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<p> This thesis examines literal and metaphorical correlations between suppression of grey wolves in ecological systems and suppression of emotions related to trauma in the landscape of the human psyche. Similar interconnected cascading patterns arise subsequent to repression of perceived adverse conditions. Hermeneutic research methodology was employed to contrast studies of predator extirpation/reintroduction with emotional suppression/resiliency in humans. Evidence points toward value in allowing the shadow in the form of adversity to function dynamically within ecological and psychfological systems. Creativity, resiliency, and altruism are possible resulting factors that surface in the human psyche. These characteristics are believed to promote increased adaptability and communal cooperation toward greater probability of group survival and social evolution. Alternative approaches to accepting imperfection and the shadow are examined through the lens of Eastern philosophy, illustrating how integration of dual polarities may help achieve a more vital state in ecology and in the human psyche.</p>

<p>North American <i>Speyeria </i>butterflies are a group whose species hypotheses are confounded by shared wing color patterns between sympatric populations of closely related recognized species due to a putatively recent origin in evolutionary time. Previous studies of this group and the closely related Palearctic genus <i>Argynnis</i>, suggest that <i>Speyeria </i>is monophyletic but derived from within <i>Argynnis</i>. Sampling in these studies has either involved few basal <i>Speyeria</i> species, or too few <i>Argynnis</i> species (Simonsen 2006, Simonsen <i>et al. </i>2006). Thus, no comprehensive phylogenetic analysis exists for all members that answers the question of monophyly of <i>Speyeria</i>, or other subgeneric taxa,and their relationship to <i>Argynnis </i>species. A phylogenetic analysis was completed of all North American <i>Speyeria </i>species and nearly all species within <i>Argynnis</i>, using one mitochondrial (CO1) and four nuclear genes (EF1?, WG, GAPDH, and RPS5). The results indicate that North American <i>Speyeria</i> is a monophyletic group, but that Palearctic <i>Argynnis</i> is paraphyletic. Three major lineages are identified within <i>Argynnis sensu lato</i>: two Palearctic and one containing both Palearctic and Nearctic species. <i>Argynnis</i> species representing the subgenera <i>Argyreus</i>, <i>Argyronome</i>, <i>Childrena</i>, <i>Damora</i>,<i> Pandoriana, </i>and <i>Nephargynnis</i>, belong to a well-supported lineage that split early in the evolution of the group and is comprised of species with long branches. <i>Fabriciana</i> and <i>Mesoacidalia</i> were both recovered as strongly supported lineages, except for <i>A. clara</i> which was recovered as sister to <i>Speyeria</i>. In summary, the phylogenetic analyses suggest the need for reorganization into three genera: <i>Argynnis</i>, <i>Fabriciana</i>, and <i>Speyeria</i>. The results have implications for the conservation of these butterflies across the temperate zone by providing a framework for understanding potential gene flow between sympatric species complexes, proper taxonomic validity, and the natural history of threatened populations of <i>Speyeria </i>and <i>Argynnis </i>butterflies.

Over the past few years information technology (IT) and business alignment has become a great concern to organizations. To achieve alignment has become a daunting task for organizations due to rapid changes in business environment and lack of IT support. In business organizations business processes and IT are interrelated and interact with each other where one entity influences to another entity i.e. evolution in business processes requires evolution in IT and vice versa. When this co-evolution is not well aligned, a gap is created due to wrong configuration between business requirements and IT deployment. Organizations usually strive to bridge the gap by implementing business and IT strategies (i.e. top-down planning) and tend to ignore other aspects of the co-evolution. Alignment is a continuous co-evolutionary process in which all components of business and IT are interrelated and enhance organization performance. The co-evolution between business and IT is not restricted to a level but it occurs at all levels and therefore, it is necessary to understand and study co-evolution at all levels within organizations. This thesis presents a co-evolutionary framework that helps to study and understand the co-evolution at three levels i.e. strategic level, operational level and individual level in an integrated fashion. The three levels need to co-evolve so that all components at each level co-evolve. This framework will speed up the alignment in organizations. We argue that the lack of knowledge of business among IT people and IT knowledge among business executives may cause the gap; therefore, a need arises to have a knowledgeable mediator between the domains that could help in the co-evolution. A K-mediator (i.e. knowledge mediator) has been used in the proposed co-evolutionary framework that facilitates the co-evolution at each level. Finally the thesis presents a case study in financial domain in order to evaluate and validate the framework.

Hatching larvae of neritimorph gastropods have a bilateral set of both larval and pedal retractor muscles, which is unique among gastropod molluscs. Adults also display a novel connection (“shortcut”) between the two pleural ganglia. To reconstruct the evolution of the novel shortcut between pleural ganglia and its functional role, I studied the development of the central nervous system and muscle innervation in three distinct larval and one post-metamorphic stages of Nerita melanotragus using light and transmission electron microscopy and surface-rendered three-dimensional reconstructions. My results revealed that the novel shortcut is derived from an ancestral nerve connective, which establishes an unconventional link between the ganglia that generate motor output to the bilateral set of larval and pedal retractor muscles to coordinate activity of these muscles. The unique characteristics of the shell, muscles and nervous system in N. melanotragus represent secondarily derived characteristics that co- evolved as an integrated functional unit. / Graduate / 0472

High security level must be guaranteed in applications in order to mitigate risks during the deployment of information systems in open network environments. However, a significant number of legacy systems remain in use which poses security risks to the enterprise' assets due to the poor technologies used and lack of security concerns when they were in design. Software reengineering is a way out to improve their security levels in a systematic way. Model driven is an approach in which model as defined by its type directs the execution of the process. The aim of this research is to explore how model driven approach can facilitate the software reengineering driven by security demand. The research in this thesis involves the following three phases. Firstly, legacy system understanding is performed using reverse engineering techniques. Task of this phase is to reverse engineer legacy system into UML models, partition the legacy system into subsystems with the help of model slicing technique and detect existing security mechanisms to determine whether or not the provided security in the legacy system satisfies the user's security objectives. Secondly, security requirements are elicited using risk analysis method. It is the process of analysing key aspects of the legacy systems in terms of security. A new risk assessment method, taking consideration of asset, threat and vulnerability, is proposed and used to elicit the security requirements which will generate the detailed security requirements in the specific format to direct the subsequent security enhancement. Finally, security enhancement for the system is performed using the proposed ontology based security pattern approach. It is the stage that security patterns derived from security expertise and fulfilling the elicited security requirements are selected and integrated in the legacy system models with the help of the proposed security ontology. The proposed approach is evaluated by the selected case study. Based on the analysis, conclusions are drawn and future research is discussed at the end of this thesis. The results show this thesis contributes an effective, reusable and suitable evolution approach for software security.

Snakes are probably the best example of evolutionarily life-threatening stimulus as they have been one of the first predators of primates and mammals in general. In recent years, it has been shown that snake images produce specific behavioral and electrophysiological reactions in humans, provoking enhanced brain activity over the occipital cortex compared with pictures of other animals. The present study investigated the hypothesis that the response to snake images is independent from awareness. Subjects (n=27) were asked to observe pictures of threatening and non-threatening animal stimuli, presented rapidly and in random order on a screen. Awareness level was manipulated using 4 different conditions of backward masks. Event Related Potentials (ERPs) showed that activity over the occipital cortex was clearly more pronounced for snake images than for the other images, but only in unmasked condition. / Ormar är sannolikt ett av de bästa exemplen på ett evolutionärt livshotande stimuli då de utgjort ett av de första rovdjuren för primater och däggdjur i allmänhet. På senare år har man visat att bilder på ormar producerar specifika beteenden och elektrofysiologiska reaktioner hos människan, och ökad hjärnaktivitet i occipitalkortex jämfört med bilder på andra djur. Föreliggande studie undersökte hypotesen att responsen till ormbilder är oberoende från medvetandet. Deltagarna (n=27) ombads observera bilder på hotfulla respektive icke-hotfulla djurstimuli som presenterades snabbt och i slumpvis ordning på skärmen. Nivå av medvetande manipulerades genom att använda fyra olika betingelser av bakåt maskering. Event-relaterade potentialer (ERPs) visade att aktiviteten över occipitalkortex var betydligt mer uttalad för ormbilder jämfört med andra bilder, men bara i den icke-maskerade betingelsen.

New and sensitive millimeter-wave and near-infrared observation have been performed in the central regions of the ρ Ophiuchi dark cloud. High spatial resolution observations of the optically thin C¹⁸O emission lines are shown to be free of self-absorption. They permit the first accurate determination of the distribution of molecular gas and allow us to estimate the mass and visual extinction in the cloud. A completely sampled near-infrared survey of a 105 sq. arcmin area which encloses the region of highest visual extinction has revealed twenty objects (sixteen were previously unknown). We show that these objects are young stars embedded in the cloud. Synthesizing our new observations with existing radio and infrared data, we have made a detailed study of the energetics and star formation process within the ρ Oph cloud. This dissertation concludes that the high temperatures of the molecular gas cannot be due to collisions with warm dust. The feasibility of alternate heat sources such as cosmic-ray ionization, shocks, and the distortion of magnetic fields are discussed. We derive high star formation efficiencies (32-46%) in the centrally condensed core of the ρ Oph cloud which suggests that it is forming a bound open cluster. The most consistent interpretation of our data requires that an efficient burst of star formation has produced a relatively large (with respect to the initial mass function) population of low luminosity stars in ρ Oph within the last 3 million years. At this present rate of star formation, most of the molecular gas will be converted into stars in about 10⁷ yr. yielding a bound cluster. Unless this rate rapidly decreases with time, the duration of star formation in the (rho) Oph cluster (10 million years) will be considerably shorter than that suggested for the Pleiades cluster (175 m. y). The lack of stars in the 3-10 M(⊙) range indicates that subsequent star formation must be dominated by more massive stars if the stellar mass spectrum of the ρ Oph cluster is to resemble that of the conventional initial mass function. The youth of the ρ Oph cluster suggests that it may be the most recent episode of star formation in the Sco-Cen OB association.

This thesis takes an evolutionary perspective on human psychology. To the extent that inherited tendencies shape behaviour, their design will be fitted to the social environments prevailing as Homo sapiens evolved, in foraging groups, the nearest modem equivalent being hunter-gatherers. From ethnographies of hunter-gatherers, food-sharing and counterdominance were identified as universal. Food-sharing was more thorough than is explicable purely by kinship or reciprocation; one functional effect was to even out the supply of valuable high-variance food. In contrast with the social systems of the other great apes, counter-dominance spread influence widely, preventing the emergence of dominant individuals who could obtain resources disproportionately. Potential paths for the evolution of egalitarian tendencies are discussed. Two falsifiable hypotheses were generated from this perspective. First, sharing will facilitate risk-taking. The predicted effect was confirmed at high risk levels, similar to those faced by hunters. Given that during evolution risk was reduced primarily by social means, social as well as rational factors are treated by the evolved brain as relevant to risky decisions. It is argued that this result may suggest a new perspective on the Group Polarisation experiments. The second hypothesis tested was that an egalitarian environment will produce beneficial effects on individual and social behaviour. The data collected were consistent with the hypothesis: a comparison between three Italian towns showed that measures of health (including cardiovascular mortality), education, social involvement, crime and social perceptions were significantly more positive where co-operatives employed a larger percentage of the population. The evolutionary perspective showed its value as a means of generating novel testable hypotheses.

published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy