>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Maize is one of the most abundantly produced cereals and contributes to about 40% of the global cereal production. This figure will have to increase in order to feed the ever-growing human population. One of the major environmental constraints that impact maize production is drought. Plants use antioxidant defences to cope with drought stress. Understanding and improving these defence mechanisms will be important to improve overall drought tolerance. A previous study done by Gokul and authors in 2016 showed that 3,3’-diindolylmethane (DIM) improves both seed germination and seedling shoot growth in Brassica napus. Plants belonging to the Brassicaceae family have the metabolic machinery to synthesize glucosinolates such as DIM, which play vital roles in physiological and stress responses. These responses have not been investigated in plants such as maize, which lack the machinery to produce DIM. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of exogenously applied DIM on the physiological and biochemical responses of maize under drought stress. Physiological parameters such as relative water content, chlorophyll content and lipid peroxidation, were determined in order to understand how drought and DIM , as separate or combined treatments, affected the plants. Additionally, proline accumulation was also assessed because free proline plays a role as an osmoprotectant during stress. The accumulation of ROS, namely hydrogen peroxide, was measured using spectrophotometric assays to determine how the above treatments affect ROS accumulation in maize. As a result of changes in the ROS content in due to the treatments, it would only be natural to investigate the changes in antioxidants as well. Given that hydrogen peroxide was the ROS to be measured, we therefore investigated the antioxidant enzymatic activities responsible for hydrogen peroxide scavenging. Therefore, changes in Ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and catalase (CAT) were assessed. An improved drought response was observed in maize plants treated with DIM as these plants had better ability to maintain their water status than when no DIM was applied. This is indicated by water-deprived plants treated with DIM having a higher RWC than water-deprived plant without DIM.

Magister Legum - LLM / This thesis examines the sexual rights violation in Eastern DRC, which has been described as the worst in the world. The sexual violence against women and children in this country is systematic and widespread and perpetrated by armed groups, and increasingly also by civilians. The prosecution of sexual offences should contribute to the reduction of these offences, but the Congolese state prosecutes very few cases. The resulting impunity became an obstacle to the state to stop sexual violence, which become unable to overcome the obstacles to prosecutorial action. The successful prosecution of sexual offenders in Eastern DRC faces many obstacles and requires an exceptional jurisdiction which must provide a minimum of better freely conditions to the prosecutors and better unrestrained justice access to the victims. The enforcement of the international instruments of justice will be possible only by this jurisdiction. The victims of sexual violence need more confidence in the jurisdiction which is really working for them to attain justice.

Thesis advisor: Marc Landy / This thesis serves to clarify and concretize the controversy surrounding the debate on torture as it pertains to the War on Terror during the Bush Administration years. It argues that policy and rhetoric decisions made at the top of the political food chain contributed to the instances of abuse and torture that occurred in the various arenas of the war (i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, and CIA “black sites”). Such an argument is made through an analysis of what defines interrogation and torture, what techniques were in fact authorized, what factors went into determining which techniques to use, and what influence these techniques had on abuses that occurred. This thesis concludes with policy updates based on lessons learned and briefly addresses the efforts made by the Obama Administration in regards to torture, interrogation, and terrorism. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Political Science Honors.

O gato doméstico (Felis catus L.) exibe uma grande flexibilidade em seu comportamento social e no seu estilo de vida. Isto é devido a vários fatores, entre eles, disponibilidade de alimento e refúgio, mudanças ambientais, interação com o homem, composição dos grupos, características genéticas e a castração. Os animais machos e fêmeas não castrados e de vida livre exibem um repertório comportamental distinto, os machos tendem a ter uma vida mais solitária vagando por amplas extensões territoriais, enquanto que as fêmeas exibem uma vida mais gregária. O objetivo deste trabalho foi examinar o comportamento social de gatos domésticos castrados, machos e fêmeas, em confinamento com a intenção de se verificar os efeitos da castração no comportamento e se o repertório comportamental de ambos é sexualmente dimórfico, através das análises de freqüência e seqüência das categorias comportamentais. Foram levantadas 18 categorias comportamentais sociais e 12 categorias não sociais e foi observado o comportamento de 40 gatos domésticos machos (n=18) e fêmeas (n=22) num ambiente confinado (gatil) com área total de 19,2 metros quadrados, durante um período de 11 meses totalizando 160 horas de observação. Cada animal foi observado durante 15 minutos em cada sessão de observação, utilizando-se o método de amostra focal do comportamento. A análise de freqüência das categorias comportamentais sociais e não socais foram feitas através do teste estatístico não paramétrico de Mann-Whitney com nível de 5% de significância (p=0,05). Os resultados do teste não mostraram diferenças significativas entre os grupos de machos e fêmeas, indicando, assim, existir influência da castração nos comportamentos de ambos os grupos, ainda que preservando a individualidade dos animais. Contudo a análise seqüencial do comportamento mostrou uma mínima diferença entre os machos e fêmeas castrados mesmo na ausência da regulação hormonal do comportamento. Portanto conclui-se que parte do comportamento dos gatos não sofre influência hormonal e que o método de análise seqüencial do comportamento é refinado o suficiente para mostrar características comportamentais que não foram mostradas pela análise de freqüência. / The domestic cat (Felis catus L.) exhibits a great flexibility in its social behavior and lifestyle. This can be due to several factors, among them, food and refuge availability, environmental changes, interaction with humans, group composition, genetic characteristics and castration. Literature states that non neutered male and female animals of free life exhibit distinct behavioral repertoires. Males tend to have a more solitary life moving throughout wide territorial extensions, while females exhibit a more gregarious life. The aim of this work was to examine the social behavior of castrated domestic cats, males and females, in confinement, to verify the effects of neutering on the behavioral repertoire, through the frequency and sequence analyses of behavior. 18 social and 12 non social behavioral categories were selected. 40 domestic cats, males (n=18) and females (n=22), were observed in an indoor confined context with 19,2 square meters in area, for a period of 11 months and 160 hours of observation. Each animal was observed for 15 minutes in each observation session, being used the focal sample method. Statistical analysis for the frequency of each behavioral category, done using the non parametric test of Mann-Whitney with 5% (p=0,05) of significance, didn\'t show any significant gender difference, suggesting that castration change natural behavior, possibly because of a probable absence of sexual hormones. Sequential analysis, however, did show subtle gender differences, possibly raised by different environmental -- i.e. \'cultural\' -- influences in both male and female cats.

Free-roaming domestic cats are an increasing concern for biodiversity conservation. Cats prey on wildlife, spread disease and breed with native wildcat species leading to hybridisation. It is therefore useful to know what factors influence the movement of domestic cats. There is a particular concern in Scotland where hybridisation between domestic cats and the highly endangered Scottish wildcat is prevalent. This study placed GPS collars on ten domestic cats in and around a Scottish wildcat priority area. The home ranges and core areas for each cat were calculated and various explanatory variables were tested. There was a large variation in cat home ranges, from 0.22 – 17.5 hectares. Trends were observed that males roamed further than females, older cats roamed less than younger cats, rural cats roamed further than urban cats and cats roamed further at night than during the day. There was no definitive evidence of habitat selection, though three cats appeared to prefer arable land over coniferous forest. Weather conditions of temperature and rainfall did not have an impact on cat movement. However, snow cover did reduce the home range by 94.5%, although snow was only present when one cat was collared. The results suggest restricting cat ownership or imposing a night time curfew in ecologically sensitive areas, with a minimum buffer zone of 300 m, could be beneficial to reduce the negative impact of domestic cats.

Cette thèse se place dans le cadre d'une généralisation CAT(0) des espaces riemanniens symétriques à courbure négative. En particulier, nos espaces ne seront pas nécessairement localement compacts. Un espace CAT(0) symétrique est un espace CAT(0) complet, sans branchement géodésique et possédant une involution isométrique en chaque point fixant uniquement ce point. Avec l'hypothèse supplémentaire de compacité locale, on retrouve les espaces riemanniens symétriques à courbure négative classés par E. Cartan. Nous nous intéressons à une famille particulière des espaces CAT(0) symétriques qui possèdent la propriété remarquable d'ˆetre de dimension infinie et de rang fini. C'est une famille d'espaces (Xp)p∈N∗ où Xp = O(p, ∞)/ (O(p) × O(∞)) . Nous montrons que ces espaces sont des espaces CAT(0) symétriques de dimension télescopique p. Ce qui implique, par exemple, que tout groupe moyennable agissant continûment par isométries sur Xp, fixe un point au bord ou laisse invariant un sous-espace isométrique à un espace euclidien. Inspir ́es par le théorème de superrigidité de G. Margulis, nous montrons l'existence d'applications de Furstenberg, ce qui constitue la première étape dans un programme de superrigidité pour ces espaces symétriques de dimension infinie mais de rang fini.

<p>Due to the expansion of the human population we are an increasing threat to all wild animals. They are driven to exist in smaller areas and in the worst case scenario extinction. Zoos are being encouraged to improve the animal’s physical and social surroundings. Environmental enrichment is a term used for such improvements. In this behavioural study, the enrichment introduced to two Pallas cats (<em>Felis manul</em>) at Parken Zoo in Eskilstuna, Sweden, consisted of a fishing rod and a clothes peg with a dead mouse or chick attached. The intention was to see if the feeding enrichment could increase activity levels and how the cats were using their enclosure. The enclosure was divided into seven zones which have a varying degree of opportunities for the animals to climb, hide and rest above ground level. The environmental enrichment effects on the Pallas cats´ behaviour, activity levels and use of the enclosure were measured and recorded using instantaneous scan sampling, and the mean value was calculated for each individual. The behavioural and enclosure results proved that enrichment benefits the cats activity levels. The behaviours that showed a variation when presented with enrichment were: walking, climbing, grooming, aggressive behaviour, out of sight behaviour, crouching position, sitting and standing still.  The results showed that the cats preferred the zones in the enclosure that offered a larger view of the nearby enclosures. This study shows that providing captive felids with inexpensive, easy to administer enrichment objects can have profound effects on activity behaviours and their enclosure.</p><p> </p>

With the wide-spread adoption of hypermedia systems and the World Wide Web (WWW) in particular, these systems have evolved from simple systems with only textual content to those that incorporate a large content base, which consists of a wide variety of document types. Also, with the increase in the number of users, there has grown a need for these systems to be accessible to a wider range of users. Consequently, the growth of the systems along with the number and variety of users require new presentation and navigation mechanisms for a wider audience. One of the new presentation methods is the audio-only presentation of hypertext content and this research proposes a novel solution to this problem for complex and dynamic systems. The hypothesis is that the proposed Audio Browser is an efficient tool for presenting hypertext in audio format, which will prove to be useful for several applications including browsers for visually-impaired and remote users. The Audio Browser provides audio-only browsing of contents in a Petri-based hypertext system called Context-Aware Trellis (caT). It uses a combination of synthesized speech and pre-recorded speech to allow its user to listen to contents of documents, follow links, and get information about the navigation process. It also has mechanisms for navigating within documents in order to allow users to view contents more quickly.

In this thesis I address two different topics in quantum theory. The first one is the long discussed Schrodinger's cat problem, and the issues related to having a macroscopic superposition state. I show that the quantum theory provides full explanation to the problem. In the second part, I discuss the time measurement related issues in quantum mechanics. Since there does not exist any time operator in quantum mechanics generally, time is not directly measurable. Therefore we should devise other methods to register time. We study different time-energy relations and will find that accurate clocks have high energy uncertainties. If we use accurate clocks in quantum systems to observe their time evolutions, their high energy uncertainties interfere with system's normal evolution and slows it down. I also provide a formal proof to a previously suggested limiting accuracy relation on the measurements of the time-of-arrival experiments.

Due to the expansion of the human population we are an increasing threat to all wild animals. They are driven to exist in smaller areas and in the worst case scenario extinction. Zoos are being encouraged to improve the animal’s physical and social surroundings. Environmental enrichment is a term used for such improvements. In this behavioural study, the enrichment introduced to two Pallas cats (Felis manul) at Parken Zoo in Eskilstuna, Sweden, consisted of a fishing rod and a clothes peg with a dead mouse or chick attached. The intention was to see if the feeding enrichment could increase activity levels and how the cats were using their enclosure. The enclosure was divided into seven zones which have a varying degree of opportunities for the animals to climb, hide and rest above ground level. The environmental enrichment effects on the Pallas cats´ behaviour, activity levels and use of the enclosure were measured and recorded using instantaneous scan sampling, and the mean value was calculated for each individual. The behavioural and enclosure results proved that enrichment benefits the cats activity levels. The behaviours that showed a variation when presented with enrichment were: walking, climbing, grooming, aggressive behaviour, out of sight behaviour, crouching position, sitting and standing still.  The results showed that the cats preferred the zones in the enclosure that offered a larger view of the nearby enclosures. This study shows that providing captive felids with inexpensive, easy to administer enrichment objects can have profound effects on activity behaviours and their enclosure.