This paper's purpose to understand how NATOS's future will look like. This is being accomplished by asking, whether the three main European NATO members -- Germany, France and the UK – and NATO as a whole will follow the US in replacing Russia with China as the main opponent. The reason for asking this question is China's unprecedented economic, political and military rise in the last two decades. The paper answers the question by applying structural realism (especially the concepts “balance of power” and balance of threat) and neoliberal interdependence theory. They are different concepts in the field of International Relations on how and why states interact with each other. My method of comparing how each of the three states interacts with china on military, political and economic levels before and after China became a superpower is a comprehensive way to find the necessary answers for my questions. I see this as an important contribution to international relations because we are now in a world of two superpowers again and the US-China relationship will influence world politics for the coming decades. NATO is a US-led alliance which still accumulates the greatest military capabilities on the planet. If the US would lose Europe's support, the balance of power between China and the US could shift. I come to the conclusion, that economically, it makes sense for NATO and NATO member-states to follow the US because it still is their most important trading partner, but the main objective would be to find a way to not alienate either the US or China. Neither balance of power nor balance of threat would lead the three countries to support a paradigm shift in NATO foreign policy, as China isn't seen as a major threat yet and because Europe isn't as dependent on the US to defend it from Russia as the media sometimes make it seems like.

For English speaking members of the queer community in the United States, there is a group of animal terms used to categorize different “tribes” of community members. For example, the term bear generally refers to an individual who is large, hairy, and older. Samardžić (2015) proposes these animal terms as the conceptual metaphor: GAYS ARE ANIMALS. In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor refers to the understanding of an abstract concept in terms of a concrete source. In other words, the different “tribes” of queer community members are conceptually understood in terms of animals.

Departing from Samardžić (2015), the present author proposes that the conceptual metaphor, GAYS ARE ANIMALS, is a complex metaphor, meaning it consists of more than one type of metaphor. For example, while terms such as bear and otter primarily refer to one’s physical appearance, other terms such as pig and pup refer to one’s kinks and sexual desires. This would be a simple metaphor if all the animal terms described the same features (e.g. physical appearance). The author analyzes these animal metaphors within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2010) using data collected from online media sources.

Very little academic literature exists on the topic of animal metaphors in queer speech, and this project aims to shed light on the complexity of these metaphors. Animal metaphors encode a conceptual understanding of the human experience through the lens of the queer community. By analyzing these metaphors, this project not only contributes to the study of conceptual metaphors, but also contributes to the documentation and study of queer culture and language.

Background & Significance: Persons with aphasia (PWA) experience post-stroke depression more frequently than stroke survivors who do not have aphasia. This increased depression has been attributed to the similarities in lesion locations that lead to aphasia and lesion locations that lead to depression. Currently no patient reported outcome measures that screen for depression have been created specifically for PWA or modified to be aphasia friendly for PWA. The purpose of this preliminary study is to modify the Patient Health Questionnaire- 8 (PHQ-8) to an aphasia friendly format and to assess the feasibility of administering the modified assessment compared to other patient-reported and proxy outcome measures of depression.

Methods: This retrospective analysis examined pre- and post-treatment outcome measures of depression for stroke-survivors with aphasia. The Patient Health Questionnaire -8 (PHQ-8) was modified to an aphasia friendly format through simplification of questions, increased font size, addition of a calendar representation of possible answers, and addition of pictures related to the emotion of the question being asked. Prior to and immediately following an intensive comprehensive aphasia program (ICAP) lasting four weeks, seven stroke-survivors with aphasia were administered the modified PHQ-8 (mPHQ-8). Each individual also completed the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Modified Perceived Stress Scale (mPSS); family caregivers completed a proxy measure, the Stroke Aphasia Depression Questionnaire -10 (SADQ-10). The GDS and SADQ-10 were administered in their original formats. The mPSS was administered in its designed format as an aphasia friendly version of the Perceived Stress Scale.

Data Collection and Analysis: Scores for the GDS, mPHQ-8, and SADQ-10 were collected immediately before and after the summer 2019 ICAP at the University of Montana. Undergraduate research assistants not involved in the data collection/blind to all research procedures are currently rescoring all outcome measures for accuracy and reliability purposes. Analysis pending. Feedback about the feasibility and ease of administration of these measures was collected from clinicians and a director of the ICAP immediately following pre-testing and post-testing, and again approximately three months later. This qualitative data has been compiled and organized in Excel. Coding and analysis pending.