Abstract This thesis explores the management of human resources (HR) in five star hotels located in a developing country (Malaysia). This study is particularly relevant to the hotel industry, known for its traditionally poor HR practices (e.g., a lack of employment security, training, and career development opportunity, low levels of employee involvement and an increasing number of casual employees who are paid hourly). These practices are often perceived as a solution to high labour costs and fluctuating demand prevalent in the hotel industry. However, it is often only "non-managerial" employees who are affected by poor HR practices, as more sophisticated approaches to HR practices are often taken with regard to managerial (strategic) level employees. HR practices system differentiation (HRPSD), or HR architecture, involves having more than one HR practices system within an organisation. HRPSD has been criticised in the hospitality management literature for the poor HR practices in the management of non-managerial employees, however despite this criticism, it is widely practiced by the industry. The continuation of HRPSD practices in the hotel industry suggests its importance to better understand, research and study. The aim of this research is to gain an understanding of HRPSD in a hotel industry context, and to better understand the immediate effects of such practices. While the existing literature concerning HR architecture in other industries provides some discussion of HRPSD, research and study of the concept focusing on the hotel industry is essential in providing a detailed explanation of the effect of this phenomenon, as HR practices between industries may vary. Central to this study, is an investigation of the nature of HRPSD, identification of HR intermediate outcomes, and the effects of HRPSD on hotel employees. Studying the effect of HRPSD on employees is important because employees are known to be a hotel organisations‟ most important resource. Developed based on the literature of SHRM and HR architecture, this study proposes a conceptual model that incorporates HRPSD in the SHRM model originally proposed by Schuler, Dowling, Smart, and Huber (1992). Guided by this model, this study seeks to answer the critical questions of “how organisations differentiate their HR practices systems” and “what are the corresponding HR intermediate outcomes?” A particular foci of this thesis relates to how the concept of a “strategic” (or managerial) job is conceptualised in the hotel industry, what the elements of HR practices systems in five-star hotels are, how and why hotel organisations differentiate their HR practices systems, what the HR intermediate outcomes of HRPSD are and how HRPSD relates to the identified HR intermediate outcomes. To answer these complex research issues, a multiple case research methodology is employed, utilising a series of in depth semi-structured interviews. This vi study focuses specifically on five-star hotels in Malaysia because HR practices vary among hotels of various sizes. The findings indicate a notable effect of HRPSD on employees‟ motivation, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and retention, and that excessive differentiation is not beneficial for a five star hotel. In this study only certain HR practices were found to be differentiated; selective staffing, extensive training, compensation and empowerment. HR practices that were applied to all employees without differentiation were a clear job description, orientation, employment security, objective performance appraisal, career development opportunity and effective communication. In addition, this study also provides a clear definition of the strategic job in the hotel industry, and demonstrates the importance of HR practices integration and the influence of internal and external environments on the formation of HR strategy. This research contributes to theory as well as hotel sector policy and practice. Theoretically, it has identified how HRPSD links to firm performance (in Malaysian five star hotels). In addition, it provides clear definitions and understanding of the strategic job concept as well as identification of HR practices system elements and their differentiation in five-star hotels. Furthermore, the theoretical framework developed can be useful for future quantitative studies which can test the model formulated in this study. For practitioners, the detailed examination of HR practices system elements and how they are differentiated may guide them in their future HR strategy formation.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2003. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 249-255).

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliography.

Variational techniques are used to develop a theory for the time evolution of a thin strand of viscous fluid suspended from two points. The shape of the strand is approximated to be a parabola and energy conservation is used to derive a differential equation modeling the change in height over time. Data is collected with a high resolution camera and a strobe light to obtain the position and shape of the strand over multiple intervals of time. Three very different and unexpected types of behaviors are observed depending on the initial thickness and shape of the filament. The approximation fits well with one type of behavior but variations in the thickness of the strand, and consequently in the center of mass, need to be factored in to predict the others.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:40:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T13:56:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 03990.pdf: 5973232 bytes, checksum: 495568a9f1caded1dd992b8a431d36d3 (MD5) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN/CNEN-SP

Every compiler passes code through several stages, each a sort of mini- compiler of its own. Thus each stage may deal with the code in a different representation, which may have little to do with the source or target language. We can describe these in-memory representations as languages in their own right, which we call intermediate languages. Each intermediate language is designed to accomodate the stage of compilation that handles it. Those toward the end of the compilation pipeline, for instance, tend to have features expressing low-level details of computation. A subtler case is that of the optimization stage, whose role is to transform the program so that it runs faster, uses less memory, and so forth. The optimizer faces tradeoffs: The language should provide enough information to guide optimization algorithms, but all of this information must be kept up to date as the program is transformed. Also, establishing invariants in the language can be helpful both in implementing algorithms and in debugging the implementation, but each invariant may complicate desirable transformations or rule them out altogether. Finally, a ivlanguage where the invariants are obviously correct may have a form too awkward or otherwise unsuited to the compiler’s needs. Given the properties and invariants that we would like the language to provide, we can approach the design task in a way that gives these features without necessarily sacrificing implementability. Namely, begin with a formal language that makes the desired properties obvious, then translate it to one more suitable for implementation. We can even translate theorems about valid transformations in the formal language to derive correct algorithms in the implementation language. This dissertation explores the connections between different intermediate languages and how they can be interderived, then demonstrates how translation lead to an improvement to the Glasgow Haskell Compiler opimization engine. This dissertation includes previously published coauthored material.

Forebrain development is controlled by a set of transcription factors which are expressed in dynamic spatiotemporal patterns in the embryonic forebrain and are known to regulate complex gene networks. Pax6 is a transcription factor that regulates corticogenesis and mutations affecting Pax6 protein levels cause neurodevelopmental defects in the eyes and forebrain in both humans and mice. In previous studies, it was shown that the graded expression pattern of Pax6 protein, which is high rostro-laterally to low caudo-medially in the cerebral cortex, is critical for its control of cell cycle progression and proliferation of cortical progenitors. However the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. Based on a microarray analysis carried out in our laboratory, a number of cell cycle-related candidate genes that may be affected by Pax6 have been identified. One such gene, Cell division cycle associated 7 (Cdca7) is expressed in a counter-gradient against that of Pax6. In my current study, I found that Cdca7 mRNA expression in the telencephalon is upregulated in Pax6 null (Small eye) mutants and downregulated in mice that overexpress PAX6 (PAX77) across developing time points from E12.5 to E15.5. There are several potential Pax6 binding motifs located in the genomic locus upstream of Cdca7. However, by chromatin immunoprecipitation, it is showed that none of the predicted binding sites are physically bound by Pax6. Promoter luciferase assays using fragments combining five suspected binding motifs show that Pax6 is functionally critical. Cdca7 is also identified as a Myc and E2F1 direct target and is upregulated in some tumours but its biological role is not fully understood. Current work using in utero electroporation to overexpress Cdca7 around the lateral telencephalon, where Cdca7 expression levels are normally low, tested the effects on the proliferation and differentiation of cortical progenitor cells in this region. In E12.5 mice embryos, overexpression of Cdca7 protein causes fewer intermediate progenitor cells and post-mitotic neurons to be produced but these effects were not found in E14.5 embryos. This result implies that Cdca7 may affect cell fate decision during cortical development.

abstract: This study reports on benzene and toluene biodegradation under different dissolved oxygen conditions, and the goal of this study is to evaluate and model their removal. Benzene and toluene were tested for obligate anaerobic degradation in batch reactors with sulfate as the electron acceptor. A group of sulfate-reducing bacteria capable of toluene degradation was enriched after 252 days of incubation. Those cultures, originated from anaerobic digester, were able to degrade toluene coupled to sulfate reduction with benzene coexistence, while they were not able to utilize benzene. Methanogens also were present, although their contribution to toluene biodegradation was not defined. Aerobic biodegradation of benzene and toluene by Pseudomonas putida F1 occurred, and biomass production lagged behind substrate loss and continued after complete substrate removal. This pattern suggests that biodegradation of intermediates, rather than direct benzene and toluene transformation, caused bacterial growth. Supporting this explanation is that the calculated biomass growth from a two-step model basically fit the experimental biomass results during benzene and toluene degradation with depleted dissolved oxygen. Catechol was tested for anaerobic biodegradation in batch experiments and in a column study. Sulfate- and nitrate-reducing bacteria enriched from a wastewater treatment plant hardly degraded catechol within 20 days. However, an inoculum from a contaminated site was able to remove 90% of the initial 16.5 mg/L catechol, and Chemical Oxygen Demand was oxidized in parallel. Catechol biodegradation was inhibited when nitrite accumulated, presumably by a toxic catechol-nitrite complex. The membrane biofilm reactor (MBfR) offers the potential for biodegrading benzene in a linked aerobic and anaerobic pathway by controlling the O2 delivery. At an average benzene surface loading of 1.3 g/m2-day and an average hydraulic retention time of 2.2 day, an MBfR supplied with pure O2 successfully achieved 99% benzene removal at steady state. A lower oxygen partial pressure led to decreased benzene removal, and nitrate removal increased, indicating multiple mechanisms, including oxygenation and nitrate reduction, were involved in the system being responsible for benzene removal. Microbial community analysis indicated that Comamonadaceae, a known aerobic benzene-degrader and denitrifier, dominated the biofilm at the end of operation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Civil and Environmental Engineering 2015

abstract: Scientific workflows allow scientists to easily model and express the entire data processing steps, typically as a directed acyclic graph (DAG). These scientific workflows are made of a collection of tasks that usually take a long time to compute and that produce a considerable amount of intermediate datasets. Because of the nature of scientific exploration, a scientific workflow can be modified and re-run multiple times, or new scientific workflows are created that might make use of past intermediate datasets. Storing intermediate datasets has the potential to save time in computations. Since storage is limited, one main problem that needs a solution is determining which intermediate datasets need to be saved at creation time in order to minimize the computational time of the workflows to be run in the future. This research thesis proposes the design and implementation of Pingo, a system that is capable of managing the computations of scientific workflows as well as the storage, provenance and deletion of intermediate datasets. Pingo uses the history of workflows submitted to the system to predict the most likely datasets to be needed in the future, and subjects the decision of dataset deletion to the optimization of the computational time of future workflows. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2017

Master of Music / School of Music, Theatre and Dance / Augustin Muriago / This lecture-recital presents five pieces from the first two books of Elisenda Fabregas’ Album for the Young. These intermediate-level pieces are written in styles ranging from Renaissance to Modern periods. The goal in presenting these works is to analyze what technical and musical skills they develop, suggest ways to teach these pieces, and to explore their interaction with more traditional teaching repertoire. The lecture-recital presents—pedagogical exercises developed to target specific skills needed to play these pieces; performance practice for each genre represented; and finally, pairs each piece with pieces by Bartok, Bach, Czerny, Kahlua, Clementi, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and Debussy. The works of Fabregas were chosen to promote the work of women composers and to expand the teaching repertoire that students and teachers are exposed to.