No / Visualisation of the midwinter solstice viewed from the Warren Field pit group The capacity to conceptualise and measure time is amongst the most important achievements of human societies, and the issue of when time was 'created' by humankind is critical in understanding how society has developed. A pit alignment, recently excavated in Aberdeenshire (Scotland), provides an intriguing contribution to this debate. This structure, dated to the 8th millennium BC, has been re-analysed and appears to possess basic calendrical functions. The site may therefore provide the earliest evidence currently available for 'time reckoning' as the pit group appears to mimic the phases of the Moon and is structured to track lunar months. It also aligns on the south east horizon and a prominent topographic point associated with sunrise on the midwinter solstice. In doing so the monument anticipates problems associated with simple lunar calendars by providing an annual astronomic correction in order to maintain the link between the passage of time indicated by the Moon, the asynchronous solar year, and the associated seasons. The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and ability to track time across the year, and also perhaps within the month, and that this occurred at a period nearly five thousand years before the first formal calendars were created in Mesopotamia. / Internet Archaeology is an Open Access journal.

Oxide dielectric breakdown is an old problem that has been studied over decades. It causes power dissipations and irreversible damage to the electronic devices. The aggressive downscaling of the device size exponentially increases the leakage current density, which also raises the risk of dielectric breakdown. It has been proposed that point defects, current leakages, impurity diffusions, etc. all contribute to the change of oxide chemical composition and ultimately lead to the dielectric breakdown. However, the conclusive cause and a clear understanding of the entire process of dielectric breakdown are still under debate. In this research, the electronic structure at metal/oxide interfaces is studied using first-principle calculations within the framework of Density Functional Theory (DFT) to investigate any possible key signature that would trigger the dielectric breakdown. A classical band alignment method, the Van de Walle method, is applied to the case study of the Al/crystal-SiO2 (Al/c-SiO2) interface. Point defects, such as oxygen vacancy (VO) and hydrogen impurity (IH), are introduced into the Al/c-SiO2 interface to study the effects on band offset and electronic structure caused by point defects at metal/oxide interfaces. It is shown that the bonding chemistry at metal/oxide interfaces, which is mainly ionic bond, polarizes the interface. It results in many interface effects such as the interface dipole, built-in voltage, band bending, etc. Charge density analysis also indicates that the interface can localize charge due to such ionic bonding. It is also found that VO at the interface traps metal electrons which closes the open -sp3 orbital. The analysis on local potential shows that the metal potential penetrates through a few layers of oxide starting from the interface, which metalizes the interfacial region and induces unoccupied states in the oxide band gap. In addition, it is shown that higher oxygen content at metal/oxide interfaces minimizes such metal potential invasion. In addition, an oxygen vacancy is created at multiple sites through the Al/c-SiO2 and Al/a-SiO2 interface systems, separately. The oxygen local pressure is also calculated before its removal using Quantum Stress Density theory. Correlations among electronic structure, stress density, and vacancy formation energy are found, which provide informative insights into the defect generation controlling and dielectric breakdown analysis. A new band alignment approach based on the projection of plane-waves (PWs) into the space-dependent atomic orbital (LCAO) basis is presented and tested against classical band offset methods -- the Van de Walle method. It is found that the new band alignment approach can provide a quantitative and reliable band alignment and can be applied to the heterojunctions consisting of amorphous materials. The new band alignment approach reveals the real-space dependency of the electronic structure at interfaces. In addition, it includes all interface effects, such as the interface dipole, built-in voltage, virtual oxide thinning, and band deformation, which cannot be derived using classical band offset methods. This new band alignment approach is applied to the case study of both the Al/amorphous-SiO2 (Al/a-SiO2) interface and the Al/c-SiO2. We have found that at extremely low dimensions, the reduction of the insulator character due to the virtual oxide thinning is a pure quantum effect. I highlight that the quantum tunneling current leakage is more critical than the decrease of the potential barrier height on the failure of the devices. / PHD / Metal/oxide interfaces have many applications in electronic devices such as Field Effect Transistors (FETs), resistive/dynamic Random-Access Memory (RAM) devices, Tunnel Junctions (TJs), Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) devices, or Back-End-of-Line (BEOL) on integrate-circuits. The downscaling of devices dimension is still following the Moore’s Law. However, it brings several reliability challenges, such as the electric current leakage that is significant for ultrathin oxide films (< 5 nm). At low dimensionality, the stress induced leakage currents (SILC) caused by quantum effects exponentially increases. These electric conductions harm devices and constantly degrade insulating materials, until the degradation reaches a critical level called dielectric breakdown that ultimately leads to the electronic failure of the materials. The insulating/conducting transition is a complex and irreversible very well-known process. Experimentally, the observation of sudden electric current increase is a typical sign of the breakdown. Many experimental works in past decades suggest that point defects are very important to the initiation of dielectric breakdown, however they cannot be the only cause. Many other factors such as the electric voltage, material imperfection, mechanical stress, humidity, and temperature are also critical to the final breakdown. Therefore, a comprehensive and theoretical study is necessary to better understand the mechanisms behind the dielectric breakdown. It benefits the semiconductor industry for inventing new materials and exploring advanced techniques to prevent the occurrence of dielectric breakdown. In this dissertation, a set of theoretical case studies using the aluminum (Al) and silica (SiO₂) to explore correlations among different electronic, thermodynamic, and mechanical properties have been performed. This study reveals that all these material properties are intrinsically correlated and allow a clear understanding of the dielectric breakdown.

The need for research instruments adaptable to culturally diverse populations has grown with globalization and digital connectivity. Ensuring measurement invariance (MI) is crucial for generating accurate and comparable scores, especially in comparative studies. Traditional approaches like Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MG-CFA) often involve intricate procedures and can become unwieldy when adjustments for partial invariance are needed. The Alignment-within-CFA (AwC) method emerged as a promising alternative, designed to approximate group-specific factors and produce latent variables with uniform metrics. This study rigorously compares the AwC method and traditional MG-CFA across moderate numbers of groups (3, 4, and 5) under various conditions of noninvariance and sample sizes. By employing Monte Carlo simulations, the study controls study variables and explores a wide range of hypothetical scenarios, enhancing the precision and reliability of MI testing. The findings indicate that the AwC method is similar to or superior to the step-wise partial invariance approach, offering accurate and consistent results in varied scenarios. Specifically, the study examines the conditions under which AwC outperforms traditional MG-CFA and investigates the impact of factors such as different types of invariance, number of groups, and sample size on bias and model fit. This research provides deeper insights into the strengths and limitations of each method, guiding researchers in selecting the most appropriate approach for their specific contexts. The results support the use of the AwC method in scenarios where minimizing bias and error in parameter estimates is critical, paving the way for more streamlined and effective research amidst increasing global diversity.

Much research has been directed toward understanding the roles of essential components in the cell, such as proteins, microRNAs, and genes. This dissertation focuses on two interesting problems in bioinformatics research: microRNA-target prediction and the identification of conserved protein complexes across species. We define the two problems and develop novel approaches for solving them. MicroRNAs are short non-coding RNAs that mediate gene expression. The goal is to predict microRNA targets. Existing methods rely on sequence features to predict targets. These features are neither sufficient nor necessary to identify functional target sites and ignore the cellular conditions in which microRNA and mRNA interact. We developed MicroTarget to predict microRNA-mRNA interactions using heterogeneous data sources. MicroTarget uses expression data to learn candidate target set for each microRNA. Then, sequence data is used to provide evidence of direct interactions and ranking the predicted targets. The predicted targets overlap with many of the experimentally validated ones. The results indicate that using expression data helps in predicting microRNA targets accurately. Protein complexes conserved across species specify processes that are core to cell machinery. Methods that have been devised to identify conserved complexes are severely limited by noise in PPI data. Behind PPIs, there are domains interacting physically to perform the necessary functions. Therefore, employing domains and domain interactions gives a better view of the protein interactions and functions. We developed novel strategy for local network alignment, DONA. DONA maps proteins into their domains and uses DDIs to improve the network alignment. We developed novel strategy for constructing an alignment graph and then uses this graph to discover the conserved sub-networks. DONA shows better performance in terms of the overlap with known protein complexes with higher precision and recall rates than existing methods. The result shows better semantic similarity computed with respect to both the biological process and the molecular function of the aligned sub-networks. / Ph. D. / Much research has been directed toward understanding the roles of essential components in the cell, such as proteins, microRNAs, and genes. The processes within the cell include a mixture of small molecules. It is of great interest to utilize different information sources to discover the interactions among these molecules. This dissertation focuses on two interesting problems: microRNA-target prediction and the identification of conserved protein complexes across species. We define the two problems and develop novel approaches for solving them. MicroRNAs are a recently discovered class of non-coding RNAs. They play key roles in the regulation of gene expression of as much as 30% of all mammalian protein encoding genes. MicroRNAs regulation activity has been implicated in a number of diseases including cancer, heart disease and neurological diseases. We developed MicroTarget to predict microRNAgene interactions using heterogeneous data sources. The predicted target genes overlap with many of the experimentally validated ones. Proteins carry out their tasks in the cell by interacting with each other. Protein complexes conserved among species specify the cell core processes. We identify conserved complexes by constructing an alignment graph leveraging on the conservation of PPIs between species through domain conservation and domain-domain interactions (DDI) in addition to PPI networks. Better integration of domain conservation and interactions in our developed conserved protein complexes identification system helps biologists benefit from verified data to predict more reliable similarity relationships among species. All the test data sets and source code for this dissertation are available at: https://bioinformatics.cs.vt.edu/∼htorkey/Software.

Residue coupling in protein families has received much attention as an important indicator toward predicting protein structures and revealing functional insight into proteins. Existing coupling methods identify largely pairwise couplings and express couplings over amino acid combinations, which do not yield a mechanistic explanation. Most of these methods primarily use a multiple protein sequence alignment---most likely a resultant alignment---which better exposes couplings and is obtained through manual tweaking of an alignment constructed by a classical alignment algorithm. Classical alignment algorithms primarily focus on capturing conservations and may not fully unveil couplings in the alignment. In this dissertation, we propose methods for capturing both pairwise and higher-order couplings in protein families. Our methods provide mechanistic explanations for couplings using physicochemical properties of amino acids and discernibility between orders. We also investigate a method for mining frequent episodes---called coupled patterns---in an alignment produced by a classical algorithm for proteins and for exploiting the coupled patterns for improving the alignment quality in terms of exposition of couplings. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed methods on a large collection of sequence datasets for protein families. / Ph. D. / Proteins are biomolecules that comprise amino acid compounds. A chain of amino acid (a.k.a. protein sequence) forms the primary structure of a protein, and the shaping of this chain into various folds gives rise to a more complex 3D structure, a natural state of proteins. It is through structures protein performs various activities. To preserve these activities in proteins, evolution allows only those changes in protein sequences that do not disrupt the overall structures and functions of proteins. Coupling is a evolutionary phenomenon that helps proteins preserve their structures and functions. Two or more amino acid positions are coupled if changes of amino acids at a position is compensated by changes in the other position(s). In this thesis, we propose a set of probabilistic methods for modeling such couplings between two or more positions. Our methods identify the most probable couplings in a set of protein sequences and express them with probabilistic graphical models (a powerful and interpretable framework), which can be used for answering questions related to protein structures, functions, and protein synthesis. Using this notion of coupling, we also develop a method for improving the quality of multiple protein sequence alignment, a widely used tool for protein sequence analyses. We evaluate our methods with a large collection of sequence datasets for protein families, and the results substantiate the efficacy of our methods.

No / Objective To assess the inter-tester and intra-tester reliability of the tuck jump test. Design Repeated measures. Setting University Human Performance laboratory. Participants Five male and 5 female athletes undertook the Tuck jump test which was then assessed by two independent assessors. Main outcome measures Score from the video assessment of the tuck jump test by two independent assessors on two separate occasions. Results Average percentage of exact agreement (PEA) between the two testers across all scoring criteria for all subjects was 93% (range 80–100%). Both testers were in absolute 100% agreement in 5 out of 10 subjects for all of the scoring criteria. The kappa measure of agreement was k = 0.88 which is very good/excellent. The intra-tester PEA ranged 87.2%–100%, with kappa values of k = 0.86–1.0. Conclusion The study showed very good–excellent intra-tester and inter-tester reliability for both examiners when comparing their individual scores of the tuck jump test across two analysis sessions. These findings indicate that the proposed tuck jump assessment is reliable to identify abnormal landing mechanics.

With rising complexity of high performance computing systems and their parallel software, performance analysis and optimization has become essential in the development of efficient applications. The comparison of performance data is a key operation required in performance analysis. An analyst may conduct different types of comparisons in order to understand the performance properties of an application. One use case is comparing performance data from multiple measurements. Typical examples for such comparisons are before/after comparisons when applying optimizations or changing code versions. Besides comparing performance between multiple runs, also comparing performance characteristics across the parallel execution streams of an application is essential to detect performance problems. This is typically useful to detect imbalances, outliers, or changing runtime behavior during the execution of an application. While such comparisons are straightforward for the aggregated data in performance profiles, only limited solutions exist for comparing event traces. Trace-based analysis, i.e., the collection of fine-grained information on individual application events with timestamps and application context, has proven to be a powerful technique. The detailed performance information included in event traces make them very suitable for performance analysis. However, this level of detail also presents a challenge because it implies a large and overwhelming amount of data. Currently, users need to perform manual comparison of event traces, which is extremely challenging and time consuming because of the large volume of detailed data and the need to correctly line up trace events. To fill the gap of missing solutions for automatic comparison of event traces, this work proposes a set of techniques that automatically align traces. The alignment allows their structural comparison and the highlighting of differences between them. A set of novel metrics provide the user with an objective measure of the differences between traces, both in terms of differences in the event stream and timing differences across events. An additional important aspect of trace-based analysis is the visualization of performance data in event timelines. This has proven to be a powerful approach for the detection of various types of performance problems. However, visualization of large numbers of event timelines quickly hits the limits of available display resolution. Likewise, identifying performance problems is challenging in the large amount of visualized performance data. To alleviate these problems this work proposes two new approaches for event timeline visualization. First, novel folding strategies for event timelines facilitate visual scalability and provide powerful overviews of performance data at the same time. Second, this work presents an effective approach that automatically identifies and highlights several types of performance critical sections in an application run. This approach identifies time dominant functions of an application and subsequently uses them to analyze runtime imbalances throughout the application run. Intuitive visualizations present the resulting runtime variations and guide the analyst to performance hot spots. Evaluations with benchmarks and real-world applications assess all introduced techniques. The effectiveness of the comparison approaches is demonstrated by showing automatically detected performance issues and structural differences between different versions of applications and across parallel execution streams. Case studies showcase the capabilities of the event timeline visualization techniques by demonstrating scalable performance data visualizations and detecting performance problems and code inefficiencies in real-world applications.

Dieser Beitrag möchte mit der Weiterentwicklung von Assessment Literacy für zukunftsfähige Lern- und Prüfungsumgebungen an Hochschulen (Advanced Learning and Examination Spaces) einen Beitrag zur Qualitätssicherung von Studium und Lehre leisten. Dazu wird die Entwicklung von Assessment Literacy bei Hochschullehrenden auf zwei Stufen dargelegt: Zunächst werden exemplarische Problemfelder aus verschiedenen Prüfungsformaten beschrieben und Lösungsvorschläge angeboten, um Ansatzpunkte für die Reflexion der eigenen Prüfungspraxis zu liefern (Kap. 2.1). Auf einer zweiten Stufe werden Assessments als Teil von kompetenzorientierten Lern- und Prüfungsumgebungen gesehen. Dazu wird das Konstrukt Kompetenz, dessen Bedeutung im Hochschulkontext sowie das Constructive Alignment als hochschuldidaktisches Planungsmodell für eine kompetenzorientierte Hochschullehre und als Steuerungsinstrument für die Qualitätssicherung von Prüfungen skizziert. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden Ansatzpunkte für das Konzept einer Assessment Literacy in Higher Education abgeleitet, die Funktionsweisen, Rahmenbedingungen und Formate des Prüfens in einen systematischen Zusammenhang bringen sollen (Abb. 1). Diese Wissenssammlung beansprucht nicht dem Leser Unbekanntes zu entdecken. Vielmehr soll Vorhandenes gesammelt, gesichtet, geordnet und bewertet werden und so als Ausgangsbasis für künftige Forschungen im Bereich des Lehrens und Lernens an Hochschulen dienen.

Title: Digital business strategy - The driver for change in internal and external business environment Authors: Sumera Magsi and Sarah Shaaban Advisor: Andrea Fried Master thesis, 30 credits Background:The effects resulting from a more intense use of digital technologies in companies is visible in the integration between business and IT strategies which creates an urge for digital business strategies to emerge. Thesis aim: The aim is to investigate the current state of digital business strategies which includes highlighting benefits and challenges. By doing that we also are aiming towards answering, in what way ITBA can be questioned due to DBS. Methodology: A qualitative research based on a multiple case study by conducting semi- structured interviews. All the selected case companies are using digital business strategies as a part of their internal and external business environment (IEBE). The respondents have a role in the chosen case companies of being responsible for the implementation and use of strategies, digital business strategies and digital technologies. Findings: This study identifies that their exits a linkage between business strategy and ITBA. The main finding about the current state of DBS involves both internal and external DBS activities. Further findings show that benefit of digital business strategy to be the opportunity to levering costumers and challenges to be connected to the different IT maturity levels of the employees. The way that digital business strategy can question ITBA is based on that it is the driver for change for the case companies.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de identificar o alinhamento estratégico de gestão de gestão de pessoas através de seu sistema de RH, pacote dinâmico de políticas e práticas de gestão de pessoas que é desenhado para atingir os objetivos organizacionais. Para compreensão do alinhamento estratégico é necessário analisar a relação interna das práticas de RH, a relação do sistema de RH com os objetivos de gestão de pessoas e também co os objetivos organizacionais. Identificar os pontos de alinhamento e desalinhamento dessas relações pode contribuir para que a estratégia organizacional seja mais facilmente atingida. A relação entre a estratégia de gestão de pessoas e a estratégia organizacional pode ser considerada interativa e multidirecional visto que ambas se influenciam mutuamente e recebem e exercem influencia sobre os fatores internos e externos da organização. Nesta relação, a flexibilidade e a sinergia nas configurações dos recursos internos (processos, sistemas, estrutura, etc) são fatores determinantes. O esforço, de ajuste constante entre a estratégia organizacional, sua relação com o mercado e os recursos internos é chamado de alinhamento estratégico. Buscando identificar o alinhamento estratégico de gestão de pessoas, este estudo optou por um estudo de caso na empresa Ômega que se encontra em um mercado em expansão e que passou por uma recente reestruturação. A coleta de dados baseou-se em entrevistas em profundidade, análise documental, aplicação de questionário para a equipe de RH e discussão dos resultados com o gerente e diretor de RH. Esta pesquisa também buscou tangibilizar os resultados utilizando um instrumento de análise, assim foram possíveis identificar os pontos de alinhamento e desalinhamento das relações. Os resultados encontrados apontaram para a presença do alinhamento como um processo constante de ajuste da organização. Neste sentido destacam-se os ajustes das práticas de RH para atender aos diferentes públicos da organização e as diferentes contingências do negócio, fatores importantes no alinhamento de gestão de pessoas. Os pontos desalinhamento encontrados poderão ser utilizados pela empresa como parte do processo contínuo de alinhamento estratégico. / This study aims to identify the strategic alignment of human resource management through your HR system, dynamic package of policies and practices of human resource management which is designed to achieve organizational goals, and their relationship to the goals of human resource management and organizational objectives. Identify the points of alignment and misalignment of these relationships can contribute to organizational strategy is more easily achieved. The relationship between the strategy of human resource management and organizational strategy can be considered interactive and multidirectional as both influence each other and receive and exert influence on the internal and external factors of the organization. In this respect, flexibility and synergy configurations of internal resources (processes, systems, structure, etc.) are decisive factors. The effort, constant fit between organizational strategy, its relationship with the market and internal resources is called strategic alignment. Trying to identify the strategic alignment of human resource management, this study opted for a case study in the Omega company that is in a growing market and has undergone a recent restructuring. Data collection was based on interviews, documentary analysis, questionnaire application to the HR team and discussing the results with the HR manager and HR director. This research also sought to make tangible the results using an analytical tool, so were possible to identify areas of alignment and misalignment of relations. The results indicated the presence of alignment as a constant process of adjustment of the organization. In this sense we highlight the adjustments of HR practices to meet the different audiences of the organization and the different business contingencies, important factors in people management alignment. The misalignment points found may be used by the company as part of the ongoing process of strategic alignment.