The impacts of armed conflict on corruption: a study of long term sub-national change in Nepal

Accounts of corruption in conflict-affected areas are often dominated by a focus on the fragility of public sector institutions. In the last decade, this focus has been challenged by an emergent literature which instead frames corruption as an informal means of order-making during conflict, and by the study of the ethnicisation of corruption through conflict. In this thesis, I contribute to this emergent literature by analysing the local dynamics of conflict-induced change in corruption in Nepal, eleven years after the end of the 1996-2006 Maoist conflict. I do so through a constructivist grounded theory approach, one which has not previously been applied in the study of this relationship. Through this new case and approach, I expand the emergent body of theory on this relationship in three ways: First, I demonstrate long term change in corruption at the sub-national level under conditions of stability, and in a context not polarised by ethnic divisions. Second, I demonstrate the multiple concurrent dynamics of conflict-induced change in corruption in the long term, across the four theories of this relationship present in the literature. Finally, I explain the changing nature of this relationship over time, spanning the conflict, transition and expectations for future change

Book Reviews

Book Review 1Book Title: Zoological Catalogue of Australia Vol. 34. Hemichordata, Tunicata, CephalochordataBook Authors: Editors A. Wells & W.W.K. Houston1998. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. 298pp.Book Review 2Book Title: Biodiversity dynamics and conservation: the freshwater fish of tropical AfricaBook Author: Christian Léveque 1997. ISBN 0 521 570336. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Book Review 3Book Title: Biology and ecology in southern African estuariesBook Author: Alan K. Whitfield Ichthyological Monographs of the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology, No.2. 1998. ISBN 0-86810-333-0. Hardcover, 223 pp.Book Review 4Book Title: The Southern synthesis. Fauna of Australia Vol. 5Book Authors: P.L. Beesley, G.J.B. Ross & A. Wells 1998. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.Book Review 5Book Title: The Kingdon field guide to African mammalsBook Author: Jonathan Kingdon1997. Academic Press (locally available at Russell & Friedman. Box 73, Halfway House) 465pp. ISBN 0-12-408355-2.Book Review 6Book Title: Cooperative breeding in mammalsBook Authors: Edited by Nancy G. Solomon & Jeffrey A. FrenchCambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 1997. 390 pp. ISBN 0521 4591 3

Studies on zooplankton feeding ecology and resource utilization in a sub-tropical hypertrophic impoundment (Hartbeespoort Dam, South Africa)

Various aspects of the feeding ecology of zooplankton are described for hypertrophic Hartbeespoort Dam, where the phytoplankton is dominated by the cyanophyte Microcystis. The study considers zooplankton succession, community grazing rates, and speciesspecific filtration rates on Microaystis colonies and natural bacterioplankton. Seasonal abundance of the main herbivorous zooplankton between 1981 and 1986 is described both in respect of biomass and specific densities. In situ community grazing rates were measured from January 1983 to March 1985 using 14C-Iabelled Chlorella . Zooplankton succession and community grazing rates are examined in relation to food quantity and quality. Experiments measuring species-specific filtration rates on labelled Chlorella and Microcystis colony fractions revealed low filtration rates for small-bodied cladoceran species on cyanophyte colonies. Daphnia fed significantly on Microcystis colonies up to 60-100 ).μm but Daphnia filtration rates on Chlorella were suppressed by ~707. during the mid-summer increase in Microcystis abundance. Filtration rates of small cladoceran species were not suppressed by MicpocystisJ which was not an important food resource . Cladoceran filtration rate:body length models were developed for Chlorella and Microcystis colony fractions as food. Multiple regression models explained variance in filtration rates on these foods as a function of body length, food type and size, grazer species and temperature (in order of significance). Inclusion of food quality factors such as cyanophyte colony size seems justified in models of plankton feeding in eutrophic or hypertrophic lakes. Methods for in situ measurement of zooplankton filtration rates on 'H-thymidine-Iabelled natural bacteria were improved for use under hypertrophic conditions, and associated isotope-adsorption errors were measured. Community, species-specific and length-specific filtration rates on bacterioplankton were measured (late-spring to late-summer 1986-87) . Ceriodaphnia exhibited no preference for bacteria or Chlorella. Other cladocerans preferred the algal food . Algal/bacterial selectivity coefficients of the zooplankton community revealed an increased algal preference following the mid-summer shift to phytoplankton dominance by largely inedible Microcystis. This implies that bacterioplankton is not an important food resource for the summer cladoceran community. Estimates of the contribution of bacterial carbon to the daily zooplankton carbon requirements are low. The implications of all results are discussed in relation to seasonal succession, the clear-water phase', and biomanipulation in this hypertrophic reservoir

Elssler Quadrilles

Fanny Grey. A ballad of real life. Well, well, Sir! so you\u27re come at last!I thought you\u27d come no more:I\u27ve waited, with my bonnet on, from one till half-past four!You know I hate to sit alone,unsettled where to go:You\u27ll break my heart - I feel you will if you continue so!You\u27ll break my heart - I feel you will if you continue so! 2Now pray, my love, put by that frown,and don\u27t begin to scold!You really will persuade me soonyou\u27re growing cross and old.I only stopp\u27d at Grosv\u27nor gate,young Fanny\u27s eye to catch:I won\u27t, I swear I won\u27t be made to keep time like a watch! I won\u27t, I swear I won\u27t be made to keep time like a watch! 3It took you, then, two hours to bow?Two hours! Take off your hat;I wish you\u27d bow that way to me;and apropos of that,I saw you making love to her (You see I know it all!)I saw you making love to her, at Lady Glossop\u27s ball! 4Now really, Jane, your temper is so very odd today!You jealous, and of such a girl as little Fanny Grey!Make love to her! Indeed, my dear,You could see no such thing:I sat a minute by her side, to see a turquoise ring! 5I tell you that I saw it all, the whisp\u27ring ring and grimace,The flirting and coquetting, in her little foolish face,Oh! Charles, I wonder that the earth don\u27t open, where you stand-By the heav\u27n that is above us both, I saw you kiss her hand! 6I didn\u27t love! Or if I did, allowing that \u27tis true,When a pretty woman shows her rings, what can a poor man do?My life, my soul, my darling Jane! I love but you alone,I never thought of Fanny Grey (How tiresome she\u27s grown!) 7Put down your hat, don\u27t take your stick!Now prithee, Charles, do stay!You never come to see me now, but you long to run away;There was a time, there was a time, you never wish\u27d to go-What have I done, what have I done, dear Charles, to change you so? 8Pooh, pooh, my love! I am not changed- but dinner is at eight;And my father\u27s so particular, he never likes to wait;Good bye! Good bye! You\u27ll come again?Yes, one of these fine days!He\u27s turn\u27d the street - I knew he would- He\u27s gone to Fanny Grey\u27s! The Moonlit Dell Hark! hark! the fairy melodySoftly pealing, softly pealing,O\u27er the woodland, o\u27er the lear,So gently on us stealing.Come let us forth beneath the moon,To view the scene so merry,And hasten, or they\u27ll all be gone,If we should linger tarry;Then let us seek the moonlit dell,Softly stepping, softly stepping,Not a breath must break the spellThat all the world is keeping,All the world is keeping. 2See! see, they come - the elfin train,Tripping lightly, tripping lightly,On the soft and velvet green,While stars are shining brightly;Not a sound must now betrayThat mortals near them hover,A breath would fright the elves away,If they our forms discover.Then let us seek, &c. 3The morning dawns- but ere thelightGently breaking, gently breaking,Through the darkling shades of night,The woodland songsters waking,The dance is o\u27er - the elves have fled,Yet still afar are stealinSweet strains from every mossy bed,Their hiding-place revealing;Then let us quit the lonely dell,They are sleeping - they are sleeping,Morn hath broke the magic spellThat all the earth was keeping. Rory O\u27Moore Young Rory O\u27Moore courted Kathleen O\u27Bawn,He was bold as a hawk, and she soft as the dawnHe wish\u27d in his heart pretty Kathleen to please,And he thought the best way to do that was to teaze;Now Rory be aisy, sweet Kathleen would cry,Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye,With your tricks I don\u27t know, in troth, what I\u27m about,Faith you\u27ve teazed till I\u27ve put on my cloak inside out.Oh! jewel, says Rory, that same is the wayYou\u27ve thrated my heart for this many a day,And \u27tis plazed that I am, and why not to be sure?For \u27tis all for good luck, says bold Rory O\u27Moore. 2Indeed then, says Kathleen, don\u27t think of the like,For I half gave a promise to Soothering MIke,The ground that I walk on he loves, I\u27ll be bound,Faith, says Rory, I\u27d rather love you than the ground,Now, Rory, I\u27ll cry if you don\u27t let me go,Sure I dream every night that I\u27m hating you so!Oh! says Rory, that same I\u27m delighted to hear,For dhrames always go by conthrairies my dear;Oh! Jewel, keep dreaming that same till you die,And bright morning will give dirty night the black lie,And \u27tis plazed that I am, and why not to be sure?Since \u27tis all for good luck, says bold Rory O\u27Moore. 3Arrah Kathleen, my darlint you\u27ve teazed me enough,And I\u27ve thrash\u27d for your sake Dinny Grimes and Jim Dugg,And I\u27ve made myself drinking your health quite a baste,So I think, after that, I may talk to the priest;They Rory, the rogue, stole his arm round her neck,So soft and so white, without freckle or speck,And he look\u27d in her eyes that were beaming with light,And he kiss\u27d her sweet lips- don\u27t you think he was right?Now Rory leave off, Sir - you\u27ll hug me no more,That\u27s eight times today that you\u27ve kiss\u27d me before;Then here goes another, says he, to make sure,For there\u27s luck in odd numbers, says Rory O\u27Moore. The Orphan Ballad Singers Oh weary weary are our feet,And weary weary is our way,Through many a long and crowded streetWe\u27ve wander\u27d mournfully today;My little sister she is pale,She is too tender and too youngTo bear the autumn\u27s sullen gale,And all day long the child has sung. 2She was our mother\u27s favourite chld,Who loved her for her eyes of blue,And she is delicate and mile,She cannot do what I can do.She never met her father\u27s eyes,Although they were so like her own;In some far distant sea he lies,A father to his child unknown. 3The first time that she lisp\u27d his name,A little playful thing was she:How proud we were- yet that night cameThe tale how he had sunk at sea.My mother never raised her head;How strange, how white, how cold she grew!It was a broken heart they said-I wish our hearts were broken too. 4We have no home- we have no friends,They said our home no more was ours,Our cottage where the ash-tree bends,The garden we had fill\u27d with flowers.The sounding shells our father brought,That we might hear the sea at home;Our bees, that in the summer wroughtThe winter\u27s golden honeycomb. 5We wander\u27d forth mid wind and rain,No shelter from the open sky;I only wish to see againMy mother\u27s grave, and rest, and die.Alas, it is a weary thingTo sing our ballads o\u27er and o\u27er;The songs we used at home to sing-Alas! we have a home no more! Do None Remember Me It was a Sabbath morn,The bell had chimed for church;And the young and gay were gatheringAround the rustic porch,There came an aged man,In a soldier\u27s garb was heAnd gazing round the group, he cried, Do none remember me? And gazing round the group, he cried, Do none remember me? 2The veteran forgot his friends were changed or gone,The manly forms around him therAs children he had known.He pointed to the spotWhere his dwelling used to be,Then told his name, and smiling said, You now remember me. 3Alas! none knew him there;He pointed to a stoneOn which the name he breathed was traced,A name to them unknown.And then the old man wept, I am friendless now, cried he, Where I had many friends in youth,Not one remembers me

Semiconductor Robot

A large line-following robot was built to transport semiconductor wafers in semiconductor factories. The criteria for a successful robot were decided upon prior to designing. The robot was designed using both mechanical and electrical engineering techniques to ensure that the final design met the outlined criteria. Each electrical subsystem was tested successfully prior to being installed on the robot. However once all the components were installed the robot was not able to move autonomously because the DC motors selected could not provide adequate torque. For future robot designs it is imperative that the motors be tested thoroughly because there is a substantial difference between specifications and actual performance

The Born and Lens-Lens Corrections to Weak Gravitational Lensing Angular Power Spectra

We revisit the estimation of higher order corrections to the angular power spectra of weak gravitational lensing. Extending a previous calculation of Cooray and Hu, we find two additional terms to the fourth order in potential perturbations of large-scale structure corresponding to corrections associated with the Born approximation and the neglect of line-of-sight coupling of two foreground lenses in the standard first order result. These terms alter the convergence ($\kappa\kappa$), the lensing shear E-mode ($\epsilon\epsilon$), and their cross-correlation ($\kappa\epsilon$) power spectra on large angular scales, but leave the power spectra of the lensing shear B-mode ($\beta\beta$) and rotational ($\omega\omega$) component unchanged as compared to previous estimates. The new terms complete the calculation of corrections to weak lensing angular power spectra associated with both the Born approximation and the lens-lens coupling to an order in which the contributions are most significant. Taking these features together, we find that these corrections are unimportant for any weak lensing survey, including for a full sky survey limited by cosmic variance.Comment: Added references, minor changes to text. 9 pages, 2 figure

Different Slopes for Different Folks: Socioeconomic and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Asthma and Hay Fever among 173,859 U.S. Men and Women.

Although allergic diseases such as asthma and hay fever are a major cause of morbidity in industrialized countries, most studies have focused on patterns of prevalence among children and adolescents, with relatively few studies on variations in prevalence by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic position among adults. Our study examined racial/ethnic and socioeconomic patterns in the prevalence of asthma overall, asthma with hay fever, asthma without hay fever, and hay fever overall, in a population of 173,859 women and men in a large prepaid health plan in northern California. Using education as a measure of socioeconomic position, we found evidence of a positive gradient for asthma with hay fever with increasing level of education but an inverse gradient for asthma without hay fever. Hay fever was also strongly associated with education. Compared with their White counterparts, Black women and men were more likely to report asthma without hay fever, and Black women were less likely to have asthma with hay fever. Asian men were also more likely to report asthma with hay fever, and Asian women and men were much more likely to have hay fever. Racial/ethnic disparities in prevalence of allergic diseases were largely independent of education. We discuss implications for understanding these social inequalities in allergic disease risk in relation to possible differences in exposure to allergens and determinants of immunologic susceptibility and suggest directions for future research

Reconstitution of a Minimal DNA Replicase From Pseudomonas Aeruginosa and Stimulation by Non-Cognate Auxiliary Factors

DNA polymerase III holoenzyme is responsible for chromosomal replication in bacteria. The components and functions of Escherichia coli DNA polymerase III holoenzyme have been studied extensively. Here, we report the reconstitution of replicase activity by essential components of DNA polymerase holoenzyme from the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We have expressed and purified the processivity factor (β), single-stranded DNA-binding protein, a complex containing the polymerase (α) and exonuclease (ϵ) subunits, and the essential components of the DnaX complex (τ3δδ′). Efficient primer elongation requires the presence of αϵ, β, and τ3δδ′. Pseudomonas aeruginosa αϵ can substitute completely for E. coli polymerase III in E. coli holoenzyme reconstitution assays. Pseudomonas β and τ3δδ′ exhibit a 10-fold lower activity relative to their E. coli counterparts in E. coli holoenzyme reconstitution assays. Although the Pseudomonas counterpart to the E. coli ψ subunit was not apparent in sequence similarity searches, addition of purified E. coli χ and ψ (components of the DnaX complex) increases the apparent specific activity of the Pseudomonas τ3δδ′ complex ∼10-fold and enables the reconstituted enzyme to function better under physiological salt conditions

Climate change in the subtropics: The impacts of projected averages and variability on banana productivity

The potential for bananas to produce year round is best expressed when water is abundant and daily temperatures are in the range of 20-30°C. Zones with these conditions produce fruit for the global market. However, banana production, mainly for national markets, has developed in many subtropical areas under less than optimum conditions. Bananas are an important cash crop in southern Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, in countries of North Africa, the Middle East and southern Africa, and in China and northern India. In these regions, bananas are subject to sub-optimum temperatures and short days. Highly favorable temperatures and long days in the summer may also include short periods of extreme temperatures above 35°C, while rainfall is also highly variable. The effects of climate change on selected subtropical production areas were modeled in a two-step procedure using the EcoCrop model, under current growing conditions and for 2020 and 2050 using a set of 19 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Global Climate Models (GCMs) under the SRES-A2 (business as usual) emission scenario. The modeling showed that current suitability for banana production in the subtropics is much lower than in the tropics with great variation in suitability within the subtropics. Of nine subtropical regions considered, two have improved conditions by 2020s, four are largely unaffected and three have a lower suitability. Our analysis also showed that, in terms of environmental conditions, certain sites are widely represented globally, offering options for technology transfer between sites. Other sites have few similar sites, which means that sites need to be carefully selected for approaches to technology development and transfer. The study leveraged site-specific information with widely available tools to understand potential effects of climate change in the subtropics. However, in order to fully understand the impacts of climate change on banana, the modeling tools used here need to be fully suited for semi-perennial crops to capture the effects of seasonal temperature and rainfall variability on crop cycle length and potential yields