I studied the ecology and distribution of the Florida bog frog (Rana okaloosae) and flatwoods salamander (Ambystoma cingulatum) on Eglin Air Force Base in northwest Florida. I report data on the breeding ecology, population dynamics, home ranges, microhabitat, and distribution of the endemic bog frog and make comparisons to its closest relative, the bronze frog (Rana clamitans clamitans). Bog and bronze frogs occur in the same habitats and are suspected to hybridize. I investigated the potential for auditory and visual mate recognition errors between R. okaloosae and R. clamitans. I also described the vocal repertoire of the bog frog and observed the response of resident males to the playback of unfamiliar conspecific and heterospecific (R. clamitans) calls. The advertisement calls of bog frogs vary among individuals, and individual voice recognition is possible. I exposed tadpoles of bog frogs, bronze frogs, and leopard frogs (R. sphenocephala) to chemical cues from 2 predators, the banded water snake (Colubridae: Nerodia fasciata) and the red fin pickerel (Esocidae: Esox americanus) to evaluate whether swimming behavior or habitat selection differed among tadpole species. The time spent swimming differed among tadpole species and predator treatments, differences which potentially could affect growth rates, survivorship rates, and distribution patterns. Lastly, I discuss the relationship between fire and the federallyâ threatened flatwoods salamander (Ambystoma cingulatum). I compared 13 breeding wetlands with different fire histories in addition to burned and unburned halves of a partiallyâ burned wetland. In general, areas that burned more recently had more open canopies, higher dissolved oxygen concentrations, higher water temperatures, more understory vegetation, and were shallower than unburned areas. Rangewide surveys indicate that prescribed fires typically are applied in winter and early spring in areas inhabited by flatwoods salamanders. Based on what is known about the natural history of the species, the historical burning regime of the longleaf ecosystem, and the effects of fires on ephemeral wetlands, I suggest that land mangers diversify their fireâ management strategy to increase the likelihood of burning the breeding wetlands of flatwoods salamanders. / Ph. D.

Mutual parent-young recognition is vital for offspring survival, particularly in species congregating in dense breeding sites, like pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses). For effective vocal recognition, the caller must produce individually specific calls with high levels of stereotypy, or individuality. Vocal recognition has been studied extensively and is well-documented in otariid species (fur seals and sea lions), as those mothers frequently leave their pup to forage and must relocate them upon return to the rookery. In many phocid (true seal) species, the mothers typically remain with their pup throughout nursing and therefore may not have as strong of a need for well-developed vocal recognition; recognition remains understudied in these species. This study focuses on vocal recognition and individuality in the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris), a phocid species with a 28-day nursing period and no intentional separation between mothers and pups. In Chapter 1, I investigated a northern elephant seal pup’s ability to vocally recognize its mother across ontogeny through an auditory playback experiment at the Piedras Blancas northern elephant seal rookery in San Simeon, CA. I found that pups showed a developed ability to recognize their mother’s vocalizations later in the nursing period, at around 23 days old. At this age, they looked towards their mother’s call faster and spent more time investigating the call. Before this age, pups responded infrequently to female vocalizations and showed no differentiated response to their own mother versus an unfamiliar female. After weaning, pups responded to any female’s call. This study is the first to examine phocid pup vocal recognition abilities, and the results suggest that northern elephant seal mothers are primarily responsible for maintaining contact during the nursing period to ensure their pup’s survival. In Chapter 2, I analyzed and described the pup attraction calls made by adult females. Visual and auditory analysis of the spectrograms suggested there may be distinct variants of attraction calls made within and across females. I characterized the calls and confirmed that female elephant seals produce three distinct variants of their attraction call. A linear discriminant analysis correctly classified the calls into their assigned categories 80% of the time. Previous research found that female elephant seals have lower vocal stereotypy than female northern fur seals. Because I demonstrated that female elephant seals produce different variants of attraction calls, I reevaluated their stereotypy while controlling for the attraction call variant. I found that female elephant seals have a higher level of stereotypy when controlling for call variant, with a linear discriminant analysis correctly assigning 50% of the calls to the correct female when controlling for call variant, and correctly assigning 37.5% of the calls when not controlling for call variant. In summary, my results suggest that mother-pup recognition is mutual in northern elephant seals, but indicate that northern elephant seal mothers are primarily responsible for maintaining contact with their pup during dependency, as the pups do not consistently respond to their mothers’ vocalizations until the last week of the nursing period. Adult females produce calls with enough vocal stereotypy to allow for individual recognition, and they make distinct variants of attraction calls, indicating they have a larger vocal repertoire than previously assumed. Future research should further investigate adult female northern elephant seal vocalizations and how they potentially differ across ontogeny and among behavioral contexts.

Data network resource management and capacity planning are critical for network design, operation, and management. Equipment vendors often provide good information for traffic management and control and associated tools, but this information and the tools are based on independent, individual switches or routers rather than the whole network. There is a critical need for tools to monitor general resource usage in a network as a whole. In this research, we develop a toolkit to collect ATM Call Detail Records (CDRs) from two types of ATM switches from IBM and FORE Systems. Data records collected by the toolkit can then be used to assess network resource utilization and traffic characteristics with the objective of predicting future needs, making proper network management decisions, and ultimately, assisting in the ability to provide reliable quality of service (QoS) in the network. In addition, we examine current call detail records and requirements for more comprehensive network management and make recommendations for a standardized CDR. / Master of Science

[pt] Este estudo buscou apreender a experiência laboral dos sujeitos que trabalham como operadores de call center na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Tais sujeitos, em determinado momento de suas vidas, não conseguiram manter suas atividades em seus postos de trabalho devido ao adoecimento de sua saúde física ou mental, em consequência do trabalho que desenvolvem nas centrais de teleatendimento, na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Dessa forma, tiveram que se afastar de suas funções por tempo indeterminado e vivenciaram a dificuldade de reabilitação e o retorno a seus postos de trabalho. Este adoecimento acontece devido à desregulamentação e intensificação de direitos, resultante da precarização do trabalho, ocasionada principalmente pela terceirização nos setores de serviço inseridos na nova conjuntura econômica mundial, que acaba flexibilizando as formas de trabalho e exaurindo ao máximo o trabalhador, e causando seu adoecimento. O perfil dos trabalhadores de call center se destaca por ser bastante heterogêneo. É composto, em sua maioria, por jovens moradores das periferias cariocas, havendo predominância de mulheres na função. Como a própria gerência se autodenomina, os call centers seriam um espaço onde todos são bem-vindos, agregando grande parcela de uma população considerada como minoria na nossa sociedade e vítima de diversos preconceitos, tais como mulheres, negros, obesos e homossexuais. A pesquisa pautou-se em dados coletados através do Sindicato dos Trabalhadores em Empresas de Telecomunicação do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Sinttel-Rio), obtendo informações sobre a maior empresa de call center da cidade. Foi possível observar que as doenças que mais afastam os trabalhadores de suas funções são as LER/Dort, apesar do crescente número de afastamento de teleoperadores por problemas ligados à saúde mental, tais como depressão, stress, doença do pânico, todas causadas pelas constantes pressões sofridas no ambiente de trabalho, como a necessidade de atender a ligação em tempo determinado, vender produtos como seguros, não chegar atrasado, ser sempre cortês e educado mesmo com as adversidades enfrentadas no atendimento, que fogem do controle do operador; ser monitorado durante todo o tempo de ligação, dentre outras, Ou seja, o operador tem que ter o sorriso na voz durante o grande número de ligações que atende e durante toda a jornada de trabalho. Estas pressões e a forma como ocorre o processo de trabalho na empresa estudada acabam por levar ao esgotamento físico e mental, causando o afastamento do trabalhador de suas funções. Outro problema observado diz respeito à recuperação desse trabalhador e o retorno ao seu posto de trabalho após a reabilitação. Tais elementos denotam que os operadores de telemarketing acabam sendo tratados como mercadoria, cujo prazo de validade, pelos problemas que enfrentam, é bastante curto. / [en] This study examines the work experience of individuals who work as call center operators in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In a moment in their lives, such individuals could not keep their activities in their jobs due to the illness of their physical or mental health, as a result of working in telemarketing centers in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Thus, they had to get away indefinitely from their duties and experienced the difficulty of rehabilitation and returning to their jobs. Illness occurs due to deregulation, intensification of rights, a result of precarious work caused mainly by service sector outsourcing in the new global economic, which has flexibilized work, exhausted workers and caused them illnesses. The profile of call center workers stands out for being very heterogeneous. It is composed mostly by young residents of Rio s suburbs, with predominance of women in the function. As management itself says, call centers would be a place where everybody is welcome, accepting large portion of the population considered as minority in our society, who is victim of many prejudices, such as women, blacks, homosexuals and obese people. The research was based on data collected through the Sindicato dos Trabalhadores em Empresas de Telecomunicação do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Rio-Sinttel), obtaining information about the largest call center in the city. It was observed that the diseases that most withdraw workers from their functions are LER/ Dort, despite the growing number of removal of call center workers for problems related to mental health such as depression, stress, panic disorders, all of them caused by the constant pressure suffered in the workplace: the need to answer the call at any given time, selling products like insurance, do not be late, always be courteous and polite even with the adversities in attendance that are beyond the control of the operator; be monitored during the whole connection time, among others. In other words, the operator must have a smile on the voice for the large number of callings that answers and throughout the workday. These pressures and the work process in the studied company lead workers to physical and mental exhaustion, causing their expulsion from work functions. Another observed problem regards the recovery of workers and their return to job after rehabilitation. These elements indicate that telemarketers end up being treated as a goods whose expiration date is quite short before the problems they face.

Student Number : 9910820A - MA research report - School of Human and Community Development - Faculty of Humanities / The literature review presents a discussion of the various aspects within organisational climate as it relates to a call centre environment. It also examines past research on the notions of job satisfaction, life satisfaction and self-esteem pertaining to call centre agents. The literature review places particular emphasis on the affect organisational climate has on call centre agents. The present research takes the form of a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional, ex-post facto design, on a sample of two-hundred and nineteen (N=219) call centre agents from four South African call centres. The Job Content Questionnaire was used to measure the organisational climate (Karasek, 1985), Taylor and Bowers (1972) General Satisfaction scale measured call centre agent’s job satisfaction, the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) assessed the global cognitive beliefs of call centre agent’s life (Pavot and Diener, 1993), and Rosenberg’s (1989) Self-Esteem Scale was used to measure call centre agent’s self-esteem. Descriptive statistics and correlations were used to analyse the data and answer the research questions. Results from the analytical procedures suggested that call centre agents were given more decision latitude, there was a perception of general social support within the organisation, work roles were clearly defined and self-esteem was not significantly associated to the work environment. Thus, implying that the organisational climate of call centres may not be as bleak as past literature has suggested.

O crescimento do setor de serviços e sua representatividade na economia brasileira, tem se mostrado muito consistente. Com especial destaque a telecomunicação, que mostra uma intensa apropriação dos avanços tecnológicos e das repercussões das alterações do molde produtivo do capital. O telemarketing atua como um canal que recebe informações, críticas e sugestões de clientes e divulga produtos e serviços de forma rápida, pelo telefone e estruturase em um diálogo padronizado, que acontece à distância, mas em tempo real. Seu objetivo central é a concretização de negócios, pois as centrais de telemarketing oferecem serviços como novas formas de venda pelo telefone ou atendimento ao cliente. As relações entre operador e usuário se fundamentam em um tipo de trabalho cuja natureza é predominantemente cognitiva e caracterizada pelas funções perceptivas e mentais solicitadas no decorrer do trabalho. Este estudo de caráter qualitativo, objetiva investigar as condições de trabalho dos operadores de telemarketing de uma empresa privada da cidade de Uberlândia- MG, para identificar em que medida as formas de organização do trabalho, às quais estes trabalhadores estão submetidos, interferem em sua saúde, segundo seus próprios depoimentos. Foram entrevistados dez operadores de ambos os sexos, com mais de 18 anos e com no mínimo um ano de contratação. Todas as entrevistas, que foram gravadas, foram realizadas no domicilio dos trabalhadores. A partir dos relatos dos entrevistados foram levantadas as principais queixas de saúde, aqui entendida em seus pelos trabalhadores do setor pesquisado, e estabelecida a sua relação com as condições de trabalho. A reestruturação do modelo produtivo impetrada pelo capital acarretou repercussões funestas nas condições de trabalho e consequentemente na saúde dos trabalhadores. Em especial, os trabalhadores desse setor sofrem com a constante pressão por produtividade a que são submetidos. Os dados revelaram que a intensificação do ritmo de trabalho, o rígido controle exercido aspectos mais amplos, e por isso, envolvendo questões de ordem física e psíquica apresentadas sobre os trabalhadores para o cumprimento de padrões pré-estabelecidos de atendimento dentro de um período de tempo limitado e as condições físicas do ambiente de trabalho, como iluminação, ventilação e condições dos equipamentos acabam por influenciar na saúde desses trabalhadores desencadeando diversos sintomas de ordem física e psíquica. / The expansion of the telemarketing sector in the Brazilian economy has been very consistent. Telemarketing shows an intense use of technologic advances and also reflect the consequences of the transformation of the capital´s production way. Telermarketing acts as a channel that receives information, criticism and suggestions from clients, and also, advertises products and services, in a fast way, by phone. It is based in a previously established dialogue, at a distance but in a real time. It´s main objective is to reinforce a relationship between client and business, offering different ways of phone selling and support to the consumers. The relationship between phone operator and client is based on a performance of cognitive nature, caracterized by perceptive and mental aspects during the work. This study, of qualifying aspect, investigates the working conditions of telemarketing operators in a private company in Uberlandia, MG, to identify, in which ways this type of work affects their health, according to their own reports. Data were collected through recorded interviews with 10 telemarketing operators, men and women, over 18 years old and with, at least, one year experience. They were contacted through personal indication. All interviews were performed at their homes. Based on their personal reports, their main health complaints were listed, involving physical, psychological and social aspects, all related to poor work conditions. The capitalism urge a new productive model that brings terrible consequences to work conditions e consequently to general aspects of worker´s health. There is intense pressure on workers for productivity, due to a modern capitalist model, directed toward maximizing efficiency and productivity. Collected data demonstrate that telemarketing operators are experiencing an increase of work load, a rigid control by supervisors on established patterns (script and time limit), and poor physical conditions at workstation, such as inadequate light, ventilation, equipment, which affect their health, increasing risks of physical and psychological disorders.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:44:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Paulo_Roberto_Giao.pdf: 837515 bytes, checksum: 39c25501b54c71d0d97d98a2ed3a1800 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-12-12 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The call center (CC) industry has presented a rapid growth in many countries, it representing substantive part of workforce in these countries. This growth was stimulated by advances in technology information (IT) and for the nasty fall in data transmission and voice costs that occurred in last two decades due to telecommunications deregulation, meaning good opportunities for customer service centers implementation. This research is part of the Global Call Center Industry Project (GCCIP), a global study involving strategy, performance, human resources, technologies and institutional affairs in a greatest number of countries and call centers, which could provide a more complete vision of this industry. Twenty countries are participating in this project as United States, United Kingdom, Australia, India and Brazil. The coordination of the research in Brazil is in charge of PUC-SP. The main objective of this work is to analyze the strategic alignment among the answered strategy by organizations and their internal practices and utilized technologies in call center sector. Call centers are basically a great amount of people and technologies those are joined trough procedures and processes for the service realization regarding customer center proposal, since customer requests until outbound call for telemarketing operations. To try to identify and confirm the main objective, some hypotheses were elaborated and some variables were selected to confirm or not confirm it. Results showed that the strategic alignment was not found considering the industry as a whole, based on obtained sample. It was done analyzing the complete database e verifying, though advanced statistics methods, if the alignment was presented or not. However, using some additional mathematics and statistics tools, it was verified that some strategic aligned cases can be present in global sample or, at least, better results could be found instead of global database analysis. This can be the main contribution of this dissertation, to identify that strategic alignment can not be found in a complete sector but restricted to specific cases ou maybe predefined small groups / A indústria de call center (CC) tem apresentado um rápido crescimento em muitos países, representando significativa parcela da força de trabalho destes países. Este crescimento foi impulsionado pelos avanços da tecnologia da informação (TI) e pela queda acentuada nos custos de transmissão de dados e voz ocorrida nas duas últimas décadas e a desregulamentação das telecomunicações que significaram redução de custos atraentes para a implantação de serviços de interação com consumidores. Esta pesquisa faz parte do The Global Call Center Industry Project (GCCIP), estudo envolvendo estratégia, desempenho, recursos humanos, tecnologia e questões institucionais em um maior número possível de países que pudesse dar uma visão mais elaborada e completa sobre esta indústria. Vinte países de todos os continentes estão participando deste projeto, entre eles Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, Austrália, Índia e Brasil. No Brasil está sob coordenação da PUC de São Paulo. O objetivo principal deste trabalho é analisar se existe o alinhamento estratégico entre as estratégias declaradas pelas empresas que responderam à pesquisa que dá suporte ao mesmo e as práticas internas e tecnologias adotadas no setor de call centers (CC). Os call centers compõem-se basicamente de pessoas e tecnologias que se agrupam através de procedimentos e processos para a realização de serviços inerentes ao atendimento de solicitações ou realizando chamadas em uma operação de telemarketing que seguem ou definem uma determinada estratégia orientada aos mercados que deseja atender. Para isso foram elaboradas hipóteses e selecionadas variáveis que possam corroborá-las ou não Os resultados mostraram não haver um alinhamento estratégico considerando o setor como um todo, através da amostra obtida. Isso foi feito analisando-se a base de dados completa e verificando-se, através de métodos estatísticos se o alinhamento era observado ou não. No entanto, utilizando-se algumas ferramentas matemáticas e estatísticas adicionais, verificou-se que podem existir casos dentro da amostra, que possuam o alinhamento estratégico desejado, ou pelo menos que possam apresentar resultados bem melhores do que os obtidos ao se analisar a amostra como um todo. Essa acaba sendo a principal contribuição deste trabalho, que o alinhamento estratégico talvez não seja possível de ser identificado considerando-se uma grande amostra, mas sim através de casos específicos ou grupos de casos préselecionados

This thesis deals with the possibilities of the use of psychological assessment tools in selecting of employees. The theoretical part discusses the theoretical background of selection of employees, turnover and psychological assessment. Attention is paid to the efficient selection procedure with emphasis on the use of psychological assess-ment tools (questionnaires and tests) as a mean to reduce staff turnover, and thus to more effective management of human resources. The practical part deals with the analysis, examination and comparison of selected psychological instruments avail-able by company Motiv P s.r.o., cut-e czech s.r.o., Assessment Systems s.r.o. and TCC Online s.r.o., on the basis of pre-defined crucial criteria and characteristics for the implementation of these instruments in a particular company in the selection of call center operators. The result of this thesis is recommendation of specific psychological assessment instruments that according to aims, purpose and needs of particular company would help to reduce turnover of employees.

The thesis deals with two kinds of double auction - with the continuous auction and a sequence of call auctions. We explain their rules and we define their models. We present results of simulations of the both kinds of double auction - the aim is to look for the call auction with such parameters that the prices and the traded volume of the continuous auction are approximated best. Finally, in a theoretical part, we characterize the dis- tribution of the order book in the continuous auction and then we specify the joint distribution of the price and the traded volume in the call auction (the distribution of bid, ask and the traded volume given by the continuous auction may be immediately devised from the distribution of the order book).

Indian Institute of Science / workstations are ideally suited for computing jobs which require an interactive environment because they are basically single user machines and hence provide consistent response time. Another factor is the availability of many peripheral devices such as mice and light pens etc., which render workstations more user friendly for interactive jobs. However workstations are not suitable for highly compute intensive jobs as they are basically uniprocessor machines operating at moderate frequencies. For such type of work, large mainframes or supercomputers are more suitable, but interactive use of these machines is not economically feasible. Further more devices like mice etc., are not usually available for these types of machines. A typical application program is partly interactive and partly compute intensive and hence requires the features of workstations and supercomputers both. We have implemented a Cross Architecture Procedure call (CAPC) model. The purpose of this architecture is to make supercomputers available to workstation users as compute savers. In this method a workstation user marks some of the procedures in his/her application program which he/she wants to be executed on a remote mainframe or supercomputer connected to the workstation by a network. These procedures are compiled by a compiler to produce machine code for the computer on which they are supposed to be executed. A special purpose loader loads these procedures on the appropriate machines and then these procedures are executed on the remote machines at appropriate times without any further modification in the source code. Usually a user will want to execute compute intensive procedures on supercomputers and interactive parts on a workstation thus utilizing both the machines most efficiently. In our method both local and remote procedures use standard subroutine call instructions unlike RPC. In this architecture, both local and remote subroutines share a common virtual address space (physically distributed over many machines) and thus global and pointer variables can be used and parameters can be passed by reference with complete transparency. Arbitrary nesting of remote and local procedures is also possible. In our prototype implementation we have used an IBM - PC (8088 processor operating at 4.7 MHz) as a workstation and a MAGNUM - 1 (68030 processor operating at 25 MHz) as a compute server. As an IBM - PC does not have any virtual memory hardware (essential for our architecture) we have simulated a virtual memory management system for that machine through software, Our "network" is an RS 232C connection between the two machines using COTPL (Connection Oriented Transport. Provider for Local Communications) operating at 9600 baud. To test the system we have also implemented the required compiler for a simple language (a subset of Pascal - PL/OI which produces code for 8088 and 68030 machines, and also a special loader. The system has been completely implemented and tested with several programs. We have also made a thorough performance study of this system. The System is found to accelerate the applications as much as 2.8 times in the best cases.