more advisable in the particular case of Israel/Palestine, where an adoption of the more inclusive discourse of 'citizenship' might contribute towards ‘Peace Education’, so much needed today as part of the long-term efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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M.A. / Although the Free Democratic Party's (FDP) best performance at the polls was 12,8% of the votes in 1961, the party has played a far more significant role in postwar German politics than its electoral strength would suggest. Due to its participation as junior partner in coalitions with the Christian Democratic Union (1949-1956, 1961- 966) and the Social Democratic Party (1969 to present), the FOP has been represented in the Federal German Government longer than either the CDU or SPD. As it is exceptional for a single party to gain an overall majority in German politics, the two major parties are dependent on the FDP, as the only other party represented in the Bundestag, for the formation of a coalition government. Thus, in a certain sense, the FDP "determines" which of the major parties is to form the government. The purpose of this study is to analyse the development of the FDP from 1945 to the present, whilst emphasizing variations in the party's political role. To provide a sufficient background, the development of German liberalism from the nineteenth century up to 1945 has also been taken into consideration. The German liberal movement has, since Bismarckian times, been divided into two rival sections, namely "national liberalism" (right wing) and "progressive liberalism" (left wing). After the Second World War it seemed that for the first time in nearly a century both wings were to be united in one political structure namely the FDP. It seemed as if the rapid decline of' Liberalism since the turn of the century had at last been checked, factionalism eliminated and greater unity achieved. Factional rivalries, however, reappeared and caused serious strains on the FDP's internal unity and political efficiency. Basically it was a struggle to achieve an exact position for the FDP in the political spectrum: right of the CDU by uniting all nationalistic forces or as a middle party between the CDU and SPD. The first alternative ruled out the possibility of a coalition with the SPD, while the second kept...

M.Sc. (Environmental Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Thesis advisor: Carlo Rotella / Thesis advisor: Christopher Wilson / This dissertation studies representations of class, labor, and space in Western American literature from 1885-1992. I argue that class is a function of labor in space and that, by zooming in on literary accounts of individuals living out this equation, we can gain a more diverse, more pluralistic vision of a developing Western and more broadly American identity. Moreover, I argue that examining the effects of working practices, class limits and mobility, and spatial shifts on characters in Western literature unveils the crucial roles loss and uncertainty played in shaping the tone, metaphors, and episodes of Western American literature. With a foothold in the political and socioeconomic concerns of this project, I catalogue and close read the less tangible or measurable components of this literature to render individual lives legible against backgrounds of shared histories. Reading those common literary tropes alongside one another suggests that, ultimately, this shared history is an American one that draws from a number of historical moments and has deep roots and routes in the West itself. Chapter One argues that Frank Norris’ McTeague depicts class and socioeconomic identity as products of the kinds of labor that evolve in the ecological and social spaces of San Francisco at the turn of the 20th century. Chapter Two explores class dispossession, masked as ethnic dispossession, in Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don and argues that national affiliations that grant capital security hold more sway in late 19th century Chicano-Californio ranching society than do claims of cultural belonging. Chapter Three focuses on literature that grew out of the twinned national crises of the 1930s, the Depression and the Dust Bowl, and argues that Sanora Babb’s Whose Names Are Unknown, John Fante’s Wait Until Spring, Bandini and Ask the Dust, and Frank Waters’ Below Grass Roots each document the instability, vulnerability, frustration, and constriction that these watershed historical moments brought to individuals and families. Chapter Four close reads historical accounts of cowboy work alongside depictions of ranching work in Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, Elmer Kelton’s The Time it Never Rained, and Larry McMurtry’s Horseman, Pass By. Finally, Chapter Five looks at a handful of American Indian novels that interrogate the role of labor, class, and space in post-indigenous reservation life in the American West. Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit is the central novel of this chapter, while Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and Stephen Graham Jones’ The Bird is Gone provide supplementary texts. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English.

China is a cultural and economic giant in today’s world, but has been somehow misunderstood in the past decades . With more and more educational and economic communication between China and the western world, more non-Chinese people find a need to know China. This project has created a board game based on Journey to the West, a 2000-page novel which is one of the four great classical novels in China. The project seeks to transmit some of the cultural aspects of China, stimulate people’s interest in China through simple gameplay. The ultimate goal of this project was to develop a game which was fun for friends and families to play together, as well as to offer a relaxing and pleasant play space for people to experience a different culture without extensive reading. The paper explains the research that has been done to realize the project, Journey to the West: the Board Game, and the production expectation. A study has been done behind the project explored the game’s mechanics, appeal and effectiveness. The paper also details the results of this study to determine if players of this board game learn about Chinese culture more than readers of the book.

West Nile virus (WNV) is a geographically endemic mosquito-borne flavivirus that has spread across the United States infecting birds, mosquitos, humans, horses and other mammals. The wide spread nature of this virus is due to the ability of the mosquito vector to persist in broad, ecological diverse environments across the United States. In this study, mosquito populations in North Texas region were sampled for detection of Wolbachia, blood meal source, and WNV. The ultimate goal of this study was to examine the potential of a biocontrol agent, Wolbachia sp. that colonizes the hindgut of various insects, including mosquitos, as a natural means to interrupt virus transmission from mosquitos to other hosts, including humans. In Australia, Wolbachia sp. from fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) have been successfully used to block transmission of a similar pathogenic virus from mosquitos responsible for transmission of Dengue fever. Here, mosquitoes were collected using CDC style Gravid Traps in Denton, Texas, from October 2012 through September 2014. Collected mosquitoes were identified, sexed, and categorized as to the amount of host blood in their alimentary system using a Zeiss Axio Zoom microscope (Carl Zeiss Microscopy, LLC, Thornwood, NY). Culex quinquefaciatus was the dominant blood engorged species collected. Smaller populations of Culex tarsalis and Aedes albopictus, another known vector for WNV were also collected. Mosquito larva were also collected from the UNT water research field station and reared to adults. Cx. tarsalis was the dominant mosquito taken from this habitat. Samples of Cx. quinquefasciatus, Cx. tarsalis and A. albopictus were analyzed for Wolbachia sp. and to identify host blood in the mosquito alimentary system. Total DNA extraction from the pool of mosquito samples was by both commercially available DNA extraction kits (Qiagen, Valencia, CA) and salt extraction technique. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify and identify Wolbachia sp. 16SrDNA and mitochondrial DNA from vertebrate blood. The maternally inherited endosymbiont, Wolbachia, were found to be uniformly distributed across the mosquitoes sampled in this study. Blood meal analysis by PCR showed that Cx. quinquefaciatus fed more on birds than on mammalian blood sources based on the previously developed primers used in this study.

Aerosol particles are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and their properties impact on the atmospheric energy balance. They scatter and absorb incoming sunlight and can perturb cloud microphysical properties, which affects cloud lifetimes and albedo. Africa is one of the world’s largest sources of aerosol due to both its large deserts and prolific biomass burning during the dry seasons. Nevertheless, the continent's atmosphere has, to date, been among the least studied in the world. The southern coast of West Africa is developing rapidly, with both population and anthropogenic emissions being predicted to increase substantially in coming years. It is therefore becoming ever more important to understand the characteristics of aerosols in this region, which will have consequences for issues as diverse as local health and global climate change. This project addresses this problem in two ways: first, laboratory experiments were carried out to characterise biomass burning aerosol at source. Biomass burning is one of the most poorly understood aerosol sources, but one of the most prevalent in tropical regions. Second, aircraft observations were made in southern West Africa during the Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) field campaign in summer 2016, to observe the broad-scale distribution of chemical and physical aerosol properties. Results were collected in-situ with Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometers (AMS) and other online aerosol instrumentation; they were considered alongside observations from DACCIWA ground sites and model results. Distinguishable chemical signatures were reliably observed during three phases of combustion events in the laboratory study. This gave insight into the mechanisms linking combustion phases and emissions. Airborne observations in southern West Africa revealed a remarkably consistent background of aged, accumulation mode aerosol present across the region in the boundary layer, including in the region upwind of the cities on the south coast. It was demonstrated that this likely originated from large-scale biomass burning in central and southern Africa, which had become entrained into the boundary layer above the Atlantic and transported north. A second result from the DACCIWA campaign showed that the hygroscopic growth of these particles, due to the high humidity in the region during June and July, more than doubled the mean dry aerosol optical depth. Taken together, these findings shed light on the substantial impacts that biomass burning aerosol, in particular, has on the atmosphere above southern West Africa.

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