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Nymphaea petersiana Klotzsch (Nyika) is an important wild tuber eaten in some districts of Malawi. The tubers were processed by boiling/freeze-drying(BFD) and sun-drying(USD). The tuber's nutrient and antinutrient composition was determined to produce a preliminary nutrient data base for use in sub-Saharan Africa. There was no significant difference (P > 0.05) in protein content of BFDand USD samples. Sun-dried samples were significantly (P < .05) higher in ash than boiled samples while boiled samples were significantly higher (P < .05) in crude fat and total carbohydrate. The protein content of the tubers (8.0 and 8.1 %) was higher than that of the staple maize (7.9%), African millets (unspecified) (7.5%), and polished rice (7.0%), but lower than sorghum (10.7%). Protein content was higher than tubers like cassava (1.3%), potato (2%), sweet potato (1.6%), yams (1.5%) and N. lotus (5.2). Nyika tubers have a well balanced amino acid content, limiting only in lysine. There were no significant (P > 0.05) differences in the mineral content of BFD and USD samples, except for iron, which was lower in the boiled samples. Nyika tubers have a higher calcium (1376 and 946 ug/g) and phosphorus (2250 and 2883 ug/g ) content than wild and domesticated cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes and wild and domesticated yams. Sun-dried tubers have a higher iron content (88ug/g) than maize (20ug/g). The zinc content of tuber was higher (21and 25ug/g) than that of boiled maize flour, boiled sorghum flour, rice, cassava, and sweet potato. The predominant fatty acids in the tubers were oleic (47%), linoleic (32%), palmitic (21%) and linolenic (7%) acids. Ascorbic acid content was very low, only 0.1 and 0.003 mg/100g. Tannin content was lower (1 and 1.7 %) in the tubers than in Vulgare Pers. sorghum, DeKalb sorghum from U.S. and Kabale sorghum from Uganda. There was a significantly (P < 0.05) lower content of phytate in boiled (3.9ug/g) than in sun-dried tubers (6.0 ug/g). Phytate content of the tubers was lower than that of cooked maize flour, unrefined maize flour, cassava and sweet potato. Trypsin inhibitor activity in the tubers was reduced from 463 to 55 TIU/g tuber and chymotrypsin inhibitor activity was reduced to 50 from 267 CIU/g tuber by cooking. Nyika is a good source of iron and quality protein limiting only in lysine. Protein is comparable to staple maize and higher than root crops consumed in Malawi. It is not a good source of fat and ascorbic acid. Tannin, phytate, trypsin, and chymotrypsin inhibitor content lower than most food crops consumed in Malawi. / Ph. D.

Yes / Abstract: The reconstruction of the diet of past populations using the stable isotope analysis of bone collagen has become a well-established tool for examining their lifeways. For example, variations in foods ingested can demonstrate differences in the foods available to individuals of different sex, age, status and in some cases identifying migrants. However, because of the remodelling of bone throughout life, this produces average values which have been incorporated in the tissues over a period of time and gives a blurred picture of the diet. The analysis of the stable isotope ratios of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) from tiny increments of dentine utilizes tissue that does not remodel and that permits comparison, at the same age, of those who survived infancy with those who did not at high temporal resolution. Here, we present a study of teeth from a Great Famine period workhouse cemetery in Kilkenny, Ireland, and a contemporary 19th-century cemetery in London, England and compare these with published data from early Neolithic individuals from Sumburgh, Shetland, Scotland. Covariation in δ13C and δ15N values suggests that even small variations have a physiological basis. We show that high-resolution intra-dentine isotope profiles can pinpoint shortduration events such as dietary change, and in the historical populations these can be related to known periods of nutritional deprivation in the juvenile years of life. We further suggest that the data from the Famine cemetery individuals suggest a physiological marker within these isotope profiles for a period of nutritional deprivation which could be utilised in other periods and geographical areas, particularly where there is a catastrophic cemetery assemblage with no known aetiology. This technique could also have applications in a forensic setting.

A presente tese pretende analisar uma importante dimensão da vida da classe trabalhadora em Porto Alegre: a pobreza e a escassez. A carestia, foco principal deste trabalho, é entendida não apenas como resultado econômico e aritmético, mas sim um fenômeno que altera relações políticas e sociais. Por sua natureza, ela altera também as formas às quais as classes sociais se organizam e lutam umas com as outras, estando no âmago de tensões da época. Em termos de recorte espacial e temporal, a cidade de Porto Alegre, durante o período democrático de 1945 a 1964, emerge como laboratório de análise para testar hipóteses e colocar à prova a ideia de que a carestia e a escassez de gêneros não eram somente processos econômicos, mas sim interrupções em práticas e relações que eram estabelecidas como norma. O que se pretende demonstrar aqui é que em diferentes instâncias, tais como o estudo estatístico, a política representativa e a jurisprudência da época, a chamada “economia popular” mostrou-se um campo de batalha entre trabalhadores, patrões e o Estado. / The following thesis intends to analyze an important dimension of the living of the working class in Porto Alegre: the poverty and the scarcity. Famine, the main focus on this work, is understood not only as an economic and arithmetical result, but yet as a phenomenon which changes political and social relations. For its nature, it also changes the forms by which social classes organize and struggle against each other, therefore becoming a central part in the tensions of this period. In terms of spatial and temporal frame, the city of Porto Alegre, during the democratic period of 1945 to 1964, rises up as a laboratory to analyze and test hypothesis, trying to prove the idea that famine and scarcity are not only economic process, but also interruptions in practices and relations that established themselves as norm. What I intend to show here is that in different instances, like the statistical studies, the representative politics and the jurisprudence of that time, the so-called “popular economy” showed herself as a battlefield between workers, patrons and State. / La presente tesis desea analizar una importante dimensión de la vida de la clase trabajadora en Porto Alegre: la pobreza y la escasez. La hambruna, foco principal de este trabajo, es entendida no sólo como resultado económico y aritmético, pero si como un fenomeno que cambia relaciones políticas y sociales. Por su naturaliza, ella cambia también las formas que las clases sociales si organizan y luchan unas con las otras, siendo el centro de las tensiones en este tiempo. En términos de marco de espacio y tiempo, la ciudad de Porto Alegre, durante el período democrático de 1945 a 1964, emerge como laboratorio de análisis para testar hipótesis e colocar por a prueba la idea de que la hambruna y la escasez de géneros no eran solo procesos económicos, pero si interrupciones en prácticas y relaciones establecidas como norma. Lo que se pretende demonstrar aquí es que en diferentes instancias, tales como el estudio estadístico, la política representativa y la jurisprudencia da la época, la llamada “economía popular” resultó ser un campo de batalla entre trabajadores, patrones y Estado.

Coverage of the Third World by the media in the developed Western nations has been a subject of intense debate among scholars since the 1970s. Some of the outspoken media critics have pointed to certain imbalances in Western media reporting on some parts of the world, including African countries. Such imbalances range from inadequate coverage to emphasis on crisis news events. Other critics argue, however, that Western news reporting on African countries, for example, is crisis-oriented because that is the kind of news those countries offer to the media given the recurrence of various forms of crises there. The 1984-85 Ethiopian famine was one such crisis that received extensive coverage in the Western media. Criticisms of this coverage served to fuel a growing concern among African and other intellectuals, particularly about one aspect of Western media reporting: the failure of those media to put into adequate context African events on which they report. Some critics have pointed out, for example, that although environmental decline is a major underlying cause of famine in Africa, it does not receive attention in Western media coverage of this recurring crisis. This is in spite of the pioneering role of the latter in the promotion of environmental issues in the West as a major social and political concern. From a much broader perspective, however, it appears that the case of imbalanced reporting on Africa in the Western media is not an isolated one. A number of studies on news reporting suggests that the criticism of imbalances in Western news reporting may have more to do with the nature of Western news values than with a wilful attempt on the part of the Western media to report on particular countries in those terms. Thus reporting on African countries by the Western media could be one typical example in which standard Western news practices come into full play. Against this background, the present study sought to investigate Western media coverage of Africa as viewed in terms of the application of Western news values. First, using qualitative analyses of relevant literature, the study undertook a contextualisation of crisis events in African countries, with special reference to famines, by identifying environmental degradation as a crucial factor in the unfolding of such crises. This included explanations for the apparent neglect of African environmental issues by Western media. Discussion on the environment was set in a wider context of a global environmental crisis. The qualitative analyses also examined the issue of imbalances, such as the focus on crisis and the lack of context, in Western media coverage of Africa. This was explored within a theoretical framework that encapsulates aspects of the political economy of the mass media, political ideological differences, and culture as some of the theoretical propositions used by some media researchers to explain imbalances in international news flow. Second, the study used the quantitative research technique of content analysis to carry out a longitudinal investigation of reporting on African countries in general during 1982-87 as well as a case study of the 1984-85 Ethiopian famine by three Western dailies: The Times of London, the New York Times, and the Sydney Morning Herald. An IAMCR (International Association for Mass Communication Research) coding scheme was adopted for this purpose. With regard to the qualitative analyses, the study found that even though environmental decline is a major underlying cause of many of Africa's ongoing and recurring crises such as famines, it may not receive attention in Western media reporting on those crises. This appears to be because the nature of Africa's environmental problems does not meet Western news value criteria. As regards the content analyses, the study found, in both the longitudinal and case studies, a dearth of reporting in all three dailies on African environmental issues and an orientation towards reporting events as discrete events, with little or no attention to underlying or contextual information. Crisis and non-crisis events in Africa were found to be, however, equally reported in most of the sample years studied in two of the three dailies. The focus of reporting on the Ethiopian famine was found to be on Western relief activities and on the bizarre or sensational side of the disaster - aspects of reporting that fit into standard Western news practices.

This dissertation clarifies a challenge present in Peter Singer's famine-relief argument and offers a new account of our moral duties of rescue. The challenge, in essence, is to differentiate two classes of idealized rescue scenarios where one faces the opportunity to rescue someone from serious peril, and to differentiate them in way that both avoids a shockingly demanding conclusion and effectively counteracts the suspicion that one is maintaining and merely rationalizing a self-serving position. To meet this challenge I provide an account whereby both the extent and the limits of our rescue duties are determined in ways that are plausibly continuous with moral and practical norms more generally. / Philosophy

This project offers an alternative perspective on the appearance of new forms of political community, types of social solidarities, and intellectual spaces in the French Mandate in Syria. Most previous scholarship on this period pivots on the presumption of once-and-future nationalisms as the driving historical force. The argument here articulates this history by reinscribing it into a wartime and postwar landscape of physical destruction and mass social, intellectual, and economic trauma. Through a close examination of wide variety of French and Arabic primary sources, this project emphasizes the traumatic origins of political communities and solidarities in the space of historic Greater Syria especially the area of the French Mandate of Syria. Arising initially out of the mass physical and institutional destruction of the First World War, this situation was reified by the persistence of manifold forms of French physical, economic, and intellectual violence. While recognizing the eventual nationalist historical outcomes, this project challenges the accepted primacy of its role in defining the historical period it emerged out of. The driving historical force in this period was not an amorphous nationalism but a shattered society’s intense political, social, economic, and intellectual anxieties about their current and future place in a vastly changed world. This defined the political shape Syria would assume and better explains how Syria and the region as a whole arrived at a nationalist historical outcome. / text

The lead essay measures the long-term impact of famine severity during the 1959-1961 Great Chinese Famine on contemporary per capita GDP and rural household income in China. Empirical results present a consistently negative relationship between famine severity and per capita GDP in 2010 supported using an instrumental variable approach. The instrumental variable (IV) based on the sequence in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took over continental China, exploiting the relationship between a local community's demonstration of loyalty to the new CCP regime, the radicalism of leadership during the Great Leap Forward social and agricultural reform starting in 1958, and the consequences of the Great Famine. The second essay utilizes the interaction of malaria prevention and the historical geographic distribution of malaria endemicity to estimate the average global impact mosquito-control has had on population growth. The differential benefit mosquito-control health campaigns may have had with respect to the initial malaria prevalence provides useful counterfactual groups for empirical analysis as well as possible evidence for the divergence in population development between the temperate and tropical regions of the world.

A presente tese pretende analisar uma importante dimensão da vida da classe trabalhadora em Porto Alegre: a pobreza e a escassez. A carestia, foco principal deste trabalho, é entendida não apenas como resultado econômico e aritmético, mas sim um fenômeno que altera relações políticas e sociais. Por sua natureza, ela altera também as formas às quais as classes sociais se organizam e lutam umas com as outras, estando no âmago de tensões da época. Em termos de recorte espacial e temporal, a cidade de Porto Alegre, durante o período democrático de 1945 a 1964, emerge como laboratório de análise para testar hipóteses e colocar à prova a ideia de que a carestia e a escassez de gêneros não eram somente processos econômicos, mas sim interrupções em práticas e relações que eram estabelecidas como norma. O que se pretende demonstrar aqui é que em diferentes instâncias, tais como o estudo estatístico, a política representativa e a jurisprudência da época, a chamada “economia popular” mostrou-se um campo de batalha entre trabalhadores, patrões e o Estado. / The following thesis intends to analyze an important dimension of the living of the working class in Porto Alegre: the poverty and the scarcity. Famine, the main focus on this work, is understood not only as an economic and arithmetical result, but yet as a phenomenon which changes political and social relations. For its nature, it also changes the forms by which social classes organize and struggle against each other, therefore becoming a central part in the tensions of this period. In terms of spatial and temporal frame, the city of Porto Alegre, during the democratic period of 1945 to 1964, rises up as a laboratory to analyze and test hypothesis, trying to prove the idea that famine and scarcity are not only economic process, but also interruptions in practices and relations that established themselves as norm. What I intend to show here is that in different instances, like the statistical studies, the representative politics and the jurisprudence of that time, the so-called “popular economy” showed herself as a battlefield between workers, patrons and State. / La presente tesis desea analizar una importante dimensión de la vida de la clase trabajadora en Porto Alegre: la pobreza y la escasez. La hambruna, foco principal de este trabajo, es entendida no sólo como resultado económico y aritmético, pero si como un fenomeno que cambia relaciones políticas y sociales. Por su naturaliza, ella cambia también las formas que las clases sociales si organizan y luchan unas con las otras, siendo el centro de las tensiones en este tiempo. En términos de marco de espacio y tiempo, la ciudad de Porto Alegre, durante el período democrático de 1945 a 1964, emerge como laboratorio de análisis para testar hipótesis e colocar por a prueba la idea de que la hambruna y la escasez de géneros no eran solo procesos económicos, pero si interrupciones en prácticas y relaciones establecidas como norma. Lo que se pretende demonstrar aquí es que en diferentes instancias, tales como el estudio estadístico, la política representativa y la jurisprudencia da la época, la llamada “economía popular” resultó ser un campo de batalla entre trabajadores, patrones y Estado.

A presente tese pretende analisar uma importante dimensão da vida da classe trabalhadora em Porto Alegre: a pobreza e a escassez. A carestia, foco principal deste trabalho, é entendida não apenas como resultado econômico e aritmético, mas sim um fenômeno que altera relações políticas e sociais. Por sua natureza, ela altera também as formas às quais as classes sociais se organizam e lutam umas com as outras, estando no âmago de tensões da época. Em termos de recorte espacial e temporal, a cidade de Porto Alegre, durante o período democrático de 1945 a 1964, emerge como laboratório de análise para testar hipóteses e colocar à prova a ideia de que a carestia e a escassez de gêneros não eram somente processos econômicos, mas sim interrupções em práticas e relações que eram estabelecidas como norma. O que se pretende demonstrar aqui é que em diferentes instâncias, tais como o estudo estatístico, a política representativa e a jurisprudência da época, a chamada “economia popular” mostrou-se um campo de batalha entre trabalhadores, patrões e o Estado. / The following thesis intends to analyze an important dimension of the living of the working class in Porto Alegre: the poverty and the scarcity. Famine, the main focus on this work, is understood not only as an economic and arithmetical result, but yet as a phenomenon which changes political and social relations. For its nature, it also changes the forms by which social classes organize and struggle against each other, therefore becoming a central part in the tensions of this period. In terms of spatial and temporal frame, the city of Porto Alegre, during the democratic period of 1945 to 1964, rises up as a laboratory to analyze and test hypothesis, trying to prove the idea that famine and scarcity are not only economic process, but also interruptions in practices and relations that established themselves as norm. What I intend to show here is that in different instances, like the statistical studies, the representative politics and the jurisprudence of that time, the so-called “popular economy” showed herself as a battlefield between workers, patrons and State. / La presente tesis desea analizar una importante dimensión de la vida de la clase trabajadora en Porto Alegre: la pobreza y la escasez. La hambruna, foco principal de este trabajo, es entendida no sólo como resultado económico y aritmético, pero si como un fenomeno que cambia relaciones políticas y sociales. Por su naturaliza, ella cambia también las formas que las clases sociales si organizan y luchan unas con las otras, siendo el centro de las tensiones en este tiempo. En términos de marco de espacio y tiempo, la ciudad de Porto Alegre, durante el período democrático de 1945 a 1964, emerge como laboratorio de análisis para testar hipótesis e colocar por a prueba la idea de que la hambruna y la escasez de géneros no eran solo procesos económicos, pero si interrupciones en prácticas y relaciones establecidas como norma. Lo que se pretende demonstrar aquí es que en diferentes instancias, tales como el estudio estadístico, la política representativa y la jurisprudencia da la época, la llamada “economía popular” resultó ser un campo de batalla entre trabajadores, patrones y Estado.