Sweet sorghum is a highly versatile C4 grass noted for its improved drought tolerance and water use efficiency relative to sugarcane. Sweet sorghum is well suited for ethanol production due to a rapid growth rate, high biomass production, and a wide range of adaptation. Unlike the 12-18 month growth cycle of sugarcane, sweet sorghum produces a harvestable crop in three to five months. Sweet sorghum and sugarcane crops are complementary and in combination can extend the sugar mill seasons in many regions of the world to an estimated 8 months. Seasonal growth and weather patterns both optimize and restrict production of each crop to specific times of the year, however these are different for the two crops. In addition to temporally spacing the date of harvest between crops, the genetic variability of maturity within the crops may also be used to extend the mill seasons; specific hybrids can be used and selected to maximize yield throughout the harvest season. Under favorable growing environments, sweet sorghum hybrids of all maturity groups produced sugar yields ranging from 2.8 to 4.9 MT/ha. Early/medium, late, and very late maturity hybrids planted during April, May, and June planting dates are necessary to maximize the mill season. In this study, early/medium maturity hybrids planted during April and May matured for harvest between late July and mid-August. June planting dates were unfavorable for early/medium maturity hybrids. In addition, late and very late maturity hybrids planted during April matured for harvest in late August; the additional growing season thus resulted in higher sugar yields. Timely planting of late and very late maturity hybrids in April, May, and June produce the maximum yields for harvests after mid August. Intermittent use of late and very late maturity hybrids can therefore extend sugar milling seasons into mid November if so desired.

Ever since the early 90¡¦s the global software market has been growing at a rapid speed. Along with the development of Internet and electronic commerce, the demands for software have been increased dramatically and Taiwanese software firms are encountered serious global competition too. To stay competitive, the Taiwan software industry has to improve the quality of its software products in order to compete in the international IT arena. The present best option is for the Taiwanese software firms to achieve the Software Engineering Institute¡¦s Capability Maturity Model certification. This study compares the major differences on the requirement management process between CMMI level II and level III. The differences include key process¡¦s purpose, activity, and artifact. Two real-word cases were used to illustrate the example and concept. These results provide a practical bases and better understanding for the Taiwanese software firms when they implement CMMI level II or III.

This study attempts to incorporate religious fundamentalism into an existing framework for understanding spiritual variables from an object relations perspective of development. Out of this theory have emerged two constructs-image of God and spiritual maturity-which are both spiritually and developmentally oriented. Based on theoretical considerations, it was hypothesized that religious fundamentalism would be connected to lower levels of object relations development and spiritual maturity, and more negative God images. Eighty-five Christians from 18-68 years old were therefore administered four inventories that measured these four constructs. Although mainly weak correlations for the overall sample were found, for students religious fundamentalism was linked to lower levels of object relations development, as hypothesized. Implications of this and other findings are explored.

ABSTRACT The Capability Maturity Model Integration, (CMMI) has been officially announced in 2002 by the Carnegie Mellon® Software Engineering Institute (SEI). The SEI¡¦s core purpose is to help organizations continuously carry on to improve their flow of software engineering capabilities and to appraise the maturity rank of contractor's organization. CMMI has provided an elastic framework to practice for the software project and to ensure the software quality. Due to CMMI does not limit the method of practice, but only defines the goal which must be achieved. Therefore, the different technique, organization, and work domain all may according to their characteristics to adjust their flow to comply with the CMMI requirement. Meanwhile it has already been generally valued and adopted by both of domestic and foreign companies. At present, there are 24 domestic companies have obtained the CMMI authentication. At the same time, the Government wants to promote the competitiveness of domestic software industry to the global information service market. During CMMI¡¦s promotion, she has aggressively offered all kind of policies and estimates to invest about seventy millions new Taiwan Dollars every year with the expectation to impel 50 third level of authentication in 2007; to achieve 100 third level in 2010 as well as 5 fifth level to encourage the domestic software organization to obtain the CMMI authentication. Obviously the software quality is now one of the key impetus of Taiwan industry and more over the most important development tendency and the critical technology to increase international competitive strength of Taiwan software industry in the future. The software flow improvement is the enterprise to guarantee the quality of their provided service/product. It is an important investment of competitiveness promotion which will involve the interference of the transformation of organization, the resistance of inside and outside staff etc., hence the organization must to have the commitment of policy, the intense attempt and the motive to invest the essential resources to determine the execution of software flow improvement, thus to guarantee the success of the software flow improvement. By analyzing the implemented benefits and the various difficulties of initial stages and common bitter experience in each domain flow of the 24 domestic CMMI certificated companies to make the case study of CMMI implementation to offer the reference templates of domestic enterprises which are now complying with CMMI or those plan to induct CMMI in the future. This research analyzed the substantive benefits of the domestic 24 CMMI certified companies from the six performances, such as customer, finance, the quality, the flow, the organization and the staff after carry out CMMI. We found the mostly positive confirmation after CMMI implemented. Yet comparing the performance of finance and the staff, with approximately 50% thought it revealed less distinguished deviation in either enhancing "the capability of commercial negotiation of project taken¡¨ or decreasing the bustle of team member after CMMI carry out. This article referred to the lesson learn of domestic enterprises which got the CMMI authentication inducting A + technology which was inducting CMMI and the local consultancy companies to collect the 35 usual problems of the 4 aspects of in the staff, the force team, the inside and outside resources, and the environment of organization. Also to procure 18 bitter experiences of domain flow of both maturity second level (ML2) and third level (ML 3) in specific tasks with the common troubles in general practices of A+ technology, as well as the difficulties in particular tasks under execution, then to analyze the change tendency of the various stages of CMMI to accumulate the valuable experience assets of the domestic enterprises to implement CMMI. In this research integrated the motives; the purpose; the flow and invested resources; the key successful factors; the frequent troubles and the solution, including the concrete effectiveness and the future plan of the 3 examples to be the important reference model for those enterprises are to conduct CMMI authentication and to effectively create the systemized software development / maintain flow to promote the project productivity, the competitiveness of organization and software quality. Keywords : CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration); The Improvement of Software Flow; Benefit appraisal

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 66 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-44).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 86 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 84).

Revised 10/2015; Originally published 10/2013. / 2 pp. / Grain yield, test weight, and other characteristics of barley, durum, and wheat varieties are provided in this publication

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία κάνει μια σύντομη αναφορά στα θεωρητικά προσομοιώματα εκτίμησης της θλιπτικής αντοχής του αυτοσυμπυκνούμενου σκυροδέματος (ΑΣΣ), όπως και του συμβατού σκυροδέματος. Το ΑΣΣ είναι ένας τύπος σκυροδέματος που είναι ικανός να ρέει στους ξυλότυπους, χωρίς να παρουσιάζει διαχωρισμό, και μπορεί να πληρώσει ομοιόμορφα και πλήρως κάθε σημείο του ξυλότυπου ρέοντας αποκλειστικά και μόνο λόγω του ίδιου βάρους του, χωρίς καμία ανάγκη δόνησης ή κατανάλωσης άλλου είδους ενέργειας. Η διαδικασία για την εκτίμηση της αντοχής του σκυροδέματος γίνεται με τη χρήση της μεθόδου της ωριμότητας. Παρουσιάζονται, επίσης, κάποια εργαστηριακά αποτελέσματα προσδιορισμού τιμών αντοχής συγκεκριμένων μιγμάτων από σκυρόδεμα, τα οποία υπολογίστηκαν με τη χρήση της μεθόδου αυτής. / About ssr concrete characteristics. Estimating the strength of ssr concrete using the maturity method. There is also an attempt in the laboratory of estimating strength of different mixtures of concrete

This dissertation attempts in three essays to contribute to the growing body of research on the problems associated with sudden stops of capital inflows, known to have been at the heart of many recent emerging market crises. It does this by developing basic models that can incorporate sudden stops and hopefully make policy relevant recommendations. The first essay develops a simple three date representative agent model of a small open endowment economy without money. It allows sudden stops to occur at date two and asks whether individuals in such a shock-prone world are still better off borrowing than in autarky. Unambiguously, this chapter shows that individuals are better off borrowing than in autarky and provides a tractable core model on which the later chapters build. The second essay then includes a long-term borrowing option as well as country-specific risk premia based on an information asymmetry between domestic borrowers and international lenders. This allows analysis of optimal maturity choices in a meaningful way. The intent is to address questions in the literature concerning whether emerging economies could enhance welfare by imposing short-term capital controls to encourage the use of longer-maturing debt and thus avoid the sudden stop. The results imply that short-term capital controls would generally lower welfare, even when sudden stops are fully anticipated. Finally, the third essay extends the horizon of the model and includes a much wider range of maturities. This allows one to start making sense of maturity bunching (when a country's debt all matures around a given date) which is known to exacerbate sudden-stop related problems. The model shows that maturity bunching can occur endogenously when both risk premia and uncertainty over the duration of the sudden stop are present.

<p>This dissertation investigates how variation in trade credit standards play a role in firm maturation. In Chapter 1, I survey existing research in trade credit. Following this, I identify lifecycle trends in supplier trade credit policy in Chapter 2. Young suppliers assume greater risks in trade credit provision early in their lifecycles in order to advance growth and product market agendas. There is a peak around a supplier's IPO in the riskiness of trade credit supplied, measured by doubtful receivables and the length of credit provided (receivables length). I find that young firms in industries where customer-supplier relationships are more significant have higher doubtful receivables, consistent with suppliers varying trade credit standards to build relationships. Additionally, young suppliers with more complex products (as measured by R&D intensity) offer longer duration loans compared to suppliers of similar age. Offering riskier trade credit terms affects economic outcomes. In Chapter 3, I study if varying trade credit standards for the purpose of relationship building is a viable strategy for all firm maturities. I use the incidence of a major free trade agreement to study firm responses to a major disruption in existing supplier-customer relationships. Chapter 3 posits both supplier driven as well as customer driven explanations for the observed responses, finding evidence consistent with older suppliers have a reduced incentive as well as capacity to engage in relationship building.</p> / Dissertation