"As you receive with one hand, so should you give with the other": the mutual-help practices of Cape Verdeans on the Lisbon periphery”

Rural Cape Verdeans employ a number of mutual-help practices to mitigate the uncertainties surrounding activities fundamental to their subsistence. One of these practices is djunta mon (‘to work together’), a loosely planned, non-monetized system of allocating labor at peak intervals during the growing season. By means of djunta mon, neighbors or family members work in each other’s fields until the tasks of every landowning participant are complete. Alongside djunta mon in rural Cape Verde exist a number of other non-remunerated mutual-help practices, such as djuda mutua (‘mutual help’) and laja kaza (‘to add concrete to one’s house’). While less visible than djunta mon, they are nonetheless important in completing tasks essential to rural life in the islands. In this thesis, I will attempt to show how Cape Verdean immigrants in Lisbon have adapted the mutual-help practices of rural Cape Verde to a new, transnational context. The iterations of these practices in Lisbon differ from their rural counterparts in that they involve fewer people, occur on a year-round basis, and are concerned primarily with domestic work. They also help people find employment, access childcare, secure interest-free credit, and construct or repair houses. I will argue that extensive mutual-help ties ensure Cape Verdean migrants in Lisbon a sufficient pool of family and friends upon which they can rely for support and assistance. An additional element I will explore is the perception among Cape Verdean immigrants that these mutual-help practices seem to be occurring with less frequency. While this shift is in part due to the availability of other means of support, I will contend that the changing attitude of Cape Verdeans towards mutual help is also due to their encountering neoliberal notions of ‘self-accountability.’ Thus, Cape Verdeans perceive that their mutual-help practices are in decline, while simultaneously needing the material support that they provide.

Reconstruction of metal pollution and recent sedimentation processes in Havana Bay (Cuba): A tool for coastal ecosystem management.

Since 1998 the highly polluted Havana Bay ecosystem has been the subject of a mitigation program. In order to determine whether pollution-reduction strategies were effective, we have evaluated the historical trends of pollution recorded in sediments of the Bay. A sediment core was dated radiometrically using natural and artificial fallout radionuclides. An irregularity in the (210)Pb record was caused by an episode of accelerated sedimentation. This episode was dated to occur in 1982, a year coincident with the heaviest rains reported in Havana over the XX century. Peaks of mass accumulation rates (MAR) were associated with hurricanes and intensive rains. In the past 60 years, these maxima are related to strong El Niño periods, which are known to increase rainfall in the north Caribbean region. We observed a steady increase of pollution (mainly Pb, Zn, Sn, and Hg) since the beginning of the century to the mid 90s, with enrichment factors as high as 6. MAR and pollution decreased rapidly after the mid 90s, although some trace metal levels remain high. This reduction was due to the integrated coastal zone management program introduced in the late 90s, which dismissed catchment erosion and pollution.

Audit report on the Disaster Grants – Public Assistance program of the Green Bay Levee and Drainage District in Lee County, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2009

Audit report on the Disaster Grants – Public Assistance program of the Green Bay Levee and Drainage District in Lee County, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2009

Sedimen-water nutrient fluxes: Preliminary results of in situ measurements in Alfaques Bay, Ebro River Delta.

Sediment-water exchanges of oxygen, ammonium, nitrate, total dissolved nitrogen, phosphate and total dissolved phosphorus were measured by means of an in situ incubator of 7 1 volume and 700 cm2 base area. The incubations lasted for three hours and were done over a whole season on different kinds of sediments in Alfaques Bay. We present some preliminary results on: i) methodological aspects, ii) spatial and temporal variability of fluxes, and iii) estimates of contribution of benthic nutrient regeneration relative to total nutrient loading of the Bay. Oxygen uptake averaged 1700 mmo1 m-2 h-1 (range 200-3500); no differences were found between sandy and muddy sediments. The release of ammonia from the sediment averaged 70 mmo1 m-2 h-1 and was higher in muddy sediments than in sandy ones. Very low to null nitrate and nitrite fluxes and only small fluxes of organic nitrogen were detected. We conclude that ammonium release from sediment is the major path of nitrogen regeneration. Some sediments removed dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) from the water and released dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP). Additional manipulative experiments revealed DRP release under particular conditions (turbulence, anoxia). From these data, we estimate that at least 50% of the nitrogen requirements of phytoplankton in the area may be supplied by benthic remineralization.

Citizen participation and the Lisbon Treaty : A legal perspective

How to "bring the [European] Union closer to its citizens" is a vexed and vital problem of European integration. Article 11 TEU on participatory democracy, recently introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, is meant to be part of the solution. The EU Economic and Social Committee has gone so far as to define this provision "a milestone on the road to a people's Europe that is real and feasible". This appears to be an overly optimistic assessment - partly because art. 11 relies heavily on the involvement of civil society organisations, which political science literature suggests is conceptually and/or practically irrelevant to citizen involvement; partly because it largely formalizes participatory practices that have been in existence for years without cognizable effects on citizen participation; and partly because even its most innovative element - the European citizens' initiative (ECI) - does not bring significant changes to the Union's constitutional arrangements in terms of redistributing decision-making power. In addition to that, secondary legislation places significant hurdles on the submission of ECIs and might prevent or delay their becoming a standard democratic practice. This is not to say that art. 11 TEU has no potential at all. Its insertion in the Treaty might provide impetus to rethink and develop past participatory practices, such as horizontal civil dialogue. Moreover, the effects of "popular input" in the form of ECIs on EU institutional dynamics is as yet unknown - and perhaps not negligible, to judge from the keen interest that the European Parliament and other bodies have demonstrated in "appropriating" it as a political asset. Finally, art. 11 raises the stakes of the Union's democratic challenge and might pressure EU institutions to make full use of its potential. Or, if eventually proved inadequate, art. 11 might constitute a constitutional experiment on the way to meaningful forms of direct democracy at EU level.

Summer ozone cycles in the Lisbon metropolitan area and its relation to some meteorological variables

The aim of this work is to study the tropospheric ozone concentrations and daily peak cycles in the Lisbon MetropolitanArea (LMA) during the summer season (June, July and August, JJA) covering the 4-yr study period 2002-2005. Theresults show that all the stations have the same pattern: a minimum in the early morning followed by an increase at 1000UTC reaching to a peak at 1300-1400 UTC, dropped again to minimum values 1800 UTC but with different concentrationsdue to regional and local wind circulations and complex dynamic interactions. We identified in Lisbon city the ozone “weekendeffect”. Finally, we studied an episode of very high levels of tropospheric ozone and related daily ozone concentrationswith some meteorological variables.

Phytobenthic assemblages of Addaia Bay (Menorca, Western Mediterranean): composition and distribution

Study on the composition and distribution of Phytobenthic Assemblages of Addaia Bay (Menorca, Western Mediterranean)

Plutonium and americium isotopes as alternative chronostratigraphic markers in tropical regions: An application in the Havana Bay (Cuba)

The low 137Cs activity observed in marine sediments of tropical regions often precludes its use as chronostratigraphic marker. Here we present a study on the use of Pu and Am radioisotopes as alternative markers to constrain the 210Pb ages in a sediment core of the Havana Bay (Cuba). Mean activity ratios of 238Pu/239,240Pu, 241Am/239,240Pu and 241Pu/239,240Pu indicated that the nuclear weapon tests fallout is the main source of the anthropogenic radionuclides. While the inventory of 137Cs in the sediments is lower than the expected fallout inventory, 239,240Pu accumulates in the sediments with inventories higher than the expected fallout inventory. The high fluxes of 239,240Pu are nevertheless corroborated here through use of 210Pb, and confirm that focusing of solid particles is of great importance in the investigated site. 239,240Pu showed to be a useful time tracer in marine sites where the 137Cs signal is very low.