Rio Grande wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia) are a highly mobile, wide ranging, and secretive species located throughout the arid regions of Texas. As a result of declines in turkey abundance within the Edwards Plateau and other areas, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department initiated a study to evaluate methods for estimating Rio Grande wild turkey abundance. Unbiased methods for determining wild turkey abundance have long been desired, and although several different methods have been examined few have been successful. The study objectives were to: (1) review current and past methods for estimating turkey abundance, (2) evaluate the use of portable thermal imagers to estimate roosting wild turkeys in three ecoregions, and (3) determine the effectiveness of distance sampling from the air and ground to estimate wild turkey densities in the Edwards Plateau Ecoregion of Texas. Based on the literature review and the decision matrix, I determined two methods for field evaluation (i.e., infrared camera for detecting roosting turkeys and distance sample from the air and ground). I conducted eight ground and aerial forward-looking infrared (FLIR) surveys (4 Edwards Plateau, 3 Rolling Plains, and 1 Gulf Prairies and Marshes) of roost sites during the study. In the three regions evaluated, I was unable to aerially detect roosting turkeys using the portable infrared camera due to altitudinal restrictions required for safe helicopter flight and lack of thermal contrast. A total of 560 km of aerial transects and 10 (800 km) road based transects also were conducted in the Edwards Plateau but neither method yielded a sufficient sample size to generate an unbiased estimate of the turkey abundance. Aerial and ground distance sampling and aerial FLIR surveys were limited by terrain and dense vegetation and a lack of thermal contrast, respectively. Study results suggest aerial FLIR and ground applications to estimate Rio Grande wild turkeys are of limited value in Texas. In my opinion, a method for estimating Rio Grande wild turkey densities on a regional scale does not currently exist. Therefore, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department should reconsider estimating trends or using indices to monitor turkey numbers on a regional scale.

La problemática del agua es una de las principales preocupaciones de muchas instituciones y organismos gubernamentales en los últimos tiempos, por tratarse de un recurso vital que tiene y tendrá mucha importancia en un futuro inmediato. Por eso, su exploración, explotación y protección como fuente de abastecimiento es un tema que ya ha cobrado mucha significación. El agua subterránea de la cuenca menor del río Tiwanaku es la principal fuente de aprovisionamiento de este elemento para los pobladores de la región. La necesidad de preservarla y protegerla de la contaminación es un importante asunto, ya que una vez que se ha contaminado una fuente son difíciles y costosos los procesos de rehabilitación. Por lo tanto, para satisfacer las necesidades de agua - inmediatas y futuras- de la población se deben tomar medidas preventivas para asegurar la sostenibilidad de este bien natural.

Rio Grande wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia) are a highly mobile, wide ranging, and secretive species located throughout the arid regions of Texas. As a result of declines in turkey abundance within the Edwards Plateau and other areas, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department initiated a study to evaluate methods for estimating Rio Grande wild turkey abundance. Unbiased methods for determining wild turkey abundance have long been desired, and although several different methods have been examined few have been successful. The study objectives were to: (1) review current and past methods for estimating turkey abundance, (2) evaluate the use of portable thermal imagers to estimate roosting wild turkeys in three ecoregions, and (3) determine the effectiveness of distance sampling from the air and ground to estimate wild turkey densities in the Edwards Plateau Ecoregion of Texas. Based on the literature review and the decision matrix, I determined two methods for field evaluation (i.e., infrared camera for detecting roosting turkeys and distance sample from the air and ground). I conducted eight ground and aerial forward-looking infrared (FLIR) surveys (4 Edwards Plateau, 3 Rolling Plains, and 1 Gulf Prairies and Marshes) of roost sites during the study. In the three regions evaluated, I was unable to aerially detect roosting turkeys using the portable infrared camera due to altitudinal restrictions required for safe helicopter flight and lack of thermal contrast. A total of 560 km of aerial transects and 10 (800 km) road based transects also were conducted in the Edwards Plateau but neither method yielded a sufficient sample size to generate an unbiased estimate of the turkey abundance. Aerial and ground distance sampling and aerial FLIR surveys were limited by terrain and dense vegetation and a lack of thermal contrast, respectively. Study results suggest aerial FLIR and ground applications to estimate Rio Grande wild turkeys are of limited value in Texas. In my opinion, a method for estimating Rio Grande wild turkey densities on a regional scale does not currently exist. Therefore, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department should reconsider estimating trends or using indices to monitor turkey numbers on a regional scale.

Thesis (M.S.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves x,40-42). Also available on microfilm.

This research examines the transformations occurring in children and youth’s identity narratives as they engage dialectically with the recent public narratives of social and political inclusion. Employing children’s experiences of the favela, this thesis explores children’s ontological narratives as part of a place-based identity constructed within the public narratives of Rio de Janeiro. A range of public narratives are constituted and socially constructed by the state, media and culture industries. However, cultural, social and economic narratives from non-governmental organizations based in favelas have emerged as counter-production to the mainstream public narratives. This work captures the intersections of these narratives in children’s lives through empirical research in a favela in Rio de Janeiro using participant observation, a mini questionnaire, and photo-voice technique with children aged 10-13. It provides insight into the ways in which children face every-day boundaries enforced by relationships at the individual, the community, and the city levels. The findings show that children are caught in a web of disorder that is strongly influenced by both traffickers and the state, which contributes to their continued social exclusion from formal city space. / text

Between 1992 and 2005, Chihuahua's Río Conchos outflows were at less than 10 percent of their historical average, prompting a highly public dispute with the U.S. over water quantity under terms of the 1944 U.S.-Mexico Water Treaty. Still, Mexico made a number of water "payments" and achieved an eventual resolution of the dispute. The resolution focused on a number of steps, including investing over $140 million in irrigation district water conservation projects in the Río Conchos, which has historically provided two-thirds of the Río Grande's water below Fort Quitman. Utilizing a case study approach rooted in political and cultural ecology, the research examines the factors -- from drought to land use change-- purported by different interest groups as contributing to the transboundary Texas-Mexico water dispute and finds at least three major "narratives" emerged in the period to explain the low flows, including drought, dam management and agricultural expansion and land use changes. The dissertation shows, however, that the reduced outflows and reductions in "dam" water to farmers was just one factor in a changing agricultural context in which new land tenure rules, decentralization of water management and the enactment of a more open economic framework precipitated resource use changes within the agricultural areas. In addition, the dissertation examines water and land resource use, including conservation projects, in three specific agricultural areas, and finds significant transformations in markets, policies and climate. Farmers were not just passive victims of reduced water use, the curtailment of government programs, and "privatization" of land and water resources, but adopted alternative water source strategies, began to examine more "conservationist-minded" agricultural practices and shifted cultivation to higher yield crops. Still, many farmers chose to abandon agriculture altogether, as there was some consolidation of resources among wealthier farmers. The "transnationalization" of the Río Conchos which has resulted from the new focus on its water users may influence local decision-making, but the research contends that resource management decisions in the Río Conchos Watershed are influenced and determined by local practices and environments as well as by economic and legal changes brought about by Mexico's inclusion into a globalized economy. / text

The Chama area straddles the physiographic and structural boundary between the San Juan Basin and the San Juan Mountains. The Mesozoic formations, the Upper Jurassic Entrada and Morrison and the Upper Cretaceous Dakota and Mancos, are separated by a marked angular unconformity from the Oligocene (?) Blanco Basin Formation and the upper Miocene Conejos Quartz Latite and Treasure Mountain Rhyolite. Late Cenozoic eastward tilting and high-angle normal faulting have affected all the bedded rocks. The present topography has been profoundly modified by extensive mass movements and Pleistocene glaciation during the Cerro, Durango, and Wisconsin stages with related outwash terrace deposits. / text

Trots att det har gått snart 30 år sedan Brasiliens militärdiktatur ersattes av en demokratiskt vald regim är det flera forskare som har kommit att ifrågasätta landets faktiska grad av demokrati – framförallt i Rio de Janeiros favelas, informella bosättningar. Favelan har under senare årtionden kommit att bli synonymt med; parallell stat under kriminella gängs dominans, extremvåld och en stigmatiserad folkgrupp. Statens många försök i att krossa gängverksamheten har visat sig mindre framgångsrika, men år 2008 introducerar säkerhetssekretariatet en ny polisiär strategi för favelan – först pacificering och sedan implementering av fredsbevarande polisenheter, s.k. UPP (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora). Pacificeringens syfte är att de bekämpa de kriminella gäng som länge styrt favelan, återge fred och integrera dem i den formella staden. Studiens har som syfte att undersöka om pacificering kan bidra till en känsla av förbättrad demokrati och förbättrat medborgarskap för invånarna i favelan. Med hjälp av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys har denna studie visat att det finns invånare i pacificerade favelas som upplever, i motsats till staten beskrivning av pacificeringen som ett fredsbringande integreringsprogram, att de som medborgare inte respekteras sina rättigheter och att demokratin således är bristfällig.

The aim of this project was to investigate the biogeochemistry and transport of metals in a river/estuarine system contaminated by acid mine drainage. The Rio Tinto and Rio Odiel drain a metalliferous mining area in the Iberian Pyrite Belt in the south-west of Spain. The pH values in the rivers were low (< 3) and dissolved metal concentrations were . extremely high, up to 2.6 mM Zn, 860 \M Cu, 6.0 jaM Cd and 72 nM U . The seasonal cycle of low precipitation and flash floods was identified as an important factor in generating the more severe contamination of the rivers with Fe, A l , Mn, Zn, Cu, N i , Co and Cd observed during autumn and winter, compared to spring and summer. The estuarine behaviour of dissolved Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, N i , Co and Cd was primarily = controlled by pH. Apart from an addition of these metals from the sediment in the upper Tinto estuary, conservative mixing was observed up to pH ~ 5 (at S ~ 30), above which Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, N i and Co were removed from solution. Voltammetric speciation studies showed that Cu complexing organic ligands (logK'cuL ~ 11-5, CL = 32 - 199 nM) in the estuary were saturated, and thermodynamic calculations indicated that the concentration of Cu^"^ reached values (pCu^"^ < 9) that are toxic to some marine and estuarine organisms. The estimation of fluxes indicated that the dissolved metal export from this system to thecoastal zone averages 101 d'^ Zn, 2.3 t d"' Cu, 180 kg d"^ N i and 236 kg d"^ Co, with higher contributions during wet, compared to the dry seasons. On-line measurements of Zn, Cu and N i in the Gulf of Cadiz revealed metal plumes associated with the Tinto/Odiel system and the Guadiana and Guadalquivir rivers. As a result of entrainment by the Atlantic Ocean surface current flowing into the Mediterranean Sea, the metal contamination in waters of the Gulf of Cadiz is transported south and eastward.

Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. / "This research is part of the Pionier project: Modern mass media, religion and the imagination of communities" Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.