Gene flow from transgenic plant populations: models and applications for risk assessment

The future use of genetically modified (GM) plants in food, feed and biomass production requires a careful consideration of possible risks related to the unintended spread of trangenes into new habitats. This may occur via introgression of the transgene to conventional genotypes, due to cross-pollination, and via the invasion of GM plants to new habitats. Assessment of possible environmental impacts of GM plants requires estimation of the level of gene flow from a GM population. Furthermore, management measures for reducing gene flow from GM populations are needed in order to prevent possible unwanted effects of transgenes on ecosystems. This work develops modeling tools for estimating gene flow from GM plant populations in boreal environments and for investigating the mechanisms of the gene flow process. To describe spatial dimensions of the gene flow, dispersal models are developed for the local and regional scale spread of pollen grains and seeds, with special emphasis on wind dispersal. This study provides tools for describing cross-pollination between GM and conventional populations and for estimating the levels of transgenic contamination of the conventional crops. For perennial populations, a modeling framework describing the dynamics of plants and genotypes is developed, in order to estimate the gene flow process over a sequence of years. The dispersal of airborne pollen and seeds cannot be easily controlled, and small amounts of these particles are likely to disperse over long distances. Wind dispersal processes are highly stochastic due to variation in atmospheric conditions, so that there may be considerable variation between individual dispersal patterns. This, in turn, is reflected to the large amount of variation in annual levels of cross-pollination between GM and conventional populations. Even though land-use practices have effects on the average levels of cross-pollination between GM and conventional fields, the level of transgenic contamination of a conventional crop remains highly stochastic. The demographic effects of a transgene have impacts on the establishment of trangenic plants amongst conventional genotypes of the same species. If the transgene gives a plant a considerable fitness advantage in comparison to conventional genotypes, the spread of transgenes to conventional population can be strongly increased. In such cases, dominance of the transgene considerably increases gene flow from GM to conventional populations, due to the enhanced fitness of heterozygous hybrids. The fitness of GM plants in conventional populations can be reduced by linking the selectively favoured primary transgene to a disfavoured mitigation transgene. Recombination between these transgenes is a major risk related to this technique, especially because it tends to take place amongst the conventional genotypes and thus promotes the establishment of invasive transgenic plants in conventional populations.

Modeling Asymmetries in Financial Data with Multiplicative Error Models

This thesis addresses modeling of financial time series, especially stock market returns and daily price ranges. Modeling data of this kind can be approached with so-called multiplicative error models (MEM). These models nest several well known time series models such as GARCH, ACD and CARR models. They are able to capture many well established features of financial time series including volatility clustering and leptokurtosis. In contrast to these phenomena, different kinds of asymmetries have received relatively little attention in the existing literature. In this thesis asymmetries arise from various sources. They are observed in both conditional and unconditional distributions, for variables with non-negative values and for variables that have values on the real line. In the multivariate context asymmetries can be observed in the marginal distributions as well as in the relationships of the variables modeled. New methods for all these cases are proposed. Chapter 2 considers GARCH models and modeling of returns of two stock market indices. The chapter introduces the so-called generalized hyperbolic (GH) GARCH model to account for asymmetries in both conditional and unconditional distribution. In particular, two special cases of the GARCH-GH model which describe the data most accurately are proposed. They are found to improve the fit of the model when compared to symmetric GARCH models. The advantages of accounting for asymmetries are also observed through Value-at-Risk applications. Both theoretical and empirical contributions are provided in Chapter 3 of the thesis. In this chapter the so-called mixture conditional autoregressive range (MCARR) model is introduced, examined and applied to daily price ranges of the Hang Seng Index. The conditions for the strict and weak stationarity of the model as well as an expression for the autocorrelation function are obtained by writing the MCARR model as a first order autoregressive process with random coefficients. The chapter also introduces inverse gamma (IG) distribution to CARR models. The advantages of CARR-IG and MCARR-IG specifications over conventional CARR models are found in the empirical application both in- and out-of-sample. Chapter 4 discusses the simultaneous modeling of absolute returns and daily price ranges. In this part of the thesis a vector multiplicative error model (VMEM) with asymmetric Gumbel copula is found to provide substantial benefits over the existing VMEM models based on elliptical copulas. The proposed specification is able to capture the highly asymmetric dependence of the modeled variables thereby improving the performance of the model considerably. The economic significance of the results obtained is established when the information content of the volatility forecasts derived is examined.

Application of ultraspherical polynomials to forced oscillations of a third-order non-linear system

In this paper the method of ultraspherical polynomial approximation is applied to study the steady-state response in forced oscillations of a third-order non-linear system. The non-linear function is expanded in ultraspherical polynomials and the expansion is restricted to the linear term. The equation for the response curve is obtained by using the linearized equation and the results are presented graphically. The agreement between the approximate solution and the analog computer solution is satisfactory. The problem of stability is not dealt with in this paper.

On the Rademacher maximal function

Tools known as maximal functions are frequently used in harmonic analysis when studying local behaviour of functions. Typically they measure the suprema of local averages of non-negative functions. It is essential that the size (more precisely, the L^p-norm) of the maximal function is comparable to the size of the original function. When dealing with families of operators between Banach spaces we are often forced to replace the uniform bound with the larger R-bound. Hence such a replacement is also needed in the maximal function for functions taking values in spaces of operators. More specifically, the suprema of norms of local averages (i.e. their uniform bound in the operator norm) has to be replaced by their R-bound. This procedure gives us the Rademacher maximal function, which was introduced by Hytönen, McIntosh and Portal in order to prove a certain vector-valued Carleson's embedding theorem. They noticed that the sizes of an operator-valued function and its Rademacher maximal function are comparable for many common range spaces, but not for all. Certain requirements on the type and cotype of the spaces involved are necessary for this comparability, henceforth referred to as the “RMF-property”. It was shown, that other objects and parameters appearing in the definition, such as the domain of functions and the exponent p of the norm, make no difference to this. After a short introduction to randomized norms and geometry in Banach spaces we study the Rademacher maximal function on Euclidean spaces. The requirements on the type and cotype are considered, providing examples of spaces without RMF. L^p-spaces are shown to have RMF not only for p greater or equal to 2 (when it is trivial) but also for 1 < p < 2. A dyadic version of Carleson's embedding theorem is proven for scalar- and operator-valued functions. As the analysis with dyadic cubes can be generalized to filtrations on sigma-finite measure spaces, we consider the Rademacher maximal function in this case as well. It turns out that the RMF-property is independent of the filtration and the underlying measure space and that it is enough to consider very simple ones known as Haar filtrations. Scalar- and operator-valued analogues of Carleson's embedding theorem are also provided. With the RMF-property proven independent of the underlying measure space, we can use probabilistic notions and formulate it for martingales. Following a similar result for UMD-spaces, a weak type inequality is shown to be (necessary and) sufficient for the RMF-property. The RMF-property is also studied using concave functions giving yet another proof of its independence from various parameters.

A new type of high-order elements based on the mesh-free interpolations

We propose a new type of high-order elements that incorporates the mesh-free Galerkin formulations into the framework of finite element method. Traditional polynomial interpolation is replaced by mesh-free interpolations in the present high-order elements, and the strain smoothing technique is used for integration of the governing equations based on smoothing cells. The properties of high-order elements, which are influenced by the basis function of mesh-free interpolations and boundary nodes, are discussed through numerical examples. It can be found that the basis function has significant influence on the computational accuracy and upper-lower bounds of energy norm, when the strain smoothing technique retains the softening phenomenon. This new type of high-order elements shows good performance when quadratic basis functions are used in the mesh-free interpolations and present elements prove advantageous in adaptive mesh and nodes refinement schemes. Furthermore, it shows less sensitive to the quality of element because it uses the mesh-free interpolations and obeys the Weakened Weak (W2) formulation as introduced in [3, 5].

Fracture Behavior of Multidirectional DCB Specimen: Higher-Order Beam Theories

Mathematical models, for the stress analysis of symmetric multidirectional double cantilever beam (DCB) specimen using classical beam theory, first and higher-order shear deformation beam theories, have been developed to determine the Mode I strain energy release rate (SERR) for symmetric multidirectional composites. The SERR has been calculated using the compliance approach. In the present study, both variationally and nonvariationally derived matching conditions have been applied at the crack tip of DCB specimen. For the unidirectional and cross-ply composite DCB specimens, beam models under both plane stress and plane strain conditions in the width direction are applicable with good performance where as for the multidirectional composite DCB specimen, only the beam model under plane strain condition in the width direction appears to be applicable with moderate performance. Among the shear deformation beam theories considered, the performance of higher-order shear deformation beam theory, having quadratic variation for transverse displacement over the thickness, is superior in determining the SERR for multidirectional DCB specimen.

Queensland shark control program non-target statistics by year

Spreadsheet of non-target species (bycatch) numbers in the Shark Control Program by species, date of capture, location, size and sex from 2001 onwards The shark control program (SCP) relies on nets or drumlines, or a combination of both, to minimise the threat of shark attack on humans in particular locations. Following is information on numbers and locations of sharks that have been caught by the SCP. It is important to reduce the inadvertent impacts of the SCP on other marine animals (bycatch) without compromising human safety. Bycatch levels are carefully monitored and research is focused on minimising impacts on non-target species. This dataset contains details of non-target numbers in the Shark Control program by species, date of capture, and location from 2001

Factors influencing hospital readmission and length of stay of Vietnamese patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiac disease

Background: Increased hospital readmission and longer stays in the hospital for patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiac disease can result in higher healthcare costs and heavier individual burden. Thus, knowledge of the characteristics and predictive factors for Vietnamese patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiac disease, at high risk of hospital readmission and longer stays in the hospital, could provide a better understanding on how to develop an effective care plan aimed at improving patient outcomes. However, information about factors influencing hospital readmission and length of stay of patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiac disease in Vietnam is limited. Aim: This study examined factors influencing hospital readmission and length of stay of Vietnamese patients with both type 2 diabetes and cardiac disease. Methods: An exploratory prospective study design was conducted on 209 patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiac disease in Vietnam. Data were collected from patient charts and patients' responses to self-administered questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, logistic and multiple regression were used to analyse the data. Results: The hospital readmission rate was 12.0% among patients with both type 2 diabetes and cardiac disease. The average length of stay in the hospital was 9.37 days. Older age (OR= 1.11, p< .05), increased duration of type 2 diabetes (OR= 1.22, p< .05), less engagement in stretching/strengthening exercise behaviours (OR= .93, p< .001) and in communication with physician (OR= .21, p< .001) were significant predictors of 30-dayhospital readmission. Increased number of additional co-morbidities (β= .33, p< .001) was a significant predictor of longer stays in the hospital. High levels of cognitive symptom management (β= .40, p< .001) significantly predicted longer stays in the hospital, indicating that the more patients practiced cognitive symptom management, the longer the stay in hospital. Conclusions: This study provides some evidence of factors influencing hospital readmission and length of stay and argues that this information may have significant implications for clinical practice in order to improve patients' health outcomes. However, the findings of this study related to the targeted hospital only. Additionally, the investigation of environmental factors is recommended for future research as these factors are important components contributing to the research model.

Order to pay Gershom Seixas for keeping school

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Order to pay Aaron Levy, regarding K. K. Mikve Israel

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Part of order of service and Hebrew prayer, recommended during the revolution

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Ihanne ja todellisuus : Jäsenyyteen sitoutuminen Suomen evankelis-luterilaisessa kirkossa 1960-luvulta 2000-luvulle

The subject of the study is the ideal and reality of commitment to membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland from the 1960s to the 2000s. The research task is to ascertain what manner of commitment the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland expects from its members (the ideal) and how in reality membership of the Church is realized (empiria). The research object is also to study the extent to which the ideal of commitment evinced by the Church and the actual relation of commitment to the Church changed during the research period. Additionally, those factors were analysed which influence the relation between the ideal and reality of commitment. In the analysis of the ideal of commitment the research data are official documents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. They include confessions of the Church, Catechisms, Christian doctrine, joint strategies and plans of the Church, likewise the Church Act and Church Order. The reality of commitment is explored on the basis of Church membership, participation in parish activity and the private practice of religion, likewise attitude to Christian faith. The empirical data of the study comprise Church statistics, material from Statistics Finland and relevant surveys implemented during the research period. The ideal of commitment alongside membership includes knowing the basic tenets of Christian faith and family life based on prayer and participation in liturgical cycles. A member of the Church is expected to take care of his/her faith by living in participation of the Word and sacrament, bearing responsibility for the parish and faithfully discharging his/her worldly obligations. There have been no major changes in the ideal of commitment during the research period. On the contrary, the reality of commitment has changed. Although the majority of Finns are still members of the Church, there has been a constant decline in their share of the population. The same can be stated with respect to parish life. This has its own strengths, among them Church rites, parish activity around feast days and also work with children and confirmation training. However, the general trend is towards a decline in participation. There has also been a decrease in commitment to belief in God as taught by the Church. On the other hand, private religious observance has not changed at all. From the perspective of commitment the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland exists in a state of tension between the theological ideal and sociological empiria. Matters exerting a particular influence over the relation between ideal and reality are communality and varying conceptions of the Church, likewise contextuality and the related private Christianity. Societal change poses a challenge to traditional Church communality. A decline in communality has in turn led to a decline in belonging to the Church. Weakening awareness of membership has undermined the handing down of the tradition among younger generations. Modernization has influence the identity of the Church and brought the Church to an internal divergence. This way it has been able to retain its structure as a folk church but at the same time it has lost its opportunities for the formation of a clear identity. The Church has adjusted to societal change by outward-directed activities (performance) alongside the purely religious message (function). The tension between an unchanged message and a changed operating environment has increased. The challenge of contextuality has led the Church to review parish life, the nature of teaching and activity and the language used by the Church, likewise the cultural modus. Increasingly privatized Christianity challenges above all the theology and teaching of the Church, but also the life of worship and relation to cultural life.

Random vibration of a second order non-linear elastic system

A method is presented for obtaining, approximately, the response covariance and probability distribution of a non-linear oscillator under a Gaussian excitation. The method has similarities with the hierarchy closure and the equivalent linearization approaches, but is different. A Gaussianization technique is used to arrive at the output autocorrelation and the input-output cross-correlation. This along with an energy equivalence criterion is used to estimate the response distribution function. The method is applicable in both the transient and steady state response analysis under either stationary or non-stationary excitations. Good comparison has been observed between the predicted and the exact steady state probability distribution of a Duffing oscillator under a white noise input.