This thesis is a work of fiction in the form of a novel.

Maps -- Chapter I. The regiments and the posts -- Chapter II. Recruitment -- Chapter III. Routine at the Western posts -- Chapter IV. Rations, clothing, promotions, pay, and care of the disabled -- Chapter V. Discipline and related problems -- Chapter VI. Entertainment, moral guidance, and burial of the frontier -- Chapter VII. Conclusion -- Bibliography.

No description available.

Este trabalho aplica metodologia de Wang (2003a, 2003b) para definir uma nova medida do produto de bancos brasileiros. Acredita-se que tal medida seja superior às comumente utilizadas na literatura por se tratar de uma variável de fluxo, incorporar os depósitos bancários de maneira teoricamente embasada e levar em consideração a exposição ao risco. Esta nova variável de produção é utilizada na estimação de fronteiras estocásticas de produção e custo para o setor bancário brasileiro, visando a mensurar sua eficiência técnica e econômica, assim como a magnitude de suas economias de escala. As fronteiras estimadas apresentam especificação dada pela forma funcional flexível de Fourier e incorporam variáveis determinantes da eficiência. Os resultados apontam para uma acentuada ineficiência do setor bancário, assim como para a ocorrência de retornos crescentes de escala. / This work applies the Wang (2003a, 2003b) methodology to define Brazilian banks\' output. It is believed that this new output measure is superior to the ones commonly used by the literature, since it treats output as a flow variable, provides a theoretical basis for defining the role of deposits and takes account of risk exposure in defining output. This new measure is applied to the estimation of stochastic production and cost frontiers for the Brazilian banking sector, aiming at measuring its technical and economic efficiency, and also the size of its scale economies. The frontiers follow a Fourier flexible functional form especification and incorporate efficiency determinants. The results point to the existence of high inneficiency in the banking industry, and also to the ocurrence of increasing returns to scale.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Minnesota, 1919. / Bibliography: p. 174-182. Also available in digital form on the Internet Archive Web site.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2006. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-141)

From the Chou Dynasty, China expands the south part. At the point of the process of expansion, the frontier and boundary of China changing frequently. This study discusses China¡¦s policy toward frontier and boundary based on the control power of empire center. The history had identified that any nations never had stable boundary. This study explains the making and changing of frontier and boundary, and the impact of geography on the design of national security strategy. This treatise focuses on geography, national organizations and international threats, and result defense, offense and deterrent national style. In this research, I divided the changing process o China¡¦s frontier and boundary into expansion system, dominant system, guard system and buffer system. <p> Our object is to trace the territorial expansion of China from imperial to present the modern nations. This treatise regards the southern expansion of China from the geography standpoint only, not from history, as I understand the word, being both a philosophy of history and a theory of frontiers. China had been a empire, city-state or political system that different from western civilization, and Welpolitik. <p> This treatise, in short, is a contribution to the geography of China state. The policy of China southern expansion shows not only horizontal expansion via military force, but also vertical expansion through economic and administration capability, especially agricultural development. In this research, I illustrate history comparative approach on the south China¡¦s the frontiers and boundary and use an expanded version of military geographic analysis for the organizing framework. First, the gain of earth means that the rulers should invest administration and military resources. Besides, to maintain expansion also means enough domestic economic resources. Second, the increase power means the increase the relative power and nation will raise the status of international system. Rather, it was a conflict internal to the Sinocentric world system. Third, the increase of power means that more geographic ambition. With the expansion of geography, China can not maintain newly occupied territorial order. The result is China most withdraw troops from the southern boundary and carry out tribute system. The tribute system is manage its relationship with countries that did not belong to the China Empire but surrounded it as the nearest neighbours. China uses military forces upon controlled frontiers and use cooperation policy upon the nearest neighbours that as China confronted with limited military forces.

To continue increasing the energy supply to meet global demand in the coming decades, the energy industry needs creative thinking that leads to the development of new energy sources. Unconventional gas resources, especially those in frontier basins, will play an important role in fulfilling future world energy needs. We must identify and quantify potential unconventional gas resources in basins around the world to plan for their development. Basin analog assessment is one technique that can be used to identify and quantify unconventional gas resources that is less expensive and less time consuming. We have developed a basin analog methodology that is useful for rapidly and consistently evaluating the unconventional hydrocarbon resource potential in exploratory basins. We developed software, Basin Analog System (BAS), to perform and accelerate the process of identifying analog basins. Also, we built a database that includes geologic and petroleum systems information of intensely studied North America basins that contain well characterized conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources. We have selected 25 basins in North America that have a history of producing unconventional gas resources. These are “reference” basins that are used to predict resources in frontier or exploratory basins. The software assists us in ranking reference basins that are most analogous to the target basin for the primary purpose of evaluating the potential unconventional resources in the target basin. The methodology allows us to numerically rank all the reference basins relative to the target basin. The accuracy of the results depends on the descriptions of geologic and petroleum systems. We validated the software to make sure it is functioning correctly and to test the validity of the process and the database. Finding a reference basin that is analogous to a frontier basin can provide insights into potential unconventional gas resources of the frontier basin. Our method will help industry predict the unconventional hydrocarbon resource potential of frontier basins, guide exploration strategy, infer reservoir characteristics, and make preliminary decisions concerning the best engineering practices as wells are drilled, completed, stimulated and produced.

In this investigation I discuss power relations between agricultural frontier colonists and the Nicaraguan State, within a framework of neoliberal environmental policies. In so doing, I analyze the origins of this relationship, construction and nature of the State, mestizos-peasants-colonists identity, migration to the agricultural frontier, and the space under contention. Under the pressure of the World Bank, the State has passed several environmental and indigenous rights protection laws. This legal framework involves evicting the colonists from indigenous territories and natural reserves. It has been a decade since the framework was passed, but the government has not fulfilled this duty. This fact raises question about the capabilities of the colonists to remain within those places and the willingness of the government to enforce the law. Between 2009 and 2014, I did ethnographic work and collected geographic information in Mayangna Sauni Bas and Mayangna Sauni Bu indigenous territories, located in the northwest region of Nicaragua. My findings reveal that the colonists are engaged in micropolitics relations with local mestizo power groups. These relations grant protagonism to the colonists to negotiate with the government those measures that they regard as unfair. I reached two main conclusions: the State has marginalized and racialized the colonists, and contradictory interests among the power groups that form the State contribute to these micropolitics relations. This dissertation argues the need to focus agricultural frontier studies in more inclusive and integral ways. Colonists have played the double role of being victimizers of indigenous people and their environmental resources, and victims of ambitions and discrimination from the State. The experiences that colonists, and peasants in general, have acquired through generations under abuses and violence are shaping their own knowledge and political standpoint. / text

The following dissertation considers social relationships along New Spain's northern frontier during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With a specific emphasis on the Pimería Alta, an arid and inhospitable region located along the northern periphery of modern day Sonora, I address the broad intellectual and social category of friendship as it was understood, performed, and manipulated by residents of this far-flung province. In this multi-ethnic realm, friendship functioned as an effective medium through which missionaries, settlers, soldiers, and Indians could navigate social space. Mobility for both Europeans and natives was of prime importance for a host or reasons. Friendship, or at least its performance, made this freedom of mobility possible. In this difficult terrain, friendship was conceived at both the macro (group) and micro (individual) levels. It also became a conceptual space through which Spaniards attempted to colonize the frontier by establishing self-serving standards and ideals of amity. These idealized conceptions of fellowship, however, met up against the practical realities of survival and negotiation on the frontier. Over time, friendship took on a more practical and somewhat engineered functionality, yet never fully divorcing itself from its idealized counterpart. Pima Indians became extremely efficient at both adopting these European standards of friendship while at the same time manipulating them in an effort to counter the negative effects of colonialism. For them, friendship, while at times authentic, could also be a hidden and thus extremely useful from of resistance; a false friend could be a very dangerous enemy. To such nefarious ends, friendship was often feigned and performed in an effort to gain access to goods, respect, and social and physical mobility. This dissertation looks at the ways in which Spaniards and Indians utilized friendship to their respective ends, while attempting to ascertain the codes of behavior and rituals associated with it.