The implications of tourism for rural livelihoods : the case of Madjadjane community, Matutuine district, Mozambique.

Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.This study investigates the level of the implications of a community based project in Madjadjane area, Matutuine District in Mozambique and constitutes a Mini-dissertation for a Masters Degree in Environment and Development. It is composed of two parts. Component A comprises a literature review and was written following CEAD guidelines and Component B, which constitutes the research paper written in the stylesheet for publication in the South African Geographical Journal (Appendix 2 of the Component A). The literature review charts the evolution of tourism from the ancient forms to the mass tourism after the Second World War and then to the more recent forms of tourism. The review also discusses approaches related to development, sustainable development, rural development, community based natural resources management and livelihoods, which are critical to understanding the context in which tourism takes place. Alternative tourism approaches such as sustainable tourism, nature based tourism, eco-tourism, rural tourism, pro-poor tourism and community based tourism are evaluated in terms of their impacts on host communities. From this discussion, community based tourism with its focus on poverty alleviation and livelihood improvement emerges as one of the more appropriate options for tourism development in poor countries. The study concluded that from the Madjadjane community perspective, although the project emerged along with small commercial activities, it has not yet brought significant economic benefits, nor improvement of their livelihoods. The positive impact is the increased awareness of the value of the conservation of natural resources amongst the local residents

Random attractors for stochastic 2D-Navier-Stokes equations in some unbounded domains

We show that the stochastic flow generated by the Stochastic Navier-Stokes equations in a 2-dimensional Poincar\'e domain has a unique random attractor. This result complements a recent result by Brze\'zniak and Li [10] who showed that the flow is asymptotically compact and generalizes a recent result by Caraballo et al. [12] who proved existence of a unique pullback attractor for the time-dependent deterministic Navier-Stokes equations in a 2-dimensional Poincar\'e domain

Self-organized pore formation and open-loop-control in semiconductor etching

Electrochemical etching of semiconductors, apart from many technical applications, provides an interesting experimental setup for self-organized structure formation capable e.g. of regular, diameter-modulated, and branching pores. The underlying dynamical processes governing current transfer and structure formation are described by the Current-Burst-Model: all dissolution processes are assumed to occur inhomogeneously in time and space as a Current Burst (CB); the properties and interactions between CB's are described by a number of material- and chemistry- dependent ingredients, like passivation and aging of surfaces in different crystallographic orientations, giving a qualitative understanding of resulting pore morphologies. These morphologies cannot be influenced only by the current, by chemical, material and other etching conditions, but also by an open-loop control, triggering the time scale given by the oxide dissolution time. With this method, under conditions where only branching pores occur, the additional signal hinders side pore formation resulting in regular pores with modulated diameter

Fractal dimension of a random invariant set

AbstractIn recent years many deterministic parabolic equations have been shown to possess global attractors which, despite being subsets of an infinite-dimensional phase space, are finite-dimensional objects. Debussche showed how to generalize the deterministic theory to show that the random attractors of the corresponding stochastic equations have finite Hausdorff dimension. However, to deduce a parametrization of a ‘finite-dimensional’ set by a finite number of coordinates a bound on the fractal (upper box-counting) dimension is required. There are non-trivial problems in extending Debussche's techniques to this case, which can be overcome by careful use of the Poincaré recurrence theorem. We prove that under the same conditions as in Debussche's paper and an additional concavity assumption, the fractal dimension enjoys the same bound as the Hausdorff dimension. We apply our theorem to the 2d Navier–Stokes equations with additive noise, and give two results that allow different long-time states to be distinguished by a finite number of observations

Pullback permanence in a non-autonomous competitive Lotka–Volterra model

AbstractThe goal of this work is to study in some detail the asymptotic behaviour of a non-autonomous Lotka–Volterra model, both in the conventional sense (as t→∞) and in the “pullback” sense (starting a fixed initial condition further and further back in time). The non-autonomous terms in our model are chosen such that one species will eventually die out, ruling out any conventional type of permanence. In contrast, we introduce the notion of “pullback permanence” and show that this property is enjoyed by our model. This is not just a mathematical artifice, but rather shows that if we come across an ecology that has been evolving for a very long time we still expect that both species are represented (and their numbers are bounded below), even if the final fate of one of them is less happy. The main tools in the paper are the theory of attractors for non-autonomous differential equations, the sub-supersolution method and the spectral theory for linear elliptic equations

Lower semicontinuity of attractors for non-autonomous dynamical systems

This paper is concerned with the lower semicontinuity of attractors for semilinear non-autonomous differential equations in Banach spaces. We require the unperturbed attractor to be given as the union of unstable manifolds of time-dependent hyperbolic solutions, generalizing previous results valid only for gradient-like systems in which the hyperbolic solutions are equilibria. The tools employed are a study of the continuity of the local unstable manifolds of the hyperbolic solutions and results on the continuity of the exponential dichotomy of the linearization around each of these solutions

Structural stability of invasion graphs for generalized Lotka--Volterra systems

In this paper we study in detail the structure of the global attractor for a generalized Lotka-Volterra system with Volterra--Lyapunov stable structural matrix. We provide the full characterization of this structure and we show that it coincides with the invasion graph as recently introduced in [15]. We also study the stability of the structure with respect to the perturbation of the problem parameters. This allows us to introduce a definition of structural stability in Ecology in coherence with the classical mathematical concept where there exists a detailed geometrical structure, governing the transient and asymptotic dynamics, which is robust under perturbation.Comment: Declaration on the lack of competing interest has been adde

Effects of probiotics on growth performance, blood parameters, and antibody stimulation in piglets

The study investigated the effects of probiotic bacteria (Lactobacillus reuteri ZJ625, Lactobacillus reuteri VB4, Lactobacillus salivarius ZJ614, and Streptococcus salivarius NBRC13956) administered as direct-fed microorganisms on growth performance and blood parameters of weaned piglets. Forty-five weaned piglets were divided into five treatments: antibiotic (PC), no antibiotic and no probiotic (NC), probiotic (P1), probiotic (P2), and combination of probiotics (P3). Fecal and ileum samples were collected for microbial count analysis. Blood samples were also collected from the animals at the end of the trial for the hematological and biochemical analysis and the ability of the probiotics to stimulate immunoglobulin G (IgG). Supplementation of probiotics had no effect on feed intake (FI). However, average daily weight gained (ADG) in the P3 treatment was higher than in other treatments and lowered the value of feed conversion ratio (FCR) of weaned piglets. Microbial count of fecal samples did not differ in all the treatments while ileum samples had lower enteric bacteria in P3 treatment when compared to other treatments. Concentration of albumin, globulin, neutrophils and basophils were higher in the NC treatment when compared to other treatment groups. The IgG concentration was highest in P3 compared to other treatments. Results suggested that probiotics have beneficial effects on growth performances, blood parameters, and IgG stimulation of weaned piglets. This advocates that probiotics will offer a significant benefit in pig farming by reducing the risk of post weaning diarrheal syndromes, and therefore enhance pig industry’s economy. Keywords: Blood chemistry, feed conversion ratio, immunoglobulin G, post-weaning diarrheal syndromes, probiotic

The Impact of Poor Health Behaviors on Workforce Disability

The effects of poor health habits on mortality have been studied extensively. However, few studies have examined the impact of these health behaviors on workforce disability. In the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative cohort of 6044 Americans who were between the ages of 51 and 61 and who were working in 1992, we found that both baseline smoking status and a sedentary lifestyle predict workforce disability six years later. If this relationship is causal, cost-benefit analyses of health behavior intervention that neglect workforce disability may substantially underestimate the benefits of such interventions.