Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2007 / Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree of Master of Social Work. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-62).

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Aquatic plants (macrophytes) are important components of freshwater ecosystems and serve numerous purposes, physical and biological, that help to structure aquatic communities. Although macrophytes represent an essential component of stable aquatic communities, invasive macrophytes may negatively alter ecosystem properties. Non-native, invasive species have been identified as a major cause of biodiversity loss and the increasing prevalence of invasive species has prompted studies to help understand their impacts and to conserve biodiversity. Studying mechanisms of invasion also gives insight into how communities are structured and assembled. This study examined mechanisms that contribute to macrophyte invasion. First, I reviewed literature concerning mechanisms of macrophyte invasion. Mechanisms identified with this review were then placed within the context of the invasion process and potential taxonomic biases were discussed. Second, a set of classic invasion hypotheses were tested, including biotic resistance, disturbance, and stress, using mixed-effects models on survey data collected from twenty-nine lakes across the United States. Finally, using the same survey data, I performed an observational test of Darwin’s Naturalization Hypothesis at a small (point) and large (lake) scale for two highly invasive macrophytes, Potamogeton crispus and Myriophyllum spicatum. Results of the first study indicated that many invasion mechanisms have been tested with fully aquatic macrophytes with varied levels of support. In addition, there is likely a taxonomic bias depending on geographic location of the invaded area. The second study indicated that biotic interaction, disturbance, and stress interact, often in non-linear ways to influence probability of an invasive species occurring at a location. However, models containing these variables explained a relatively low percentage of variation in probabilities. Finally, there was no support for Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis at either a point or lake scale. Future research should continue the search for mechanisms that allow introduced species to establish. It is likely that general principles do not exist, at least among comparisons across ecosystem types. However, ecologists should continue to search for general patterns within definable ecosystem units to increase understanding about factors contributing to invasibility.

Thesis title: The institute of the citizenship of the Republic of Austria Citizenship is often defined as a status of a person, who is recognised under the law as being a legal member of a sovereign state. This status is usually connected with certain rights and privileges, along with corresponding duties, which belong to the citizens only. This master thesis aims to give a detailed analyse of the valid legislation of Austrian citizenship and to evaluate it critically. The main goal of the thesis is to answer the questions, whether the nowadays valid regulation is still actual and whether it would not be better to regulate certain issues in a different or more suitable way. In the introduction of this thesis the term citizenship and the related key concepts are explained. Mentioned are also the leading principles of the regulation of the Austrian citizenship, structured by their importance according to the Austrian legal literature. Introduced are also the sources of Austrian law - the significant international treaties and the regulation in the European Union and in the Austrian constitution. However, the main emphasis is put on the valid Austrian Citizenship Act, which contains large number of information related to this thesis. Described are also the ways of obtaining and losing the Austrian...

This study examines the discrimination against Japanese immigrants in U.S. naturalization law up to 1952 and how it was covered in the Oregonian newspaper, one of the oldest and most widely read newspapers on the West Coast. The anti-Japanese movement was much larger in California, but this paper focuses on the attitudes in Oregon, which at times echoed sentiments in California but at other times conveyed support for Japanese naturalization. Naturalization laws at the turn of the century were vague, leaving the task of defining who was white, and thus eligible for naturalization, to the courts. Japanese applicants were often denied, but until the federal government clarified which immigrants could or could not become citizens, the subject remained open to debate. "Ineligibility to naturalization" was often used as a code for "Japanese" in discriminatory land use laws and similar legislation at the state level in California and in other western states. This study highlights several factors which influenced Oregonian editorials on the subject. First, the fear of offending Japan and provoking war with that empire was a foremost concern of Oregonian editors. California's moves to use naturalization law to prevent Japanese immigrants from owning land were seen as dangerous because they damaged relations with Japan and could lead to war. The Oregonian went so far as to recommend Japanese naturalization during the First World War. However, war and foreign relations were federal issues, thus the second theme seen throughout Oregonian editorials was deference to federal authority on questions related to naturalization. While suggesting that naturalization for existing immigrants might be good policy, the Oregonian urged the federal government to settle the matter. Once the Supreme Court ruled against Asian naturalization in 1922 and 1923, the Oregonian dropped its push for such rights. Nativism was another theme that influenced opinions at this time, and before 1923 the Oregonian generally opposed extreme nativist positions, while at the same time advocating for limits to Japanese immigration and against mixed marriages. This paper does not deal with the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II because naturalization was not the issue for the anti-exclusion movement at the time. Citizenship did not give the Nisei, second generation Japanese American citizens, any protection against their wartime removal from the West Coast. This study returns to the issue of naturalization for Japanese immigrants after the war, as a number of Issei, first generation Japanese immigrants, still lived in the United States but were denied citizenship, even though most had been in the country for decades at that point. There was less opposition to Japanese naturalization after the war due to the noted loyalty of the Japanese during the war, the focus on human rights as an issue promoted by the new United Nations, and Cold War politics which demanded better relations with Japan and thus fairer treatment of Japanese living in the United States. The Oregonian editorials reflected the shift in public opinion throughout the country in favor of lifting the racial bar to citizenship. Japanese Americans in Oregon were active in the campaign to change U.S. naturalization law. The issue was more important to the Japanese American community than it was to the Oregonian editorial board by then, as other Cold War events took precedence on the front and op-ed pages of the newspaper.

The degree to which biotic interactions influence invasion success may partly depend on the evolutionary relationship between invaders and native species. In particular, since host-use by enemies such as invertebrate herbivores and fungal pathogens tends to be phylogenetically conserved, exotic plants that have close native relatives in the invaded range should be more likely to interact with enemies. In this thesis, I explore this idea using a series of experiments and field surveys at nested taxonomic levels. My results indicate that exotics from multiple plant families experience lower damage if their average phylogenetic distance from locally co-occurring native family members is higher. I then demonstrate that within the Asteraceae, foliar and capitular damage are lower on exotic compared to native species. Both damage types had a relatively large phylogenetic component, but did not decline with phylogenetic distance to native or exotic confamilials. Finally, I show that communities with versus without close relatives are unlikely to differ in resistance to the novel invader, Solidago virgaurea: biotic resistance imposed by competitors, generalist vertebrates, and specialist invertebrates resulted in similar patterns of damage and mortality regardless of the presence of congeneric natives. In some cases, effects of biota were positive: growth of S. virgaurea seedlings in soils collected near congeneric natives was enhanced more than in soils from communities where congenerics were absent. Overall, these results suggest that biotic interactions between exotic and native species can be phylogenetically structured, although trends based on distance measures tend to be weak. In some cases, damage does decline with phylogenetic distance to native species; however this trend is unlikely to be a strong force limiting invasion or structuring plant communities. These results have significant implications for current theories of invasion biology including the "Enemy Release Hypothesis" and "Darwin's Naturalization Hypothesis", as well as for community phylogenetics.

The small island of St Barthélemy was a Swedish colony 1784–1878 and saw its greatest population growth and trade during the turn of the nineteenth century. This was because of Gustavia, the Swedish founded free port, which attracted mariners from the Caribbean, North America and Europe. Their goal was to become Swedish subjects, as Swedish neutrality provided a benefit during the various wars at this time between France, Great Britain and the United States. As these mariners changed their national allegiance from their country of origin to Sweden, questions about their political rights emerged. The makeup, as well as the role, of the local council became a contested issue between native and naturalized Swedes. This conflict, as well as many other local and global issues, was discussed in various mediums. I have examined petitions, the newspaper The Report of Saint Bartholomew and discussions within the council, to create an understanding of how political expression was formed by the population, as well as controlled by Swedish administrators. This analysis has been performed through an intersectional framework considering gender, race and ethnicity. My study shows that while most native and naturalized Swedes believed in input from the population, they had different perceptions of what the purpose of this input was. The Swedish administration saw the political participation of the naturalized population as purely advisory, without any obligation to perform its wishes, which the population resented and protested. Gender played a significant role in the formation of political expression, as masculinity was essential to the identity of white men and free men of colour as political subjects. Yet ethnicity, in terms of place of birth, had no significant impact among the free population’s political identity, although it did render them politically unreliable in the eye of native Swedish administration.