Thesis (M.Sc. (Crop science)) --University of Limpopo, 2007 / Vernonia (Vernonia galamensis) is a new potential industrial oilseed crop. The seeds of this crop contain unusual naturally epoxidised fatty acids which are used in the production of various industrial products. The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity of selected vernonia lines in Limpopo Province through morphological, seed oil content and RAPD DNA markers. Significant differences were observed for days to 50 % flowering (93 - 140 days), plant height (141.80 - 166.33 cm), number of productive primary heads (29 - 60 head/plant), number of productive secondary heads (12 - 30 head/plant), thousand seed weight (1.85 - 3.52 g) and seed yield (454.44 - 786.85 kg/ha) between lines. Further results from oil analysis showed differences in the contents of seed oil (22.4 - 29.05%), vernolic acid (73.09 - 76.83%), linoleic acid (13.02 - 14.05%), oleic acid (3.77 - 5.28%), palmitic acid (2.48 - 2.98%) and stearic acid (2.26 - 2.75%). Among 13 RAPD DNA primers screened, primer OPA10 amplified DNA samples and resulted in four distinct groupings among tested lines. Four promising lines were selected viz. Vge-16, Vge-20, Vge-27 and Vge-32 displaying greater seed yield, increased vernolic acid content and reduced number of days to 50 % flowering. / National Research Foundataion

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to clarify the concept of “managing diversity” and to describe how it appears in the Swedish school, in the classroom as well as in the organisation. To support the study, interviews have been carried out with principals and teachers in three different Swedish schools.</p><p>The thesis is divided into two sections; a literature study and an interview section where we describe the thoughts and knowledge of principals and teachers. From a diversity point of view, we discuss the relationship between documents, organisation and teaching.</p><p>The study described in this thesis shows that managing diversity has not yet had its break-through in a Swedish school context. The official curriculum of the Swedish school system values diversity, although the directives are unclear as to how the managing of diversity is to be carried out in reality. The teachers and principals we have interviewed lack the necessary knowledge of how the management should be designed to produce the best results. Therefore, the diversity is not successfully managed in the Swedish school, which re-establishes discriminative norms and values.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to clarify the concept of “managing diversity” and to describe how it appears in the Swedish school, in the classroom as well as in the organisation. To support the study, interviews have been carried out with principals and teachers in three different Swedish schools. The thesis is divided into two sections; a literature study and an interview section where we describe the thoughts and knowledge of principals and teachers. From a diversity point of view, we discuss the relationship between documents, organisation and teaching. The study described in this thesis shows that managing diversity has not yet had its break-through in a Swedish school context. The official curriculum of the Swedish school system values diversity, although the directives are unclear as to how the managing of diversity is to be carried out in reality. The teachers and principals we have interviewed lack the necessary knowledge of how the management should be designed to produce the best results. Therefore, the diversity is not successfully managed in the Swedish school, which re-establishes discriminative norms and values.

This article investigates the complex interrelation between ethnic and gender diversity, process and performance among groups of business students. The article is based on an empirical survey of business students working on a complex assignment in groups of two to five in a small Swedish university. The results indicate that gender diversity leads to positive group outcomes, while ethnic diversity appears to create negative group outcomes. Intervening process variables, such as group communication, conflict and effectiveness in problem solving, were not found to be influenced by diversity, or to influence group outcomes. While the non-influence of intervening variables can probably be explained by methodological difficulties, the negative outcome for ethnic diversity indicates a need to help students better manage ethnic diversity in order to reap its benefits.

In this thesis, we argue for node selection in cooperative decode-and-forward networks. In a single-hop network with multiple relays, we show that selecting a single node to aid in the transmission between a source and a destination outperforms both traditional orthogonal transmissions and distributed space-time codes. In networks where sources transmit information over multiple hops and relays can communicate with each other, we study the relationship between cooperation and channel-adaptive routing. We show that cooperation is only beneficial if designed jointly with a routing scheme. This motivates a search for optimal algorithms in generalized relay networks. In networks without restrictions on the relays in terms of whom they can communicate with, we study the problem of optimal resource allocation in terms of transmission time. The resource allocation selects the relays to participate in the transmission and optimally allocates time resource between the selected relays. To implement this resource allocation algorithm, we propose a recursive solution which reduces the computational complexity of the algorithm. For large networks, the resulting computational complexity of implementing the algorithm is exponential in the size of the network and is likely to preclude its implementation. We thus propose that the resource allocation be implemented sub-optimally through node selection: a subset of the nodes in the network should be selected and used as input to the optimal resource allocation algorithm. We provide guidelines for selecting the nodes and propose four heuristics which offer various complexity-performance trade-offs. Compared to the optimal resource algorithm, all four heuristics significantly decrease the required computation complexity of the optimal algorithm.

This thesis focuses on the guidelines that university governing bodies have adopted in order to regulate the actions of its student population and the factors that influenced their decisions. The evaluation of these guidelines is not a judicial analysis, but an analysis of the rhetorical aspects associated with the guidelines. The thesis contends that the current rhetoric of diversity on American college campuses, while drafted with the best of intentions, fails due to the limitations that it places on its students, the morality argument in which it draws strength, and the increase in differences, not acceptance, that it creates. The research utilizes specific examples of problems that are a direct result of University diversity policies and how they create a prison like structure in which those attending the University must adhere to the uncontested rules of the authority.

In this thesis, we argue for node selection in cooperative decode-and-forward networks. In a single-hop network with multiple relays, we show that selecting a single node to aid in the transmission between a source and a destination outperforms both traditional orthogonal transmissions and distributed space-time codes. In networks where sources transmit information over multiple hops and relays can communicate with each other, we study the relationship between cooperation and channel-adaptive routing. We show that cooperation is only beneficial if designed jointly with a routing scheme. This motivates a search for optimal algorithms in generalized relay networks. In networks without restrictions on the relays in terms of whom they can communicate with, we study the problem of optimal resource allocation in terms of transmission time. The resource allocation selects the relays to participate in the transmission and optimally allocates time resource between the selected relays. To implement this resource allocation algorithm, we propose a recursive solution which reduces the computational complexity of the algorithm. For large networks, the resulting computational complexity of implementing the algorithm is exponential in the size of the network and is likely to preclude its implementation. We thus propose that the resource allocation be implemented sub-optimally through node selection: a subset of the nodes in the network should be selected and used as input to the optimal resource allocation algorithm. We provide guidelines for selecting the nodes and propose four heuristics which offer various complexity-performance trade-offs. Compared to the optimal resource algorithm, all four heuristics significantly decrease the required computation complexity of the optimal algorithm.

There are two important trends in organizations today: 1) the increasing use of teams and 2) the increasing diversity in the workforce. The literature is in tune with these organizational trends, evidenced by a dramatic increase in research on team performance and the effects of diversity. However, there are still contradictory findings of the effects of team diversity on team processes and outcomes. To shed light on these inconsistencies, the cognitive construct of team mental model is introduced as a mediator of the relationship between team cognitive diversity and team performance. Team mental model is an emergent cognitive state that represents team members' organized understanding of their task environment (e.g., Klimoski&Mohammed, 1994) and has been shown to improve team performance (e.g., Edwards, Day, Arthur,&Bell, 2006; Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas,&Cannon-Bowers, 2000). Specifically, with a sample of 94 student teams I investigated how team cognitive diversity affects team mental model similarity and accuracy, and through them, team performance. In addition, I examined team information processing mechanisms as moderators of the relationships between team cognitive diversity and team mental model similarity and accuracy. The results suggest that cognition at the team level plays an important role in the effective functioning of decision making teams. Specifically, the combination of team mental model similarity and accuracy predicts levels of team performance and information integration is an important moderator linking cognitive style diversity to task mental models, team processes, and team performance. The research model developed and tested seeks to advance understanding of the "black box" linking team diversity to team outcomes (Lawrence, 1997) and to provide guidance to managers leading cognitively diverse teams.

In an energy system, diversity of supply—that is, reliance on a variety of mutually disparate energy suppliers and their energy supplies—is seen by many researchers and policymakers as an important component of energy security. This thesis describes a novel and generic method for examining the relationship between energy security (as represented by an energy-security index derived from a set of energy security indicators) and diversity (as defined by the Shannon-Wiener diversity index) of an energy system, its entities, and flows. While diversity is often presented by policy makers as being essential to maintaining or improving the energy security of an energy system, the thesis employs the equations associated with the two indices to show that a diverse supply need not be secure and a secure supply need not be diverse. Several examples of the relationship and the events that can affect it are also provided. / N/A

Mountain ecosystems are considered highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change, and are experiencing a magnitude of change that far exceeds global averages, particularly with respect to increases in average temperature and precipitation. As such, scientists are predicting a rapid habitat reduction or even the loss of the coolest climatic alpine zones, thus threatening the continued survival of high elevation specialists. However, many of these ‘doomsday’ predictions are based primarily on models with coarse-resolution changes to atmospheric climate parameters, and do not take into account the potential buffering effects of other environmental gradients known to structure alpine plant communities, related to topography and soils. To assess the accuracy of predictions regarding the state of vulnerability of alpine plant communities to climate change, this thesis examined the relative importance of climate, topography and soils as determinants of regional alpine plant diversity for all species, as well as for forbs, graminoids and woody species separately, in alpine meadows of southwestern British Columbia. Through redundancy analyses and variation partitioning, results show that topography and soils are more important than climate as determinants of regional alpine plant diversity. Within these groups, elevation, slope, soil moisture and mean summer temperature were most significant. Interestingly, precipitation played only a small role, even though the study area spanned a precipitation gradient of over 1200 mm/year. The stronger influence of temperature, especially for woody species beta diversity, supports findings of shrub expansion in arctic-alpine systems. The lower importance of climate as a determinant of regional alpine plant diversity, especially for forbs, the dominant life form in alpine meadow ecosystems, suggests that these productive environments may be more resilient to on-going changes in atmospheric climate conditions than previously believed. / Graduate