Understanding and controlling the forces between colloidal particles in solution, along with the resulting stability of a dispersion of such particles, continues to be at topic of great interest. Although most laboratory studies focus on model systems in which the number of system species is kept to a minimum, real colloidal systems can be much more complex, consisting of multiple components that can vary greatly in size, charge, shape, etc. This dissertation focused on a topic that has received very little prior study, namely synergistic effects that can arise in mixed colloidal systems in which the resulting force and stability of the system cannot be predicted using results obtained in more idealized systems consisting of fewer components. Two specific systems were studied. The first was a ternary system of particles in which micron-sized particles were in a dispersion containing both nanoparticles and submicron particles. It was shown through both computation modeling and direct force measurements that the nanoparticles can create attractive forces between the micron and submicron particles such that a halo of submicron particles is formed. This halo results in long range forces between the microparticles that cannot be predicted from measurements in systems containing only nanoparticles or only submicron particles. In addition, the forces can be large enough to alter the stability of a dispersion of these microparticles. The second system consisted of microparticles in a solution containing nanoparticles and a polyelectrolyte, specifically poly(acrylic) acid. Again, through modeling and experimentation, it was found that complexation of the nanoparticles and polyelectrolyte molecules led to depletion and structural forces between the microparticles that were substantially greater than the sum of the forces measured in systems of only nanoparticles or only polyelectrolyte. It was also found that these greater forces could lead to destabilization of a dispersion of microparticles that was stable when only nanoparticles or only polyelectrolyte was present. While these results clearly demonstrate the difficulty associated with predicting forces and stability in mixed colloidal systems, they also indicate that such systems offer new and interesting opportunities for controlling stability that clearly warrant additional study. / Ph. D.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / A changed security environment after the end of the Cold War forced Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden to reassess their security policy. New threats and challenges such as international terrorism, WMD, organized crime, the greater disparity of wealth and increased migration have replaced traditional military threats. Larger non-military concerns like peacekeeping operations, hu-manitarian support, and support to civil authorities have replaced territorial defense. All of which require international cooperation. Following a comprehensive security strategy, Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden aim to defend their territory, protect their population, and fostering international peace and security. Austria and Sweden focus on the integration and solidarity with the Euro-pean Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Switzerland retains its perpetual neutrality, but has shown increased international cooperation. Austria and Sweden model their Armed Forces after the EU Petersberg Tasks and have small peacetime organizations with a professional cadre and annual conscripts. The Swiss Armed Forces XXI focus on territorial defense and are organized in accordance with universal conscription and wartime organization policies. Traditional political, social, and economic aspects hinder Switzerland from following a straightforward strategy toward solidarity and fundamental change in its Armed Forces. Switzerland's new security policy and its Armed Forces XXI do not fully meet the requirements to fight new threats and challenges together with the international community. / Lieutenant Colonel, Swiss Air Force

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / This thesis defines the strategic utility of Special Operation Forces (SOF), identifies why SOF only provide limited strategic utility, and presents an operational concept for the reorganization, alignment, and employment of SOF to overcome these shortf alls. The thesis is presented in a deductive manner that argues that SOF were designed for strategic purposes, and leads the reader to conclude that reformation must occur for SOF to provide strategic utility and meet their intent. SOF would be in an optimal position to meet their organizational intent by becoming a fifth armed service within the Department of Defense (DoD). Through the creation of mission-based units and a holistic employment strategy, SOF would become a strategic instrument capability of assisting national decision -makers in blending the elements of national power. Finally, the thesis concludes with additional required areas for research to make this concept become a reality, but that are beyond the scope of this study. / Major, United States Army

This thesis explores institutionalized discrimination in the United States Military by examining the rationales given for policies that exclude, or limit the military service of racial minorities, women and homosexuals, and the rationales given for altering such policies. outgroups such as racial minorities, women and homosexuals are presumed to be a threat to the white male heterosexual majority within the military services. The presence of these outgroups in the military has been officially characterized as threatening to small-unit cohesion, and therefore threatening to military readiness. This thesis was first based upon the assumption that the rationales favoring discriminatory policies, and rationales favoring reform, would be expressed in the language of small-group theories of cohesion, that is, cohesion based upon the self-categorization of group members, or the interdependence of group members. However, in the data analysis process, two other rationales emerged: the ideological and the bureaucratic rationales. Data illustrating these four rationales were drawn from a content analysis of articles and other commentary published in the New York Times. Statements were crosstabulated by the stance (exclusionist or reformist) they supported and the rationale (self-categorical, interdependent, ideological or bureaucratic) they employed to justify the stance. This analysis was first done separately for each of the three groups, racial minorities, women and homosexuals, and then the data for each of the three outgroups were compared and contrasted. Findings indicate that despite the military's official characterization of outgroups as a threat to small-unit cohesion, relatively little of the debate was expressed in terms of small-group theories of cohesion-the self-categorization of, or interdependence of group members. The most frequently employed rationales were, in fact, ideological in character. Between the three groups, however, some differences in patterns of rationales and stances emerged. The findings are placed in their historical and political contexts to help explain the results of the analysis, and to illuminate the experience of racial minorities, women and homosexuals in the United States military.

1. There is a crisis in economics. The discipline evolved in nineteenth century Europe and is difficult to adapt to modern conditions, even in the West, and particularly in alien cultures. Application of conventional economic analysis to economic activity in a culture as alien as traditional China highlights the biases in assumptions of the paradigm. 2. The concepts, models and vocabulary evolved over one hundred years ago predate important developments in the natural sciences. It is now necessary for economists to concede no goods can ever be 'produced', and they are not 'consumed' either. In clear terms matter is transformed, but is not created or destroyed (First Law of Thermodynamics). 3. When people transform matter, in lay language we say energy is 'used'. In a simple cottage industry, 'raw material' is transformed into a commodity in front of our eyes by the use of human energy and the release of energy from a 'fuel'. In modem complex economic activity, it is difficult or impossible to keep track of the processes from raw matter to transformed 'product' although the principle is the same. 4. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in any transformation, energy is not created or destroyed, but becomes 'less available'. In short, entropy increases. This appears to work well for pure physics and chemistry, but its application to analysis of economic activity has only been notional. 5. There is a reason why economists borrowing terms from hard science experience difficulty. It is because physicists and chemists have addressed specific laboratory and engineering problems, but not the broader economic issues. The hypothesis gradually evolved in this research program that not only economic concepts and terms needed reworking, but those in physics as well. The definitions of energy as 'ability to do works and of entropy as 'unavailable energy' jar the logic of our commonsense. 6. The notion of 'available energy' was traced back to the phenomenon in physical chemistry known as exothermicity, or the release of energy during a chemical reaction. It was reasoned that while scientists had focussed on this phenomenon and measured it carefully they saw no need to ask where the energy came from, or to measure its transformation. From the perspective of analysing economic activity, the question was important. 7. It was hypothesised that the energy released from a fuel as electromagnetic radiation (mainly heat) was the residual of the set of coulombic forces within atoms that maintain the structure of shells of electrons around the protons. This idea in turn came from the presumption that molecular bonding is a residual of vectors of the set of coulombic forces within atoms, and the likelihood that in an exothermic reaction, after the reactants are said (by scientists) to 'seek equilibrium', product molecules have a portion of the coulombic forces 'left over' and not required to maintain their structures. An estimate was made of the coulombic forces extant in various fuels, and compared with the known data for their release of energy. 8. The idea was developed in detail. The concept we call in economics, 'production', and should call 'transformation' can only occur when forces locked within atoms are released as electromagnetic forces. (Gravitational forces exist because matter has been put 'there' by electromagnetic radiation). When 100 grams of dry grass fuel is burnt, about 2 megajoules of electromagnetic radiation are released. It was estimated that the coulombic forces between each electron and proton in that amount dry grass total 150 gigajoules (or giganewtons, since the reference is to forces). 9. Within the boundary of a simple economic activity, the ratio of aggregated coulombic forces locked up within atoms to the electromagnetic forces radiated out was estimated at the beginning of the activity, and then after a duration. The ratio of forces always tends towards 'evening out'. This measurement captures the entropy phenomenon which has been said by Georgescu-Roegen to be the basis of all economic activity. 10. At the roots of the economic paradigm founded by Adam Smith is the premise that the material world, as a set of substances, is a stage on which economic actors 'add value', bid prices up and down, and by their rational perception manage their livelihoods and surroundings well. From the findings of this research program it is contended that the surroundings of economic actors can be classed into two categories: locked up (coulombic) electromagnetic forces, and radiated electromagnetic forces. The former has a tendency to convert to the latter. All action, including all economic activity, and all life can be traced to a point in space and time where this conversion is (naturally) occurring. The phenomenon is analogous to a slope where water cascades, and gravitational potential energy converts to other (either useless or useful) forms of energy. To appreciate the nature of this phenomena, and to attempt to fathom its dimensions, sets our perceptions of ourselves as economic actors in a quite different and very humbling context.

Les MEMS et NEMS (Micro et Nano ElectroMechanical Systems) connaissent un développement important notamment dans le cadre de la Nanomécanique. Le bon fonctionnement de ces MEMS/NEMS est soumis au contrôle des interactions de surfaces séparées par des distances de l'ordre de 100 nm à 1 Μm. A cette échelle, les forces dominantes peuvent être de nature variée (Van der Waals, Casimir, électrostatique, magnétique,...). Ce travail de thèse est consacré à l'étude expérimentale par AFM des interactions électrostatiques et de Van der Waals/Casimir entre une microsphère et une surface d'or. Une attention particulière a été apportée à la préparation et à la caractérisation des sondes (microsphère collée sur un microlevier). Ensuite, à partir de l'analyse du bruit et de la sensibilité du système de mesure, nous avons pu montrer notre capacité à mesurer des forces faibles avec une résolution inférieure au piconewton. Par une détection statique, nous avons mesuré précisément des forces capacitives de l'ordre de quelques dizaines de piconewton et pour des distances comprises entre 100 et 500 nm. Nous avons mesuré et quantifié les effets de la déflexion du microlevier sur la détermination de la distance sphère-surface. Par des mesures dynamiques, nous avons étudié le couplage entre un oscillateur (sphère-microlevier) excité mécaniquement ou thermiquement et une surface sous l'effet de la force de Casimir. Enfin, les mesures en mode dynamique, nous ont permis d'aborder l'étude des mécanismes de dissipation associés aux interactions à longue distance. Nous avons ainsi observé la dissipation par couplage électromécanique.

Den svenska Försvarsmakten brukar fråga sig om den är tillräckligt interoperabel för att kunna delta i internationella insatser. En minst lika berättigad fråga borde vara om den är tillräckligt interoperabel, mellan sina försvarsgrenar, för att kunna genomföra självständiga operationer utifrån teorin om gemensam krigföring. Den bristande förmågan till gemensam krigföring i försvarsmakter generellt och för Sveriges Försvarsmakt specifikt utgör uppsatsens grundläggande problem. Genom att anpassa och skapa ett analysverktyg utifrån Codners och Sjöbloms interoperabilitetsteori har Försvarsmaktens dokument analyserats för att belysa eventuella svagheter kopplat till gemensam krigföring och nationell interoperabilitet mellan mark- och flygstridskrafterna. Undersökningen visar på svagheter kopplat till den anpassade interoperabilitetsteorin och Försvarsmaktens styrande dokument. Förmågan till nationell interoperabilitet mellan mark- och flygstridskrafterna är begränsade. Främst beror det på svagheter i Försvarsmaktens strategiska koncept som inte tillräckligt beskriver betydelsen av gemensam krigföring på alla nivåer och vikten av interoperabilitet mellan försvarsgrenarna. En annan slutsats är att Försvarsmaktens doktrinära agerande riskerar att urvattna Försvarsmakten och dess försvarsgrenar på viktiga teoretiska och kulturella skillnader som behövs för att synergier skall kunna uppstå vid gemensam krigföring. / The Swedish Armed Forces tend to ask themselves if it is sufficiently multinational interoperablefor participation in international operations. An equally valid question today should be whether theSwedish Armed Forces are sufficiently nationally / internally interoperable, between their branchesof service, to be able to conduct independent operations based on the joint warfare theory.The lack of ability to joint warfare in the armed forces in general and the Swedish Armed Forcesspecially constitutes the essay´s fundamental problem. By using Codners and Sjöbloms custominteroperability theory, the Swedish Armed Forces documents were analyzed to highlight anyweaknesses related to joint warfare and national interoperability between Ground and Air Forces.The survey shows weaknesses linked to the custom theory and Swedish Armed Forces governingdocuments. The ability of a national interoperability is limited between Ground and Air Forcestoday, mostly because of weaknesses in the Swedish Armed Forces strategic concept which doesnot describe the importance of joint warfare at all levels sufficiently. This leads to deficienciesreflected in doctrines, regulations, technology, techniques and exercises. Lack of common documents,techniques, methods and exercises in turn affects armed services understanding of theirdifferent backgrounds and unique perspectives. The result will therefore be low national interoperabilityamong the armed services.

Thesis (Master of Military Studies)-Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2008. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Jan 11, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

MAIR / Department of Development Studies / See the attached abstract below