Ph.d.-afhandling. Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, 2006. / Haves også i trykt udg. Thesis (Ph.D.). 11 ill., 6 tables; approx. 260 ref. Summaries (Da, En).

This thesis explores the impact of democratic institutions amongst the Asian developing countries. There has been debate about the successful economic rise of these seven countries; however, questions remain over the differing levels of economic performance. Institutional literature has paid scant attention to the role of democracy, and how this has influenced economic development throughout Asia. This thesis explores the relationships between four democratic institutions - cabinets, party-systems, electoral systems and bicameralism - and economic performance across six developing democracies, in addition to Japan. Using current democratic institutional literature derived from OECD countries, this thesis expands the scope to include new countries. The analysis employs both statistical methods and case studies to assess the relationships between four democratic institutions and seven socio-economic indicators between 1986 and 2005. The linear regressions provided evidence that coalition cabinets are correlated with lower levels of inflation and unemployment, but large multi-party legislatures are not. This thesis also found correlations between strong second legislative chambers and higher FDI, lower tariffs and higher income inequality. Although this is an exploratory thesis, I suggest that democratic institutional analysis within Asia does warrant further examination; an assessment of the specific institutions may provide us with clearer notions regarding economic development.

Commercial farming of mud crab Scylla serrata is a significant industry throughout South East Asia. The limited scientific knowledge of mud crab nutritional requirements and digestive processes, however, is recognised as a major constraint to the future growth of this industry. To better understand the mechanisms of digestion in the mud crab we have analysed the diversity of digestive enzymes from the hepatopancreas. Significant protease, amylase,cellulase and xylanase activities were detected in soluble extracts from this organ. Temperature profiles for all enzymes were basically similar with optimal activities observed at 500C. Examination of pH tolerance revealed optimal activities for protease and amylase at pH 7.0 while optimal activities for cellulase and xylanase were observed at pH 5.5. Under optimum conditions,protease and amylase activities were approximately two orders of magnitude greater than those seen for either cellulase or xylanase. Interestingly, hepatopancreatic extracts were able to liberate glucose from either starch or carboxymethyl (CM)-cellulose suggesting that a range of carbohydrates may be utilised as energy sources. The effects of dietary carbohydrates on feed digestibility, digestive enzyme levels and growth were also studied by inclusion of additional starch or CM-cellulose at the expense of casein in formulated diets. It was shown that amylase, cellulase and xylanase activities in extracts from the hepatopancreas were highest in mud crabs fed diets containing 47% carbohydrate. Based on the findings, we suggest that the ability of the mud crab to modulate digestive enzyme activities may represent a mechanism to maximise access to essential nutrients when the dietary profile changes.

Licentiatavhandling (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet. / Härtill 3 uppsatser.

Avec le développement des échanges mondialisés, les interactions sexuelles et/ou amoureuses entre Occident et pays en développement deviennent de plus en plus fréquentes. A travers l’étude comparative des relations entre Occidentaux et Thaïlandais ou Malaisiens nous verrons comment, par le biais des hiérarchies de genre, de classe et de « race », les acteurs occidentaux et orientaux tentent de revaloriser leur capital économique, culturel, social et symbolique. Si en Thaïlande les femmes issues d’une classe défavorisée peuvent espérer une certaine assurance financière, dans le pays voisin les femmes d’un milieu aisé souhaitent accéder à davantage de liberté face à l’emprise de la culture et de la religion locales. Ce désir de l’autre cache souvent chez les Occidentaux un rejet des dites « valeurs occidentales », notamment l’égalité des sexes, et une volonté de retour vers des valeurs considérées plus « stables », « traditionnelles » et « hiérarchisées ». Nous verrons ainsi comment les interactions amoureuses mondialisées sont un instrument de valorisation du capital bourdieusien et un moyen de redéfinir les hiérarchies sociales. / With the development of globalized exchanges, sexual and/or sentimental relationships between Occident and developping countries become more and more frequent. Through the comparative study of occidental people and thai or malay people relationships we will see how, with hierarchies of gender, class and race, occidental and oriental actors try to valorise their economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. If in Thailand lower class women can acceed to financial stability, in the neighbour country upper class women can aspire to freedom from local culture and religion. This desire of the other often hide among occidental men a reject of « occidental values », especially sexual egality, and a return to values considered more « stable », « traditional », and « hierarchized ». Thereby we will see how globalized love interactions are an instrument to valorise Bourdieu’s capital and a way to redefine social hierarchies.

Cette thèse constitue la première grammaire d’envergure de la langue stieng, une langue minoritaire en danger parlée au Cambodge et au Vietnam. Si le nombre exact de locuteurs est à ce jour méconnu, la population stieng compterait 51 540 membres dans les deux pays. Ce travail se base sur deux variétés différentes de stieng, toutes deux parlées au Cambodge, dans la région de Kratie et le district de Snuol. L’étude s’appuie sur des données de première main collectées auprès de onze locuteurs, dans le cadre de trois séjours de terrain totalisant 12 mois et réalisés dans des villages traditionnels. Cette thèse répond à un double objectif : elle propose d’une part, une description d’une langue en danger encore très peu décrite, dans un cadre de linguistique typologique-fonctionnelle, génétique et aréale et, d’autre part, le développement de thématiques particulières. Ce travail propose dans un premier temps une introduction sociolinguistique de la langue dans le but de contextualiser la recherche. Puis, les thèmes linguistiques abordés dans cette thèse couvrent la phonologie et la morphosyntaxe. La partie phonologique propose une synthèse de la phonologie du stieng dans une perspective comparative et diachronique. La partie morphosyntaxe est quant à elle scindée en différentes sous-parties dédiées aux catégories de mots ainsi qu’aux domaines nominal, verbal et phrastique. Une attention particulière est accordée aux thèmes de la catégorisation nominale, de la composition nominale, du temps-aspect-mode (TAM), des constructions verbales en série et de l'expression de l’espace. Les annexes de cette thèse présentent des informations complémentaires au sujet de la situation des minorités du Cambodge, des éléments relatifs à l’analyse phonologique ainsi que trois textes, glosés et traduits, extraits d'une base de données plus ample compilée dans le cadre des séjours de terrain. / This dissertation is the first far-ranging grammar of Stieng, a language of oral tradition of the Môn-Khmer group, spoken in Cambodia and Vietnam. If the exact number of speakers is currently unknown, the whole Stieng community may group 51 540 members in both countries. This dissertation is based on two different varieties of Stieng, both spoken in Cambodia (Kratie province, Snuol district). This study relies on primary data obtained among 11 speakers, within three fieldtrips realized in traditional villages, for a total duration of 12 months. This dissertation achieves a double objective by proposing a description of an endangered language, so far very little described, in a functional-typological, areal and genetic framework and by developing specific topics. The dissertation starts with a sociolinguistic introduction of the language in order to contextualize the research. Then the linguistic topics covered in the dissertation include the phonology and the morphosyntax. The phonology part gives a summary of the phonology of the language in a comparative and diachronic perspective. The morphosyntax part is divided into different subparts respectively dedicated to word classes and the nominal, verbal and phrase domains. Special attention is given to the topics of nominal categorization, nominal composition, tense-aspect-mood (TAM), verbal serialization and the expression of space. The appendices provide additional information about the situation of minority peoples of Cambodia, further elements about the phonological analysis and three texts, glossed and translated, extracted from a larger database compiled during the fieldtrips.

L’importance et l’expansion des arboviroses comme la dengue ou le virus Zika nécessite des modèles pour mieux comprendre et prédire leurs dynamiques. La propagation vectorielle de ces maladies est influencée par de multiples facteurs humains et environnementaux qui rendent complexe la construction de modèles épidémiologiques parcimonieux. Parallèlement, de nombreux outils théoriques et computationnels existent désormais pour confronter ces modèles aux données observées. L’objectif de ce travail de thèse est donc d’apporter l’éclairage des données sur les modèles de propagation des arboviroses. Dans un premier temps, il s’agit d’identifier les éléments les plus importants à incorporer pour modéliser les dynamiques de la dengue en milieu rural, dans la région de Kampong Cham (Cambodge). Différents modèles sont comparés, complexifiant à la fois le détail de l’histoire de la maladie et la prise en compte des formes de stochasticité. Dans le cadre déterministe, on a pu souligner l’importance des interactions entre sérotypes, et le faible intérêt pour la représentation explicite des moustiques vecteurs et des individus asymptomatiques. Par ailleurs, la prise en compte des incertitudes indique qu’une large part de la dynamique est capturée seulement par la stochasticité et non par les éléments du squelette déterministe du modèle. Aussi étudie-t-on dans un second temps d’autres aspects de la transmission de la dengue, comme la saisonnalité et la structure spatiale, grâce à des données d’épidémies à Rio de Janeiro (Brésil). Dans un dernier temps, ces méthodes et modèles sont appliqués à l’étude d’un arbovirus émergent, le virus Zika. A partir de données d’épidémies survenues dans le Pacifique, les paramètres-clé de la propagation du virus sont estimés dans le cadre stochastique, et leur variabilité est envisagée à la fois en termes de contexte géographique et de modèle épidémiologique, par la comparaison de quatre îles et de deux modèles à transmission vectorielle. Par ailleurs, la question des interactions potentielles du virus Zika avec celui de la dengue est explorée. / Arboviruses such as the dengue and Zika viruses are expanding worldwide and mo- deling their dynamics can help to better understand and predict their propagation, as well as experiment control scenarios. These mosquito-borne diseases are influenced by a multiplicity of human and environmental factors that are complex to include in parsimonious epidemiological models. In parallel, statistical and computational tools are nowadays available to confront theore- tical models to the observed data. The objective of this PhD work is therefore to study arbovirus propagation models in the light of data. Firstly, in order to identify the most important elements to incorporate in models for dengue dynamics in a rural setting, several dengue models are com- pared using data from the Kampong Cham region in Cambodia. Models incorporate increasing complexity both in the details of disease life history and in the account for several forms of sto- chasticity. In the deterministic framework, including serotype interactions proved decisive, whereas explicit modeling of mosquito vectors and asymptomatic infections had limited added value, when seasonality and underreporting are already accounted for. Moreover, including several forms of un- certainties highlighted that a large part of the disease dynamics is only captured by stochasticity and not by the elements of the deterministic skeleton. Therefore, secondly, we explore other aspects of transmission, such as seasonality and spatial structure, in the case of dengue epidemics in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Finally, the models and estimation methods are applied to study an emerging arbovirus, the Zika virus. Using data from epidemics in the Pacific, we estimate the key parameters of disease propagation in the stochastic framework and explore their variability in terms of geogra- phic setting and model formulation by comparing four islands and two models with vector-borne transmission. In addition, potential interactions with the dengue virus are explored.

This dissertation consists of three closely related essays on upgrading in agro-commodity value chains, which is an important issue for many developing countries that produce and export commodities in mostly unprocessed form. The essays are based on fieldwork in Malaysia and focus on its palm oil, which is the world’s largest oils and fats product by production and export volumes. The first essay examines the suitability of vertical specialisation for participation and upgrading in agro-commodity value chains based on the case of Malaysian palm oil. It uses data from interviews, site visits, and industry and economic statistics to analyse upgrading at the sector and firm levels. The essay suggests that upgrading is prone to sectoral linkage development and vertical integration at local lead firms. The development is driven by production characteristics, sectoral dynamics, eco-historical settings that are unique to agro-commodity value chains, as well as firm motives seeking resources, markets, efficiency gains, and strategic assets. The second essay studies Malaysia’s industrial policy for its palm oil sector through three distinct stages of development. The findings show that resource-based industrialisation (RBI) requires selective state intervention targeting macroeconomic conditions, infrastructure, business climate, and human capital. The Malaysian experience also highlights the importance of local firms in driving RBI investments, contrary to the emphasis in the literature which either overplays the importance of foreign linkages or dismisses nationality of firms as a non-factor for industrialisation. The third essay investigates economic and social outcomes from upgrading in the Malaysian palm oil sector using gross value added data. It shows that economic upgrading can but does not automatically lead to social upgrading. The essay finds that economic upgrading in value chains improves income of groups of individuals at different rates depending on their position in the value chains. Skills and productivity performance provide only partial explanation for the uneven social outcomes; the differences in institutional arrangements and political representation accorded to the groups are likely to be important factors as well.

No description available.

No description available.