The aim of this study is to explore what cultural differences Swedish business negotiators perceive and how they adapt and/or manage the differences.

Cow cockle (Vaccaria hispanica [P. Mill.] Rauschert) is a summer annual species introduced to North America from Europe. It has been investigated as a potential crop for the Canadian prairies because of its ultra–fine starch, cyclo–peptides, and saponins. However, cow cockle has a long history of being a weed in Canada and may need additional scrutiny of its weediness potential before initiating commercial production. In addition, cultivating poorly domesticated species may lead to further environmental and weed management risks; hence, an understanding of the domestication status is required. The objectives of this research were to evaluate available cow cockle germplasm i) to identify populations that are best adapted to cultivation as well as the traits responsible for such adaptation, ii) to determine seed dormancy levels in cow cockle populations and to determine how temperature and light affect seed dormancy and germination, and iii) to determine whether cow cockle populations are persistent and form a seed bank. A total of 15 cultivated, weedy, and wild cow cockle populations from different parts of the world were compared for agro–morphological, seed dormancy and seed persistence characters from 2009 to 2011. In the field persistence study, two populations including weedy (Scott weedy) and cultivated (Scott) lines were included. Cluster analysis revealed three main groups among the populations based on the traits studied. Physiological maturity, seed size, plant height and seed yield differed most among populations. The cultivated populations, Pink Beauty, Turkey, PB–87, Scott and a weedy population, UMan–89 had higher seed yield, larger seeds, and greater biomass compared to the other populations. Although weedy populations showed some adaptation to cultivation, characters relating to plant architecture, seed size and yield suggested a weedy habit. Freshly matured seeds of all the populations showed high levels of primary conditional dormancy except “Mongolia”. At optimum temperature conditions for germination (10 C), the effect of temperature regime (alternating and constant) and light on seed dormancy were insignificant. The variation in optimum temperature, light, and their interactions among the cow cockle populations may be due to the plants evolving to adapt to their local environments. In the field persistence study, the weedy population had higher seedling emergence at two out of three locations and a larger residual seed bank at all the locations. Despite the differences in seed persistence between the populations, considerable numbers of seed of both weedy and cultivated lines were recovered from the soil seed bank at the end of the study. This concurs with the results of the laboratory persistence study, as both the populations had greater seed longevity (p50 values > 50 days) which suggests a field persistence of over three years. In conclusion, higher seed yield, larger seeds, and greater biomass in cultivated populations may result from certain pre–adaptation towards domestication, which may have been acquired during the process of pre–domestication cultivation. From a domestication perspective, if cow cockle were grown as a crop, the conditional dormancy may not be considered a barrier to domestication and can be viewed as a physiological mechanism to avoid germination at harvest. The major concern in cow cockle domestication would be seed persistence, as it can form a reasonably long–term seed bank. This may pose some concerns for the production of cow cockle as a crop in the Canadian Prairies. The current research suggests that cow cockle populations from Canada, although they showed some adaptation to cultivation; are largely weedy and can be considered as variants of an early introduced species which might have evolved to adapt to non–native conditions.

This study investigates perceptual effects of discharge rate adaptation in the auditory-nerve fibers. Discrimination tests showed that brief synthetic stimuli with stationary formants and periodic source were better discriminated when they had an abrupt as opposed to a gradual onset (non-adapted vs adapted condition). This effect was not observed for corresponding stimuli with noise source. Discrimination among synthetic /da/ stimuli (abrupt onsets) was worse than among /ad/ stimuli when the respective onset and offset frequencies of the second formant (F2) were varied. Similar results were obtained for /ba/ and /ab/. The low discrimination rate in consonant-vowel stimuli (CV) was explained in terms of sensory smearing of spectral information due to rapid formant transitions. Discrimination improved when the smearing effect was reduced by holding the onset formant pattern over a certain period of time of about 1 6ms. The relatively high discrimination score for the VC stimuli was explained by residual masking; extending the VC offset did not improve discrimination. Discrimination of place of articulation in CV syllables was examined in the light of sensory smearing. Two continua of /bu-du/ and /ba-da/ utterances were used in discrimination and identification experiments. It was observed that the discrimination peak for /Cu/ was displaced from the /b/-/d/ boundary, towards a flat F2 transition, suggesting that optimal place discrimination is related to the stability of the auditory representations generated at onset. This result is discussed in relation to current views of categorical perception. / För att köpa boken skicka en beställning till exp@ling.su.se/ To order the book send an e-mail to exp@ling.su.se

The Sandman is a feature-length screenplay adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s short story "Der Sandmann." The screenplay re-imagines the story as a contemporary horror film with surrealist underpinnings. The script draws heavily on the gothic tradition. It also draws on the German Romantic tradition out of which Hoffmann writes. The theoretical structure of the screenplay owes a great deal to Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the "uncanny" and concerning the Oedipus complex, the repetition-compulsion, and the death-drive. I do not hold slavishly to these theories so much as use them as points of departure. The story: the young Nathan discovers one day that the Sandman is not a fairytale but a very real creature seemingly bent on his destruction. After abusing Nathan and causing the death of his Father, the Sandman disappears, only to return as Nathan moves away from home to begin his studies at university. Nathan, already haunted by the events of his childhood, spirals further and further into madness. The screenplay is followed by two informal essays concerning the approach taken to the construction of the text.

This essay is a comparative anlysis of ”Paycheck”, ”The Minority Report” and ”Adjustment Team” by Philip K. Dick and their film adaptations, Paycheck,  Minority Report and The Adjustment Bureau. I am primarily interested in the political message of the original stories and how it is affected in the process of transmediation into film. The political message is clearly reflected in the way the protagonists’ free will relates to the bigger system of power. This relationship can either problematize the protagonist’s struggle, forcing him to sacrifice something, or simplify the political dimension by letting him overcome every single obstacle. The extent of the political message is enhanced by its allegorical meaning, especially when related to the contemporary reality. Therefore, I will investigate how the texts and films can be read allegorically and what impact the process of adaptation has on the allegories. I will use Fredric Jameson’s approach to allegory that treats it as a method of interpretation and a tool of mediation and understanding the diversity of human experience. I argue that the allegorical element functions rather independently of the literal political message. When some allegorical interpretations are lost, new ones, connected to the sociocultural context of the adaptation are created. All three adaptations reduce the scope of the political message found in the original texts, opting for less reflective entertainment or even action cinema. Nevertheless, on the allegorical level, they offer new interpretations that echo their updated sociocultural conditions. Keywords: Philip K. Dick; Political Message; Allegory; Adaptation

GoCity is designed to provide city visitors with up-to-date and context-aware information while they are exploring a city using Android mobile phones. This thesis not only introduces the design and analysis of GoCity, but also discusses four problems in leveraging three concepts—context-awareness, self-adaptation, and usability—in current mobile application design. First, few contexts other than location and time have been used in actual mobile applications. Second, there is no clear classification of context information for mobile application design. Third, mobile application designers lack systematic mechanisms to address sensing and monitoring requirements under changing context situations. This is crucial for effective self-adaptation. Fourth, most mobile applications have low usability due to poor user interface (UI) design. The model proposed in this thesis addresses these issues by (i) supporting diverse context dimensions, (ii) monitoring context changes continuously and tailoring the application behavior according to these changes, and (iii) improving UI design using selected usability methods. In addition, this thesis proposes two classifications of context information for mobile applications: source-based classification—personal context, mobile device context, and environmental context; and property-based classification—static context and dynamic context. The combination of these two classifications helps determine the observed context and its polling rate—the rate at which the context is collected—effectively. A distinctive feature of GoCity is that it supports two interaction modes—static mode and dynamic mode. In static mode, the application generates results only after the user sends the request to it. In other words, it does not actively generate results for users. In contrast, in the dynamic mode, the application continuously updates results even if the user does not send any request to it. The notion of an autonomic element (AE) is used for the dynamic mode to make GoCity self-adaptive. The polling rates on different contexts are also handled differently in the dynamic mode because of the differences among context properties. In addition, GoCity is composed of, but not limited to, four sub-applications. Each sub-application employs a variety of context information and can be implemented as an independent mobile application. Regarding usability, GoCity focuses on providing a simple and clear user interface as well as supporting user expectations for personalization. An experiment which involves a person visiting the city of Victoria was conducted to evaluate GoCity. In this evaluation, three determining factors of usability were employed to qualitatively and quantitatively assess GoCity. In addition, the static mode and dynamic mode were evaluated separately. / Graduate

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This study examines the film adaptations of six English novels; Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Tess, Jude, A Room with a View and A Passage to India. Through textual analysis of both the films and the original novels it demonstrates that many of the changes which occur in the transition between media are explicable in terms of differences between film and literary genres. Most previous writing on adaptation has tended to explain such changes as a consequence of film and literature having different signifying or expressive capacities. Whilst this study does not argue that literary styles and devices have necessary or inevitable equivalents in film form, it does propose that filmmakers can find satisfying and comprehensible correlatives for written idioms, and that differences between novels and their adaptations are not therefore always best understood as arising from failures in the mechanics of translation. In its consideration of what each film alters and omits this study finds compelling evidence that they are reshaped in particularly genre-related ways. This takes the form both of alterations that place an adaptation more comfortably in a particular fihn genre than the original story materials might allow, and changes which diminish or elide the operation of a literary genre to which the original novel belongs or relates. Sense and Sensibility, Emma and A Room with a View are discussed in terms of how they become romantic comedies, while the Hardy adaptations are the occasion of most of the original melodrama being omitted. Other genres and modes which pose problems and questions in adaptation - including tragedy, the didactic and the modern - are also examined. Additionally, this study will consider the political contexts and conditions of production of the novels and their adaptations as well as examining the extent to which the films may be said to be authored.

Background: Rapid palatal expanders have a screw that covers the palate and may affect speech. Methods: RPEs were treatment planned for 22 patients. Speech recordings were completed at 6 different time points. Analysis for speech acceptability, /i/ vowel formants, and /s/ and /∫/ fricative spectra were analyzed. Results: When the appliance was inserted, speech acceptability deteriorated but improved over time. For vowel /i/, the first formant increased and second formant decreased. For fricatives (/s/, /∫/), low to high frequency ratios indicated that the sounds were distorted when the appliance was inserted. The formants and ratios returned to normal levels over time. Examination of the four spectral moments found the spectral mean decreased, standard deviation increased, skewness became more positive, and kurtosis decreased at appliance insertion. Repeated measures ANOVAs found significant effects for time for all acoustic measures. Conclusions: Speech was altered when the appliance was inserted, but improved over time.

The ‘good genes’ model of sexual selection predicts that sexual and natural selection should act concordantly. However sexual selection can favour alleles in males that are costly when expressed in daughters, placing the two in opposition. The relationship between natural and sexual selection depends on the nature of genetic variation for fitness. Laboratory adaptation may deplete sexually concordant fitness variation, overestimating sexually antagonistic variation and obscuring good genes. I investigated sire-offspring fitness correlations in Drosophila melanogaster populations expected to differ in their levels of sexually concordant fitness variation. In maladapted populations, successful sires produced fitter daughters than unsuccessful sires; this pattern was reversed in adapted populations. Several generations later, successful sires in both population types produced lower fitness daughters than unsuccessful sires, consistent with predictions. However, subsequent generations revealed no effect of sire status on daughter fitness, highlighting the difficulty in testing predictions on the evolutionary dynamics of fitness heritability.