Scare is the number of the altruistic pupils’ behaviour investigations. Lithuanian researchers V.Aramaviciute, E.Martisauskiene, O.Tijuniene analyse altruism phenomenon mostly in the spiritual values’ context of the young people; at the same time other scientists tend to analyse the phenomenon in its theoretical level (C.Kalenda, V.Kasparaviciene, S.Lileikis, T.Nilstun, C.D.Batson, T.H.Murray et al). Pupils’ psychosocial adaptation is more interesting in the initial education stage (R.Zukauskiene, F.Ivanauskiene, E.Griniene, E.p.Zambaceviciene, K.Ignataviciene et al), in the case of the senior forms pupils peculiarities of their psychosocial desadaptation is more interesting (R.Zukauskiene, G.Valickas, A.Juodraitis et al). I failed to find some researches on the altruist behaviour of the senior forms pupils as well as on their psychosocial adaptation. Subject of the investigation: psychosocial adaptation of the senior forms pupils and expression of their altruist behaviour. Aim of investigation: to analyse peculiarities of psychosocial adaptation of the senior forms pupils, altruist behaviour expressions and links between them. Tasks of the investigation: 1) To find out character of psychosocial adaptation of the senior forms pupils in different situations; 2) To find altruist behaviour occurrences through social provocation and to perform comparative analysis of the altruist behaviour, learnt through different methods; 3) To find out how demographic factors (gender, age... [to full text]

Restored plant populations frequently fail to establish or don’t persist over short to intermediate periods of time. These unsuccessful restoration attempts may be the result of strong selection and a high degree of maladaptation within restored populations. There are various potential evolutionary causes of maladaptation within restored systems, which may ultimately lead to extirpation. Here, I investigated whether current restoration practises systematically lead to stronger selection and a greater magnitude of maladaptation, by comparing restored prairie populations of Monarda fistulosa to naturally occurring populations. Phenotypic selection and maladaptation analyses were conducted on nine ecologically important traits in three restored and three natural tall grass prairie populations. Significant differences in selection and maladaptation were detected among the six study populations; however there was no significant difference between restored and natural populations. The lack of difference may indicate that the restored populations are well adapted to their environment or that natural populations are less well adapted than assumed.

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Workload adaptation is a performance management process in which an autonomic database management system (DBMS) efficiently makes use of its resources by filtering or controlling the workload presented to it in order to meet its Service Level Objectives (SLOs). It is a challenge to adapt multiple workloads with complex resource requirements towards their performance goals while taking their business importance into account. This thesis studies approaches and techniques for workload adaptation. First we build a general framework for workload adaptation in autonomic DBMSs, which is composed of two processes, namely workload detection and workload control. The processes are in turn made up of four functional components - workload characterization, performance modeling, workload control, and system monitoring. We then implement a query scheduler that performs workload adaptation in a DBMS, as the test bed to prove the effectiveness of the framework. The query scheduler manages multiple classes of queries to meet their performance goals by allocating DBMS resources through admission control in the presence of workload fluctuation. The resource allocation plan is derived by maximizing the objective function that encapsulates the performance goals of all classes and their importance to the business. First-principle performance models are used to predict the performance under the new resource allocation plan. Experiments with IBM® DB2® are conducted to show the effectiveness of the framework. The effectiveness of the workload adaptation depends on the accuracy of the performance prediction. Finally we introduce a tracking filter (Kalman filter) to improve the accuracy of the performance prediction. Experimental results show that the approach is able to reduce the number of unpredicted SLO violations and prediction errors. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2008-01-28 21:22:25.139

In May 2003, the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was identified in Alberta, and the impact was immediately devastating on farmers and rural communities across Canada. Not only were farmers faced by the impacts of BSE, they were also contending with record low farm incomes, changing commodity prices, and overall rural depopulation. One grassroots adaptation to this rural crisis is the adoption of Holistic Management (HM) by farmers in western Canada. Although growing in popularity, HM has yet to be systematically assessed in the literature. The overall objectives of this study were to characterize HM; to assess to what degree it simultaneously addresses environmental, economic, and social priorities; to examine the impacts caused by the BSE crisis on HM and non-HM producers; and to explore the potential of HM for adapting and dealing with future crises. This was carried out through a questionnaire that was mailed to 784 HM producers across western Canada. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of survey data showed that HM allowed producers to systematically address all three pillars of sustainability (environment, economic, and social). In particular, the social aspect emphasized in the practice of HM was unique compared to other approaches to agricultural sustainability that focus on economic and/or environmental priorities. When comparing HM producers to non HM producers, the HM producers were less impacted by the BSE crisis. Indeed, holistic managers described how the occurrence of BSE and subsequent consequences to the entire industry actually made them more resilient. The key factors that helped HM producers adapt to the BSE crisis were community involvement, within the family and larger community, and farm management. New farm practices, such as rotational grazing, and the HM clubs to support these new farm innovations/practices also aided producers in adapting to the BSE crisis. The results of this study demonstrate the value of alternative community based approaches that address agricultural challenges in a truly holistic and sustainable manner.

The human vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is known to undergo major plastic modification in coping with sensory conflict brought about by optical reversing prisms. The first phase of this study proposes a simple model to account for this modifiability in terms of known neurophysiology. To study the phenomenon further two series of experiments were conducted on long-term vision-reversed cats. For this a new computer technique was developed to analyse oculomotor responses. The first series studied the time course and amplitude dependence of adaptation; the second, the frequency response of the fully adapted system. The adaptive process exhibited strict limitations, the functional effectiveness of which is quantitatively defined. The findings as a whole suggest that adaptive mechanisms other than the VOR are at play and that far more complex interactions exist between vestibulo- and visual-motor mechanisms than originally envisaged.

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AIM: The primary purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the pattern of changes to accommodation and phoria when pre-presbyopic individuals perform near work for 20 minutes with +2D lenses. In addition, the thesis also investigates the effect of the accommodative vergence cross-link (AV/A) and age on binocular adaptation to addition lenses. METHODS: Accommodation was measured using the PowerRefractor (Multichannel Systems, Germany) and phoria was measured using the modified Thorington Technique. Twenty four pre-presbyopic and emmetropic individuals (11 adults and 13 children) participated in the study. All participants fixated a near target at a distance of 33 cm for 20 minutes with +2D (lens condition) and without (no lens condition) +2D addition lenses. Binocular and monocular changes in accommodation and near phoria were measured at the outset and at 3, 6, 9, 15 and 20 minute intervals. RESULTS: Effect of +2D lenses on accommodation and phoria: The emmetropic adult participants exhibited lag of accommodation under the no lens condition (binocular: 0.51 ?? 0.12D; monocular: 0.64 ?? 0.15D) that were eliminated (under monocular viewing) and reversed (exceeded demand by 0.51 ?? 0.11 D under binocular viewing condition) with the addition of +2D lenses. The near phoria showed a significant increase towards exophoria by 6 ?? 0.56 ???D upon introduction of +2D lenses. Sustained near viewing with +2 D lenses resulted in significant reduction of the binocular focus alone (not monocular focus) after 3 minutes of binocular viewing (magnitude of reduction: 0.24D; P<0.01). The exophoria also showed a concomitant reduction after 3 minutes of fixation at the near task (Magnitude of reduction: 3.6 ?? 0.6 ???D; P<0.001). The magnitude and rate of vergence adaptation, determined using an exponential function, was found to be 4.6 ?? 0.21 ???D and 2.12 minutes respectively for the emmetropic adult participants. Effect of age on vergence adaptation: A pattern of significant reduction in phoria and binocular focus similar to the adult participants was observed in young children. Analysis of the vergence adaptation curves in the two age groups did not show any significant difference in both the magnitude as well as the rate of phoria adaptation within the age range tested (Magnitude of adaptation - Adults: 4.65 ???D; Children: 4.51 ???D; P > 0.05; Time constants -Adults: 2.12 minutes: Children: 1.53 minutes, P > 0.05). Effect of AV/A ratio on vergence adaptation: The stimulus (St-AV/A) and the response AV/A (R-AV/A) ratios were determined and the participants were divided into two groups (low and high AV/A ratio) under both the conditions. The result indicated that, under both testing conditions (stimulus and response AV/A), the individuals with higher AV/A ratios demonstrated greater magnitudes of vergence adaptation than those individuals with lower ratios (Magnitude of adaptation: Low St-AV/A = 4.12 ???D; Low R-AV/A= 4.25???D; High St-AV/A = 4.88 ???D; High R-AV/A = 4.65???D; P<0.05) CONCLUSIONS: Introduction of near addition lenses initiated an increase in exophoria and convergence driven accommodation. Vergence adaptation occurred after 3 minutes of binocular viewing thus reducing exophoria and convergence driven accommodation. The magnitude and completeness of phoria adaptation were seen to depend on an individuals AV/A ratio with greater magnitude and incomplete adaptation observed in participants with higher AV/A ratios. Age, within the limits of the study did not appear to influence phoria adaptation with near addition lenses.

Ecotourism is a development strategy for many local communities in and around protected areas. Its ability to improve tourism opportunities, conservation and livelihoods is supported by many ecotourism studies. Such communities often employ diverse livelihood strategies to reduce risk and survive. As such, ecotourism becomes an integral part of a portfolio of livelihoods and assist with livelihood diversification. However, in some locales climate change is making livelihoods, including ecotourism vulnerable, due to its impacts on protected areas and their associated biodiversity. Climate change creates vulnerability as well as opportunities for adaptation. Climate change adaptation has become important in ensuring tourism sustainability, as it is critical in reducing the vulnerability of tourism. However, the literature supplies only limited knowledge on such adaptation at the local level. This may undermine ecotourism???s prospects in improving local livelihoods and conservation. There is a need to understand the lived and embodied everyday experiences of local communities who are experiencing tourism within the context of climate change. In particular, this research needs to capture local knowledge and understanding of climate change, and local efforts at adaptation. In understanding adaptation at the local level, it is important to understand how households construct their livelihoods, including the role of ecotourism. This study examined local perceptions and lived experience in sustainable ecotourism development as a livelihood adaptation to climate change in a case study site in Ghana. This examination and subsequent understanding provided a process for integrating local knowledge into livelihood adaptation as communities become more vulnerable to future climate change that will adversely affect traditional patterns of livelihoods. The study used the vulnerability-based approach which assessed vulnerability of households??? livelihoods to climate change and adaptations. Mognori Eco-Village in Ghana was used a case because of its geographic location in the savannah and experience of climate change as well as households` involvement in ecotourism activities. In focusing on lived experience, the study was guided by the philosophical ideas of Gadamer, as it lends itself particularly well for exploring the complexities and understanding of households??? lived experience with climate change. It also informed the recruitment of 22 households, use of conversation interviews and a focus group as well as data interpretation. The study found four main underlying essences that explain households??? lived experience with climate change: 1) adopting different livelihood strategies; 2) experiencing the impacts of ecotourism on assets and activities; 3) experiencing current vulnerability conditions and developing adaptation strategies; and, 4) sustaining ecotourism by building future adaptation strategies. The first essence suggests strategies such as intensification/extensification, livelihood diversification and migration as broad adaptations for survival. The second essence supports the use of ecotourism as a form of livelihood diversification that complements other non-ecotourism activities. The third essence describes the vulnerability to climate change the local adaptations use to reduce vulnerability. The last essence suggests local agency in overcoming adaptation constraints to improve adaptive capacity to sustain ecotourism as an adaptation strategy to climate change. The study found that local adaptive capacity exists to support ecotourism. However, the capability of the local community is limited and recommendations are made for government and other stakeholders to further support the local adaptation that is underway.