Intermediary Period Research Articles

Silvopastoral Systems Contribute to Water Buffalo Welfare and Normal Behavior Pattern Under Eastern Amazon Conditions

This research aimed to study the behavior of female Murrah buffaloes in a silvopastoral system. The trial was carried out at Embrapa Eastern Amazon, under Afi climate according to the Köppen classification, between August and November 2009, during the less rainy season. Three different periods of the day were considered during activity evaluation: morning period – between 6:00 AM and 9:55 AM; intermediary period – between 10:00 AM and 1:55 PM; and afternoon period – between 2:00 PM and 5:55 PM. The animals were maintained in a silvopastoral system (SPS) (ST; n=10) with shade from Racosperma mangium. The meteorological variables of temperature and relative air humidity were measured, as well as the following animal behavior variables: time grazing, ruminating and idling, time standing and lying, and time in shaded and non-shaded areas. These variables were compared by T test (P<0.05). Air temperatures were higher in the non-shaded area of the SPS. All activities were reduced in the intermediary period, except idling. The grazing and rumination times in the morning were longer in non-shaded areas, while the time idling standing was longer during the intermediary period in shaded areas as a way of avoiding the harmful effects of the intense solar radiation and high air temperatures of the Amazonian humid climate. Hence, SPSs may contribute to animal welfare and increase their productive behavior.

The Venn-MacColl Dispute in Nature

During 1881, the British logicians John Venn and Hugh MacColl engaged in a brief dispute in Nature about ‘symbolical logic’. The letters to the editor shed interesting light on the early reception of MacColl’s contributions to logic and his position in the logical community of the Victorian era. Drawing on the correspondence between Venn and William Stanley Jevons, this paper analyzes the background and context of these letters, adding to the recent interest in the social dimensions of the development of British algebraic logic in the confusing intermediary period between the 1870s and 1890s.

Coal, Rail and Victorians in the South African Veld. The Convergence of Colonial Elites and Finance Capital in the Stormberg Mountains of the Eastern Cape, 1880–1910

This article investigates an intermediary period in the Cape colony when the largely unknown convergence of British social and industrial capital around coal mining occurred in the Stormberg Mountains of the North Eastern Cape. Within the context of a triangular nexus of mining and its two major clients, the diamond mines at Kimberley and the newly arrived Cape Government Railway, a social coalescence of mainly British immigrants arose in the town of Molteno, exhibiting an distinctly British Victorian culture. This paper also shows how the town became a colonial enclave on the remote periphery of the Cape Colony, utilising a racialised class system, and the ways in which the singularity of Victorian society was emphasised by two surrounding cultures which were alien to the British. After the South African War ended, one of these cultures had begun to take root within the town. When the coal mines were brought to an end by the erratic orders of the Cape Government Railway and its access to superior and cheaper coal from Lewis and Marks at Viljoensdrift in the ZAR and the greater economic pull of the Rand gold mines which diverted labour to the north, this ‘colonial moment’ in the Stormberg was over.

Labor market and health trajectories during periods of economic recession and expansion in the United States, 1988‒2011.

Objectives We examined associations between labor market and health (LM-H) trajectories in the United States between 1988 and 2011 and whether associations differed across macroeconomic expansion/recession periods. Methods Working-age cohorts, derived from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics, were followed over time to characterize LM-H trajectories. Poisson regression provided relative risks (RR) with robust 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between trajectories, adjusting for demographic and socioeconomic variables. Results LM trajectories ending in unemployment (RR 1.7‒2.5 across periods) or inactivity (RR 2.3-3.2) had a greater risk of worsening health trajectories, compared to stable employment. In contrast, RR for individuals returning to work following an intermediary period of unemployment/inactivity were attenuated across most periods. Stable-employed individuals had the highest probability of remaining in good health, whereas trajectories ending in unemployment or inactivity had the lowest probability. These overall relationships were consistent across macroeconomic periods. Conclusions We found strong and consistent relationships between LM-H trajectories across macroeconomic periods. The attenuated (but not eliminated) risk among individuals returning to work following a period of unemployment/inactivity suggests that health outcomes are not only dependent on the LM end-state, but also on the distinct pattern over time.

Development of clinical judgment model to guide nursing interns

Every day and every moment, nurses have to deal with a wide variety of patient’s issues and problems, with multiple difficulties and conflicts. Nurse’s judgment considers the core component of healthcare activities. This judgment directs her/his achievement and choices, not for her/him only, but for other healthcare professionals. Thus, nurses have to be competent observers and decision makers with reasoning and sound regarding their intervention and practice. Clinical judgment skills are essential aptitudes in nursing practice, predominantly, in nursing internship intermediary period, in which, a graduate nurse faced several predicaments and obstacles in such transitory experience from academic work to real labor. The present study aimed to develop a clinical judgment model to guide nursing interns in their nursing practice and assess its effectiveness on nursing interns’ clinical judgment knowledge and skills. The study passed through Quasi-experimental pretest-posttest research design. A stratified random sampling approach was used to recruit 50 nursing interns as an experimental group out of 305. The collection of data was carried out in the following hospitals of nurses’ intern’s training: Damanhur Medical National Institute, El Raee El Saleh, El Farok and Kafer El Dawar Hospitals, in Damanhur, Egypt. The Clinical Judgment Evaluation Sheet (CJES) was employed to collect necessary data. It included two parts: the Clinical Judgment Knowledge Test that was developed by Fathi & Aly in 2018, beside the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric (LCJR) that was developed by Kathie Lasater et al., in 2009. Results before using the developed model demonstrated that there were observed lacking in knowledge and skills about clinical judgment in nursing practice among experimental group. Then improvements were noticed after using the developed clinical judgment model. These results confirm that the use of an educational and self-learning reference such as the developed clinical judgment model is a successful tool for Egyptian nursing interns in nursing practice. Conclusion and recommendations: There is an understandable deficiency of nursing interns’ clinical judgment knowledge and skills in nursing practice. But, after using the developed clinical judgment model with them as a self-learning reference, it was confirmed that it is a helpful approach to develop and improve clinical judgment knowledge and skills of nursing interns. Creativity in using instructional aides and self-learning approaches is an essential ability that is important among nurse educators and preceptors who direct nursing intern’s performance. For further sturdies, replicate the study using the developed model with different subjects in nursing practice or develop new instructive models about creative, reflective, discovery, and decision-making models among nursing interns.

SEMANTICAL MUTATION, ALGORITHMS AND PROGRAMS

O presente artigo oferece uma explicação para aquela que talvez seja a tese mais estranha e menos intuitiva de Wittgenstein – a tese da mutação semântica – segundo a qual nunca se consegue responder a uma conjectura matemática porque a nova prova altera os próprios significados dos termos envolvidos na pergunta original. Ao invés de basearmos nossa justificação na distinção entre mero cálculo e demonstrações de proposições isoladas, característica do período intermediário, nós a generalizamos de forma a incluir procedimentos efetivos de cálculo também.

Prisons: the psychiatric institution of last resort?

The World Health Organization declared in 1948 that the enjoyment of the highest individual attainment of health for any person is a fundamental human right. Australia, the U.K. and the United States all legally ratified this declaration as becoming signatories to their founding treatise with the United Nations. Despite this, there are many conspicuous examples of inequities of public health as found within these nations. One of the more disparate and outrageous examples of inequities in public health has been an insidious trend towards criminalizing mental illness, and the largely unjust treatment of many mentally ill persons. This change has resulted in untold numbers of mentally ill persons being over-represented within the criminal justice system, experiencing higher morbidity, co-morbidity and mortality rates, and having difficulty in surviving in a society frequently dealing with their illness in a persecutory manner. Questions must be raised: that although over the passage of time medical science and technology has changed, but has western societies' attitudes to health equity kept pace?

No limiar do mundo visível: a noção de esquema corporal nos cursos de Merleau-Ponty na Sorbonne

De acordo com o propósito geral de estudar longitudinalmente o uso que Merleau-Ponty faz da noção de esquema corporal em sua filosofia, no presente artigo dedicamo-nos aos seus cursos na Sorbonne, localizados em um período intermediário da sua obra. Neles, o filósofo enceta discussões acerca da corporeidade a partir da psicologia da criança e da psicanálise, tomando por eixos centrais o problema da intersubjetividade e a teoria do esquema corporal. Merleau-Ponty compreende que a aquisição de um esquema corporal uno, "total", implica um descentramento de si, de modo que o corpo próprio, o de outrem e o mundo possam se entrelaçar num "tecido relacional" que envolve inextricavelmente visibilidade e espessura intracorporal. Consideramos que nesses estudos Merleau-Ponty dá um importante passo em direção à noção de carne tal como encontrada em seus textos mais tardios.

Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt (review)

Reviewed by: Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt Christian Cannuyer Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt. By Febe Armanios. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2011. Pp. xvi, 254. $74.00. ISBN 978-0-199-74484-8.) This book explores the religious beliefs as identifying parameters of the Coptic Christian community in Ottoman Egypt (1516–1798), mostly through using unexploited church archives. It is a new research field, since the history of the Copts during this intermediary period—although a pivotal one in the shaping of modern Egypt—has scarcely been studied. In the decades following the Ottoman conquest, a sense of misfortune triggered an outpouring of religious piety among all Egyptians, Muslims as well as Christians. The author tries to examine how the Copts coped with this trend, exploring the ways in which they used religion to define their identity. Due to the fragmentary nature of sources, the book can only be a string of “snapshots” of Coptic religious life under Ottoman rule. The first chapter provides a general look on how the conquest affected the management of the community, and mainly how the lay elite (the archons), as a result of their links with the new rulers and of their growing wealth, supplanted the clerical leadership, even the previously almost absolute authority of the Patriarch. The second chapter investigates the popularity of the martyr Salib (d. 1512), who perished for publicly defaming the Prophet of Islam. Significantly, the martyrdom—a text of dynamic “communal remembrance” from the late Mamluk and early Ottoman periods—carefully avoids anti-Islamic controversy. The popularity of a more ancient martyr is scrutinized in the third chapter: St. Dimyana, whose cult as a beneficent miracle-worker was centered on springtime festivities in the Nile Delta and reveals complex conceptions of the female ascetic ideal. Chapter 4 focuses on the modalities of the annual Coptic pilgrimage from Cairo to Jerusalem through the lens of eighteenth-century sources. This devout practice was connected to an antique Christian tradition but also exposed commonalities with the annual Moslem pilgrimage to Mecca. It emphasized how lay and clerical elites collaborated to ensure a Coptic presence in the Holy City. The last and fifth chapter analyzes some sermons produced by Coptic higher clergymen (especially Patriarch Yu’annis XVIII [1769–96] and Bishop Yusab [r. 1791–1826]), who were reacting against the aggressions of the “heretical” Catholic missionary enterprises. The Coptic hierarchy responded by scorning all the heterodox practices, which were proliferating as a consequence of intermarriage, socialization, or outright conversion. Throughout the book, Febe Armanios shows how popular religion was the glue that held Coptic believers together. She challenges some scholars such as Bernard Heyberger and Molly Greene who tend to view religion as a minor marker of identity among Ottoman dhimmis and the Christians as essentially sharing the religious mentality of their Muslim neighbors. On the contrary, [End Page 617] says the author, religion served as a conduit for articulating those irreducible characteristics that shaped the distinct identity of the Copts. Thus, her work improves our understanding of the Ottoman period. However, a greater acknowledgment would have been welcome of the pacific coexistence between the different religious communities and its effect on Egyptian society, at a time when conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Europe caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. Very interestingly, Armanios also demonstrates that the resurgence of the patriarch’s authority in the second part of the nineteenth century and the resultant opposition of the lay elite reflected well-established trends from the eighteenth century. In this way, the author’s remarkable study contributes to clarify the complexity of Muslim-Christian relations and of the internal dynamics of the Coptic community not only in the Ottoman period but also in contemporary Egypt. Christian Cannuyer Faculty of Theology Catholic University of Lille Copyright © 2012 The Catholic University of America Press

Effects of early weaning on the circadian rhythm and behavioral satiety sequence in rats

The objective of this work was to study the effect of early weaning on circadian rhythm and the behavioral satiety sequence in adult rats. Male Wistar rat pups were weaned for separation from the mother at 15 (D15), 21 (D21) and 30 (D30) days old. Body weight and food intake was measured every 30 days until pups were 150 days old. At 90 days of age, the circadian rhythm of food intake was evaluated every 4h for three days. Behavioral satiety was evaluated at 35 and 100 days of age. This work demonstrated that body weight and food intake were not altered, but the behavioral satiety sequence demonstrated that the D15 group delayed satiety compared with the D30 group at 100 days of age. In the circadian rhythm of the food intake study, early weaning (D15) changed food intake in the intermediary period of the light phase and in the intermediary period of the dark phase. In conclusion, our study showed that early weaning may alter the feeding behavior mainly in relation to satiety and the circadian rhythm of feeding. It is possible that the presence of other environmental stimuli during early weaning can cause hyperphagia and deregulate the mechanisms of homeostasis and body weight control. This study supports theories that depict insults during early life as determinants of chronic diseases.

Low-Intensity Pulsed Ultrasound Produced an Increase of Osteogenic Genes Expression During the Process of Bone Healing in Rats

The aim of this study was to measure the temporal expression of osteogenic genes during the process of bone healing in low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) treated bone defects by means of histopathologic and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis. Animals were randomly distributed into two groups ( n = 30): control group (bone defect without treatment) and LIPUS treated (bone defect treated with LIPUS). On days 7, 13 and 25 postinjury, 10 rats per group were sacrificed. Rats were treated with a 30 mW/cm 2 LIPUS. The results pointed out intense new bone formation surrounded by highly vascularized connective tissue presenting a slight osteogenic activity, with primary bone deposition was observed in the group exposed to LIPUS in the intermediary (13 days) and late stages of repair (25 days) in the treated animals. In addition, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) showed an upregulation of bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4), osteocalcin and Runx2 genes 7 days after the surgery. In the intermediary period, there was no increase in the expression. The expression of alkaline phosphatase, BMP4 and Runx2 was significantly increased at the last period. Our results indicate that LIPUS therapy improves bone repair in rats and upregulated osteogenic genes, mainly at the late stages of recovery. (E-mail: a.renno@unifesp.br)

Temporal controls on dissolved organic matter and lignin biogeochemistry in a pristine tropical river, Democratic Republic of Congo

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC), lignin biomarkers, and the optical properties of dissolved organic matter (DOM) were measured in the Epulu River (northeast Democratic Republic of Congo) with the aim of investigating temporal controls on the quantity and chemical composition of DOM in a tropical rainforest river. Three different periods defined by stages of the hydrologic regime of the region, (1) post dry flushing period, (2) intermediary period, and (3) start of the dry period/post flush, were sampled. Temporal variability in DOM quantity and quality was observed with highest DOC, lignin concentration (Σ8) and carbon‐normalized (Λ8) values during the flushing period attributed to greater surface runoff and leaching of organic‐rich horizons, with lowest values in the dry period/post flush once source materials were well leached. Chromophoric DOM (CDOM) was strongly correlated to DOC and Σ8 (r2 = 0.85 and 0.83, respectively; p < 0.001), and CDOM quality measurements (SUVA254, spectral slope ratio and fluorescence index) were strongly correlated to Λ8 values (r2 = 0.77, 0.69, and 0.75, respectively; p < 0.001), demonstrating the ability to derive DOC and lignin export and to track DOM quality in tropical riverine systems from simple optical measurements. This study demonstrates similar effects in the variability of DOM quantity and quality due to changing hydrologic inputs for a tropical river as has been previously reported for temperate and northern high‐latitude rivers. Therefore, flushing periods in tropical rivers warrant further study, as they are critical toward understanding ecosystem biogeochemistry as maximal export of freshly leached plant material occurs during this time period.

Acute and subchronic exposure of diplopods to substrate containing sewage mud: Tissular responses of the midgut

Several discussions regarding the agricultural use of sewage mud have occurred; however, its use has been questioned due to the risks of soil contamination mainly by metals. Diplopods are saprophagous invertebrates, agile in colonizing several layers of soil. Due to the habit of this group, several researchers have proposed their use in ecotoxicological analyses. This study aimed to expose these invertebrates to substrate containing sewage mud of a STS (Sewage Treatment Station) from São Paulo State, Brazil and analyzed its toxic potential by morphological analysis of the midgut of the diplopod Rhinocricus padbergi, region of the digestive tube where digestion and nutrient absorption occur. The animals were exposed in mud concentrations at 1%, 10% and 50% mixed with soil from the collection site for periods of 7 (acute exposure), 15 (intermediary exposure) and 90 (subchronic exposure) days in each treatment. The animals from the control group did not present alterations at all the exposition times. As an acute response (7 days), it was observed in the animals exposed to mud at 1% and 10% an increase in the epithelial renovation and in the liberation of secretory vesicles of glycoprotein content. In the animals exposed to mud at 50%, the main alteration observed was the increase in the number of cytoplasmatic granules in the fat body cells; the epithelium seemed to be in reorganization process in all the observed individuals, suggesting an intense epithelial renovation. In the intermediary period of exposure (15 days), in the animals exposed to mud at 1% it was observed an increase in the number of haemocytes among the cells of the fat body, distributed both separately and grouped; the animals exposed to mud at 10% presented the same evidence of epithelial renovation observed in the animals exposed for 7 days at a concentration of 50% of mud; it was also observed an increase in the number of haemocytes, which reacted strongly to the PAS technique. Cytoplasmatic granules in the hepatic cells, fat body cells and haemocytes were also observed in great number, being that great part presented calcium in their constitution. In the animals exposed to mud at 50%, the alteration observed was the presence of numerous secretory vesicles of the apocrine type through all the epithelia of vacuolated aspect; hepatic cells with cytoplasmatic granules were also observed. As subchronic response (90 days), it was observed that all the fat body cells were completely taken by cytoplasmatic granules, into which it was, detected the presence of calcium; such granules were also observed in the apical region of the principal epithelial cells. These results suggest the existence of toxic agents in the analyzed mud sample, whose different concentrations trigger responses that occur in different manners, intensities and velocities that might prevent the entrance and action of toxic agents in the organism of the studied invertebrate.

The patinas of the Dogon–Tellem statuary: A new vision through physico-chemical analyses

Numerous African art objects collected in the course of colonial or ethnological expeditions during the 20th century are partially or completely covered with a so-called “patina”. These patinas have been formed during religious and ritual ceremonies, where different substances have been spread out at the surface of the objects. The anthropomorphic statuettes from the Dogon culture are well-known examples of this kind of practice. A better understanding of the chemical composition of these patinas could explain details of the ceremonial practices realized throughout the centuries. An important challenge is to extract unequivocal information about the original constituents of these patinas, and the techniques used for their application on ritual objects. The Dogon statuary can be divided into three periods. The oldest one, before 1350 A.D., is called the Tellem period, according to the name of the people who lived in this area before the arrival of the Dogon. The most recent, after 1650 A.D., is the Dogon period. These two periods are separated by an intermediary period, where the attribution to the Tellem or to the Dogon cultures is difficult. During our study, we have worked on the patina of 12 Dogon artifacts from these three different periods. In this paper, we present the results obtained for two representative objects, one of the Tellem period and one of the Dogon period. The aim is to access the chemical composition of the patinas and to see if they can be compared to ethnological reports, as is often done in the literature on ethnological studies. Chemical imaging techniques, based on the combination of microscopy and spectroscopy, are well suited to study both the composition and the spatial organization of heterogeneous complex mixtures of organic and inorganic matter. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), followed by scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDS), and synchrotron radiation-based Fourier transform infrared microscopy (SR-μFTIR) have been applied to non-destructive analyses of micro-samples of the patinas of several Dogon statuettes. A very careful preparation, using ultramicrotomy on embedded samples, allowed us to perform successively all these measurements on a single fragment. Comparison and superposition of the different chemical images lead us to identify minerals (clays, quartz and calcium carbonate), and different organic products (proteins, starch, lipids), as well as to map their spatial distribution. The patina of the most recent statuettes presents a stratigraphy which can be related to successive uses of the objects for ritual purposes, and the results are in agreement with the ethnological reports. For the Tellem objects, the significant quantity of minerals and the lack of stratigraphy suggest that the patina was deposited according to a different recipe. This difference suggests the existence of a diversity of rituals that are more extensive than that described by the ethnologists.

:The World Turned Upside down: Medieval Japanese Society

In the late twelfth century, Japanese people called the transitional period in which they were living the 'age of warriors'. Feudal clans fought civil wars, and warriors from the Kanto Plain rose up to restore the military regime of their shogun, Yoritomo. The whole of this intermediary period came to represent a gap between two stable societies: the ancient period, dominated by the imperial court in Heian (today's Kyoto), and the modern period, dominated by the Tokugawa bakufu based in Edo (today's Tokyo). In this remarkable portrait of a complex period in the evolution of Japan, Pierre F. Souyri uses a wide variety of sources - ranging from legal and historical texts to artistic and literary examples - to form a magisterial overview of medieval Japanese society. As much at home discussing the implications of the morality and mentality of The Tale of the Heike as he is describing local disputes among minor vassals or the economic implications of the pirate trade, Souyri brilliantly illustrates the interconnected nature of medieval Japanese culture. The Middle Ages was a decisive time in Japan's history because it confirmed the country's national identity. New forms of cultural expression, such as poetry, theatre, garden design, the tea ceremony, flower arranging and illustrated scrolls, conveyed a unique sensibility - sometimes in opposition to the earlier Chinese models followed by the old nobility. The World Turned Upside Down provides an animated account of the religious, intellectual and literary practices of medieval Japan in order to reveal the era's own notable cultural creativity and enormous economic potential.

Estrogen receptor-dependent genomic responses in the uterus mirror the biphasic physiological response to estrogen.

The physiological responses of the rodent uterus to acute estrogen (E) dosing can be divided into early and late events. Examples of early responses include increased RNA transcription, hyperemia, and water imbibition 2 and 6 h following E administration respectively, whereas later responses include cycles of DNA synthesis and mitosis of epithelial cells beginning 10 and 16 h after E. The development of estrogen receptor (ER) knockout (ERKO) mice, combined with microarray technology, has allowed us to design a genomic approach to study the acute response of the rodent reproductive tract to E. To determine whether early and late biological responses are correlated with altered regulation of a single set of genes or distinct sets of genes characteristic of early and late responses, uterine RNA was obtained from ovariectomized mice that were treated with vehicle or with estradiol for 2 h (early) or 24 h (late). Samples were also prepared from identically treated mice that lacked either ERalpha (alphaERKO) or ERbeta (betaERKO) to address the relative contributions of the ERs in the uterine responses. Microarray analysis of the relative expression of 8700 mouse cDNAs indicated distinct clusters of genes that were regulated both positively and negatively by E in the early or late phases as well as clusters of genes regulated at both times. Both early and late responses by the betaERKO samples were indistinguishable from those of WT samples, whereas the alphaERKO showed little change in gene expression in response to E, indicating the predominant role for ERalpha in the genomic response. Further studies indicated that the genomic responses in samples from intermediate time points (6 h, 12 h) fall within the early or late clusters, rather than showing unique clusters regulated in the intermediary period. The use of this genomic approach has illustrated how physiological responses are reflected in genomic patterns. Furthermore, the identification of functional gene families that are regulated by E in the uterus combined with the utilization of genetically altered experimental animal models can help to uncover and define novel mechanisms of E action.

Influence of Insecticide Treatments on Ant-Hemiptera Associations in Tropical Plantations

Abstract In this survey conducted in southern Cameroon, we compared ant-Hemiptera associations on plantations treated with insecticides, on plantations 2 years after insecticide treatments ceased, and on control lots that never received insecticide treatments. By eliminating arboreal-nesting ants, insecticides favored the presence of “ecologically dominant” ground-nesting, arboreal-foraging species that occupied the tree crowns. The reinstallation of arboreal ants was slow as 2 yr after insecticide treatment ceased differences with the control lots were significant. This intermediary period also illustrated that arboreal ants can found and develop colonies on trees occupied by ground-nesting species. Certain arboreal species were more frequent during this intermediary period than on the control lots, showing that the period of installation in the trees was followed by competition between arboreal ants. We confirm that ground-nesting ants tend a wide range of hemipteran families, including well known agric...

Influence of insecticide treatments on ant-hemiptera associations in tropical plantations.

In this survey conducted in southern Cameroon, we compared ant-Hemiptera associations on plantations treated with insecticides, on plantations 2 years after insecticide treatments ceased, and on control lots that never received insecticide treatments. By eliminating arboreal-nesting ants, insecticides favored the presence of "ecologically dominant" ground-nesting, arboreal-foraging species that occupied the tree crowns. The reinstallation of arboreal ants was slow as 2 yr after insecticide treatment ceased differences with the control lots were significant. This intermediary period also illustrated that arboreal ants can found and develop colonies on trees occupied by ground-nesting species. Certain arboreal species were more frequent during this intermediary period than on the control lots, showing that the period of installation in the trees was followed by competition between arboreal ants. We confirm that ground-nesting ants tend a wide range of hemipteran families, including well known agricultural pests, whereas arboreal ants, particularly dominant species, were mostly associated with Coccidae and Stictococcidae that do not pose problems to the supporting trees. A tree effect was also noted for both ant and hemipteran distribution. We concluded that because of insecticide use, ground-nesting ants pose problems through their associated Hemiptera. On the contrary, dominant arboreal ants, strong predators, benefit their supporting trees by excluding ground-nesting species and tending mostly nonpest Hemiptera. Nevertheless, certain of them, carpenter species or species likely to tend Pseudococcidae, have to be eliminated through integrated management.

The Urban Policy-making and Development Dimension of Fordism and Post-Fordism: A Toronto Case Study

This paper investigates urban policy-making and development from a regulation theory perspective. It describes major Toronto urban trends of the past 50 years in order to gauge their conformity to changing regulation conditions. Results indicate that in the 1950s and 1960s, policies in Toronto were in accord with the Fordist mass consumption and welfare orientation. They also suggest a coincidence between the post-1995 period of public-sector retrenchment and the market-driven nature of post-Fordism. The intermediary period, however, was dominated by unsuccessful efforts at maintaining Fordist-type policies in a regulation context shifting towards post-Fordism. These findings confirm the non-functionalist interpretation of links between policy-making and regulation professed by regulation theory researchers. They also cast light on the role the city plays in the changing nature of regulation. Assertive metropolitan planning and socially balanced sub-divisions characteristic of the Fordist period of regulation gradually made way for market-driven development. With a reduced government presence, urban development has become less co-ordinated and more socially polarised, thus reflecting at the urban level society-wide features of post-Fordism.

Physical and Biological Performance of Self-Inoculated UASB Reactor Treating Raw Domestic Sewage

The dynamics of a self-inoculated upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor treating raw sewage has been studied. The results suggest two types of start-up periods. During the first 6 weeks of operation, the reactor achieved a removal efficiency of up to 65% of total chemical oxygen demand (COD) and 73% of suspended solids. During this primary start-up period, the removal of organic matter was mainly due to interception in the reactor. The second start-up period expressed by biogas release was reached after 14 weeks. An intermediary period between these two start-up periods was characterized by a slight drop of pH and increase of volatile fatty acid in the effluent. The long time to reach the second start-up period seemed to be responsible for the large discrepancy between removed COD and recovered biogas (107 mL/g COD removed). It is thus suggested that process optimization should focus on shortening the time needed to reach the second start-up period. A model that represents a possible description of the process dynamics of self-inoculated UASB reactors is proposed.