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This thesis follows four main objectives. First, it explores Iran's First Development Plan directives from the economic, marketing, cultural, and financial perspectives by comparing data available from both local and international organisations. Second, it sets out to evaluate and determine the categories in which Iran has a comparative advantage. Third, it purports to analyse Iran's classification of competitors, and her exports potential to EU by considering similar and comparable economies. Fourth, it predicts Iran's marketing with EU during her Second Development Plan by forecasting both economic and non-economic factors. In this thesis, we first review and explore many factors that have been considered to be essential for Iran's export during her First Development Plan by using statistical methods such as the trend and time series analyses. Furthermore, the results of Iran's Reveal Comparative Advantage (RCA) for Non-Oil exports to EU indicate that it has a good potential for developing its exports in agriculture and labour-intensive products. Moreover, by reviewing and analysing the trade performance of Iran and its competitors, we can determine the marketing and economic status of these countries in terms of export trends and Non-Oil Export Similarity Index(ESa) in selected categories. Considering our classification of Iran's competitors, we can predict its marketing of Non-Oil products to EU in accordance with its Second Development Plan (1995-99) and with respect to three categories: political and cultural backgrounds, economic and marketing analyses, and interviews with experts. Finally, we can conclude that the model which we have proposed for the export marketing of Iran's Non-Oil products, and which is based on the theories of International Product Life Cycle and Experience Curve, fits in with the implications of the results obtained throughout this research.

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic resurgence in the United States capabilities of deploying her military forces around the world, particularly, in the Persian Gulf region. The region's security and stability, due to its extensive oil reserves, is crucial for the well being of the global economy. This thesis is a study of the interaction between the United States' policies and Persian Gulf regional developments in the new system of power relations in the region. No bilateral interaction can be understood properly without a reference to the multilateral context in which it occurs. Therefore, in this study the Persian Gulf region is used as the unit of analysis and the interaction is studied in the context of regional security and stability as methods of assessing the effects of the two interacting factors. The study traces both regional developments and US policies towards the region in a period of approximately three decades since the British withdrawal in the early 70s and it attempts to construct an analytical framework for the study of the effect of regional developments upon US policies in the region. The most salient features of the present work and its original contribution to the literature of the Persian Gulf studies are as follows: 1. Using a systemic approach, it defines the Persian Gulf as a geopolitical region and rejects the concept that it has sub-systemic relations to the Middle East. 2. It shows instead that the region is a subsystem of the international system. The interaction between US policies and regional developments is directly assessed without reference to intermediate levels. 3. Three systems of power relation have been proposed as the main framework for the study of the United States' role in the region from the time of the British withdrawal from the region. 4. A distinction has been made between "security of the Persian Gulf region" and "security of the foreign power interests in this region" in order to assess the interaction between US policies and the regional developments. 5. It presents for the first time the idea of "dual functional effects of regional developments" and shows that the role of the United States in this region is a function of two complementary variables of "threats" and "opportunities". This study applies different methods in dealing with its different procedures of analysis namely: "analysing historical background"; "conceptual clarifications"; "explaining the problematic"; "hypothetical illustrations"; "reasoning" and "theory building and prescription. " However, it mostly uses a normative analysis of rational (not actual) choices.

Second-generation East Indian women represent a visible ethnic minority group in need of culturally sensitive research to facilitate an understanding of their integration into Canadian society. There is a scarcity of systematic qualitative inquires into the experience of this contemporary second-generation population within a North American context. Hence, the primary objective of this study is to understand the bicultural experience of a select group of second-generation East Indian women using a focused ethnography as a research tool. The central questions guiding this inquiry are (a) What are the salient aspects in the subjective experience of second-generation East Indian women as they grow up within both an East Indian and Canadian cultural context? (b) What are some of the challenges they face as a result of their biculturalism, and (c) How do they negotiate these challenges? / The sample pool consisted of 16 second-generation East Indian women between the ages of 20 and 40 years who were either working or attending university and who were English speaking. Data collection focused on individual and follow-up interviews, each lasting 60 to 90 minutes. A latent content analysis was used to analyze the interview data and focused on looking for general themes, patterns and trends in the data set. Results suggest that the bicultural experience of this population is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that reflects the intersection of multiple identities including race, ethnicity, gender and cultural values.

Graduation date: 1985

This thesis is a history of Indonesian colonialism in East Timor told through the lens of East Timorese children transferred to Indonesia. During the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, between 1975 and 1999, individuals and institutions representing the occupying power transferred many East Timorese children and young people to Indonesia to receive an Indonesian education. Among them were approximately four thousand young, dependent children. The story of the transfers provides a rich and textured insight into the socio-cultural aspect of the Indonesia-East Timor relationship. This dimension is often missing in the academic literature on East Timor, which has been mainly concerned with the “big issues”—politics, security, international relations and human rights. The thesis is also a history “from below,” of the marginalised and weak whose perspective is often ignored in accounts of national histories. From the transfers we learn of East Timorese taking up the many generous educational opportunities offered by the Indonesians, opportunities denied to most East Timorese during the Portuguese colonial era. The transfers reveal Indonesians from all backgrounds showing compassion towards destitute and vulnerable East Timorese children, some of whom would have died had they not been taken in by Indonesians. Some of the children were adopted and lovingly raised in homes in Indonesia, while others were cared for in state-run or religious institutions. However, the transfers also expose the patronising attitudes of many Indonesians who regarded the East Timorese as backward and primitive. The Indonesians were so sure of their good intentions that they justified delivering development, including transferring children, often in breach of the rights of the East Timorese: some children were taken against their wishes; some parents were coerced or forced to hand over their children; some children were abused and neglected in their adoptive homes and in the institutions caring for them. Further, Indonesia’s proclaimed altruism in developing the territory was underpinned by other motives, as is exemplified by the transfers, in which political, ideological, personal, religious and economic motives, not humanitarian concern alone, were key factors. The refusal of the international community to recognise Indonesia’s claim over East Timor played a significant role in leading Indonesians to demonstrate their concern to develop East Timor, which included providing educational opportunities and caring for destitute children in their homes and institutions. However, the Indonesian authorities also hoped that these East Timorese students and children, raised in Indonesia as Indonesians, would contribute to affording legitimacy to integration. The thesis highlights the appropriation of vulnerable and dependent children in political projects of control; in themselves the children embodied the aim of the Indonesians for all East Timorese—namely, to make them Indonesians. The thesis is the first attempt to provide a detailed account and analysis of these child transfers. Besides providing a set of new data, it is an example of the multifaceted nature of colonial relationships and the ambiguities and complexities they embody. The story also continues to be important in this post-colonial era as it enriches our understanding of the new relationship that is developing across an entirely different border, between newly-democratic Indonesia and independent East Timor.

The current study examines cranial variation of contemporary East Asians with an aim to comprehensively describe and define the morphology of people in this region. In doing so, a better understanding of the causes of variation within East Asia and compared to other geographic populations is sought. The study encompasses a broad range of samples from Northeast Asia to island Southeast Asia. Traditional linear and angular data and analytical methods (e.g Box and Whisker, Principal Components Analysis) were used to assess cranial variation. Thus the results may be compared to published studies using traditional craniometric approaches. Innovative geometric morphometric data collection and analysis techniques are also used here for the first time. Results show East Asians are distinguishable from non-Asians on the basis of their tall, round, vault, shorter cranial length, tall faces that are flattened in the upper and mid-facial regions, short malars (anteroposterior length), narrow interorbital breadth and orthognathism. A north-south East Asian cline was also detected, with the northern samples exhibiting tall, orthognathic faces, and a long low vault. This long, low vault shape is in contradiction to the purported shape of cold-climate adapted populations. Southern East Asians possess a tall, rounded vault and a short, projecting (prognathic) face. Island Southeast Asians inhabiting the Andaman and Nicobar Islands exhibit a 'mixed' morphology, possessing the southern East Asian facial form, but the long, low vault seen in northern East Asian samples. The long, low vault also characterises non-Asian samples from Australia, Africa and Melanesia. Shape differences were significantly associated with latitude, explaining most of the variation. The identification of ancestral East Asian features in recent samples suggests phylogenetics may also be contributing to variation in part. The study concludes that there is clear evidence for geographical variation among modern East Asians, some if it being continuous (clinal) and some discontinuous. Importantly, much of the variation reflects adaptation to climate, with a phylogenetic component also recognised. The study contributes to our understanding of human evolution in a region that today constitutes around half of the world?s population.

Within the Ruker Province of East Antarctica, there is evidence for several key geological events that have occurred coincidently with periods of dynamic earth evolution. A detailed evaluation of the tectonic history of the region is therefore required. This research focuses on the tectonic development of the Ruker Province. The main aspects of this research can be summarised as follows: (1) an evaluation of the gross crustal architecture of the region through the development of a new stratigraphic and structural framework; (2) new U-Th-Pb (LA-ICPMS) age data from detrital zircon grains extracted from thick metasedimentary units that comprise a major component of the Ruker Province; (3) new 40Ar/39Ar data from metamorphic minerals to determine the cooling history of the province; (4) mineral equilibria modelling of metamorphic mineral assemblages to constrain pressure-temperature (P-T) conditions during key orogenic events; (5) a kinematic analysis of brittle/ductile deformation features. Ideas developed from these new data provide inferences on the assembly and dispersion of the late Proterozoic super-continents Rodinia (c. 1000 Ma) and Gondwana (c. 500 Ma).

Thesis (M.A.)--California State University, Long Beach, 2007. / Adviser: Linda N. Maram. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.