<p><em>With the advent of shorter time to market of software products there an increasing requirement for techniques and methods to improve the productivity levels in software development together with a requirement for increased flexibility and the introduction of late changes. This in turn has lead to the introduction of a set of techniques known as ―Agile methods which include one methodology known as ―eXtreme Programming. This is a collection of values, principles, and practices. Since these methods are becoming more common in industry, is has become more important to introduce these ideas in the undergraduate curriculum. This case study analysed whether or not it is possible to teach eXtreme Programming at a university by means of a course that presents a mixture of theory and practice within eXtreme programming. In this context, a case study was carried out to determine which of the practices of eXtreme Programming are more appropriate to university projects. The case study indicates that it is worth investing the effort to teach eXtreme Programming to students to enable them to apply eXtreme Programming or at least some of its practices in future business and university projects.</em></p>

<p>Aim: To examine the reaction of extreme preterm infants with regarding to body temperature and transepidermal water loss during skin-to-skin care according to Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) during the infant’s first week of life. Method: This was a descriptive quantitatively designed study, which was a pilot study within the framework of a larger project. Nine children, with a median gestational age of 24.91 weeks, were examined by measuring body temperature (axilla and skin temperature) as well as transepidermal water loss before, during and after KMC. Results: The study showed that skin temperature tended to rise during KMC, especially for those children who were nursed with KMC for more than 60 minutes. Eight out of nine children had, after completing KMC, a normal axilla temperature. As was expected, transepidermal water loss was elevated when measured both pre and post test. Despite this, the children showed normal body temperature. Conclusion: The results of the study support that KMC can create a micro-climate that, for at least one hour, makes it possible for even extreme preterm infants to maintain a body temperature within the normal range during their first week of life.</p>

The work presented in this thesis studies the load and loadeffects of traffic loads on railway bridges. The increasedknowledge of the traffic loads, simulated using fieldmeasurements of actual trains, are employed in a reliabilityanalysis in an attempt at upgrading existing railwaybridges. The study utilises data from a weigh-in-motion site whichrecords, for each train, the train speed, the loads from eachaxle and the axle spacings. This data of actual trainconfigurations and axle loads are portrayed as moving forcesand then used in computer simulations of trains crossing twodimensional simply supported bridges at constant speed. Onlysingle track short to medium span bridges are considered in thethesis. The studied load effect is the moment at mid-span. Fromthe computer simulations the moment history at mid-span isobtained. The load effects are analysed by two methods, the first isthe classical extreme value theory where the load effect ismodelled by the family of distributions called the generalisedextreme value distribution (GEV). The other method adopts thepeaks-over-threshold method (POT) where the limiting family ofdistributions for the heights to peaks-over-threshold is theGeneralised Pareto Distribution (GPD). The two models aregenerally found to be a good representation of the data. The load effects modelled by either the GEV or the GPD arethen incorporated into a reliability analysis in order to studythe possibility of raising allowable axle loads on existingSwedish railway bridges. The results of the reliabilityanalysis show that they are sensitive to the estimation of theshape parameter of the GEV or the GPD. While the study is limited to the case of the ultimate limitstate where the effects of fatigue are not accounted for, thefindings show that for the studied cases an increase inallowable axle load to 25 tonnes would be acceptable even forbridges built to the standards of 1940 and designed to LoadModel A of that standard. Even an increase to both 27.5 and 30tonnes appears to be possible for certain cases. It is alsoobserved that the short span bridges ofapproximately fourmetres are the most susceptible to a proposed increase inpermissible axle load. <b>Keywords:</b>bridge, rail, traffic load, load effect,dynamic amplification factor, extreme value theory,peaks-over-threshold, reliability theory, axle loads, fielddata.

The first part of this thesis studies tail probabilities forelliptical distributions and probabilities of extreme eventsfor multivariate stochastic processes. It is assumed that thetails of the probability distributions satisfy a regularvariation condition. This means, roughly speaking, that thereis a non-negligible probability for very large or extremeoutcomes to occur. Such models are useful in applicationsincluding insurance, finance and telecommunications networks.It is shown how regular variation of the marginals, or theincrements, of a stochastic process implies regular variationof functionals of the process. Moreover, the associated tailbehavior in terms of a limit measure is derived. The second part of the thesis studies problems related toparameter estimation in stochastic models with long memory.Emphasis is on the estimation of the drift parameter in somestochastic differential equations driven by the fractionalBrownian motion or more generally Volterra-type processes.Observing the process continuously, the maximum likelihoodestimator is derived using a Girsanov transformation. In thecase of discrete observations the study is carried out for theparticular case of the fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process.For this model Whittle’s approach is applied to derive anestimator for all unknown parameters.

Conceptual and theoretical advancements have been developed in recent years to break down the assumptions and traditional boundaries that establish seemingly independent disciplines, and the research outlined in this dissertation aspires to build on these advancements to provide innovative solutions to a broad array of modern problems in social-ecological. I used a variety of techniques to address challenges ranging from disconnections between theory and application, perceived versus realized roles of prescribed fire in resprouting shrublands, and the need for broader participation in research as part of undergraduate education. The chapters in this dissertation serve as a case-study approach across multiple scientific disciplines that overcome the traditions and assumptions that conflict with our ability to develop innovative solutions to modern social-ecological problems. First, I bridge theoretical and applied concepts by showing how recent theoretical advancements in resilience can be integrated into a predictive framework for environmental managers. Second, experimental data from multiple experiments were collected in two ecological regions of Texas to assess the potential for using extreme fire, in isolation and in combination with herbicide, as a novel intervention approach in resprouting shrublands of the southern Great Plains. The findings from these experiments demonstrate the importance of moving past traditional assumptions of when prescribed fire should be applied to demonstrate new patterns of woody plant responses to the applications of “more extreme” prescribed fires while not causing undesirable invasions by exotic grasses and exotic insects. Finally, I initiated a PhD instructed course on undergraduate research that sought to increase undergraduate participation while lowering the costs of conducting research. This chapter shows how traditional approaches of supporting undergraduate research are incapable of meeting the broader goals established by society and reveal a novel approach that can provide an additional pathway for supporting undergraduate student participation at large, research-based universities. Ultimately, this research suggests that our capacity to enhance services in social-ecological systems ultimately hinges upon the integration of theoretical and applied concepts that drive policy and governance and overcoming the assumptions and traditions that limit their integration.

optimizationover a discrete number of random variables. In this paperwe extend this theory from the discrete to the continuous case, andconsider the limiting distribution of the location of the best offer asthe number of offers tends to infinity.Given a set   Rd of possible offers we seek a distribution over ,the argmax measure of the best offer. It depends on , the samplingdistribution of offer locations, and a measure index , which assignsto each point x 2  a probability distribution of offers.This problem is closely related to argmax theory of marked pointprocesses, altough we consider deterministic sequences of points inspace, to allow for greater generality. We first define a finite sampleargmax measure and then give conditions under which it converges asthe number of offers tends to infinity.To this end, we introduce a max-field of best offers and use continuityproperties of this field to calculate the argmax measure. Wedemonstrate the usefulness of the method by giving explicit formulasfor the limiting argmax distribution for a large class of models, includingexponential independent offers with a deterministic, additivedisturbance term. Finally, we illustrate the theory by simulations.

(None) Technical Summary of Thesis: The topic of my thesis is currency crisis. Currency crises have been a recurrent feature of the international economy from the invention of paper money. They are not confined to particular economies or specific region. They take place in developed, emerging, and developing countries and are spread all over the globe. Countries that experience currency crises face economic losses that can be huge and disruptive. However, the exacted toll is not only financial and economic, but also human, social, and political. It is clear that the currency crisis is a real threat to financial stability and economic prosperity. The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the determinants of currency crises for twenty OECD countries and South Africa from 1970 through 1998. It systematically examines the role of economic fundamentals and contagion in the origins of currency crises and empirically attempts to identify the channels through which the crises are being transmitted. It also examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. The first chapter identifies the episodes of currency crisis in our data set. Determining true crisis periods is a vital step in the empirical studies and has direct impact on the reliability of their estimations and the relevant policy implications. We define a period as a crisis episode when the Exchange Market Pressure (EMP) index, which consists of changes in exchange rates, reserves, and interest rates, exceeds a threshold. In order to minimize the concerns regarding the accuracy of identified crisis episodes, we apply extreme value theory, which is a more objective approach compared to other methods. In this chapter, we also select the reference country, which a country’s currency pressure index should be built around, in a more systematic way rather than by arbitrary choice or descriptive reasoning. The second chapter studies the probability of a currency exiting a tranquil state into a crisis state. There is an extensive literature on currency crises that empirically evaluate the roots and causes of the crises. Despite the interesting results of the current empirical literature, only very few of them account for the influence of time on the probability of crises. We use duration models that rigorously incorporate the time factor into the likelihood functions and allow us to investigate how the amount of time that a currency has already spent in the tranquil state affects the stability of a currency. Our findings show that high values of volatility of unemployment rates, inflation rates, contagion factors (which mostly work through trade channels), unemployment rates, real effective exchange rate, trade openness, and size of economy increases the hazard of a crisis. We make use of several robustness checks, including running our models on two different crisis episodes sets that are identified based on monthly and quarterly type spells. The third chapter examines the links between the incidence of currency crises and the choice of exchange rate regimes as well as the impact of capital market liberalization policies on the occurrence of currency crises. As in our previous paper, duration analysis is our methodology to study the probability of a currency crisis occurrence under different exchange rate regimes and capital mobility policies. The third chapter finds that there is a significant link between the choice of exchange rate regime and the incidence of currency crises in our sample. Nevertheless, the results are sensitive to the choice of the de facto exchange rate system. Moreover, in our sample, capital control policies appear to be helpful in preventing low duration currency crises. The results are robust to a wide variety of sample and models checks.

Currently, the accurate prediction of the impact of an extreme wave on infrastructure located near shore is difficult to assess. There is a lack of established methods to accurately quantify these impacts. Extreme waves, such as tsunamis generate, through breaking, extremely powerful hydraulic bores that impact and significantly damage coastal structures and buildings located close to the shoreline. The damage induced by such hydraulic bores is often due to structural failure. Examples of devastating coastal disasters are the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2005 Hurricane Katrina and most recently, the 2011 Tohoku Japan Tsunami. As a result, more advanced research is needed to estimate the magnitude of forces exerted on structures by such bores. This research presents results of a numerical model based on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method which is used to simulate the impact of extreme hydrodynamic forces on shore protection walls. Typically, fluids are modeled numerically based on a Lagrangian approach, an Eulerian approach or a combination of the two. Many of the common problems that arise from using more traditional techniques can be avoided through the use of SPH-based models. Such challenges include the model computational efficiency in terms of complexity of implementation. The SPH method allows water particles to be individually modeled, each with their own characteristics, which then accurately depicts the behavior and properties of the flow field. An open source code, known as SPHysics, was used to run the simulations presented in this thesis. Several cases analysed consist of hydraulic bores impacting a flat vertical wall as well as a sloping seawall. The analysis includes comparisons of the numerical results with published experimental data. The model is shown to accurately reproduce the formation of solitary waves as well as their propagation and breaking. The impacting bore profiles as well as the resulting pressures are also efficiently simulated using the model.

Viruses are ubiquitous biological entities whose importance and role in aquatic habits is beginning to take form. However, several habitats have undergone limited to no examination with viral-geochemical parameters minimally examined and viral-mineral relationships in the natural environment and the role of mineralization on viral-host dynamic completely lacking. To further develop knowledge on the presence and abundances of viruses, how viruses impact aquatic systems, and how viral-host interactions can be impacted under mineralizing conditions, viruses were examined under a variety of habitats and experimental conditions. Water samples were collected from the deep subsurface (up to 450 m underground) and acid mine drainage (AMD) systems in order to determine the presence, abundance, and viral-geochemical relationships within the systems. Samples were also collected from a variety of freshwater habitats, which have undergone limited examination, to determine viral-geochemical and viral-mineral relationships. Lastly, bacteriophage-host dynamics were examined under authigenic mineral precipitation to determine how mineralization impacts this relationship. Results reveal that not only are viruses present in the deep subsurface and AMD systems, but they are abundant (up to 107 virus-like particles/mL) and morphogically diverse. Viruses are also the strongest predictor of prokaryotic abundance in southern Ontario freshwater systems where potential nutrients are rich. Geochemical variables, such as pH and Eh, were shown to have negative impacts of viral abundance indicting that AMD environments are detrimental for free viruses (i.e. not particle associated). Direct evidence of viral-mineral interactions was found using transmission electron microscopy as viral particles were shown attached to iron-bearing mineral phases (determined through elemental analysis). In addition, evidence of viral participation in mineralization events was found in both AMD and freshwater environments where inverse correlations were noted between viral abundance and jarosite saturation indices (r = -0.71 and r = -0.33, respectively), and goethite saturation indices were also noted to be the strongest predictor of VLP abundance in freshwater habitats explaining 78% of the variability in the data. Lastly, iron precipitation and/or metal ion binding to bacterial surfaces greatly reduced phage replication (~98%) revealing bacterial mineralization has a protective benefit strongly hindering viral replication.

Depressions in the prairie pothole region (PPR) are commonly referred to as sloughs and were formed during the most recent glacial retreat, ~10-17 kyrs ago. They are hydrologically isolated, as they are not permanently connected by surface inflow or outflow channels. Extreme thunderstorms are common across the prairies and the hydrologic response of isolated wetlands to intense rainfall events is poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to compare the response of different landscape/ecological elements of a prairie wetland to snowmelt and extreme rainstorms. Comparisons were completed by investigating the spring snowmelts of 2005 and 2006 and the rainstorm event of June 17 - 18, 2005, in which 103 mm fell at the St. Denis National Wildlife Area (NWA) Saskatchewan, Canada (106°06'W, 52°02'N). The wetland was separated into five landscape positions, the pond center (PC), grassed edge (GE), tree ring (TR), convex upland (CXU), and concave upland (CVU). Comparison of the rainfall of June 17 18, 2005 with the spring snowmelts of 2005 and 2006 indicates that the hydrologic consequences of these different events are similar. Overland flow, substantial ponding in lowlands, and recharge of the groundwater occur in both cases. Analysis of this intense rainfall has provided evidence that common, intense rainstorms are hydrologically equivalent to the annual spring snowmelt, the major source of water for closed catchments in the PPR.