I examined habitat selection of middens within insect-damaged forest and compared home range and survival for Mt. Graham red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis) in insect-damaged and healthy forest. Squirrels used habitat in areas with < 69% tree mortality. Basal area, canopy cover, and log volume were greater at middens than random locations. Within midden sites, only greater basal area of live trees distinguished occupied sites from unoccupied sites. Surface temperature at occupied middens tended to be cooler than unoccupied middens. Squirrels living in insect-damaged forest had larger home ranges than in healthy forest. Squirrel body mass and reproductive condition did not differ between forest types, suggesting that insectdamaged forest provided adequate resources. However, squirrels inhabiting insectdamaged forest experienced lower survivorship and 50% fewer potential reproductive events than squirrels in healthy forest, implicating presence of an ecological trap. Preservation of remaining healthy forest is a priority for management of this endangered species.

In the current innovative network, to cope with the increased require- ments of customers, there is a rapid increase in the development of dierent protocols and applications. With such increase in networking technology, the security constraints are becoming more and more severe, reducing the accessibility to the actual network for implementing new protocols. This scenario forced for an urgent need of a technology, which can help the re- searchers to implement their developed protocols in the network without inuencing the production trac. This need resulted in a concept called network isolation. This is achieved by VLAN or SDN technologies. In this study, we investigate the performance of VLAN and an API of SDN in the context of establishing dynamic link, in switching setup. For such a link creation, dynamic VLAN (dVLAN) is used in the former case and OpenFLow protocol is used in the later scenario. The main focus in this study is to compare the dynamic behavior of both the protocols in layer-2 context by measuring network level performance metrics of each protocol. Some of the features like, vendor independency and software independency is taken into account while measuring the performance metrics. In order to evaluate the performance, an experimental testbed is implemented. The network level performance metric called protocol setup time is measured. It is the time taken by each protocol to setup an active link between two end-hosts. A two-tire network architecture is implemented with the mentioned features. From the analytical and statistical results obtained, OpenFlow re- sulted in performing relatively better when compared to dynamic VLANs. By carefully examining the protocol setup time of OpenFlow against dVLAN, OpenFlow took less time when compared to dVLAN resulting in faster exe- cution in enabling connectivity. On the other hand, the analytical study on the two protocols reects the simplicity exhibited by dVLAN over Open- Flow.

No description available.

Sexual, or behavioral, isolation is a form of reproductive isolation that impedes gene flow between divergent taxa. In this study, sexual isolation was measured in a sister-species pair of North American cactophilic fruitflies. The results show that interspecific behavioral isolation is dependent upon the strain of origin of D. mojavensis, but is independent of the strain of origin of D. arizonae. Interspecific sexual isolation is greatest in crosses involving D. mojavensis from sympatry, which is consistent with reinforcement, and seems to be attributable to increased reluctance by D. mojavensis females and D. arizonae males to mate with heterospecifics. Contrary to previous studies, I found strong evidence for reproductive isolation between two strains of D. arizonae. The majority of the observed behavioral isolation seems to be the result of intraspecific, interpopulation encounters between females from Southeastern Mexico and males derived from the Northern population.

No description available.

No description available.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Lazy replication with snapshot isolation (SI) has emerged as a popular choice for distributed databases. However, lazy replication requires the execution of update transactions at one (master) site so that it is relatively easy for a total SI order to be determined for consistent installation of updates in the lazily replicated system. We propose a set of techniques that support update transaction execution over multiple partitioned sites, thereby allowing the master to scale. Our techniques determine a total SI order for update transactions over multiple master sites without requiring global coordination in the distributed system, and ensure that updates are installed in this order at all sites to provide consistent and scalable replication with SI. We have built our techniques into PostgreSQL and demonstrate their effectiveness through experimental evaluation.

Legacy applications, often written in C, can be riddled with bugs. Sarcastically referred to as "veritable bug ranches", pre-existing legacy applications of substantial size and complexity are still commonplace. In this dissertation, I motivate, build and evaluate Lind, a sandbox for legacy applications. Lind decreases the impact of buggy programs on the system that runs them. It does this without changing their code or destroying the non-functional characteristics of the programs---such as performance, portability, light-weightedness and ease of deployment---which are the primary motivators for legacy software written in C. Lind borrows many principles of secure system design to help it isolate legacy applications so they cannot impact the rest of the system. To assess Lind, I evaluate how well legacy applications perform in Lind, how strong the isolation Lind provides is, and how easy it is to port applications to Lind---all to conclude that Lind is a viable proof-of-concept platform for legacy applications. / Graduate / 0984

The Raman spectrum of polycrystalline or matrix-isolated S₂N₂ shows three bands attributable to its Raman active fundamentals, including two in close proximity; the possibility of Fermi resonance is discounted. The infrared spectrum.of polycrystalline S₂N₂ shows five bands, including three attributable to the infrared active fundamentals, while the others are associated with some intermediate species in the polymerisation of S₂N₂. The vibrational spectra of matrix-isolated S₄N₄ are consistent with previous observations in the solid state and in solution, also with the established cage structure of the molecule. The stretching force constants of S₂N₂ and S₄N₄, lower than those predicted on the basis of observations on acyclic S-N molecules, are correlated with the strain in the molecules and their associated thermodynamic instability. The interaction force constants indicate delocalised π-bonding, apparently more extensive in S₂N₂. Substantial cross-ring S-S bonding is evident in S₄N₄; S-S interactions in S₂N₂ are apparently non-bonded and repulsive in nature. The infrared spectrum of matrix-isolated Cr0C1₃ contains bands attributable to the fundamentals of this molecule, along with several indicating the presence of Cr0₂C1₂ and possibly other related molecules. The Raman spectrum shows just three strong bands, all below 250 cm^-1, assumed to arise from the deformation fundamentals of Cr0C1₃; the form of the spectrum is attributed to absorption or fluorescence. The force constants derived for Cr0C1₃ correspond closely to their counterparts in V0C1₃ and Cr0₂C1₂, suggesting similar force fields in the three molecules. The infrared spectrum of the volatile products of the reaction between PC1₃ and NaN₃ indicates the presence of several molecules, possibly including C1₂PN₃ and oligomers of C1₂ P = N, although no definite conclusions are drawn. Spectroscopic evidence also suggests that the reaction between (CH₃)₂PC1 and NaN₃ yields (CH₃)₂PN₃ as a major product, although observations such as the effect of ultraviolet photolysis remain unexplained.