Previous researchers conducted activity schedule studies and used them on unstructured areas such as the playground. This study investigates the ability of fading procedures on the effects of using activity schedules on the playground. This study displayed that fading procedures can be used and determined based on the level of the individual. The results showed that two participants were able to fade to more portable forms of activity schedules from the typical activity schedule binder. This study provides many possibilities for conducting future research involving the use of fading procedures on activity schedules.

Only a few studies have looked at microbial biogeography in soils and whether microorganisms are endemic to an area is still debatable. Tramway Ridge, a geothermal area on Mount Erebus, Antarctica, provides a unique opportunity due to its isolation and extreme conditions to explore the possibilities of microbial endemism and to identify novel Bacteria and Archaea. This site was chosen for a culture-independent study with a preliminary culturing survey for bacterial communities along three temperature gradients (65 C - 2.5'C). In addition, a physico-chemical analysis was undertaken to identify which environmental factors were driving the different diversity along the transects. An automated rRNA intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) was used to assess the diversity across the transects using Bacteria and Cyanobacteria-specific primers and results showed that temperature and pH were the main drivers for these communities. Due to its unique physico-chemical and ARISA profile, a hot temperature site (T-3A, 65'C) was chosen for further investigation by bacterial and archaeal 16S rDNA clone libraries. Unique rDNA types among the 78 bacterial and 83 archaeal clones were identified by restriction fragment length polymophisms and 18 bacterial and 5 archaeal operational taxonomic units (gt97% identity) were observed. All of the bacterial sequences were deeply branching and loosely affiliated with other recognised bacterial divisions, with 40% of the sequences not affiliated to any genus. The archaeal clones were found to be deep-branching and sequences clustered together within the Crenarcaheota. In addition, two strains of Bacilli were isolated. The novel microorganisms show that the Tramway Ridge communities are unique from organisms found in other environments and show that quotEverything is (not) everywherequot.

This thesis examines the use of video technology as an alternative communication medium within a dialogic framework. It explores multiple dialogic encounters and different meanings of dialogue. It analyses dialogues within and around video technology and dialogues with contemporary events in Mexican history. The author argues that these dialogic encounters are contributing to an ongoing process of transformation in Mexican consciousness. The thesis’s theoretical framework draws on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and employs a dialogic method that emphasises diversity. The author conducts an in-depth analysis of multiple series of dialogues between key people, events and discourses. The author examines the lives and work of a sample of the most significant independent video-makers producing work on the indigenous Zapatista rebellion that began in Chiapas, Mexico, on 1 January 1994.The author focuses on the discourses of independent video-makers looking at the indigenous Zapatista rebels and considers the indigenous uprising to be both a ‘political catalytic event’ and a ‘multi-catalytic event.’ The different dialogues looked at throughout the thesis reveal various processes of consciousness-raising which act in diverse, unexpected and unprecedented ways. The author argues that these dialogues have contributed to a crisis of legitimacy for the hegemonic power in Mexico and have also influenced the way the mainstream media operate, and their power within Mexican society. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

What is the role of the independent inventor today? Historically, he has played an important role but circumstances have now changed. The objectives of this thesis have been: (1) to assess the value of inventions made by independent inventors; (2) to determine whether the government should provide support; and (3) if so, how? It is not appropriate to make a judgement about the value of independent inventors on qualitative data alone. Therefore, attempts must be made to obtain quantitative data on the value, in economic and social terms, of inventions of independent inventors. The unique feature of this thesis is the survey of members of the Inventors' Association of Australia to assess the personal characteristics of their members, the value of inventions made by members and the types of assistance required by their members. Some of the research results on the personal characteristics of independent inventors are interesting. - 95% are males. (This is supported by other research data). their educational qualifications are much higher than the general population. - on average, each inventor spends 8-10 hours per week on inventions. The survey showed that the economic value (in terms of value of output) of inventions made by members of the Inventors' Association of Australia is about $50m per annum and creates about 4000 man years of employment. It is not possible to assess what percentage of independent inventors are members of the Inventors' Association of Australia. Estimates place this between 20% and 50%. If this is the case, then it can be estimated that the value of output of inventions of independent inventors in Australia is between $100m-$260m which, in turn, creates 7,700 - 19,000 man years of employment. Additionally, the qualitative evidence suggests that Australian inventors are, at the least, equal to their overseas counterparts. There are grounds why governments should intervene to assist independent inventors indivisibility: this relates to access to information and to the large scale nature of some inventions. inappropriability: this refers to the externalities or social benefits of inventions which are not recouped by inventors through the normal market mechanisms. - uncertainty: independent inventors usually have a small number of inventions; therefore it is not possible for them to spread their risks. Large companies and some areas of the agriculture and mining industries have developed special mechanisms for spreading risk. Based on an assessment of overseas policies, an examination of existing Australian policies and the results of the Inventors' Association of Australia survey, the following steps should be taken in Australia to support independent inventors. (1) create an environment within the community which supports/encourages invention and innovation. (2) develop a national innovation policy. (3) develop an innovation finance facility. (Although this is not in operation, steps have been taken to provide this). (A) the establishment of innovation centres.

本文主要是探討「聯合線性模式中獨立的檢定」在實驗設計上的應用。首先我們對Zhou和Mathew在文獻中所概述的例子予以詳盡的分析討論，其次在特殊情況下對Zhou和Mathew所提出的檢定稍做修正，最後以實例模擬比較四個相關檢定之檢力大小。

Some quasistatic evolution problems for a phase transition model with nonconvex energies are studied in the generalized framework of Young measures. More in details, an existence result for a generalized notion of globally stable quasistatic evolution is proved both in the continuous and in the discrete case (infinite many/ finite many phases); an existence result for a notion of approximable evolution is also provided via a sort of vanishing viscosity.

<p>This paper argues that there is a finiteness distinction in Hdi and that the notion is of value for a description of the language. The definition of finiteness suitable for the language has been suggested to be the one given by Anderson (2007) combined with Bisang (2007). The finite clauses are argued to be the pragmatically independent ones while the non-finite clauses are argued to be the pragmatically dependent. However, no morphological reductions were found in the non-finite clauses relative to the finite ones. What is more, negation in Hdi shows a nontypical behaviour regarding finiteness properties as there are aspectual distinctions made for dependent clauses that are not made for independent. Verbless clauses and imperatives may be viewed as finite and non-finite depending on their capacity to licence independent predication or, alternatively, they may be viewed as not displaying finiteness properties at all. The latter is argued to be preferred in order to avoid a redundant definition of finiteness.</p>

<p>The purpose of this thesis is, through a case study, to analyse how the Internet is affecting smaller independent record labels' communicational efforts, and if these companies are dealing differently with this technological change. In order to accomplish this, a number of interviews have been conducted with smaller independent record labels. The findings have been analysed using a theoretical frame of reference covering innovation management and communicational methods. Our results show that the Internet has had an effect on these labels’ communicational efforts, either directly through an increased use of online communication or indirectly through the decreasing effectiveness of some traditional channels. However, as many traditional channels are still being used, smaller independent record labels are now managing an increased number of channels simultaneously. Furthermore, the degree of online communicational efforts varies depending on musical genre, being more commonly used in popular music genres. For labels with a high online activity, social networks play a prominent role, with considerable effort and time allocated towards working with these. Also, these companies are very attentive to the rapidly changing online environment with the aim of staying at the forefront of this development.</p>

Most patients undergoing androgen deprivation therapy relapse eventually and progress to androgen-independent (AI) prostate cancer. Although the mechanisms underlying progression to AI prostate cancer are not well understood, studies suggest that androgen receptor (AR) is still required for AI prostate cancer. Our lab found that Vav3, a Rho GTPase guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF), is up-regulated during the progression of androgen-dependent human prostate cancer cells to androgen-independence in vivo and in cell-based experiments. Since Vav3 significantly increases ligand-dependent AR transcriptional activity and this action requires the Vav3 pleckstrin homology (PH) domain but not Vav3 GEF activity, we explored the role of the Vav3 PH domain in ligand-dependent AR coactivation by Vav3. We found that targeting the Vav3 PH mutant into nuclei but not the plasma membrane restored Vav3 PH mutant in AR coactivation. Targeting Vav3 to the plasma membrane eliminated the capacity of Vav3 to coactivate AR. In agreement with nuclear targeting of Vav3 via its PH domain, chromatin immunoprecipitation assays showed that Vav3 enhancement of AR transcriptional activity was accompanied by Vav3 recruitment to AR transcriptional complexes at an AR target gene enhancer. Further, Vav3 increased AR occupancy at the target gene enhancer upon androgen treatment and this may underlie the capacity of Vav3 to enhance AR transcriptional activity. Because Vav3 can also be activated by growth factors (GFs) and GFs activate AR in the absence of androgen (ligand-independent), we investigated the crosstalk between Vav3 and GF activation of AR and found Vav3 strongly enhanced AR transcriptional activity induced by GFs. GEF function and the downstream Rho GTPase, Rac1 were required for constitutively active (Ca) Vav3 activation of AR, which differs from Vav3 activation of AR in the presence of androgen. We also investigated the possible signal pathways contributing to AR activation by Ca Rac1. Ca Rac1 caused ligand-independent activation of AR in part through MAPK/ERK signaling and conferred prostate cancer growth in the absence of androgen in cell culture, soft agar and mouse tumor xenografts. Thus, our findings indicate that Vav3 activates AR in the presence or absence of ligand through two distinct mechanisms, which supports a versatile regulatory effect of Vav3 in AR signaling and prostate cancer progression.

Two-port polarization independent electro-optically wavelength tunable filters based on asymmetric Mach-Zehnder structure in LiNbO3 substrate have been developed for 1.55μm application. The operation principle is based on Mach-Zehnder interference and TE↔TM mode conversion. Fabrication parameters for channel waveguides, interferometers and mode converters have been optimized. 7μm wide single mode straight channel waveguides were produced by diffusing 1050-1100A thick Ti into LiNbO3 substrate. Insertion loss of 3.6dB was achieved for both TE and TM polarization. Mach-Zehnder interferometer performance was optimized by testing the Y-branch on samples cut in half length compared to complete device. Best results were obtained from samples that were produced by diffusion at 1025 degC for 11 hours of 1050A thick Ti film, and by diffusion at 1025 degC for 12 hours of 1090A thick Ti film. Metal electrodes were added to one arm of asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometers to evaluate electro-optic modulation. Modulation depth as high as 99.6% for TE mode and 98.9% for TM mode were obtained. TE↔TM mode conversion was demonstrated on straight channel waveguides with conversion efficiency greater than 96% utilizing 500 strain inducing SiO2 grating pads with 21μm spatial period. Two-port polarization independent electro-optically tunable wavelength filters were produced based on the optimized parameters described above. The -3dB bandwidth of the filter is 2.4nm. The nearest side lobe to the main peak is more than 13dB below the central lobe for both TE polarization and TM polarization. A thermal tuning rate of -0.765nm/degC is obtained. An electrical tuning range of 12.8nm and a tuning rate of 0.08nm/V were achieved.