Effect of Termination of Long-term Free Air CO2 Enrichment on Physiology and Carbon Allocation in a Loblolly Pine Dominated Forest

This dissertation examined the response to termination of CO2 enrichment of a forest ecosystem exposed to long-term elevated atmospheric CO2 condition, and aimed at investigating responses and their underlying mechanisms of two important factors of carbon cycle in the ecosystem, stomatal conductance and soil respiration. Because the contribution of understory vegetation to the entire ecosystem grew with time, we first investigated the effect of elevated CO2 on understory vegetation. Potential growth enhancing effect of elevated CO2 were not observed, and light seemed to be a limiting factor. Secondly, we examined the importance of aerodynamic conductance to determine canopy conductance, and found that its effect can be negligible. Responses of stomatal conductance and soil respiration were assessed using Bayesian state space model. In two years after the termination of CO2 enrichment, stomatal conductance in formerly elevated CO2 returned to ambient level, while soil respiration became smaller than ambient level and did not recovered to ambient in two years.

Allocation universelle et libertarisme

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Prudent female allocation by modular hermaphrodites: female investment is promoted by the opportunity to outcross in cyclostome bryozoans

Many sessile, suspension-feeding marine invertebrates mate by spermcasting: aquatic sperm are spawned and gathered by conspecific individuals to fertilize eggs that are generally retained during development. In two phylogenetically distant examples, a cheilostome bryozoan and an aplousobranch ascidian, the receipt of allosperm has previously been shown to alter sex allocation by triggering female investment in eggs and brooding. Here we report experiments demonstrating that two species of cyclostome bryozoan also show restrained female investment in the absence of mating opportunity. In Tubulipora plumosa, the production of female zooids and progeny is much reduced in reproductive isolation. In Filicrisia geniculata, development of distinctive female zooids (gonozooids) begins but halts in the absence of mating opportunity, and no completed gonozooids or progeny result. Reduced female investment in the absence of a mate thus occurs in at least two orders of Bryozoa, but significant differences in detail exist and the evolutionary history within the phylum of the mechanism(s) by which female investment is initiated might be complex. The broadening taxonomic spectrum of examples where female investment appears restrained until allosperm becomes available may signify a general adaptive strategy among outcrossing modular animals, analogous to similarly adaptive sex allocation typical of many flowering plants.

Prudent female allocation by modular hermaphrodites: female investment is promoted by the opportunity to outcross in cyclostome bryozoans

Many sessile, suspension-feeding marine invertebrates mate by spermcasting: aquatic sperm are spawned and gathered by conspecific individuals to fertilize eggs that are generally retained during development. In two phylogenetically distant examples, a cheilostome bryozoan and an aplousobranch ascidian, the receipt of allosperm has previously been shown to alter sex allocation by triggering female investment in eggs and brooding. Here we report experiments demonstrating that two species of cyclostome bryozoan also show restrained female investment in the absence of mating opportunity. In Tubulipora plumosa, the production of female zooids and progeny is much reduced in reproductive isolation. In Filicrisia geniculata, development of distinctive female zooids (gonozooids) begins but halts in the absence of mating opportunity, and no completed gonozooids or progeny result. Reduced female investment in the absence of a mate thus occurs in at least two orders of Bryozoa, but significant differences in detail exist and the evolutionary history within the phylum of the mechanism(s) by which female investment is initiated might be complex. The broadening taxonomic spectrum of examples where female investment appears restrained until allosperm becomes available may signify a general adaptive strategy among outcrossing modular animals, analogous to similarly adaptive sex allocation typical of many flowering plants.

Wireless Networks with Energy Harvesting and Power Transfer: Joint Power and Time Allocation

In this letter, we consider wireless powered communication networks which could operate perpetually, as the base station (BS) broadcasts energy to the multiple energy harvesting (EH) information transmitters. These employ “harvest then transmit” mechanism, as they spend all of their energy harvested during the previous BS energy broadcast to transmit the information towards the BS. Assuming time division multiple access (TDMA), we propose a novel transmission scheme for jointly optimal allocation of the BS broadcasting power and time sharing among the wireless nodes, which maximizes the overall network throughput, under the constraint of average transmit power and maximum transmit power at the BS. The proposed scheme significantly outperforms “state of the art” schemes that employ only the optimal time allocation. If a single EH transmitter is considered, we generalize the optimal solutions for the case of fixed circuit power consumption, which refers to a much more practical scenario.

A comparison of individual cow versus group concentrate allocation strategies on dry matter intake, milk production, tissue changes, and fertility of Holstein-Friesian cows offered a grass silage diet

A diverse range of concentrate allocation strategies are adopted on dairy farms. The objectives of this study were to examine the effects on cow performance [dry matter (DM) intake (DMI), milk yield and composition, body tissue changes, and fertility] of adopting 2 contrasting concentrate allocation strategies over the first 140 d of lactation. Seventy-seven Holstein-Friesian dairy cows were allocated to 1 of 2 concentrate allocation strategies at calving, namely group or individual cow. Cows on the group strategy were offered a mixed ration comprising grass silage and concentrates in a 50:50 ratio on a DM basis. Cows on the individual cow strategy were offered a basal mixed ration comprising grass silage and concentrates (the latter included in the mix to achieve a mean intake of 6 kg/cow per day), which was formulated to meet the cow’s energy requirements for maintenance plus 24 kg of milk/cow per day. Additional concentrates were offered via an out-of-parlor feeding system, with the amount offered adjusted weekly based on each individual cow’s milk yield during the previous week. In addition, all cows received a small quantity of straw in the mixed ration part of the diet (approximately 0.3 kg/cow per day), plus 0.5 kg of concentrate twice daily in the milking parlor. Mean concentrate intakes over the study period were similar with each of the 2 allocation strategies (11.5 and 11.7 kg of DM/cow per day for group and individual cow, respectively), although the pattern of intake with each treatment differed over time. Concentrate allocation strategy had no effect on either milk yield (39.3 and 38.0 kg/d for group and individual cow, respectively), milk composition, or milk constituent yield. The milk yield response curves with each treatment were largely aligned with the concentrate DMI curves. Cows on the individual cow treatment had a greater range of concentrate DMI and milk yields than those on the group treatment. With the exception of a tendency for cows on the individual cow treatment to lose more body weight to nadir than cows on the group treatment, concentrate allocation strategy had little effect on either body weight or body condition score over the experimental period. Cows on the individual cow treatment had a higher pregnancy rate to first and second service and tended to have a higher 100-d in calf rate than cows on the group treatment. This study demonstrates that concentrate allocation strategy had little effect on overall production performance.

Optimal Power Allocation for Multiuser Secure Communication in Cooperative Relaying Networks

We consider a cooperative relaying network in which a source communicates with a group of users in the presence of one eavesdropper. We assume that there are no source-user links and the group of users receive only retransmitted signal from the relay. Whereas, the eavesdropper receives both the original and retransmitted signals. Under these assumptions, we exploit the user selection technique to enhance the secure performance. We first find the optimal power allocation strategy when the source has the full channel state information (CSI) of all links. We then evaluate the security level through: i) ergodic secrecy rate and ii) secrecy outage probability when having only the statistical knowledge of CSIs.

Intelligent DMU creation: Nominal CAD model preparation for automated tolerance allocation

This paper examines the integration of a tolerance design process within the Computer-Aided Design (CAD) environment having identified the potential to create an intelligent Digital Mock-Up [1]. The tolerancing process is complex in nature and as such reliance on Computer-Aided Tolerancing (CAT) software and domain experts can create a disconnect between the design and manufacturing disciplines It is necessary to implement the tolerance design procedure at the earliest opportunity to integrate both disciplines and to reduce workload in tolerance analysis and allocation at critical stages in product development when production is imminent.
The work seeks to develop a methodology that will allow for a preliminary tolerance allocation procedure within CAD. An approach to tolerance allocation based on sensitivity analysis is implemented on a simple assembly to review its contribution to an intelligent DMU. The procedure is developed using Python scripting for CATIA V5, with analysis results aligning with those in literature. A review of its implementation and requirements is presented.

I/Q imbalance in two-way AF relaying: Power allocation and performance analysis

We investigate the performance of dual-hop two-way amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying in the presence of inphase and quadrature-phase imbalance (IQI) at the relay node. In particular, the effective signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at both sources is derived. These SINRs are used to design an instantaneous power allocation scheme, which maximizes the minimum SINR of the two sources under a total transmit power constraint. The solution to this optimization problem is analytically determined and used to evaluate the outage probability (OP) of the considered two-way AF relaying system. Both analytical and numerical results show that IQI can create fundamental performance limits on two-way relaying, which cannot be avoided by simply improving the channel conditions.

Décentralisation et allocation des ressources : les détours de la municipalisation du système de santé brésilien.

Dans cette thèse, nous avons analysé le déroulement d’un processus de municipalisation du système de santé, effectué au Rio Grande do Norte (RN), un des états fédérés du nord-est du Brésil. En tenant compte des contextes historiques d’implantation, nous avons centré notre attention sur la contribution des acteurs impliqués dans ce processus, spécialement dans l’allocation des ressources financières du système. Les croyances, perceptions, attentes, représentations, connaissances, intérêts, l’ensemble des facteurs qui contribuent à la constitution des capacités cognitives de ces acteurs, favorise la réflexivité sur leurs actions et la définition de stratégies diverses de façon à poursuivre leurs objectifs dans le système de santé. Ils sont vus ainsi comme des agents compétents et réflexifs, capables de s’approprier des propriétés structurelles du système de santé (règles et ressources), de façon à prendre position dans l’espace social de ce système pour favoriser le changement ou la permanence du statu quo. Au cours du processus de structuration du Système unique de santé brésilien, le SUS, la municipalisation a été l’axe le plus développé d’un projet de réforme de la santé. Face aux contraintes contextuelles et de la dynamique complexe des espaces sociaux de la santé, les acteurs réformistes n’ont pas pu suivre le chemin de l’utopie idéalisée; quelques détours ont été parcourus. Au RN, la municipalisation de la santé a constitué un processus très complexe où la triade centralisation/décentralisation/recentralisation a suivi son cours au milieu de négociations, de conflits, d’alliances, de disputes, de coopérations, de compétitions. Malgré les contraintes des contextes successifs, des propriétés structurelles du système et des dynamiques sociales dans le système de santé, quelques changements sont intervenus : la construction de leaderships collectifs; l’émergence d’une culture de négociation; la création des structures et des espaces sociaux du système, favorisant les rencontres des acteurs dans chaque municipalité et au niveau de l’état fédéré; un apprentissage collectif sur le processus de structuration du SUS; une grande croissance des services de première ligne permettant d’envisager une inversion de tendance du modèle de prestation des services; les premiers pas vers la rupture avec la culture bureaucratique du système. Le SUS reste prisonnier de quelques enjeux institutionnalisés dans ce système de santé : la dépendance du secteur privé et de quelques groupes de professionnels; le financement insuffisant et instable; la situation des ressources humaines. Les changements arrivés sont convergents, incrémentiels, lents; ils résultent d’actions normatives, délibérées, formalisées. Elles aussi sont issues de l’inattendu, de l’informel, du paradoxe; quelques-unes plus localisées, d’autres plus généralisées, pour une courte ou une plus longue durée.

Strategic Information Disclosure through Integrated Reporting : A study on OMXS30-listed companies’ compliance with the <IR> Framework content element Strategy and Resource Allocation

Background and problem – As a result of financial crises and the realization of a broader stakeholder network, recent decades have seen an increase in stakeholder demand for non- financial information in corporate reporting. This has led to a situation of information overload where separate financial and sustainability reports have developed in length and complexity interdependent of each other. Integrated reporting has been presented as a solution to this problematic situation. The question is whether the corporate world believe this to be the solution and if the development of corporate reporting is heading in this direction. Purpose - This thesis aims to examine and assess to what extent companies listed on the OMX Stockholm 30 (OMXS30), as per 2016-02-28, comply with the Strategic content element of the <IR> Framework and how this disclosure has developed since the framework’s pilot project and official release by using a self-constructed disclosure index based on its specific items. Methodology – The purpose was fulfilled through an analysis of 104 annual reports comprising 26 companies during the period of 2011-2014. The annual reports were assessed using a self-constructed disclosure index based on the <IR> Framework content element Strategy and Resource Allocation, where one point was given for each disclosed item. Analysis and conclusions – The study found that the OMXS30-listed companies to a large extent complies with the strategic content element of the <IR> Framework and that this compliance has seen a steady growth throughout the researched time span. There is still room for improvement however with a total average framework compliance of 84% for 2014. Although many items are being reported on, there are indications that companies generally miss out on the core values of Integrated reporting. 

DRAMA: Dynamic re-allocation of meshes for parallel finite element applications

In many areas of simulation, a crucial component for efficient numerical computations is the use of solution-driven adaptive features: locally adapted meshing or re-meshing; dynamically changing computational tasks. The full advantages of high performance computing (HPC) technology will thus only be able to be exploited when efficient parallel adaptive solvers can be realised. The resulting requirement for HPC software is for dynamic load balancing, which for many mesh-based applications means dynamic mesh re-partitioning. The DRAMA project has been initiated to address this issue, with a particular focus being the requirements of industrial Finite Element codes, but codes using Finite Volume formulations will also be able to make use of the project results.

Looking for a road to get out for poverty. Is the current allocation of public spending on education in Colombia helping?

This paper presents a methodology to explore the impact on poverty of the public spending on education. The methodology consists of two approaches: Benefit Incidence Analysis (BIA) and behavioral approach. BIA considers the cost and use of the educational service, and the distribution of the benefits among groups of income. Regarding the behavioral approach, we use a Probit model of schooling attendance, in order to determinethe influence of public spending on the probability for thepoor to attend the school. As a complement, a measurement of targeting errors in the allocation of public spending is included in the methodology.

The optimal sample allocation problem for mapped outputs

Abstract not available

Dynamic Resource Allocation in Wireless Heterogeneous Networks

Deployment of low power basestations within cellular networks can potentially increase both capacity and coverage. However, such deployments require efficient resource allocation schemes for managing interference from the low power and macro basestations that are located within each other’s transmission range. In this dissertation, we propose novel and efficient dynamic resource allocation algorithms in the frequency, time and space domains. We show that the proposed algorithms perform better than the current state-of-art resource management algorithms. In the first part of the dissertation, we propose an interference management solution in the frequency domain. We introduce a distributed frequency allocation scheme that shares frequencies between macro and low power pico basestations, and guarantees a minimum average throughput to users. The scheme seeks to minimize the total number of frequencies needed to honor the minimum throughput requirements. We evaluate our scheme using detailed simulations and show that it performs on par with the centralized optimum allocation. Moreover, our proposed scheme outperforms a static frequency reuse scheme and the centralized optimal partitioning between the macro and picos. In the second part of the dissertation, we propose a time domain solution to the interference problem. We consider the problem of maximizing the alpha-fairness utility over heterogeneous wireless networks (HetNets) by jointly optimizing user association, wherein each user is associated to any one transmission point (TP) in the network, and activation fractions of all TPs. Activation fraction of a TP is the fraction of the frame duration for which it is active, and together these fractions influence the interference seen in the network. To address this joint optimization problem which we show is NP-hard, we propose an alternating optimization based approach wherein the activation fractions and the user association are optimized in an alternating manner. The subproblem of determining the optimal activation fractions is solved using a provably convergent auxiliary function method. On the other hand, the subproblem of determining the user association is solved via a simple combinatorial algorithm. Meaningful performance guarantees are derived in either case. Simulation results over a practical HetNet topology reveal the superior performance of the proposed algorithms and underscore the significant benefits of the joint optimization. In the final part of the dissertation, we propose a space domain solution to the interference problem. We consider the problem of maximizing system utility by optimizing over the set of user and TP pairs in each subframe, where each user can be served by multiple TPs. To address this optimization problem which is NP-hard, we propose a solution scheme based on difference of submodular function optimization approach. We evaluate our scheme using detailed simulations and show that it performs on par with a much more computationally demanding difference of convex function optimization scheme. Moreover, the proposed scheme performs within a reasonable percentage of the optimal solution. We further demonstrate the advantage of the proposed scheme by studying its performance with variation in different network topology parameters.