Digital Commons Network^™

Lee Harris: Al-Qaeda’S Fantasy Ideology Study Guide, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

International Resources Selected Websites, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Origins Of Ethno/National Separatist Terrorism: A Cross-National Analysis Of The Background Conditions Of Terrorist Campaigns, Brandon Charles Snell

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This study measures the influence that multiple social, political, and economic conditions have on the development of ethno/national separatist terrorist organizations. It begins by analyzing the nationalist theories of primordialism, modernism, and ethnosymbolism, and the terrorist theories of strategic logic and psychology. The nationalist theories consider cultural symbols a powerful component behind nationalist movements and populations with significant symbolic attachments especially prone to react aggressively against perceived threats to those symbols. Proponents of strategic logic and psychological theory also view terrorism as reactive but deviate on whether this response is conceived rationally. Examining the origins of Basque and Catalan terrorism …

The Gendering Of Vulnerability And Protection Needs: Iraqi Male Refugees, Karin Fernandez

Theses and Dissertations

Refugees pass through various stages from preflight, flight to post flight. It is argued that refugees as a whole - regardless of gender, race or ethnicity - should be considered vulnerable due to their actual or fear of persecution, but this is not always the case. This thesis looks at the ways in which the interpretation of “vulnerability” in the principles and practice of humanitarian aid in the refugee regime is affecting male Iraqi refugees seeking protection, resettlement and rehabilitation. As part of the evidence for this argument, the thesis examines gender differentials in the death rates and levels of …

Understanding Generalist Function, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

A major concern in dealing with multi-agent complex adaptive systems is the understanding of how such systems build order in the midst of an otherwise chaotic universe. The ordering principles of such systems that are found at the biological level can be applied to better understanding human organizations, and can also be used to develop or modify highly complex intelligent agent software systems for greater efficacy. This paper describes the theoretical mechanism of how huge multi-agent complex adaptive systems overcome the exponential increases in entropy that would otherwise cause system collapse, through the use of agents that function to maintain …

The Bush Administration's Decision To Invade Iraq: Did They Fall Victim To Groupthink?, Joel Nantais

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the George W. Bush administration became victims of groupthink when they made the policy decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Groupthink is a policy-making model which was first put forward by Irving Janis which attempts to explain how experienced and elite policy-makers can make decisions which lead to disastrous outcomes due to conditions which cause defective decision-making. Research was conducted through a qualitative, within case study which was made possible through the inherent process tracing method of the groupthink model. Mainly secondary sources which detailed the historical case of the decision …

The United Arab Emirates Political Stability And Economic Growth, William Chandler

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Coercion In U.S. Foreign Policy: Evaluating The Utility Of The Jentleson And Whytock Model, John D. Hamilton

Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to test the utility of the Jentleson and Whytock (2006) model, which stems from their study of U.S. foreign policy with Libya. Their study established a model of foreign policy coercion, which they maintain helps explain why Libyan foreign policy changed so radically during the presidency of George W. Bush. The model is applied to American policy, implemented from the Carter administration to that of George W. Bush, towards Iran, Burma (Myanmar) and North Korea. The coercive strategies used by each administration are compared against the prescription and projection purported by the model in order to determine …

India And China Space Programs: From Genesis Of Space Technologies To Major Space Programs And What That Means For The Internati, Gaurav Bhola

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Indian and Chinese space programs have evolved into technologically advanced vehicles of national prestige and international competition for developed nations. The programs continue to evolve with impetus that India and China will have the same space capabilities as the United States with in the coming years. This will present new challenges to the international community in spheres civilian, to space and military applications and their residual benefits.

“Peace At Home, Peace In The World”: The Rise And Role Of Nationalism In Turkish Political Life, Morgan Beach

Pepperdine Policy Review

There have been many arguments over recent years regarding the role of nationalism in an ever-globalizing world. Is nationalism becoming irrelevant? Will the nation become a political entity of the past? Or has increased global cohesion caused an in-creased affinity to a local identity? While the specifics are still debated, most observers point to one fact: nationalism and its political harbingers are stronger than ever. These ethnic nationalisms are generally thought to provide and maintain a solid identity for groups who otherwise see their cultural distinctiveness slipping away into what is, in many cases, a homogenous Westernization. Many scholars see …

Youth Movements In Latin America: 20th Century Stories Of Age, Struggle, And Socio-Political Independence, Amaris Delcarmen Guzman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, the very nature and everyday functions of Latin American governments under dictatorship, authoritarian-like governments, and military regimes were questioned and challenged by many of its citizens, especially its young citizenry. Literary journals and books suggest that many young people in the late 1950's to early 1980's were very aware of their government's practices, did not agree with such practices of the government, and therefore created youth movements in countries as the case in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Brazil to bring about change. This topic was brought about as an interest to …

Machiavellian Heroes Through The Prism Of Aristotle, Robert Acosta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis examines the relationship between the political philosophies of Machiavelli and Aristotle. It hypothesizes that Machiavelli incorporates three fundamental premises of Aristotle's political philosophy: 1. Politics is the master science 2. Man is a political animal 3. Aristotle's conception of human nature. In order to test the hypoThesis the Thesis utilizes case studies in the form of Machiavelli's four excellent men (Theseus, Romulus, Cyrus, and Moses) that are named explicitly in Chapter VI of The Prince . It is concluded that there is an element of Aristotle's fundamental political philosophy that is incorporated by Machiavelli. This relationship is often …

South Park And Absurd Culture War Ideologies, The Art Of Stealthy Conservatism, Drew W. Dungan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

South Park serves as an example of satire and parody lampooning culture war issues in the popular media. Since it targets culture war issues, it is relevant to analyze its political and social stance on the issues as presented within. Both extremes in political and social ideology are targeted. Although the program notes an ideological absurdity in extremist points-of-view, the presentation of the issues attempts to create a sense of moderate ideology criticizing both the far left and far right, when in fact, closer analysis provides evidence that South Park serves a stealthy conservative perspective. Stealthy conservatism presents itself as …

Tahira Khan On Women As Weapons Of War: Iraq, Sex And The Media By Kelly Oliver. New York, Ny: Columbia University Press, 2007. 208pp., Tahira Khan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex and the Media by Kelly Oliver. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007. 208pp.

The Impact Of Hard Disk Firmware Steganography On Computer Forensics, Iain Sutherland, Gareth Davies, Nick Pringle, Andrew Blyth

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The hard disk drive is probably the predominant form of storage media and is a primary data source in a forensic investigation. The majority of available software tools and literature relating to the investigation of the structure and content contained within a hard disk drive concerns the extraction and analysis of evidence from the various file systems which can reside in the user accessible area of the disk. It is known that there are other areas of the hard disk drive which could be used to conceal information, such as the Host Protected Area and the Device Configuration Overlay. There …

Electronic Forms-Based Computing For Evidentiary Analysis, Andy Luse, Brian Mennecke, Anthony M. Townsend

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The paperwork associated with evidentiary collection and analysis is a highly repetitive and time-consuming process which often involves duplication of work and can frequently result in documentary errors. Electronic entry of evidencerelated information can facilitate greater accuracy and less time spent on data entry. This manuscript describes a general framework for the implementation of an electronic tablet-based system for evidentiary processing. This framework is then utilized in the design and implementation of an electronic tablet-based evidentiary input prototype system developed for use by forensic laboratories which serves as a verification of the proposed framework. The manuscript concludes with a discussion …

Book Review: Cyber Security And Global Information Assurance: Threat Analysis And Response Solutions, Gary C. Kessler

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

I freely admit that this book was sent to me by the publisher for the expressed purpose of my writing a review and that I know several of the chapter authors. With that disclosure out of the way, let me say that the book is well worth the review (and I get to keep my review copy).
The preface to the book cites the 2003 publication of The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace by the White House, and the acknowledgement by the U.S. government that our economy and national security were fully dependent upon computers, networks, and the telecommunications infrastructure. …

Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (Njrotc): The Impact Of Njrotc Participation On Naval Accessions And Retentions, Phillip T. Angelini Edd

Dissertations

Officially, the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps' (NJROTC) mission is to educate high school students on the value of citizenship, public service, and personal responsibility. Since 1916, proponents and opponents have debated the value of the various Junior ROTC programs; however, there has been little empirical research that describes the extent to which these programs have actually benefited the services. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine the NJROTC program by analyzing the impact program participation has on Navy accessions and retentions from 2001 to 2005. The methodology used in this study was an exclusively quantitative …

A Preliminary Survey Of Lesser-Known Polyandrous Societies, Katie Starkweather

Nebraska Anthropologist

To challenge the common misconception that there are only four societies in the world that allow polyandry, this paper uses types of polyandry, suggested by Levine and Sangree (1980), to identify polyandrous societies from India, Africa, South America, and North America. Basic issues of these societies are examined within the context of four commonly cited attempts to explain the existence of polyandry. The goal of the paper is a preliminary look at the existence of polyandry around the world and an initial exploration of issues that mayor may not be associated with this form of marriage.

Explaining Ethnic Peace: The Importance Of Institutions, Rebecca Tong, '09

Honors Projects

This paper examines the cause of ethnic peace, and subsequently, the cause of ethnic violence. Varying theories explain ethnic violence: primordialism, instrumentalism, and constructivism. The question central to this study is how master narratives, scarce resources, and democratic institutions have influenced the occurrence of ethnic violence. Small n comparison is used to analyze two pairs of sub-Saharan African nations in order to control for other explanatory variables: (1) Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, and (2) Kenya and Tanzania. In each pair, one nation is relatively peaceful and the other relatively violent. Drawing from ethnographic research papers, and news sources this paper …

Positions Of Power, Abjection And Constraint: Evaluating Discursive Attempts To Save An Other, Ruth Janet Beerman

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Beginning from the presumption that questions of agency are important, this thesis interrogates notions of who can speak, how to speak, and what constitutes agency. Feminist rhetorical theory operates as a key avenue to evaluate negotiating positions of power and privilege when examining how to liberate oppressed groups. By utilizing feminist conceptions of the body as well as theories of performance and personae, I examine how rhetorical theory contributes to such understandings where one speaks about an other. Finally, the war in Iraq serves as a case study to illustrate my theory.

Australian Refugee Policy And Party Rhetoric In Contrast: A Study Of The Hawke/Keating And Howard Governments, Paul Mercieca

Theses : Honours

Australia's acceptance of refugees has a long and controversial history. As a nation, we have at times accommodated and accepted multitudes of various individuals of differing faiths, ethnicity and cultures into our society. Australia is indeed a cosmopolitan community of indigenous and immigrant Australian citizens that have displayed periods of welcoming refugees from war-torn states as under Malcolm Fraser's leadership in the late 1970s. Concurrently, we have actively discriminated, sometimes implicitly, although not always, against certain immigrants, including refugees from China and Papua and New Guinea during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The community's perception of refugees has often …

Aristotelian Liberalism: An Inquiry Into The Foundations Of A Free And Flourishing Society, Geoffrey Allan Plauche

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation builds on the recent work of Douglas Rasmussen, Douglas Den Uyl and Roderick Long in developing an Aristotelian liberalism. It is argued that a neo- Aristotelian form of liberalism has a sounder foundation than others and has the resources to answer traditional left-liberal, postmodern, communitarian and conservative challenges by avoiding certain Enlightenment pitfalls: the charges of atomism, an a-historical and a- contextual view of human nature, license, excessive normative neutrality, the impoverishment of ethics and the trivialization of rights. An Aristotelian theory of virtue ethics and natural rights is developed that allows for a robust conception of the …

Team Task Interdependence Perceptions: Toward An Integrative Model Of Teamwork, Jared Ledoux

LSU Master's Theses

The present study examines perceptions of task interdependence and workflow at the individual- and team-levels to evaluate the degree to which team perceptions and homogeneity of perceptions predict team communication and performance in a military combat computer simulation. Team members who perceived higher levels of task interdependence and workflow performed better at both the individual and team levels of analysis. These teams also communicated more frequently, although communication was not significantly correlated with performance. The present findings provide support for the examination of task interdependence perceptions as a means to explain team performance and communication.

Putting A Face On Prehistory: Reconstructing Late-Mississippian Faces, Alicia Canfield

LSU Master's Theses

This paper examines the results of artificial cranial deformation on the human skull in relation to the human face and the use of three-dimensional printing in the making of skull casts. Forensic facial reconstructions, following the American Method, were performed on three Native American skulls from the Late-Mississippian period, excavated from the Humber Site and on loan from the University of Southern Mississippi, in order to see whether or not the artificial deformation radically changed the faces of the individuals. Skull casts were made out of ABS plastic using rapid prototyping technology, as the original skulls were too fragile for …

Untying The Gordian Knot: A Proposal For Determining Applicability Of The Laws Of War To The War On Terror, Geoffery S. Corn, Eric Talbot Jensen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Selectivity In Imaging The First Emperor, K. E. Brashier

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The story of Qin may vaunt grandiose armies and new empires that encompass all under heaven, but it also extends to more humble images:

Li Si, [the chief minister of Qin], was a man of Shangcai in Chu. In his youth, when he was a minor clerk in the province, he noticed rats eating filth in the latrines of the clerks’ hostel; and if they approached a man or dog, they were generally scared of them. But when Si entered a granary, he observed that the rats in the granary were eating the stored-up grain, living underneath the main chamber …

Spartan Daily, December 10, 2008, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily (School of Journalism and Mass Communications)

Volume 131, Issue 53

Demonic Influence And The Christian: Issues And Implications For Counseling, Rodger K. Bufford

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

The question of whether Christians can be demon possessed is both controversial and complex.The issues involved include the nature of possession, the possibility of demonic deceivers, thefact of two spiritual kingdoms, the fact that Christians are sealed by the Holy Spirit, the activitiesof Satan and demons, the possibility of wolvesappearing in sheep’s clothing, the difficulty ofdiscerning tares and wheat, the possibility ofgrieving and quenching the Holy Spirit, theproblem of Christians walking after the flesh,and the complicating roles of the world and theflesh. As whole beings, spiritual and psychological factors interact; assessment and interventionmust reflect this. Suggested strategies include spiritual disciplines, …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 033, Number 15, December 1, 2008, Grand Valley State University

2008-2009, Volume 33

Grand Valley Forum is Grand Valley State's faculty and staff newsletter, published from 1976 to the present.