The Masai Mara Game Reserve of southwestern Kenya forms the northernmost extension of the Serengeti ecosystem and provides the critical dry season range for approximately 1.5 million migratory wildebeest. Over the past 100 years, major ecological changes have occurred. The area has experienced a transformation from open grassland to dense woodlands and back. This study addressed the transition in the Mara woodlands from both an historical and a contemporary perspective. The study focused on two central questions: 1) what factor (or factors) were responsible for the decline of the woodlands in the 1960s? And 2) what factor (or factors) are currently responsible for inhibiting woodland regeneration? In the 1880s an introduced disease, rinderpest, decimated wild and domestic ungulates in the Serengeti-Mara region. Local pastoralists, dependent on their livestock for survival, succumbed to disease and starvation. Elephant numbers had also been greatly reduced by indigenous hunters. Explorers, slave traders, and hunters described the area as an open grassland by 1900. In the following decades, conditions were conducive to the establishment of woodlands; burning rates were low and elephant browsing was negligible. By the 1930s, the area was covered by dense woodland. These woodlands began a steady decline several decades later. Unusually high rainfall, high grass productivity, and severe fires characterized the period of greatest decline (1961 1967). Although woodland losses were initially viewed as "elephant problems", findings from this study suggest that fire was the primary factor in the disappearance of woodlands, while elephants merely accelerated the rate of decline. Elephants preferred open grasslands, swamps, and relict thickets in the wet season. However, in the dry season, elephants selected wooded habitats. Average group size was significantly higher in the wet season than the dry. Mara elephants fit the same feeding patterns reported for many African elephant populations. Elephants concentrated on grasses and herbs in the rainy season and browse in the dry season. In general, males browsed more than females, while females ate more diverse diets containing more herbaceous matter. Elephants utilized seedlings under 1m more than any other height class of trees throughout the year. This pattern of selective feeding significantly reduced seedling survivorship. Large-scale field experiments subjected plants to three treatments: browsed only, browsed and burned, and neither browsed nor burned. Although fire, at current fuel loadings and intensities, produced an almost total topkill, the majority of burned individuals resprouted within six months. Elephants removed a significant proportion of seedlings and severely damaged others. Wildebeest inhibited seedling growth through trampling, thrashing, and accidental browsing. Only those seedlings protected from both burning and browsing increased in height. Woodland dynamics in the Mara are currently more affected by elephants, wildebeest, and other browsers than by fire. Elephants can be considered a "keystone" species in this system. I concluded that elephants were not capable of initiating the woodland declines which started over two decades ago. However, once tree densities had been reduced by previous perturbations (such as increased burning rates following a reduction in wildebeest numbers and an increased frequency of man-made fires), elephants accelerated the rate of decline. My findings did not support Caughley's "stable limit cycle" hypothesis. Today, elephants are holding the Mara in a grassland phase, despite low burning rates. This pattern suggests that the Mara may have two locally stable states, woodland or grassland, and that an external factor such as fire is necessary to move the system between the two. Elephants, alone, apparently cannot move the system from one state to another, but once it is in the grassland phase, they can hold it there. / Science, Faculty of / Zoology, Department of / Graduate

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第22625号 / 経博第617号 / 新制||経||293(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 新後閑 禎, 教授 柴田 章久, 准教授 高橋 修平 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

The two-phase approach to the problem of reconciling Dominion Bank's FRB account permitted us to satisfy the critical need for improving the manual process, while allowing us to plan a long-term solution. The implementation of the short-term program provided an automated means of keeping track of exception items by allowing the addition and deletion of items in four database files representing "We Debits," We Credits," "FRB Debits, II and "FRB Credits." This eliminated the need to manually transcribe the revised list, initially comprising 1300 items, on a biweekly basis. The migration from a biweekly to a daily reconcilement would have been impossible without the implementation of this program. The short-term program also provided the ability to print reports of exception items in a variety of formats which made it possible to focus on stale items and to report only the relevant items to the originating areas which was made possible by the use of the balancing and report group codes. The balancing phase of the process was also enhanced by the short-term program because it provided the ability to instantaneously calculate net totals of exception items. This feature helped to identify out-of-balance conditions prior to the close of business each day_ The use of the balancing group codes made the balancing process more efficient because out-of-balance conditions could be identified by group, permitting faster resolution of problem conditions. Another feature of the short-term program that enhanced the reconcilement process was the ability to attach descriptive information to the exception items in the database files using a 3D-character description field. Special reports could be generated as needed based on the information in this field, / Master of Science

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / South Africa has developed an extensive network of parks, nature reserves and conservation areas, the stated purpose of which is to both promote and protect nature and, particularly in the case of state-owned resources, to harness the power of tourism in social and economic development. This study examines the impact on rural and urban communities of proclaimed 'nature areas' and related efforts by the state to grow the economic and developmental contribution of tourism in the regions concerned. Through interrogating this 'triangulation' of nature, tourism and local economic development the pattern of benefit distribution from the protection of nature areas is highlighted.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a neuropathological disease that has been associated with contact sports involving repetitive brain injury. This disease is becoming more well-known due to an increase in media coverage, most notably for its possible association with professional football players. This has led to growing concern for the risks of participating in contact sports and the need for further research. There still remains much to be learned about this neurodegenerative disease. The current understanding of the epidemiology and risk factors for this disease are limited by biases in methodology, generalizability, and the use of retrospective data. The only method to diagnose CTE is via autopsy, which has contributed to some of these limitations. The pathogenesis of the disease involves hyper-phosphorylated (p-tau) tau accumulation in distinct areas in the cerebral cortex, leading to neuronal disfunction. The most accepted risk factor for this disease is recurrent brain trauma. Clinically, it can present with varying cognitive, mood, and behavior symptoms and different ages of onset, which often leads to a misdiagnosis of other neurodegenerative diseases. There are a few proposed treatments for CTE but more clinical trials must be performed before any are accepted in clinical practice. One potential modifying factor for CTE symptomology is cognitive reserve (CR). CR is an individual brain’s ability to cope with insults such as neuropathological disease, trauma, and the normal ageing process. Higher CR has shown to have a positive effect on other neuropathologies such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). This led to a preliminary study of CR which showed that one measure of CR, occupational attainment, was associated with delayed onset of symptoms of CTE. Our study builds upon this preliminary study by also examining the effect of CR on clinical symptoms of CTE. We expand on this study by using a previously validated tool to measure CR, including aspects such as education, occupational attainment, and social/leisure activities. Our study also includes subjects from other contact sports at varying levels of participation. The results of our study will provide a better understanding of the relationship between CR and clinical symptoms of CTE. This will allow future research to build upon these results and continue to advance our knowledge of this disease. These advances allow changes to be made in clinical practice and athletic organizations in order to improve an individual’s quality of life.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Masters Degree in Recreation and Tourism in the Department of Recreation and Tourism at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2009. / The study was conducted with the view of investigating the development of ecotourism in the Dukuduku Forest Reserve and surroundings, with specific attention paid to policy and its implementation. In an effort to develop this natural environment, there has been much overuse and degradation of the natural forest reserve. What has also been implicit is that tourist visitation numbers at the Dukuduku Forest Reserve, could decrease, and these reduced numbers of tourists could affect the employment rate within the local community. Pursuant to these observations and problems, the researcher found it appealing and necessary to explore the attitudes and perceptions of the local communities towards the usage of the natural forest reserve in Dukuduku. This would be achieved by investigating the participation, practices, and patterns associated with the existing policies and their implementation in the the Dukuduku Forest Reserve environment. In an attempt to investigate the research problem, the following research objectives were formulated: (a) To find out the extent to which stakeholders understand the meaning and importance of ecotourism in and around the Dukuduku Forest Reserve. (b) To investigate the adequacy of the provision of nature-based tourism facilities for employment purposes in the study area. (c) To examine whether there is undue over-emphasis on the commercialisation of the natural resources in the study area. (d) To reveal the degree to which tourism stakeholders participate in ecotourism development initiatives in the study area. (e) To establish whether the ecotourism related policies and practices, existing in the study area are geared towards benefitting the local community. The above listed objectives were investigated using a methodology process that involved the collecting of data from the local community of Dukuduku and other stakeholders, by means of questionnaires. The data collected was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences [SPSS] computer programme, which led to acquiring research findings. The findings that emerged showed that among the majority of respondents there is a relatively good understanding of the meaning and importance of ecotourism as a human activity. Notwithstanding, the social involvement of local communities in activities of the Dukuduku Forest and Settlement Area, were seen as inadequate. The majority of stakeholders indicated that they perceived a substantial number of ecotourism resources or facilities as inadequate and not employment based. Regarding the upholding the policy of conservation in contrast to the commercialisation of ecotourism resources, the majority of respondents were in favour of upholding the policy of conservation of ecotourism resources. The respondents were also asked to reveal how they perceive local community participation in ecotourism activities, the majority of the respondents agreed that there was no beneficial participation in ecotourism activities in the study area. Finally it was established that respondents in the study area revealed that the existing ecotourism related policies and practices were not clear to them and that the policies were geared to benefit the local community. In this regard the majority of the local community and the service providers individually indicated that the existence of policy formulation and its beneficiation was poor in the study area. The study concludes by offering some recommendations associated with the objectives of the study listed above.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.