Land Tenure in Acadian Agricultural Settlements, 1604-1755: Cultural Retention and the Emergence of Custom

Starting in 1755, the British began the process of not only expelling some eleven thousand Acadians from their homes and farms, but also of uprooting a culture that had survived for over one hundred and twenty years. This dissertation applies a legal historical approach to elucidate a crucial feature of that culture, namely Acadian land tenure. In particular, it traces the way in which seigneurialism, and the French law supporting it, were central to property formation in Acadian agricultural settlements from their inception to their destruction in 1755. Scholars have been at best ambivalent, and at worst hostile to the notion that seigneurialism existed in l’Acadie. While all agree that it was the intent of the French crown to transplant seigneurialism to l’Acadie, most question whether it actually took root. In some cases, Acadians have been portrayed as New England yeoman farmers, and several have written that seigneurialism was “moribund” in l’Acadie. Most recently, scholars have acknowledged that some Acadians paid dues to seigneurs to secure their properties, but continue to question whether seigneurialism was central to property formation. A review of seigneurialism as it had evolved in France by the seventeenth century, and as it was practiced in Canada, begins the study and provides a baseline from which to assess seigneurialism’s implementation in l’Acadie. This is followed by a close analysis of surviving concessions and land contracts. While most notarial documents were destroyed, an important collection remains, many of which are unpublished. These provide clear evidence that most Acadians held their land from, and paid dues to, a seigneur. Together with other documentary evidence, including accounts of seigneurial charges collected by the British after 1713, these legal documents demonstrate that seigneurialism not only survived, but was pervasive in the agricultural settlements. A final chapter describes Acadians’ land use practices, as revealed chiefly by their contracts. These show that while Acadians retained important elements of their French cultural inheritance, they also forged new custom in response to environmental conditions, most particularly the practical and equitable practices used in connection with the development of the marshes on which their agriculture depended

Unpacking Twaweza\u27s Theory of Social Change: Citizen Agency, Information, Accountability, and Basic Services

The purpose of this paper is to define the key concepts – and links between them – of Twaweza’s Theory of Social Change. These are the notions of citizen-driven change, citizen agency, information, monitoring and accountability, and basic services. The analysis shows ambiguities and, at times, conflicting working definitions in Twaweza’s use of these terms in its major public documents. We then integrate relevant scholarship to elaborate these central ideas and to pose questions that Twaweza may engage with in the spirit of its claims to be a “learning organization.

Impact evaluation, professional practice and policy making.

This paper examines the relationship between research into the evaluation of the impact of library and information services, policy making in the field, and professional practice and education. The paper first summarises the background to a recent critical literature review undertaken on behalf of Resource: the Council on Museums, Archives and Libraries. The review was intended to identify any published evidence that Museums, Archives and Libraries are making a contributory impact to developments in the British Governments key policy areas. Except in the field of learning, little supporting evidence was found. Methodological weakness undermined the validity of much of the related work identified by the review. After considering approaches to ensuring the impact of research on policy making, including a more appropriate publication strategy and greater face-to-face dialogue, the paper discusses the attitudes of LIS practitioners towards academic research and the need for closer collaboration. Finally the paper speculates on some of the implications for LIS educators in developing future researchers better equipped to identify the contribution that libraries make, and more effective in influencing policy makers

Franz Cumont’s Syrian tour: a Belgian archaeologist in the Ottoman empire

This paper highlights the Western scientific traveller as an intermediary between Orient and Occident around the turn of the nineteenth century by presenting a case study on the Belgian archaeologist and historian of religions, Franz Cumont (1868-1947), and the dossier of the journey he undertook in Northern Syria, May 1907. After a discussion of this classicist's relation to the Orient, I give an account of Cumont's Syrian tour, based on three different writing contexts: the academic output of the expedition in Northern Syria, Cumont's private travel notes, and both his active and passive correspondence. Still focusing on the case of Franz Cumont and the dossier of his archaeological journey in 1907, in a third and fourth section I examine two ways in which the Orient was brought to the Occident by the scientific traveller. Firstly, by the acquisition and transfer of archaeological material from the Orient to the Occident, providing Western institutions with Eastern artefacts. Secondly, by the transfer of ideas and images: how did the Occidental scientific traveller, the archaeologist, convey his experiences with the "real" Orient to the European readership? I will disclose how Franz Cumont expressed his evaluation of the ancient Orient, which he studied, and the contemporary Orient, which he experienced during his travels

The EChO science case

The discovery of almost two thousand exoplanets has revealed an unexpectedly diverse planet population. We see gas giants in few-day orbits, whole multi-planet systems within the orbit of Mercury, and new populations of planets with masses between that of the Earth and Neptune—all unknown in the Solar System. Observations to date have shown that our Solar System is certainly not representative of the general population of planets in our Milky Way. The key science questions that urgently need addressing are therefore: What are exoplanets made of? Why are planets as they are? How do planetary systems work and what causes the exceptional diversity observed as compared to the Solar System? The EChO (Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory) space mission was conceived to take up the challenge to explain this diversity in terms of formation, evolution, internal structure and planet and atmospheric composition. This requires in-depth spectroscopic knowledge of the atmospheres of a large and well-defined planet sample for which precise physical, chemical and dynamical information can be obtained. In order to fulfil this ambitious scientific program, EChO was designed as a dedicated survey mission for transit and eclipse spectroscopy capable of observing a large, diverse and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. The transit and eclipse spectroscopy method, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allows us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of at least 10⁻⁴ relative to the star. This can only be achieved in conjunction with a carefully designed stable payload and satellite platform. It is also necessary to provide broad instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect as many molecular species as possible, to probe the thermal structure of the planetary atmospheres and to correct for the contaminating effects of the stellar photosphere. This requires wavelength coverage of at least 0.55 to 11 μm with a goal of covering from 0.4 to 16 μm. Only modest spectral resolving power is needed, with R ~ 300 for wavelengths less than 5 μm and R ~ 30 for wavelengths greater than this. The transit spectroscopy technique means that no spatial resolution is required. A telescope collecting area of about 1 m² is sufficiently large to achieve the necessary spectro-photometric precision: for the Phase A study a 1.13 m² telescope, diffraction limited at 3 μm has been adopted. Placing the satellite at L2 provides a cold and stable thermal environment as well as a large field of regard to allow efficient time-critical observation of targets randomly distributed over the sky. EChO has been conceived to achieve a single goal: exoplanet spectroscopy. The spectral coverage and signal-to-noise to be achieved by EChO, thanks to its high stability and dedicated design, would be a game changer by allowing atmospheric composition to be measured with unparalleled exactness: at least a factor 10 more precise and a factor 10 to 1000 more accurate than current observations. This would enable the detection of molecular abundances three orders of magnitude lower than currently possible and a fourfold increase from the handful of molecules detected to date. Combining these data with estimates of planetary bulk compositions from accurate measurements of their radii and masses would allow degeneracies associated with planetary interior modelling to be broken, giving unique insight into the interior structure and elemental abundances of these alien worlds. EChO would allow scientists to study exoplanets both as a population and as individuals. The mission can target super-Earths, Neptune-like, and Jupiter-like planets, in the very hot to temperate zones (planet temperatures of 300–3000 K) of F to M-type host stars. The EChO core science would be delivered by a three-tier survey. The EChO Chemical Census: This is a broad survey of a few-hundred exoplanets, which allows us to explore the spectroscopic and chemical diversity of the exoplanet population as a whole. The EChO Origin: This is a deep survey of a subsample of tens of exoplanets for which significantly higher signal to noise and spectral resolution spectra can be obtained to explain the origin of the exoplanet diversity (such as formation mechanisms, chemical processes, atmospheric escape). The EChO Rosetta Stones: This is an ultra-high accuracy survey targeting a subsample of select exoplanets. These will be the bright “benchmark” cases for which a large number of measurements would be taken to explore temporal variations, and to obtain two and three dimensional spatial information on the atmospheric conditions through eclipse-mapping techniques. If EChO were launched today, the exoplanets currently observed are sufficient to provide a large and diverse sample. The Chemical Census survey would consist of > 160 exoplanets with a range of planetary sizes, temperatures, orbital parameters and stellar host properties. Additionally, over the next 10 years, several new ground- and space-based transit photometric surveys and missions will come on-line (e.g. NGTS, CHEOPS, TESS, PLATO), which will specifically focus on finding bright, nearby systems. The current rapid rate of discovery would allow the target list to be further optimised in the years prior to EChO’s launch and enable the atmospheric characterisation of hundreds of planets

Leading change in information management

Introducing and leading change in any field is a difficult and complex task with no mapped path or certain route that guarantees success. Working in a public and administrative institution rarely offers opportunities for introducing and leading creative and innovative changes. However, my work on various information management tasks gave me a chance to lead change in a number of international organizations for which I worked, discovering new or improved information solutions, products and services. In retrospect, leading change in information management was a sine qua non of my long career and is a major focus of this Context Statement. This Context Statement offers a review of my own public works and achievements during my long professional career in information management. It concentrates on four public works, describing them in chronological order. It defines main influencers, theories, concepts and people that made the greatest impact on my career; evaluates the work performed, the technology used, the results achieved, and the lessons learned. The Context Statement also offers a thematic review of my public works, putting them in the perspective of the dramatically changed world of information management, the global impact of information, the democratisation of scientific and technical information, and the information ethics. The Context Statement concludes that, if we - the information managers - do not lead change and instigate constant innovation and modernization of our field, we will become museum custodians, instead of a leading avant-garde in today’s knowledge economy and the information world in which we live

Towards understanding the nature and diversity of small planets in the universe : discovery and initial characterization of Wolf 503 b and LP 791-18 d

Avec la découverte de milliers de nouvelles planètes au cours des vingt dernières années, une nouvelle population complexe de planètes plus petites que Neptune et plus grandes que la Terre a été découverte. Ces planètes se divisent en deux groupes : les plus grandes sub-Neptunes avec des atmosphères étendues dominées par H, et les plus petites super-Terres qui ont tout au plus des atmosphères minces. Cette division peut être expliquée par une variété de mécanismes, y compris la photoévaporation, la perte de masse alimentée par le noyau, et la formation de gaz pauvres et vides : la population de petites planètes est probablement façonnée par une combinaison de ces mécanismes qui peut dépendre du type stellaire. Dans ce travail, nous décrivons la découverte de deux nouvelles planètes qui sont bien adaptées à l'étude de la nature de la population des petites planètes : Wolf 503 b et LP 791-18 d. Wolf 503 b est une planète de $2.03^{+0.08}_{-0.07} R_{\oplus}$ orbitant autour de l'étoile brillante ($J=8.32$ mag), proche ($D=44.5$ pc) à mouvement propre élevé K3.5V Wolf 503 (EPIC 212779563). Nous confirmons que la signature du transit K2 est planétaire en utilisant à la fois des images d'archives et des images d'optique adaptative à haut contraste de l'observatoire Palomar. Son rayon place Wolf 503b directement entre les populations de super-Terre et de sub-Neptune, un rayon auquel les planètes sont rarement trouvées et la composition de masse attendue est ambiguë, et la luminosité de l'étoile hôte fait de Wolf 503b une cible de choix pour le suivi des vitesses radiales et la spectroscopie de transit. La deuxième planète que nous présentons est une planète de taille terrestre orbitant autour de la naine froide M6 LP 791-18. La nouvelle planète d rejoint un système bien aligné avec au moins deux autres planètes, la plus externe étant une sous-Neptune, offrant une occasion unique à ce jour d'étudier un système avec une planète de taille terrestre tempérée et une sous-Neptune qui a conservé son enveloppe gazeuse ou volatile. La découverte de LP 791-18d permet de mesurer la masse du système grâce aux variations du temps de transit, et nous trouvons une masse de ${9.3_{-1.4}^{+1.5}\,M_\oplus}$ pour la sub-Neptune LP 791-18c et une masse de ${0.8_{-0.4}^{+0.5}\,M_\oplus}$ pour l'exo-Terre LP 791-18d (${<2.3 M_{\oplus}}$ à 3${\sigma}$). La planète est également soumise à un fort réchauffement continu par les marées, ce qui peut entraîner une activité géologique et un dégazage volcanique. Pour l'avenir, LP 791-18d et Wolf 503b offrent des opportunités uniques d'étudier les origines et la conservation des atmosphères des petites planètes.With the discovery of thousands of new planets in the past twenty years, a new and complex population of planets has been discovered which are smaller than Neptune and larger than the Earth. These planets are split into two groups: the larger sub-Neptunes with extended H-dominated atmospheres, and the smaller super-Earths which have at most thin atmospheres. This division can be explained by a variety of mechanisms, including photoevaporation, core-powered mass-loss, and gas-poor and gas-empty formation: the small-planet population is likely shaped by a combination of these which may depend on stellar type. In this work we describe the discovery of two new planets which are well-suited to investigating the nature of the small planet population: Wolf 503b and LP 791-18d. Wolf 503 b is a $2.03^{+0.08}_{-0.07} R_{\oplus}$ planet orbiting the bright ($J=8.32$ mag), nearby ($D=44.5$ pc) high proper motion K3.5V star Wolf 503 (EPIC 212779563). We confirm that the K2 transit signature is planetary using both archival images and high-contrast adaptive optics images from the Palomar observatory. Its radius places Wolf 503 b directly between the populations of super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, a radius at which planets are rarely found and the expected bulk composition is ambiguous, and the brightness of the host star makes Wolf 503b a prime target for radial velocity follow-up and transit spectroscopy. The second planet we introduce is an Earth-sized planet orbiting the cool M6 dwarf LP 791-18. The new planet d joins a well-aligned system with at least two more planets, the outermost being a sub-Neptune, providing a to-date unique opportunity to investigate a system with a temperate Earth-sized planet and a sub-Neptune that retained its gas or volatile envelope. The discovery of LP 791-18d makes the system amenable to mass measurements via transit timing variations, and we find a mass of ${9.3_{-1.4}^{+1.5}\,M_\oplus}$ for the sub-Neptune LP 791-18c and a mass of ${0.8_{-0.4}^{+0.5}\,M_\oplus}$ for the exo-Earth LP 791-18d (${<2.3 M_{\oplus}}$ at 3${\sigma}$). The planet is also subject to strong continued tidal heating, which may result in geological activity and volcanic outgassing. Looking forward, LP 791-18d and Wolf 503b offer unique opportunities to study the origins and retention of small-planet atmospheres