Evolution of sex determining mechanisms in squamate reptiles (Reptilia: Squamata) Martina Pokorná Ph.D. thesis Abstract This Ph.D. thesis is focused on the evolution of sex determining mechanisms and genomes in squamate reptiles. It is based on three published articles and two manuscripts. The evolution of sex determining mechanisms, sex chromosomes and genomes, and their organisation, was studied on a wide phylogenetic scale of the whole group of squamate reptiles and some lineages of other Sauropsids, as well as on the small phylogenetic range as a detailed comparative study inside individual lineages of squamates. This thesis is based upon the use of classical cytogenetic methods, methods of molecular cytogenetic (especially fluorescent in situ hybridisation) and the results were analysed using phylogenetic approaches. The results and outputs of this study represent an important contribution to the general knowledge of the principals of sex determination and the evolution of these phenomena not only in squamate reptiles but also in the whole group of amniotes. Using the results obtained during the work on this thesis we can conclude that sex chromosomes evolved in particular lineages of amniotes independently. This origin was in some cases followed by accumulation of microsatellite sequences on sex...

Höjddata är fundamentala inom en mängd applikationer. Genom att skapa en digital höjdmodell (DEM), d.v.s. en matematisk modell av terrängens fysiska form, kan höjddata nyttjas på ett effektivt sätt. Tillgång till digitala höjdmodeller underlättar både vid hållbar samhällsplanering och övervakning av klimatförändringar. Vid tillämpning av en DEM är det av största intresse att veta hur väl modellen representerar jordytan. Den centrala delen av studien innefattar en granskning av de två globala höjdmodellerna Copernicus GLO-30 DEM och FABDEM (Forest And Buildings removed Copernicus DEM) som jämförs med svenska referensmodeller baserade på nationella LiDAR-data (Light Detection And Ranging). Genom generering av en egen ytmodell från punktmolnet Laserdata NH framställdes referensdata för jämförelser med Copernicus GLO-30 DEM. Som referensdata för jämförelser med FABDEM användes GSD-Höjddata Grid 2+, vilket är ett markmodellsraster. Utvärderingen utfördes över tre provytor i Sverige. Dessa provytor representerar karaktäristiska marktyper inom landet. I granskningen av kvaliteten för de globala modellerna analyserades statistik för jämförelserna. Dessutom skapades plottar för att kunna visualisera höjdskillnaderna. Studien innehåller även en litteraturstudie om hur de globala modellerna har skapats. Skaparna av Copernicus GLO-30 DEM garanterar en utvidgad standardosäkerhet med täckningsgraden 90% (LE90) på 4 m. Den här studien resulterade i lite högre utvidgade osäkerheter, mellan ca 4,3 och 6,1 meter. Den lägsta osäkerheten uppnåddes i provytan över Stockholm som innehåller höga byggnader, vatten och en del vegetation. De mest avgörande avvikelserna för FABDEM kan kopplats till svagheter i metoden att framställa en markmodell från ytmodellen Copernicus GLO-30 DEM, men FABDEM påverkas också signifikant av brister i den underliggande modellen, d.v.s. i Copernicus GLO-30 DEM. / Elevation data is fundamental in a variety of applications. By creating a digital elevation model (DEM), i.e. a mathematical model representing the physical shape of the surface of the Earth, altitude data can be used effectively. Access to digital elevation models facilitates both sustainable spatial planning and monitoring of climate change. When applying a DEM, it is of greatest interest to know how well the model represents the earth's surface. The central part of the study includes a review of the two global height models Copernicus GLO-30 DEM and FABDEM (Forest And Buildings removed Copernicus DEM), which are compared with reference models based on Swedish national LiDAR data (Light Detection And Ranging). By generating its own surface model from the point cloud Laserdata NH, reference data was produced for comparisons with Copernicus GLO-30 DEM. GSD-Elevation data Grid 2+, which is a terrain model in grid format, was used as reference data for comparisons with FABDEM. The evaluation was performed over three test areas in Sweden. These test areas represent characteristic land types within the country. In the review of the quality of the global models, statistics for the comparisons were analysed. In addition, plots were created to be able to visualize the height differences. The study also includes a literature study on how the global models have been created. The creators of the Copernicus GLO-30 DEM guarantee an extended standard uncertainty at 90 % coverage probability (LE90) of 4 m. This study resulted in somewhat larger expanded uncertainties (90 %), between about 4.3 and 6.1 meters. The lowest uncertainty was achieved in the sample area over Stockholm, which contains tall buildings, water and some vegetation. The most significant deviations for FABDEM can be linked to weaknesses in the method of producing a terrain model from the surface model Copernicus GLO-30 DEM, but FABDEM is also significantly affected by the deficiencies in the underlying model, i.e. in Copernicus GLO-30 DEM.

Uncertainty in software development and business environment and the need to increase thespeed of development have driven organizations to search for methods that are responsive toboth change and speed. Providing iterative development, agile development involvescustomers and users through different phases of development, and delivers frequent releasesof software to customer while receives the corresponding feedback. Using this approach, agiledevelopment thus aims at addressing mentioned issues of speed and uncertainty whiledeveloping only what customer needs from the beginning of the project. On the other hand,distributed software development is used in many organizations to reach global talent andglobal market. The problems associated with distributed software development such as lack ofenough communication and team coherency, have forced project managers to combine it withagile to mitigate these social problems. This study focuses on distributed agile development,its suitability for a typical project and its challenges and deficiencies. Text analysis andinterviews using qualitative methods are used in this scientific research work. From thetheoretical view point, different text covering agile methodology, distributed development andcombination of them were considered. This study covered two parts: first, an evaluation ofagile and distributed development opportunities and problems to help determine whether ornot distributed development is suitable for a project and second, considering the challengesonce starting to use this method and practices required to regard them. For the empirical part,the focus was put on Volvo IT employees by having seven interviews with members who arecurrently active in distributed agile development. These interviews were used to compare andverify the finding of the theoretical part. The results of the study were categorized into twosections. In the first part, important elements required to verify the suitability of using thismethod are provided. The recommended factors for this evaluation are cost, productivity,customer, team structure, etc. In the second part, the challenges of using distributed agiledevelopment were categorized into four parts: (a) challenges of selected agile method, whichthe focus in this study is Scrum, (b) challenges with time-zone differences, (c) communicationchallenges and (d) finally team building challenges. The required practices to address thesechallenges were also provided. / Program: Masterutbildning i Informatik

Context. Global software development (GSD) gained huge recognition in today’s business world. Most of the software companies day by day are striving hard to evolve globally where software is developed in the context of different environmental settings that are distanced on various factors like geography, timezone, culture and language. Coordination is the factor that plays one of the prominent roles in such a setting for effective teamwork and project success. Although numerous efforts has been done in this research area, there has been no proper evidence from industry about the impact of these coordination challenges on the overall quality of the software when being developed in a distributed setting. Objectives. The purpose of this study is to examine and identify the coordination challenges and risks faced in global software development projects that has a negative impact on the quality of software from practitioner’s perspective. It also identify the tools, methods, and techniques that are used in industry to overcome these challenges and maintain quality standards. Methods. The aims and objectives of our study are fulfilled by conducting survey among practitioners working in GSD projects all around the globe. Further, 10 interviews are conducted with practitioners working in different companies and geographical locations in order to gain a detailed understanding of the impact of identified coordination challenges on the quality of software in GSD projects. Results. A total of 50 survey responses are recorded, out of which 48 respondents specify that coordination challenges has a negative impact on software quality in GSD context. By the ratings given by the participants, we identified the challenges and risks that had a major impact. Mixed results are obtained during interviews where most of them prioritized coordination as a major problem in GSD projects. It also included that use of some tools, methods and processes help them in overcoming this issue. The quality attributes that are mostly affected due to the challenges in GSD projects are also identified. Conclusions. After the analysis of survey results, the coordination challenges and associated risks in GSD projects are identified. They were found to havemostly negative impact on software quality. After thematic analysis of interview results, we observed that though the impact of coordination challenges is negative, its extent of implication is moderate in most cases.

This study sought to determine if the dominant learning styles of high school teachers is related to the amount of time computers are used in the classroom by students. It also examined the types of software used by those teachers, and their levels of technology adoption. Subjects (N=177) were from high schools in a large urban school district. Instrumentation included the Gregorc Style Delineator, a modified version of the Snapshot Survey and the Stages of Adoption of Technology. An ANOVA showed no statistical significance between teachers with different dominant learning styles in the numbers of minutes per week that computers were utilized in their classrooms with students. A chi square test showed no statistical significance in the types of software used in the classrooms of teachers with different dominant learning styles. A chi square test showed no statistical significance in the Stages of Technology Adoption of teachers with different dominant learning styles.

The importance of sex hormones in formation, development and regulation of sexually dimorphic behavior does not need to be stressed. However, their actual organizational and activational effects and interactions in sexual differentiation and determination are not fully understood yet. The aim of our study was to explore the effects of hormonal manipulation in eyelid-geckos (family Eublepharidae) and enlighten the role of steroid hormones in formation of sexual differences. In the first part of our work we tried to reverse sex of Yucatán banded gecko (Coleonyx elegans) by hormonal manipulation in the early embryogenesis. This species has genotypic sex determination with chromosome set X1X2Y. In reverted individuals we aimed to examine the effects of steroid hormones on sexually dimorphic traits and in case of full sexual reversion and fertility of progeny, we would search for the sex-determining gene. In the second part, we studied masculinization effects of testosterone in females of leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius). In contrast with the Coleonyx elegans mentioned above, this species has temperature dependent sex determination, even though these two species are closely related. Experimental females were implanted with testosterone implants and therefore their testosterone levels were increased in...

In recent years, software tools used for Global Software Development (GSD) processes (e.g., continuous integration, version control and bug tracking) are increasingly being deployed in the cloud to serve multiple users. Multitenancy is an important architectural property in cloud computing in which a single instance of an application is used to serve multiple users. There are two key challenges of implementing multitenancy: (i) ensuring isolation either between multiple tenants accessing the service or components designed (or integrated) with the service; and (ii) resolving trade-offs between varying degrees of isolation between tenants or components. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how to architect the deployment of cloud-hosted service while guaranteeing the required degree of multitenancy isolation. Existing approaches for architecting the deployment of cloud-hosted services to serve multiple users have paid little attention to evaluating the effect of the varying degrees of multitenancy isolation on the required performance, resource consumption and access privilege of tenants (or components). Approaches for isolating tenants (or components) are usually implemented at lower layers of the cloud stack and often apply to the entire system and not to individual tenants (or components). This thesis adopts a multimethod research strategy to providing a set of novel approaches for addressing these problems. Firstly, a taxonomy of deployment patterns and a general process, CLIP (CLoud-based Identification process for deployment Patterns) was developed for guiding architects in selecting applicable cloud deployment patterns (together with the supporting technologies) using the taxonomy for deploying services to the cloud. Secondly, an approach named COMITRE (COmponent-based approach to Multitenancy Isolation Through request RE-routing) was developed together with supporting algorithms and then applied to three case studies to empirically evaluate the varying degrees of isolation between tenants enabled by multitenancy patterns for three different cloud-hosted GSD processes, namely-continuous integration, version control, and bug tracking. After that, a synthesis of findings from the three case studies was carried out to provide an explanatory framework and new insights about varying degrees of multitenancy isolation. Thirdly, a model-based decision support system together with four variants of a metaheuristic solution was developed for solving the model to provide an optimal solution for deploying components of a cloud-hosted application with guarantees for multitenancy isolation. By creating and applying the taxonomy, it was learnt that most deployment patterns are related and can be implemented by combining with others, for example, in hybrid deployment scenarios to integrate data residing in multiple clouds. It has been argued that the shared component is better for reducing resource consumption while the dedicated component is better in avoiding performance interference. However, as the experimental results show, there are certain GSD processes where that might not necessarily be so, for example, in version control, where additional copies of the files are created in the repository, thus consuming more disk space. Over time, performance begins to degrade as more time is spent searching across many files on the disk. Extensive performance evaluation of the model-based decision support system showed that the optimal solutions obtained had low variability and percent deviation, and were produced with low computational effort when compared to a given target solution.

La simulation directe des ondes de souffle générées par une explosion maîtrisée, ou accidentelle, est un problème délicat du fait des différentes échelles spatiales en jeu. De plus, en environnement réel (topographie, zone urbaine, …), l’onde de souffle interagit avec les obstacles géométriques en se réfléchissant, se diffractant et se recombinant. La forme du front devient complexe, rendant difficile voire impossible une estimation a priori des effets des explosions.Ce travail de thèse contribue à la mise au point d’une méthode de calcul rapide des ondes de souffle en présence d’obstacles. Il repose sur des modèles hyperboliques simplifiés de propagation d'ondes de choc extraits de la littérature, où seul le front incident est modélisé. Ceci permet une réduction significative du coût des simulations : les 5 équations d'Euler 3D sont réduites à un problème 2D à 2 équations. L’analyse du problème de Riemann met en évidence l’absence de solution de ces modèles lors de la diffraction sur un coin convexe dans certaines configurations fréquemment rencontrées en pratique. L’extension des modèles aux ordres supérieurs ne permet pas de corriger ce défaut. Nous levons cette limitation au travers d'une modification ad hoc. L’effet de souffle consécutif à une explosion est ensuite introduit à partir d’une loi expérimentale pression/distance. Du point de vue numérique, un algorithme Lagrangien conservatif de suivi de front est développé en 2D. Les tests montrent que ce nouveau modèle se compare favorablement à l’expérience, avec une réduction de plusieurs ordres de grandeur du temps de calcul en comparaison des méthodes de résolution directe des équations d’Euler. / The direct numerical simulation of blast waves (accidental or industrial explosions) is a challenging task due to the wide range of spatial and temporal scales involved. Moreover, in a real environment (topography, urban area …), the blast wave interacts with the geometrical obstacles resulting in reflection, diffraction and waves recombination phenomena. The shape of the front becomes complex, which limits the efficiency of simple empirical methods.This thesis aims at contributing to the development of a fast running method for blast waves propagation in presence of obstacles. This is achieved through the use of simplified hyperbolic models for shock waves propagation such as Geometrical Shock Dynamics (GSD) or Kinematic models. These models describe only the leading shock front. This leads to a drastic reduction of the computational cost, from 5 Euler equations at 3D to a 2D problem with 2 equations. However, the study of the Riemann problem shows that the solution of these models does not always exist in the case of the diffraction over a convex corner. We propose an ad-hoc extension of GSD in order to remove this limitation. The blast effects are also recovered through an empirical law available in free field. From a numerical point of view, a 2D conservative Lagrangian algorithm has been implemented and validated. First comparisons with experimental data show the good behaviour of this new model at nearly free computational cost compared to direct Euler methods.

The political history of U.S. commercial remote sensing began in 1984 when the U.S. government first attempted to commercialize its civil earth observation satellite system " Landsat. Since then, the high technology of earth imaging satellite systems has generated intense debates and policy conflicts, primarily centered on U.S. government concerns over the national security and foreign policy implications of high-resolution commercial satellite systems. Conversely, proponents of commercial observation satellites have urged U.S. policymakers to recognize the scientific and socio-economic utility of commercial remote sensing and thus craft and implement regulatory regimes that allow for a greater degree of information openness and transparency in using earth observation satellite imagery. This dissertation traces and analyzes that tumultuous political history and examines the policy issues and social construction of commercial remote sensing to determine the role of knowledge in the effective crafting and execution of commercial remote sensing laws and policies. Although individual and organizational perspectives, interests, missions, and cultures play a significant role in the social construction of commercial observation satellite systems and programs, the problem of insufficient knowledge of the myriad dimensions and complex nature of commercial remote sensing is a little studied but important component of this social construction process. Knowledge gaps concerning commercial remote sensing extend to various dimensions of the subject matter, such as the global, economic, technical, and legal/policy aspects. Numerous examples of knowledge voids are examined to suggest a connection between deficient knowledge and divergent policy perceptions as they relate to commercial remote sensing. Relevant knowledge voids are then structurally categorized to demonstrate the vastness and complexity of commercial remote sensing policy issues and to offer recommendations on how to fill such knowledge gaps to effect increased collaboration between the US government and the U.S. commercial remote sensing industry. Finally, the dissertation offers suggestions for future STS studies on policy issues, particularly those that focus on the global dimensions of commercial remote sensing or on applying the knowledge gap concept advanced by this dissertation to other areas of science and technology policymaking. / Ph. D.

Submitted by CARLA MARIA GOULART DE MORAES (carlagm) on 2015-04-06T17:18:33Z No. of bitstreams: 1 VilsonGartnerComputacao.pdf: 9068377 bytes, checksum: 6ace07d8901f11d83ef8a8c13f4f62c7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-06T17:18:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 VilsonGartnerComputacao.pdf: 9068377 bytes, checksum: 6ace07d8901f11d83ef8a8c13f4f62c7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O Desenvolvimento Distribuído de Software (DDS) é um modelo de desenvolvimento que vem se intensificando nos últimos anos. Também conhecido como Desenvolvimento Global de Software (DGS), esse modelo de desenvolvimento é realizado por equipes em diferentes localizações geográficas. Entre os fatores que contribuem para esse aumento, está a necessidade de negócio das corporações, que buscam redução de custos, recursos qualificados e necessidade de uma presença global. Em outros casos, se deve ao surgimento de novos movimentos de desenvolvimento de software, como a comunidade de software livre, um exemplo bem sucedido de DDS. Apesar da necessidade ou mesmo da conveniência de desenvolver o software de forma distribuída, é extremamente difícil fazê-lo com sucesso. A separação física traz uma série de problemas e desafios interessantes que recém estão começando a ser compreendidas: questões estratégicas, questões culturais, comunicação inadequada, gestão do conhecimento, alocação de tarefas, confiança, questões técnicas, entre outros. Desde que surgiu, o DDS mudou grande parte da tradição do desenvolvimento de software e, para manter o seu mercado, as organizações não podem depender das mesmas competências e tecnologias de engenharia de software utilizadas no desenvolvimento interno. Nesse sentido, o presente trabalho tem por objetivo auxiliar na redução dos problemas e dificuldades trazidos por esse modelo de desenvolvimento, através da implementação de um ambiente de desenvolvimento cujas ferramentas foram definidas com base em estudos e trabalhos relacionados ao tema. / The Distributed Software Development (DSD) is a development model that has been intensified in recent years. Also known as Global Software Development (GSD), this development model is done by teams in different geographical locations. Among the factors that have contributed to this increase, there is the corporations business need of seeking ways to reduce costs, seeking skilled resources and having a global presence. In other cases, it is due to the emergence of new movements in software development, such as the free software community, a successful example of DSD. Despite the need or even desirability of developing software in a distributed way, it is extremely difficult to do this successfully. Physical separation has a number of interesting problems and challenges that are just beginning to be understood: strategic issues, cultural issues, inadequate communication, knowledge management, task allocation, trust, technical issues, among others. DSD has changed much of the tradition of software development since it appeared. Organizations cannot rely on the same skills and software engineering technologies used internally to maintain this new market. In this way, this work aims to help to reduce the problems and difficulties brought by this type of development, through the implementation of a software development environment whose tools were defined based on studies related to the topic.