No description available.

Leaf morphology of Quercus (oak) species is highly variable and complicated confounded with phenotypic plasticity and fluctuating asymmetry (FA). However, the study of variation is mostly limited to leaf morphology. This study was extended to plasticity and FA variations in Q. alba (white oak), Q. palustris (pin oak), and Q. velutina (black oak). It was hypothesized that light exposure, individual trees, leaf position, and other leaf traits will influence variation in these species. Leaves were sampled from trees of these species and their morphological traits were measured. Absolute asymmetry of leaf width and area were determined and plasticity of each species was calculated. The data were analyzed using nested ANOVA with General Linear Model. Leaf morphology, plasticity and FA varied across the species and light exposure was the main source of variation. Individual trees and several leaf covariate traits also influenced leaf morphological and FA variations in all species.

No description available.

No description available.

Submitted by Edineia Teixeira (edineia.teixeira@unioeste.br) on 2018-03-05T18:27:51Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Fernando_Martins2017.pdf: 3146180 bytes, checksum: a1dcde101c1559cda9b93c488d0f17e9 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-05T18:27:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Fernando_Martins2017.pdf: 3146180 bytes, checksum: a1dcde101c1559cda9b93c488d0f17e9 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / For species that do not exhibit parental care such as oviparous insects, choosing a favorable oviposition site is of utmost importance for brood success. Niche theory predicts that crickets should show a bell-shaped oviposition response to substrate humidity. However, at least one lab experiment with mole crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllotalpoidea) indicated a linear oviposition responses to substrate humidity. The house cricket Acheta domesticus (Orthoptera: Grylloidea) also shows a linear juvenile body growth response to substrate humidity, which suggests a positive relationship between humidity and oviposition preference. We evaluated the relationship between oviposition frequency and substrate humidity in forest litter- dwelling species, primarily composed of Ubiquepuella telytokous, using field experiments. We also tested oviposition responses of U. telytokous to substrate humidity in a laboratory experiment. We offered oviposition substrates that varied in humidity from zero percent to maximum substrate water absorption capacity. Oviposition preference was estimated using presence or absence of eggs as a binary response variable, adjusted logistic regression (GAMM) was used to test for non-linear responses, and GLMs were used to test linear responses. We found that oviposition probability increased linearly with substrate humidity for U. telytokous in both field and lab experiments. Our results demonstrate the importance of substrate humidity as an ecological niche requirement for this species. This work bolsters knowledge of litter cricket life history association with humidity, and suggests that litter crickets may be particularly threatened by changes in climate that favor habitat drying. / Para espécies que não apresentam cuidados parentais, tais como insetos ovíparos, a escolha de um local de oviposição favorável é de extrema importância para o sucesso da prole. A teoria do nicho prevê que a oviposição de grilos deve mostrar uma resposta em forma de sino à umidade do substrato. Entretanto, pelo menos um experimento de laboratório com paquinhas (Orthoptera: Gryllotalpoidea) indicou uma resposta de oviposição linear em relação a umidade do substrato. O grilo doméstico Acheta domesticus (Orthoptera: Grylloidea) também apresenta um crescimento corporal dos juvenis linear em relação a umidade do substrato, o que sugere uma relação positiva entre umidade e preferência de oviposição. Aqui testamos a relação entre a frequência de oviposição e a umidade do substrato, em espécies de grilos de serrapilheira florestal, primariamente compostas Ubiquepuella telytokous, utilizando experimentos de campo. Também testamos as respostas de oviposição de U. telytokous em experimentos de laboratório. Oferecemos substratos de oviposção que variaram a umidade de zero porcento até a capacidade máxima de absorção do substrato. A preferência de oviposição foi estimada utilizando presença ou ausência de ovos como uma variável resposta binária, regressão logística ajustada (GAMM) para testar respostas não lineares, e GLMs para testar respostas lineares. Verificamos que a probabilidade de oviposição aumenta linearmente com a umidade do substrato para U. telytokous, nos experimentos de campo e laboratório. Nossos resultados demonstram a importância da umidade do substrato como requisito de nicho ecológico para Ubiquepuella telytokous. Este trabalho reforça o conhecimento da associação de história de vida de grilos com a umidade, e sugere que esses organismos podem ser particularmente ameaçados por mudanças climáticas que tornam habitats áridos.

Bien qu’il existe un large consensus de la communauté scientifique quant au rôle des indices acoustiques dans la compréhension de la parole, les mécanismes exacts permettant la transformation d’un flux acoustique continu en unités linguistiques élémentaires demeurent aujourd’hui largement méconnus. Ceci est en partie dû à l’absence d’une méthodologie efficace pour l’identification et la caractérisation des primitives auditives de la parole. Depuis les premières études de l’interface acoustico-phonétique par les Haskins Laboratories dans les années 50, différentes approches ont été proposées ; cependant, toutes sont fondamentalement limitées par l’artificialité des stimuli utilisés, les contraintes du protocole expérimental et le poids des connaissances a priori nécessaires. Le présent travail de thèse s’est intéressé { la mise en oeuvre d’une nouvelle méthode tirant parti de la situation de compréhension de parole dégradée pour mettre en évidence les indices acoustiques utilisés par l’auditeur.Dans un premier temps, nous nous sommes appuyés sur la littérature dans le domaine visuel en adaptant la méthode des Images de Classification à une tâche auditive de catégorisation de phonèmes dans le bruit. En reliant la réponse de l’auditeur { chaque essai à la configuration précise du bruit lors de cet essai, au moyen d’un Modèle Linéaire Généralisé, il est possible d’estimer le poids des différentes régions temps-fréquence dans la décision. Nous avons illustré l’efficacité de notre méthode, appelée Image de Classification Auditive, à travers deux exemples : une catégorisation /aba/-/ada/, et une catégorisation /da/-/ga/ en contexte /al/ ou /aʁ/. Notre analyse a confirmé l’implication des attaques des formants F2 et F3, déjà suggérée par de précédentes études, mais a également permis de révéler des indices inattendus. Dans un second temps, nous avons employé cette technique pour comparer les résultats de participants musiciens experts (N=19) ou dyslexiques (N=18) avec ceux de participants contrôles. Ceci nous a permis d’étudier les spécificités des stratégies d’écoute de ces différents groupes.L’ensemble des résultats suggèrent que les Images de Classification Auditives pourraient constituer une nouvelle approche, plus précise et plus naturelle, pour explorer et décrire les mécanismes { l’oeuvre au niveau de l’interface acoustico-phonétique. / There is today a broad consensus in the scientific community regarding the involvement of acoustic cues in speech perception. Up to now, however, the precise mechanisms underlying the transformation from continuous acoustic stream into discrete linguistic units remain largely undetermined. This is partly due to the lack of an effective method for identifying and characterizing the auditory primitives of speech. Since the earliest studies on the acoustic–phonetic interface by the Haskins Laboratories in the 50’s, a number of approaches have been proposed; they are nevertheless inherently limited by the non-naturalness of the stimuli used, the constraints of the experimental apparatus, and the a priori knowledge needed. The present thesis aimed at introducing a new method capitalizing on the speech-in-noise situation for revealing the acoustic cues used by the listeners.As a first step, we adapted the Classification Image technique, developed in the visual domain, to a phoneme categorization task in noise. The technique relies on a Generalized Linear Model to link each participant’s response to the specific configuration of noise, on a trial-by-trail basis, thereby estimating the perceptual weighting of the different time-frequency regions for the decision. We illustrated the effectiveness of our Auditory Classification Image method through 2 examples: a /aba/-/ada/ categorization and a /da/-/ga/ categorization in context /al/ or /aʁ/. Our analysis confirmed that the F2 and F3 onsets were crucial for the tasks, as suggested in previous studies, but also revealed unexpected cues. In a second step, we relied on this new method to compare the results of musical experts (N=19) or dyslexics participants (N=18) to those of controls. This enabled us to explore the specificities of each group’s listening strategies.All the results taken together show that the Auditory Classification Image method may be a more precise and more straightforward approach to investigate the mechanisms at work at the acoustic-phonetic interface.

Most non-life insurers and many creditors use regressions, more specifically Generalized Linear Models (GLM), to price their liabilities. One limitation with GLMs is that interactions between predictors are handled manually, which makes finding interactions a tedious and time-consuming task. This increases the cost of rate making and, more importantly, actuaries can miss important interactions resulting in sub-optimal customer prices. Several papers have shown that Gradient Tree Boosting can outperform GLMs in insurance pricing since it handles interactions automatically. Insurers and creditors are however reluctant to use so-called ”Black-Box” solutions for both regulatory and technical reasons. Tree-based methods have been used to identify pricing errors in regressions, albeit only as ad-hoc solutions. The authors instead propose a systematic approach to automatically identify and evaluate interactions between predictors before adding them to a traditional GLM. The model can be used in three different ways: Firstly, it can create a table of statistically significant candidate interactions to add to a GLM. Secondly, it can automatically and iteratively add new interactions to an old GLM until no more statistically significant interactions can be found. Lastly, it can automatically create a new GLM without an existing pricing model. All approaches are tested on two motor insurance data sets from a Nordic P&C insurer and the results show that all methods outperform the original GLMs. Although the two iterative modes perform better than the first, insurers are recommended to mainly use the first mode since this results in a reasonable trade-off between automating processes and leveraging actuaries’ professional judgment. / De flesta skadeförsäkringsbolag och många långivare använder regressioner, mer specifikt generaliserade linjära modeller (GLM), för att prissätta sina skulder. En begräsning med GLM:er är att interaktioner mellan exogena variabler hanteras manuellt, vilket innebär att hanteringen av dessa är tidskrävande. Detta påverkar försäkringsbolags lönsamhet på flera sätt. För det första ökar kostnaderna för att skapa tariffer och för det andra kan aktuarier missa viktiga interaktioner, vilket resulterar i suboptimala kundpriser. Tidigare forskning visar att Gradient Boosting kan överträffa GLM:er inom försäkringsprissättning eftersom denna metod hanterar interaktioner automatiskt. Försäkringsbolag och kreditgivare är dock motvilliga till att använda så kallade ”Black-box-lösningar” på grund av både regulatoriska och tekniska skäl. Trädbaserade metoder har tidigare använts för att hitta felprissättningar i regressioner, dock endast genom situationsanpassade lösningar. Författarna föreslår i stället en systematisk metod för att automatiskt identifiera och evaluera interaktioner innan de inkluderas i en traditionell GLM. Modellen kan användas på tre olika sätt: Först och främst kan den användas för att skapa en tabell med statistiskt signifikanta interaktioner att addera till en existerande GLM. Utöver detta kan den iterativt och automatiskt lägga till sådana interaktioner tills inga fler återstår. Slutligen kan modellen också användas för att skapa en helt ny GLM från grunden, utan en existerande prissättningsmodell. Metoderna testas på två motorförsäkringsdataset från ett nordiskt skadeförsäkringsbolag och resultaten visar att alla överträffar originalregressionen. Även om de två iterativa metoderna överträffar den första metoden rekommenderas försäkringsbolag att använda den första metoden. Detta eftersom den resulterar i en rimlig avvägning mellan att automatisera processer och att nyttja aktuariers omdömesförmåga.

Life insurance policies are not equally profitable is sense of expected value. In practice, profitability is an output of complex cash flow models, which need utilizing special systems and the run time of such calculation can be significant if number of policies is high. Therefore we consider variables, which change most frequently, stimulate the profitability model with several values of these variables and then we search for a regression model to explain the changes. We apply Gamma regression on the data. But what if there exist some policies which are negative? Then we determine these policies with logistic regression applied on data censored to the binary form. Loss of these policies is modelled using symmetrical Gamma model. These three models, when considered together, can be viewed as a single model, which is a generalization of the well known zero inflated count model. The most interesting part of inference in such model is diagnostics. We show that the basic types of residuals - Pearson, deviance and quantile - can be defined. We also build an ordinary linear model and we compare utility of these two approaches. While building models, we meet various statistical issues like dimension reduction of yield curve or dispersion proportional to sum insured. 1

Denna kandidatexamen ligger inom området matematisk statistik. I samarbete med försäkringsbolaget Hedvig syftar denna avhandling till att utforska en ny metod för hantering av Hedvigs försäkringsdata genom att bygga en prissättningsmodell för alla riskförsäkringar med generaliserade linjära modeller. Två generaliserade linjära modeller byggdes, där den första förutspår frekvensen för ett anspråk och den andra förutspår svårighetsgraden. De ursprungliga uppgifterna delades in i 9 förklarande variabler. Båda modellerna inkluderade fem förklarande variabler i början och reducerades sedan. Minskningen resulterade i att fyra av fem egenskaper var förklarande signifikanta i frekvensmodellen och endast en av de fem var förklarande signifikanta i svårighetsmodellen. Var och en av modellerna erhöll relativa risker för nivåerna av deras förklarande variabler. De relativa riskerna resulterade i en total risk för varje nivå. Genom multiplicering av en skapad basnivå med en uppsättning kombination av riskparametrar kan premien för en vald kund erhållas. / Det här kandidatexamensarbetet ligger inom ämnet matematisk statistik. Jag samarbete med försäkringsbolaget Hedvig, avser uppsatsen att undersöka en ny metod att hantera Hedvigs försäkringsdata genom att bygga en prissättningsmodell för drulleförsäkring med hjälp av generaliserade linjära modeller. Två modeller skapades varav den första förutsättningen frekvensen av ett försäkringsanspråk och den andra förutsäger storleken. Originaldatan var indelad i 9 förklarande variabler. Båda modellerna innehöll till en början fem förklarande variabler, vilka sedan reducerades till fyra respektive en variabler i de motsvarande modellerna. Från varje modell kunde sedan de relativa riskerna tas fram för varje kategori av de förklarande variablerna. Tillsammans bildades sedan totalrisken för alla grupper.

This study investigated the impact of three edaphic factors on the distribution of forest plants in Sweden. Based on 2657 plots with 22 common species, Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) and Generalized-linear-model (GLM) were performed with pH measurements in the top layer of the soil, latitude and deciduous tree proportion as explanatory variables. Variation of the species occurrence could to a substantial degree be explained by pH, latitude and proportion of timber volume of deciduous tree species. Furthermore, the majority of species were affected by the studied environmental variables. Therefore, these factors have an important role in the ecological interactions in the forest. All species also showed broad pH-niches with many occurrences spread out within the species entire pH-range. Finally, the study relates to educational science through designing a meaningful excursion for secondary school when teaching ecology.