<p>Due to the expansion of the human population we are an increasing threat to all wild animals. They are driven to exist in smaller areas and in the worst case scenario extinction. Zoos are being encouraged to improve the animal’s physical and social surroundings. Environmental enrichment is a term used for such improvements. In this behavioural study, the enrichment introduced to two Pallas cats (<em>Felis manul</em>) at Parken Zoo in Eskilstuna, Sweden, consisted of a fishing rod and a clothes peg with a dead mouse or chick attached. The intention was to see if the feeding enrichment could increase activity levels and how the cats were using their enclosure. The enclosure was divided into seven zones which have a varying degree of opportunities for the animals to climb, hide and rest above ground level. The environmental enrichment effects on the Pallas cats´ behaviour, activity levels and use of the enclosure were measured and recorded using instantaneous scan sampling, and the mean value was calculated for each individual. The behavioural and enclosure results proved that enrichment benefits the cats activity levels. The behaviours that showed a variation when presented with enrichment were: walking, climbing, grooming, aggressive behaviour, out of sight behaviour, crouching position, sitting and standing still.  The results showed that the cats preferred the zones in the enclosure that offered a larger view of the nearby enclosures. This study shows that providing captive felids with inexpensive, easy to administer enrichment objects can have profound effects on activity behaviours and their enclosure.</p><p> </p>

Due to the expansion of the human population we are an increasing threat to all wild animals. They are driven to exist in smaller areas and in the worst case scenario extinction. Zoos are being encouraged to improve the animal’s physical and social surroundings. Environmental enrichment is a term used for such improvements. In this behavioural study, the enrichment introduced to two Pallas cats (Felis manul) at Parken Zoo in Eskilstuna, Sweden, consisted of a fishing rod and a clothes peg with a dead mouse or chick attached. The intention was to see if the feeding enrichment could increase activity levels and how the cats were using their enclosure. The enclosure was divided into seven zones which have a varying degree of opportunities for the animals to climb, hide and rest above ground level. The environmental enrichment effects on the Pallas cats´ behaviour, activity levels and use of the enclosure were measured and recorded using instantaneous scan sampling, and the mean value was calculated for each individual. The behavioural and enclosure results proved that enrichment benefits the cats activity levels. The behaviours that showed a variation when presented with enrichment were: walking, climbing, grooming, aggressive behaviour, out of sight behaviour, crouching position, sitting and standing still.  The results showed that the cats preferred the zones in the enclosure that offered a larger view of the nearby enclosures. This study shows that providing captive felids with inexpensive, easy to administer enrichment objects can have profound effects on activity behaviours and their enclosure.

This thesis presents an account of a prominent eighteenth-century European naturalist, Peter Pallas (1741-1811), in the setting to which he contributed his scientific talents—the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. A complete outline of Pallas' life is presented for purposes of continuity, but the heart of the thesis is presented in chapters four and five, which combined, relate the major features of Pallas' career in Russia. These two chapters are set against pertinent background material, most of which is involved with the institution itself which supported Pallas. The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences is surveyed in its origin and development in the eighteenth century and material is presented which will outline the ups and downs of the development of academic life in Russia as well as the general milieu in which Pallas fitted. This milieu, it has been concluded, was one of lively and relatively unfettered advance in the development of science in Russia, to which Pallas contributed a great deal of stimulus by way of his widely known and respected accomplishments. The focal point of Pallas' career is represented by his Siberian expedition of 1768-1774, a momentous six-year scientific enterprise to which a central part of the research has been directed. The account of the Pallas Expedition presented here is entirely original, utilizing chiefly his own travel account and the Proceedings (Protokoly) of the Academy, from which source, in the absence of archival materials, can be gained the general content of Pallas' communications to the Academy during his absence. To add perspective, the Pallas Expedition has been set against the historical and contemporary background of Russian scientific exploration in the eighteenth century. An appendix has also been included which lists the Russian-sponsored eighteenth-century scientific expeditions. The follow-up to Pallas' expedition--the remainder of his career in St. Petersburg--is equally a central part of the study. As an academician in St. Petersburg from 1774 to 1793, Pallas was a luminary of European natural science as well as a pillar of scientific achievement in Russia. In historical terms and seen against the background of the Academy of which he was a part, Pallas’ scholarly contributions in Russia have been outlined, most of which can be explained as a consequence of his expedition. A wide selection of available secondary material has been utilized to explain Pallas’ academic career supplemented by some original research supplemented by some original research (chiefly from the Academy Proceedings) and the opportunity I have had to see and scan most of his major publications pertaining to zoology and botany, the major fields to which he contributed. Although of German background, Pallas spent most of his adult life in Russia (1767-1810). His career there forms one of the highlights of foreign scientific expeditionary achievement during the century that Russia relied almost exclusively on foreigners to establish the serious beginnings of both. His contributions--expeditionary and academically in the realm of biology--for obvious reasons are more closely connected to the Russian arena; perhaps for that reason he has failed to attract deserved notice alongside the eighteenth-century European naturalists who are now more popularly known. This thesis attempts no more than to account historically for the career of Peter Simon Pallas in Russia and to present his remarkable accomplishments. A categorized, partially annotated bibliography is appended, preceded by a bibliographic explanation.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

This study is about how Athena is portrayed in two of the surviving works of antiquity, the Iliad and the Hymn to Athena by Callimachus. The study further shows in comparison of the two works, how Athena can be described based on her emotions, attributes, actions and character traits. In relation to the Iliad, Athena comes to express emotions such as frustration, dissatisfaction, anger, hatred, happiness, joy and as loving. Furthermore, the analysis of the Iliad has been able to identify actions and character traits such as cunning, persuasion, incitement, courage, eager and quickness. Athena has also been able to be attributed characteristics in relation to her as a goddess of war and her father Zeus within the analysis. The characteristics that emerged during the analysis are the goddess as terrifying, angry, with destructive powers, that she never tires, terrible deity and based on her epithet Tritogeneia.   Through analysis of the Hymn to Athena by Callimachus, the goddess can be attributed to emotions such as pity and love. Unlike the Iliad, emotions of a negative nature such as frustration, dissatisfaction and anger do not appear in the hymn. Furthermore, other actions and character traits can also be attributed to Athena in the hymn, such as female beauty and personal hygiene. The majority of epithets and designations can be attributed to the goddess within the hymn, which, unlike the Iliad, is more numerous in number. The epithets and designations that are claimed are polisgoddess, queen, lady and Thebes. Like other identifications attributed to Athena within the hymn, epithets and designations can be related to context. That in the sense that worshipers want to see Athena appear in their company, which is most likely to happen if they address the goddess with respectful words.

Les Eschés amoureux, poème allégorique de trente mille vers datant de 1370-1380, se présentent comme une réponse au Roman de la Rose, en rejouant notamment l’intrigue sur un échiquier. Conservé dans deux manuscrits inachevés, encore largement inédit, ce texte a rapidement été éclipsé par son commentaire en prose, Le Livre des eschez amoureux moralisés, rédigé par Évrart de Conty, médecin personnel de Charles V. La récente attribution des Eschés amoureux à ce même auteur hisse le poème initial au rang d’œuvre destinée à être (auto-)commentée ; cette auto-exégèse est déjà esquissée dans l’un des témoins du texte en vers, qui comprend un apparat de gloses marginales latines participant d’un projet auctorial. Les Eschés amoureux articulent ambition narrative et transmission de connaissances variées, en intégrant notamment en leur sein deux traductions d’auctoritates, les Remedia amoris d’Ovide et le De regimine principum de Gilles de Rome. Ils offrent une mise en fiction du savoir singulière, réservant souvent ce qui fonde l’autorité du discours à un commentaire à venir. Cette présente étude s’attache à examiner les stratégies de divulgation du savoir par le biais d’un récit à la fin du XIVe siècle, en analysant notamment les modèles investis par Les Eschés amoureux, l’assemblage d’éléments hétéroclites qui préside à l’élaboration de cette fiction et la fonction dévolue au commentaire. / The Eschés amoureux, a thirty thousand verse allegorical poem written circa 1370-1380, comes as a response to the Romance of the Rose, notably playing the initial plot on a chessboard. The text can be read in two incomplete manuscripts and is still mostly unedited. It was quickly outshone by its prose commentary, Le Livre des eschez amoureux moralisés, written by Évrart de Conty, King Charles V’s personal physician. The fact that the Eschés amoureux was recently attributed to this very same author pushes the initial poem to the rank of a work that requires (self-)commentaries; the outline of this self exegesis is to be found in one of the verse manuscripts, which comes with latin marginal glosses of major and auctorial importance. The Eschés amoureux connects a narrative project to the transmission of knowledge, inserting within the poem two translations of auctoritates, the ovidian Remedia amoris and the De regimine principum by Giles of Rome. It provides a peculiar fictionalization of knowledge, often setting aside the authoritative part of the discourse and keeping it for a forthcoming commentary. The present dissertation intends to analyze the ways knowledge was conveyed through narrative at the end of the XIVth century; it considers the models involved for this specific text, the miscellaneous items brought together in one single fiction and the part played by the commentary.