Increasingly popular methods for managing impacts of tourism in nature-based settings include collaborative and voluntary codes of conduct. In southeast Alaska, for example, the Tourism Best Management Practices (TBMP) in Juneau and Wilderness Best Management Practices (WBMP) in Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness have been created to address shore and marine based tourism (e.g., cruise ships). This thesis contains three articles examining stakeholder: (a) definitions of wilderness and their influence on perceptions of the WBMP process, (b) motivations for collaboration in the WBMP and effects of this process on stakeholder relations, and (c) perceptions of indicators in the WBMP and motivations for compliance. Data were obtained from 28 interviews with tour operators, cruise industry representatives, US Forest Service personnel, and local residents. Findings in the first article showed that most respondents had some degree of purism in their definitions of wilderness (e.g., solitude, minimal impact), although cruise industry personnel had less purist definitions. With the exception of cruise representatives, most respondents felt that the wilderness character of this wilderness area was being threatened by vessel traffic, especially cruise ships. Most interviewees supported the WBMP as an alternative to regulations because it allowed for personal freedom and input into rulemaking, but many felt that the WBMP may be unable to address some future effects of tourism in the area. Many of the smaller and more purist operators felt that if the pristine character of this area was threatened, they might support regulations. Most stakeholders, however, displayed a type of cognitive dissonance by expressing concern over threats to the wilderness character of this area, yet rejecting formal regulations that may be needed for protecting the wilderness experiences they value most. Results from the second article demonstrated that the WBMP has enhanced stakeholder relations by improving communication and dialogue, and instilling an ethic of compromise and sharing. Lack of trust, however, was a concern, especially between smaller tour operators and cruise lines due to a perception that cruise lines are not following all of the WBMP guidelines. There was concern regarding how inclusive the WBMP should be, as many cruise representatives felt that local residents should not participate. Respondents also stated some concerns with Juneau's TBMP that could be used as lessons for improving the WBMP (e.g., noncompliance, incentives, monitoring). Findings covered in the third article showed that stakeholders considered the most contentious guideline in the WBMP to be the preservation of solitude, but they felt that the most important guidelines involved environmental factors such as impacts of tourism on seals. Compliance with the WBMP guidelines was motivated by altruism, peer pressure, and self-interest. Noncompliance was attributed to a lack of awareness of the WBMP and effects of noncompliant behavior, and perceptions that the WBMP was an example of government interference in private business operations. These findings may help agencies continue facilitating the WBMP and similar collaborative processes in other locales. / Graduation date: 2012

Cette thèse porte sur divers aspects de lois et de processus non-gaussiens qui partagent des propriétés de changement d'échelle où intervient l'exposant 2/3. Les deux principaux objets probabilistes que nous allons présenter sont : 1) La loi de Tracy-Widom : C'est la loi limite de la plus grande valeur propre de matrices aléatoires appartenant aux beta-ensembles lorsque leur dimension tend vers l'infini. Dans un travail en commun avec Balint Virag, nous avons établi le comportement asymptotique de la queue droite de cette loi pour tout beta strictement positif, en utilisant des outils d'analyse de diffusions du type Girsanov. 2) Le ''vrai'' processus auto-répulsif (''true self repelling motion'') TSRM : C'est un processus auto-interagissant qui a été introduit par Balint Toth et Wendelin Werner. Nous nous sommes intéressés à des propriétés de cet objet liées à ses trajectoires (grandes déviations, lois du logarithme itéré) et à des calculs explicites de lois marginales (travail en collaboration avec Balint Toth). Cette étude nous a aussi amenés à aborder des questions liées à la théorie des jeux. / This thesis focuses on various aspects of non-Gaussian distributions and processes sharing scaling properties where the exponent 2/3 appears. The two probabilistic objects that we will introduce are: 1) Tracy-Widom distribution: This is the large dimensional limit of the top eigenvalue of random matrices in beta-ensembles. In a joint work with Balint Virag, we studied the asymptotic behavior of its right tail for all positive beta, using tools coming from diffusion analysis, such as the Girsanov formula. 2) The “true self repelling motion” (TSRM): This is a self-interacting process which was introduced by Balint Toth and Wendelin Werner. We have been interested in properties related to trajectories of this motion (large deviations, law of the iterated logarithm) and explicit distribution computations (joint work with Balint Toth). During this study, we have also dealt with questions related to game theory.

Political economy played a central role in the construction of the new Republic of Colombia through the influence of Ezequiel Rojas. In his pursuit of theoretical and practical guidance to organize a new society of free individuals pledged to happiness, Rojas looked to political economy for inspiration. However, the sources that Rojas drew on did not belong to the tradition of classical political economy; he based his own approach on other, less traditional sources; namely utilitarianism and ideology. In this text I aim to reconstruct this approach, showing its tensions and contradictions and the way in which Rojas tried to address them through religion. / La economía política jugó un papel importante en la construcción de la nueva República de Colombia en cabeza de Ezequiel Rojas. En busca de elementos teóricos y prácticos para organizar una nueva sociedad de individuos libres y destinados a la felicidad, Rojas buscó en la economía política inspiración. Sin embargo, no era la economía política clásica la que Rojas difundía en sus enseñanzas. Rojas construyó su propia propuesta a partir de tradiciones e influencias menos usuales: el utilitarismo y la ideología. En este texto pretendo reconstruir esa propuesta, mostrando sus tensiones y contradicciones y la manera como Rojas intentó conciliarse recurriendo a la religión.

This thesis consists of an introduction and five papers, of which two contribute to the theory of directed random graphs and three to the theory of greedy walks on point processes.           We consider a directed random graph on a partially ordered vertex set, with an edge between any two comparable vertices present with probability p, independently of all other edges, and each edge is directed from the vertex with smaller label to the vertex with larger label. In Paper I we consider a directed random graph on ℤ2 with the vertices ordered according to the product order and we show that the limiting distribution of the centered and rescaled length of the longest path from (0,0) to (n, [na] ), a<3/14, is the Tracy-Widom distribution. In Paper II we show that, under a suitable rescaling, the closure of vertex 0 of a directed random graph on ℤ with edge probability n−1 converges in distribution to the Poisson-weighted infinite tree. Moreover, we derive limit theorems for the length of the longest path of the Poisson-weighted infinite tree.           The greedy walk is a deterministic walk on a point process that always moves from its current position to the nearest not yet visited point. Since the greedy walk on a homogeneous Poisson process on the real line, starting from 0, almost surely does not visit all points, in Paper III we find the distribution of the number of visited points on the negative half-line and the distribution of the index at which the walk achieves its minimum. In Paper IV we place homogeneous Poisson processes first on two intersecting lines and then on two parallel lines and we study whether the greedy walk visits all points of the processes. In Paper V we consider the greedy walk on an inhomogeneous Poisson process on the real line and we determine sufficient and necessary conditions on the mean measure of the process for the walk to visit all points.

Thesis advisor: Thomas J. Massaro / In the U.S. theological context since the 1970's, the current called "public theology" has offered a very interesting proposal for the church to be present in society. In its Catholic variant, this current is very much inspired by the American theologian David Tracy. Applied to the context of Spain, this variant could clarify the relationship between Spanish citizenship and Catholic identity. However, in order to be applied to the context of Spain, this current needs to be put in dialogue with the two other major actors in Spanish society: (1) unbelief, and (2) the Islamic tradition. The issue of unbelief has been the focus of the French moral theologian Paul Valadier. His anthropological framework based on conscience could help public theology to respond to the main secularistic critics. The work of five major modern Islamic social thinkers: Abdulaziz Sachedina, Nurcolish Majid, Adullahi An-Naim, Tariq Ramadan, and Alli Allawi --each of whom have attempted to integrate modern social values with Islamic tradition--provide resources for public theologians to address the Muslim tradition from within the Christian theological stance. By incorporating the insights of these two conversations, public theology presents a new and very interesting proposal for the Church in Spain to be present in the social debates. Integrating Valadier's concern for conscience into Tracy's critical correlational approach offers a suitable theological method. To incorporate Islam into the conversation we should put some previous conditions (the category of public religion) and we should agree on a goal for interreligious dialogue (the pluralistic common good). This method could be the way for the Church in Spain to develop a discourse rooted in Christian identity but understandable by modern Spanish pluralistic society. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Entre 1658 et 1688, quatre campagnes militaires furent menées par les Français de la Nouvelle-France contre les Iroquois : deux furent menées en 1666, une en 1684 et une en 1687. Alors que celles de 1666 furent conceptualisées et vécues comme des croisades par la population, celle de 1684 ne le fut pas. L’expédition de 1687 quant à elle vit une certaine renaissance de la rhétorique de croisade mais cette dernière ne connut pas la même popularité qu’en 1666. Cette thèse propose d’analyser le discours religieux, l’expérience religieuse et les pratiques associées qui entourèrent ces expéditions de sorte à expliquer pourquoi il eut une telle divergence. Plusieurs facteurs coloniaux et métropolitains expliquent ce changement de perception, notamment la prévalence du discours de guerre sainte en France lors des guerres contre les Turcs, la force de l’Église catholique de la colonie, la culture religieuse qui préconisait l’apocalyptisme et la peur du Diable, ainsi que la personnalité des gouverneurs et évêques de Québec.

La réduction des impacts environnementaux par une coopération entre les acteurs d'un système industriel est au cœur de la mise en œuvre de l'écologie industrielle (EI). En comparant les systèmes industriels aux systèmes biologiques, l'EI cherche une circulation en boucle fermée des sous-produits industriels, par une réutilisation en cascade de matières et d'énergie entre diverses entreprises, tout comme il se fait, par exemple, dans le cycle de nutriments des systèmes biologiques. Cette recherche a analysé la coopération des acteurs d'un système régional d'EI à travers le cas du corridor d'échanges de sous-produits de Sorel-Tracy-Contrecœur. La principale contribution de cette étude concerne l'introduction des aspects sociaux dans l'étude des systèmes d'EI. De manière pratique, elle explique les mécanismes de coopération entre les acteurs, autant au niveau des échanges « techniques » de matières et d'énergie, que des échanges « sociaux » d'information, de connaissances et de ressources financières et humaines. Ces mécanismes permettent l'établissement de confiance et l'adoption d'une vision commune entre les acteurs ainsi que de la recherche de moyens efficaces de coordination de ces échanges. Les données pour cette recherche ont été recueillies à la fois par de l'observation participante, des entretiens semi-directifs et de l'analyse documentaire pour ensuite être analysées selon la démarche inductive. Accompagnée d'une description des événements ayant menés au développement de l'EI à Sorel-Tracy-Contrecœur, l'analyse des données a permis de répondre à la question suivante. Comment le technique et le social en EI se rejoignent-ils? Ainsi, une attention particulière a été apportée autant au point de vue des échanges de matières et d'énergie que des échanges d'informations, de connaissances et de ressources financières et humaines, etc., ce qui contribue à distinguer cette recherche. Cette recherche a permis non seulement de démontrer que les aspects techniques de l'EI étaient aussi importants que les aspects sociaux lors de l'analyse d'écosystèmes industriels, mais aussi, que la diversité des acteurs permet l'application de la vision systémique et multidisciplinaire de l'EI en plus de contribuer à la longévité et l'évolution du système industriel. Cette diversité, autant dans les acteurs « sociaux » que dans les acteurs « techniques », permet aussi de relever plusieurs défis associés à la mise en œuvre de l'EI, malgré le fait qu'elle peut avoir tendance à compliquer les efforts de coopération entre les acteurs. Cependant, avec de bons mécanismes de coopération, les difficultés associées à une plus grande diversité sont surmontables. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : écologie industrielle, systèmes sociaux, systèmes techniques, ecosystems industriels, symbiose industrielle, confiance, vision, diversité, coopération inter-organisationnelle, éco-parcs industriels.

Zugl.: Tilburg (NL), Univ., Diss., 2008

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 100-103). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, March, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until April 1, 2014. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-154)