Recreational sport climbing is characterised by self-selected route choices, which place participants under both physiological and psychological stress. This thesis is comprised of four studies, each conducted with experienced climbers, exploring subjective psychological, objective psychophysiological and behavioural responses to anxiety-inducing stressors. Studies One and Two explored the means of protecting a climber in the event of a fall and the relative difficulty of a route. Significant and meaningful differences in self-reported anxiety and climbing performance were found in both studies. However, notably, psychophysiological measures of anticipatory heart rate and cortisol did not result in meaningful differences. Results suggested that situations, atypical of participants’ normal recreation sessions, with an increased likelihood of a climber falling or being unable to complete the route, were likely to be evaluated as threatening, elicit a negative emotional response and disrupt performance. However, the quantitative methods employed in Studies One and Two did not provide an explanation of the processes underlying participant’s anxious response and disrupted performance. Consequently, Study Three qualitatively explored individual experiences of climbers, with a focus on psychological factors that influence performance. The defining characteristics of lead climbing were discussed, as were the potential for taking falls, and/or the anticipation of falling. Further, interviewees described the choices they make, in order to increase or decrease the physical, psychological and technical challenges present. Critically, the choices made by a climber appear to potentiate or limit opportunities to perform optimally. Climber’s decisions were mediated by a number of antecedents, including a climber’s background in the sport, climbing partners and training status. Data suggests that while decisions made by the climbers allow them to engage with the sport on their own terms and exert a level of control over the challenges of their climbing sessions, it is often at the expense of performance. Interestingly, while interviewees were aware of techniques to reduce anxiety and improve performance, few regularly used these in training. Study Four examined the effectiveness of clip drops and repeat practice to reduce anxiety. Results indicated that neither technique resulted in reduced anxiety or improved performance when compared to the control group. While there were small differences in the success rate of participants in the intervention groups, they were less anxious and interpreted their level of self-confidence as more positive, compared to control, it was not possible to differentiate between the two interventions. However, when the combined means were considered there were significant and meaningful differences observed in the post-intervention red-point ascent compared to the initial on-sight. This thesis highlights the difficulty that arises in attempting to quantitatively examine anxiety. While there might not be (a) anxiety in climbers or (b) quantifiable differences between climbers of different abilities, it may be that what is possibly ‘noise’ in data arises due to weaknesses in the markers themselves. The findings of Study Three provide evidence of the true nature of anxiety for climbers, which was not evident from the quantitative markers; as well as the lengths climbers will go to, to avoid anxiety. Climbers’ responses to anxiety were individualised, consequently, generalised interventions may have a limited effect on reducing anxiety to a level which supports performance improvements. It may be that an individualised approach to anxiety reduction and avoidance behaviours has a more significant impact on performance improvement than any of the latest training programmes, equipment or nutritional strategies.

When receiving a negative outcome (e.g., rejection in a job interview), people tend to attribute it to different causes. For members of stigmatised groups, discrimination is a plausible cause for a negative outcome. However, because discrimination has become relatively subtle (Ellemers & Barreto, 2015), members of stigmatised groups always live in an attributional ambiguity where they constantly wonder whether discrimination was the cause of the received negative outcome. Some researchers argue that this attributional ambiguity leads members of stigmatised groups to make attributions to discrimination. In doing so, individuals would protect themselves by discounting their own role in the negative outcome they received. In other words, in order to protect their sense of competence, members of stigmatised groups prefer to make attributions to discrimination rather than their lack of deservingness (i.e., attributions to lack of ability; Crocker & Major, 1989; Major, Kaiser, & McCoy, 2003). On the other hand, other researchers argue that making attributions to discrimination is not necessarily self-protective as perceived discrimination can have negative consequences for individuals. It has been suggested that attributional stability plays a key role in determining the extent to which attributions to discrimination and to lack of ability are perceived as a threat to individuals (Branscombe & Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999; Schmitt & Branscombe, 2002; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). In three studies, I examined the extent to which attributions to discrimination and to lack of ability are threatening/challenging as a function of stability of those attributions. Threat and challenge were measured both via self-reported data and cardiovascular markers. The results confirmed the role of attributional stability in perceived threat/challenge. In addition, in another study I examined whether attributional stability influences the extent to which attributions to discrimination and to lack of ability are made. However, the results of this study did not confirm my expectations, instead, participants consistently made more attributions to their lack of ability irrespective of information about attributional stability.

Poor oxygenation of solid tumours has been linked with resistance to chemo- and radio-therapy and poor patient outcomes. Measuring the functional status of the tumour vasculature, including blood flow fluctuations and changes in oxygenation is important in cancer staging and therapy monitoring. A robust method is needed for clinical non-invasive measurement of the oxygen supply and demand in tumours. Current clinically approved imaging modalities suffer high cost, long procedure times and limited spatio-temporal resolution. Optoacoustic tomography (OT) is an emerging clinical imaging modality that can provide static images of endogenous haemoglobin concentration and oxygenation. In this work, an integrated framework for quantitative analysis of functional imaging using OT is developed and applied in vivo with preclinical cancer models. Oxygen Enhanced (OE)-OT is established here to provide insight into tumour vascular function and oxygen availability in the tissue. Tracking oxygenation dynamics using OE-OT reveals significant differences between two prostate cancer models in nude mice with markedly different vascular function (PC3 & LNCaP), which appear identical in static OT. OE-OT metrics are shown to be highly repeatable and correlate directly on a per-tumour basis to tumour vascular maturity, hypoxia and necrosis, assessed ex vivo. Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) OT demonstrates the relationship between OE-OT response and tumour perfusion in vivo. Finally, the possibility of using OT data acquired at longer wavelengths to report on tumour water and lipid content is investigated, with a view to future providing intrinsically co-registered imaging of tumour oxygenation and cellular necrosis. These findings indicate that OE-OT holds potential for application in prostate cancer patients, to improve delineation of aggressive and indolent disease, while combined with DCE-OT, it may offer significant advantage for localised imaging of tumour response to vascular targeted therapies. Further work is needed to establish whether OT can provide a new method to detect tumour necrosis in vivo.

This thesis is a regional interdisciplinary analysis of the environmental challenge to the liberal democratic state. It situates these new problems of governance in one of the dominating political conflicts of our time, the battle between market and state for the 'commanding heights'. By the end of the 1970s, environmental concerns had added to the social crises associated with the overloaded, welfare state. The study sets the political context through an exposition of the perceived problems of the overloaded state, analysed by neo-Marxist theorists in terms of rationality and legitimacy deficits and by public choice theorists in terms of the incentives and calculations confronting rational individuals. It draws out the association between these alternative perspectives on 'state overload' and the political philosophies of corporatism and neo-liberalism, showing that, on the neo-Marxist understanding, corporatism addresses the functional requirements of late capitalism, while public choice precepts are strongly influential on leading elements of neo-liberalism. This political analysis is developed through the history of a landmark piece of legislation, the Environmentally Hazardous Chemicals Act (NSW) 1985, in toxic chemicals policymaking from the late 1970s to the end of 1997. The interpretation of the case material shows that the response in NSW to the environmental problematic has been driven by the reform agenda of the successive political programs of corporatism and neo-liberalism for the state, the bureaucracy and the democratic process. Neither the corporatist nor the neo-liberal programs succeeded in meeting environmental criteria. Examination of the inadequate responses of both corporatism and neo-liberalism, when measured against sustainability criteria, leads to a deeper understanding of the institutional reforms required if these criteria are to be addressed. The thesis concludes that the failure to effect successful reform of toxic chemicals policy in NSW reflects the failure of leading political theorems of the liberal democratic state to incorporate sustainability criteria successfully into their reform agenda for the state, the bureaucracy and the democratic process. These regional issues are shown to be thematic for the nation-state when raised in the context of the globalisation of the environmental challenge and the inter nationalisation of market forces. The thesis concludes with a brief review of some recent political theory in relation to the programmatic issues of sustainability and democracy which it has pursued.

Notre recherche concerne les domaines des EIAH (Environnements Informatiques pour l'Apprentissage Humain) et du CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning) et en particulier les situations de résolution collaborative de problème supportées informatiquement en synchrone et à distance. Nous avons considéré ces situations comme des situations de « travail collectif » telles que définie dans le CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work), les apprenants étant mutuellement dépendants dans leur travail. Ces situations exigent de la part des apprenants, une activité de niveau supérieur visant à articuler leurs activités respectives. Il s'agit d'une structure abstraite qui émerge au cours de l'activité. Elle est évolutive et n'est pas prévisible. Ce concept d'auto-organisation peut être généralisé aux situations où un groupe d'apprenants doit réaliser une activité collective dont le processus n'est pas complètement prédéterminé. En particulier, dans le cas des situations qui mettent en jeu un challenge (ou défi) collectif. La prise en compte de ces dimensions organisationnelles est une question essentielle car elles ont un impact sur le processus global et elles conduisent les apprenants à s'engager dans des interactions productives de connaissances (par exemple, l'établissement d'un terrain d'entente, la planification, la résolution de conflit ou la régulation mutuelle, etc.). L'objectif de cette thèse est (1) de comprendre les éléments liés à l'organisation qu'il est important de supporter et (2) de concevoir un environnement informatique proposant (i) de supporter l'activité d' (auto)-organisation d'apprenants engagés dans un challenge pédagogique collectif et (ii) des moyens pour détecter et interpréter cette activité d'organisation afin de permettre à un tuteur de la supporter. A cette fin, nous avons supposé (1) qu'il était possible d'amener des apprenants engagés dans une activité collective à travailler explicitement sur l'organisation en leur proposant un problème, un scénario et des outils appropriés et (2) qu'il était possible de détecter, d'interpréter et d'agir dynamiquement sur l'activité d'organisation des apprenants. Les résultats de nos travaux de recherche nous permettent de proposer : 1. Une interprétation d'un modèle théorique (celui de Bardram [Bardram 98], issu du CSCW) en termes d'organisation et une instanciation de ce modèle, le modèle ALBATROM, dans le cas d'un challenge pédagogique collectif. 2. Un environnement informatique, ALBATROS et des outils spécifiques (COCOON et COCOOP) conçus en accord avec notre modèle ALBATROM. Ce système permet à des apprenants de résoudre collectivement un problème basé sur un défi. Il facilite l'explicitation de leur organisation tout en proposant les moyens de la faire évoluer dynamiquement au cours de l'action. 3. Une grille d'analyse qui a été élaborée en correspondance avec notre modèle et qui permet une meilleure compréhension de ce que font les apprenants en termes d'organisation. Cette grille permet une identification et une compréhension des moments critiques (pannes et changements de niveau dans l'organisation). Ceci afin de mettre à la disposition d'un éventuel tuteur des signaux visibles, interprétables selon notre modèle, utiles à son intervention. 4. L'analyse des résultats d'une expérimentation réalisée à partir de notre grille de codage et qui a pour objet de mesurer l'effet de notre système sur (1) l'organisation des apprenants, (2) sur la détection de cette organisation, et secondairement, (3) sur la résolution du problème et (4) sur la motivation des apprenants. 5. Un outil de gestion et de visualisation dynamique des traces pertinentes de l'activité d'organisation des apprenants présentes dans notre système permettant d'envisager un futur support semi-automatique de cette activité.

<p>Radio frequency identification, RFID is a technology that is used in many fields including locks. The unlimited access to the reader and the transponder has resulted in severe security weaknesses and made it possible to apply different attacks. To classify door locks as secure they must at least fulfil two main criteria: the first is the use of a challenge-response authentication protocol and the second is to deploy sophisticated and secure algorithms.</p><p>MiFare classic and KeeLoq are two widely applied technologies that are still in use in many security critical applications and are considered to be secure but which have been broken by cryptanalysis and with modest efforts and cost.</p><p>How secure a certain solution is depends on how expensive it is to buy the equipment that can break the system and reveal the secret key and how secure a lock should be depends on the value of what it is protecting.</p><p>The dropping price of powerful computers and the availability of security related information on the web will lead to an increase of the number of attacks on different systems.</p><p>By the time this thesis is published those locks evaluated are not secure enough, to overcome the security shortage some improvements have to be made such as: the use of sophisticated algorithms, the use of longer key of at least 128-bit, the use of non-deterministic random number generators and the use of pure hardware solutions both in the receiver and the transmitter to reduce leakage.</p>

Ranaviruses are large dsDNA viruses that are considered emerging pathogens, and they are known to cause mortality events in amphibian and fish populations. This research utilizes experimental and genomic data to elucidate the mechanisms driving the evolution and spread of ranaviruses, with a focus on host switching within the genus. In Chapter 1, we utilize virus challenge assays to examine potential transfer of ranaviruses between cultured juvenile largemouth bass (M. salmoides) and bullfrog tadpoles (Rana catesbeiana). Additionally, a commonly used antiparasitic treatment containing malachite green and formalin (MGF) was utilized to suppress the immune system of largemouth bass to assess the susceptibility of immunocompromised fish to ranaviruses. The results indicate that tadpoles are not susceptible to Largemouth Bass Virus (LMBV), but that bass are susceptible to ranaviruses isolated from amphibians. Furthermore, immunocompromised fish were more susceptible to both LMBV and FV3 infections than immunocompetent fish. In Chapter 2, we used eight sequenced ranavirus genomes and two selection-detection methods (site-based and branch-based) to identify genes that exhibited signatures of positive selection, potentially due to the selective pressures at play during host switching. We found evidence of positive selection acting on four genes via the site-based method, three of which are newly-acquired genes unique to ranavirus genomes. Our results suggest that the group of newly acquired genes in the ranavirus genome may have undergone recent adaptive changes that have facilitated interspecies and interclass host switching. In Chapter 3, we annotated and analyzed the nearly complete genomic sequence of LMBV to determine its taxonomic classification. The available genomic content and phylogenetic evidence suggests that LMBV is more closely related to amphibian-like ranaviruses (ALRVs) than grouper ranaviruses, and this is further supported by greater genomic collinearity between LMBV and ALRVs. This data suggests that the classification of LMBV as a ranavirus is warranted. The results presented here will help to clarify the taxonomic relationships of ranaviruses, and will also be useful in developing management strategies to limit interspecific and intraspecific viral spread. The information garnered from this research will have far-reaching implications in studies of amphibian conservation, disease evolution, and virology. / text

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / This paper discusses the rover engagement display (RED), an application that integrates network communication, control systems, numerical and visual analysis of telemetry, and a graphical user interface for communicating with the embedded systems of a remote vehicle. The target vehicle is a wheeled rover participating in the University Rover Challenge, a competition that observes the performance of rovers in an environment similar to that of the planet Mars. Communication with the rover occurs via a TCP connection and messages adhere to a simple protocol. The RED user interface is visually modular in an attempt to provide additional scalability and extensibility. Control algorithms, user interface design concepts, and code architecture (C#) are discussed.

In a standard tennis match each player has an unlimited opportunity to challenge an umpire’s call, but if three incorrect challenges are made in a set he is not allowed to challenge anymore in that set. If the set goes into a tie break the limit on incorrect challenges increases by one. These limited incorrect challenges are not carried over from one set to another. So this is kind of a limited resource available to the player and if he knows how to use this resource in a best possible way, there is a scope for increasing his overall chances of winning a match. With the motive of gaining insight on when to challenge a call, we have modeled a single game in a tennis match as a Markov decision process. We have also studied the impact of variables like player’s probability of winning a point, the player’s perception of the challengability of a call and proportion of challengable calls on the decision making process. / text

Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) parr-smolts were exposed to sublethal concentrations of cypermethrin, chlorothalonil, quintozene or atrazine to determine if they affected osmoregulation. After 96 h of exposure to a pesticide, Na+K+-ATPase, hematocrit, liver somatic index (LSI), plasma sodium, chloride, and cortisol concentrations were determined. There were no mortalities observed following a 24-h seawater challenge. No effects were seen with cypermethrin exposure. Chlorothalonil exposure resulted in increases in plasma Na+ concentrations following the seawater challenge in the 0.18 and 3.6 μg/L groups. For quintozene, decreases in LSI was seen at each concentration, and decreases in Na+K+-ATPase activity was seen at 0.55 μg/L as well as a decrease in Na+ concentrations at the highest exposure concentration. Atrazine exposure increased Na+K+-ATPase activity in the 1 and 100 μg/L groups, and plasma cortisol concentrations at100 μg/L. Overall, the pesticides examined had minimal effects on fish osmoregulation and stress at the concentrations tested.