Le 12 septembre 2002, George Bush profitait d'un discours devant l'Assemblée Générale de l'ONU pour saisir le Conseil de Sécurité et exposer à la communauté internationale ses griefs à l'encontre de Saddam Hussein et de ses armes de destruction massive. Dictée par des impératifs électoraux, cette saisine de l'ONU s'était imposée à la Maison Blanche en raison de l'échec de la propagande néo-conservatrice à convaincre l'opinion publique de la nécessité d'une guerre en Iraq. Celle-ci devant donner corps au concept de « guerre contre le terrorisme » de la future campagne présidentielle, la Maison Blanche avait décidé de s'appuyer sur la crédibilité et la légitimité de l'ONU, pour relancer la propagande et travestir une guerre illégale en un acte de légitime défense, en tenant secret la décision de la guerre.La communauté internationale ne fut ni dupe ni complice de cette supercherie, mais le poids de la relation transatlantique interdit au Royaume-Uni de se désolidariser de l'Amérique et à la France d'user de son droit de veto contre ses alliés. Ces contradictions expliqueront la crise du Conseil de Sécurité de 2003, où, en désaccord, les gouvernants du bloc occidental s’affrontèrent sur la nécessité d’une seconde résolution autorisant la guerre. Cette crise ne fut sans conséquence, ni pour l'administration Bush, ni pour la communauté internationale, et encore moins pour l'ONU, puisqu'une fois enlisés en Iraq, les États-Unis obtiendront du Conseil de Sécurité plusieurs résolutions, sans reconsidérer leur unilatéralisme. Mise en porte à faux, l'Organisation internationale sera prise pour cible et son quartier général en Iraq détruit. Le chaos succédant à la guerre, l'administration néo-conservatrice sera finalement contrainte, sous la pression électorale, d'abandonner son unilatéralisme et de céder à l'ONU la résolution politique du conflit. / On September 12, 2002, George Bush during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly seized the opportunity to submit the Security Council and expose to the International Community his worries concerning Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Dictated by election requirements, referring to the United Nations was imposed on the White House because of failing neo-conservative propaganda convincing the public opinion of need for war in Iraq. This was supposed to give body to the upcoming presidential campaign’s concept of “war against terrorism”, the White House had decided to lean on the United Nations credibility and legitimacy to re-launch propaganda and disguise an illegal war into an act of self defence, by keeping the decision of war secret.The International Community was not fooled by or accomplice of this trick, but the weight of the trans-Atlantic relationship forbade the United Kingdom to set itself apart from the United States and for France to use its right to veto against its allies. These contradictions explain the 2003 Security Council crisis, where, by disagreeing the western governments faced one another on the necessity of a second resolution authorizing war.This crisis was not without consequences, for Bush’s administration or for the International Community and even so for the United Nations, since being stuck in Iraq, the United States obtained several resolutions from the Security Council without questioning their unilateralism. Being in an awkward position, the International Organisation was targeted and its headquarters in Iraq destroyed. In the chaos in the aftermath of the war, the neo-conservative administration was obliged, under electoral pressure, to give up its unilateral attitude, and let the Unieted Nations politically resolve the conflict.

This paper investigates three methods of one variable function optimizing methods, executes the comparison of their efficiency and generalizes the results of this research. At first there is a review of historical aspects of optimization theory, definition of optimization concept, introduction to task formulation. Presentation of optimization importance, the role of objective function in the process of optimization. Introduction to the classification of optimization tasks and optimization of various systems. In this paper there is an analysis of three methods of optimization: “Half distribution”, “Golden cut”, “Powell”. There was created a program for calculating and comparing of the selected optimization methods. During the investigation it was determined that when there is a small precision (0,1; 0,01), the change of minimum of the function and the value of that point are great. When you increase the value of precision the change of minimum of the function and the value of that point are very small. When the precision value is about (0,0001 .. 0,000001) there is a difference in only 6-th – 9-th value after the comma. The use of “Powell” method requires least steps of calculating, the use of “Half distribution” method requires mostly steps of calculating. In about 80 % of calculation the shortest interval of the search was using the “Powell” method of optimizing, in 20 % of calculation the shortest interval of the search was using the “Golden cut” method of optimization... [to full text]

Fluvial adjustment to base level change has its roots in the fundamental concepts of geomorphology. This thesis explores the rate of erosion and sedimentation on the Colorado and Dirty Devil rivers and North Wash Creek under the current base level changes related to the drawdown conditions of Lake Powell. Through cross section and long profile resurveys, the current state of each system is captured and added to the historic record of sedimentation in Lake Powell. All three systems are generally forming narrow and deep incised channels driven by the rapid rate of base level fall. Cross sections that deviate from this are due to site-specific factors, such as channel armoring, the presence of local base levels, or bedrock canyon width in relation to active channel width. In all systems, sediment is being transported through the establishing fluvial regime and is deposited at or below the new base level. This has caused rapid downstream progradation of each delta front. The volume of sediment accumulation and erosion and rates through time are calculated for each system. Deposit volume is proportional to each systems drainage basin area, as are the rates and magnitudes of deposition and erosion. The percentage of sediment eroded versus deposited shows an inverse relationship, with North Wash eroding the greatest percentage of its delta. Field observations and repeat photography on the distribution, orientation, and activity of lateral slumping and mud cracks identify that thick beds of fine-grained and cohesive silts and clays are necessary for these features to form. These features act to destabilize sediment and, in the case of bank failure, deliver it directly to the channel.

Spawning time and habitat of largemouth bass, survival of embryos, and growth and food habits of fingerlings were studied in 1968 and 1969 at Wahweap Bay, Lake Powell. Spawning began in mid- to late-April, when mean daily water temperature at nesting depths was 14.4-15.0 Centigrade (58-59 Fahreheit), and continued until mid-June. Most spawning took place on the northeast shore of the bay. Sandstone rubble was the most commonly used bottom type for nesting, either at the base of ledges or around large sandstone boulders. Mean nest depth increased from 1.63 meter to 4.54 meters (5.36 feet to 14.90 feet) in 1968 and from 1.51 meter to 2.93 meters (4.96 feet to 9.60 feet) in 1969, because bass sought the protection of ledges and boulders covered by continually rising water. Nearly all embryos required 4 days to hatch, and survival to hatching was 80.4 percent and 92.2 percent for 1968 and 1969, respectively. Growth of fingerlings was similar in both years and most rapid prior to August 1 in both years. Fingerlings from the 1969 year-class were longer than those from the 1968 year-class before August 21. Total length of bass on August 21 was 68.0 millimeters in both years but 86.5 millimeters and 80.2 millimeters on October 1 in 1968 and 1969, respectively. Growth may have been influenced by total temperature experience during the early part of the growing season but not during the latter part. Fingerlings ate mostly crustaceans, insects, and fish. Size of organisms eaten increased with increase in fingerling length, and fingerling bass fed selectively on larger Crustacea. Numbers of nests located and numbers of young-of-the-year taken in beach-seine catches indicated that the 1968 year-class was stronger than 1969. Estimated numbers of bass per 92.9 meters2 (1,000 feet2 ) seined varied from 0.82 to 3.39 in 1968 and from 0.23 to 2.65 in 1969. An index to year-class strength may be obtained from seine catches at any time of the summer after brood dispersal, but indices obtained in this study must be validated by determing the contribution of each year-class to the creel.

This study investigates colonial, independence, and postcolonial moments to identify different modes of self-fashioning in the Jamaican landscape. It also explores the ways collective and individual senses of self, identity and sovereignty are perceived between the late nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. I assert that political processes involved in consolidating official national identities problematically reproduced hierarchies and exclusions reminiscent of the colonial period in politically independent contexts. In this regard, the cultural landscape serves multivalent purposes of proving grounds for visions of Jamaican national identity, counter-hegemonic articulations of those excluded from or marginalized by official notions of Jamaican national identity, and spaces for the invention of non-traditional modes of self-representation. I critique early nationalist projects through an examination of Sylvia Wynter's The Hills of Hebron and discuss the ways unacknowledged or unconsciously retained European cosmological elements undermine the sovereign identity they sought to construct. I also examine Michael Thelwell's The Harder they Come, Sistren's Lionheart Gal and Don Lett's film Dancehall Queen to discuss the marginalization of the working poor that persists within the newly independent relations of political power, and illustrate the ways modes of cultural self-fashioning like the ruud bwoy, or community theater emerge as spaces for negotiating self, identity, survival, and self-determination among the working class. I argue that the independence context is marked by exclusionary politics that provoke the development of more individual modes of self-fashioning, that vary between men and women, and also provide sites for counter-hegemonic discourses in opposition to nationalized discourses. Moving beyond the traditional framework of community based on heteronormative models, I examine Patricia Powell's A Small Gathering of Bones and The Pagoda to consider how queer communities are marginalized in nationalized discourses. I critique self-identity and self-fashioning within non-normative sexual communities in an analysis that traces gender and sexuality as indices of exclusionary patterns that are reproduced within nationalized identities throughout the country's history. This discussion argues that there is an institutionalized complicity between politics, culture, and religion in sustaining colonial power relations far beyond the colonial context.

In Recreating Nature: Ecocritical Readings of Yosemite and Grand Canyon, I examine the intersections of culture and nature in two prominent national parks, and I consider the implications of nature-tourism in the environmental discourse of the U.S. Covering a period from 1848 to the present, my project aims to correct an oversight in scholarship about the park system, in which legacies of colonialism and imperialism--when addressed at all--tend to be historicized and framed as the age-old sins of a presumably reformed national politic. Instead, I examine both historical and present-day developments, emphasizing the profound cultural influence of the places we designate as natural. I define ecocriticism as an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor attuned to the interconnectedness of things. My methodology is to engage texts, images and other expressions of the national parks in a process of extended close reading and comparative analysis. While observing the particular contexts of each case, I attempt to locate these texts amidst the broadest but most essential critical terrain: they each negotiate a dialogical relationship between culture and nature. By setting the stage for examining the human and its relation to the non-human other, the parks have become key sites for displaying the recreation of nature. After my introduction I discuss John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra, focusing on an episode where Muir risks his life for a view from Yosemite Falls. I also consider Muir's failure to empathize with Native Americans he encountered. In my next chapter I analyze John Wesley Powell's Exploration by focusing on his attempt to assert authority over a region by prioritizing the scientific tone in his writing. Next I synthesize historical and contemporary sources, discussing Mary Colter's Grand Canyon architecture alongside the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a glass-bottom walkway on the Hualapai Indian reservation. In the following chapter I compare the acrophobia-inducing photographs of George Fiske and Emery Kolb. Finally, I discuss transit real and imagined in Grand Canyon and Yosemite, considering the utopian potential of national parks. I close by revisiting questions about our changing environmental discourse and about the future of ecocriticism.

This dissertation demonstrates Anthony Powell's skillful adaptation of the traditional Bildunqsroman of youth and his innovative employment of an emerging genre--the Bildunqsroman of middle age--in order to unfold the story of Nicholas Jenkins, his narrator/protagonist, and especially to develop Jenkins as a character who moves through distinct cycles of change that are analyzed in detail. In addition, looking at Powell's work within the traditional and midlife Bildunqsroman and contrasting the characteristics of the second developmental stage with the first allows not only for analysis of the newer genre as practiced by Powell but also for provisional definition of the Bildunqsroman of middle life as written by some other contemporary novelists.Jenkins's youthful cycle of development occurs within the first trilogy or spring "season" of Powell's series; the midlife narrative, in the third trilogy or autumn "season." Although Powell's basic metaphor of the dance through time insists on constant change, these transitional seasons of quickened movement make possible the relatively peaceful productivity of summer, the ripeness of winter. In the first trilogy, Jenkins educates himself from the negative examples of failed mentors. Out of his interest in others, his greatest strength, Jenkins develops compassionate and imaginative powers of observation and discovers his identity and vocation as a writer. In the third trilogy, which begins in loss of vocation, Jenkins is forced onto a more challengingroad of trials than he travelled in youth and into recognition that even one's own identity cannot remain the same. In the process of constructing a new self, Jenkins must discover newways of thinking about what constitutes useful human activity.Among the topics considered also in discussion of the newer genre are contrasting definitions of successful action in youth and in middle age, the more open endings of the midlife narratives, as well as the possibility of differing male and female models for midlife Bildunqsromane. Study ofthe complexity of Jenkins's development, therefore, reveals new complexity in the development of the English novel itself. / Department of English

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, 2001. / Chair: Thomas L. Kennedy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 506-531)

Powell and Sakinaw Lakes are stably stratified ex-fjords, which became isolated from the Strait of Georgia approximately 11000 years ago by emerged sills due to postglacial isostatic rebound. Although both lakes contain highly sulphidic relict seawater (Powell 3.0 mM; Sakinaw 5.5 mM), they have distinct chemical differences, which may be due to Sakinaw receiving occasional inputs of seawater over the barely-emerged sill when strong onshore winds are coincident with spring tides. Powell Lake, now 50 m above sea level, has not received additional seawater since the sill originally emerged. Sakinaw has a very sharp chemocline located just below the oxic/anoxic interface, whereas in Powell, the interface is spread out over 200 m of the water column. Although both lakes have freshened, the ratios of major ion concentrations relative to chloride in the bottom saline waters are similar to those of present-day seawater. There are some differences, however, and these can be explained, in part, by the difference in molecular diffusivities for each of the ions. The bottom waters of Powell and Sakinaw Lakes are chemically similar to anoxic sediment porewaters. containing high concentrations of nutrients, DOC and alkalinity. Unlike Sakinaw, however, Powell Lake has very low concentrations of phosphate in its bottom waters, in spite of both lakes having similar particulate organic N:P ratios in their upper oxic waters. This may be attributable to more recent addition of sulphate to Sakinaw, allowing greater mineralization of phosphorus compared to the relatively oxidant-starved Powell Lake. High concentrations of reduced iron, hydrogen sulphide, and polysulphides result in formation of iron monosulphides and pyrite in the anoxic water columns of both lakes. The presence of these two minerals correlates well with their calculated saturation states. Pyrite precipitates directly with no monosulphide precursor at depths where sulphide concentrations are low; thus monosulphide phases are undersaturated. As sulphide levels increase with depth, iron monosulphides become saturated and are detected in the water column. Pyrite can then form via the slower reaction of elemental sulphur with monosulphide. The large separation of the oxic/anoxic interface and the chemocline in Sakinaw (∼10 m) and especially in Powell Lake (∼100 m) relative to that of sediment pore waters allows excellent resolution of these processes. / Science, Faculty of / Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of / Graduate

Syftet med studien var att finna lösningar i en begränsad repertoar för oboe, genom att belysa musik komponerad för violin av den ouppmärksammade kvinnliga tonsättaren Marion Bauer. Syftet var i förlängningen att inspirera andra musiker att utföra liknande studier. Detta genomfördes metodiskt genom konstnärliga val baserade på musikanalys och transkription till oboe av Bauers verk Up the Ocklawaha, Op. 6 som komponerades för den kvinnliga violinisten Maud Powell. Vidare egna inspelningar, musikhistoriska studier och intag av andra verk, såsom Clara Schumann-Wiecks tre romanser för violin och piano, Op. 22. I transkriptionen identifierades utmaningar i form av dubbelgrepp och flageoletter för violin. Studiens resultat påvisar lösningar genom konstnärliga val som prioriteringar av bärande meloditoner och oktaveringar. Resultatet indikerar att transkriptionen var fullt genomförbar genom noga övervägda konstnärliga val trots tekniska utmaningar. Studiens övergripande resultat belyser vikten av att framhäva kvinnliga kompositörer som annars i tillräcklig grad inte uppmärksammas.