Human activities are changing wildfire regimes globally through ignition, spread of invasive species, fire suppression, and climate change. Because of this, ecosystems are experiencing novel fire regimes that may alter plant growth and patterns of succession. Annual growth rings are one metric that can track changes in tree and shrub growth patterns over time in response to changing fire frequency. In Chapter 1 we explored the effects of fire on resprouting native shrubs in the Mojave Desert. Fires are becoming increasingly frequent due to the spread of highly flammable invasive grasses in the region. We monitored growth and fruit production of Larrea tridentata D.C. (creosote bush) on burned and unburned transects from three independent 2005 wildfires. Even though creosote has a high fire mortality rate, we found that resprouting creosote produced 4.7 times the amount of fruit and had stems that grew nearly twice as fast compared to creosote in unburned areas. Our data suggest that creosote can resprout after fire and thrives in its growth rates and reproduction in post-fire environments. In Chapter 2 we used annual Basal Area Increment to investigate how fire suppression has altered facilitation and competition interactions through stages of succession in mixed aspen-conifer forests. We found that aspen had lower growth rates in mixed aspen-conifer stands compared to aspen dominant stands. We also found that aspen growing with an associated fir tree due to facilitation had increasingly lower growth rates over time than those growing independently. Fir trees in mixed stands were facilitated over time by associated aspen trees while fir trees growing in association and independently in aspen stands showed no statistical difference from each other but grew better than independent fir trees in mixed stands. Our data suggest that restoring a more frequent fire regime will balance competitive interactions between aspen and conifer in subalpine forests.

Thesis (M.Sc. Agriculture (Pasture Science)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / Bush encroachment is a major problem in arid and semi-arid savannas characterized by a grass layer interspersed with a shrub stratum. Land cover change as a result of rapid proliferation of woody species in previously open rangelands alters herbaceous species and impacts soil properties. So far, little is known about the threshold at which woody plant density and cover affects herbaceous cover and the underlying mechanisms driving bush encroachment in arid and semi-arid rangelands are still debated. The objectives of this dissertation were to (1) to assess woody species composition and structure along an encroachment gradient and to explore the relationship between woody vegetation and herbaceous vegetation. (2) To determine the effect of increasing tree density and cover on grass species richness, diversity, evenness and selected soil nutrients in a bush encroached rangeland. In order to address these objectives, a semi-arid rangeland was demarcated into three encroachment gradients spanning from open to intermediate and intensive. Within each encroachment gradient six plots of 10 m x 10 m were randomly selected, whereby woody and herbaceous vegetation were assessed and soil properties determined. A discernible increase in woody species diversity and evenness was found along the transition from open to intensive bush encroached rangeland. Leguminous woody species Vachellia spp. and Dichrostachys cinerea were dominant along the bush encroachment gradient. Tree height was found to be positively correlated with long crown diameter (LCD) and short crown diameter (SCD). Furthermore, increasing tree density resulted in a 53% decline in grass species richness (GR). A decline in GR mirrored an increase in the composition of the decreaser species Panicum maximum (90%). Increasing woody plant density and cover also increased macro-nutrients; total carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, exchangeable calcium and magnesium by 21%-159% in the shallow rangeland soils. Such quantitative information will assist rangeland managers to better understand the effects of varying bush encroachment intensities on herbaceous species composition, richness and soil properties in semi-arid savanna rangelands.

Transformation of the US Foreign Policy Diploma thesis "Transformation of the US Foreign Policy" consists changes and tranformations in the US foreign policy connected with alternations of president's administratives. Especially with the alternation in 2001, when Goerge W. Bush supplied Bill Clinton and than with 2009 when Barack Obama became president of the USA. My essential resource were special books about US foreign policy. Thereafter books from the field of theory of international relations and finally I used internet resources as special articles or manifests records. Diploma thesis is focused on foreign and security policy. Arise and progress of the USA shaped American identity. Hypothesis of work is connected with issue that even conducts and acts of administratives could be different, policy always following this American self-identity.

The 'special relationship' between the United States and the United Kingdom has existed since the beginning of the 1940s. During the Second World War, a strong alliance emerged that was based on a defense policy against a common enemy and a shared value principle. Throughout the Cold War, the special relationship evolved from a weakening of mutual relations in 1960s and 1970s to a renewed rapprochement in 1980s, mainly because of the shared opinions of the U.S. President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. After the geopolitical changes in 1989 a debate developed over the future of their special relationship. The question was whether (or in what form) the transatlantic alliance will continue to remain. The 9/11 terrorist attacks upon the United States gave the answer to this question and provided the impetus for renewed mutual British-American relations. Immediately after the attacks, the United Kingdom expressed its full support for the US-led fight against terrorism and followed the United States first into Afghanistan and later into Iraq. However, both President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were strongly criticized that their war engagement, particularly in relation to the war in Iraq, had been unlawful and was based on false evidence supporting the...

This Master's thesis is concerned with the decision of American president George W. Bush to intervene in Iraq in 2003 and the differing attitudes towards this conflict- which emerged within NATO, especially between the USA and Great Britain on the one hand and France and Germany on the other before the Second Iraq War. Several chosen realistic concepts, for example changing the balance of power or security dilemma, were used to analyse these topics. This Master's thesis examines the relation of the USA to the Iraqi crisis in 2003 from the wider perspective of the new security context, which has appeared after the terrorist attacks on the September 11th, 2001. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Im Rahmen der Neugestaltung des Innenhofes an der Fachschule für Gartenbau in Dresden-Pillnitz wurde eine Freianlage mit unterschiedlichen Bepflanzungstypen hergestellt und drei Jahre gesichtet. Der Pflegeaufwand ging in diesen drei Jahren deutlich zurück. Ein Großteil der Bepflanzungen ist für anspruchsvollere, halböffentliche und öffentliche Außenanlagen attraktiv.

While the US-presidency comprises the most powerful office of leadership in the world and has also been investigated at various angles in personal, biographical approaches as well as comparative studies, this research paper specifically lays focus and compares the two presidencies of President Bush and President Obama in regard of their leadership qualities and counter-terrorism strategies. Because counterterrorism seems to be a good example of how presidents perform crises-management and because the subject by itself is critical in the perspective of human rights and security concerns, the research paper has chosen to focus on President Bush and President Obama who are known to have chosen different routes and strategies in countering terrorism. However, when comparing the two presidents’ leadership qualities regarding their counter-terrorism strategies, this paper concludes that on this matter the strategies of the two presidents were not quite so different as expected and a possible path of continuity runs through this realm of US-foreign affairs and presidents’ leadership decisions.

This thesis discusses the foreign policy of Bush and Obama administration with emphasis on the specific cooperation with the European Union. The aim of this thesis is to describe the difference between Bush and Obama administration using comparative analysis. There were found significant differences between these two administrations and further discussed ways which lead to the changes of the American foreign policy.

This thesis, entitled "Analysis of the special relationship between the US and the UK from the Clinton administration to the Trump administration", aims to provide a comprehensive overview of this Anglo-American alliance, in the mentioned period. The work is anchored on the concept of the concept of "special relationship", which has established itself in political practice to describe the political, diplomatic, cultural, economic, military and historical relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. The first opportunity for this concept to become popular was after it was used in a speech in 1946 by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who tried to ensure Anglo-American cooperation in the post-war period. From that moment on, this unofficial term serves to describe transatlantic cooperation between the two nations, across all regions. This transatlantic cooperation did not end during the Cold War, but on the contrary, the two states were able to cooperate very closely in averting the communist threat. The thesis focuses primarily on the analysis of relations in the period after President Clinton took office as President of the United States, looking at how the Anglo-American alliance developed in the period after the end of the Cold War. In the next part of the work, it is...

Analyse populärer Musik dringt eher selten in Bereiche vor, die als genuin musiktheoretisch betrachtet werden können. Was als Defizit jener Analysen gelten könnte, ist jedoch, positiv betrachtet, durch die gründliche Betrachtung etwa popgeschichtlicher, soziokultureller oder technischer Aspekte zu erklären, die für musiktheoretische Ansätze kaum noch Raum lässt. Umgekehrt ist es wohl ein Defizit der Musiktheorie, dass eine Musik, die nicht primär in musikalischen Notaten vorliegt oder sich sogar genauer Notation entzieht, weiterhin stiefmütterlich behandelt wird. Hier soll nun versucht werden, einen sehr eingegrenzten Aspekt populärer Musik musiktheoretisch zu behandeln, um dann in einem weiteren Schritt sich Fragen von Gender und Persona zu nähern. Gegenstand soll Musik aus den frühen 80er Jahren sein, dargestellt am Beispiel von Ausschnitten aus den Transkriptionen der Songs »There Goes a Tenner« (Kate Bush, 1982) und »No Fear, No Hate, No Pain« (Annie Lennox/Eurythmics, 1983). Beide Sängerinnen galten zu dieser Zeit als extravagant, stimmlich vielseitig bis kapriziös, als Erscheinungen wandlungsfähig, Bush mit Hang zur theatralischen Inszenierung, Lennox als androgyn. Diese Vielgestaltigkeit der Charaktere soll hier anhand der Vokalarrangements analytisch beleuchtet werden: So erhält quasi jede Persona eine eigene Stimmfärbung, im Mix unterstützt durch Effekte und Verräumlichung. Theoretisch ergiebig ist auch die Analyse kontrapunktischer Aspekte, die einen Vergleich mit polyphoner Schreibweise für die Oper (etwa in Ensembles) herausfordern. Mehrstimmigkeit wird weniger in Gleichzeitigkeit erzeugt, als durch das Schneiden, Verzahnen und Schichten von semantisch geladenen Einzelelementen zu einem komplexen Narrativ. Abgerundet wird die Betrachtung durch analytische Aspekte des Arrangements, die sich zeittypisch in einem Spannungsfeld zwischen elektronischer Grundlage (Sequencer) und akustischer Schichtung (auch Geräusch und Weltmusikeinflüsse) bewegen. / The study of popular music rarely reaches a point that can be genuinely regarded as the result of applying analytical methods of music theory. However, what could be regarded as a deficiency of these studies can be positively explained, on the one hand: the thorough reading of pop history, socio-cultural and technical aspects hardly leave room for musical analyses. On the other hand, it is a shortcoming of music theory that it neglects music which does not exist in notated form or even eludes exact notation. Here, we will try to treat a limited aspect of popular music in terms of music theory and then approach questions of gender and persona in a further step. The subject is music of the early 1980s; excerpts from transcriptions of the songs »There Goes a Tenner« (Kate Bush, 1982) and »No Fear, No Hate, No Pain« (Annie Lennox/Eurythmics, 1983) will serve as examples. At that time, both singers were regarded as extravagant and from versatile to capricious vocally. Their appearances were many-sided: Bush showed a penchant for theatrical staging, and Lennox was seen as androgynous. This variety of the characters will be analyzed here based on the vocal arrangements: almost every persona is represented by its own vocal timbre, supported in the mix by effects and spatialization. The highlighting of contrapuntal aspects is especially productive for analysis and provokes a comparison with polyphonic writing for opera (e.g., in ensembles). Polyphony is produced less in simultaneity than by juxtaposition, interweaving, and the layering of semantically charged elements into a complex narrative. The study is rounded off by analytical aspects of the instrumental arrangements which, typical for the time, move in an area between electronic basis (sequencer) and acoustic stratification (incorporating concrete sound and influences of world music).