Between 1893 and 1920 the rising tide of racial antagonism and discrimination that swept America fundamentally altered racial relations in the United States Navy. African Americans, an integral part of the enlisted force since the Revolutionary War, found their labor devalued and opportunities for participation and promotion curtailed as civilian leaders and white naval personnel made repeated attempts to exclude blacks from the service. Between 1920 and 1942 the few black sailors who remained in the navy found few opportunities. The development of Jim Crow in the U.S. Navy occurred in three phases. During the first, between 1893 and 1919, a de facto policy excluded African Americans from all ratings save those of the messman's branch. The second major phase began in April 1919 with the cessation of domestic enlistments in the messman’s branch. The meant the effective exclusion of blacks, as the navy had previously limited them to this one area of service. Between World War I and 1933 thousands of East Asians enlisted as messmen and stewards, replacing native-born Americans. The third phase, between 1933 and 1942, represented a qualified step forward for blacks as the navy again began to recruit them, though it limited them to the messman branch. In their circumscribed roles on board ship, black messmen and stewards suffered discrimination and possessed few opportunities for advancement. In the late-1930’s and early-1940’s public figures, including prominent leaders of the African American community, charged the navy, army, and defense industries with practicing racial discrimination. The navy, reflecting its general conservatism, responded slowly to demands for change. By 1942, however, the navy began detailing black men to billets outside the messman’s branch, a first step away from Jim Crowstyle policies. This thesis analyzes the evolution of discriminatory and exclusionary enlistment policies in the navy. While others have provided the basic outline of segregation in the navy, this thesis provides a more complete analysis of the navy’s actions in the context of wider American society. This thesis also confirms that the navy was a slow-moving actor which followed the society’s lead and did not substantially revise existing racial hierarchy.

The close proximity to the New Madrid Seismic Zone and the significant population and infrastructure presents a potentially substantial risk for central U.S. cities such as Memphis, Tennessee. However, seismic provisions in currently adopted Memphis building codes for non-essential structures have a lower seismic design intensity level than the 2003 International Building Code (IBC) with broader acceptance nationally. As such, it is important to evaluate structures designed with these local seismic provisions to determine whether they will perform adequately during two different design-level earthquakes in this region. A four-story reinforced concrete (RC) moment frame with wide-module pan joists was designed according to current building codes relevant to the central U.S.: the 2003 IBC, the City of Memphis and Shelby County locally amended version of the 2003 IBC, and the 1999 Standard Building Code (SBC). Special moment frames (SMFs) were required for the IBC and SBC designs, but lower design forces in the amended IBC case study permitted an intermediate moment frame (IMF). However, the margin by which a SMF was required was very small for the SBC design. For slightly different conditions IMFs could be used. Nonlinear push-over and dynamic analyses using synthetic ground motions developed for Memphis for 2% and 10% probabilities of exceedance in 50 years were conducted for each of the three designs. The FEMA 356 recommended Basic Safety Objective (BSO) is to dually achieve Life Safety (LS) for the 10% in 50 years earthquake and Collapse Prevention (CP) for the 2% in 50 years earthquake. For the member-level evaluation, the SMF designs met the LS performance objective, but none of the designs met the CP performance objective or the BSO. However, the margin by which the SMF buildings exceeded CP performance was relatively small compared to that of the IMF building. Fragility curves were also developed to provide an estimate of the probability of exceeding various performance levels and quantitative performance limits. These relationships further emphasize the benefits of using an SMF as required by the IBC and, in this case, the SBC.

Historically, Chinese immigrants to the United States are a special group. They were or almost were banned from 1882 to 1968. Since in 1968 the United States abolished national origin quotas and eliminated national, race, or ancestry as a basis for immigration, thousands of Chinese immigrants came to the United States. The total population of Chinese immigrants to the US between 1980 and 2002 was 911,220, whereas it was 136,843 between 1891 and 1979. Not only did the population of Chinese immigrants have great change, the quality of Chinese immigrants also had substantial difference from those immigrated in the last century. However, there are very limited literatures focusing on the dynamics of Chinese immigration in these twenty years, which is the most important time period for Chinese immigration. The following study tries to describe the dynamics of Chinese immigration to the United States between 1980 and 2002; and analyze the influence of the American immigration laws on Chinese immigration. The dynamics of Chinese immigrants are described and analyzed by different migration categories. Other social and economic factors are added to comprehensively understand the change of Chinese immigration.

The recent civil nuclear cooperation proposed by the Bush Administration and the Government of India has heightened the necessity of assessing India's nuclear fuel cycle inclusive of nuclear materials and facilities. This agreement proposes to change the long-standing U.S. policy of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons by denying nuclear technology transfer to non-NPT signatory states. The nuclear tests in 1998 have convinced the world community that India would never relinquish its nuclear arsenal. This has driven the desire to engage India through civilian nuclear cooperation. The cornerstone of any civilian nuclear technological support necessitates the separation of military and civilian facilities. A complete nuclear fuel cycle assessment of India emphasizes the entwinment of the military and civilian facilities and would aid in moving forward with the separation plan. To estimate the existing uranium reserves in India, a complete historical assessment of ore production, conversion, and processing capabilities was performed using open source information and compared to independent reports. Nuclear energy and plutonium production (reactor- and weapons-grade) was simulated using declared capacity factors and modern simulation tools. The three-stage nuclear power program entities and all the components of civilian and military significance were assembled into a flowsheet to allow for a macroscopic vision of the Indian fuel cycle. A detailed view of the nuclear fuel cycle opens avenues for technological collaboration. The fuel cycle that grows from this study exploits domestic thorium reserves with advanced international technology and optimized for the existing system. To utilize any appreciable fraction of the world's supply of thorium, nuclear breeding is necessary. The two known possibilities for production of more fissionable material in the reactor than is consumed as fuel are fast breeders or thermal breeders. This dissertation analyzes a thermal breeder core concept involving the CANDU core design. The end-oflife fuel characteristics evolved from the designed fuel composition is proliferation resistant and economical in integrating this technology into the Indian nuclear fuel cycle. Furthermore, it is shown that the separation of the military and civilian components of the Indian fuel cycle can be facilitated through the implementation of such a system.

Thesis (M.S. in environmental science)--Washington State University, December 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jan. 22, 2010). "School of Earth and Environmental Science." Includes bibliographical references (p. 18-23).

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor: Rothstein, Hy. Second Reader: Jansen, Erik. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 28, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Irregular Warfare, Population-centric Warfare, organizational theory and design, U.S. Special Operations Command. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-76). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003. / "MBA professional report."--Cover. Joint authors: Jaja Marshall, Ricky Rivera, Christopher Roberto. Thesis advisor(s): Becky Jones, James Suchan. Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-121). Also available online.

Since the 1980's, wage inequality in the U.S. has been dramatically increasing. I investigate the impact of occupational structure, measured at the three-digit level, on this trend of growing wage inequality. The investigation is conducted in terms of three major research tasks. First, I test the validity of the 'disaggregate structuration' view in relation to growing wage inequality. The 'disaggregate structuration' view is suggested as an alternative to big class theories. Theorists of the 'disaggregate structuration' view assert that an occupation is a gemeinschaftlich community characterized by internal homogeneity. Thus, this view implies that most of the rise in inequality occurs between occupations and that within-occupational inequality is actually decreasing, due to the progress of 'occupationalization.' My analyses, however, find that the majority of the growth in inequality has occurred within occupations. Secondly, I thus seek a more delineated explanation for the causes of rising within-occupational inequality. I investigate whether previously proposed hypotheses can account for this phenomenon. Hypotheses that I test include demographic change, deindustrialization, unions, insecure employment relations, increases in the return to skill, and changes of firm organizations. Although smaller than within-occupational inequality, between-occupational inequality has also been growing during this period. Thirdly, I therefore investigate the changes of between-occupational inequality. Since between- occupational inequality is a weighted sum of occupational mean wages, I examine whether the same hypotheses tested for within-occupational inequality can explain the changes in occupational mean wages over time. Using the Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1983 to 2002, I find that as within-occupational inequality has grown faster than between-occupational inequality, the direct association between occupational structure and wage inequality has declined over this period. While the importance of general skills (i.e., education) in determining workers' wages is growing, the importance of occupation-specific skills is declining. For regression models of hourly wages, the amount of R-squared increase by adding three-digit occupational codes (331 occupational dummies) in addition to general skills (5 dummies of education) has decreased for this period. Therefore, the strong version of 'aggregate structuration' and 'occupationalization' is not supported. I would like to note, however, that the R-squared of hourly wage increases jumped significantly when we use three-digit occupational codes instead of one-digit occupational codes even after adjusting for the degrees of freedom. Thus, the weak version of structuration is not rejected. For multivariate tests, inequality indexes and other variables by detailed occupation are extracted from each year's CPS and merged into one panel data file with occupation as a unit of analysis. Multi-level growth models are then estimated using detailed occupational categories as the unit of analysis in order to assess how the structural characteristics of occupations affect changes in mean wages and wage inequality over this time period. Contrary to the expectations of the skill-biased technological change hypothesis, changes in the distribution of education do not affect the growth of wage inequality within occupations. In contrast to the traditional view of unions as promoting wage equality, within-occupational inequality is increased by unionization. The increase of female labor market participation seems to pull down inequality in an occupation. Deindustrialization does not account for the rise of intra-occupational inequality, while insecure employment relations do. As expected by the organizational change view, inequality grows faster in high skill jobs and service jobs. Regarding between-occupational inequality, traditional explanations do better jobs in accounting for its change than for within-occupational inequality. Skill biased technological changes and unions have positive effects on occupational mean wages. Multi-level growth models provide additional evidence against disaggregate structuration. The disaggregate structuration view assumes that occupational common interests will be achieved as accomplishment of active occupational associations. Thus, the changes of occupational mean wage, which is a clearly common interest of members in an occupation, should be explained by occupation itself, not by other demographic and institutional variables. Contrary to this expectation, most of the within-occupational variation are not explained well by other demographic and institutional variables, including race, gender, and unions. In conclusion, although sociologists often view occupation as the back-bone of the stratification system, the rise in within-occupational inequality suggests that broader, more complex approaches may be needed in order to better explain the increasing disparity in wages. I suggest that more attention should be given to firm level studies in which changes inside and between firms are investigated. / text

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Incarceration has long been understood to challenge personal identities. Upon entry into the prison, individuals undergo rituals of humiliation that reformulate them in the image of the institution (Goffman 1961). Daily life in prison is then shaped by rules, regulations, and surveillance constraining the possibilities for self-presentation. This dissertation focuses on the ways women incarcerated in the state of Arizona construct a sense of self in the extraordinary context of prison. My analysis is based on a year and a half of fieldwork in an Arizona county jail and in a minimum-security yard at Arizona's state prison for women. I explore the linguistic and semiotic mechanisms by which women negotiate imposed inmate symbolism in relation to gender, race, class, and other aspects of identity critical to their self-understanding. Hair care rituals are one site of this negotiation I analyze in detail. During intimate hair styling sessions, women draw on larger cultural discourses of beauty and cultivate their bodies in reference to particular aesthetic values. These rituals infuse long hair with value as a symbol of beauty, worth, and productive prison time. Growing your hair, then, becomes an avenue to make claims to something other than an inmate identity and to fill the empty time of prison punishment. In light of the rapid expansion of the U.S. prison system over the past three decades, my analysis contributes to scholarship on modern incarceration. Attention to the practices women engage in highlights the constant humiliation of prison punishment. The mundane regulations of prison, such as uniforms, hair care restrictions, and limitations on hygiene, manipulate normalcy to such a degree as to cause a continual affront to the self. Beyond reformulating individual identity, I argue that the humiliation of prison punishment challenges the humanity of incarcerated individuals. The linguistic and semiotic practices women employ, like hair care rituals, make claims to dignity in the face of that challenge. However, these practices also carry the potential to become sites of punishment as officers animate their authority in prison discipline. These moments of discipline normalize the state's domination over incarcerated women, opening the space for severe forms of punishment. The same threads of humiliation and degradation that have been explored in the extreme conditions of solitary confinement carry across spaces of incarceration, framing the mundane methods of minimum-security punishment. When growing one's hair becomes a critical claim to dignity, and that claim is contested through restriction, regulation, and control over hair, the constant threat incarceration makes to one's humanity becomes visible. The implications of this threat, I argue, can be realized in bodily violence, total domination, and even madness.