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This thesis focuses on the Kosovo Albanian national movement between 1968 and 2008. Using a multi-layered approach, it analyses a) the factors that determined its political success, b) its continuous transformation and, above all, the internal dynamics of power competition, and c) the prevalence of the independence option in the early 1990s. A key feature of this research project is that it emphasises intra- Albanian struggles, elite competition and tensions over internal legitimacy and power to dominate and generate political identities. In other words, it depicts the way in which nationalism is contested within a national movement that seeks independence. As regards the political success of Kosovo Albanian nationalism, the thesis has demonstrated that although the latter has been fragmented, especially during the war, external intervention was essential in the removal of the Serbian/Yugoslav control and, later on, in achieving independence. It not only proved to be a determining factor in the achievement of Kosovo’s independence, but also played an essential role in sustaining a minimal consensus within the deeply fragmented nationalist movement. Regarding the issue of the internal dynamics of contention and power-struggles and ideological and political transformations of the nationalist movement, the findings suggest that the Kosovo Albanian nationalist movement has constantly been an arena of struggle for competing groups/organisations and political stances. Such power struggles in turn led to the bifurcation, trifurcation or even total fragmentation of the movement, with various groups and parties standing at opposite ends of the spectrum of political and nationalist demands. The thesis contends that the internal power struggle intensified in the aftermath of critical junctures that provided new opportunities (such as audiences) and constraints for the competing parties/groups. These ‘episodes of contention’ in turn resulted in the fundamental transformation and the restructuring of the power relations within the Kosovo Albanian nationalist arena and political field and, consequently, of the political demands and ideological orientation of the movement. The thesis adopts the institutionalist approach to explain the predominance of the independence option. While examining the role of political institutions in structuring political life and forging a new political identity, it argues that the project of an independent Kosovo is tightly linked to, and even stems from, the existence of Kosovo’s quasi-republican status in Yugoslavia. In other words, the existence of separate Kosovan cultural and political institutions during the period of autonomy was crucial in the process of the emergence of independence-oriented elites. Finally, as regards the contribution of this thesis to the wider scholarly work on nationalism, it reinforces the necessity of shifting the focus from the political success of nationalism to its sociological development and the properties of political and social interactions that define the emergence of factionalism and competing political stances. Most importantly, this thesis has shown that even in cases of apparent ethnic homogenisation and cemented inter-ethnic distance, internal dissent and strife is inevitable as groups and individuals strive for power and domination.

Menetia greyii, a small Australian skink, has recently been determined to be a species complex that consists of both sexual and parthenogenetic taxa (Adams et al. 2003). In total, seven distinct taxa have been identified in the south-central region of Australia. This includes three sexual taxa, three apparent parthenogen lineages, and one lizard of uncertain status The study population occurs near Bundey Bore station in the semi-arid region of South Australia (approximately 160km north east of Adelaide). At this site, one sexual taxon (SAS) and two all-female parthenogenetic taxa (WP and RP3) were found to occur in sympatry. In a search for ecological differences, I examined spatial, thermal, physiological and morphological niche relationships in the parthenogenetic and sexual forms. Capture rates were used to determine microhabitat and macrohabitat use in the field. The use of different microhabitats and the amount of time spent occupying different exposures (sun vs. shade) were also examined under laboratory conditions. Thermal preferences, physiological performance (sprint speed ability) and daily activity periods were investigated in the laboratory. The study failed to find any major differences among the different taxa that would indicate they are partitioning resources and therefore explain how the sexual and parthenogenetic forms are coexisting. The only difference observed was that the parthenogens expressed superior sprinting ability, running faster than the sexuals over a range of temperatures. In addition, I found that sexual and parthenogenetic females within this population differed very little in their reproductive effort and output, indicating that RP3 and WP parthenogens possess a reproductive advantage over sexual females as a result of not having to produce males (Williams 1975, Maynard-Smith 1978, Bell 1982). In staged interactions between pairs of sexual and parthenogen individuals, the parthenogens were more aggressive and dominated the sexuals. As a result, the parthenogens were able to outcompete the sexuals for food items. This had serious consequences on fitness, with the sexuals losing significantly more weight than the parthenogens. All of these factors would suggest that the parthenogens should eliminate the sexuals at Bundey Bore. Despite this, the parthenogenetic females at Bundey Bore do not outnumber the sexual subpopulation. This raises the question of how the sexuals are persisting. An examination of endoparasites in the scats of parthenogen and sexual M. greyii found that WP parthenogens had significantly higher parasite prevalence than sexuals. Further to this, there is evidence of matings occurring within the study population between sexual males and WP parthenogen females with five tetraploid males being captured. Therefore, WP parthenogens may be suffering from destabilising hybridization. These factors may account for why the parthenogens (or at least the WP parthenogens) have not competitively excluded sexual M. greyii from Bundey Bore. Other possible reasons are discussed in the general discussion in Chapter 8.

Juvenile steelhead are known to associate with shiner groups, though they also compete for food. Steelhead form dominance hierarchies within cohorts and aggressively defend feeding territories against all other fish. This study focused on the differential effect of shiner competition on steelhead of different social standing. Survival of subordinate juvenile steelhead was significantly enhanced by the presence of redside shiner under laboratory conditions. A factorial experiment in 80 L tanks examined the relative effects of 0, 3, and 9 shiner at 15�� and 20��C on the growth and survival of 3 juvenile steelhead per tank. No temperature effect was detected and there was no significant difference in steelhead growth though statistical power was low (n=5). The largest steelhead did not die in any treatment and no steelhead died in the presence of 9 shiner. In treatments where no shiner were present mortality in the smallest steelhead was 80% (p-value<0.01). Aggressive interactions between steelhead allowed pathogens to colonize breaks in the skin of stressed fish resulting in death. In 6800 L recirculating stream channels with natural substrate, 10 steelhead were held either alone or with 20 shiner at 15��C. No steelhead died and their growth was not significantly different between treatments, but, in the absence of shiner fin damage was 16 times greater (p-value<0.01) in the smallest three steelhead. If a shiner group was present the smallest steelhead appeared to shoal with shiner to avoid attack by dominant steelhead. / Graduation date: 1999

Elton (1927) realized that, intuitively at least, nature was complex and stable. And that the last property contributed to the first. This idea was challenged mathematically by Gardner and Ashby (1970) and May (1972), and in the years following various models have attempted to reconcile these opposing views. Unlike previous mathematical approaches that demonstrated that simple stable systems are destabilized through added complexity, the approach presented herein began with a model that was unstable. This perspective provided allows model complexity and at the same time increased likelihood of mathematically stable. This novel observation suggested that ecosystem complication might stabilize a community. Within these models a system may be stable despite the coexistence of several competitors, in direct opposition to the Competitive Exclusion Principle. The hypothesis that the principle may not hold as an absolute generality beyond two competitors is proposed. This paradox may be explained by (1) interactions between competitors, (2) a keystone predator, or (3) a combination of the first two factors. / Graduation date: 1999

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 1984. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 44-46). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Competition with weeds decreases crop yields globally. Some traits are known to confer a competitive advantage to spring bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), but complex relationships between the competitive traits makes breeding for competitive ability difficult. Prairie organic producers use spring wheat cultivars which have been bred for conventional management systems or heritage cultivars released before the widespread use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Breeding spring wheat specifically for organic production has been suggested. The International Triticeae Mapping Initiative (ITMI) population was used to study the genetics of traits associated with competitive ability. Grain yield without weed competition and under experimentally sown cultivated oat competition exhibited similar heritability. Similar heritability estimates between competition treatments suggest that selection in a weed free environment can lead to improvements in a weedy environment, but some high yielding lines under competition would be eliminated during selection. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis of the population found QTL associated with vigour, days to heading, anthesis, and maturity, and cultivated oat grain yield suppression on chromosome 5A. The genetic correlations support the idea that early maturity provides a competitive advantage in northern grain growing regions. To investigate the feasibility of organic wheat breeding we used a random population of 79 F6-derived recombinant inbred sister lines from a cross between the Canadian hard red spring wheat cultivar AC Barrie and the CIMMYT derived cultivar Attila. The population, including the parents, was grown on conventionally and organically managed land in 12 environments over three years. Six environments had detailed agronomic data and heritability estimates differed between systems for five of the 14 traits recorded. Direct selection in each management system (10% selection intensity) resulted in 50% or fewer lines selected in common for four of the traits. Over all 12 environments direct selection within management system resulted in three lines retained specific to each system. The results of the management studies suggest that selection differences occur across multi-location tests, and selection for grain yield in organic systems should be conducted within organic systems. However, data garnered from conventional yield trials does have some relevance towards breeding for organic environments. / Plant Science

This thesis proposes an algorithm to enhance the convergence speed of genetic algorithm by modifying the function flow of a simple GA. Additional operators, such as asexual reproduction, competition, and livability, are added before the survival operation. After adding these three operators to the genetic algorithm, the convergence speed can be increased. Experiments indicate that simulations with the proposed algorithm have a 47% improvement in convergence speed on the traveling salesman problem. As for the graph coloring problem, the proposed algorithm also has a 10% improvement. Also, since these operators are additional parts to the original GA, the algorithm can be further improved by enhancing the operators, such as selection, crossover, and mutation.

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In this thesis we investigate important issues in the area of dynamic pricing for revenue management. Studying the effect of competition and strategic consumer behavior, we characterize the dynamic pricing policies for retailers who sell homogeneous goods in multi-period, discrete time, finite horizon settings. In the first essay an impatient consumer visits only one of two competing retailers in each period. If he does not purchase the good, he visits the competing retailer in the ensuing period. Compared to the corresponding single store monopoly, when the consumer’s valuation is uniformly distributed, prices decline exponentially rather than linearly, with a dramatically lower initial price, and a substantially lower system profit. The model is extended to accommodate many consumers, who may be either identical or similar, a more general valuation distribution, and situations wherein capacities are limited. The base case of a centralized two-store monopoly is also examined. In the second essay the consumer may return to the same retailer with some certain probability. This probability is either affected by market structure characteristics, or it may depend on the consumer’s experience at the last store visited. The robustness of the exponential decline of prices is reinforced. It occurs even when a strong retailer faces competition from a relatively much weaker retailer. We investigate the impact of the return probabilities on prices, profits, and consumer surplus. The model is extended to an oligopoly, and to situations with many similar consumers. The effect of strategic consumer behavior on prices and profits is revealed in the third essay. Characterizing the pricing policies arising in a two-period monopoly and duopoly settings, we find that strategic consumer behavior inflicts larger losses to a duopoly than to a monopoly. A lower strategic consumers’ discounting factor, which is beneficial to a monopoly, may be harmful to a duopoly. Ignoring strategic consumer behaviour is costly to a monopoly, but may, on the other hand, be beneficial to a duopoly. An extension to three periods is studied, and with longer horizons the model is analyzed for the case when all the consumers are strategic.