Thesis (M. Sc. Admin.)--Faculty of Commerce and Administration, Concordia University, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-104). Available also on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.B.S.)--Multnomah School of the Bible, 1986. / Bibliography: leaves 52-55.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Akron, School of Communication, 2009. / "August, 2009." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 11/11/2009) Advisor, Andrew S. Rancer; Committee members, Carolyn M. Anderson, Phil R. Hoffman; School Director, Carolyn M. Anderson; Dean of the College, James M. Lynn; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.B.A)--Boston University

The decade between the release of Canada’s 1994 Defence White Paper and its 2005 International Policy Statement was a period of crisis within the Canadian Forces (CF). The CF’s operational tempo increased significantly even as the defence budget was cut by a quarter. Defence issues were perceived to have very little profile in Ottawa., and military officers felt their concerns were not being heard. Despite rapid changes in the global security environment, dramatic budget cuts and frequent deployments, the CF was given no overarching policy direction from government. However, as one officer remarked, the CF gradually learned to survive in the absence of political guidance -- Indeed, “we have provided our own guidance.” This paper will examine how the CF adapted in the absence of strategic direction from government. It will focus particular attention on the adoption of capabilities-based planning as a decisional methodology for resource allocation and mitigating risk. This paper is based on a series of interviews with senior military officers and civilian officials at the Department of National Defence (conducted by Dr. Cohn Campbell in 2004 and 2005), and a reading of the relevant literature on Canadian defence policy and strategic planning. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

For many years, psychologists have been trying to find the relationship between perception and different factors of personality. Different experimental techniques were constructed to measure these concepts. One of the tools used to measure personality factors and their effect on perception was the tachistoscope. Through the use of this instrument, words or pictures could be flashed on a screen at varying rates of speed, or illumination. The subject upon watching these flashes, would relate the information which he perceived.

How does the political environment that a group operates affect whether they engage in terrorism? My research is concerned with how political opportunities, which I conceptualize in terms of political decentralization, affect how groups engage with the state, and whether they will engage in terrorism. Previous research has indicated that decentralization can reduce violence but can pose stability problems in other countries. I hypothesize that states with higher levels of decentralization will have lower levels of violence. I believe this works by allowing minority groups more access to power. Because they have access to political power, there is less incentive to use violence to achieve their political goals. This project is tested with a large-N study of democratic countries. I also engaged in two case studies focused on Northern Ireland and Spain, looking at the IRA and ETA, respectively. These two case studies trace the effect of changing levels of centralization on the behavior of minority groups. This study finds that political opportunities often lead to less violence in the long-term. Decentralization is one way of achieving this. However, sometimes decentralization may not work because it could take away rights from minorities; while in other cases, even after decentralization begins to take place, it can take a while for changes to take hold. Both the Northern Ireland and Spanish cases show that it is not always so simple as just saying decentralization will take place, or that it has begun.

Since the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), US administrations have criticized their European allies for not meeting security burden-sharing goals. This study aims to gain insight into what factors motivate alliance members to contribute to the burden-sharing objectives they have agreed to achieve. From a US perspective, the need for its European allies to reach these goals will allow the United States to shift resources to more pressing strategic challenges like the rise of China. Informed by Mancur Olson's theory of collective action and Glenn Snyder's concept of the security dilemma in alliances, this project tests the hypothesis that the more a NATO ally's foreign policy interests align with those of the United States, the less that ally will spend on defense as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This study uses a mixed-methods approach. The primary metric measuring an ally's contribution is the percentage of its GDP spent on defense. Furthermore, this study breaks NATO's history into three geopolitical periods: the Cold War (1950 to 1990), the Post-Cold War (1991 to 2006), and the Resurgent period (2007 to 2019). The analysis yields robust support for the theory in periods lacking a major threat (i.e., the Post-Cold War). That means the more aligned an ally's foreign policy preferences are with the United States, the less that ally spends on defense as a percentage of its GDP in such periods. The implications of these findings suggest that with the intensified threat of Russia made apparent with its attack on Ukraine in 2022, burden sharing in the NATO alliance will be less of a problem for the US in the immediate future. However, when this threat recedes, the burden-sharing issue will return, and the United States will have to send credible signals (like withdrawing troops from Europe) to its allies to cause them to question US protection and increase defense spending.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Flavocytochrome b558, the catalytic core of the phagocytic NADPH oxidase, mediates the transfer of electrons from NADPH to molecular oxygen to generate superoxide for host defense. Flavocytochrome b is a membrane heterodimer consisting of a large subunit gp91phox (NOX2) and a smaller subunit, p22phox. Localization of flavocytochrome b to the phagosome is essential for microbial killing, yet the subcellular distribution of flavocytochrome b in macrophages and how it is incorporated into macrophage phagosomes is not well characterized. In neutrophils, flavocytochrome b localizes primarily to specific granules that are rapidly mobilized to the phagosome upon stimulation. In contrast to neutrophils, macrophages do not contain specific granules, and trafficking of membrane proteins to the phagosome is more dynamic, involving fission and fusion events with endosomal compartments. We hypothesized that in macrophages, flavocytochrome b localizes to both plasma membrane and endosomal compartments that deliver flavocytochrome b to the phagosome. We generated fluorescently tagged versions of both p22phox and gp91phox, and rigorously verified their functionality in Chinese Hamster Ovary cells. Localization of flavocytochrome b was then examined in both RAW 264.7 murine macrophages and primary murine bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDM) in the presence and absence of interferon gamma (IFNg). We found that in “resting” macrophages, flavocytochrome b localizes primarily to the Rab11-positive endosome recycling compartment that recycles to the plasma membrane. In addition, phagocytosis assays showed flavocytochrome b is incorporated into the phagocytic cup and colocalized with Rab11 at the base of the cup, suggesting Rab11-positive endosomes may be involved in trafficking of flavocytochrome b between intracellular membranes and forming or nascent phagosomes. However, in IFNg activated macrophages, flavocytochrome b was localized predominantly in the plasma membrane, with little present in endosomal compartments. This shift in flavocytochrome b distribution occurred following sustained exposure to IFNg and correlated with increased flavocytochrome b protein expression and increased extracellular production of superoxide. Taken together, our results suggest the IFNg-induced redistribution of flavocytochrome b may be important for enhancing the production of superoxide at the cell surface and may be a potential new mechanism by which IFNg enhances antimicrobial activity in macrophages.

Military coups are the most consequential breakdown of civil-military relations. This dissertation contributes to the explanation and prediction of coups through three independent quantitative analyses. First, I argue that food insecurity is an important determinant of coups. The presence of hunger can generate discontent in society and subsequently alter coup plotter opportunities. Furthermore, I show that the presence of chronic hunger can condition the effect of increasing development. While increasing levels of development have been shown to limit coup proclivity, a state experiencing chronic hunger will recognize the fundamental failure of basic needs provision. As development increases, the presence of chronic hunger in a state will therefore increase the likelihood of a coup when compared to its absence. Findings indicate that food insecurity, and specifically the conditioning influence of chronic hunger, are important explanatory predictors of coups. In the second analysis, I argue that existing tests of the Coup-Contagion hypothesis have not been sensitive to the specific pathways through which coups may diffuse. After a robust analysis of spatial autocorrelation, I derive a novel feature of contagion that is sensitive to both shocks and historical legacy of neighborhood coups. Regression models including coup contagion as a predictor, provide substantive support for my hypotheses. In the final assessment, I synthesize explanatory models and provide a machine learning framework to forecast coups. This framework builds on a growing effort in social science to predict episodes of political instability. I leverage a rolling origin technique for cross-validation, sequential feature selection, and an ensemble voting classifier to provide forecasts for coups at the yearly level. I find that predictive sensitivity to coups is increasing over time using these methods and can result in practical forecasts for policy makers.