This study is an investigation into the representation of complexities confronting the concept of the Rainbow Nation as a South African social reality. The study is based on the works of Trevor Noah, one of post-Apartheid South Africa‘s eminent stand-up comedians whose two media works, The Day Walker and Crazy Normal, tackle issues pertaining to the socio-political and economic realities that are prevailing in South Africa. The mass media products continue to receive wide acclaim from both, media circles and audiences from racially diversified societies. They are delivered in a mimetic stereotypical manner that cuts across the length and breadth of the South African society. Trevor Noah‘s comedy uses humour to provide the South African society with an opportunity ―[for brutal honesty] to explore, affirm, deny, and ultimately to change its structure and its values‖ (Turner, 1977:33). Representations made in his comedy, more than providing people with a tonic for laughter, also create for the society momentary instances of thought which transcend the theatre stage in which the humour is delivered. Courtesy of these representations, his comedy infiltrates the people‘s sub-consciousness and engages them on those issues pertaining to race-relations and multicultural tolerance which are more often than not trivialised but are influential in shaping the status quo.

Accurate simulation of energy, water, and carbon fluxes exchanging between the land surface and the atmosphere is beneficial for improving terrestrial ecohydrological and climate predictions. We systematically assessed the Noah land surface model (LSM) with mutiparameterization options (Noah-MP) in simulating these fluxes and associated variations in terrestrial water storage (TWS) and snow cover fraction (SCF) against various reference products over 18 United States Geological Survey two-digital hydrological unit code regions of the continental United States (CONUS). In general, Noah-MP captures better the observed seasonal and interregional variability of net radiation, SCF, and runoff than other variables. With a dynamic vegetation model, it overestimates gross primary productivity by 40% and evapotranspiration (ET) by 22% over the whole CONUS domain; however, with a prescribed climatology of leaf area index, it greatly improves ET simulation with relative bias dropping to 4%. It accurately simulates regional TWS dynamics in most regions except those with large lakes or severely affected by irrigation and/or impoundments. Incorporating the lake water storage variations into the modeled TWS variations largely reduces the TWS simulation bias more obviously over the Great Lakes with model efficiency increasing from 0.18 to 0.76. Noah-MP simulates runoff well in most regions except an obvious overestimation (underestimation) in the Rio Grande and Lower Colorado (New England). Compared with North American Land Data Assimilation System Phase 2 (NLDAS-2) LSMs, Noah-MP shows a better ability to simulate runoff and a comparable skill in simulating R-n but a worse skill in simulating ET over most regions. This study suggests that future model developments should focus on improving the representations of vegetation dynamics, lake water storage dynamics, and human activities including irrigation and impoundments.

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A mesoscale evaluation is performed to determine the impacts of climate change on terrestrial hydrological components and the Net Irrigation Water Requirement (NIWR) throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The Noah-MP land surface model is calibrated and evaluated against the observed datasets of United States Geological Survey (USGS) streamflow gages, actual evapotranspiration from USGS Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) Model and soil moisture from Soil Analysis Climate Network (SCAN). Six best performing Global Climate Models (GCM) based on Multivariate Adaptive Constructed Analogs (MACA) scheme are included for two future scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5), to assess the change in water balance components, change in NIWR for two dominant crops (corn and soybeans) and uncertainty in GCM projections. Using these long-term simulations, the flood inundation maps are developed for future scenarios along the Susquehanna River including the City of Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. The HEC-RAS 2D model is calibrated and evaluated against the high-water marks from major historical flood events and the stage-discharge relationship of the available USGS streamgages. Finally, the impacts of climate change are assessed on flood inundation depth and extent by comparing a 30-yr and 100-yr flood event based on the historical and future (scenario-based) peak discharge estimates at the USGS streamgages. Interestingly, flood inundation extent and severity predicted by the model along the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg is expected to rise in the future climate scenarios due to the greater frequency of extreme events increasing total precipitation. / Master of Science / Climate change is inevitable due to increased greenhouse gas emissions, with impacts varying in space and time significantly throughout the globe. The impacts are strongly driven by the change in precipitation and temperature which affect the control of the movement of water on the surface of the Earth. These changes in the water cycle require an understanding of hydrological components like streamflow, soil moisture, and evapotranspiration. Development of long-term climate models and computational hydrological models (based on mathematical equations and governed by laws of physics) has helped us in understanding this climate variability in space and time. This study performs a long-term simulation using the datasets from six different climate models to analyze the change in terrestrial hydrological components for the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The simulations provide an understanding of the interplay between various land surface processes due to climate change and can help determine future water availability and consumption. To illustrate the usefulness of such long-term simulations, the crop water requirement is quantified for the dominant crops in Chesapeake Bay watershed to project water availability and support the development of mitigation strategies. Flood inundation maps are also developed for a section of Susquehanna River near the City of Harrisburg in south-central Pennsylvania using the streamflow from long-term simulations. The flood inundation depth and extent for major flood events such as Tropical Storm Agnes (1972) and Tropical Storm Lee (2011) are compared along the Susquehanna River, which can aid in managing flood operations, reduce the future flood damages and prioritize the mitigation efforts for endangered communities near the City of Harrisburg.

The years from 1810 to 1840 deal with one of the most decisive periods in Indiana's history, first as a territory and later as a state. Few periods have seen greater political and material development. During these years great problems, such as the organization of the state government, the disposition of the public lands by the Federal government, and the construction of internal improvements by the national and state governments, had to be solved by those who bore the responsibilities of public office. Great national political movements were in the making. These matured into powerful forces, shaping not only national policies but reaching down and influencing state political and economic alignments and policies. Among the names of families who guided the political affairs of Indiana at the beginning of statehood, none is more prominent than that of Noble. Two Noble brothers, James and Noah, rose to the highest possible positions within the commonwealth. James served as one of the first two United States senators from Indiana, and he continued a member of that body fifteen years,- until his death in 1831. Noah, the younger brother, was elected the fifth Governor of the state in 1831. The third brother, Lazarus, held the Office of Receiver of Public Moneys in the Brookville Land Office. He died at an early age.

Annotation: The seven Noahide laws represent a divine non-Jewish complementary to Jewish law. This thesis has been looking for an answer to the question about concept of those laws, their content, intentions and contemporary use. The main method is analysis of original sources and investigating their mutual relations. Comparison of contemporary guides is also included.

This thesis dedicates to implementation of the boys' orphanage in developing country. The project belongs to Little Noah Foundation, while significant partner for direct realization is non-government organization Njovu. This thesis is classically created by theoretical and practical parts. The theoretical part defines frequented concepts, informs about actual situation in the country, especially in west province of Zambia, and contains information about organizations participated into this project. The practical part continues to theoretical knowledge, defines goal and methodology of thesis and mainly presents results of its. The goal, which follows this thesis, is to map out the progress of boys' orphanage in Mongu. In the line with the thesis they are asked these research questions: Why was this boys' orphanage established in Mongu? How was the project progressing? What are the results of the project? I have chosen qualitative research to answer the research questions. During my residence there and active participating to realization of project (February December 2014) I have used methods of observation, questioning and analysis of the data. The results of this thesis are created by profound SWOT analysis of the project, approach of personal securing, describing of process of intake of children and case reports of adopted children, whose value is in demonstrating of local social reality. Numerous supplements illustrate presented information. Discussion summarizes and recapitulates results and their outputs are recommendations and notices for similar starting projects. Very important aspect for whole thesis is to implant it into the context of very different conditions. The contribution of the project is especially in promoting of family model of childcare in institution. Family character of this orphanage is specified by relatively low number of children and the caregivers are married couple with two own children. This thesis brings interrelated and concrete and detailed information about whole project and its progress. This thesis may be used like source of information about concrete project, like documentation of start of Little Noah Children's Home and as well it can be some kind of inspiration for similar projects in developing countries.