Le r��engagement du Canada dans les Am��riques : d��ficits d��mocratiques, int��gration ��conomique et ins��curit��

En 2007, le premier ministre Stephen Harper a annonc�� que le renouvellement de l���engagement du Canada dans les Am��riques ��tait une priorit�� internationale pour son gouvernement. Le document qui a formalis�� la nouvelle priorit�� accord��e �� l���h��misph��re occidental stipule que le Canada s���est engag�� �� faire progresser concurremment la d��mocratie, l���int��gration ��conomique et la s��curit��. Cette recherche a pour but de remettre en cause le discours officiel en analysant la politique du Canada �� l�����gard de la Colombie et du Honduras. L�����tude sur le cas colombien porte sur les effets de l���int��gration ��conomique sur les droits humains et la s��curit��. Elle montre que le texte de l���accord de libre-��change Canada-Colombie et les ��valuations d���impact sur les droits humains n���abordent pas convenablement les risques entourant les investissements canadiens et que leurs lacunes diluent l���engagement d���Ottawa envers la protection des droits humains et la r��solution du conflit. L�����tude sur le cas hondurien porte sur l���impact des d��ficits d��mocratiques et de l���ins��curit�� sur l���int��gration ��conomique. Elle montre que le virage �� droite qui a suivi le coup d�����tat de 2009 a permis au gouvernement canadien d���entreprendre des n��gociations de libre-��change bilat��rales et de prendre part �� la r��forme du code minier du Honduras, tandis que les d��ficits d��mocratiques et l���ins��curit�� ont emp��ch�� la population hondurienne de participer d���une mani��re significative au processus d���int��gration ��conomique. Nous concluons que ces deux cas contredisent le discours officiel dans la mesure o�� l���objectif de l���int��gration ��conomique a ��t�� atteint aux d��pens des autres objectifs.

D��nombrement dans les empilements apolloniens g��n��ralis��s et distribution angulaire dans les extensions quadratiques imaginaires.

Cette th��se traite de deux th��mes principaux. Le premier concerne l'��tude des empilements apolloniens g��n��ralis��s de cercles et de sph��res. G��n��ralisations des classiques empilements apolloniens, dont l'��tude remonte �� la Gr��ce antique, ces objets s'imposent comme particuli��rement attractifs en th��orie des nombres. Dans cette th��se sera ��tudi�� l'ensemble des courbures (les inverses des rayons) des cercles ou sph��res de tels empilements. Sous de bonnes conditions, ces courbures s'av��rent ��tre toutes enti��res. Nous montrerons qu'elles v��rifient un principe local-global partiel, nous compterons le nombre de cercles de courbures plus petites qu'une quantit�� donn��e et nous nous int��resserons ��galement �� l'��tude des courbures premi��res. Le second th��me a trait �� la distribution angulaire des id��aux (ou plut��t ici des nombres id��aux) des corps de nombres quadratiques imaginaires (que l'on peut voir comme la distribution des points �� coordonn��es enti��res sur des ellipses). Nous montrerons que la discr��pance de l'ensemble des angles des nombres id��aux entiers de norme donn��e est faible et nous nous int��resserons ��galement au probl��me des ��carts born��s entre les premiers d'extensions quadratiques imaginaires dans des secteurs.

L���impact des principes e��thiques sur le marche�� d���assurance en pre��sence de tests ge��ne��tiques

Full Text / Article complet

Qui est ���je���? Autour de quelques strat��gies vid��oludiques de design de personnage pour g��rer l���actantialit�� ludo-narrative du joueur et son immersion fictionnelle

De plus en plus, le jeu vid��o se pr��sente et se vit en termes de r��cit, ce qui n���est pas sans causer de nombreux maux de t��te aux concepteurs de jeux comme aux th��oriciens. Cet article s���int��resse au r��le central jou�� par le personnage dans la r��conciliation de la narrativit�� et de l���interactivit�� �� travers une ��tude th��orique et critique de quelques strat��gies employ��es par les concepteurs pour r��aliser une fusion identitaire du joueur avec le personnage. Il y est question de deux postures d���immersion fictionnelle identifi��es par Jean-Marie Schaeffer : l���identification allosubjective et la virtualisation identitaire. Ces postures sont li��es �� des processus de design de personnage : l���approche avatorielle, centr��e sur le concept d���avatar et qui tente d���aplanir les diff��rences intersubjectives, et l���approche actorielle, qui au contraire vise �� les accro��tre en faisant du personnage un acteur autonome plut��t qu���un avatar. Ces deux pratiques ne sont pas mutuellement exclusives; au contraire, il est d��montr�� que pour r��aliser l���immersion fictionnelle, la plupart des jeux tentent de conserver une trace du joueur dans l���avatar, et une trace du personnage dans l���acteur. Des marqueurs d���allosubjectivit�� et de subjectivisation sont identifi��s par l���analyse des jeux Metroid Prime, Duke Nukem 3D, Gears of War et Shadowrun. Enfin, l���article ��tudie ��galement les rapports entre le ludique et le narratif selon le r��le actantiel du joueur et du personnage, ��corchant au passage la convention du �� h��ros muet �� (silent protagonist) souvent rencontr��e dans le jeu vid��o mais ultimement improductive.

An Evaluation of Extension Activities in the Development of Aquaculture in Kerala

Aquaculture is one of the prime catalysts for the socio-economic development of Indian economy contributing to the nations food and nutritional security, export earnings, income and employment generation. In this study an evaluation of extension activities in the development of aquaculture in Kerala. This study was conducted with a view to examine how the Kerala fisheries department offered extension services to the aquaculture farmers in the freshwater and brackish water sectors of the state through various agencies like Fish Farmers Development Agency(FFDA), Brackish water Fish Farmers Development Agency (BFFDA). In this study there are 3 category of respondent���s fresh water beneficiary farmers, brackish water beneficiary farmers and fisheries extension officers. The main motive of the thesis is to make an attempt to explore the responses of local producers to the extension programs of the state with special reference to the aquaculture sector of Kerala, India. The most important technical constraint faced by the fresh water farmers was lack of knowledge followed by non-availability of quality seeds. In the case of brackish water farming, it was infection of disease followed by lack of knowledge. The overall activities of the department of fisheries were ���fairly good���. It indicate the need for improvements in the delivery of extension services to various target groups. The state fisheries department has already moving towards evolving these modes of extension activities by community participation.

Some Studies and New Results on Multi Microprocessor Applications

One of the fastest expanding areas of computer exploitation is in embedded systems, whose prime function is not that of computing, but which nevertheless require information processing in order to carry out their prime function. Advances in hardware technology have made multi microprocessor systems a viable alternative to uniprocessor systems in many embedded application areas. This thesis reports the results of investigations carried out on multi microprocessors oriented towards embedded applications, with a view to enhancing throughput and reliability. An ideal controller for multiprocessor operation is developed which would smoothen sharing of routines and enable more powerful and efficient code I data interchange. Results of performance evaluation are appended.A typical application scenario is presented, which calls for classifying tasks based on characteristic features that were identified. The different classes are introduced along with a partitioned storage scheme. Theoretical analysis is also given. A review of schemes available for reducing disc access time is carried out and a new scheme presented. This is found to speed up data base transactions in embedded systems. The significance of software maintenance and adaptation in such applications is highlighted. A novel scheme of prov1d1ng a maintenance folio to system firmware is presented, alongwith experimental results. Processing reliability can be enhanced if facility exists to check if a particular instruction in a stream is appropriate. Likelihood of occurrence of a particular instruction would be more prudent if number of instructions in the set is less. A new organisation is derived to form the basement for further work. Some early results that would help steer the course of the work are presented.

Transition Metal Complexes of Schiff Bases with Azide and Thiocyanate as Coligands:Spectral and Structural Investigations

Metallo-organic chemistry,incorporating the frontiers of both inorganic and organic chemical aspects,is a topic of utility concern.The first exploration of coordinated metal complexes dates back to the ninettenth century,during the days of Alfred Werner.Thereafter,inorganic chemistry witnessed a great outflow of coordination compounds,with unique structural characteristics and diverse applicatons.The diversity in structures exhibited by the coordination complexes of multidentate ligands have led to their usage as sensors,models for enzyme mimetic centers,medicines etc.The liganda chosen are of prime importance in determining the properties of coordination compounds.Schiff bases are compounds obtained by the condensation of an aidehyde or ketone with an amine.The chemical properties of Schiff bases and their complexes are widely explored in recent years owing to their pharmacological activity,their catalytic activities and so on.On the other hand pseudohalides like azide and thiocyanate are versatile candidates for the construction of dimeric or polymeric complexes having excellent properties and diverse applications.So a combination of the Schiff bases and the pseudohalogens for the synthesis of metal complexes can bring about interesting results.An attempt into this area is the besis of this Ph.D theis.

Propagation of Microwaves in the Troposphere with Potential Application to GPS based Navigation and Meteorology with emphasis on Indian region

Global Positioning System (GPS), with its high integrity, continuous availability and reliability, revolutionized the navigation system based on radio ranging. With four or more GPS satellites in view, a GPS receiver can find its location anywhere over the globe with accuracy of few meters. High accuracy - within centimeters, or even millimeters is achievable by correcting the GPS signal with external augmentation system. The use of satellite for critical application like navigation has become a reality through the development of these augmentation systems (like W AAS, SDCM, and EGNOS, etc.) with a primary objective of providing essential integrity information needed for navigation service in their respective regions. Apart from these, many countries have initiated developing space-based regional augmentation systems like GAGAN and IRNSS of India, MSAS and QZSS of Japan, COMPASS of China, etc. In future, these regional systems will operate simultaneously and emerge as a Global Navigation Satellite System or GNSS to support a broad range of activities in the global navigation sector.Among different types of error sources in the GPS precise positioning, the propagation delay due to the atmospheric refraction is a limiting factor on the achievable accuracy using this system. The WADGPS, aimed for accurate positioning over a large area though broadcasts different errors involved in GPS ranging including ionosphere and troposphere errors, due to the large temporal and spatial variations in different atmospheric parameters especially in lower atmosphere (troposphere), the use of these broadcasted tropospheric corrections are not sufficiently accurate. This necessitated the estimation of tropospheric error based on realistic values of tropospheric refractivity. Presently available methodologies for the estimation of tropospheric delay are mostly based on the atmospheric data and GPS measurements from the mid-latitude regions, where the atmospheric conditions are significantly different from that over the tropics. No such attempts were made over the tropics. In a practical approach when the measured atmospheric parameters are not available analytical models evolved using data from mid-latitudes for this purpose alone can be used. The major drawback of these existing models is that it neglects the seasonal variation of the atmospheric parameters at stations near the equator. At tropics the model underestimates the delay in quite a few occasions. In this context, the present study is afirst and major step towards the development of models for tropospheric delay over the Indian region which is a prime requisite for future space based navigation program (GAGAN and IRNSS). Apart from the models based on the measured surface parameters, a region specific model which does not require any measured atmospheric parameter as input, but depends on latitude and day of the year was developed for the tropical region with emphasis on Indian sector.Large variability of atmospheric water vapor content in short spatial and/or temporal scales makes its measurement rather involved and expensive. A local network of GPS receivers is an effective tool for water vapor remote sensing over the land. This recently developed technique proves to be an effective tool for measuring PW. The potential of using GPS to estimate water vapor in the atmosphere at all-weather condition and with high temporal resolution is attempted. This will be useful for retrieving columnar water vapor from ground based GPS data. A good network of GPS could be a major source of water vapor information for Numerical Weather Prediction models and could act as surrogate to the data gap in microwave remote sensing for water vapor over land.

Studies on Surface Properties and Catalytic Activity of Some Chromites and Related Spinels

The prime intension of the present work was a synthetic investigation of the preparation, surface properties and catalytic activity of some transition metal substituted copper chromite catalysts. Homogeneous co-precipitation method is employed for the preparation of catalysts. Since the knowledge about the structure and composition of the surface is critical in explaining the reactivity and selectivity of a solid catalyst. a systematic investigation of the physico-chemical properties of the prepared systems was carried out. The catalytic activity of these systems has also been measured in several oxidation reactions of industrial as well as environmental relevance. The thesis is dedicated to several aspects of chromite spinels giving emphasis to its preparation, characterization and catalytic performance towards oxidation reactions.

Energy Management in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Crosslayer,Channel Adaptive Approach Towards Performance Optimization

The proliferation of wireless sensor networks in a large spectrum of applications had been spurered by the rapid advances in MEMS(micro-electro mechanical systems )based sensor technology coupled with low power,Low cost digital signal processors and radio frequency circuits.A sensor network is composed of thousands of low cost and portable devices bearing large sensing computing and wireless communication capabilities. This large collection of tiny sensors can form a robust data computing and communication distributed system for automated information gathering and distributed sensing.The main attractive feature is that such a sensor network can be deployed in remote areas.Since the sensor node is battery powered,all the sensor nodes should collaborate together to form a fault tolerant network so as toprovide an efficient utilization of precious network resources like wireless channel,memory and battery capacity.The most crucial constraint is the energy consumption which has become the prime challenge for the design of long lived sensor nodes.

Ecophysiology of nontuberculous Mycobacteria in marine aquaculture ponds

The world demand for fish and fishery products is increasing steadily and it is generally accepted that it will not be possible to meet the heavy demand with resources exploited from capture fishery alone. Now aquaculture is well established and fastdeveloping industry in many countries and is a major focus sector for development. During recent decades, aquaculture has gained momentum, throughout the world especially in developing countries. According to Food and Agricultural Oganisation (FAO, 2000), global aquaculture production was 26.38 tones in 1996 have reached 32.9 million tonnes during 1999. Only marine aquaculture sector has contributed 13.1 million tonnes during 1999.India is a major fish producing country. About one half of lndia���s brackish water lands are currently being utilized for farming in order to reduce the gap between supply and demand for fish. Aquaculture has become a major source of livelihood for people and its role in integrated rural development, generation of employment and earning foreign exchange, thereby alleviating poverty is being greatly appreciated around the world.Among the infectious agents, bacteria are becoming the prime causal organisms for diseases in food fishes and other marine animals. Sindermann, (1970) reported that bacterial fish pathogen most commonly found among marine fishes is species of Pseudomonas, Vibrio and Mycobacterium. These can be categorized into primary pathogens; secondary invaders that may cause systemic disease in immunocompromised hosts; and normal marine flora which are not pathogenic but may occur on body surfaces or even within the tissues of the host. I-Iigh density of animals in hatchery tanks and ponds is conducive to the spread of pathogen and the aquatic environment with regular application of protein rich feed, is ideal for culturing bacteria. Bacteria, which are normally present in seawater or on the surface of fish, can invade and cause pathological effects in fishes, which are injured or subjected to other environmental stresses.Mycobacteria except parasites are known as nontuberculosis mycobacteria (NTM), atypical mycobacteria or mycobacteria other than tuberculosis(MO'l'l"). This group of mycobacteria includes opportunistic pathogens and saprophytes. Environmental mycobacteria are ubiquitous in distribution and the sources may include soil, water, warm-blooded as well as cold-blooded animals. Disease caused by environmental mycobacterial strains in susceptible humans (Goslee & Wolinsky, 1976; Grange, 1987), animals and fishes are increasingly attracting attention. Greatest importance of environmental mycobacteria is believed to be their role in immunological priming of humans and animals, thereby modifying their immune responses to subsequent exposure to pathogenic species.

Histological, Histochemical and Biochemical characterisation of male morphotypes of Macrobrachium rosenbergii (de Man)

This thesis entitled ���Histological ,Histochemical and biochemical characterisation of male morphotypes of macrobrachium rosenbergii(De Man). The giant fresh water prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii (de Man) is emerging as a prime candidate species in fresh water aquaculture as a global basis and therefore, receiving much attention in recent years.the present work was aimed at to study the histological variations, if any, in the reproductive system viz. testes, vas deferens including androgenic gland, hepatopancreas and the neurosecretory system viz. eye stalk, brain and thoracic ganglion among the male morphotypes and their transitional stages of M.rosenbergii from growouts. This study was also aimed at to bring out the histochemical variations, if any, in the reproductive system comprising of testes, vas deferens including androgenic gland and the hepatopancreas among the male morphotypes and their transitional stages collected from growouts. Biochemical characterisation of various male morphotyes and their transitional stages have also been attempted in order to find out biochemical evidence, if any, in the morphotypic transformation.Histological study of the testes of three male morphotypes viz., SM, SOC and SBC and their 'transitional stages viz., WOC, tSOC, WBC and OBC have been carried out with a view to unravel the structural and functional differences of the testes, if any, of these morphotypes. Studies on the lipid components viz., cholesterol, phospholipid and triglyceride In the muscle tissue and hepatopancreas have been carried out.

Studies on seed pathology and seedling diseases of some important indigenous tree species of kerala

In forestry, availability of healthy seeds is an important factor in raising planting stock. Initial seed health and storage conditions are the major factors governing the germinability of seeds. Like seeds of agricultural and horticultural crops, forest tree seeds are also liable to be affected by micro-organisms during storage, which affects the germination, and reduces the viability. Further introduction of seed-borne diseases into newly sown crops/areas on account of using unhealthy seeds is also not ruled out. Availability of healthy stock of seedlings is intrinsic for raising plantations and to meet this requirement elimination of nursery diseases by appropriate chemicals is of prime imortance. As exotic tree species may become susceptible to various native pathogens, it is generally considered better to select indigenous tree species for large scale plantations as they are well adapted to local environment. However, before taking up large scale afforestation progranme involving any indigenous tree species, it is essential to have knowledge about seed disorders and seedling diseases and their management. with a View to select appropriate tree species with fewer seed disorders and seedling disease problems for use in further plantation programme, four indigenous tree species such as Albizia odoratissima (L.f) Benth., Lagerstroemia microcazpa Wt., Pterocazpus marsupiwn Roxb. and Xylia xylocarpa (Roxb.) Taub. were evaluated to meet the above parameters

Onset And Characterisation Of Chaos In A Two Dimensional Nonlinear Deterministic Model

Nature is full of phenomena which we call "chaotic", the weather being a prime example. What we mean by this is that we cannot predict it to any significant accuracy, either because the system is inherently complex, or because some of the governing factors are not deterministic. However, during recent years it has become clear that random behaviour can occur even in very simple systems with very few number of degrees of freedom, without any need for complexity or indeterminacy. The discovery that chaos can be generated even with the help of systems having completely deterministic rules - often models of natural phenomena - has stimulated a lo; of research interest recently. Not that this chaos has no underlying order, but it is of a subtle kind, that has taken a great deal of ingenuity to unravel. In the present thesis, the author introduce a new nonlinear model, a ���modulated��� logistic map, and analyse it from the view point of ���deterministic chaos���.

Studies on the mineralogy, geochemistry and origin of the modern sediments of the ashtamudy lake, Kerala

This study enfolds the environment of deposition and the lateral variation in texture, mineralogy and geochemistry of the Ashtamudy lake sediments. While the heavy mineral and clay mineral investigations enable us to decipher the nature, texture and source of sediments; organic matter and carbonate contents and the geochemical analysis of major and minor elements help establish the distribution and concentration of the same in regard to the various physico-chemical processes operating in the lake. Study of trace elements holds prime importance in this work, since their concentrations can be used to outline the extent of contaminated bottom area, as well as the source and dispersal paths of discharged_pollutants. In short, this study brings out a vivid picture of the mineralogy and geochemistry of the lake sediments in different environments, viz., the freshwater, brackish water and marine environments that are confined to the eastern, central and western parts of the lake respectively. For the better understanding and expression of the results of the analysis, the lake has been divided into 3 zones namely: eastern part, central part and western part.