Despite their prevalence, the study of Canadian minority governments has been the object of few published studies. In particular, the issue of how governments that must rely on the support of one or more opposition parties in Parliament manage to remain in power (viability) and pass their legislative proposals (effectiveness) has not been thoroughly investigated. This study examines the parliamentary dynamics at play in these situations by applying a majority building framework grounded in and supported by three theoretical perspectives, namely the rational choice tradition, new institutionalism, and the role of party politics and party systems, to four minority governments that have occurred in the last 50 years or so: 1- Diefenbaker (1957-1958), 2- Pearson (1963-1965); 3- Clark (1979-1980); and, 4- Harper (2006-2008). The data on the specific circumstances that held during these minority governments has been gathered from archival records, from the recorded debates and votes in the House of Commons, from previous Canadian studies on minority government, from political autobiographies, and from third party accounts of the events at the time. The study finds that majority building is a function of primarily two interrelated variables: 1- bargaining power (interparty dynamics and intra-party cohesion) and 2- agenda control (House business, confidence tests, other institutional features). It also stresses the importance of government concessions as an effective means of achieving desired goals and outcomes. Furthermore, this study highlights the capacity and skill of individual parliamentary actors in the exercise of legislative politics generally and in manipulating institutional and party system levers specifically, as a contributing factor to their government’s duration and legislative output. This study adds to the empirical knowledge of the minority experience in Canada and provides a conceptual framework to better understand legislative politics and its impact on the success of minority governments in Canada and elsewhere. / Malgré leur fréquence, les gouvernements minoritaires au Canada n’ont pas souvent fait l’objet d’études. En particulier, peu d’attention a été portée à la question de comment un gouvernement minoritaire réussi à obtenir l’appui d’un ou de plusieurs partis d’opposition dans le but de rester au pouvoir (viabilité) et de faire passer ses propositions législatives (efficacité). Notre étude examine les dynamiques parlementaires qui se déploient dans ses situations. Plus précisément, elle cherche à les comprendre à la lumière d’un modèle de stratégies menant au consensus sur un vote parlementaire. Ce modèle est fondé sur trois perspectives théoriques, soit la tradition du choix rationnel, le nouvel institutionnalisme et le rôle de la politique partisane et du système de partis. Nous étudions quatre gouvernements minoritaires des cinquante dernières années : 1- Diefenbaker (1957-1958), 2- Pearson (1963-1965), 3- Clark (1979-1980) et Harper (2006-2008). Nous avons accumulé nos données sur ces gouvernements minoritaires à partir de documents d’archives, de la transcription des débats et des votes à la Chambre des communes, d’études canadiennes sur les gouvernements minoritaires, d’autobiographies politiques et des souvenirs de tierces parties présentes lors du déroulement des événements que nous étudions. Notre étude identifie deux variables liées à la création de majorités législatives au Parlement, soit : 1- le pouvoir de négociation (la dynamique entre les partis et la cohésion à l’intérieur des partis) et, 2- le contrôle de l’agenda parlementaire (affaires découlant de la Chambre, les motions de confiance et d’autres facteurs institutionnels). De plus, elle identifie l’importance des concessions gouvernementales dans l’atteinte de ses objectifs. Notre étude souligne l’importance de la capacité et du doigté des joueurs parlementaires particuliers dans l’exercice de la politique législative en général et dans la manipulation des composantes institutionnelles et partisanes en particulier pour garantir la longévité et l’efficacité de leur gouvernement. Notre étude contribue à ajouter à notre connaissance de l’expérience minoritaire au Canada et nous offre un modèle nous permettant de mieux comprendre la politique législative et sa contribution au succès des gouvernements minoritaires au Canada et ailleurs.

房地產行業俗稱「火車頭工業」，房市的熱絡能帶動上中游非常多的產業蓬勃發展，而房地產代銷業在整體產業鏈當中至關重要，在房價居高不下及政策打房等背景因素下，房市交易轉趨清淡，買賣移轉件數創下近年新低，因此房地產關鍵且重要的行銷策略相形重要。而過去文獻中，多分別探討行銷策略、銷售率、銷售期間，而銷售期間之文獻更多以仲介觀點探討。本研究目的為找出代銷業銷售成功與有利的行銷策略模式、主客觀影響因素，提供房地產業者，成功銷售房地產個案。房地產主要之行銷策略為STP分析、7P理論、4C理論、整合行銷，而規劃合宜的產品定位，制定完善的行銷策略則是銷售成功的主要方程式。銷售成功主客觀因素之研究實證結果顯示，主觀影響因素，依序為地段條件、推案時機、產品條件、品牌因素，但地段條件是先天因素，無法改變，銷售要成功，銷售期間要短，銷售率要高，代銷業者需制定完善的行銷計劃，掌握天時、地利、人和等因素，天時就是推案時機等因素，地利就是地段條件等因素，人合就是產品條件、品牌因素等因素。由銷售期間與銷售率形成銷售成功的實證結果顯示，最重要的因素為產品條件及行銷策略；產品條件的數量、金額，對銷售期間影響較顯著，產品條件的質量如主力產品則對銷售率影響較顯著；行銷策略的成交均價對銷售期間及銷售率影響皆顯著，行銷策略的合作方式則對銷售期間影響較顯著；就區域而言，台北市個案銷售成功，首要因素為行銷策略之成交均價，而新北市個案銷售成功，則著重於產品條件之主力產品。 / The real estate industry, commonly known as "locomotive industry", can up bring many growths in industry development. While in recent years, the housing market becomes dull, and the sales number declining, it’s critical and important for real estate marketing to deliberate strategies at its key point. The real estate agency in the whole industry chain plays an essential part in setting the high prices and policies and other background factors in the market. From the past references, most explored the marketing strategy, sales rate, selling duration, while references on selling duration are more from the real estate agency’s perspective. The objective of this research is to investigate successful marketing and beneficial sales tactics, objective and subjective influential factors, the real estate producers, and the successful real estate selling cases. The STP analysis, the 7P Theory, the 4C Theory, integrated marketing are the main real estate strategies, whereas products positioning planed adequately, and well developed marketing strategy are the fundamental formulation for marketing success.The marketing success objective and subjective influential factors research shown, the objective influential factors are as listed: location attribution, selling timing, product conditions and brand factors. However, location attribution is congenital factor, inevitable, in order to sell successfully, selling duration must be brief, and selling rate must be high, real estate agencies must develop a complete marketing proposal, take control of the right time, the right place, the right social connections and so on. The right time is the selling timing and other factors, the right place is the location attribution and other circumstances, and the right social connections is the product conditions, the brand factors and other elements.From the selling duration and selling rate form subjective influential factors of marketing success, research shown,the product condition and marketing strategy are the most important subjective influential components,product condition quantity and price influences are more indisputable on the selling time, the quality of the product condition as the main product then impact more significantly on the sales rate.Marketing strategy price influences are more indisputable on the selling duration and sales rate, Marketing strategy cooperation influences are more indisputable on the selling duration.About area factors ,taipei City’s success on selling primarily is the price of marketing strategies; as for New Taipei City’s on successful selling is particularly focusing on the main product condition’s square footage.

Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves are among the standard design tools for various engineering applications, such as storm water management systems. The current practice is to use IDF curves based on historical extreme precipitation quantiles. A warming climate, however, might change the extreme precipitation quantiles represented by the IDF curves, emphasizing the need for updating the IDF curves used for the design of urban storm water management systems in different parts of the world, including Canada. This study attempts to construct the future IDF curves for Saskatoon, Canada, under possible climate change scenarios. For this purpose, LARS-WG, a stochastic weather generator, is used to spatially downscale the daily precipitation projected by Global Climate Models (GCMs) from coarse grid resolution to the local point scale. The stochastically downscaled daily precipitation realizations were further disaggregated into ensemble hourly and sub-hourly (as fine as 5-minute) precipitation series, using a disaggregation scheme developed using the K-nearest neighbor (K-NN) technique. This two-stage modeling framework (downscaling to daily, then disaggregating to finer resolutions) is applied to construct the future IDF curves in the city of Saskatoon. The sensitivity of the K-NN disaggregation model to the number of nearest neighbors (i.e. window size) is evaluated during the baseline period (1961-1990). The optimal window size is assigned based on the performance in reproducing the historical IDF curves by the K-NN disaggregation models. Two optimal window sizes are selected for the K-NN hourly and sub-hourly disaggregation models that would be appropriate for the hydrological system of Saskatoon. By using the simulated hourly and sub-hourly precipitation series and the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution, future changes in the IDF curves and associated uncertainties are quantified using a large ensemble of projections obtained for the Canadian and British GCMs (CanESM2 and HadGEM2-ES) based on three Representative Concentration Pathways; RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 available from CMIP5 – the most recent product of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The constructed IDF curves are then compared with the ones constructed using another method based on a genetic programming technique. The results show that the sign and the magnitude of future variations in extreme precipitation quantiles are sensitive to the selection of GCMs and/or RCPs, and the variations seem to become intensified towards the end of the 21st century. Generally, the relative change in precipitation intensities with respect to the historical intensities for CMIP5 climate models (e.g., CanESM2: RCP4.5) is less than those for CMIP3 climate models (e.g., CGCM3.1: B1), which may be due to the inclusion of climate policies (i.e., adaptation and mitigation) in CMIP5 climate models. The two-stage downscaling-disaggregation method enables quantification of uncertainty due to natural internal variability of precipitation, various GCMs and RCPs, and downscaling methods. In general, uncertainty in the projections of future extreme precipitation quantiles increases for short durations and for long return periods. The two-stage method adopted in this study and the GP method reconstruct the historical IDF curves quite successfully during the baseline period (1961-1990); this suggests that these methods can be applied to efficiently construct IDF curves at the local scale under future climate scenarios. The most notable precipitation intensification in Saskatoon is projected to occur with shorter storm duration, up to one hour, and longer return periods of more than 25 years.

Darbo tikslas - nustatyti, kaip technologiniai veiksniai (brinkinimo trukmė, ekstrahento koncentracija) lemia etanolinių skystųjų ekstraktų (iš rozmarinų lapų, pankolių vaisių, ramunių žiedų) kokybinę sudėtį. Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Remiantis mokslo literatūros duomenimis, parinkti žaliavos ir ekstrahento santykį, racionalų ekstrahentą bei ekstrahavimo metodą gaminamiems skystiesiems ekstraktams iš rozmarinų lapų, pankolių vaisių, ramunių žiedų. 2. Iširti brinkinimo trukmės ir ekstrahento koncentracijos įtaką pagamintų skystųjų ekstraktų kokybei, nustatant sauso likučio, bendrą fenolinių junginių kiekį ir antioksidacinį aktyvumą. 3. Iš gautų skystųjų ekstraktų pagaminti kompleksinį preparatą, tinkantį virškinamojo trakto (VT) veiklos sutrikimų šalinimui. 4. Įvertinti saugojimo laiko įtaką etanolinių skystųjų ekstraktų bei iš jų pagamintų mišinių kokybei. Tyrimo objektai ir metodai: Bendras fenolinių junginių kiekis rozmarinų lapų, ramunių žiedų ir pankolių vaisių etanoliniuose skystuosiuose ekstraktuose nustatytas spektrofotometriniu metodu pagal galo rūgštį. Antioksidacinis aktyvumas įvertintas spektrofotometriškai, naudojant DPPH• laisvojo radikalo sujungimo metodą. Gravimetriniu metodu nustatytas sausasis skystųjų ekstraktų likutis. Gauti rezultatai apdoroti naudojant Microsoft Office Excel 2010 ir Sigma Plot 12.0 programas. Tyrimo rezultatai ir išvados: Atlikti tyrimai rodo, kad 2 valandos – optimalus brinkinimo laikas, gaminant nagrinėjamų žaliavų skystuosius ekstraktus... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The aim of this research - to set how the technological factors (soaking duration, ethanol concentration) determine qualitative composition of ethanolic liquid extracts (from rosemary leaves, chamomile flowers, fennel fruit). The tasks of this research are: 1. According to the literature, to select proportion of the substance and extractive solvent, a rational extractive solvent and the method of production of liquid ethanolic extracts from rosemary leaves, fennel fruit and chamomile flowers. 2. To assess the impact of the soaking duration and ethanol concentration for quality of the liquid extracts by assessing dry residue level, amount of phenolic compouds and antioxidant activity. 3. To produce a complex product, from received ethanolic liquid extracts, suiting for digestive tract activity‘s disorders elimination. 4. To evaluate stability of ethanolic liquid extracts and from them produced compouds. The objects and methods of analysis: Rosemary leaves, chamomile flowers and fennel fruit ethanolic liquid extracts were analyzed by using spectrophotometric method for total amount of phenolic compounds expressed by gallic acid equivalents (GAE) and for evaluation of antioxidant activity by 2,2-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical inactivation. Also gravimetric method was used for determination of dry residue levels. The results were obtained using Microsoft Office Excel 2010 and Sigma Plot 12.0 programs. Results and conclusions of analysis: According to all three methods... [to full text]

The term prosody refers to characteristics of speech such as intonation, timing, loudness, and other acoustical properties imposed by physical, intentional and emotional state of the speaker. Phone durations and fundamental frequency contours are considered as two of the most prominent aspects of prosody. Modeling phone durations and fundamental frequency contours in Turkish speech are studied in this thesis. Various methods exist for building prosody models. State-of-the-art is dominated by corpus-based methods. This study introduces corpus-based approaches using classification and regression trees to discover the relationships between prosodic attributes and phone durations or fundamental frequency contours. In this context, a speech corpus, designed to have specific phonetic and prosodic content has been recorded and annotated. A set of prosodic attributes are compiled. The elements of the set are determined based on linguistic studies and literature surveys. The relevances of prosodic attributes are investigated by statistical measures such as mutual information and information gain. Fundamental frequency contour and phone duration modeling are handled as independent problems. Phone durations are predicted by using regression trees where the set of prosodic attributes is formed by forward selection. Quantization of phone durations is studied to improve prediction quality. A two-stage duration prediction process is proposed for handling specific ranges of phone duration values. Scaling and shifting of predicted durations are proposed to minimize mean squared error. Fundamental frequency contour modeling is studied under two different frameworks. One of them generates a codebook of syllable-fundamental-frequency-contours by vector quantization. The codewords are used to predict sentence fundamental frequency contours. Pitch accent prediction by two different clustering of codewords into accented and not-accented subsets is also considered in this framework. Based on the experience, the other approach is initiated. An algorithm has been developed to identify syllables having perceptual prominence or pitch accents. The slope of fundamental frequency contours are then predicted for the syllables identified as accented. Pitch contours of sentences are predicted using the duration information and estimated slope values. Performance of the phone duration and fundamental frequency contour models are evaluated quantitatively using statistical measures such as mean absolute error, root mean squared error, correlation and by kappa coefficients, and by correct classification rate in case of discrete symbol prediction.

A disease has consequences not only for the afflicted person but also for those who interact with him or her. A low-grade glioma is a brain tumour whose regarding its psychosocial implications for adult patients and their next of kin has received little attention in the literature. In the light of this the overall aim of the present thesis was to provide increased knowledge about how patients with low-grade glioma and their next of kin experience and deal with everyday life. The methods of the studies were mainly qualitative. Thirty-nine patients and 28 next of kin were interviewed and all except one next of kin completed a quality of life questionnaire. The onset of low-grade glioma was described from the patients’ perspective as a process, either rapid (up to a few months) or prolonged over several years. This phase of low-grade glioma encompassed repeated visits to physicians and care institutions. The onset of low-grade glioma was accompanied by stress, anxiety and uncertainty in the case of both the patients and those nearest. The symptoms and problems the patients experienced covered a broad range of consequences, physical, psychological and social. The patients presented a wide range of ways to cope with illness-related problems. The next of kin were often deeply involved in the patients’ situation and many of them experienced extremely stressful emotions mainly in the early period of the illness. They had experience of positive encounters in health care but more often they had had a sense both of powerlessness and of being invisible and neglected. Relations and roles changed in ways that mostly were experienced as negative. Enabling strength in everyday life had to do with alleviation of strain and having a positive outlook upon life. By means of the questionnaire Subjective estimation of Quality of Life (SQoL) the patients and those nearest estimated their quality of life as being comparatively high. Only one variable, among the patients the absence of work/meaningful occupation and among the next of kin the absence of own children, being estimated at below 60% of the maximum score.

Project management used to be described as rational and well structured - a notion that builds on a traditional view that project management is about planning, budgeting and controlling. Nevertheless, it has been questioned if this is a full description. Even though project management techniques were developed for large projects, those techniques and models are used today in small projects of short duration - projects that are quite dissimilar to the large ones. The present study takes a practice perspective to investigate what project managers do when they lead such short projects. Its observations and interviews are used to analyze what happens in the everyday life of project managers. Using classical managerial behaviour studies as a foundation, seen through a practice perspective lens, the study finds that the work of project managers in a software development project is fragmented – their time is filled with formal and informal meetings of different kinds and efforts to resist disturbances in the project. Three challenges were found in the project manager’s work. The first was to Understand: to create meaning. The plans were clearly defined at the start of the project but as the goals were later re-defined, it was scarcely possible to finalize them before delivery. Contrary to the traditional view that plans are inflexible, these plans were discussed, negotiated and interpreted throughout the project. This was the continuous work of creating both meaning in the plans and a common understanding of the project. The second challenge was to Order/coordinate: to manage resources. The project manager reacted to emerging issues rather than acting to prevent things from happening. These reactions led to creative ways of managing and finding solutions to problems. One important way of managing new or changed conditions was to reorganize resources to cover the needs of different teams. The meetings played a central role in this work as arenas for negotiating resources, which became especially evident in times of stress or high workload. The third challenge was to Make it in time: to manage time. Time is a central aspect of project management as projects are temporary organizations; they have a beginning and an end. Previous research has found a point in time, in the middle of a project, when the team starts to feel pressured and stressed about meeting their deadlines. For project managers there is always a struggle to manage time, as dates for delivery are one of the things in a project that are not negotiable. In short-duration projects where projects follow each other seriatim, there is an almost constant feeling of urgency; stress and pressure. The project manager used experiential data to determine and plan the amount of time that would be needed to manage changes in the project, intending that the slack created would enable the project to deliver on time. Although changes and deviations were expected, the project manager rarely knew beforehand what they were or when they would come. The three challenges, previously described as separated from each other, were observed to be all managed simultaneously. The site, the practitioner and the practices influence daily work practice.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xvi, 209 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 202-209). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (M.S.) -- Mississippi State University. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance and ingestive behavior of beef heifers grazing natural grassland managed under rotational grazing according to two rest periods in spring and summer. The treatments were two intervals between grazing 375 and 750 DD (degree days), based on thermal cumulative average for leaf expansion of native grasses belonging to two functional groups. The experimental design was randomized complete block design with two treatments and three replications. The experiment was conducted from November 2011 to April 2012. The test animals were Angus beef heifers, with an initial mean age of 12 months and initial weight 185.2 ± 17.4 kg. The ingestive behavior variables evaluated were grazing time, rumination and rest, and daily number and duration of meals, bite rate, number of stations visited per minute, number of steps between feeding stations, length of stay at the station. All variables of ingestive behavior were similar between treatments. However, grazing time and biting rate ranged between assessments. The different intervals between grazing on natural pasture did not influence the patterns of ingestive behavior of heifers. The variables of pasture mass of green leaf and stalk weight in different time periods evaluated the influence of grazing, ruminating and bite rate. Forage mass was higher in the 750 DD treatment, however, the mass of leaf blades were similar among treatments. The highest average daily gains and gains per area were observed in 375 DD treatment. In one evaluation period there was weight loss in animals of both treatments, that was attributed to a drought occurred and the lowest mass of leaf blades of the period. The average stocking density was similar between treatments. The treatment of lower defoliation interval presented greater individual gain. / O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar o desempenho produtivo e o comportamento ingestivo de novilhas de corte em pastagem natural manejada sob pastoreio rotativo em função de dois intervalos de descanso na primavera-verão. Os tratamentos avaliados foram dois intervalos entre pastoreios 375 e 750 GD (graus-dia), baseados na soma térmica média acumulada para a expansão foliar de gramíneas nativas pertencentes a dois grupos funcionais. O delineamento utilizado foi em blocos completamente casualizados com dois tratamentos e três repetições de área. O experimento foi conduzido de novembro de 2011 a abril de 2012. Os animais testes foram novilhas de corte, da raça Angus, com idade média inicial de 12 meses e peso inicial 185,2 ± 17,4 kg. As variáveis do comportamento ingestivo avaliadas foram o tempo de pastejo, ruminação e ócio, além de número diário e duração das refeições, taxa de bocados, número de estações visitadas por minuto, número de passos entre estações alimentares, tempo de permanência na estação. Todas as variáveis do comportamento ingestivo foram semelhantes entre os tratamentos avaliados. No entanto, o tempo de pastejo e a taxa de bocados variaram entre as avaliações. Os diferentes intervalos entre pastoreios em pastagem natural não influenciou os padrões de comportamento ingestivo das novilhas. As variáveis do pasto MLFV e massa de colmos nos diferentes períodos avaliados influenciaram nos tempos de pastejo, ruminação e taxa de bocados. A massa de forragem foi superior no tratamento 750 GD, no entanto, a massa de lâminas foliares foi semelhante entre os tratamentos. Os maiores ganhos médios diários e ganhos por área foram observados no tratamento 375 GD. Em um dos períodos de avaliação houve perda de peso nos animais de ambos os tratamentos, que foi atribuído ao déficit hídrico ocorrido e a menor massa de lâminas foliares do período. As cargas médias foram semelhantes entre os tratamentos. O tratamento de menor intervalo entre desfolhas proporcionou aos animais maior ganho individual.