Fishers (Pekania pennanti) are a species of concern in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone released to mobilize energy in response to stress and has been used as an indication of an individual’s physiological response to its environment. By collecting samples of fisher hair and measuring an individual’s cortisol, we examined the physiological stress response of the animals to human disturbances (housing density, road density, habitat type, and silvicultural treatements) and drought (tree mortality) in their home ranges. Using AICc model selection, we found that levels of tree mortality within a fisher’s home range significantly influenced cortisol levels. Various human disturbances had a smaller effect on cortisol levels. Furthermore, we examined the relationship between cortisol and fitness through the metrics of body condition, female kit counts, and survival. We found that females with low cortisol had significantly higher survival rates than females with medium and high cortisol. With the recent drought, bark beetle infestation and subsequent tree mortality being >80% in some areas of our study, cortisol levels could continue to increase, potentially leading to further decreased fitness within this fisher population. We also examined the difference in habitat selection between the core and entirety of the home ranges and found that fishers prefer late-successional forest in the core of their home ranges.

Forest carnivores such as the fisher have frequently been the target of conservation concern due to their association with older forests and assumed sensitivity to landscape-level habitat alteration. Although the fisher has been extirpated from most of its former range in the western U.S., it is still found throughout much of northwestern California. However, fisher distribution is still poorly known in the majority of this region where surveys have not been conducted. In order to predict fisher distribution across the region, a multiple logistic regression model was created using data from 682 previously surveyed locations and a GIS vegetation coverage created from satellite imagery. A moving-average function was used to derive landscape level indices of vegetation variables from the GIS layer. Moving averages of canopy closure, tree size class, and percent conifer were found to have strong correlations with fisher presence. Regional gradients as represented by either precipitation or a trend surface derived from spatial coordinates were also significant predictors in the model. The model was validated with new data collected from 240 survey locations and proved to be accurate in predicting fisher presence in unsurveyed areas. The model was used to generate hypotheses as to the mechanisms controlling habitat selection and the scales at which these operate and to evaluate the representation of fisher habitat in existing protected areas. These insights may be valuable in designing conservation reserve networks that insure the long-term viability of forest carnivore populations. / Graduation date: 1998

The mathematical modelling of a market, and the proof of existence of equilibria have been of central importance in mathematical economics. Since the existence proof is non-constructive in general, a natural question is if computation of equilibria can be done efficiently. Moreover, the emergence of Internet and e-commerce has given rise to new markets that have completely changed the traditional notions. Add to this the pervasiveness of computing resources, and an algorithmic theory of market equilibrium becomes highly desirable. The goal of this thesis is to provide polynomial time algorithms for various market models. Two basic market models are the Fisher model: one in which there is a demarcation between buyers and sellers, buyers are interested in the goods that the sellers possess, and sellers are only interested in the money that the buyers have; and the Arrow-Debreu model: everyone has an endowment of goods, and wants to exchange them for other goods. We give the first polynomial time algorithm for exactly computing an equilibrium in the Fisher model with linear utilities. We also show that the basic ideas in this algorithm can be extended to give a strongly polynomial time approximation scheme in the Arrow-Debreu model. We also give several existential, algorithmic and structural results for new market models: - the *spending constraint* utilities (defined by Vazirani) that captures the "diminishing returns" property while generalizing the algorithm for the linear case. - the capacity allocation market (defined by Kelly), motivated by the study of fairness and stability of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for the Internet, and more generally the class of Eisenberg-Gale (EG) markets (defined by Jain and Vazirani). In addition, we consider the adwords market on search engines and show that some of these models are a natural fit in this setting. Finally, this line of research has given insights into the fundamental techniques in algorithm design. The primal-dual schema has been a great success in combinatorial optimization and approximation algorithms. Our algorithms use this paradigm in the enhanced setting of Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions and convex programs.

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Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of North Texas, 2003. / Accompanied by 4 recitals. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-80).

No description available.

We consider observations of a random field (or a random process), which is modeled by a nonlinear regression with a parametrized mean (or trend) and a parametrized covariance function. In the first part we show that under the assumption that the errors are normal with small variances, even when the number of observations is small, the ML estimators of both parameters are approximately unbiased, uncorrelated, with variances given by the inverse of the Fisher information matrix. In the second part we are extending the result of Pazman & Müller (2001) to the case of parametrized covariance function, namely we prove that the optimum designs with and without the presence of the virtual noise are identical. This in principle justify the use the method of virtual noise as a computational device also in this case. (authors' abstract) / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

Thesis (M.S.)--Humboldt State University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 33-36). Also available via Humboldt Digital Scholar.

Thesis (M.A.I.S.)--Oregon State University, 2004. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-144). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1951. / Typescript. Vita. With this is bound: Tracking of fisher and marten / by A. de Vos. From Sylva, vol. 7 (1951), p. 15-20. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-203).