Ecological sites and state-transition models (STMs) have become the preferred means of summarizing plant community dynamics on distinctive types of rangeland. Ecological sites classify rangeland types based on soil-geomorphic and climatic conditions capable of producing a known plant community, while a STM depicts the vegetation dynamics of an ecological site. STMs are usually based on expert opinion rather than site-specific data; however, if they are to gain credibility, STMs must accurately describe the processes that drive plant community dynamics. This study examined three ways of developing process-based STMs using three levels of commonly collected field data. We began by taking field inventories of three ecological sites already mapped in northwestern Utah: Loamy Bottom, Mountain Gravelly Loam, and Upland Loam. The Loamy Bottom site was ideal for developing a data-rich, process-based STM because 1) the site concepts were well-defined, 2) the site was easy to recognize, 3) potential states and transitions had already been hypothesized, and 4) the site was easily accessible. The Loamy Bottom study was designed to link plant community structural indicators to measurable indicators of ecological process. Principal components analysis and cluster analysis were used to classify 14 study plots into four distinct states. Simple linear regression showed relationships between perennial grass cover, perennial canopy gaps, and soil organic carbon. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) linked four general vegetation classes to soil stability measurements. The resulting STM describes the structure and function of four alternative states. The other two STMs, developed for the Mountain Gravelly Loam and Upland Loam ecological sites, used less-intensive data collection methods. Rangeland health assessments, used for the Upland Loam STM, are useful for refining initial ecological site and STM concepts, documenting states, hypothesizing transitions, and locating study locations for future research. Quantitative production and cover estimates, used for the Mountain Gravelly Loam STM, are useful for describing the structure of states, but structural indicators must be coupled with process measurements, as with the Loamy Bottom STM to understand the drivers of state change. A coordinated data collection effort is needed to produce STMs that accurately depict the plant community dynamics of ecological sites.

Intellectual Property (IP) based Integrated Circuit (IC) design is an established approach for the design of a complex System-on-Chip (SoC). Porting the preparatory designs to third-party without enough security margin exposes an attacker to perform reverse engineering (RE) on the designs and hence counterfeiting, IP theft etc., are common now-a-days. Design obfuscation can reduce RE attempt by an attacker. In this work, we propose a key based obfuscation and anonymization method for a behavioral IP. Given a behavioral VHDL description, the assignment and conditional statements are modified by incorporating random boolean operations with unique random key bits. The obfuscated VHDL is then anonymized by random identifiers. The resultant behavioral model can be simulated correctly upon application of original key sequence. Simulation results with nine datapath intensive benchmarks with three different lengths of test sequences show that the simulation overhead is negligible (only a few seconds). We evaluate the probability of reverse engineering the obfuscated design and show that it is extremely low.

The advent of positive psychology has increased awareness of factors that lead individuals to thrive in life, allowing for a more comprehensive model of mental health service delivery. However, while measurement and understanding of character strengths and well-being have improved over the last decade, the interaction of these factors with social risk factors is not entirely understood. The current study analyzed an archival dataset consisting of self-report data from 425 high school students, to examine the extent to which high school students' specific character strengths (i.e., social competence, self-regulation, responsibility, and empathy) are associated with positive psychological outcomes (i.e., gratitude, life satisfaction, and hope), and moderate the relationships between positive psychological outcomes and relational and overt peer victimization. All measured character strengths were positively associated with life satisfaction and hope except for empathy, which was negatively associated with both in multivariate analyses. Social competence and self-regulation were positively associated with gratitude. Relational victimization (but not overt victimization) was inversely associated with life satisfaction and gratitude, and indirectly predicted hope as mediated by gratitude. Gratitude and hope predicted life satisfaction in both models, and served as partial mediators of character strengths and relational victimization. For overt victimization, social competence served as a protective factor and self-regulation served as a risk factor to gratitude. For relational victimization, self-regulation served as a protective factor to gratitude. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Masters Research - Master of Science / Recent flash floods and landslides in the Philippines have caused many fatalities, loss of livelihoods; destroyed infrastructures, damaged natural resources and displaced several communities. Investigation of five disaster cases of flash floods and landslides from 1991 to 2006 was undertaken to gain an understanding of the causes, behaviour, distribution and biophysical impacts of these recurrent natural hazards. Sustaining healthy and resilient communities and protecting the ecosystem from natural disasters is a key development goal. Therefore, communities at risk need to adequately prepare for, respond to, and recover from the impacts of these natural disasters. A theory model on community resilience called the Landslip-Disaster Quadrant Model was developed to examine the capacity for resilience and the vulnerability of threatened communities. Six building blocks comprise this Model. A community study of the February 17, 2006 landslides in St. Bernard, Southern Leyte, was conducted to test and refine this Model. Major findings of the study have revealed that flash floods and landslides have been frequent due to changing climatic patterns and greater interaction of natural processes. Extreme weather conditions have resulted in intense rainfall that seeps through fractures and cracks in the ground. Rains saturate and loosen soil particles, weaken slope resistance, triggering landslides that formed natural dams. Failure of these natural dams or log jams caused flash floods and debris flows. The rapidity and destructiveness of these hazards were influenced by the angular position of sliding materials, slope resistance, type of cascading materials caught in the flow, river channel configuration, and human structures that obstruct and/or intensify overflow. These were the physical conditions of vulnerability to disasters in the five cases of natural disaster investigated. Rural livelihoods and the economic base of the local people in Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte, were limited and subsistent. Though the local people have a high literacy rate, they have inadequate understanding of the natural processes associated with landslides. Natural observations such as receding water levels in the river, fractures and cracks in the ground on the mountain, excessive rains and landslides in nearby communities could have been used as early warnings by the local people and authorities for safe evacuation. Many lives in Guinsaugon village could have thus been saved from the deadly landslides of 17 February 2006. Political interests have affected progress of resettlement housing and development projects that obliged many local people to extend the period spent living in the evacuation centres. However, the local people were expressive of their faith and hope to rise from the tragedy. These ‘bouncing back’ attitudes of the local people were indicative of their strong cultural values that formed the core of their coping capacity for natural disasters. The results of the community study tested and refined the Landslip-Disaster Quadrant Model. Among the six blocks for building a disaster-resilient community, cultural values and local norms ranked first. This is followed by ecological security, then livelihood sufficiency and economic base, and further by human health and wellness. The last two blocks were structural networks and institutional arrangements, and political will and priorities. This Model could form the framework for a Comprehensive Landslide and Flash Flood Disaster Risk Assessment in the Philippines. The community assessment toolkit developed in this study could be expanded further into policy and planning guidelines of the National Disaster Coordinating Council of the Philippines.

Across any group of gifted students in any school there will always be a range of academic and other achievements. It is when these achievements are compared with measures of potential and the expectations of teachers and parents that a gifted child can sometimes be declared an underachiever. The 37 gifted students taking part in this study ranged in academic achievement from high achievers to underachievers. In part one of the study a questionnaire approach was used to measure their locus of control (LOC) and learned helplessness (LH) orientations and their tendency towards resilience or vulnerability. These students were also assessed as to their choice of performance or learning goals; effort or ability attributions for success; and the fixed or flexible nature of intelligence. The results of these investigations were then compared with the expectations of their teachers and their academic performance in recent examinations. None of the factors were found to yield consistent correlation with either expectations or academic achievements. Both high achievers and underachievers were found at all measures of all variables. In part two, a phenomenographic enquiry was undertaken by interview, to investigate the students' reactions to the twin phenomena of success and failure. LOC, LH and resilience/vulnerability were controlled for in this part of the study and the sample group chosen for interview (10 students) included both high achievers and underachievers. Analysis of the interview transcripts revealed one characteristic which consistently differentiated between the underachievers and the high achievers. This was the reaction to failure. Consistently across the sample, irrespective of their LOC, LH and resilience orientations, the students achieving at the highest level were found to display an efficacious, learn-from-mistakes attitude to failure and the underachieving students displayed unhelpful reactions to failure ranging from denial to avoidance to helplessness. The terms failing well and failing badly were used to describe these two clusters of reactions. Learning to fail well, is proposed as one mechanism to help gifted underachievers improve their academic performance. This study adds to existing understandings in that its findings are contrary to much published literature and its conclusions appears to provide a new perspective on the characteristics of the gifted underachiever.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the resilience and vulnerability of Taranaki communities to volcanic hazards, and to propose a strategy to ensure the safety and longevity of Taranaki residents in the event of an eruption. Mt Taranaki is a dormant volcano that is surrounded by a ring plain populated by over 100,000 people. The volcano has had an average eruptive cycle of 330 years, with the last eruption dated at ~1755 AD. Hazards include ash fall, lahars, debris avalanches and pyroclastic density currents. Inglewood, Stratford and Opunake are the largest population centres located in moderate to high hazard zones, and for this reason were chosen as the study communities. Resilience is defined as the capacity to respond to a hazard event by physically and psychologically recovering, adapting to, or changing to similar or better conditions than those experienced before the event. Vulnerability is defined to be people�s incapacity to cope with a hazardous event as a result of their personal characteristics. A person�s vulnerability and resilience is influenced by demographic variables, socio-cognitive variables and preparedness. Inglewood, Stratford and Opunake adults have good self-efficacy and action-coping use, fair risk perceptions, outcome expectancy and response efficacy, but poor understanding of event timing relative to eruption probability, critical awareness, preparedness and information-seeking intentions and preparedness levels. Preparedness is found to be influenced by residents� intentions to prepare, which in turn are influenced by critical awareness, action-coping and outcome expectancy. Taranaki students have a fair awareness of hazard and knowledge of correct response behaviours to various hazards. Preparedness, in terms of preparedness measures undertaken, emergency plans made and emergency practices in place, is low. Students who have participated in hazard-education programmes have a better knowledge of response behaviours, lower levels of hazard-related fear, and reported higher level of preparedness. Spatial analyses, carried out to determine the geographic distribution of at-risk groups within the study communities, showed that the areas most at-risk tend to be those with the highest population densities. The spatial analysis was not as beneficial as expected, due to small data sets, but did provide some results to be considered as a basis for further research. Effective public education can be achieved when delivered to a set of guidelines, such as providing information regularly through multiple media and sources, ensuring consistent messages, targeting information to at-risk groups and monitoring programme effectiveness. Community capacity building projects decrease aspects of vulnerability and build resilience by working at a local scale and targeting at-risk groups. Psychological preparedness education helps citizens to mentally prepare for an event and should be a component of all projects. The proposed strategy calls for (a) forming partnerships with relevant stakeholders to assist with public education, research, and funding, (b) further research into the characteristics of Taranaki communities and effective public education campaigns, (c) the development and implementation of a public education schedule and projects that build community capacity, and d) long-term planning, periodic revision of programmes and consistent public engagement.

Resilience (positive adaptation despite exposure to risk or adversity) is a widely researched construct, yet it has not been examined systematically with Australian Indigenous adolescents despite their high level of risk. Indigenous adolescents experience disproportionate disadvantage and associated poorer health and well-being compared with their non-Indigenous peers. Thus the protective factors or predictors of resilience that ameliorate the negative effects of risk in this subgroup are important to explore. Adolescence is a critical period for examining resilience given the increased vulnerability to mental health problems during this time. Of interest to this thesis are the psychosocial predictors of resilience (protective factors), which act to ameliorate the negative effects of stress. Three widely established protective factors were examined: Coping skills, social support, and multidimensional self-concept. These protective factors were compared in a sample of 304 Australian non-Indigenous (n = 245) and Indigenous (n = 59) adolescents, aged 12-18 years. Using a methodological framework developed for this study resilience was assessed by examining stress (negative stressful life events and daily hassles) and adaptation (internalising, externalising and other mental health symptoms). Participants were classified into four resilience groups based on their stress (high or low) and adaptation (positive or negative): resilient (high stress, positive adaptation), negative expected (high stress, negative adaptation), positive expected (low stress, positive adaptation), or poor copers (low stress, negative adaptation). Results were examined separately for non-Indigenous and Indigenous participants. The two cultural groups were then compared. Results revealed that higher stress was strongly associated with more internalising, externalising and other mental health problems. The impact of daily hassles was a strong predictor of adaptation, particularly for Indigenous participants. Indigenous participants reported higher levels of stress and more negative adaptation than non-Indigenous participants. Three coping methods were examined: Solving the Problem, Reference to Others and Non-Productive coping. Solving the Problem coping was a strong predictor of positive adaptation and resilience for non-Indigenous adolescents but not for Indigenous adolescents. No cultural differences in Solving the Problem coping were revealed. Reference to Others was found to be a maladaptive coping method in relation to resilience. Non-Productive coping (e.g., avoidance and substance use) was also found to be maladaptive, and used more by Indigenous than non-Indigenous participants. Social support only predicted resilience for non-Indigenous participants in conditions of very high stress. Contrary to expectations, social support did not discriminate among the Indigenous resilience groups and no significant cultural differences were revealed. Self-concept was strongly related to resilience and positive adaptation for non-Indigenous participants, although not for Indigenous participants. Cultural comparisons, however, revealed that positive self-concept was associated with positive adaptation for both groups. While differences between non-Indigenous and Indigenous participants on several self-concept domains were revealed, the total self-concept of non-Indigenous and Indigenous participants did not differ. The results of this study revealed both similarities and differences in the relationships between the three predictors investigated and the resilience of non-Indigenous and Indigenous adolescents. The findings make some progress toward informing culturally appropriate interventions to promote and strengthen the resilience of Indigenous young people.

This research examines socio-cultural change and resilience resulting from holiday tourism and visiting friends and relatives (VFR) travel. The unique cultural attributes of the Pacific region differentiates it from many other generic sea, sand and sun travel destinations worldwide, providing the region with a competitive edge. This research recognises these essential socio-cultural attributes using Samoa as a case study offering various levels of tourist and VFR interactions. The thesis investigated four communities, their culture and the impacts from holiday tourists and VFR travellers. The research methodologies guiding this research offer an innovative and credible mechanism to assess the resilience of the socio-cultural fabric of a Pacific Island nation with growing holiday tourism and a thriving VFR travel sector. A social and cultural capital approach was used to understand communities and their networks in a dynamic and comprehensive way. A combination of participatory action research techniques and critical ethnographic methodologies were used to interact with respondents. Analysis of data used both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Results of this research have significantly furthered discussion of the socio-cultural fabric of those communities studied in Samoa and how individual socio-cultural elements are influenced by holiday tourism and VFR travel. Based on the analysis of these holiday tourist and VFR traveller impacts, the results can guide planning and policy oriented benchmarks for improved socio-culturally sustainable tourism.

<p>Flygledare övervakar alla flygplan som färdas världen över genom att se till attflygplanen håller separationsgränserna. Flygledarna jobbar i pass på cirka en timme ochbyts sedan av, en så kallad positionsöverlämning. Det är viktigt att den som tar överpositionen får all information den behöver för att kunna fortsätta leda flygplanen på ett säkert sätt och eventuellt vidta åtgärder för att säkerställa en välordnad flygtrafik. Incidentrapporter visar att ett oproportionerligt stort antal incidenter sker 5- 15minuter efter en positionsöverlämning. På grund av detta vill LFV undersöka hur positionsöverlämningarna går till för att senare kvalitetssäkra dem. Syftet med denna rapport har varit att beskriva positionsöverlämningar på ATCC Stockholm. Resultatet visar att flygledarna till stor del använder sig av en memorerad checklista som inte skiljer sig mycket från den fysiska de har framför sig och följer därmed ett generellt mönster. Det visar även att det svåra kan vara att upprätthålla uppmärksamheten under alla överlämningarna. Resultaten ger LFV en utgångspunkt till att börja med kvalitetssäkringen. Ur ett akademiskt perspektiv visar resultaten en tillämpning på hurde teorier som används i studien kan appliceras i kontexten positionsöverlämningar mellan flygledare.</p>

<p>Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva hur vuxna manliga barn har upplevt och hanterat situationer av att växa upp med en förälder som har psykiska funktionsnedsättningar. Våra frågeställningar utgörs av: <em>Hur upplevde och hanterade vuxna manliga barn till föräldrar med psykisk funktionsnedsättning sin uppväxt?</em> samt <em>Hur har upplevelsen och hanterandet av uppväxten påverkat vuxna manliga barn till föräldrar med psykisk funktionsnedsättning som vuxna?</em> För att kunna svara på frågeställningarna har vi använt oss av en kvalitativ metod och intervjuat fem vuxna manliga barn som haft en sådan uppväxt. Intervjuerna har sedan analyserats genom ett fenomenologiskt förhållningssätt och därmed har vi återberättat informanternas utsagor istället för att tolka dessa. Denna analys har utgått från det empiriska materialet som sedan har kopplats till de valda tidigare forskningarna och teoretiska utgångspunkter. De teoretiska utgångspunkter vi har använt oss av för att ge en tydligare beskrivning av informanternas upplevelser, utgörs av resilience och coping.</p><p> </p><p>Av studiens resultat kan det utläsas att alla fem informanter upplevde sin uppväxt fylld av skamkänslor, ansvar, okunskap om vad som var rätt eller fel, normalt eller inte normalt samt saknad av någon som kunde stödja och hjälpa dem i deras situation. Dessutom framkom det att informanternas vuxna liv var präglat av deras upplevelser under uppväxten. Informanternas hanteringsstrategier varierade både i uppväxten och under vuxenlivet, då det visade sig att informanterna pendlade mellan ansvarstagandet, undvikandestrategier, kriminalitet och missbruk.</p>