The recruitment, growth rate and survival of every juvenile corals on artificial substrates, deployed every 2 months since September 1998, for a total of 6 times, were investigated every 2 months, from November 1998 to September 2000, at Nanwan, southern Taiwan. The influence of season and habitat (e.g., new vs. old substrate and different positions etc.) on the above life history characteristics were the foci of this study. Coral recruitment during the 2-year period was low, averaging 1.3 recruits per 15x15 cm PVC plate; it was dominated by Pocilloporidae (50.7%) and Poritidae (31.9%), with Stylocoeniella guentheri (6.2%), Anthelia flava (5.1%) and Acropora sp. (2.4%) and others as minor constituents. Seasonal variations of new recruit densities were significant on new substrates of 2-months old, but not on old substrates of 14-month old. Pocilloporidae, for example, had the highest new recruit densities in May 1999; although the survival rate in this period, cumulative survivorship and growth rate were lower than those settled in other times. New recruit densities on new substrates were significantly higher than that on old substrates, but the survival rates of new recruits in the first 2 months were not significantly different between new and old substrates. The cumulative suvivorship and the initial juvenile growth rate of Pocilloporidae were higher on new than on old substrates. New recruit density of Pocilloporidae was higher in 1999 than in 2000, with an opposite pattern found in Poritidae. Juveniles prefer to settle on new substrates higher than old substrates and recruit densities decrease as plate age in Pocilloporidae, but an opposite pattern was found in Poritidae. The Pocilloporidae had relatively higher recruit densities but lower cumulative survivorship than Acropora sp. and Stylocoeniella. guentheri. A margin effect on the PVC plates was found, with higher new recruit densities and growth rates in the margin than in the intermediate and the inner region. The survival rate and the cumulative survivorship of recruits, however, were similar among the 3 regions on the plates. Thus the pattern of margin effect on the plate is unlikely a result of active larva preference. Among the scleractinian recruits, Acropora sp. had the highest growth rate, averaging 1.8 mm/month in maximum diameter. Within Pocilloporidae, the maximum diameters of juvenile Seriatopora hystrix was significant smaller than Pocillopora damicornis from 2-12 month. Some recruits of Seriatopora hystrix did not grow for more than a year. The overall cumulative survivorship of coral recruits was low at Nanwan, with 29.2% surviving the first year, and 0.7% surviving 2 years. Within dead juveniles, 65.7% was caused by disappearance and 34.3% was caused by algae, sediment and others organism etc. The relationship between size and mortality on juvenile Pocilloporidae is significant, implying that larger colony corals have higher survivor chance than smaller colony corals.

Cadherin and catenin-family proteins regulate adhesion in malignant melanoma. Using AQUA (Automated Quantitative Analysis) to quantitate the levels of alpha-catenin, beta-catenin, p120-catenin, N-cadherin, E-cadherin, and P-cadherin in melanoma on tissue microarrays (TMAs), we classified 513 patients by protein expression using hierarchical clustering and regression analysis. The dendrogram supported positive correlations seen upon Spearman rho analysis of P-cadherin and beta-catenin (r=0.5238, p<0.0001) and negative, weak association of N-cadherin with other markers. Patients with high expression of N-cadherin had the highest 20-year survival rate (p=0.0003). Our adherens protein molecular classification of melanoma defines at least two distinctive sub-populations of melanoma patients, those with high expression of N-cadherin and those with low expression who have decreased survival. These findings extend previous cDNA array-based findings of an epithelioid class and neural crest class of melanomas.

ZL-Duraplant-Implantate Ticer

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-115). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-115). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.S.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 79-80.

It is common practice to use Cox-Snell residuals to check for overall goodness of tin survival models. We evaluate the presumed relation of unit exponentially dis-tributed residuals for a good model t and evaluate under some violations of themodel. This is done graphically with the usual graphs of Cox-Snell residual andformally using Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness of t test. It is observed that residu-als from a correctly tted model follow unit exponential distribution. However, theCox-Snell residuals do not seem to be sensitive to the violations of the model.

This study investigated the relationship of dysfunctional career thoughts, optimism, and spirituality on Bahamian women (n=212) diagnosed with breast cancer. Also, it examined how optimism mediates the relationship between spirituality and dysfunctional career thoughts. The diagnosis of breast cancer impacts women physically, psychologically, socially, spiritually, financially, and in their career development. Career developmental plans and decisions are continuously being made. However, plans may become altered and decisions more difficult to make when a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer as she considers returning to work. The high survival rate of breast cancer patients indicates women may continue to work after their treatment. Limited information is known about possible changes in their dysfunctional career thoughts. This research investigated the degree to which optimism mediates the relationship between spirituality and dysfunctional career thoughts among a sample of Bahamian women diagnosed with breast cancer. Negative thoughts formed in career content are called dysfunctional career thoughts (Lenz, Sampson, Peterson, & Reardon, 2012). Career thoughts are "...outcomes of one's thinking about assumptions, attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, feelings, plan and/or strategies related to career problem solving and decision making" (Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1996, p. 2). The dysfunctional thinking causes one to block informing processing, reduces options, and distorts perception of options. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship among career thoughts, optimism, and spirituality. The goal is to identify low or high dysfunctional career thoughts. In addition, studies suggest that being optimistic (Matthew & Cook, 2009) and spiritual (Hackney & Sanders, 2003) are two positive coping strategies for women diagnosed with breast cancer. This study seeks to explore these two potential mediating factors on dysfunctional career thoughts of women with this diagnosis. This study is important because of the high incidence rate of breast cancer in the Bahamas. Bahamian women have the highest recorded percentage of the recorded BRCA1 gene (BReast CAncer 1; a primary genetic marker for breast cancer) in the world (Donenberg et al., 2011). Breast cancer remains a public health issue that may affect the life and productivity of Bahamian women. The relationship of dysfunctional career thoughts, optimism and spirituality of Bahamian women diagnosed with breast cancer was explored. Younger Bahamian women were noted to have experienced higher levels of dysfunctional career thoughts. While, marital status was statistically related with dysfunctional career thoughts, no pair wise differences were noted among the variables after a Tukey test. This means the level of dysfunctional career thoughts was not affected by women's marital status (married, not married, & divorced). Ethnicity and education did not play a role in their dysfunctional career thoughts but with employment pre-diagnosed of breast cancer. Results revealed women who were not employed pre diagnosis experienced higher dysfunctional career thoughts than women who were employed pre diagnosis. Other pre-diagnosis variables such as salary and occupation pre diagnosis show no statistically significant difference in terms of dysfunctional career thoughts. These variables did not affect the Bahamian women's dysfunctional career thoughts. In addition to pre-diagnosis variables being examined in this study post diagnosis variables such as employment, occupation, and salary were also explored. Final analyses indicate post diagnosis employment, occupation, and salary show no statistically significant difference in terms of dysfunctional career thoughts. These post diagnosis variables did not affect the Bahamian women's dysfunctional career thoughts. Although, post diagnosis employment was not statistical significant to dysfunctional career thoughts, some significance was noted. Women diagnosed with breast cancer 2007 or earlier accounted for 58% of the participants in this present study. We need to highlight that there was an 11% decrease in post-diagnosis employment which was higher than the unemployment rate (7.9%) in the Bahamas at that time (Central Intelligence Agency, 2013). Therefore, this present study shows a significant effect rather than a statistical significant effect with Bahamian women's employment plans post diagnosis that indirectly affect their dysfunctional career thoughts. The stages of breast cancer show no statistically significant difference in terms of the subscales of dysfunctional career thoughts such as Decision Making Confusion (DMC), Commitment Anxiety (CA), and External Conflict (EC). This means the stages of breast cancer did not influence the different subscales of dysfunctional career thoughts. Spirituality had a positive moderate relationship with the level of optimism. As women's spirituality level increases their optimism level also increased. Although optimism did not show a statistical difference with dysfunctional career thoughts, spirituality demonstrated a negative weak relationship with dysfunctional career thoughts. This inverse relationship indicates as their spirituality level decreases their dysfunctional career thoughts increases. Path analysis results explored the mediation among optimism, spirituality and dysfunctional career thoughts. Optimism was not noted to be a mediating variable that works together to positively affect spirituality and dysfunctional career thoughts. The impact of these results may be significant not only to the Bahamian population because of the first time study, but also in helping breast cancer survivors examine further career decisions even after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Many of the open problems of current interest in probability and statistics involve complicated data sets that do not satisfy the strong assumptions of being independent and identically distributed. Often, the samples are known only empirically, and making assumptions about underlying parametric distributions is not warranted by the insufficient information available. Under such circumstances, the usual Fisher or parametric Bayes approaches cannot be used to model the data or make predictions. However, this situation is quite often encountered in some of the main challenges facing statistical, data-driven studies of climate change, clinical studies, or financial markets, to name a few. We propose a novel approach, based on large deviations theory, convex optimization, and recent results on surrogate loss functions for classifier-type problems, that can be used in order to estimate the probability of large deviations for complicated data. This may include, for instance, highdimensional data, highly-correlated data, or very sparse data. The thesis introduces the new approach, reviews the current known theoretical results, and then presents a number of numerical explorations meant to quantify how far the approximation of survival functions via large deviations principle can be taken, once we leave the limitations imposed by the existing theoretical results. The explorations are encouraging, indicating that indeed the new approximation scheme may be very efficient and can be used under much more general conditions than those warranted by the current theoretical thresholds. After applying the new methodology to two important contemporary problems (atmospheric CO2 data and El Ni~no/La Ni~na phenomena), we conclude with a summary outline of possible further research.

The focal point for this research is a drilling automation small business. Questions regarding survival, growth, innovation, flexibility and professional management related to this technology business are seeded as the root for the research. Topics were selected based on the experience of the author as an attempt to provide answers to such questions. In a broader context, small businesses make an important contribution to the economy and job creation. Low survival rates raise questions about the factors that influence the success or failure of such businesses. Researches have attempted to identify such factors. However, there are limited theoretical models that were generated based on a small business setting. Many factors and their interactions among each other could determine the survival of a small business. However, there are techniques and philosophies that enhance the potential for success. Some of those techniques and philosophies proposed by authors researched are the Lean Startup methodology, analysis of roadblocks and speed bumps on the Product Development Process model, participative management, competencies alignment and outsourcing. Correlations between the small drilling automation business and research are made in order to generate the answers to the questions proposed initially. Ultimately, in regard to the company I work for, generation of intellectual property via outsourcing, deep knowledge of the potential market, financial flexibility obtained from capital and other resources by means of the relationships established helped the company to survive startup and grow. Founding expertise translated into good behavioral focus supported a sustained growth stage and competitiveness. There are applicable models and methodologies that serve to guide to faster innovation where associated risks are managed by having the multiple solutions available. The level of informality tolerated within the firm should be related to the level of performance, so for us there may be benefit to a more formal evaluation of the strategy, uncovering relationships and details not anticipated, that could lead to different decisions. Overcoming capital restraints to earn financial flexibility was particularly beneficial to our initial success. At current size and complexity level, it would be beneficial for our company to evaluate more formal tactical management. / text