Individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may be taught novel skills using various prompting strategies. Some studies have compared effective prompting procedures for these learners. Results have shown that no single procedure has been effective for all learners. Instead, efficiency of each response prompt type varied across participants. Some research suggests that identifying an individual’s preference may help identify an effective treatment. However, it is unknown if response prompt preference corresponds with effectiveness. Thus, the purpose of the present study is to evaluate whether preference corresponds with the most effective response prompt in children with ASD.

The purpose of this study is to explore the management of expansion strategy in the hotel industry using the control approach as presented in the literature of organizational theory. This integration illustrates that the management of risk in expansion strategy is intertwined with control. The question “How does control intervene in the management of risk in expansion strategy?” was the operationalization of the overarching question of strategy and structure. The answers to this question are summarized in a framework and four propositions. The contribution of this work to academia is threefold. First, this work provides a detailed, theories-driven documentation about how expansion strategies are conducted in the international hotel context. Second, this research integrates three different fields of research and directs to multiple new research tracks in both fields of strategic management and organization theory. Third, this study offers a new approach to measure the alignment between strategy and structure. From a managerial standpoint, this research offers guidance for the comprehension of the determinants of risk in the expansion strategy for international hotel chains. / Ph. D.

Optimal input design concerns the design of an input sequence to maximize the information retrieved from an experiment. The design of the input sequence is performed by optimizing a cost function related to the intended model application. Several approaches to input design have been proposed, with results mainly on linear models. Under the linear assumption of the model structure, the input design problem can be solved in the frequency domain, where the corresponding spectrum is optimized subject to power constraints. However, the optimization of the input spectrum using frequency domain techniques cannot include time-domain amplitude constraints, which could arise due to practical or safety reasons. In this thesis, a new input design method for nonlinear models is introduced. The method considers the optimization of an input sequence as a realization of the stationary Markov process with finite memory. Assuming a finite set of possible values for the input, the feasible set of stationary processes can be described using graph theory, where de Bruijn graphs can be employed to describe the process. By using de Bruijn graphs, we can express any element in the set of stationary processes as a convex combination of the measures associated with the extreme points of the set. Therefore, by a suitable choice of the cost function, the resulting optimization problem is convex even for nonlinear models. In addition, since the input is restricted to a finite set of values, the proposed input design method can naturally handle amplitude constraints. The thesis considers a theoretical discussion of the proposed input design method for identification of nonlinear output error and nonlinear state space models. In addition, this thesis includes practical applications of the method to solve problems arising in wireless communications, where an estimate of the communication channel with quantized data is required, and application oriented closed-loop experiment design, where quality constraints on the identified parameters must be satisfied when performing the identification step. / <p>QC 20141110</p>

<p>  </p> <p>Among the factors influencing consumer innovation acceptance in the context of health, interpersonal communication is highly understudied. This project focuses on one dimension of interpersonal communication by exploring how attitudinal differences between communicators influence information sharing. Two studies are reported using a diffusion chain framework to explore the effects of attitude strength on the amount and type of information shared about an innovation. Study 1 identified a tendency for those with greater certainty to share more than those without certain attitudes. There was also a tendency for those with unfavorable attitudes and those with extreme attitudes to share a greater proportion of attitudinally consistent information. These findings were not found to be significant. Study 2 failed to support the hypotheses that the first chain member’s attitude or message influences the amount or type of information shared by the second chain member. Results suggest that the relationship between attitudes and information sharing may be more complex than suggested by previous research. </p>

The increasing pollution of the aquatic environment by cadmium is a potentially severe problem and techniques are needed to document the effect of the metal. To investigate the flux of this metal through a laboratory food chain, algae were grown in various cadmium concentrations for subsequent use as contaminated food for mussels. The results showed that in order to make valid deductions, more information about chemical mechanisms and background ecophysiological data is needed, otherwise accumulation reports may become misleading. It was found that the best growth and accumulation results were achieved by harvesting algae from a zinc deficient media containing 7 μmole dm-3 cadmium and at a particular life cycle phase. Two uptake mechanisms are proposed. These "contaminated" algae were fed to mussels under different accumulation regimes. The metal gain and loss were determined and compared to a "baseline" dry body weight which had been calculated from a shell length-body weight relationship. Cadmium accumulation took place in the mussels and after some initial delay, could be correlated to weight loss. Such a weight loss was due to pathological and biochemical changes in the mussels. It was shown that the toxic effect of cadmium could be determined much earlier by the presence of special proteins. The elutant profiles of the gel chromatography study showed the production of metal binding protein as well as a spill over of cadmium into the enzyme pool, caused by a higher uptake than elimination rate. Cadmium on metal binding protein and in the enzyme pool could be related to the poisoning effect of the metal and a pollution history for the mussels identified. The characteristics of the metal binding protein were found to be very similar to those reported for metallothionein and had an approximate molecular weight of 10 600 daltons.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze juvenile court data using Markov Chains. A computer program was generalized with a single array orientation for analyzing realizations of a Markov Chain to the kth order within machine limitations. The data used in this paper were gathered by the Juvenile Court of the State of Utah for administrative purposes and limited to District II. The results from the paper, "Statistical Inference About Markov Chains" by Anderson and Goodman, were applied for testing hypotheses. The paper is divided into five chapters: introduction, statistical background, methodology, analysis and summary, conclusions.

Reliable operation of every day use computing system, from simple coffee machines to complex flight controller system in an aircraft, is necessary to save time, money, and in some cases lives. System testing can check for the presence of unwanted execution but cannot guarantee the absence of such. Probabilistic model checking techniques have demonstrated significant potential in verifying performance and reliability of various systems whose execution are defined with likelihood. However, its inability to scale limits its applicability in practice. This thesis presents a new model checker, STAMINA, with efficient and scalable model truncation for probabilistic verification. STAMINA uses a novel model reduction technique generating a finite state representations of large systems that are amenable to existing probabilistic model checking techniques. The proposed method is evaluated on several benchmark examples. Comparisons with another state-of-art tool demonstrates both accuracy and efficiency of the presented method.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第19004号 / 工博第4046号 / 新制||工||1623(附属図書館) / 31955 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科分子工学専攻 / (主査)教授 白川 昌宏, 教授 渡辺 宏, 教授 跡見 晴幸 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第21791号 / 工博第4608号 / 新制||工||1718(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科分子工学専攻 / (主査)教授 白川 昌宏, 教授 佐藤 啓文, 教授 跡見 晴幸 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DGAM

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