Master of Science

No description available.

Canals have created grooves through the landscape of England and Wales for over 250 years, but they were dismissed by modernity, and narratives of disenchantment linger. Whilst visitor numbers grow as canals experience a ‘Second Golden Age’ and attempts are made to promote these waterways as ecological resources, they remain overlooked within conservation and their futures are precarious. The linearity of canals generates ecological connection and safe passage, whilst these environments also enable expressive territories and tranquil atmospheres. This research highlights the capacity for canals to enchant and support liveliness, and situates discussions of socio-ecological management within growing national concerns for connectivity as an effective response to climatic change and habitat fragmentation. The twin aims of this research were explored empirically through a case study of the Basingstoke Canal and sought to consider the position of such waterways within conservation and address a neglect of water within human geography. In accompanying practitioners and experimenting with creative methodologies this research begins by demonstrating the possibilities for wonder, surprise, and attachment after the ontological loss of Nature. Subsequent chapters draw upon fieldwork encounters, interdisciplinarity alliances, and a reworking of concepts within ecology and multinatural geography to exercise recombination as the central mode of address of this research. In inflecting the term’s ecological salience with a materialist regard for multiplicity, repetition, and emergence this research challenges the position of canals and the presentation of corridors within conservation. The beguiling simplicity of connectivity has enabled its ready incorporation within conservation discourse, despite a paucity of empirical attention; whilst contributing to work addressing this lacuna this research also introduces a more nuanced notion of complexity into discussions of connectivity and interrogates the apparent separation of corridors and sites. Encounters with the ecologies and publics assembling and disassembling through the Basingstoke Canal demonstrate that linearity does not preclude interested gatherings or absolve management of the obligation to respond, and highlights the need for biosecurity practices which are more articulate and attuned to difference. Recombinant ecologies invite and demand response, but conservation remains spatially cautious and this is further foregrounded as the challenges of incorporating the watery, connective, environments of canals are traced.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Physiology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

<p>Reconstructing locomotor patterns from fossils is crucial for understanding the origins of primates and important transitions in various primate clades. Recent studies suggest that the semicircular canals of the inner ear provide evidence about locomotion. The canals sense rotational head accelerations and drive reflexes essential for normal movement. Because bony aspects of canal morphology influence canal sensitivity, this system can be studied in osteologic specimens and fossils. Variation in canal morphology in living and, by inference, extinct primates has been attributed to interspecific differences in locomotor behavior. However, the manner in which movement selects for canal morphology is debated, alternative scenarios are plausible, and no relevant measurements are available documenting head movements in primates.</p><p>To refine proposed links between canal morphology and locomotor function, and to resolve conflicting functional interpretations, this study examines head rotations in lemurs and lorises exhibiting diverse locomotor behaviors. Three-dimensional kinematic analyses were used to characterize angular velocities of the head during locomotion. These data are used to test hypotheses concerning intraspecific, interspecific, and body-size dependent variation in head rotations. Cranial CT scans are used to model canal sensitivity to rotations in different directions. Observed patterns of head rotation are compared to predicted patterns of sensitivity to test hypotheses about the relationship between locomotor behavior and canal design.</p><p>Evaluation of existing locomotor inferences reveals that brain size exerts a significant effect on canal size and that the prevailing equations for predicting agility from body and canal size are highly inaccurate. Intraspecific comparisons between maps of observed angular velocity and predicted sensitivity allow identification of map types associated with different general locomotor modes and do not support existing hypotheses about the primary selective forces acting on canal morphology. The new data are used to formulate and test a novel "fast-accurate hypothesis" to explain why all vertebrates are more sensitive to rotations about some axes than others. The fast-accurate hypothesis stipulates that angular velocities presented about axes of mean sensitivity are most accurately interpreted by the brain, and that selection aligns axes of mean sensitivity with axes of habitually fast rotation because accurate perception of rapid rotations confers survival benefit. The fast-accurate hypothesis was used to predict which features of the canals should be correlated with high mean angular velocities of head movement. Novel equations that predict behavior from these newly identified canal morphologies were generated and found to outperform existing equations when tested on the original sample of 11 strepsirrhine species.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 260 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 232-257).

This research is about the social/spatial management of water in an urban setting. The water utility of Piacenza, Italy, and specifically, the organization of the now extinct canal system, was investigated for the period between 1545 and 1736. Through analysis of the administration of the canal system and the water utility this thesis constructs an aspect of the political ecology of Piacenza. Political ecology as a discipline lies at the intersection of the environmental context, land use, spatial design, demographics and social relationships. The study looked at how the city organized itself to manage urban water and sanitation delivery, the methods used to communicate with the users, the actions taken to keep the system in good repair, the responses to crises, and the limitations of the social organization and technological capabilities. The archival documents contained within the Congregazione sopra l’ornato (CSO), the municipal committee charged with management of the canals, form the core of the research. Analysis revealed a finely-tuned social system that involved noble oversight, the use of expert engineers, public/private partnerships for maintenance of the canals with millers and consorti as key people, and an attempt to control cheating with fines and penalties.

The former Whitewater Canal, built between 1836 and 1847, spanned a distance of seventy-six miles from Lawrenceburg to Hagerstown, Indiana.' Initial construction was financed by Indiana's Mammoth Internal Improvements Act of 1836; a bill that strained the financial resources of the state, forcing it into bankruptcy in the summer of 1839. Canal construction was stopped until 1842, when the state granted the privately organized and financed White Water Valley Canal Company a charter to complete the unfinished portion of the canal between Brookville and Cambridge City.The unwieldy Whitewater River, however, proved too formidable for the fledgling canal company. A series of floods, in conjunction with a costly law suit, forced the White Water Valley Canal Company into receivership in 1855. The company was purchased at auction in 1865 by the Whitewater Valley Railroad Company, a Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway subsidiary. Between 1867 and 1868, the railroad company laid its tracks atop the towpath of the former canal.Today, the state of Indiana owns fourteen miles of former canal channel between Laurel and Brookville, Indiana. The state owned portion is maintained by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and is operated as the Whitewater Canal State Historic Site. The non-profit Whitewater Valley Railroad Museum runs excursion trains over much of the old towpath between Connersville and Metamora, Indiana. And the Indiana and Ohio short-line railroad operates over the former towpath between Harrison, Ohio and Brookville, Indiana.This paper provides an overview of the Whitewater Canal, a brief history of construction for each half-mile section of the canal between West Harrison and Brookville, and a survey of existing canal vestiges within each of those sections. The maps that accompany the list of construction sections identify the locations of numerous surviving canal structures as well the approximate locations of those structures either demolished or buried.The purpose of this project is to draw attention to an endangered segment of the former Whitewater Canal corridor. Roughly eighteen continuous miles of the old right-of-way between West Harrison and Brookville, Indiana is soon to be abandoned by the Indiana & Ohio Railroad, the current owner of the property. In addition to the picturesque scenery through which the right-of-way meanders, the old transportation route is steeped in the history of the Whitewater Valley and the State of Indiana itself. Ideal for recreational purposes and education, this threatened stretch of former canal corridor deserves attention and preservation. / Department of Architecture

Thesis (M.S. - Renewable Natural Resources)--University of Arizona, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references.