Le développement durable est un concept qui semble être prêté à toutes les sauces. Depuis sa plus populaire parution dans le Rapport Brundtland de 1987, il a servi à défendre autant des projets écologiques que profitables économiquement. Ce travail propose d'examiner de près la notion de développement durable en adoptant comme cadre théorique des concepts clés de l'écoféminisme et de l'auteur Ricardo Petrella. L'écoféminisme est une pensée peu connue mais avec un apport potentiellement riche pour la compréhension et la définition du développement durable. Afin de démontrer en quoi de nouvelles perspectives sont indispensables à la pensée du développement durable nous présenterons, en un deuxième temps, une analyse de l'impact des organisations économiques -la EAC, la SADC et le COMESA- et leurs traités de libre échange en particulier, sur le développement durable de la région du Lac Victoria. Nous démontrerons que bien que ces communautés prétendent vouloir réaliser un développement durable, elles ne pourront le réaliser tant qu'elles souhaitent d'abord et avant tout réaliser une croissance économique par le biais de la libéralisation. ______________________________________________________________________________

Nyanza Gulf is a large, shallow and long river-influenced embayment located in northeastern Lake Victoria. The gulf opens to the main lake through the narrow and deep Rusinga Channel, the exchange zone between the two ecosystems with different physical chemical and biogeochemical conditions. The main goals of this study are to characterize physicochemical and nutrient gradients along the gulf-main-lake transect, characterize and quantify the water and nutrient fluxes between the gulf and the main lake, and assess the response of phytoplankton community and photosynthesis to the spatially varying physical and nutrient conditions along the study transect. Between March 2005 and March 2006, measurements of physicochemical profiles as well as nutrient and the phytoplankton community analysis were conductued monthly along the study transect. Additionally, analysis of different surficial sediment phosphorus fractions was done in order to asses the potential role of bottom sediment in contributing to phosphorus enrichment in the lake water column. A box mass balance model was used to calculate the exchange of water and nutrient fluxes between different zones along the study transect and to estimate ecosystem metabolism in the gulf and the channel. Spatial variability in physicochemical and biogeochemical conditions was observed along the study transect, especially between the shallow and river-influenced inner-gulf, the deep and physically active Rusinga Channel, and the main lake, mainly in response to river inputs and varying morphometry along the study transect. The gulf had significantly higher electrical conductivity (EC), turbidity, total nitrogen (TN), and dissolved reactive silica (DRSi) but the levels declined monotonically along the channel in response to mixing with the main lake water. The channel and the main lake had, respectively, significantly higher dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) compared to the gulf. Spatial variability in morphometry and exposure to varying wind forcing lead to differential mixing and differential heating and cooling along the transect, resulting in density driven fronts and horizontal exchange of water and nutrients between the gulf and the main lake. Upwelling and downwelling maintained mixing conditions in the channel which consequently influenced nutrient recycling, the light environment and hence affecting phytoplankton community composition and productivity. The net residual water flow from the gulf to the main lake was 36 m3/s but the mixing flux was approximately 20 times higher and both fluxes accounted for a gulf exchange time of 1981 days. The advective and mixing fluxes between the gulf and the main lake resulted in net export of dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP; 400 kg P/d) from the main lake into the gulf and net export of DRSi (10 t Si/d) from the gulf into the main lake. In the deep, narrow and physically active Rusinga Channel there was net production of dissolved nutrients whereas in the gulf there was net consumption of dissolved nutrients, which helped to maintain high net ecosystem production (NEP; 566 mg C/m2/d) in the gulf in contrast the channel which showed net heterotrophy. The high NEP in the gulf and the associated high nutrient demand coupled with possibly low SRP to DIN supply ratio lead to P limitation of algal growth in the gulf as indicated by all indicators of nutrient status. This has important implications for management since increased P input into the gulf will translate into increased algal blooms in the gulf and therefore compromise water quality. Spatial variability in physical conditions and nutrient status along the study transect influenced phytoplankton community composition and photosynthesis. The shallow and turbid gulf was dominated by cyanobacteria but diatoms dominated in the channel in response to reduced turbidity and increased physical mixing and nutrient availability (DRSi, SRP). In the main lake seasonal stratification and deep mixing depth favoured both cyanobacteria and diatoms. The phytoplankton community in channel had a higher photosynthetic capacity (Fv/Fm, PBm) compared to both the gulf and the main lake.

Nyanza Gulf is a large, shallow and long river-influenced embayment located in northeastern Lake Victoria. The gulf opens to the main lake through the narrow and deep Rusinga Channel, the exchange zone between the two ecosystems with different physical chemical and biogeochemical conditions. The main goals of this study are to characterize physicochemical and nutrient gradients along the gulf-main-lake transect, characterize and quantify the water and nutrient fluxes between the gulf and the main lake, and assess the response of phytoplankton community and photosynthesis to the spatially varying physical and nutrient conditions along the study transect. Between March 2005 and March 2006, measurements of physicochemical profiles as well as nutrient and the phytoplankton community analysis were conductued monthly along the study transect. Additionally, analysis of different surficial sediment phosphorus fractions was done in order to asses the potential role of bottom sediment in contributing to phosphorus enrichment in the lake water column. A box mass balance model was used to calculate the exchange of water and nutrient fluxes between different zones along the study transect and to estimate ecosystem metabolism in the gulf and the channel. Spatial variability in physicochemical and biogeochemical conditions was observed along the study transect, especially between the shallow and river-influenced inner-gulf, the deep and physically active Rusinga Channel, and the main lake, mainly in response to river inputs and varying morphometry along the study transect. The gulf had significantly higher electrical conductivity (EC), turbidity, total nitrogen (TN), and dissolved reactive silica (DRSi) but the levels declined monotonically along the channel in response to mixing with the main lake water. The channel and the main lake had, respectively, significantly higher dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) compared to the gulf. Spatial variability in morphometry and exposure to varying wind forcing lead to differential mixing and differential heating and cooling along the transect, resulting in density driven fronts and horizontal exchange of water and nutrients between the gulf and the main lake. Upwelling and downwelling maintained mixing conditions in the channel which consequently influenced nutrient recycling, the light environment and hence affecting phytoplankton community composition and productivity. The net residual water flow from the gulf to the main lake was 36 m3/s but the mixing flux was approximately 20 times higher and both fluxes accounted for a gulf exchange time of 1981 days. The advective and mixing fluxes between the gulf and the main lake resulted in net export of dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP; 400 kg P/d) from the main lake into the gulf and net export of DRSi (10 t Si/d) from the gulf into the main lake. In the deep, narrow and physically active Rusinga Channel there was net production of dissolved nutrients whereas in the gulf there was net consumption of dissolved nutrients, which helped to maintain high net ecosystem production (NEP; 566 mg C/m2/d) in the gulf in contrast the channel which showed net heterotrophy. The high NEP in the gulf and the associated high nutrient demand coupled with possibly low SRP to DIN supply ratio lead to P limitation of algal growth in the gulf as indicated by all indicators of nutrient status. This has important implications for management since increased P input into the gulf will translate into increased algal blooms in the gulf and therefore compromise water quality. Spatial variability in physical conditions and nutrient status along the study transect influenced phytoplankton community composition and photosynthesis. The shallow and turbid gulf was dominated by cyanobacteria but diatoms dominated in the channel in response to reduced turbidity and increased physical mixing and nutrient availability (DRSi, SRP). In the main lake seasonal stratification and deep mixing depth favoured both cyanobacteria and diatoms. The phytoplankton community in channel had a higher photosynthetic capacity (Fv/Fm, PBm) compared to both the gulf and the main lake.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on December 29, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Jeff Rice. Includes bibliographical references.

In Mexico there is an increasing lack of engagement of the Mexican government and its citizens towards resolving violence. In the 20th century alone events such as the Revolution of 1910, La Guerra Cristera, La Guerra Sucia, and most recently Los Feminicidios and Calderon’s War on Drugs are representative of an ethos of violence withstood and inflicted by Mexicans towards women, men, youth, and marginalized groups. This dissertation examines Los Feminicidios in Ciudad Juarez and the cultural production surrounding them: chronicles, novels, documentaries and films. In it I draw on Aristotle’s influential Nicomachean Ethics, Victoria Camps’ El gobierno de las emociones (2011), María Pía Lara’s Narrating Evil (2007), Vittorio Gallese’s and other scientists’ research on neuroscience empathy and neurohumanism, and socio-political essays in order to theorize how a pathos-infused understanding of ethos might engage a reading and viewing public in what has become a discourse about violence determined by a sense of fatalism. Specifically, I argue that narrative and its interpretations play a significant role in people’s emotional engagement and subsequent cognitive processes. I stress the importance of creating an approach that considers both pathos and logos as a way of understanding this ethos of violence. I argue that by combining pathos and logos in the analysis of a cultural text, we can break through the theoretical impasse, which thus far has resulted in exceptionalisms and has been limited to categorizing as evil the social and political mechanisms that may cause this violence. / text

Impacts of ecological competition are reduced when organisms play different roles in their environment. More individuals can survive on varied but finite sets of resources when organisms eat different kinds of prey, live in different places, or are active at different times. Species within an assemblage of small fossorial snakes have ecologies that vary mostly by diet. Different species eat very different things. Species live in different habitats on sand ridges, but the differences are less dramatic than in diet. Disparity in resource use typically varies the most according to species, so that individuals of the same species are more similar to each other than they are to individuals of other species. However, variation exists in resource use within species over time and space. Wide variation exists in dietary resource use in four well-sampled species of comb-eared skinks. However, where species occur at the same study site there are clear distinctions in resource use between species despite the wide variation in diets observed between individuals of the same species. Additionally, strict ecological distances in diet between species are maintained during five censuses that were conducted over a 16-year period. These results illustrate the basic ecological principals of fundamental and realized niches. Here, individuals ate many different food items and species have the potential to overlap in diet but that overlap is reduced because of realized ecological boundaries between species within a single place and time, which result in decreased competition for resources. / text

The aim of this essay is to examine how men is portrayed in three short stories, ”En omvändelsehistoria”, ”Far och son” and ”Jeppa”, from the debut Från Skåne by Victoria Benedictsson. I also investigate the ideas of masculinity during the 1880s. Unmanliness, paternity and manly tears are other concepts that I have been examining with close–reading as the method. The essay begins with a short recap of the earlier research about Benedictsson. Her debut as well as the perspective of masculinity on the work of female authors has been almost ignored by the academic sphere and my aim was to do something about it. Firstly, I discuss unmanliness in the peasant culture, secondly, paternity and absence and thirdly, unmanliness and manly tears. My result shows that the different ideas of masculinity affect the characters in many ways. For example, the elderly in the stories mostly falls down in unmanliness. I have come to the conclusion that the fear of being unmanly urge the men, or the boys, to act manly and follow the ideals.

Scholars have sorely neglected the subject of religion in British Columbia during the interwar years. This thesis will address this gap through a study of the relationship between Protestantism and society in the province's major urban centers, Vancouver and Victoria. I will approach the issue through a new window into the role of churches in British Columbia - the church taxation debates of the 1920's. This work begins with a review of the literature that sets the historical context of the church tax issue and reveals gaps in our knowledge of the role of religion in British Columbia. Primary source material is derived largely from newspapers, magazines, and archival material including private correspondences, City Council documents, pamphlets, and booklets. The church taxation issue illustrates the agenda of British Columbia's urban churches in a rapidly changing and secularizing society. In order to remain relevant, they were forced to consider their purpose and persuade society to agree. Exemptionists employed different strategies to convince the public of their indispensability. In Victoria, churches clung to tradition, while in Vancouver churches responded by redefining the relationship between church and state. Victoria's churches wanted the role of churches to remain unchanged while Vancouver churches sought to harmonize the churches' agenda with that of the state. In both cities, the exemptionists won their cases. However, their victories did not permanently define or secure the future role of churches.

Our behaviour is not changing fast enough to stop the environmental damage that is occurring. Many people will not voluntarily change their behaviours if there is no immediate benefit to them - this creates the need for a source of authority to encourage behaviour change. Usually this authority is government in the form of laws, but there are few laws that demand the adoption of pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) like composting and recycling. An individual’s employer can be a strong authority within an influential milieu. This study focuses on the impact that four environmentally-aware employers in the Victoria technology industry have on their staff, as measured by the type and extent of PEBs practiced by staff at work and at home. Data is obtained through interviews and online surveys. Findings expose the workplace as an important leverage point that government and NGOs can use to encourage rapid social change.

No description available.