Flood analysis of the clare river catchment considering traditional factors and climate change

The main objective of this thesis on flooding was to produce a detailed report on flooding with specific reference to the Clare River catchment. Past flooding in the Clare River catchment was assessed with specific reference to the November 2009 flood event. A Geographic Information System was used to produce a graphical representation of the spatial distribution of the November 2009 flood. Flood risk is prominent within the Clare River catchment especially in the region of Claregalway. The recent flooding events of November 2009 produced significant fluvial flooding from the Clare River. This resulted in considerable flood damage to property. There were also hidden costs such as the economic impact of the closing of the N17 until floodwater subsided. Land use and channel conditions are traditional factors that have long been recognised for their effect on flooding processes. These factors were examined in the context of the Clare River catchment to determine if they had any significant effect on flood flows. Climate change has become recognised as a factor that may produce more significant and frequent flood events in the future. Many experts feel that climate change will result in an increase in the intensity and duration of rainfall in western Ireland. This would have significant implications for the Clare River catchment, which is already vulnerable to flooding. Flood estimation techniques are a key aspect in understanding and preparing for flood events. This study uses methods based on the statistical analysis of recorded data and methods based on a design rainstorm and rainfall-runoff model to estimate flood flows. These provide a mathematical basis to evaluate the impacts of various factors on flooding and also to generate practical design floods, which can be used in the design of flood relief measures. The final element of the thesis includes the author’s recommendations on how flood risk management techniques can reduce existing flood risk in the Clare River catchment. Future implications to flood risk due to factors such as climate change and poor planning practices are also considered.

Численное исследование влияния восточной части Средиземного моря, Черного, Каспийского морей и окружающего их рельефа на распределение метеорологических полей в крупномасштабных вихрях атмосферы

მ. ნოდიას გეოფიზიკის ინსტიტუტში დამუშავებული საშუალო მასშტაბის ატმოსფერული პროცესები რეგიონალური მოდელის გამოყენებით რიცხობრივად გამოიკვლევა მეტეოროლოგიური ველების განაწილებით, რომლებიც გამოწვეულია ხმელთაშუა ზღვის აღმოსავლეთი ნაწილის, შავი და კასპიის ზღვების და მათ ირგვლივ არსებული რელიეფით, აღმოსავლეთით მოძრავ ციკლონურ და ანტიციკლონურ გრიგალებში.

Экспериментальное исследование с применением компьютерной графики влияния рельефа дневной поверхности на магнитотеллурическое поле

არაერთგვაროვან გარემოში ელექტროდინამიკური პროცესების მოდელირების დანადგარზე გამოკვლეულია მაგნიტოტელურ ველზე სამგანზომილებიანი უსწორმასწორო დღიური ზედაპირის რელიეფის გავლენა. შედეგები დამუშავებულია კომპიუტერული გრაფიკული პროგრამის გამოყენებით.

Исследования влияния релъефа Кавказского региона на поле ветра в окрестростях восточной части каспийского морей

ატმოსფეროს ჰიდროდინამიკის არადიაბატური არასტაციონარული განტოლებათა სისტემის რიცხვით ინტეგრირების საშუალებით შესწავლილია კავკასიის რეგიონის რელიეფის გავლენა ქარის განაწილებაზე შავი ზღვის აღმოსავლეთ და კასპიის ზღვის დასავლეთ სანაპიროების მიდამოებში. ნაჩვენებია, რომ რელიეფის ზემოქმედებამ ოთხი ძირითადი ტიპის ფონურ დინებაზე შეიძლება გამოიწვიოს ქარის სიჩქარის მნიშვნელოვანი ცვლილება ატმოსფეროს სასაზღვრო ფენაში და წარმოშვას სანაპირო ზოლის მიდამოებში ქარის მეზომასშტაბური სტრუქტურები.

Litosol: suas características e provável gênese

Some of the characteristics peculiar to Litosois are discussed based on data published on Litosois occurring in the States of São Paulo and Paraná. Litosois are the first stages of development of a soil. Litosois probably originate through the exposure of the rockbed caused by an excessive relief. Rock weathering processes are intensive, prevailing those of chemical nature rather than those processes in which physical phenomena dominate. The A horizon has a high organic matter content (2% to 10%). Silt and clay amount to approximately 50% of the fine earth in the A horizon, with the exception of Litosois originated from sandstone and granite. The SiO2/Al2O3 relationship of the soil's colloidal complex and the clay's cation exchange capacity indicate that it is quite probable the presence of 2:1 type clay in Litosois derived from basic rocks.

Presença de substâncias fisològicamente ativas em culturas de E. Coli isolados das fezes de pacientes alérgicos pela técnica de Heist-Cohen

Four patients with several allergic symptoms have been studied. Heist-Cohen pathogen selective method was positive in feces of all these patients for E. coli. Other causes that could be responsible for the allergic symptoms were discarded. Samplets after seeding in a medium physiologically inactive have been tested in guinea pig illea following Cohnheim-Magnus technique. It was demonstrated that all samples isolated by the Heist-Cohen technique were physiologically active.(Fig.1). Ten other strains of E. coli taken at random from the collection of I.O.C. and tried according similar technique, brought evidence that only three samples possessed such activity. This confirms the works of KOESSLER-HANKE (1922). In order to obtain a quick relief from allergic symptoms, one of us had employed in some others, identical cases an antibiotic (Teramycin, Chas Pfeizer) before the specific disesitization was done (Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5). Such method were choice since LABORDE, PARROT, and URQUIA (1953) have demonstrated the importance of production of histamine, from components of the bowel's flora in the production of allergic symptoms.

O relêvo do solo como fator determinante da distribuição dos Anofelíneos na região "Bromeliácea-Malária do Brasil

Aus dem Vorhergehenden ergibt sich, dass das Problem "Bromeliaceen-Kerteszia" hinsichtlich des Bodenreliefs in vier Punkten zusammengefasst werden kann: 1- Zone des Vorkommens von Anopheles (Kerteszia) cruzii; das sind die Kontinentalebenen der Niederung des Itapocú im Norden der Region und der des Araranguá im Sueden. Dazu kommen die benachbarten Streifen einschliesslich der Abhaenge der Serra do Mar. 2 - Zone des Vorkommens von Anopheles (Kerteszia) cruzii und bellator; das sind die quartaeren Ebenen mariner Sedimente (Restingas). 3 - Zone des Vorkommens von Anopheles (Kerteszia) cruzii, bellator und homunculus; das ist das stark vertikal aufgeteilte Relief der parallel zueinander in EW-Richtung verlaufenden Gebirgszuege. 4 - Zone des Vorkommens von Anopheles (Kerteszia) cruzii und homunculus; das sind die Abhaenge der Gebirgsraender des kristalinen Hochlandes, die tief durch die zum Meer gerichteten Fluesse zerschnitten sind. Ebenfalls erbigt sich, dass in den vier Zonen die Art Anopheles (Kerteszia) cruzii einen gleichbleibenden Prozentsatz an Larven aufweist, woraus hervorgeht: 1 - Die Art besitzt keine bevorzugte Wohnstaette, in Bezug aur die Eiablage, in der zur Frage stehenden biogeographischen Region. 2- Die grossen Differenzen bezueglich des Prozentsatzes an positiven Brutstaetten in den bearbeiteten Gebieten haengt nicht von dem groesseren oder geringeren vorkommen der entspreschenden Art im biotop ab, sondern von den Wohnstaetten, die fuer das Leben der Arten Anopheles (Kerteszia) bellator und homunculus geeignet sind. Des weiteren ersieht man, dass, im allgemeinen gesehen, eine Abnahmees der Positivitaet der Brutstaetten in der EW-Richtung besteht, dagegen ist die Verringerung in der NS-Richtung weininger akzentuiert.

Neurolysis using a carbohydrate polymer gel for the treatment of postoperative neuropathic pain.

Perineural and intraneural fibrosis is thought to be the main cause of failure of the many surgical treatments of neuropathic pain. We have used Adcon-T/N carbohydrate polymer gel for prevention of perineural fibrosis in several parts of the body. In this retrospective study, 54 patients who presented with postoperative neuropathic pain had microsurgical epineural neurolysis and relocation of a terminal neuroma. In 19 of them, the carbohydrate gel was applied at the same time. The mean follow-up was four years and the nerve distribution varied. Postoperative improvement in pain scores (visual analogue scale (VAS) and neuropathic pain scale inventory (NPSI)), sensitivity, overall improvement and satisfaction were equivalent in the two groups, with pain relief in about 80% of the patients. There was no significant beneficial effect in the carbohydrate gel group. Patients treated with this device had a higher infection rate (21 compared with 0, p = 0.01) and delayed wound healing (31.6 compared with 11.8, p = 0.2). We conclude that good long-term pain relief is obtained postoperatively independently of the addition of carbohydrate gel. There was a slight but not significant trend towards profound pain relief with the gel.

Les temporalités des médicaments : trajectoires en soins palliatifs à l'hôpital

A partir d'un terrain ethnographique réalisé au sein d'une équipe mobile de soins palliatifs d'un hôpital universitaire, cette thèse de doctorat porte sur les médicaments dans le contexte de la fin de vie. Au carrefour d'une socio-anthropologie de la maladie grave, du mourir et des médicaments, elle interroge les rapports à la morphine, ainsi qu'à certains psychotropes et sédatifs utilisés en soins palliatifs. Entre temporalité vécue et temporalité institutionnelle, les manières d'investir le temps lorsqu'il est compté, y sont centrales. Dans une dimension microsociale, les résultats montrent que l'introduction de certains médicaments comme la morphine et l'entrée en scène d'une équipe mobile de soins palliatifs sont des points de repère et peuvent sonner comme une annonce, sorte de sanction, dans la trajectoire incertaine de la personne malade. En outre, les médicaments permettent d'agir sur « le temps qui reste » en plus de soulager les symptômes lorsque la maladie grave bascule en maladie incurable. Ils font l'objet d'usages détournés du but initial de soulagement des symptômes pour repousser, altérer ou accélérer la mort dans une perspective de maîtrise de sa fin de vie. Dans une dimension mésosociale, ce travail considère les médicaments à la base d'échanges entre groupements professionnels sur fond d'institutionnalisation des soins palliatifs par rapport à d'autres segments de la médecine actifs dans la gestion de la fin de vie. Dans une médecine caractérisée par l'incertitude et les décisions -avec une teinte toute particulière en Suisse où le suicide assisté est toléré - les médicaments en soins palliatifs peuvent être considérés comme des instruments de mort, qu'ils soient redoutés ou recherchés. Interrogeant les risques de reproduire un certain nombre d'inégalités de traitements à l'approche de la mort, qui s'accentuent dans un contexte de plus en plus favorable aux pratiques euthanasiques, ce travail se propose, en définitive, de discuter le temps contraint de la mort dans les institutions hospitalo-universitaires, entre acharnement et abstention thérapeutique.¦-¦Based on ethnographie fieldwork conducted within a palliative care mobile team in an academic hospital, this doctoral thesis focuses on medicines used in end of life contexts. At the intersection of a socio-anthropology of illness, dying and pharmaceuticals, the relations to morphine, as well as to some psychotropic and sedative drugs used in palliative care are questioned. Between "lived" experiences of temporality and institutional temporality, the ways by which actors invest time when it is counted, appeared to be central. In a microsocial dimension, the results showed that introducing drugs such as morphine, as well as the arrival of a palliative care mobile team, are landmarks and sound like an announcement, a sort of sanction, during the uncertain trajectory of the ill person. In addition, medicines can act on "the remaining time" when severe illness shifts into incurable illness. Indeed, medicines are being diverted from the initial aim of symptom relief in order to defer, alter or hasten death in a perspective of control over one's death. In a mesosocial dimension, pharmaceuticals are seen as core to professional exchanges and to palliative care institutionalisation compared to other active medical segments in end of life care. In a medical context characterised by uncertainty and decision-taking-with a special shade in Switzerland where assisted suicide is tolerated - palliative medicines can be seen as instruments of death, whether sought or feared. Questioning the risks of reproducing treatment inequalities at the approach of death, which are accentuated in a context increasingly favorable to euthanasia practices, this study aims, ultimately, at discussing death's constrained time in academic hospitals, between therapeutic intervention and abstention.

Inheritance of ductile and brittle structures in the development of large rock slope instabilities: Examples from western Norway

The high density of slope failures in western Norway is due to the steep relief and to the concentration of various structures that followed protracted ductile and brittle tectonics. On the 72 investigated rock slope instabilities, 13 were developed in soft weathered mafic and phyllitic allochthons. Only the intrinsic weakness of such rocks increases the susceptibility to gravitational deformation. In contrast, the gravitational structures in the hard gneisses reactivate prominent ductile or/and brittle fabrics. At 30 rockslides along cataclinal slopes, weak mafic layers of foliation are reactivated as basal planes. Slope-parallel steep foliation forms back-cracks of unstable columns. Folds are specifically present in the Storfjord area, together with a clustering of potential slope failures. Folding increases the probability of having favourably orientated planes with respect to the gravitational forces and the slope. High water pressure is believed to seasonally build up along the shallow-dipping Caledonian detachments and may contribute to destabilization of the rock slope upwards. Regional cataclastic faults localized the gravitational structures at 45 sites. The volume of the slope instabilities tends to increase with the amount of reactivated prominent structures and the spacing of the latter controls the size of instabilities.

Use of LIDAR in landslide investigations: A review

This paper presents a short history of the appraisal of laser scanner technologies in geosciences used for imaging relief by high-resolution digital elevation models (HRDEMs) or 3D models. A general overview of light detection and ranging (LIDAR) techniques applied to landslides is given, followed by a review of different applications of LIDAR for landslide, rockfall and debris-flow. These applications are classified as: (1) Detection and characterization of mass movements; (2) Hazard assessment and susceptibility mapping; (3) Modelling; (4) Monitoring. This review emphasizes how LIDARderived HRDEMs can be used to investigate any type of landslides. It is clear that such HRDEMs are not yet a common tool for landslides investigations, but this technique has opened new domains of applications that still have to be developed.

Changes in the demand for private medical insurance following a shift in tax incentives

The 1998 Spanish reform of the Personal Income Tax eliminated the 15% deduction for private medical expenditures including payments on private health insurance (PHI) policies. To avoid an undesirable increase in the demand for publicly funded health care, tax incentives to buy PHI were not completely removed but basically shifted from individual to group employer-paid policies. In a unique fiscal experiment, at the same time that the tax relief for individually purchased policies was abolished, the government provided for tax allowances on policies taken out through employment. Using a bivariate probit model on data from National Health Surveys, we estimate the impact of said reform on the demand for PHI and the changes occurred within it. Our findings suggest that the total probability of buying PHI was not significantly affected. Indeed, the fall in the demand for individual policies (by 10% between 1997 and 2001) was offset by an increase in the demand for group employer-paid ones, so that the overall size of the market remained virtually unchanged. We also briefly discuss the welfare effects on the state budget, the industry and society at large.

Analog Modelling of N-S anticlines of the External Sierras (Jaca basin, Southern Pyrenees)

Report for the scientific sojourn carried out at the Uppsala Universitet, Sweden, from April to July the 2007. Two series of analogue models are used to explore ductile-frictional contrasts of the basal décollement in the development of oblique and transverse structures simultaneously to thin-skinned shortening. These models simulate the evolution of the Central External Sierras (Southern Pyrenees, Spain), which constitute the frontal emerging part of the southernmost Pyrenean thrust sheet. They are characterized by the presence of transverse N-S to NW-SE anticlines, which are perpendicular to the Pyrenean structural trend and developed in the hangingwall of the Santo Domingo thrust system, detaching on an unevenly distributed Triassic materials (evaporitic-dolomitic interfingerings). Model setup performs a décollement made by three patches of silicone neighbouring pure brittle sand. Model series A test the thickness ratio between overburden and décollement. Model series B test the width of frictional detachment areas. Model results show how deformation reaches further in areas detached on ductile layer whereas frictional décollement areas assimilate the strain by means of an additional uplift. This replicates the structural style of Central External Sierras: higher structural relief of N-S anticlines with regard to orogen-parallel structures, absence of a representative ductile décollement in the core, tilting towards the orogen and foreland-side closure not thrusted by the frontal emerging South-Pyrenean thrust.

Biographie du diencéphale. Revisiter l'histoire de la psychiatrie à travers le parcours d'une zone cérébrale.

Si les versions cérébralisantes de la pathologie mentale ont eu plus ou moins de succès et de partisans selon les périodes et les courants dominants de la psychiatrie, elles n'ont cessé d'intéresser les aliénistes puis les psychiatres à travers les décennies. La question n'a pas fondamentalement varié au cours de ces deux derniers siècles. Elle peut être résumée ainsi : quels sont les dysfonctionnements cérébraux dont l'influence sur le comportement humain est telle qu'ils puissent provoquer parfois des pathologies qu'aucune thérapie biologique et/ou psychothérapeutique n'est capable de totalement maîtriser? Ce travail aborde ces questionnements à travers l'étude d'une hypothèse représentative des nombreuses tentatives de la psychiatrie de désigner les dysfonctionnements cérébraux potentiellement responsables des pathologies qu'elle tente de traiter: l'hypothèse diencéphalique des pathologies mentales, élaborée durant la première moitié du vingtième siècle, illustre en effet la quête de légitimité scientifique d'une psychiatrie constamment réduite à un tâtonnement thérapeutique. Se pencher sur la biographie d'une zone cérébrale permet premièrement de proposer un autre récit que celui généralement mis en avant par les historien·ne·s de la psychiatrie : il s'agit ici de montrer l'influence de la physiologie, de l'endocrinologie, de la neurologie et de la neurochirurgie sur la manière dont les psychiatres ont envisagé la relation esprit-cerveau, tant dans leur pratique clinique que dans leurs recherches expérimentales. En outre, l'étude de cette hypothèse révèle la continuité théorique entre la période qui précède et celle qui suit la « révolution neuroleptique », continuité qui contraste avec l'idée de rupture transmise par les récits plus classiques. Enfin, cette démarche permet de mettre en relief les enjeux actuels qu'entoure l'avancée des neurosciences psychiatriques, et de les réinscrire dans une histoire fondée sur des questionnements bien antérieurs au récent essor des neurosciences. Ainsi, revisiter la période durant laquelle a émergé l'hypothèse diencéphalique des pathologies mentales ne vise pas uniquement à s'intéresser au passer de la psychiatrie, mais plutôt à mobiliser ce passé pour mieux réfléchir à la façon dont cette discipline écrit sa propre histoire au présent.

Ghosts in contemporary African diasporic literature : re-visioning history, memory and identity

Starting from the observation that ghosts are strikingly recurrent and prominent figures in late-twentieth African diasporic literature, this dissertation proposes to account for this presence by exploring its various functions. It argues that, beyond the poetic function the ghost performs as metaphor, it also does cultural, theoretical and political work that is significant to the African diaspora in its dealings with issues of history, memory and identity. Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) serves as a guide for introducing the many forms, qualities and significations of the ghost, which are then explored and analyzed in four chapters that look at Fred D'Aguiar's Feeding the Ghosts (1998), Gloria Naylor's Mama Day (1988), Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow (1983) and a selection of novels, short stories and poetry by Michelle Cliff. Moving thematically through these texts, the discussion shifts from history through memory to identity as it examines how the ghost trope allows the writers to revisit sites of trauma; revise historical narratives that are constituted and perpetuated by exclusions and invisibilities; creatively and critically repossess a past marked by violence, dislocation and alienation and reclaim the diasporic culture it contributed to shaping; destabilize and deconstruct the hegemonic, normative categories and boundaries that delimit race or sexuality and envision other, less limited and limiting definitions of identity. These diverse and interrelated concerns are identified and theorized as participating in a project of "re-vision," a critical project that constitutes an epistemological as much as a political gesture. The author-based structure allows for a detailed analysis of the texts and highlights the distinctive shapes the ghost takes and the particular concerns it serves to address in each writer's literary and political project. However, using the ghost as a guide into these texts, taken collectively, also throws into relief new connections between them and sheds light on the complex ways in which the interplay of history, memory and identity positions them as products of and contributions to an African diasporic (literary) culture. If it insists on the cultural specificity of African diasporic ghosts, tracing its origins to African cultures and spiritualities, the argument also follows gothic studies' common view that ghosts in literary and cultural productions-like other related figures of the living dead-respond to particular conditions and anxieties. Considering the historical and political context in which the texts under study were produced, the dissertation makes connections between the ghosts in them and African diasporic people's disillusionment with the broken promises of the civil rights movement in the United States and of postcolonial independence in the Caribbean. It reads the texts' theoretical concerns and narrative qualities alongside the contestation of traditional historiography by black and postcolonial studies as well as the broader challenge to conventional notions such as truth, reality, meaning, power or identity by poststructuralism, postcolonialism or queer theory. Drawing on these various theoretical approaches and critical tools to elucidate the ghost's deconstructive power for African diasporic writers' concerns, this work ultimately offers a contribution to "speciality studies," which is currently emerging as a new field of scholarship in cultural theory.