Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item Popular Backlash to Language Assimilation Regimes(2024) Derks, John William; McCauley, John; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Do assimilationist restrictions on a minority language lead to greater national unity or a more rebellious minority population? Under what conditions might short-term backlash to language assimilation evolve into greater national unity in the long term? While much of the literature on ethnic politics implicitly treats language simply as an identifying feature of ethnic groups, this dissertation contends that salient language identities and grievances can serve as a source of meaningful division. I examine when and why the costs of pursuing linguistic homogeneity exceed its practical benefits. Just as minority individuals must conduct a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether they should acquire or have their children acquire the dominant language of a host state, so too must governments consider the likelihood that an assimilation program will succeed or fail. I highlight an interaction between three key mechanisms that lead to a distortion of political leaders’ cost-benefit analysis when deciding on the nature of their desired language assimilation program. This distortion leads host states governed by the dominant language group to systematically overestimate the willingness of minority individuals to assimilate voluntarily and underestimate the likely level of subsequent backlash to severe language restrictions. From this theoretical framework, I argue that more severe language restrictions increase minority backlash and that the intensity of this backlash is influenced by the presence of exclusionary political and economic policies targeting the minority group. To this end, I conduct five comparative historical case studies on the language assimilation programs imposed on the South Tyroleans in Italy, Amazigh in Algeria, Azerbaijanis in Iran, Mayans in Mexico, and the Anglophones in Cameroon. The overall findings show that the use of more severe language restrictions and exclusionary political and economic policies are very likely to result in intense backlash responses. More often than not, this elevated backlash response will inflict considerable long-term damage to a state’s national unity.Item VEHICULAR TRAFFIC MODELLING, DATA ASSIMILATION, ESTIMATION AND SHORT TERM TRAVEL TIME PREDICTION(2014) Farokhi Sadabadi, Kaveh; Haghani, Ali; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation deals with the problem of short term travel time prediction. Traffic dynamics models and traffic measurements are in particular the tools in approaching this problem. Effectively, a data-driven traffic modeling approach is adopted. Assimilating key traffic variables (flow, density, and speed) under standard continuum traffic flow models is fairly straight-forward. In current practice, travel time (space integral of pace or inverse of speed) is obtained through trajectory construction methods. However, the inverse problem of estimating speeds based on travel times is generally under-determined. In this dissertation, appropriate dynamic model and solution algorithms are proposed to jointly estimate speeds and travel times. This model essentially paves the way to assimilate travel time data with other traffic measurements. The proposed travel time prediction framework takes into account the fact that in reality neither traffic models nor measurements are flawless. Therefore, optimal state estimation methods to solve the resulting state-space model in real-time are proposed. Alternative optimality criterion such as minimization of the variance of estimate errors and minimization of the maximum (minmax) estimate errors are considered. Practical considerations such as occurrence of missing data, delayed (out of order) arrival of measurements and their impact on solution quality are addressed. Proposed models and algorithms are tested on datasets provided under NGSIM project.Item PREJUDICE TOWARD MUSLIM AMERICANS AND AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION(2010) Kalkan, Kerem Ozan; Layman, Geoffrey C.; Uslaner, Eric M.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation attempts to answer an important question: What explains prejudice toward Muslim Americans in contemporary American society? Through a new theoretical framework --- the ``Band of Others,'' --- I empirically show that attitudes toward Muslim Americans follow an ethnocentric pattern. Those who dislike other minorities such as blacks, Latinos, Asians, Jews, homosexuals, illegal immigrants, and people on welfare are prejudiced against Muslims as well. I find evidence that attitudes toward the Band of Others are highly stable and not radically altered by dramatic events. The ethnocentric structure that explains anti-Muslim prejudice was not affected by the September 11 terrorist attacks. I also find that the band of others plays a more important role in determining vote choice for hypothetical Muslim candidates than political orientations, authoritarian personality, and religious traditionalism. The subsequent empirical evidence also suggests that prejudice toward the band of others shaped the tendency to think Barack Obama is a Muslim -- a salient rumor during the 2008 presidential election. I also find evidence that suggests the misperception about Barack Obama's faith was electorally consequential. This research also shows that the band of others is a powerful dynamic among Muslim Americans as well. As Muslim Americans grow less prejudice toward non-Muslims, homosexuals, and interfaith marriage, they are more likely to become integrated into American society. In the conclusion, I discussed the normative implications of the band of others for democracy in America.