This thesis is concerned with quasigroups with a small number of associative triples. The minimum number of associative triples among quasigroups of orders up to seven has already been determined. The goal of this thesis is to determine the minimum for orders eight and nine. This thesis reports that the minimum number of associative triples among quasigroups of order eight is sixteen and among quasigroups of order nine is nine. The latter finding is rather significant and we present a construction of an infinite series of quasigroups with the number of associative triples equal to their order. Findings of this thesis have been a result of a computer search which used improved algorithm presented in this thesis. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the theory that shows how to reduce the search space. The second part deals with the development of the algorithm and the last part analyzes the findings and shows a comparison of the new algorithm to the previous work. It shows that new search program is up to four orders of magnitude faster than the one used to determine the minimum number of associative triples among quasigroups of order seven.

All practical text search systems use inverted indexes to quickly resolve user queries. Offline index construction algorithms, where queries are not accepted during construction, have been the subject of much prior research. As a result, current techniques can invert virtually unlimited amounts of text in limited main memory, making efficient use of both time and disk space. However, these algorithms assume that the collection does not change during the use of the index. This thesis examines the task of index maintenance, the problem of adapting an inverted index to reflect changes in the collection it describes. Existing approaches to index maintenance are discussed, including proposed optimisations. We present analysis and empirical evidence suggesting that existing maintenance algorithms either scale poorly to large collections, or significantly degrade query resolution speed. In addition, we propose a new strategy for index maintenance that trades a strictly controlled amount of querying efficiency for greatly increased maintenance speed and scalability. Analysis and empirical results are presented that show that this new algorithm is a useful trade-off between indexing and querying efficiency. In scenarios described in Chapter 7, the use of the new maintenance algorithm reduces the time required to construct an index to under one sixth of the time taken by algorithms that maintain contiguous inverted lists. In addition to work on index maintenance, we present a new technique for accumulator pruning during ranked query evaluation, as well as providing evidence that existing approaches are unsatisfactory for collections of large size. Accumulator pruning is a key problem in both querying efficiency and overall text search system efficiency. Existing approaches either fail to bound the memory footprint required for query evaluation, or suffer loss of retrieval accuracy. In contrast, the new pruning algorithm can be used to limit the memory footprint of ranked query evaluation, and in our experiments gives retrieval accuracy not worse than previous alternatives. The results presented in this thesis are validated with robust experiments, which utilise collections of significant size, containing real data, and tested using appropriate numbers of real queries. The techniques presented in this thesis allow information retrieval applications to efficiently index and search changing collections, a task that has been historically problematic.

The kidneys and the eyes are sensitive to blood pressure changes. The kidney participates in blood pressure control and renal disease can cause arterial hypertension and be aggravated by hypertension, entering a vicious circle between both alterations. In human patients with hypertension, increased vascular resistance is observed in renal and ocular arteries. This increased vascular resistance can be measured with Doppler ultrasound by calculating resistive and pulsatility indices. Increased renal and ocular indices have been observed in human patients with hypertension, and a correlation between the indices and the systolic blood pressure and hypertensive damage has also been reported. The indices values in normal animals vary slightly among the studies and the technique, the operator and, the administration of sedative or anaesthetic drugs can cause variation of the indices. Then, obtaining your own reference values is necessary. The aim of this study is to determine if increased vascular resistance is found in dogs and cats with diseases that can cause hypertension and whether they are related with arterial blood pressure. Values were obtained in non-sedated healthy animals and the effect of a sedative protocol appropriated to be used in ill animals, if necessary, was evaluated. Then renal and ocular resistive and pulsatility indices and systolic blood pressure were obtained in dogs and cats with diseases that can cause hypertension, such as renal disease, diabetes mellitus, hyperadrenocorticism, and hepatic disease. Significant increased renal indices were found in the disease groups in comparison to healthy animals. Correlations with blood parameters and the indices were also found in different diseases. Correlation with blood pressure was not found in any of the groups. In conclusion, increased peripheral vascular resistance was found in the kidney in animals with these diseases, as well as certain degree of relationship with the severity of the disease (evaluated by means of blood parameters). However, no correlation with systolic blood pressure was observed.

¡@¡@The motivation of this research is to construct a Composite Index of funds which can help investors to choose funds with better ¡§future¡¨ performance. ¡@¡@The Composite Index in this thesis includes 14 kinds of indexes, such as Sharpe, Treynor, Sortino, and etc. Each kind of index is calculated by 4 different time lengths, they are 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year. Therefore, there are 56 indexes in the Composite Index (CI). ¡@¡@Factor analysis method was used to analyze fund performance from 1998/01 to 2000/12, and the perfect weight combination to make 56 indexes become one CI was found out. In order to prove the performance of the CI in selecting funds, funds were distributed into 5 groups by their Composite Index scores every month. Therefore, we had group A to E from high CI score to low CI score. We calculated these funds¡¦ returns in the next month, and cumulated them by group from 2001/01 to 2005/12. After calculating, the cumulative returns of group A are 74.47% higher than group E, annual returns are 11.99%, and Sharpe index is 1.41. It shows that Composite Index can really distinguish the future, at least in one month, performance of stock funds. Investors are recommended to change their fund portfolios by latest CI scores once a month. Therefore, the Composite Index is more suitable for fund-of-fund manager, because their transaction costs are lower. ¡@¡@This thesis was awarded by ¡§Industry-University Cooperative Research Project¡¨ of National Science Council, and is going to be developed in PRISS system, a financial analysis software of Folion Financial Technology Co., Ltd. Therefore, a more systemized, programmed, and efficient environment for this kind of research is expectable.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-03, Section: B, page: 1621. Adviser: Deanna M. Hoelscher. Includes bibliographical references.

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

Kost är ett brett ämne i dagens samhälle. Idag läggs ett stort fokus på barn och ungdomars prestation i skolan. Är det bara duktiga lärare som hjälper eleverna framåt eller finns det andra faktorer? Vi som blivande idrottslärare vill se hur mycket frukostens betydelse har på elevernas fysiska prestation. Eftersom kropp och själ hänger ihop har eleverna även fått skatta den upplevda fysiska ansträngningen. Därför kallar vi det för psykofysiologisk ansträngning. Som teoretisk utgångspunkt har vi använt oss av Maslows behovstrappa och kroppens energiprocesser. Detta är något som vi vill kunna ta med oss i framtiden. Vi vill inte bara se eleverna som kärl som vi sedan fyller på med kunskap, utan vi vill även testa detta praktiskt i hopp om att detta ska ge eleverna och oss en ny erfarenhet. Vårt syfte med undersökningen var att se frukostens inverkan på den psykofysiologiska prestationen. Presterar man lika bra i kropp och knopp med frukost respektive utan? Vi utförde ett praktiskt experiment på 29 elever. De fick utföra en standardiserad lektion som bestod av ett steptest och Yo-Yo-test, som är ett mätbart fysiskt test, med frukost respektive utan frukost. Eleverna fick sedan uppskatta sin fysiska ansträngning på Borgskalan som fanns med i en enkät. Resultatet visade att ansträngningen blev högre utan frukost både hos tränade och otränade. Observationen visade även att huvudvärk och mer upplevd trötthet uppstod vid tillfället utan frukost.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1974.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1974.

With the progression globalization, the connection of single national economies is widening. Especially, thanks to liberalization, free movement of goods and services and the openness of our economy an effort to the involvement of international relations is a crucial importance. International trade allows more efficient allocation of resources at the international level for some groups of products and obtaining comparative advantages in the international trade. The data analysed in this thesis come from the website of the Statistical Office of the Czech Republic and Eurostat. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the dynamics of comparative advantages of the Czech economy in terms of export some groups of products according to the classification SITC1 compared to the countries of the European Union (EU27) using Balassa and Dalum index of specialization and regression analysis.