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Nutrient accumulation in vegetable crops is declining. New varieties, selected for high yield, may be subject to a dilution effect of nutrient concentration. Alternatively, soil fertility may be to blame. Here, we investigate how nitrogen fertilization can enhance or suppress calcium and potassium content in two lettuce varieties already known to accumulate high or low amounts of these nutrients. Effects of varying the ammonium:nitrate ratio and effects of calcium carbonate buffering on plant growth by mass and on uptake and accumulation of potassium and calcium in two lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) cultivars, Two Star and Red Deer Tongue, were investigated in three greenhouse hydroponic experiments in which ammonium supplied none, 6%, 12%, 25%, 50%, 75% or all of the nitrogen. Ammonium, supplied as the sole nitrogen source (15 mM), was toxic under buffered or unbuffered conditions. It limited growth and concentrations of potassium and calcium in lettuce leaves. Proportions of ammonium-N greater than 50% of total N nutrition severely curtailed growth and nutrient accumulation for both cultivars. For both cultivars, optima for all three variables occurred in treatments that contained less than 50% NH4+-N in the total N supply. Application of calcium carbonate buffer did not result in improved maxima for growth and shoot potassium or shoot calcium concentrations compared to the best responses in unbuffered solutions. However, supplying calcium carbonate buffer did raise the minima for growth and shoot potassium and shoot calcium concentration. Both cultivars in buffered solutions compared to unbuffered solutions had significantly greater values for growth and for shoot potassium or shoot calcium concentration in treatments that contained 50% ammonium-N or greater in the total N supply. Although buffering relieved symptoms of ammonium toxicity, it did not eliminate symptoms, confirming the work of other researchers that ammonium toxicity is not due solely to acidification of the root-zone and that buffering has an effect on the capacity of plants to tolerate ammonium nutrition. Supplying nitrogen with ammonium:nitrate ratios in which nitrate predominates enhances yield and accumulation of calcium and potassium in lettuce. Two Star, the modern variety, is more ammonium-sensitive than Red Deer Tongue, the heirloom variety, if calcium carbonate buffering is not provided.

Thiamethoxam and clothianidin are two neonicotinoids used in seed coatings for crops such as corn and soybeans. Both neonicotinoids have high solubility in water, so they are prone to transport via leaching and runoff. This thesis is comprised of two studies that evaluated potential solutions to mitigate neonicotinoid transport from fields. The first study examined the relationship between soil organic carbon content and neonicotinoid transport in a field planted in soybeans. Soils with increased organic carbon leached less thiamethoxam and clothianidin during early growing season leaching peaks; however, at the end of the season, higher organic carbon content only decreased leached mass of clothianidin. The second study was to determine neonicotinoid uptake of different ground covers used as cover crops or edge-of-field buffer strips, as well as the partitioning of thiamethoxam and clothianidin throughout the plants. Ground covers, such as crimson clover, had the highest recovery of applied thiamethoxam, meaning that it may be a good candidate to retain this pesticide in fields. Thiamethoxam and clothianidin concentrations were higher in leaf tissues than in stems or roots, indicating that above-ground biomass removal may be an effective way to reduce neonicotinoid loading in the environment. From these studies, I concluded 1) practices that raise the amount of organic carbon in the soil may help decrease early-season neonicotinoid transport, resulting in lower concentrations in surrounding waterways, and 2) careful selection of plant species, such as crimson clover, may help reduce neonicotinoid transport in the environment, while potentially reducing exposure to beneficial insects. / Master of Science / Pesticides called neonicotinoids are commonly applied to seeds in row crops, such as corn and soybeans, before they are planted. These pesticides are highly soluble in water, which can lead to them exiting fields through runoff or leaching. This thesis is comprised of two studies that examined several potential solutions for decreasing the amount of neonicotinoids available for transport. The first study examined the relationship between organic carbon in the soil and neonicotinoids, and whether this relationship helps to retain neonicotinoids in a soybean field. Soils with high organic carbon content decreased the amount of neonicotinoids exiting the field during early growing season storms; however, at the end of the season, high organic carbon content only decreased losses for one of the pesticides studied. The second study was to determine which of six plant species and two mixes used as cover crops or buffers were the most effective at removing neonicotinoids from soil, as well as where in the plant these neonicotinoids go after uptake. Ground covers, such as crimson clover, had the highest recovery of applied neonicotinoids, meaning they would be good candidates for planting around fields. Ultimately, neonicotinoid accumulation was higher in leaves than in stems or roots, meaning that removing and disposing of leaves in an environmentally safe way could be an effective way to decrease neonicotinoid pollution. From these two studies, I found that 1) increasing organic matter in the soil can stop neonicotinoids from exiting the area it was applied in, and 2) careful consideration of plant species in or around the field may help intercept neonicotinoids before they exit the field.

No / The use of queue thresholds is a well known technique for network traffic congestion control. This motivates the study of a single server queue with R(R ¿ 2) distinct priority classes under Head of Line (HoL) service priority discipline, Partial Buffer Sharing (PBS) scheme and a finite capacity vector N, representing a sequence of thresholds (N1, N2, ¿ , NR) for each class jobs. The external traffic is modelled using the compound Poisson process or generalised exponential (GE) distribution which can capture the bursty property of the network traffic. The transmission times have also been modelled using the GE distribution to depict the bulk departures from the system. Using a GE/GE/1/N approximation, a closed form cost-effective analytical solution is obtained using the principle of maximum entropy (ME). The forms of the joint, aggregate and marginal state probabilities, as well as basic performance measures such as utilisation and blocking probabilities are analytically established at equilibrium via appropriate mean value constraints and the generating function approach. Consequently, efficient recursive expressions of low computational cost are determined. Typical numerical experiments are included to illustrate the credibility of the proposed mechanism in the context of different QoS grades for various network traffic classes. This model, therefore, can be used as a powerful tool to provide a required grade of service to a particular class of traffic in any heterogeneous networks.

Este trabalho aborda o problema de programação de tarefas, a partir de um caso específico, conhecido como Flow Shop com buffer zero. O problema consiste em programar n tarefas em m máquinas no ambiente Flow Shop permutacional. Com o aumento do nível de exigência dos clientes, pesquisas que buscam o atendimento das datas de entrega têm se tornado de extrema importância em ambientes de manufatura. Este trabalho analisa o problema de minimização do atraso total no ambiente Flow Shop onde não existe a possibilidade de armazenagem das tarefas entre estágios de produção sucessivos (buffer zero), tendo como consequência o bloqueio de máquinas. A Heurística Evolutiva Clustering Search foi proposta e analisada para a obtenção de soluções de altíssima qualidade para o problema. Finalmente, uma extensa experimentação computacional foi realizada. Quando comparado com o melhor método reportado na literatura, o método proposto apresentou qualidade superior. / This work deals with the Flow Shop scheduling problem. The objective is scheduling n jobs on m machines in the Permutation Flow Shop environment. With the increasing customer demand level, researches that aims the attendance of due dates have become extremely important in manufacturing process. This work studies the total tardiness minimization problem in the flow shop environment where there is no buffer storage between machines, resulting in the machine block. The Heuristic Evolutionary Clustering Search was proposed and analyzed to obtain high quality solutions to the problem. Finally, an extensive computational experiment was performed. When compared to the best method reported in the literature, the proposed method showed high quality.

O modelo de memória visuoespacial de Logie integra de forma coerente uma grande quantidade de dados experimentais, contudo tem dificuldades em explicar os efeitos de informações visuais irrelevantes, tal como o Ruído Visual Dinâmico (RVD). O RVD interfere em memórias criadas a partir de imagens mentais, mas tem efeito menos consistente nas tarefas de memória visual. Uma das suposições para a ausência do efeito do RVD em tarefas de memória visual é que os estímulos visuais são codificados inicialmente, por um curto intervalo de tempo, em uma memória visual pré-semântica e, em seguida, armazenados em uma memória semântica mais estável, não acessível à informação visual irrelevante. Neste estudo avaliamos o efeito do RVD sobre o desempenho em tarefas de memória com estímulos com diferentes níveis de nomeabilidade. Nossa suposição era que estímulos mais facilmente nomeáveis seriam mais rapidamente codificados em termos semânticos, e portanto ficariam menos tempo expostos aos efeitos do RVD. Matrizes do Visual Patterns Test, classificadas em função da nomeabilidade, foram utilizadas como estímulos em tarefas de memória de reconhecimento (Exp. 1), de recordação (Exp. 2) e de recordação baseada em dicas verbais (Exp.3). O efeito do RVD foi contrastado com o efeito de um Ruído Visual Estático (RVE) no Exp. 1 e com uma situação sem ruído nos Exp. 2 e 3. A carga de memória, estimada pela complexidade das matrizes memorizadas, foi manipulada nos Exps. 1 e 2. No Exp. 1 o RVD prejudica o desempenho apenas dos estímulos de baixa nomeabilidade. No Exp. 2 a presença do ruído é mais prejudicial nas provas com estímulo de baixa nomeabilidade, sendo que o desempenho é o mesmo nas provas com RVD e com o RVE. A interação entre o tipo de interferência e a carga de memória mostra que a presença do ruído interfere mais nas provas com maior carga de memória. No experimento 3, a recordação baseada em dicas não foi afetada pela presença da interferência visual. Nossos resultados sugerem, em termos metodológicos, que as técnicas de interferência visual irrelevante, tanto o RVD como o RVE, embora úteis no estudo da memória visuoespacial, apresentam algumas questões que permanecem por serem melhor determinadas, assim como o papel da nomeabilidade dos estímulos visuais. Em termos da estrutura da memória de trabalho visuoespacial nossos resultados sugerem a necessidade de um componente no qual estímulos visuais são codificados em uma memória visual pré-semântica acessível a estímulos do ambiente, portanto a necessidade de um visual buffer. / Logies visuospatial memory model coherently integrates a large amount of experimental data, however, it has difficulties explaining the effects of irrelevant visual information, such as Dynamic Visual Noise (DVN). DVN interferes with memories created from mental images, but has less consistent effects on visual memory tasks. One assumption for the lack of DVN effect on visual memory is that the visual stimuli are initially coded, for a short time, at a pre-semantic visual memory and then stored in a semantic memory more stable, not accessible to irrelevant visual information. We evaluated DVN effect on performance in memory tasks using stimuli with different nameability levels. Our assumption was that most readily nameable stimuli would be faster encoded in semantic terms, and therefore would be less time exposed to the DVN effects. Visual Patterns Test matrices, classified according to nameability, were used as stimuli in recognition (Exp. 1), recall (Exp. 2) and recall based on verbal cues (Exp.3) memory tasks. DVN effect was contrasted with Static Visual Noise (SVN) effect in Exp. 1 and to a situation without noise in Exps. 2 and 3. Memory load, estimated by the complexity of stored matrices, was manipulated in Exps. 1 and 2. In Exp. 1 DVN impairs performance only with low nameability stimuli. At Exp. 2 the noise is more damaging with low nameability stimulus and the performance is the same in trials with DVN and SVN. The interaction between interference type and memory load shows that the noise interferes more in trials with greater memory load. Our results suggest, in methodological terms, that irrelevant visual interference techniques, both DVN and SVN, although useful in visuospatial memory study, have some issues that remain to be better determined, as well as the role of visual stimuli nameability. In terms of visuospatial working memory structure our results suggest the need for a component in which visual stimuli are encoded in a pre-semantic visual memory accessible to environmental stimuli, thus the need for a visual buffer.

A regulação e supervisão do sistema financeiro sempre foram motivos de apreensão por parte das principais autoridades econômicas mundiais. A globalização, o processo de liberalização financeira e a consequente interconexão econômica entre países maximizaram o risco sistêmico, aumentando a necessidade de marco regulatório e fiscalização mais eficientes. Assim, com a eclosão da crise norte-americana em 2008, o G-20 começou a atuar de forma mais ativa em prol da manutenção da higidez do sistema financeiro mundial. Para os bancos, o G-20 instruiu as principais instituições reguladoras como o Fundo Monetário Internacional, o Conselho de Estabilidade Financeira e o Comitê de Basileia (BCBS) a desenvolverem recomendações a fim de se solucionar o considerado principal problema da regulação dos mercados, o fato destes atualmente serem pró-cíclicos. Diante de tal cenário, em dezembro de 2009, o Comitê publicou um documento que considerou uma série de medidas a fim de solucionar tal problema, entre estas estava a inclusão do buffer de capital contracíclicodo novo marco regulatório proposto pelo Comitê, o Basileia III. O intuito do presente estudo é estudar esse buffer e analisar sua aplicabilidade no sistema bancário brasileiro e, porventura, sugerir metodologias alternativas de cálculo. / The regulation and supervision of the financial system have always been cause for concern on the part of major global economic authorities. Globalization, the process of financial liberalization and consequent economic interconnection between countries maximized systemic risk, increasing the need for a more efficient regulation. Thus, with the outbreak of the American crisis in 2008, the G-20 began to act more actively in favor of maintaining the health of the global financial system. For banks, the G-20 instructed the main regulatory institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Stability Board and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) to develop recommendations to be considered to solve the main problem of market regulation, the fact these currently being pro-cyclical. Faced with this scenario, in December 2009, the Committee published a document which considered a number of measures in order to solve this problem, among these was the inclusion of the counter-cyclical capital buffer of the new regulatory framework proposed by the Committee, the Basel III. The aim of this study is to study this buffer and analyze their applicability in the Brazilian banking system and perhaps suggest alternative methods of calculation.

Este trabalho aborda o problema de programação de tarefas, a partir de um caso específico, conhecido como Flow Shop com buffer zero. O problema consiste em programar n tarefas em m máquinas no ambiente Flow Shop permutacional. Com o aumento do nível de exigência dos clientes, pesquisas que buscam o atendimento das datas de entrega têm se tornado de extrema importância em ambientes de manufatura. Este trabalho analisa o problema de minimização do atraso total no ambiente Flow Shop onde não existe a possibilidade de armazenagem das tarefas entre estágios de produção sucessivos (buffer zero), tendo como consequência o bloqueio de máquinas. A Heurística Evolutiva Clustering Search foi proposta e analisada para a obtenção de soluções de altíssima qualidade para o problema. Finalmente, uma extensa experimentação computacional foi realizada. Quando comparado com o melhor método reportado na literatura, o método proposto apresentou qualidade superior. / This work deals with the Flow Shop scheduling problem. The objective is scheduling n jobs on m machines in the Permutation Flow Shop environment. With the increasing customer demand level, researches that aims the attendance of due dates have become extremely important in manufacturing process. This work studies the total tardiness minimization problem in the flow shop environment where there is no buffer storage between machines, resulting in the machine block. The Heuristic Evolutionary Clustering Search was proposed and analyzed to obtain high quality solutions to the problem. Finally, an extensive computational experiment was performed. When compared to the best method reported in the literature, the proposed method showed high quality.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-94).