<p>Theories of ambition have taught us that higher offices are valuable commodities to certain politicians, and under the right circumstances, the benefits of running for an office outweigh the associated risks. Yet some ambitious politicians emerge as candidates while others do not. In this dissertation, I present a Theory of Strategic Candidacy Decisions to explain how primary elections unfold. With new comprehensive data on the timing of candidacy decisions, I test several hypotheses regarding the determinants of electoral and fundraising success, the timing of strategic candidacy decisions, the interactions of prospective officeholders, and the impact of strategic retirements on primary races for the United States Senate. Using both qualitative and quantitative tools, including event history techniques to capture the complex dynamics of primaries, I find that potential candidates interact with one another and the unique political context within each race and emerge from the pool of potential candidates in systematic ways. In the end, the strategic behavior of ambitious politicians has implications for the slate of candidates available to the electorate and ultimately, on the quality of representation between legislators and constituents.</p> / Dissertation

The Devils Lake defection of 2005 demands a re-evaluation of the venerable Boundary Waters Treaty (BWT) between Canada and the United States. Why was the long-successful water agreement unable to solve this relatively minor dispute? More importantly, given irregularities between theoretical assertions and institutional history, what theory of international relations best explains a cooperative agreement that spans a near-century? Due to the complexities of shared river systems, any theory that seeks to explain international cooperation must adequately encompass three separate sources of state motivation. First, it must explain the technical, basin-position-driven realities that affect state attitudes towards negotiations. Second, it must explain the longer-term strategic factors that can inspire states to accept immediate losses for subsequent gains. Finally, it must acknowledge domestic sources of influence and understand how these forces constrain the state vis-à-vis others. This paper argues that liberalism, as defined by Andrew Moravcsik, is the best theoretical candidate. This is proven by comparing interpretations of the BWT history through realist, neoliberal, constructivist, and liberal lenses. After identifying and examining each theory's strengths and weaknesses, liberalism emerges as the most holistic view and should be favoured as a primary explanatory theory. Liberalism's theoretical underpinnings – interest group politics – best handles the technical, strategic, and domestic influences that affect Canada-US water relations. Whether examining what prompted efforts to initiate a water-sharing agreement, explaining the agreement's final structure, determining the impetus for continued cooperation, or identifying the incentives to finally break from treaty obligations, liberalism provides the most satisfying solutions. Though derived from the Canada-US border relationship, liberalism's superiority is not limited to the North American watershed. Because the factors examined are common to all shared international river systems and the paper's results are scalable, this suggests that liberalism will continue to be the appropriate primary IR theory to employ when examining state decision-making regarding water-sharing agreements.

The risk of food insecurity in the form of higher food prices has prompted policymakers in the United States (US) and European Union (EU) to revise their approach to biofuel development. The US Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and EU Directive 2009/28/EC require long term use of renewable energy in transportation, subject to sustainability. This thesis examines the implications of the US RFS and EU Directive 2009/28/EC in a trade context using a partial equilibrium/comparative static framework. The focus is on the effect of the revised biofuels policies on opportunities for developing countries to supply the US and/or EU markets. For the US, the implications when the volume produced and/or required under the RFS is technologically infeasible with imports of ethanol as a potential policy alternative are explored. For the EU, the impact of the sustainability criteria on foreign biodiesel suppliers in terms of compliance cost is examined. In general, the US policy may enhance opportunities for trade while the EU policy will likely inhibit trade. A discussion of the implications of the mandates for developing countries and WTO is included.

Carbon dioxide is taken up by crops during production and released back to the atmosphere at different geographical locations through respiration of consumed crop commodities. In this study, spatially distributed county-level US cropland net primary productivity, harvested biomass, changes in soil carbon, and human and livestock consumption data were integrated into the prior terrestrial biosphere flux generated by the Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS). A global time-dependent Bayesian synthesis inversion with a nested focus on North America was carried out based on CO2 observations at 210 stations. Overall, the inverted annual North American CO2 sink weakened by 6.5% over the period from 2002 to 2007 compared to simulations disregarding US crop statistical data. The US Midwest is found to be the major sink of 0.36±0.13 PgC yr-1 whereas the large sink in the US Southeast forests weakened to 0.16±0.12 PgC yr-1 partly due to local CO2 sources from crop consumption.

The use of complementary non-invasive imaging modalities has been proposed to track disease progression, particularly cancer, while simultaneously evaluating therapeutic efficacy. A major obstacle is a limited ability to compare parameters obtained from different modalities, especially those from exogenous contrast agents or tracers. We hypothesize that combining Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Ultrasound (US) will improve characterization of the tumour microenvironment. In this study, we describe a co-registration apparatus that facilitates the acquisition of a priori co-registered MR and US images in vivo. This apparatus was validated using phantom data and it was found that the US slices can be selected to an accuracy of +/- 100µm translationally and +/- 2 degrees rotationally. Additionally, it was shown that MRI and US may provide complimentary information about the tumour microenvironment, but more work needs to be done to assess repeatability of dynamic contrast enhanced MRI and US.

Carbon dioxide is taken up by crops during production and released back to the atmosphere at different geographical locations through respiration of consumed crop commodities. In this study, spatially distributed county-level US cropland net primary productivity, harvested biomass, changes in soil carbon, and human and livestock consumption data were integrated into the prior terrestrial biosphere flux generated by the Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS). A global time-dependent Bayesian synthesis inversion with a nested focus on North America was carried out based on CO2 observations at 210 stations. Overall, the inverted annual North American CO2 sink weakened by 6.5% over the period from 2002 to 2007 compared to simulations disregarding US crop statistical data. The US Midwest is found to be the major sink of 0.36±0.13 PgC yr-1 whereas the large sink in the US Southeast forests weakened to 0.16±0.12 PgC yr-1 partly due to local CO2 sources from crop consumption.

ABSTRACT THE EUROPEAN UNION FACTOR IN THE UNITED STATES-TURKEY RELATIONS: 1995-1999 &Ccedil / ankaya, Mine M.Sc., Department of International Relations Supervisor: Dr. Fulya Kip Barnard September 2003, 188 pages This study seeks to analyze the imperatives underlying the United States policy of supporting Turkey&amp / #8217 / s full membership to the European Union from 1995 to 1999. It is basically composed of four parts. The first part discusses the US security policy in the regions surrounding Turkey following the demise of the Soviet Union. Accordingly, the US security policies towards Russia, the Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East, the Central Asia and the Caucasus are examined. The second part is devoted to the examination of American-Turkish relations in the post-Cold War era. The third part deals with the role of the EU in Turkish domestic politics in the post- Cold War era. The last chapter serves as the essence of the study. It aims to focus on the implications of Turkey&amp / #8217 / s relations with the EU for the US security policy. Within this framework thedomestic changes in Turkish politics especially the rise of Islam and nationalism in the mid 90s and their implications for the US security policy are explained. Second, Turkey&amp / #8217 / s role in the emerging European security framework and its implications for the US security policy are scrutnized. Having elaborated these factors, this study concludes with a brief analysis of the basic points of the study. Keywords: The US security policy, American-Turkish relations, Turkey-EU relations.

Background: Contribution of dietary sources to vitamin D status is not clearly known. Some studies have shown that dietary intake of certain vitamin D rich foods had a significant positive influence on serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentrations, whereas other studies have shown no effect. Although sunlight exposure is a major source of circulating serum 25(OH)D, children and adolescents have been advised on the dangers of sun exposure. Diet may therefore be an important contributor of circulating serum 25(OH)D in absence of or reduced sunlight exposure. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether serum 25(OH)D concentrations were associated with any specific dietary patterns in US children and adolescents using assay-adjusted serum 25(OH)D data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2004 and 2005-2006. Methods: Data from 2 cycles of the NHANES 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 for individuals aged 2 to ≤19 y, were used to study the association between dietary patterns and serum 25(OH)D. Dietary patterns were established using factor analysis based on food-frequency questionnaire data. Eigenvalues and Scree plot were used to derive 2 major principal factors. They were labeled as High Fat Low Vegetable (HFLV) and Prudent dietary patterns. Results: Serum 25(OH)D was significantly lower in HFLV dietary pattern group compared to Prudent dietary pattern group (25.1 vs 27.0 ng/mL; P=0.001). The highest serum 25(OH)D concentrations for all subjects were in the low-intake HFLV group or medium and high-intake Prudent groups (P=0.003 and P=0.012, respectively). In multivariate adjusted analysis, children with higher Prudent dietary contribution scores to overall diet showed a significant positive relation with serum 25(OH)D (β=62.01, P=0.016). When data were stratified by sex, a significant positive relation was observed in girls who consumed the Prudent diet (β=86.34, P=0.014) and a significant negative relation was observed in girls who consumed the HFLV diet (β=-84.32, P=0.022). Conclusion: Overall, serum 25(OH)D concentrations were associated with Prudent dietary pattern but not with HFLV dietary pattern in US children and adolescents. When stratified by sex, the relation between dietary patterns and serum 25(OH)D was confined to only girls. Children consuming HFLV pattern diet may benefit from vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure (outdoor activities), and should be encouraged to consume more vitamin D fortified foods.

This paper comparatively compares compliance to the rulings of the United States Supreme Court and the ECJ by the state/member state courts. Besides comparing the compliance to the two courts judgements, the paper also tries to establish how to increase compliance with these rulings in the future. This is done because compliance is an important aspect of a functioning judicial system, and a comparison might reveal solutions from one side that could be utilized on the other. The main resources used in this book are: articles, books, webpages and statistics on the subject. The main focus lies on the legal approach, but as a comparative study, elements of political science have been used as well. The results of the comparison show that although statistical compliance is quite high, the actual compliance might be lower due to lack of knowledge or political divisions. Increasing the actual compliance is then a good strategy to be sure that lower courts follow the rulings correctly. The conclusion of this paper is that political and policy divisions in a country, or between an organization and its members results in non- compliance. Reducing this kind of friction will help increase compliance to decisions, not only statistically but also in practice, as the lower courts will feel more comfortable with the rulings. An increase of knowledge of the subject, and the development of efficient judicial mechanisms in a state will also help assure correct interpretation of the rulings.

Leksaker har en stor och viktig del i barns uppväxt vilket gör att leksaksföretag har inflytande i hur barnen kan komma att se sig själva och sin omgivning. Vi har studerat två leksakskedjors reklamblad ur ett genusperspektiv för att se hur flickor och pojkar framställs samt hur genus framställs i leksakerna och deras marknadsföring. Vi har använt oss av semiotisk metod för att urskilja olika mönster i de bildspråk som finns i reklambladen. Det vi sett är att man gör skillnader mellan flickor och pojkar genom hur leksakerna presenteras och man låter traditionella roller styra. Flickor förväntas att ha rosa leksaker, ta hand om familjen och göra sig vacker och åtråvärd medan pojkar förväntas att inte ha rosa leksaker, gå in i viktiga och maktfulla roller samt vara starka och uppfinningsrika.