Development and Diplomacy: The Lobster Controversy on Newfoundland's French Shore, 1890–1904
The matter of French claims in Newfoundland probably caused more acrimony and outcry among the professionals and businessmen who dominated the Newfoundland legislature in the later nineteenth century than any other single issue. Most historians of the ‘French Shore problem’ have followed Fred Thompson's lead in analysing the history of the French shore by focusing on high-ranking diplomats and the colonial elite. They have also tended to view the conflict as involving primarily three groups: the French and British diplomatic corps and the Newfoundland mercantile and political elite. Using a well-known late nineteenth-century dispute over the lobster fishery as a case study, this paper reconsiders the history of the French Shore by drawing on reports about conditions on the Treaty Shore and on methodological and theoretical insights that have emerged since Thompson published his pioneering work in 1961. It argues that a wider array of groups exerted significant influence in how the controversy over lobster on Newfoundland's west coast in the late nineteenth century played out. Viewing the controversy from the perspective of these groups reveals the extent to which those outside of formal policy circles influenced the shape and viability of official agreements.
The Moral Economy of the Commons: Ecology and Equity in the Newfoundland Cod Fishery, 1815-1855
A sense of determinism about the emergence of capitalism and the ruthless over-exploitation of nature in European colonial expansion pervades much of North American environmental and ecological history. The attempts of 19th-century Newfoundland fishing people to regulate access to common-property marine resources suggests that some European settlers were also capable of non-capitalist forms of ecological management. Fishers protested against the introduction of new fishing technology in response to localized exhaustion of cod stocks. Some of these protests involved the destruction of newer equipment, while others were anonymous assaults on the equipment's owners. The protests represented attempts to forestall the depletion of marine resources by the further capitalization of the fishery. By the late 1840s the demands for conservation measures became more organized politically under the leadership of mercantile agent Willam Kelson. Although he was conservative and paternalistic, Kelson's criticism of the unrestrained employment of technology in the fishing industry had radical implications. Kelson supported the desire to preserve a customary and equitable right of access to fish for present and future generations. The preservation of equitable access may been seen as an ecological norm of a moral economy that ran counter to the individualistic and accumulative values of a nascent local capitalist political economy.
 
 Resume
 
 Le determinisme associe a l'emergence du capitalisme et a la surexploitation impitoyable de la nature durant l'expansion coloniale europeenne colore une bonne partie de l'ecologie historique de l'Amerique du Nord. Le fait que des pecheurs terre-neuviens du XIXe siecle etaient tente de reglementer l'exploitation des ressources marines collectives laisse supposer que certains colons europeens etaient egalement capables d'une gestion ecologique et non capitaliste des ressources. Constatant l'epuisement des micro-stocks de morue, les pecheurs protesterent contre les nouvelles techniques de peche, parfois en detruisant le nouveau materiel, parfois par des attaques anonymes contre les proprietaires du materiel. Les protestations etaient pour les pecheurs un moyen de prevenir l'epuisement des ressources marines par une exploitation de plus en plus capitaliste des pecheries. 
 
 Vers la fin des annees 1840, les actions menees en revendication de mesures de conservation devinrent mieux organisees politiquement grâce au leadership de William Kelson, un agent de commerce. Quoique Kelson fut conservateur et paternaliste, ses critiques contre l'usage debride de la technologie dans l'industrie de la peche etaient potentiellement radicales. Kelson voulait preserver le droit d'acces coutumier et equitable aux ressources en poisson pour les populations de son temps et celles a venir. La sauve garde de droits equitables constituait, a bien des egards, le fondement d'une economie morale et ecologique qui allait a l'encontre des valeurs d'individualisme et d'accumulation de biens materiels sur lesquels s'appuyait cette economie capitaliste encore toute jeune.
Novel polymeric hydrogel composites: Synthesis, physicochemical, mechanical and biocompatible properties
In this research study, novel hydrogel composite films were constructed using different ratios of poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA)/kappa-carrageenan (KC) (PVA90/KC10%, PVA80/KC20%, PVA70/KC30%, PVA60/KC40%) crosslinked with glutaraldehyde (0.025%) and investigated their physicochemical characteristics such as mechanical, thermal, morphological, swelling behaviour, and cell viability. SEM and FTIR revealed that surface morphology changed to heterogeneous and the presence of molecular interaction among the polymers. PVA90KC10 and PVA60KC40 exhibited smaller and larger pores on surface respectively. The change in the proportion of PVA and KC also triggered the tensile strength (Ts) of the film and the highest Ts observed were 21.60 MPa for PVA60KC40. Moreover, the thermal analysis showed three-phase degradation, and an increase in KC40 concentration results inversely proportional to a decrease in the rate of thermal degradation. Further, swelling and in-vitro biodegradation study confirmed the enhanced perseverance of water uptake for PVA60KC40 (286%) due to pores structure of the hydrogel film and PVA and KC alone degraded faster as compare to other films results suggested higher concentration of PVA90KC10 showed lower degradation rate and highest for PVA60KC40 about 6% and 22% respectively. Further, the cell viability was studied with MTT assay method by using NIH3T3 and HEK-293 cells for biocompatibility study revealed NIH3T3 cells were more biocompatible than HEK-293 and cell viability percent for PVA60KC40 showed the highest cell attachment about 99%. Overall corroborating data obtained from the study attested to the average swelling, appreciable mechanical characters, good interaction between molecules, and cell viability of the constructed PVA/KC hydrogel film, these all characters pave to be used as a potential template for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering and drug delivery.