Areas of endemism in the Antarctic - a case study of the benthic hydrozoan genus Oswaldella (Cnidaria, Kirchenpaueriidae)

Aim The aim of this study is to investigate areas of endemism within the distribution of Oswaldella species in the Southern Ocean, thereby testing previous hypotheses and proposing alternative scenarios for Antarctic evolution. Location Southern Ocean, Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters of southern South America. Methods We prepared a database for the 31 currently known species of the Antarctic genus Oswaldella, which includes geographical locations gathered from published taxonomic studies as well as materials from museums and expeditions. A parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE) was used to test hypotheses of distribution patterns. Results Four areas of endemism are hypothesized: southern South America, two high Antarctic areas (eastern and western) and a larger area, mainly in western Antarctica at lower latitudes and including insular areas (but not the Balleny Islands). Main conclusions The results support, in part, previous hypotheses for the Southern Ocean region, while providing more detailed resolution. The areas of endemism may reflect both historical and ecological processes that influenced the Antarctic biota. The Magellanic area reflects the well-known affinities of the Antarctic biota with that of South America and may be a consequence of dispersal through deeper (and colder) waters, followed by speciation. The second area, the largest one, encompasses most of the insular faunas and may also be associated with deeper waters formed since 43 Ma. The third area may be explained by the development of seaways in the circum-Antarctic region beginning 50 Ma. Finally, the fourth zone, with a very poor fauna, coincides with the opening of the Tasman Strait and the formation of the Australo-Antarctic Gulf, associated with a minor wind-driven current.

Comparing finite state machine test coverage criteria

To plan testing activities, testers face the challenge of determining a strategy, including a test coverage criterion that offers an acceptable compromise between the available resources and test goals. Known theoretical properties of coverage criteria do not always help and, thus, empirical data are needed. The results of an experimental evaluation of several coverage criteria for finite state machines (FSMs) are presented, namely, state and transition coverage; initialisation fault and transition fault coverage. The first two criteria focus on FSM structure, whereas the other two on potential faults in FSM implementations. The authors elaborate a comparison approach that includes random generation of FSM, construction of an adequate test suite and test minimisation for each criterion to ensure that tests are obtained in a uniform way. The last step uses an improved greedy algorithm.

Algorithms for two-dimensional cutting stock and strip packing problems using dynamic programming and column generation

We investigate several two-dimensional guillotine cutting stock problems and their variants in which orthogonal rotations are allowed. We first present two dynamic programming based algorithms for the Rectangular Knapsack (RK) problem and its variants in which the patterns must be staged. The first algorithm solves the recurrence formula proposed by Beasley; the second algorithm - for staged patterns - also uses a recurrence formula. We show that if the items are not so small compared to the dimensions of the bin, then these algorithms require polynomial time. Using these algorithms we solved all instances of the RK problem found at the OR-LIBRARY, including one for which no optimal solution was known. We also consider the Two-dimensional Cutting Stock problem. We present a column generation based algorithm for this problem that uses the first algorithm above mentioned to generate the columns. We propose two strategies to tackle the residual instances. We also investigate a variant of this problem where the bins have different sizes. At last, we study the Two-dimensional Strip Packing problem. We also present a column generation based algorithm for this problem that uses the second algorithm above mentioned where staged patterns are imposed. In this case we solve instances for two-, three- and four-staged patterns. We report on some computational experiments with the various algorithms we propose in this paper. The results indicate that these algorithms seem to be suitable for solving real-world instances. We give a detailed description (a pseudo-code) of all the algorithms presented here, so that the reader may easily implement these algorithms. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A modified signed likelihood ratio test in elliptical structural models

In this paper we deal with the issue of performing accurate testing inference on a scalar parameter of interest in structural errors-in-variables models. The error terms are allowed to follow a multivariate distribution in the class of the elliptical distributions, which has the multivariate normal distribution as special case. We derive a modified signed likelihood ratio statistic that follows a standard normal distribution with a high degree of accuracy. Our Monte Carlo results show that the modified test is much less size distorted than its unmodified counterpart. An application is presented.

Testverktyg för test av mobila applikationer : En jämförande fallstudie

Användandet av mobila applikationer har växt radikalt de senaste åren och de samverkar med många system. Därför ställs det högre krav på kvaliteten och att applikationen ska anpassas till många olika enheter, operativsystem samt plattformar. Detta gör att test av mobila applikationer blivit viktigare och större. Detta arbete har bedrivits som en jämförande fallstudie inom området test av mobila applikationer samt testverktyg. Syftet har varit att beskriva hur testning av mobila applikationer sker idag vilket gjorts genom litteraturstudier och intervjuer med IT-företag. Ett annat syfte har varit att utvärdera fyra testverktyg, deras för- och nackdelar samt hur de kan användas vid testning av mobila applikationer och jämföras mot manuell testning utan testverktyg. Detta har gjorts genom att skapa förstahandserfarenheter baserat på användandet av testverktygen. Under arbetet har vi utgått från mobila applikationer som vi fått tillgång till av Triona, som varit vår samarbetspartner.Idag finns många olika testverktyg som kan användas som stöd för testningen men få företag har implementerat något eftersom det kräver både tid och kompetens samt valet av testverktyg kan vara svårt. Testverktygen har olika för- och nackdelar vilket gör att de passar olika bra beroende på typ av projekt och applikation. Fördelar med att använda testverktyg är möjligheten att kunna automatisera, testa på flera enheter samtidigt samt få tillgång till enheter via molnet. Utmaningarna är att det kan vara svårt att installera och lära sig testverktyget samt att licenserna kan vara dyra. Det är därför viktigt att redan innan implementationen veta vilka tester och applikationer testverktygen ska användas till samt vem som ska använda det. Utifrån vår studie kan slutsatsen dras att inget testverktyg är helt komplett men de kan bidra med olika funktioner vilket effektiviserar delar av testningen av mobila applikationer.

Test av patientenkät riktad till personer med levercirros i uppföljning vid leversjuksköterskemottagning: : En pilotstudie med mixad metod

Syfte: Att testa den patientenkät som används i utvärdering av en leversjuksköterskemottagning på patienter med dekompenserad levercirros för att undersöka upplevelsen av att besvara frågorna samt frågornas relevans till patientens situation. Metod: Pilotstudiens metod var mixad. Resultat: Spridningen av deltagarnas upplevelse av oro/obehag av enkäten var stor (VAS 6-100 millimeter). Vid få sjukdomssymtom väcktes oro om framtida sjukdomsutveckling men vid längre tids sjukdom kändes samtliga symtom igen, tankar om tidigare beteende uppstod vid alkoholsorsakad sjukdom. En mindre spridning (VAS 66-92 millimeter) sågs gällande hur viktiga/väsentliga frågorna upplevdes. Frågor om bemötande ansågs viktiga och påverkade upplevelsen av rätten till vård. Kompletterande frågor om individuellt anpassad information samt upplevelsen av delaktighet vid information efterfrågades. Deltagarna visade hög uppskattning (VAS 73-95 millimeter) till att sjukdomen/situation uppmärksammades genom enkäten. Besöken till sjuksköterskan skiljde sig från läkarbesök. Sjuksköterskan fokuserade på egenvård och mer tid fanns för information. För en informant innebar försöksverksamheten ökade antal sjukhusbesök, samordning innebar för- och nackdelar. Vid symtom på fatigue och nedsatt koncentrationsförmåga upplevdes enkäten lång, tvådelad enkät efterfrågades. Vid lindrig sjukdom upplevdes enkäten inte ansträngande. Språket var enkelt att förstå och innehållet upplevdes relevant. De öppna frågeställningarna tillförde inte något för de tre informanterna.

Predictive models for chronic renal disease using decision trees, naïve bayes and case-based methods

Data mining can be used in healthcare industry to “mine” clinical data to discover hidden information for intelligent and affective decision making. Discovery of hidden patterns and relationships often goes intact, yet advanced data mining techniques can be helpful as remedy to this scenario. This thesis mainly deals with Intelligent Prediction of Chronic Renal Disease (IPCRD). Data covers blood, urine test, and external symptoms applied to predict chronic renal disease. Data from the database is initially transformed to Weka (3.6) and Chi-Square method is used for features section. After normalizing data, three classifiers were applied and efficiency of output is evaluated. Mainly, three classifiers are analyzed: Decision Tree, Naïve Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbour algorithm. Results show that each technique has its unique strength in realizing the objectives of the defined mining goals. Efficiency of Decision Tree and KNN was almost same but Naïve Bayes proved a comparative edge over others. Further sensitivity and specificity tests are used as statistical measures to examine the performance of a binary classification. Sensitivity (also called recall rate in some fields) measures the proportion of actual positives which are correctly identified while Specificity measures the proportion of negatives which are correctly identified. CRISP-DM methodology is applied to build the mining models. It consists of six major phases: business understanding, data understanding, data preparation, modeling, evaluation, and deployment.

Development of a molecular test to determine the vitality status of Norway spruce (Picea abies) seedlings during frozen storage

In boreal forest regions, a great portion of forest tree seedlings are stored indoors in late autumn to prevent seedlings from outdoor winter damage. For seedlings to be able to survive in storage it is crucial that they store well and can cope with the dark and cold storage environment. The aim of this study was to search for genes that can determine the vitality status of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) seedlings during frozen storage. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the ColdNSure (TM) test, a gene activity test that predicts storability was assessed. The storability of seedlings was tested biweekly by evaluating damage with the gene activity test and the electrolyte leakage test after freezing seedlings to -25 A degrees C (the SELdiff-25 method). In parallel, seedlings were frozen stored at -3 A degrees C. According to both methods, seedlings were considered storable from week 41. This also corresponded to the post storage results determined at the end of the storage period. In order to identify vitality indicators, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) was performed on bud samples collected during storage. Comparing physiological post storage data to gene analysis data revealed numerous vitality related genes. To validate the results, a second trial was performed. In this trial, gene activity was better in predicting seedling storability than the conventional freezing test; this indicates a high sensitivity level of this molecular assay. For multiple indicators a clear switch between damaged and vital seedlings was observed. A collection of indicators will be used in the future development of a commercial vitality test.

Humming as a mean of communicating during meal time situations : A Single Case study involving a women with severe dementia and her caregiver

Objective: ‘Music Therapeutic Caregiving’, when caregivers sing for or together with persons with dementia during morning care situations, has been shown to increase verbal and nonverbal communication between persons with dementia and their caregivers, as well as enhance positive and decrease negative emotions in persons with dementia. No studies about singing during mealtimes have been conducted, and this pilot project was designed to elucidate this. However, since previous studies have shown that there is a risk that persons with dementia will start to sing along with the caregiver, the caregiver in this study hummed such that the person with dementia did not sing instead of eat. The aim of this pilot project was threefold: to describe expressed emotions in a woman with severe dementia, and describe communication between her and her caregivers without and with the caregiver humming. The aim was also to measure food and liquid intake without and with humming. Method: The study was constructed as a Single Case ABA design in which the ordinary mealtime constituted a baseline which comprised a woman with severe dementia being fed by her caregivers in the usual way. The intervention included the same woman being fed by the same caregiver who hummed while feeding her. Data comprised video observations that were collected once per week over 5 consecutive weeks. The Verbal and Nonverbal Interaction Scale and Observed Emotion Rating Scale were used to analyze the recorded interactions. Results: A slightly positive influence of communication was shown for the woman with dementia, as well as for the caregiver. Further, the women with dementia showed a slight increase in expressions of positive emotions, and she ate more during the intervention. Conclusion: Based on this pilot study no general conclusions can be drawn. It can be concluded, however, that humming while feeding persons with dementia might slightly enhance communication, and positive expressed emotions in persons with dementia. To confirm this, more studies on group levels are needed. Because previous studies have found that caregiver singing during caring situations influences persons with dementia positively it might be desirable to test the same during mealtime.

Photochemical Generation and Intramolecular Chemistry of β-Alkoxycarbenes

The photolytic phenanthrene-based precursors for both β-methoxycarbene and β-ethoxycarbene were synthesized with and without a deuterium label attached to the a carbon. The incorporation of this deuterium label allowed distinction between a 1, 2-H shift and a 1, 2-O shift pathway to the respective alkyl vinyl ether, without the influence of a primary kinetic isotope effect. Photolyses of these precursors gave rearrangement products of the expected β-alkoxycarbenes. In the case of β-methoxycarbene, no methyl vinyl ether was observed due to its volatility. However, the appearance of aldehyde peaks in the NMR spectra, from an apparent further rearrangement to acetaldehyde through an enol intermediate, indicated that a 1,2-H shift had occurred. Ethyl vinyl ether was isolated following the photolysis of the β-ethoxycarbene precursor. Quantification of the two pathways showed less than 2% undergoing an ethoxy shift to the ethyl vinyl ether. Yield experiments on this photolysis demonstrated a maximum yield of β-ethoxycarbene as 43%, though this decreased as the experiment continued. Computational work on the β-ethoxycarbene system indicates that the triplet scate is more stable than the singlet. In addition, the activation energy to the 1.2-H shift pathway is remarkably low and is clearly consistent with the observed overwhelming preference for this pathway in the experiment.

Hydropower Energy Simulation Using Mike 11 Model; A Case Study In South Germany's Small Run-Of-River Hydropower Plants

Renewable energy production is a basic supplement to stabilize rapidly increasing global energy demand and skyrocketing energy price as well as to balance the fluctuation of supply from non-renewable energy sources at electrical grid hubs. The European energy traders, government and private company energy providers and other stakeholders have been, since recently, a major beneficiary, customer and clients of Hydropower simulation solutions. The relationship between rainfall-runoff model outputs and energy productions of hydropower plants has not been clearly studied. In this research, association of rainfall, catchment characteristics, river network and runoff with energy production of a particular hydropower station is examined. The essence of this study is to justify the correspondence between runoff extracted from calibrated catchment and energy production of hydropower plant located at a catchment outlet; to employ a unique technique to convert runoff to energy based on statistical and graphical trend analysis of the two, and to provide environment for energy forecast. For rainfall-runoff model setup and calibration, MIKE 11 NAM model is applied, meanwhile MIKE 11 SO model is used to track, adopt and set a control strategy at hydropower location for runoff-energy correlation. The model is tested at two selected micro run-of-river hydropower plants located in South Germany. Two consecutive calibration is compromised to test the model; one for rainfall-runoff model and other for energy simulation. Calibration results and supporting verification plots of two case studies indicated that simulated discharge and energy production is comparable with the measured discharge and energy production respectively.

Meteomap: Generation Of Meteorological Variables For Distributed Physically-Based Hydrological Modeling

Distributed energy and water balance models require time-series surfaces of the meteorological variables involved in hydrological processes. Most of the hydrological GIS-based models apply simple interpolation techniques to extrapolate the point scale values registered at weather stations at a watershed scale. In mountainous areas, where the monitoring network ineffectively covers the complex terrain heterogeneity, simple geostatistical methods for spatial interpolation are not always representative enough, and algorithms that explicitly or implicitly account for the features creating strong local gradients in the meteorological variables must be applied. Originally developed as a meteorological pre-processing tool for a complete hydrological model (WiMMed), MeteoMap has become an independent software. The individual interpolation algorithms used to approximate the spatial distribution of each meteorological variable were carefully selected taking into account both, the specific variable being mapped, and the common lack of input data from Mediterranean mountainous areas. They include corrections with height for both rainfall and temperature (Herrero et al., 2007), and topographic corrections for solar radiation (Aguilar et al., 2010). MeteoMap is a GIS-based freeware upon registration. Input data include weather station records and topographic data and the output consists of tables and maps of the meteorological variables at hourly, daily, predefined rainfall event duration or annual scales. It offers its own pre and post-processing tools, including video outlook, map printing and the possibility of exporting the maps to images or ASCII ArcGIS formats. This study presents the friendly user interface of the software and shows some case studies with applications to hydrological modeling.

Property rights as a public policy tool: an empirical analysis of the social and economic effects

Secure property rights are considered a key determinant of economic development. However, the evaluation of the causal effects of land titling is a difficult task. The Brazilian government through a program called "Papel Passado" has issued titles, since 2004, to over 85,000 families and has the goal to reach 750,000. Furthermore, another topic in Public Policy that is crucial to developing economies is income generation and child labor force participation. Particularly, in Brazil, about 5.4 million children and teenagers between 5 and 17 years old are still working. This thesis examines the direct impact of securing a property title on income and child labor force participation. In order to isolate the causal role of ownership security, this study uses a comparison between two close and very similar communities in the City of Osasco case (a town with 650,000 people in the São Paulo metropolitan area). One of them, Jardim Canaã, was fortunated to receive the titles in 2007, the other, Jardim DR, given fiscal constraints, only will be part of the program schedule in 2012, and for that reason became the control group. Also, this thesis also aims to test if there is any relationship between land title and happiness. The estimates suggest that titling results in a substantial decrease of child labor force participation, increase of income and happiness for the families that received the title compared to the others.

Changes in test scores distribution for students of the fourth grade in Brazil: a relative distribution analysis for the years 1997 to 2005

To assess the quality of school education, much of educational research is concerned with comparisons of test scores means or medians. In this paper, we shift this focus and explore test scores data by addressing some often neglected questions. In the case of Brazil, the mean of test scores in Math for students of the fourth grade has declined approximately 0,2 standard deviation in the late 1990s. But what about changes in the distribution of scores? It is unclear whether the decline was caused by deterioration in student performance in upper and/or lower tails of the distribution. To answer this question, we propose the use of the relative distribution method developed by Handcock and Morris (1999). The advantage of this methodology is that it compares two distributions of test scores data through a single distribution and synthesizes all the differences between them. Moreover, it is possible to decompose the total difference between two distributions in a level effect (changes in median) and shape effect (changes in shape of the distribution). We find that the decline of average-test scores is mainly caused by a worsening in the position of all students throughout the distribution of scores and is not only specific to any quantile of distribution.

The role of law and public-private collaboration in promoting innovative firms in Brazil: the case of the BNDES and the “criatec fund”

This paper presents the result of a qualitative empirical research about the “Criatec Fund”, a venture capital fund, privately managed and directed to innovative firms, that was created in 2007 by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). The paper discusses the role of law in the implementation of the Criatec Fund in three different legal dimensions: structural, regulatory and contractual. Based on interviews, this paper tries to test some hypothesis previously formulated by some scholars that studied new financial policies created by the BNDES. This study explains the institutional arrangements of this seed capital policy and the role of flexible legal instruments in the execution of this peculiar type of publicprivate partnership. It also poses some questions to the “law and development agenda” based on some insights from the economic sociology of law.