La thèse analyse les distinctions qui se sont opérées dans les débats parlementaires précédant l’adoption de la LIPR (2002) et ce, pour tenter d’identifier le dénominateur commun qui a justifié l’élaboration, par les députés, d'une loi réunissant pour la toute première fois immigrants et réfugiés. Intéressée à voir si ces deux groupes constituaient des figures du sujet à part entière, nous avons analysé les représentations qu’en avaient les parlementaires, que ce soit dans une logique de parti ou dans une logique plus transversale. L’examen des débats parlementaires montre que les députés distinguent non pas les réfugiés des immigrants, mais plutôt les désirables des non-désirables. Par ailleurs, notre démarche analytique a permis de relever les éléments qui particularisent les désirables et les non-désirables. Enfin, nous avons été en mesure de constater l'établissement, voire l'assouplissement d'une diversité de conditions pour notamment favoriser la non-entrée (ou la sortie) des non-désirables.

Home guardianship measures provide individuals with a means to enhance and ensure the safety of themselves, their family, and their property inside their homes. However, research regarding the factors considered in the decision to employ home guardianship measures as well as the means by which individuals assess this information regarding potential threats and protective responses is limited and varied in its implementation. This study attempts to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the use of home guardianship measures with the application of a modified version of Ronald Rogers’ (1983) Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) model. This model assesses factors that directly contribute to the motivation to engage in protective measures as well as cognitive processes through which an individual assesses these factors. This study finds support both for the direct relationships between sources of information about potential threats or protective responses and the use of home guardianship measures, as well as support for mediating effects of these relationships. In conclusion, this study provides suggestions for future research to further examine the application of PMT to understand the use of guardianship measures.

No description available.

According to the USEPA National Section 303(d) List Fact Sheet, bacterial pathogens are the leading cause of water quality impairments in Texas. The automated Spatially Explicit Load Enrichment Calculation Tool (SELECT) uses spatially variable factors such as land use, soil condition, and distance to streams to characterize pathogen sources across a watershed. The results support development of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) where bacterial contamination is of concern. SELECT calculates potential E. coli loads by distributing the contributing source populations across suitable habitats, applying a fecal production rate, and then aggregating the potential load to the subwatersheds. SELECT provides a Graphical User Interface (GUI), developed in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) within ArcGIS 9.X, where project parameters can be adjusted for various pollutant loading scenarios. A new approach for characterizing E. coli loads resulting from on-site wastewater treatment systems (OWTSs) was incorporated into the SELECT methodology. The pollutant connectivity factor (PCF) module was created to identify areas potentially contributing E. coli loads to waterbodies during runoff events by weighting the influence of potential loading, runoff potential, and travel distance. Simulation results indicate livestock and wildlife are potentially contributing large amounts of E. coli in the Lake Granbury Watershed in areas where these contributing sources are not currently monitored for E. coli. The bacterial water quality violations near Lake Granbury are most likely the result of malfunctioning OWTSs and pet waste in the runoff. The automated SELECT was verified by characterizing the potential E. coli loading in the Plum Creek Watershed and comparing to results from a prior study (Teague, 2007). The E. coli potential load for the watershed was lower than the previous study due to major differences in assumptions. Comparing the average ranked PCF estimated by physical properties of the watershed with the statistical clustering of watershed characteristics provided similar groupings. SELECT supports the need to evaluate each contributing source separately to effectively allocate site specific best management practices (BMPs). This approach can be used as a screening step for determining areas where detailed investigation is merited. SELECT in conjunction with PCF and clustering analysis can assist decision makers develop Watershed Protection Plans (WPPs) and determine TMDLs.

There are many Sciaenid species found in coastal water of Taiwan, and most of them can generate sound in the spawning season. However due to overfishing, the populations of these high economic value fishes have been greatly decreased. To study and protect Sciaenid, whose habitat should be identified to set up seasonal protection zones. In this study, easy and low cost measure by using passive sonar is proposed to map the habitat in the field. Measurement and analysis of Sciaenid¡¦s sound were performed to investigate its acoustic characteristic, and frequency range was found to be 350 to 1,500 Hz. The statistical distribution of sound levels can be built up by enough field measurement, therefore source levels can be defined in this method. In the addition, the transmission loss of in site shallow water was studied to compute the real decaying factor (TL=n*logR) of the survey site. By using 3 sonobuoys, with known source level distribution and transmission loss, the distance of possible habitat can then be inverted. Through enough measurements, the map of coastal habitat of Sciaenid can be generated with efficiency and accuracy.

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In the Child Protection work, the part that may have major impact on the family parent-child relationship include emergent settlement of child, the exercise of parental right on behalf of the parents during the settlement period, the governing agency may, after assessing the care of parents to the child, appeal for the suspending parental right or guardianship to the court to protect the life and security of growth environment of the child. Children becomes the subjects of protection administration and the decision makers of their rights and interest are shifted from the parents to the country, and the frontline decision makers are the social makers in child protection, and the identification of social workers in parents, children and the country is often associated with the suspension of parental rights. Hence, in exercising public right, it involved in diversified and overall consideration factors and should be clarified. This study targeted at the social workers in child protection of Kaohsiung City and the method of research is document analysis, applying analysis on the file documents of the child protection cases with suspension of parental rights appealed to and granted by the courts. After the analysis, the research found that the factors considered by child protection social workers including the facts of abuse, the seriousness of abuse, the abusing parents¡¦ negligence in the repetition of abuses, non-improvement of abusing conduct, refusal in acknowledge of abuse negligence, lake of repentance, supports of relatives and friends and the reaction of children to the parents, and the factors frequently considered are the fact of abuse and the supports of relatives and friends and the reaction of children to the parents is the least. The factors considered identified from the analysis of this research may be applied to build and develop an index in suspension of parental right and will be helpful in the assessment of child protection social workers. ¡eKey words¡fChild protection, Parental rights, Children¡¦s right

Instrument transformers are a crucial component of power system protection. They supply the protection system with scaled-down replicas of current and voltage signals present in a power network to the levels which are safe and practical to op- erate with. The conventional instrument transformers are based on electromagnetic coupling between the power network on the primary side and protective devices on the secondary. Due to such a design, instrument transformers insert distortions in the mentioned signal replicas. Protective devices may be sensitive to these distortions. The inuence of distortions may lead to disastrous misoperations of protective devices. To overcome this problem, a new instrument transformer design has been devised: optical sensing of currents and voltages. In the theory, novel instrument transform- ers promise a distortion-free replication of the primary signals. Since the mentioned novel design has not been widely used in practice so far, its superior performance needs to be evaluated. This poses a question: how can the new technology (design) be evaluated, and compared to the existing instrument transformer technology? The importance of this question lies in its consequence: is there a necessity to upgrade the protection system, i.e. to replace the conventional instrument transformers with the novel ones, which would be quite expensive and time-consuming? The posed question can be answered by comparing inuences of both the novel and the conventional instrument transformers on the protection system. At present, there is no systematic approach to this evaluation. Since the evaluation could lead to an improvement of the overall protection system, this thesis proposes a comprehensive and systematic methodology for the evaluation. The thesis also proposes a complete solution for the evaluation, in the form of a simulation environment. Finally, the thesis presents results of evaluation, along with their interpretation.

Due to the Columbia Space Shuttle Accident of February 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board determined the need for an on-orbit inspection system for the Thermal Protection System that accurately determines damage depth to 0.25". NASA contracted the Spacecraft Technology Center in College Station, Texas, for a proof-of-concept photogrammetric system. This system involves a high quality digital camera placed on the International Space Station, capable of taking high fidelity images of the orbiter as it rotates through the Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver. Due to the pitch rotation, the images are tilted at different angles. The tilt causes the damage to exhibit parallax between multiple images. The tilted images are therefore registered to the near-vertical images using visually striking features on the undamaged surface of the Thermal Protection System that appear in multiple images taken at different tilt angles. The images become relatively oriented after registration, and features in one image are ensured to lie on the epipolar line in the other images. Features that do not lie on the undamaged surface, however, are shifted in the tilted images. These pixels are matched to the near-vertical image using a sliding-window area-matching approach. The windows are matched using a least-squares error method. The change in location for a pixel in a tilted image from its expected location on the undamaged surface is called the pixel disparity. This disparity is linearly scaled using the tilt angle and the pixel sampling to determine the depth of the damage at that pixel location. The algorithm is tested on a set of damaged tiles at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the photogrammetric damage depth is then compared to a set of truth data provided by NASA. The photogrammetric method shows promise, with the 0.25" error limit being exceeded in only a few pixel locations. Once the camera properties are fully known from calibration, this systematic error should be reduced.

A power system protection system consists, at least, of an instrument trans- former, a protective device (relay), and a circuit breaker. Conventional instrument transformers bring currents and voltages from power network levels to much lower scaled-down replicas that serve as input signals to protective relays. The relay's function is to measure input signals (or a relationship among them in some cases) and compare them to defined operating characteristic thresholds (relay settings) to quickly decide whether to operate associated circuit breaker(s). Existing protection systems within a substation are based on a hardwired interface between instrument transformers and protective relays. Recent development of electronic instrument transformers and the spread of digital relays allow the development of an all-digital protection system, in which the traditional analog interface has been replaced with a digital signal connected to digital relays through a digital communication link (process bus). Due to their design, conventional instrument transformers introduce distortions to the current and voltage signal replicas. These distortions may cause protective relays to misoperate. On the other hand, non-conventional instrument transformers promise distortion-free replicas, which, in turn, should translate into better relay performance. Replacing hardwired signals with a communication bus also reduces the significant cost associated with copper wiring. An all-digital system should provide compatibility and interoperability so that different electronic instrument transformers can be connected to different digital relays (under a multi-vendor connection) Since the novel all-digital system has never been implemented and/or tested in practice so far, its superior performance needs to be evaluated. This thesis proposes a methodology for performance and compatibility evaluation of an all-digital protection system through application testing. The approach defines the performance indices and compatibility indices as well as the evaluation methodology.