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Internationally adopted persons confront multiple challenges in constructing their identities. This study of the narrative burden of self looks at and interprets the dynamic process in which internationally adopted people develop, coordinate and manage their sense of self, identity and cultural/racial personhood. Drawing on the theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), the study focuses on their use of orphaning and adoption stories to most skillfully position and tell one's origin story in concert with one's internal sense of self, and the pressures and forces found in interpersonal and intercultural dialogue. The research reveals how internationally adopted people develop and demonstrate varying levels of game mastery in managing societal scripts and oppressive frames of stigma. Through this game mastery, the research brings to view how the participants have reflexively learned to claim ownership of their stories and develop a sense of agency while fashioning self-empowering narratives out of the resources of their personal root journeys to better manage, frame and coordinate the meaning of their stories across cultural and interpersonal boundaries.

This study examined the perceptions of officers with colleagues who perpetrate acts of domestic violence. This was a qualitative research design from a phenomenological perspective. The data was gathered by the use of face-to-face interviews using open-ended questions. The data was analyzed by the use of bracketing, horizonalization, clusters of meanings, textural and structural descriptions, and the invariant structure of the phenomena described by the study participants. Upon completion of the 30 interviews, the audio tapes were all transcribed, and loaded in to Atlas Ti for the purpose of coding the data for the major themes. A constant comparison method was used to analyze the data to help identify the similarities and differences between the study participants' perceptions with the phenomena. The five qualitative questions each depict a different area of experience with the phenomenon, to create a holistic picture of the perceptions of the thirty participants. The findings suggest that for some officers, the inability to separate their police role from their civilian role may be a factor in the perpetration of domestic violence by law enforcement officers. The findings also suggest that social workers may be able to play an important role in the remediation of the problem of domestic violence for those within and outside police social work settings.

This thesis examines the reception of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War in US foreign policy debates since the end of the Cold War. It begins with a background survey of Thucydides' use in foreign policy debates up to and during the Cold War, primarily by the realist school of international relations, and the comparisons which were drawn between the Cold War and the Peloponnesian War. After the Cold War, these comparisons became less relevant to current debates, and critics of realism began to use Thucydides to support their own theories. The emphasis is on how the three key movements since the Cold War, realism, liberal internationalism and neoconservatism, have each seen aspects in Thucydides' writing to admire and utilise for their theories, at the same time building competing interpretations of key sections from Thucydides' History. At the same time, as well as drawing abstract theories from Thucydides, analysts have also drawn historical parallels between the present and the Peloponnesian War in a creative process which results in modern states playing different ancient roles depending upon the context. I show that Thucydides' text lends itself particularly well to such recycling due to the author's tendency to highlight complex tensions without providing explicit authorial 'answers'.

Amidst the dramatic real estate fluctuations in the first decade of the twenty-first century, this study recognized that there is a necessity to create a real estate prediction model for future real estate ventures and prevention of losses such as the mortgage meltdown and housing bust. This real estate prediction model study sought to reinstall the integrity into the American building and development industry, which was tarnished by the sudden emergence of various publications offering get-rich-quick schemes.In the fast-paced and competitive world of lending and real estate development, it is becoming more complex to combine current and evolving factors into a profitable business model. This prediction model correlated past real estate cycle pinpoints to economical driving forces in order to create an ongoing formula. The study used a descriptive, secondary interpretation of raw data already available. Quarterly data was taken from the study's seven independent variables over a 24-year span from 1985 to 2009 to examine the correlation over two real estate cycles. Public information from 97 quarters (1985-2009) was also gathered on seven topics: consumer confidence, loan origination volume, construction employment statistics, migration, GDP, inflation, and interest rates. The Null hypothesis underwent a test of variance at a .05 level of significance. Multiple regression analysis uncovered that four of seven variables have correlated and could predict movement in real estate cycle evidence from previous data, based in the Inland Empire. GDP, interest rates, loan origination volume, and inflation were the four economical driving variables that completed the Inland Empire's real estate prediction model and global test.Findings from this study certify that there is correlation between economical driving factors and the real estate cycle. These correlations illustrate patterns and trends, which can become a prediction model using statistics. By interpreting and examining the data, this study believes that the prediction model is best utilized through pinpointing an exact numerical location by running calculations through the established global equation, and recommends further research and regular update of quarterly trends and movements in the real estate cycle and specific variables in the formula.

This project began as an investigation into the high rate of suicide among members of the Coast Guard in comparison to other branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. The course of research revealed Coast Guard officials' chronic reluctance to disclose information about suicide. Therefore, the new focus of research became a comparative investigation of the Coast Guard's resistance to discussing suicide within the organization. The study was conducted through interviews with a sample of Coast Guard and other military members as well as through discussion boards on the Internet. Questions centered on military life experience, stress, depression and suicide. The data suggest that members of the Coast Guard 1) initially appeared excited to participate in the study, however, when asked to discuss or disclose suicide-related information about the Coast Guard, they displayed marked signs of reluctance about their participation; 2) Coast Guard members emphasized the idea of the Coast Guard being a family; 3) Coast Guard members presented as the most conversational when compared with the other military branches; 4) the Coast Guard has a humanitarian mission as opposed to the other four combat-oriented services; 5) Coast Guard's image and perception among members of the Armed Forces is unique and somewhat set apart from the other, larger and more combat-oriented services; 6) the Coast Guard is perceived to be the toughest service to get promoted in, and it is seen as the most competitive when compared to all other military branches; 7) there is a differential suicide rate between the Coast Guard and the other military branches during both war and peace times. The findings are analyzed using Töennies' concept of Gemeinschaft versus Gesellschaft, Horney's theory of neurosis, Argyris' theory of organizational defensive routines, as well as Menninger's theory of suicide.

United States Air Force Officers are not often given the choice of career fields when they enter active duty. This may have some impact on performance on an academic measure in the assigned field. In addition to choice, levels of two causality orientations were assessed using Deci and Ryan's 1985 General Causality Orientation Scale, 12-Vignette version. Causality orientations are posited to exist in varying degrees in every individual and, for the purposes of this study, are tested to determine their association with academic achievement in a situation of limited choice. The overall aim of this study is to determine whether choice and/or causality orientation predict academic achievement in missileers, and if a moderation model represents the relationship between the predictors and academic achievement. Missileers at Minot Air Force Base, the 91st Missile Wing, were surveyed and data regarding choice, a single month's aggregate academic scores and causality orientation were collected. Neither choice nor causality orientation alone predicted monthly test scores. Causality orientation moderated the relationship between choice and monthly test scores. Those respondents who reported that they had received their assignment of choice had higher monthly test scores when they also had high levels of autonomy relative to controlled orientation. In the group which reported they had not received their assignment of choice, there were no associations between choice, causality orientation and monthly test scores.

The majority of the people who make up the United States' seasonal agricultural workforce are nonimmigrant Mexican citizens. Immigration policies such as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and the H-2A agricultural guest worker program were meant to encourage growers to employ legal labor workforces. A study of the laws and practices that eventually resulted in the H-2A program shows how and why the demographics are predominantly Mexican. In addition, such study is revealing as to why the US enacted the H-2A program-including definitional details of the program itself. However, does this program really work? This question has radically different answers. In theory, the program seems to be well designed; but, in practice, it does not function as intended because of its many shortcomings, loopholes, open-ended issues, and poor enforcement. I will analyze and demonstrate how these inadequacies perpetuate illegal immigration and exploitation of both legal and illegal seasonal agricultural farm workers. Lastly, I will offer a composite of recommendations for legislative reform of the H-2A program; as well as provide pertinent, resourceful questions for further research.

This qualitative study explores how middle managers who thrived during Hurricane Katrina used their workplace social support systems. An emphasis was placed on identifying the sources and types of support received before, during, and after the Katrina crisis.Significant challenges exist today for organizations on the basis of societal, political, environmental, and technological trends. Among those trends are predictions of greater numbers and intensities of weather-related crises triggered in part by global weather pattern shifts and global warming. These challenges create a compelling need for leaders to effectively plan for and manage crises to assure organizational survival. Middle managers, in particular, play a critical role in terms of planning for and recovering organizational functioning after a crisis. Yet relatively little is known about how they subjectively experience adversity and receive social support in the workplace. This study draws upon three bodies of literature including thriving, social support and crisis management.The participants in this study were 14 middle managers employed by organizations in the greater New Orleans area impacted in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Industries represented include health care, higher education, seaports, and defense contracting. Participants were nominated by a senior leader in their organization based on criteria for thriving. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews about participants' experiences before, during and after the Katrina crisis and the types of social support they received from each of five workplace sources. After identifying two core experiences for each participant, the data were coded and analyzed to determine the workplace sources and type of received social support. Sixteen themes were identified that explained how participants received support from leaders, peers, subordinates, other internal as well as external supports. Four support patterns were identified based on the most important source of support for the participants. These support source patterns included a peer-focused, leader-focused, subordinate-focused and leader-external focused. Role modeling was identified as a source of received support for some participants as well as the role of work teams in providing social network support. Practical implications of the study findings were identified along with suggestions for future research.

The idea that the solitary thinker, using pure reason, can unlock the deepest mysteries of reality is certainly an exciting one. The rationalist dream began with Parmenides of Elea and became the epistemological foundation for the greatest metaphysical systems ever constructed. This thesis traces the complete historical development of this neglected epistemology and inaugurates a radical new appraisal of its method. The new clarity provides fresh insights into traditional puzzles like the Cartesian Circle and whether Plato had a secret esoteric doctrine. A new positive re-evaluation of a doctrine thought to have been refuted by Kant and the positivists will provide interest for students, philosophers and those interested in the history of ideas.

The Lisbon Treaty is the latest and most crucial reform to the European Union.As the successor to the much-debated and innovative Constitution, it represents the culmination of the unification process, for it aims to simultaneously enhance efficiency and cover the democratic deficit inherent in the outdated decisionmaking mechanisms of the past, as a consequence of excessive enlargement and deepened integration. Thus, the first question is the extent to which the Lisbon Treaty renders the Union more democratic and according to what criteria that may be evaluated. Another question is related to the fact that the Treaty is the result of a fundamental debate on the very nature of the European Union: Is the latter to become an authentic political union or a mere free-trade area with secondary political attributions? And will its internal operating rules correspond more to a parliamentary or a presidential regime?The present work proposes to focus on the claim that the European Union as a polity shall become more democratic with the Lisbon Treaty, and seeks to provide answers using representative democracy and parliamentarianism as indicators. To achieve such an ambitious aim, special attention is given to parliamentary bodies, first at the supranational level with the European Parliament as part of the institutional triangle (Commission-Council-Parliament), then at the internal level with the Member States' national Parliaments as part of the framework of existing and new competences (oversight, vertical separation of powers and subsidiarity).The changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty towards more democracy are not without consequence to its second proclaimed goal, efficiency. It is thus interesting to examine how both are combined and if there is a positive or a negative interaction between the two. Moreover, the very articulation of the sensitive balance between measures for more efficiency and measures for more democracy has a noticeable impact on the European Union as a political system. Will it function like a federal or an intergovernmental system?Although much of the above will undeniably be determined through the practice of the institutions and the overall political equilibrium that will be achieved, the present work offers useful methods and elements of analysis that are an indispensable guide to anyone with an interest in European Union law and politics.

The thesis explores the syntactic and semantic dimensions of four linguistic elements that appear in Modern Greek arguably as quantifiers and modifiers, i.e., in the form of Quantificational Modifiers (QMods) olos 'all, whole, overall' and its extension olikos 'total', merikos 'some, a few, partial', ligos 'some, few, little, insignificant' and polis 'many, great, considerable'. Such QMods are analyzed as 'measure' quantifiers of scalar semantics that appear in a syntactic position common to adjectival modifiers. The thesis explores specific sets of reading and their interpretations. Such a phenomenon is common to Modern Greek, English, French and Arabic QMods and gives evidence to the universality of Quantificational Modification.Chapter 1 discusses Quantification as semantic interpretation along with the main questions this research intends to answer, while Chapter 2 reviews recent literature on Quantification within and across languages. Chapter 3 focuses on Modern Greek expressions of Quantification and extends chapter 2 into a further discussion about the various syntactic manifestations. Chapters 4 and 5 are extensions to chapters 2 and 3 as they discuss the semantics of specific QMods as 'total' and 'partial' quantifiers, which operate on homomorphic sets of degrees and amounts.Chapter 6 discusses the broader issues in the thesis from a theoretical and typological perspective that establishes Quantificational Modification as a universal and purely semantic subclass of Quantification. Our findings are summarized in chapter 7, followed by suggestions for expanding our investigation into other related areas.

This research is an empirical study of the legitimacy of economic inequality with a focus on the case of Chile. Chile is an appealing case study in this regard because it has been one of the countries with the highest indexes of economic inequality over the past several decades. Theoretical perspectives based on the rational interest of the median voter have pointed out a negative association between high levels of inequality and legitimacy. Nevertheless, empirical evidence indicates that an unequal distribution of income is not necessarily challenged by the majority of a society, a phenomenon associated with the concept of legitimacy of economic inequality. Most empirical studies of this topic to date have considered social contexts that are not characterized by (comparatively) high levels of income inequality; thus, the impact of the level of inequality on its legitimacy remains largely unclear. The present study aimed at bridging this research gap, guided by the question: How do high levels of income inequality in a society influence the legitimacy of economic inequality? Using data obtained by comparative public opinion projects including the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) and the International Social Justice Project (ISJP), this research considered individual preferences for occupational earnings inequality (the just earnings gap) as the main object of study. The central hypothesis was that individual preferences are strongly influenced by contextual standards such as the current income distribution, leading individuals of countries with high levels of inequality to have stronger average preferences for economic inequality (the so-called existential argument). Empirical evidence of legitimacy was related to two central dimensions based on David Beetham's multidimensional concept of legitimacy: (a) consensus regarding the inequality in the distribution of earnings in Chile and (b) the impact of the country level of income inequality on individual preferences for a larger just earnings gap. The empirical analysis provided partial evidence regarding the consensus about inequality in Chile, whereas in an international comparative framework, countries with higher levels of income inequality showed a stronger preference for a larger just earnings gap.

The modern FPGAs enable system designers to develop high-performance computing (HPC) applications with a large amount of parallelism. Real-time image processing is such a requirement that demands much more processing power than a conventional processor can deliver. In this research, we implemented software and hardware based architectures on FPGA to achieve real-time image processing. Furthermore, we benchmark and compare our implemented architectures with existing architectures. The operational structures of those systems consist of on-chip processors or custom vision coprocessors implemented in a parallel manner with efficient memory and bus architectures. The performance properties such as the accuracy, throughput and efficiency are measured and presented. According to results, FPGA implementations are faster than the DSP and GPP implementations for algorithms which can exploit a large amount of parallelism. Our image pre-processing architecture is nearly two times faster than the optimized software implementation on an Intel Core 2 Duo GPP. However, because of the higher clock frequency of DSPs/GPPs, the processing speed for sequential computations on on-chip processors in FPGAs is slower than on DSPs/GPPs. These on-chip processors are well suited for multi-processor systems for software level parallelism. Our quad-Microblaze architecture achieved 75-80% performance improvement compared to its single Microblaze counterpart. Moreover, the quad-Microblaze design is faster than the single-powerPC implementation on FPFA. Therefore, multi-processor architecture with customised coprocessors are effective for implementing custom parallel architecture to achieve real time image processing.

Pyrene, a four-ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), was identified as the chemical that requires the largest land area for soil bioremediation due to the slow rate of biodegradation at the Libby, Montana Superfund site. Prepared bed land treatment is the specific bioremediation technology that is currently employed at this site. Although bioremediation has been widely accepted for treatment of contaminated soil due to its low cost, the effective application of bioremediation is often hindered by the lack of information related to: 1) biochemical pathways, 2) enzymatic mechanisms, and 3) effects of amendments.Mycobacterium sp. KMS is a new strain isolated from the land treatment units of the Libby site and has been found to utilize pyrene as a carbon and energy source. The genome of Mycobacterium sp. KMS was sequenced by Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and is publically available in the NCBI database.This dissertation is comprised of seven chapters. Chapter I provides information concerning PAH characteristics, the Libby Superfund site, accelerated bioremediation approaches, and the hypotheses for this dissertation. Chapter 2 addresses the pyrene degradation pathway used by Mycobacterium sp. KMS based on isolating and identifying pyrene degradation intermediates. Chapter 3 describes the enzymatic mechanism of pyrene degradation by Mycobacterium sp. KMS.Chapter 4 presents the effect of Elliott soil HA (ESHA) amendment on pyrene solubility in soil slurry systems and pyrene mineralization in unsaturated soil microcosms. Chapter 5 describes the overall effect of ESHA amendment on pyrene distribution in a soil slurry system.Chapter 6 addresses the engineering significance of this study and future research recommendations. Chapter 7 summarizes the dissertation. The main theme of this dissertation is to provide the basic scientific information and knowledge for better understanding, better control, and improvement of the bioremediation process at PAH-contaminated sites.