Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of the single genotype to pruduce multiple phenotypes in response to evironmental conditions. There are many factors affecting phenotypic plasticity. The aim of this thesis is to summarize the current knowledge of phenotypic plasticity of aquatic insects with emphasis on the role of temperature and food availability. The review is complemented by a laboratory experiments designed to investigate the effect of temperature and food availability on growth and development rate of diving beetle Acilius canaliculatus (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae). The results are discussed in the light of the ecological concepts of temperature-size rule and developmental isomorphy.

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of the single genotype to pruduce multiple phenotypes in response to evironmental conditions. There are many factors affecting phenotypic plasticity. The aim of this thesis is to summarize the current knowledge of phenotypic plasticity of aquatic insects with emphasis on the role of temperature and food availability. The review is complemented by a laboratory experiments designed to investigate the effect of temperature and food availability on growth and development rate of diving beetle Acilius canaliculatus (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae). The results are discussed in the light of the ecological concepts of temperature-size rule and developmental isomorphy.

Empirical work investigating children's temporal representations has included investigations of children's awareness of the past, present and future; their understanding of temporal order and their representation of duration. Previous work on children's temporal awareness leads to the question of whether children can access cognitive representations of durations in situations where the temporal aspects of the task are not made directly apparent either in the information given prior to stimulus presentation or in the subsequent question. There is very little evidence to indicate whether these representations might be accessed in the absence of any specific reference to the temporal aspects of the procedure. The empirical work in this thesis focuses on children's developing representation of duration in a procedure that avoids making specific reference to the temporal aspects of the task, in a context more closely analogous to their real world experiences where durations occur in the absence of salient prompts and cues. Results Data from over three hundred children who participated in the seven experiments in this series are encouraging and suggest that by the age of six years children do become able to differentially represent durations of 10 and 25 seconds in a procedure where no explicit reference was made to the temporal aspects of the experience, and the ability to differentially represent durations of 25 and 40 seconds, in this context, emerges later in development, at around eight years of age. 2 Conclusions This series 0 xperiments indicates that by six years of age children are able to represent durations in the absence of explicit reference to the temporal aspect of the task, and they are able to differentially represent durations of 10 and 25 seconds. Around eight years of age they are able to differentially represent durations of 25 and 40 seconds However whilst these findings indicate that children of six years and above may be able to differentially represent durations in this range.the inconsistencies in performance in the series of experiments suggest that the ability may be fragile. Whilst children in this age range are able to demonstrate the ability to code durations the limiting factors on their ability to do so in real world contexts remain unclear. Short abstract. Word count: 363.

This thesis concerns the development of alternate bars under steady state flows. The movable bed is flat at the beginning of the experiment; the bars reach their equilibrium or developed state at the time Td. The thesis has two objectives. The first is to introduce new equations for the geometric characteristics, namely height and length, of alternate bars at the fully developed stage, and to evaluate them against the existing equations. The second objective is to present the results of two series of experiments carried out to characterize the process of development of alternate bars and obtain estimates of their time of development. The data resulting from these experiments are intended as a foundation for future work towards the establishment of a predictive equation for the development time of alternate bars. The new equations for bar height and length rest on dimensional considerations and all the available data. Bars produced under rough turbulent and transitional flows are treated separately. The proposed equations are found to consistently give more accurate estimates of alternate bar dimensions than existing equations. The experiments to quantify the time of development of alternate bars are carried out in the 21 m long, 0.76 m wide sediment transport flume of the Queen’s Coastal Engineering Laboratory. In addition to providing estimates of the time of development of alternate bars, these experiments reveal aspects of the process of development of alternate bars that had not been reported previously. In particular, they show that, all other conditions being the same (including the sediment transport capacity of the initial flow), the more pronounced alternate bars formed under shallower flows develop faster than less pronounced bars formed under deeper flows. The findings of this study highlight the fact that the previously unexplained wide variation in alternate bar dimensions is related to the plotting position of the data point in the alternate bar existence region of Ahmari and da Silva (2011). This study also sheds light on the evolution and development of alternate bars, which establishes a strong foundation for future studies on the topic. / Thesis (Ph.D, Civil Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2014-03-30 16:27:07.025

The aim of this thesis was to try to analyse data available on the potential impact of unrealized transport project (called Baťova dálnice) in Czechoslovakia. The study area selected was limited to area of today´s Czech Republic. The data available were processed in geographic information systems and analysis of accessibility were created for predefined regional centres. Analysis of economic impact on economically active population caused by this project was also created while considering current route of existing main D1 motorway. The results of these analysis were compiled into well-arranged maps. Based on these results a conclusion was made that construction of Bata motorway did not mean such a difference for the accessibility of the regional centres as it could have had if it was routed in a different way. Same problem occurs in the results of the economic impact analysis in which when compared to D1 motorway, Bata motorway did not reach the same values as the D1 did.

Smartphones nowadays are more powerful than ever, which means that the number of animations in apps have increased rapidly. But the way that animations are developed and tweaked to look good has not improved in the same pace. In this thesis the typical workflow when developing animations for apps are investigated. This workflow is then improved upon by developing a prototype capable of configuring animations directly on the mobile device. The improved workflow has the consequence of decreasing development time needed to configure animations while also increasing developer satisfaction. / Smartphones har blivit kraftfullare än någonsin, vilket har gjort att antalet animationer i appar har ökat snabbt. Men sättet som dessa animationer utvecklas och konfigureras på har inte förbättrats lika snabbt. I det här examensarbetet undersöks hur ett typiskt arbetsflöde ser ut vid utveckling av animationer till appar. Det här arbetsflödet förbättras sedan genom att ta fram en prototyp som gör det möjligt att konfigurera animationer direkt på den mobila enheten. Det förbättrade arbetsflödet innebär att utvecklingstiden för att konfigurera animationer sjunker samtidigt som utvecklarna känner sig mer nöjda.

Previous studies of the relationship between egg size and the embryonic development time showed a positive correlation between the two variables at interspecies level, thus offering the idea that the evolution of the latter could be a limiting factor for enlarging the size of eggs during evolution. Some research into interspecies and intraspecific level of reptiles doesn't confirm this correlation. At the same time, the relationship between the development time and egg size is influenced by many factors, such as shifts in ontogenetic stages of the embryo at the time of ablation of eggs, due to temperature and humidity, the presence of embryonic diapause during embryogenesis or synchronization of hatching time, of which the authors of previous studies took no account or filtered out inaccurately. I think that most of these factors can be well controlled in intraspecific studies, but, variation in egg size within species also tends to be small, which prevents a reliable test for correlation. The solution can be to compareclosely related species with high variability in the size of the eggs, in our case the geckos of the genus Paroedura and family Eublepharidae. I eliminated temperature effects by comparing the time of incubation in two equal constant temperatures. The results show that, in this narrower...

Bakgrund: Det finns en rad olika faktorer som påverkar produktutvecklingsprocessen vid ett företag. Isaberg Rapid AB utvecklar, tillverkar och marknadsför en rad produkter inom tre olika produktområden; kontor, verktyg och OEM. Denna studie fokuserar på produktutvecklingsprocesserna inom divisionen för kontorsprodukterna vilken kanske är den mest konkurrentutsatta på företaget. Produkterna som tillhandahålls av divisionen är under hårt tryck från konkurrenter på en global basis och snabba och effektiva produktsläpp är av yttersta vikt för att hävda sig på marknaden. De olika aktiviteterna omkring produktutveckling i kombination med de snabba förändringarna av företagets marknadssituation med nya kundgrupper och ökande konkurrens, har lett fram till vissa specifika ofrånkomliga faktorer som har en stor inverkan på produktutvecklingens effektivitet. Detta resonemang leder sedermera fram till uppsatsens syfte. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är primärt att identifiera, och påvisa samband mellan, faktorer som påverkar utvecklingen av nya produkter vid Isaberg Rapid AB och sekundärt att påvisa brister i hanteringen av dessa. Metod: Syftet har uppfyllts genom att använda en kvalitativ ansats där olika befattningshavare rörande produktutvecklingen på Isaberg Rapid AB har intervjuats. Även observationer har gjorts med avsikten att erhålla en djupare insyn i företagets arbetssätt och ingående funktioner. Referensramens teori och modeller användas för att belysa iakttagelserna i analysen på ett systematiskt sätt och för att förstå syftet. Intervjuerna har utförts enligt en semikonstruerad metod. Utfallet från intervjuerna har sedan analyserats, där fokus i första hand är övergripande, följt av de mer ämnesspecifika frågorna. Slutsatser: Vår studie har visat att genom att förbättra sammansättningen mellan långa och korta projekt med hög resp. låg risk kan projektportföljens strategiska och värdemässiga aspekter förbättras. Produktutvecklingen bör fokuseras på att utnyttja projektportföljen som ett kraftfullt instrument, för att utvecklingen inte ska tendera att styras över till orätta projekt på bekostnad av andra mera rätta projekt. Isaberg Rapid måsta således vara ledande inom produktutveckling, och överglänsa konkurrenterna genom att satsa på ny teknologi och våga ta risker, detta uppenbaras av framgångarna med Duax. Effektivare utveckling uppnås endast genom korrekta resursallokeringar och en snabb utvecklingstid, vilket dock fordrar en väl fungerande produktutvecklingsprocess. Då kan syftet infrias och målet uppnås. / Background: There are a number of different factors, affecting the product development process at a company. Isaberg Rapid AB develops, manufacture and sell products within three different business areas; office, tools and OEM. This essay focuses on the product development process at the office division of the company; perhaps the most competitively pressured division of the company. The products handled by the division are under hard pressure from competitors on a global basis and fast and effective product launches are highly important to maintain the position on the market. The activities associated with product development combined with a changing market situation have led to certain inevitable factors that deeply affect the efficiency of the product development process. These arguments eventually lead up to the purpose of this thesis. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is primarily to identify, and point out connections between, factors affecting the development of new products at Isaberg Rapid AB, and secondary to point out failures in the handling of those. Method: using a qualitative method where different employees concerned with product development activities at the company have been interviewed has fulfilled the purpose. Observations to obtain a deeper company insight have also been performed. Theories and models from the frame of reference have been used to analyze the empirical findings systematically in order to understand the purpose. The interviews have been held in a semi constructed way. The results form the interviews have been analyzed with both a general focus and later on specified to the identified subjects. Conclusions: Our study has shown that the balance of the project portfolio in terms of long and short projects with high and low risk could be improved in terms of value and strategic aspects. Product development should be focused on utilizing the project portfolio as a powerful instrument, in order to avoid that the development tendons to choose a wrong project on behalf of others more right ones. Isaberg Rapid must in this manner leading the product development, and be ahead of its competitors by investing in new technology and be willing of taking risks, that the success with Duax has proven right. Effective product development is achieved by allocating the recourses right and provide for a fast time to market cycle, which however insist on a well-functioned product development. Then can the purpose be fulfilled and the objectives achieved totally.

<p>Bakgrund: Det finns en rad olika faktorer som påverkar produktutvecklingsprocessen vid ett företag. Isaberg Rapid AB utvecklar, tillverkar och marknadsför en rad produkter inom tre olika produktområden; kontor, verktyg och OEM. Denna studie fokuserar på produktutvecklingsprocesserna inom divisionen för kontorsprodukterna vilken kanske är den mest konkurrentutsatta på företaget. Produkterna som tillhandahålls av divisionen är under hårt tryck från konkurrenter på en global basis och snabba och effektiva produktsläpp är av yttersta vikt för att hävda sig på marknaden. De olika aktiviteterna omkring produktutveckling i kombination med de snabba förändringarna av företagets marknadssituation med nya kundgrupper och ökande konkurrens, har lett fram till vissa specifika ofrånkomliga faktorer som har en stor inverkan på produktutvecklingens effektivitet. Detta resonemang leder sedermera fram till uppsatsens syfte.</p><p>Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är primärt att identifiera, och påvisa samband mellan, faktorer som påverkar utvecklingen av nya produkter vid Isaberg Rapid AB och sekundärt att påvisa brister i hanteringen av dessa.</p><p>Metod: Syftet har uppfyllts genom att använda en kvalitativ ansats där olika befattningshavare rörande produktutvecklingen på Isaberg Rapid AB har intervjuats. Även observationer har gjorts med avsikten att erhålla en djupare insyn i företagets arbetssätt och ingående funktioner. Referensramens teori och modeller användas för att belysa iakttagelserna i analysen på ett systematiskt sätt och för att förstå syftet. Intervjuerna har utförts enligt en semikonstruerad metod. Utfallet från intervjuerna har sedan analyserats, där fokus i första hand är övergripande, följt av de mer ämnesspecifika frågorna.</p><p>Slutsatser: Vår studie har visat att genom att förbättra sammansättningen mellan långa och korta projekt med hög resp. låg risk kan projektportföljens strategiska och värdemässiga aspekter förbättras. Produktutvecklingen bör fokuseras på att utnyttja projektportföljen som ett kraftfullt instrument, för att utvecklingen inte ska tendera att styras över till orätta projekt på bekostnad av andra mera rätta projekt. Isaberg Rapid måsta således vara ledande inom produktutveckling, och överglänsa konkurrenterna genom att satsa på ny teknologi och våga ta risker, detta uppenbaras av framgångarna med Duax. Effektivare utveckling uppnås endast genom korrekta resursallokeringar och en snabb utvecklingstid, vilket dock fordrar en väl fungerande produktutvecklingsprocess. Då kan syftet infrias och målet uppnås.</p> / <p>Background: There are a number of different factors, affecting the product development process at a company. Isaberg Rapid AB develops, manufacture and sell products within three different business areas; office, tools and OEM. This essay focuses on the product development process at the office division of the company; perhaps the most competitively pressured division of the company. The products handled by the division are under hard pressure from competitors on a global basis and fast and effective product launches are highly important to maintain the position on the market. The activities associated with product development combined with a changing market situation have led to certain inevitable factors that deeply affect the efficiency of the product development process. These arguments eventually lead up to the purpose of this thesis.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is primarily to identify, and point out connections between, factors affecting the development of new products at Isaberg Rapid AB, and secondary to point out failures in the handling of those.</p><p>Method: using a qualitative method where different employees concerned with product development activities at the company have been interviewed has fulfilled the purpose. Observations to obtain a deeper company insight have also been performed. Theories and models from the frame of reference have been used to analyze the empirical findings systematically in order to understand the purpose. The interviews have been held in a semi constructed way. The results form the interviews have been analyzed with both a general focus and later on specified to the identified subjects.</p><p>Conclusions: Our study has shown that the balance of the project portfolio in terms of long and short projects with high and low risk could be improved in terms of value and strategic aspects. Product development should be focused on utilizing the project portfolio as a powerful instrument, in order to avoid that the development tendons to choose a wrong project on behalf of others more right ones. Isaberg Rapid must in this manner leading the product development, and be ahead of its competitors by investing in new technology and be willing of taking risks, that the success with Duax has proven right. Effective product development is achieved by allocating the recourses right and provide for a fast time to market cycle, which however insist on a well-functioned product development. Then can the purpose be fulfilled and the objectives achieved totally.</p>

Parallel programming models are quite challenging and emerging topic in the parallel computing era. These models allow a developer to port a sequential application on to a platform with more number of processors so that the problem or application can be solved easily. Adapting the applications in this manner using the Parallel programming models is often influenced by the type of the application, the type of the platform and many others. There are several parallel programming models developed and two main variants of parallel programming models classified are shared and distributed memory based parallel programming models. The recognition of the computing applications that entail immense computing requirements lead to the confrontation of the obstacle regarding the development of the efficient programming models that bridges the gap between the hardware ability to perform the computations and the software ability to support that performance for those applications [25][9]. And so a better programming model is needed that facilitates easy development and on the other hand porting high performance. To answer this challenge this thesis confines and compares four different shared memory based parallel programming models with respect to the development time of the application under a shared memory based parallel programming model to the performance enacted by that application in the same parallel programming model. The programming models are evaluated in this thesis by considering the data parallel applications and to verify their ability to support data parallelism with respect to the development time of those applications. The data parallel applications are borrowed from the Dense Matrix dwarfs and the dwarfs used are Matrix-Matrix multiplication, Jacobi Iteration and Laplace Heat Distribution. The experimental method consists of the selection of three data parallel bench marks and developed under the four shared memory based parallel programming models considered for the evaluation. Also the performance of those applications under each programming model is noted and at last the results are used to analytically compare the parallel programming models. Results for the study show that by sacrificing the development time a better performance is achieved for the chosen data parallel applications developed in Pthreads. On the other hand sacrificing a little performance data parallel applications are extremely easy to develop in task based parallel programming models. The directive models are moderate from both the perspectives and are rated in between the tasking models and threading models. / From this study it is clear that threading model Pthreads model is identified as a dominant programming model by supporting high speedups for two of the three different dwarfs but on the other hand the tasking models are dominant in the development time and reducing the number of errors by supporting high growth in speedup for the applications without any communication and less growth in self-relative speedup for the applications involving communications. The degrade of the performance by the tasking models for the problems based on communications is because task based models are designed and bounded to execute the tasks in parallel without out any interruptions or preemptions during their computations. Introducing the communications violates the purpose and there by resulting in less performance. The directive model OpenMP is moderate in both aspects and stands in between these models. In general the directive models and tasking models offer better speedup than any other models for the task based problems which are based on the divide and conquer strategy. But for the data parallelism the speedup growth however achieved is low (i.e. they are less scalable for data parallel applications) are equally compatible in execution times with threading models. Also the development times are considerably low for data parallel applications this is because of the ease of development supported by those models by introducing less number of functional routines required to parallelize the applications. This thesis is concerned about the comparison of the shared memory based parallel programming models in terms of the speedup. This type of work acts as a hand in guide that the programmers can consider during the development of the applications under the shared memory based parallel programming models. We suggest that this work can be extended in two different ways: one is from the developer‘s perspective and the other is a cross-referential study about the parallel programming models. The former can be done by using a similar study like this by a different programmer and comparing this study with the new study. The latter can be done by including multiple data points in the same programming model or by using a different set of parallel programming models for the study. / C/O K. Manoj Kumar; LGH 555; Lindbloms Vägan 97; 37233; Ronneby. Phone no: 0738743400 Home country phone no: +91 9948671552