This study examines the relationship between British perceptions and policies regarding India’s North-West Frontier and its Pathan inhabitants and the decline of British power in the subcontinent from 1919 to 1947. Its central argument is that two key constituencies within the framework of British India, the officers of the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service, viewed the Frontier as the most crucial region within Britain’s Indian Empire. Generations of British officers believed that this was the one place in India where the British could suffer a “knockout blow” from either external invasion or internal revolt. In light of this, when confronted by a full-scale Indian nationalist movement after the First World War, the British sought to seal off the Frontier from the rest of India. Confident that they had inoculated the Frontier against nationalism, the British administration on the Frontier carried on as if it were 30 years earlier, fretting about possible Soviet expansion, tribal raids, and Afghan intrigues. This emphasis on external menaces proved costly, however, as it blinded the British to local discontent and the rapid growth of a Frontier nationalist movement by the end of the 1920s. When the Frontier administration belatedly realized that they faced a homegrown nationalist movement they responded with a combination of institutional paralysis and brutality that underscored the British belief that the region constituted the primary bulwark of the British Raj. This violence proved counterproductive. It engendered wide-scale nationalist interest in the Frontier and effectively made British policy in the region a subject of All-Indian political debate. The British responded to mounting nationalist pressure in the 1930s by placing the Frontier at the center of their successful efforts to retain control of India’s defence establishment. This was a short-lived stopgap, however. By the last decade of British rule much of the Frontier was under the administration of the Indian National Congress. Moreover, the British not only concluded that Indian public opinion must be taken into account when formulating policy, but that nationalist prescriptions for the “problem” of the North-West Frontier should be enacted. / text

Fractures can increase the permeability and producability of reservoirs by acting as fluid and gas conduits to wells. Networks of fractures are most important in reservoirs where little to no matrix permeability exists such as tight gas sandstones. Two significant variables, fracture length and the abundance of fractures, are not readily measurable from subsurface observations such as those obtained from cores or well logs. Numerical models suggest natural fracture apertures and lengths follow systematic power-law (Marrett, 1996; Olson, 2007) and negative exponential distributions (Olson, 2004); fracture trace lengths are interrogated. This study tests those propositions through study of fractures in outcrop. Outcrops of the Cretaceous Frontier Formation at Oyster Ridge in southwest Wyoming and Oil Mountain near Casper, in central Wyoming provide evidence of reservoir scale fracture networks in sandstones. In the subsurface the Frontier Formation sandstones are reservoirs that produce gas and oil in several Wyoming basins. I mapped fracture patterns at twenty locations at Oyster Ridge and Oil Mountain and measured fracture trace length distributions and abundance (intensity). Fracture cumulative length distribution plots illustrate systematic length distributions. Trace length distributions of every fracture network follow negative exponential distributions regardless of the number of fractures (N = 39 to N = 394) or the size of the outcrop (1.3 to 710 m²). Results show that the fractures follow a negative exponential distribution over a range of lengths of a few centimeters to tens of meters. These trace length distributions are consistent with geomechanical model fracture pattern simulation results by Olson (2004) that suggests negative exponential trace length distribution result from fracture to fracture interaction during fracture formation. Length distributions from my field study are inconsistent with pattern simulation results by Marrett (1996) and Olson (2007) and others that produce power-law length distributions. This inconsistency suggests that the model assumptions of Olson (2004) best account for the patterns I observed. Two dimensional fracture intensity, defined as the total fracture trace length divided by the map area, was measured for each outcrop to determine how structural position affects fracture abundance patterns. Two-dimensional fracture intensity measurements collected at thirteen structural locations around Oil Mountain show higher values of fracture intensity near the fold-axial-trace compared to fold limbs. The difference is as much as 7.4 fractures per meter near fold hinges compared to 0.63 fractures per meter in fold limbs. Outcrops near small faults, with displacement of a few meters, show an increase in fracture intensity from background values around 4.8 fractures per meter to values nearly three times as high (13 fractures per meter) near faults. Values of fracture intensity that are more elevated near small tear faults imply that faulting has a greater influence on fracture intensity than folding. / text

Using archaeological and ethnohistorical data, this dissertation examines the character of the relationship between the Late Postclassic (ca. AD 1250-1520) frontier center of Totogal, located in the western Tuxtla Mountains (Toztlan) of southern Veracruz, Mexico, and the expanding Aztec Empire. Traditional models of imperialism examine frontiers from a core perspective that limits the autonomy and agency of groups in the path of expansion. Recent ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological studies of other boundaries, however, suggest that considerable room for negotiation exists within the space of interactions, whether asymmetrical amounts of power characterize the home bases of those groups. I argue that elites at Totogal, using imperial symbols and markers of their own high status, sponsored feasts and rituals for the non-elite public, during which they brokered the potentially conflicting interests of the Aztecs and the tribute paying population of the Tuxtlas. The invitation of the public to feasts and rituals that combined imperial and local elite symbols (and possibly green obsidian), naturalized the relationship between local elites and imperial representatives with non-elite occupants of Totogal and nearby settlements by establishing a reciprocal system of gifting whereby food and drink, served in the context of elaborate religious and commensal rituals, provided a benefit to the Tuxteco public which, along with other exotic highland goods, was viewed as an acceptable exchange for the local tribute items that the empire desired. This study is an important application of current anthropological perspectives on boundaries, borders, and frontiers to the Aztec Empire. It is also a critical examination of the types of strategies individuals and groups living in boundary regions can enact in situations of contact and change. While studies of modern groups in boundary regions have addressed identity construction and manipulation, and other dynamic social, political, and cultural processes that take place, they do not typically or systematically examine how the negotiations that are enacted in boundary zones are materialized—how changing identities are represented symbolically through the use of particular products or consumption patterns. It is in this area that archaeological perspectives on boundary zone interactions can make important contributions to the modern world.

This dissertation examines multiple state and local expenditure categories in the United States to expand understanding of fiscal federalism and spatial interactions among governments. First, the author investigates the relationship between police expenditures and crime rates from a spatial perspective. Both police expenditures and crime rates in one state are found to exhibit a similar pattern to that in neighboring states. Spatial correlation is also detected between police expenditures and crime rates. As police of neighbors in fact deter crime at home, there are positive externalities present among the states. Second, the author conducts new tests on the Leviathan hypothesis, i.e., more competition, smaller government. While cost efficiency is used in place of government size to capture the idea that fiscal decentralization reduces wasteful expenditures, spatial interaction is taken as another measure for decentralization. The hypothesis is supported by some evidence from total, police, highway, and welfare expenditures.

Attainment of greater efficiency in hospital operations has become a goal highly sought after as a result of several factors including skyrocketing costs. The possibility that the different incentives associated with ownership type might affect efficiency has been covered thoroughly in the literature. There are numerous studies comparing for-profit to not-for-profit hospitals or public to private hospitals. Analysis of federal ownership, however, has been less studied. In particular, comparisons involving military hospitals are non-existent, attributed to data availability and an assumption that military hospitals are too different from civilian facilities. This dissertation employs a cross-sectional Stochastic Frontier Analysis (“SFA”) of 2006 data to compare the technical efficiency of military, for-profit, not-for-profit, and other government hospitals, controlling for differences in patients, scope of work, physicianhospital working arrangements, and other structural characteristics. Four model specifications are examined, varying the method of accounting for heterogeneity of case mix. One of the specifications uses a distance function technique to allow for specific inclusion of multiple outputs, namely inpatient and outpatient workload. Results obtained using SFA are validated using Data Envelopment Analysis (“DEA”) and compared with results produced through simple ratio analysis. Estimates of overall technical efficiency ranged from 76% to 80%. The analysis found no significant correlation between ownership category and technical efficiency. Factors found to be significantly correlated with greater technical efficiency include younger average patient age, more female patients, percentage of surgical inpatient work, percentage of circulatory system-based work, accreditation, and having all credentialed physicians (i.e. no physician employees). Pooled-vs.-partitioned analysis showed that military hospitals are indeed different, but not enough to render comparisons meaningless. Data Envelopment Analysis produced comparable individual hospital efficiency scores (correlations of approximately 0.6 between like specifications using SFA and DEA) and comparable average efficiency (~87%). Ratio analysis results were sensitive to the specific ratio analyzed. This dissertation adds to the body of literature on the relationship between ownership and hospital technical efficiency. It is the first comparison of military and civilian hospital technical efficiency.

Since the open door policy was embarked upon in 1979, China s banking sector has undergone gradual but notable reforms. A key objective of the reforms implemented by the Chinese government is to build an effective, competitive and stable banking system in order to improve its efficiency and reliability. This study employs both parametric stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) methods to assess and evaluate the cost efficiency of Chinese banks over the period from 1994 until 2007, a period characterised by far-reaching changes brought about by the banking reforms. To this end, we first compare a number of specifications of stochastic cost frontier models to determine the preferred frontier model which are adopted in our efficiency analysis. The preferred model specification for our sample is the one stage SFA model that includes the traditional input prices, the outputs and the control variables (that is, equity, non-performing loans and the time trend) in the cost frontier and the environmental variables (that is, ownership structure, size, deregulation, market structure and market discipline) in the inefficiency term. Moreover, we also employ two cost DEA models (traditional DEA and New DEA) as a complement to the preferred SFA model for methodological cross-checking purposes. Similar to the previous empirical literature, we find that in most cases only moderate consistency across the different techniques. The cost efficiency of Chinese banks is found to be 91% on average, based on our SFA model, over the period from 1994 until 2007. Based on the results of the DEA and New DEA models, the average cost efficiency for Chinese banks over the sample period is about 89% and 87%, respectively. We find that Chinese banking efficiency has deteriorated after China s admission to the WTO, suggesting that the significant external environmental changes which arose from China s WTO entry may have had a negative impact on its banking efficiency. In addition, we find that the majority of Chinese banks reveal scale inefficiencies and as asset size increases, banks tend to pass from increasing, to constant, and then to decreasing returns to scale. Our findings also show that both state-owned banks and foreign banks are more efficient than domestic private banks and larger banks tend to be relatively more efficient than smaller banks. These and other results suggest that in order to enhance Chinese banking efficiency, the government needs to continue with the banking reform process and in particular, to open up banking markets, to improve risk management and corporate governance in Chinese banks and to encourage the expansion of banks.

In contrast to the relatively rapid changes occurring in the modern American army, the period between the end of the War of 1812 and the beginning of the Mexican War offers a definite period for a study of military life when reform came slowly. During the period of study, leaders made few attempts to reform the general structure of the military institution as a social system. On the other hand, many changes can be discerned which improved weaponry and equipment, tactics, supply and administrative procedures, moral guidance, recreational facilities, and pay.

This thesis is an attempt to portray the part the forts of the Southwest had in developing the Federal Indian Policy in that region from 1865 to 1885.

Diploma thesis deals with relict land border between Bohemia and Moravia in the context of Moravistic movement which appeared in Czechia after 1989. Aim of the thesis is to assess the existence of relict land border in the minds of people and to reflect the role of the land border in relation to the revival of regionalism and nationalism. The first part of the thesis discusses the theory of relict border, regional identity and nation in the literature. The second part compares the course of the land border with territorial reach of declaring Moravian nationality by inhabitants of the districts adjacent to the border in contemporary censuses and also with the range of the success of Moravistic politic parties in elections. The objective is to compare the border with one of the possible contemporary zones which could delimitate Moravia. The third part of the thesis analyzes the forms and contexts of Moravian identity in two selected municipalities adjacent to the land border. These municipalities represent distinct types of the Czech-Moravian borderland which differ by declaring the nationality, achievements of Moravistic parties in elections, population change after 1945 and inclusion to administrative units in Bohemia or in Moravia. Finally, awareness of the course of the land border in these...

M.A. (History) / Please refer to full text to view abstract