Struggles to remain in Kigali’s “unplanned” settlements: the case of Bannyahe

Examining the precarious status of informal settlements in Kigali at a time of large-scale planning-induced expropriation, this article considers urban contestation in the context of the city’s changing spatial-legal regime. We analyse the case of one informal settlement’s expropriation and relocation – the settlement of Bannyahe – and the contestation that has ensued as resident property owners take the District of Gasabo to court. Through interviews with settlement residents, we follow the fates of these displaced urban citizens and consider their struggles to remain in their homes. Finally, we suggest that such contestation over legal procedural regularity and negotiation over property valuation at the neighbourhood level forms the limit of overt opposition to the city’s masterplan. Terming these limits to contestation “silent boundaries” that circumscribe contestation for property owners in the Bannyahe settlement, we offer perspectives on contestation and compromise amidst urban socio-spatial reordering in the “new Kigali”

The Effect of Residential Investment on Nearby Property Values: Evidence from Cleveland, Ohio

This study analyzes the effect of both new and rehabilitation residential investment on nearby property values in Cleveland, Ohio. The methodology used is hedonic price regression with spatial lagged variables that are generated applying geographic information systems. There are four major findings. First, the effect of investment on property values is geographically limited. Second, new investment has a greater impact on nearby property values than rehabilitation. Third, there is evidence that new construction and rehabilitation have a significantly positive impact in low-income areas, as well as predominantly non-minority neighborhoods. Finally and most importantly, the research suggests that small-scale investment has no impact on nearby property values. Thus, investment policy, which promotes and encourages investments that are not sufficiently large, may not be able to improve tax bases and enhance neighborhoods. We also found that results could be misleading if spatial lagged variables are inappropriately measured.

Local P-shtukas and their relation to global G-shtukas

This is the first in a sequence of two articles investigating moduli stacks of global G-shtukas, which are function field analogs for Shimura varieties. Here G is a flat affine group scheme of finite type over a smooth projective curve, and global G-shtukas are generalizations of Drinfeld shtukas and analogs of abelian varieties with additional structure. Our moduli stacks generalize various moduli spaces used by different authors to prove instances of the Langlands program over function fields. In the present article we explain the relation between global G-shtukas and local P-shtukas, which are the function field analogs of p-divisible groups with additional structure. We prove the analog of a theorem of Serre and Tate stating the equivalence between the deformations of a global G-shtuka and its associated local P-shtukas. We also investigate local P-shtukas alone and explain their relation with Galois representations through their Tate modules. And if P is a smooth affine group scheme with connected reductive generic fiber we prove the existence of Rapoport--Zink spaces for bounded local P-shtukas as formal schemes locally formally of finite type. In the sequel to this article we use these Rapoport--Zink spaces to uniformize the moduli stacks of global G-shtukas.Comment: 37 pages, v3: generalization to flat affine group schemes of finite type, v3: final version which appears in Muenster J. of Mathematic

Etudes mycologiques et moléculaires à partir de mycélium pur de Ganoderma boninense, impliqué dans le dépérissement des palmiers à huile.

Le genre Ganoderma, de la famille des basidiomycètes est notamment connu pour être des champignons telluriques pourridiés du bois. Il existe différentes espèces de Ganoderma tels que Ganoderma Australe, Ganoderma Mastoporum, Ganoderma Lucidum, Ganoderma aff. Steyaertam, Ganoderma carnosum, etc... L'espèce Ganoderma boninense est reconnue pour être la plus impliquée dans le phénomène de dépérissement du palmier à huile. Le genre et l'espèce Ganoderma boninense, basidiomycète, est notamment reconnu pour son implication au phénomène de dépérissement des palmiers à huile. Cependant, il existe une grande diversité dans le genre Ganoderma tels que Ganoderma Australe, Ganoderma Mastoporum, Ganoderma Lucidum, Ganoderma aff. Steyaertam, Ganoderma carnosum, etc... avec des conséquences différentes sur les palmiers à huile. Au cours de ce stage : douze échantillons de tissus frais de palmier à huile infestés par Ganoderma, seize carpophores du genre Ganoderma et trois mycéliums purs issus de la souche de référence NJ3 ont été analysés par des méthodes mycologiques et moléculaires. Concernant les méthodes mycologiques : les méthodes classiques basées sur la description de caractères morphologiques des cultures mycéliennes demeurent incontournables mais ne permettent pas toujours une identification précise. Il a fallu environ dix semaines pour l'obtention d'un mycélium pur de Ganoderma. Dans cette étude, l'optimisation d'un milieu de culture favorable à la croissance de mycélium s'est avérée nécessaire notamment pour la plupart des échantillons qui montraient des difficultés à croître sur le milieu Malt-Agar, classiquement utilisé en mycologie. Concernant les méthodes moléculaires : l'adaptation du protocole du kit Invitrogen est mis en place au laboratoire a permis une extraction optimale. La concentration et la pureté des ADN totaux extraits ont été estimées et les quantités d'ADN obtenues varient de 12 à 7141ng/ml. Ainsi l'ADN des 27 isolats de Ganoderma et des 3 isolats de référence NJ3 ont pu être extraits et amplifiés par PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). (Résumé d'auteur