In 1846 negotiations between Great Britain and the United States resulted in the end of the Joint Occupancy Agreement and the Pacific Northwest became the property of the United States. Nineteenth Century Oregon represented a new beginning for many citizens of the United States and around the world. The settlers arriving in the Oregon Country consisted of a hardy, self reliant, breed; yet they sought the protection of the United States government from Native Americans living in the region and from Great Britain's Hudson's Bay Company. When Oregon became a territory, in 1848, the pioneers struggled to preserve their independence. They resented federally appointed officials sent to govern them by the United States Government. Governor John Pollard Gaines, the subject of this study, came to Oregon as a federally appointed official. Previous studies of the Oregon Territorial Government have examined in detail the marked conflict between the political parties of the Oregon Territory. Before 1850 Oregon did not have two distinct political parties. Governor Gaines, a Whig, acted as a catalyst for the birth of a strong Democratic party in Oregon. On the federal level the Whig and Democratic parties had been at odds since the time of Andrew Jackson. The Whigs were proponents of economic progress contained within a social and political framework. Whigs promoted individual and national independence; Democrats promoted the dependence cf one class upon another. Whigs believed the pursuit of individual liberty and national prosperity depended upon an active government representative of its citizens' interests. This study examines "home rule" Democrats, their treatment of Governor Gaines, and the ramifications of the Governor's reactions at a local and federal level. As a federally appointed official sent to govern the distant Oregon Territory, Gaines endured abuse from "home rule" citizens. Conclusions drawn from this study demonstrate that Gaines's affiliation with the Whig party is secondary to his being an "outsider." His treatment as governor would not have been much different if he had been a Democrat sent to the Territory by the federal government.

The aim of this research project is to study the ways in which territory—particularly its socio-cultural dimension—influences the participatory decentralization (PD) initiatives of the state from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. To achieve this objective, this project analyzed decentralization experiences at the municipal level within the national-level context of political decentralization processes in Uruguay and Chile. Uruguayan cases were compared with the Chilean ones based on Mill’s method of difference, also known as “most-similar design,” which is considered one of the most useful qualitative approaches in terms of studying democratization in Latin America (George & Bennett, 2005). However, I used Mill’s method in two distinct ways, comparing similar municipalities between the two countries, which allowed me to vary the national-level political project while holding municipal characteristics relatively constant; and comparing municipal cases within each of the two countries, which allowed me to vary the socio-cultural dimension of territory within a single participatory decentralization model. Comparing the effect of the political project on PD outcomes to the effect of the socio-cultural dimension of territory allowed me to assess which factor proves more important to local outcomes. Although there are significant differences between Uruguay and Chile in terms of their political projects of decentralization, rural and poor municipalities with a high percentage of minority ethnic communities—in this case, Afro-descendant populations in Uruguay and indigenous Mapuche peoples in Chile—, still face deep, structural obstacles to implementing participatory decentralization, differences which are explained by the effect of the ethno-cultural dimension of territory and by the effect of geographical residence on the PD outcomes over the last decade. This alternative approach to participatory decentralization based on the socio-cultural dimension of territory highlights the structural obstacles to successful participatory decentralization, such as clientelism, caudillism, centralism and racism. It also implies that deepening participatory decentralization requires a strategy to improve civic engagement and horizontal governance of the local civil society. In also has the potential to foster accountability and to redistribute political power at the municipal level in both countries.

The role of territoriality was investigated using 25 impala rams in a site in South Africa. Field data were used to determine known rams as territorial and bachelors, as well as aspirant and indeterminate. The mean territorial tenure was 67.25 days, with a mean territory size of 21.0 ± 11.27 ha, compared to the home ranges of 34.1 ha ± 9.03 ha for territorial and 58.8 ha ± 33.35 ha for bachelor males. Territory boundaries seemed to remain constant through the season, and are smaller when bordering important features such as water holes, which appear to be neutral in terms of territoriality. Mating was observed on three separate dates between 16 May - 4 June 2001, three times by territorial males, the exception being an aspirant ram. The most important diurnal behaviour was feeding, followed by watching, walking, ruminating, resting and licking salt. It was found that bachelors browse more than territorial males, and all males browse and lick salt more in the non-rut. All rams were also more vigilant after lions were released. Only bachelors spar and allogroom, and they also orally groom themselves more than territorial males. Territorial males chase and roar more, and perform longer object aggression acts during the non-rut than bachelors. Other behaviours were rare or performed by all rams during the year. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2002. / Centre for Veterinary Wildlife Studies / MSc / Unrestricted

Cette thèse invite à mieux comprendre les enjeux autour du développement des projets innovants de transports intégrés dans les territoires, souvent caractérisés d’écomobilité. Par la réalisation de nouveaux comportements pour les usagers, mais aussi par de nouvelles relations entre acteurs, à la fois usagers, entreprises et collectivités, ces projets invitent à repenser dans une perspective plus large les logiques de performances et d’évaluation. Les outils traditionnels utilisés dans le champ économique ne semblent pas suffisamment saisir la complexité inhérente à ces programmes, il est donc opportun de développer de nouvelles pistes davantage orientées dans une approche ouverte et pluridisciplinaire. Pour cela, nous appuierons notre réflexion par le croisement entre deux programmes situés dans les Yvelines. En effet, ce territoire semble le terreau de nombreuses initiatives au cours des dernières années. Les résultats obtenus à l’issue d’un travail de terrain ayant permis de rencontrer un large panel d’acteurs, permettront d’améliorer le champ des connaissances de ces programmes émergeants et de tirer des enseignements dans le cadre de futurs projets. / This thesis calls for a better understanding of the challenges surrounding thedevelopment of innovative integrated transport projects in the territories, oftencharacterized by eco-mobility. By implementing new behaviors for users, but also bycreating new relationships between actors, both users, companies, and local authorities, these projects call for a rethinking of the logics of performance and evaluation in a broader perspective. The traditional tools used in the economic field do not seem to grasp sufficiently the complexity inherent in these programs, so it is appropriate to develop new perspectives more oriented in a multidisciplinary approach.For this, we will support our reflection by crossing two programs located in the Yvelines area. Indeed, this territory seems to be the breeding ground for many initiatives in recent years. The results obtained from a fieldwork meeting with a wide range of stakeholders will help to improve the knowledge base of these emerging programs and to draw lessons for future projects.

For most taxa, maximizing fitness depends on maintaining access to adequate resources. Territories provide exclusive use of resources for an individual or a family group, thus facilitating successful reproduction. The economic defensibility of a territory depends on the quality, abundance, and distribution of its resources as well as the amount of competition that an individual must endure to maintain exclusive access. The benefits of defense must outweigh the costs for territoriality to be profitable. Territory owners may benefit from territories with high quality resources, but they also may incur greater costs defending these resources from competitors. In contrast, territories with poor quality resources provide fewer benefits to an owner but also may have fewer competitors vying for those resources. Resource quality may change over time, especially in habitats in which periodic ecological disturbances, such as fire, occur. As a result, the cost-benefit equation of defensibility also changes over time. The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum floridanus), an Endangered subspecies, is a habitat specialist endemic to the Florida dry prairie, a pyrogenic ecosystem found only in south-central Florida. As a result A. s. floridanus has evolved with frequent fires and its demography is strongly influenced by the structural habitat characteristics, such as sparse woody vegetation and large amounts of bare ground that occur with frequent fire. The objective of my study was to determine what factors associated with fire (i.e. habitat structure and prey abundance) affected the "decisions" of male A. s. floridanus to defend a territory. I hypothesized that fire and the resources resulting from fire would have an impact on territory size and placement. I predicted that territories in more recently burned habitat would be of higher quality and that sparrows would avoid areas with a longer time since fire. I conducted my study at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park in Okeechobee County, FL. One half of my 100-ha study plot had experienced two growing seasons since the last fire and the remaining half had experienced only a single growing season since fire at the start of my study. I mapped territories of all males within my study plot twice over the breeding season; once during the early season (nest building and incubation) and once during the late season (nestling and fledgling stages). In addition, during each survey I collected arthropods and surveyed vegetation composition within territories and at random, unoccupied points within the study plot. I compared the differences between the habitat characteristics of territories and unoccupied areas, the differences between the territories of the males that occupied the two-year rough and those in the one-year rough, males that abandoned their territories mid-season and those that remained in the study plot, and the seasonal changes in territory characteristics between the early and late season territories of males that persisted. My results indicate that A. s. floridanus selects certain habitat characteristics in which to place territories. Males preferred areas with fewer shrubs and more bare ground, which is consistent with previous studies. Prey biomass did not differ between territories and unoccupied areas. Nonetheless, although the mean mass of individual arthropods was larger in unoccupied areas, the numerical abundance of orthopterans, damselflies, and spiders was significantly higher in territories than in unoccupied areas. Sparrows were more likely to abandon their territories if they occurred in the two-year rough as opposed to the one-year rough. Territories in the two-year rough were significantly larger, had poorer quality habitat, and tended to have less prey than those in the one-year rough. The sparrows that persisted throughout the season significantly increased their territory size in the late season; however, very little spatial shift occurred, suggesting that they merely increased their territory size rather than moved to new sites. Early-season territories in the one-year rough were completely exclusive, but late season territories showed considerable overlap, suggesting lack of defense and a shift toward home ranges as opposed to exclusive territories. The habitat quality in late-season territories decreased (more shrubs, less bare ground) from the early season. Unexpectedly, however, the biomass of prey increased. This increase coincides with an increased demand for prey because sparrows are provisioning young. It seems likely that the costs of defense increase at this time because time and energy spent in defense come at the expense of time spent provisioning young. Because prey increases in the late season, the need to defend exclusive territories may decline.

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My research provides a historical, geographical reading of land enclosure in the context of economic and agrarian crises in late imperial Russia. Using original records of Russian land deals that I obtained in the federal and provincial archives, I explore how the coalitions of landed nobility, land surveyors, landless serfs, and peasant proprietors used land enclosure as a conduit for coercive governance, accumulation of landed capital, or, in contrary, as a means of resistance. Through critical discourse analysis, I illustrate how the Russian imperial state and territories in the periphery were dialectically co-produced not only through institutional manipulations, resettlement plans, and husbandry manuals, but also through political and public discourses. I argue that land enclosure exploited practices of autonomous land management in the commune and furthered growing agrarian and economic crises in the countryside. The urban periphery became a strategic territory used for the accumulation of new wealth and displacement of two million peasant households, which accommodated capitalist development under the Russian Tsarist and, later, Soviet political regimes. Through this example, my research reexamines predominant assumptions about the land, territory, and crisis triad in Russia by positioning the rural politics of the late imperial period within the global context of land enclosure. At the same time, by focusing on the historical reading of territory from the Russian perspective, this study introduces a more nuanced alternative to the traditional colonial territory discourse often found in Western interpretations. / PHD / My research provides a historical, geographical analysis of land enclosure in the context of economic and agrarian crises in late imperial Russia. Using original records of Russian land deals that I obtained in the federal and municipal archives, I explore how the coalitions of landed nobility, land surveyors, landless serfs, and peasant proprietors used land enclosure as a conduit for coercive governance, accumulation of landed capital, or, in contrary, as a means of resistance. Through critical discourse analysis, I illustrate how the Russian imperial state and territories in the periphery were dialectically co-produced not only through institutional manipulations, resettlement plans, and husbandry manuals, but also through political and public discourses. I argue that land enclosure exploited practices of autonomous land management in the commune and furthered growing agrarian and economic crises in the countryside. The urban periphery became a strategic territory used for the accumulation of new wealth and displacement of two million peasant households, which accommodated capitalist development under the Russian Tsarist and, later, Soviet political regimes. Through this example, my research reexamines predominant assumptions about the land, territory, and crisis triad in Russia by positioning the rural politics of the late imperial period within the global context of land enclosure. At the same time, by focusing on the historical reading of territory from a Russian perspective, this study introduces a more nuanced alternative to the traditional territory discourse often found in Western interpretations.

The red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis) is a federally endangered species. As such, populations need to be increased in order to achieve recovery goals outlined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. My thesis is composed of two chapters that represent opposite sides of this issue. The first chapter investigates whether military training activity negatively affects red-cockaded woodpeckers. Military installations in the southeastern United States contain several of the largest remaining red-cockaded woodpecker populations. Six of the 15 installations harboring these birds are designated primary core populations; thus, population increases on these sites are critical to recovery of the species. However, restrictions on military training activity associated with red-cockaded woodpecker protection are a cause of concern on military installations that sometimes constrains management for population growth. Current restrictions are based on assumptions of potential impacts rather than scientific evidence, so we evaluated two different restriction regimes to test for training activity effects. The second chapter concerns how to induce populations to grow more rapidly through natural processes. As a cooperative breeder, red-cockaded woodpeckers preferentially compete for existing breeding positions and queue in the form of helping or floating to obtain a breeding vacancy, rather than create new territories. I used 20 years of demographic data collected as part of a long-term monitoring study of red-cockaded woodpeckers to investigate mechanisms that stimulate territory creation in this cooperatively breeding species. / Master of Science

This thesis argues that accommodation to winter was an important — though not the only — response of early Dakotans to the annual challenges and hazards of winter. It examines first the challenges of winter, then what Dakotans did to protect themselves from and even profit from the season, then the ways that Dakotans spoke in positive ways about their winters or, using winter, themselves. / Master of Arts