Identity and Interests: Understanding the Meltdown in Israeli-Turkish Relations 2002-2012

The recent deterioration of the strong bilateral alliance between Israel and Turkey has significant affects on the balance of power within the Middle East. As such, it is important that scholars determine why this meltdown has occurred. This thesis sought to explain the deterioration of relations between Israel and Turkey and overcome gaps in the existing literature concerned with this meltdown of bilateral relations by taking a fresh look into the role of identity and the interests it creates. Hence, the framework of Wendtian constructivism was applied in order to examine the social origins and impacts of identity and interests on alliance formation and deterioration. In this thesis, I suggested that Israel’s identity has changed slowly over the past decade and as such, should be perceived as ‘relatively’ stable. Conversely, however, Turkey’s national identity changed sharply, drifting away from the Ataturk agenda of Westernisation and secularism towards an Islamic heritage. In order to strengthen my argument that this shift in Turkish identity has primarily accounted for the deterioration of its relations with Israel, I analysed Turkish attitudes towards foreign policies other than its bilateral relationship with Israel, as well as its newly defined interests. Thus, whereas Israel’s relatively stable national identity and domestic policies were matched by its relatively stable foreign interests over the past decade, deep changes to Turkey’s national identity redirected its domestic policies under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. Consequently, Turkey has employed a number of political tensions and events as pretexts in order to unilaterally disengage from its relations with Israel so that it can further new foreign policies and interests. Identity matters, and for better or worse, identity changes precede foreign policy change, a lesson we must not forget

Open Data as Public Archaeology: The Monumental Archive Project

The value of open data is transforming archaeological practice while also introducing new concerns relating to the ethics of studying the dead. This paper uses the Monumental Archive Project, recently launched as a public database of cemetery records from Barbados, as a case study to critically examine the realities of platforms created to bring together academic and general audiences in open mortuary archaeology. Digital literacy and support structures are significant barriers to digital data within the discipline, while the impact of open data on the public(s) that archaeologists seek to engage and collaborate with is rarely considered let alone measured. Is it possible to serve diverse audiences with a single platform? What are the implications (social, ethical, emotional) for sharing cemetery data? When digitizing the dead, strategies in platform design, marketing and communication for public interest and use becomes even more complex and necessitates further attention

Junior Recital: Katherine Cook, clarinet

This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree Bachelor of Music in Performance. Ms. Cook studies clarinet with John Warren.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/1453/thumbnail.jp

Validation of the College Planning Behaviors Scale

College preparation is an important topic in the educational attainment for high school students. Much of the research on college planning focuses on the importance and timing of preparing for postsecondary education; however, little research exists that has determined which steps students actually take while preparing for college. The current study utilizes the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent et al., 1994) framework to create a validated measure to assess choice behavior. In this study, college planning behaviors (CPB), which are the concrete behaviors an individual engages in to prepare for college, were considered as choice actions within the SCCT model. The purpose of the current study was to create a validated measure for choice actions, as well as survey 10th and 11th grade students (n = 503) from rural Appalachian high schools to identify the behaviors in which they are engaging to prepare for postsecondary education. The measure was found to demonstrate good reliability and validity in this population, providing good internal consistency and construct validity. Further, these findings indicate support that CPB are linked to barriers, college-going self-efficacy (CGSE), and college outcome expectations (COE)

Environmental education curriculum for the California Conservation Corps

This project was developed to provide curriculum for young adults in the California Conservation Corps to help them connect to their employment with attitude and knowledge acquisition related to the outdoors

Estrogen receptor-? signaling and localization regulates autophagy and unfolded protein response activation in ER+ breast cancer

Antiestrogen therapy is commonly used to treat estrogen receptor (ER)+ breast cancers but acquired and de novo resistance limits their overall curative potential. An endoplasmic reticulum stress pathway, the unfolded protein response, and autophagy are both implicated in the development of antiestrogen therapy resistance in estrogen receptor-? (ER) positive breast cancer. Thus, we recently investigated how ER? can regulate autophagy and the unfolded protein response (Cook et al., FASEBJ, 2014). We showed that inhibiting ER? signaling stimulates autophagosome formation and flux. Moreover, we showed that ER? knockdown inhibited the unfolded protein response (UPR) signaling components. Here we support and extend this recent report showing additional data on ER? localization and provide a schematic of the overall signaling implicated by our results. Differential activation of UPR and autophagy highlight the pivotal role of ER? in regulating pro-survival signaling in breast cancer through UPR and autophagy. Furthermore, these data suggest new approaches to successful targeting ER? and preventing the regulation of key pro-survival signaling that confers resistance to endocrine therapies.&nbsp