Fire is the primary natural disturbance vital to the ecological integrity of Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada. A new provincial park planning process (i.e., Class Environmental Assessment) has required the review of Quetico’s Fire Management Plan. To support this review, large and severe (stand-replacing) Quetico fires were studied using 1966 Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) forest resource inventory (FRI) mapping. A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database of the FRI was created and updated with the OMNR digital fire atlas. This database was used as a time-since-fire and fire interval dataset to estimate fire frequency. It also served to archive the 1966 FRI for the largest protected area in the transition between the Boreal and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest regions. Non-parametric (Kaplan-Meier) survival analysis was used to estimate survival functions and mean fire intervals (i.e., the expected time between two consecutive stand-replacing fires for any location within the Park). Previous studies that have used Kaplan-Meier survival analysis methods have based fire frequency estimates solely on time-since-fire data. However, time-since-fire data cannot be equated with fire interval data when using non-parametric methods. At least one fire interval is required to obtain reliable results. The mean fire interval for the entire 475,782 ha Park between the years 1668 and 2007 was 230 years. Performing the analysis on various geographic and temporal partitions revealed fire frequency spatial and temporal variability. A constant (independent of time-since-fire) probability of burning was not observed for Quetico which is contrary to accepted conjecture for northwestern Ontario boreal/mixed-wood forests. A current fire cycle was also estimated for the Park (342 years) using the digital fire atlas. The results suggested that use of historical static fire frequency estimates as fire management prescriptions may not be justified given considerable fire frequency temporal variability. The observed fire frequency spatial variability suggests that studies should be undertaken at coarser scales than is the norm to characterise the regions fire regime in support of landscape level fire management planning.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Zugl.: Bremen, Univ., Diss., 2007

The diploma thesis deals with cultural and social life of the German minority in the Czech lands with the focus on its development in the Karlovy Vary border region since 1989. The study is based on an analysis of the German minority press, especially the periodicals Aufbau und Frieden, Prager Volkszeitung, Landeszeitung, LandesEcho and Eghaland Bladl, and a research survey based on interviews with members of the German minority and questionnaires addressed to the representatives of local authorities of the towns in which the research took place. First of all, the basic concepts and minority policy at the national and international levels are defined. Next, the thesis concentrates on the historical and legislative development and social-demographic situation of the German minority in the Czech lands after 1945. The next part of the thesis discusses the development of the cultural and social life of the German minority in the Czech lands and closely characterizes four main areas - organization activity, cultural and social activity, language situation and media. These four areas are explored within the research survey in the main part of the thesis. The aim is to analyze the development of the cultural and social life of the German minority in the Karlovy Vary Region, and to depict the current status.

Cette thèse vise à interroger la façon dont les biennales internationales d’art contemporain, en tant qu’événements culturels et premiers temps d’historicisation des oeuvres et des artistes, contribuent à la fabrique des imaginaires de l’altérité. Le cadrage chronologique de notre recherche s’ancre à partir de 1989, date qui correspond à un « tournant global », un changement de paradigme qui aurait eu pour effet de repenser les rapports de domination et les logiques de centre/périphérie, notamment dans le champ de l’art contemporain. L’internationalisation de l’art contemporain et le renouvellement des cadres de pensées que l’on rattache au « tournant global » ont donné lieu à l’émergence d’un processus de labellisation de la différence, dont témoignent des catégories artistiques et esthétiques telles que « art non-occidental » ou « art global », porteuses d’imaginaires renouvelés que ce travail de recherche entend analyser. Notre démarche, qui s’appuie sur un corpus de six expositions ayant marqué le champ des événements culturels internationaux, est volontairement pluridisciplinaire et vise à considérer l’hétérogénéité du matériel qui compose ces expositions. En premier lieu, la mise en lumière des discours expographique résulte de l’analyse conjointe de trois composantes : les écrits, à partir desquels nous proposons une typologie spécifique qui considère la fois les intentions qui président à leur production et les usages qui en sont faits ; les pratiques artistiques, qui dans le cadre des biennales sont au service du discours expographique ; et les gestes de mise en exposition qui sont propres au dispositif médiatique spécifique des biennales. En deuxième lieu, la réalisation d’entretiens et la collecte d’archives ont permis de circonscrire le contexte d’énonciation et l’intentionnalité des événements. En tant que dispositif médiatique à part entière, le catalogue d’exposition a également donné lieu à une méthodologie adaptée à l’ensemble des éléments (discursifs et non discursifs) qui le caractérise. Plus particulièrement, les écrits de connaissances que l’on y trouve ont fait l’objet d’une analyse sémiolinguistique permettant de mettre en lumière les processus de concrétisation des concepts, et donc de saisir les imaginaires et valeurs qui sont attachés. L’approche privilégiée pour analyser ce corpus permet ainsi d’articuler à la fois les spécificités de chaque exposition (c'est-à-dire leur individuation à travers l’articulation de leur concept et de leur dispositif) et leur inscription dans un réseau (en tant que résultat d’un processus de réécriture), vis-à-vis du thème de l’altérité. / This research aims to examine how contemporary international art biennials, considered as cultural events and as first step in the historicization process of works and artists, contribute to the making of « otherness » as an imagined community. The chronologic frame of our research is anchored in 1989, which correspond to the « global turn », a shift of paradigm that would have led to the rethinking of domination relationship and the logic center/periphery, especially in the field of contemporary art. The internationalization of contemporary art and the renewal of the frameworks of thought that are often connected with the global turn have led to a process of labeling the difference, as evidenced by artistic and aesthetic categories such as « non-western art » or « global art » that carry renewed representations that this research intends to analyze. Our approach, which is based on a corpus of six exhibitions that have marked the field of international cultural events, is deliberately multidisciplinary and aims to consider the heterogeneity of the material that composes these exhibitions. First, we highlight the expographic discourses from the analysis of three components : the writings, from which we propose a specific typology that considers both the intentions that preside over their production and the uses that are made of them ; artistic practices, which in the context of biennials are at the service of the expographic discourse ; and the gestures of exhibitions which are characteristics of the specific media device of the biennials. Secondly, interviews and the collect of archival documents have led us to circumscribe the context of enunciation and the intentionality of the events. As a media device in its own right, the exhibition catalog also gave rise to a metholody adapted to all the elements (discursive and non-discursive) that characterize it. More particularly, the writings of knowledge have been the subject of semiolinguistic analysis to highlight the processes of concretization of concepts, and thus have led us to grasp the artistic values that are attached to the imagined otherness. The preferred approach to analyze this corpus thus makes it possible to articulate the specificities of each exhibition (i.e their individuation through the articulation of their concept and their device), and their inscription in a network (as a result of a process of rewriting) at the same time.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität, Frankfurt am Main, 2006. / Material type: Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-317).

The development of joint criminal enterprise at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been controversial since the doctrine was first created in 1997. For the judgments rendered by the ICTY to be perceived as legitimate, the doctrines used to bring charges against defendants must also be perceived as legitimate. The purpose of my thesis is to study the application of joint criminal enterprise at the ICTY and examine how the doctrine has influenced the length of sentences given. I find that joint criminal enterprise may be influencing longer sentences and the three categories of joint criminal enterprise are being used differently on defendants of different power levels. By empirically analyzing the patterns developing at the ICTY, I can see how joint criminal enterprise is influencing sentencing and the fairness of trials.

This diploma thesis is focused on the evaluation of six selected zoonoses with the occurrence in South Bohemia (campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis, listeriosis, tick-borne meningoencephalitis, Lyme borreliosis, tularemia) between the years 2003-2013. Campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis were evaluated the most common zoonoses in the South Bohemian Region during the monitored period. Their common feature is the alimentary transmission. Between 2003 to 2008 salmonellosis recorded the highest number of reported cases, on the contrary, campylobacteriosis has reported the highest number of occurrences since 2008. District of Czech Budweis showed the highest incidence of both zoonoses during the monitored period (4,139 cases of salmonellosis and 4,924 cases of campylobacteriosis). Another but not less important zoonotic is tick-borne meningoencephalitis, which incidence had the highest number in South Bohemian Region of all the regions of Czech Republic. The second part of the thesis is based on questionnaire studies focused on awareness of zoonoses and the issue of resistance and overuse of antibiotics. In total 479 questionnaires were evaluated. The survey findings may be equally described as interesting and positive, since the respondents had considerable awareness of the issue of antibiotic resistance.

This thesis is an investigation into the nature of the 'postmodern' narrative strategies and fictional methods in the work of two British Catholic writers. The work of David Lodge and Muriel Spark is here taken as an example ofthe 'Catholic novel'. In order to determine ifthe overlap ofpostmodern. and Christian-influenced narrative strategies constitutes more than a convergence or coincidence of formal concerns, narrative form in these novels is analyzed in the light of neo-Tho mist and Tho mist aesthetics, a traditional Catholic Christian theory of the arts. The 'postmodern' in these 'Christian' texts becomes largely a coincidence of terminology. Narrative forms which can be classified as 'postmodern' can also be categorized using the terminology of Thomas Aquinas. The apparent similarities betray radically divergent metaphysical presuppositions, however. The nature of the Catholic 'difference' lies in the way postmodern forms are used to challenge the metaphysical bases of those forms. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This thesis is an investigation into the nature of the 'postmodern' narrative strategies and fictional methods in the work of two British Catholic writers. The work of David Lodge and Muriel Spark is here taken as an example ofthe 'Catholic novel'. In order to determine ifthe overlap ofpostmodern. and Christian-influenced narrative strategies constitutes more than a convergence or coincidence of formal concerns, narrative form in these novels is analyzed in the light of neo-Tho mist and Tho mist aesthetics, a traditional Catholic Christian theory of the arts. The 'postmodern' in these 'Christian' texts becomes largely a coincidence of terminology. Narrative forms which can be classified as 'postmodern' can also be categorized using the terminology of Thomas Aquinas. The apparent similarities betray radically divergent metaphysical presuppositions, however. The nature of the Catholic 'difference' lies in the way postmodern forms are used to challenge the metaphysical bases of those forms. / English Studies / M.A. (English)