Positional behavior is the measurable and observable link between the biology and behavior of an animal in its environment. In this dissertation, I examine ontogenetic patterns of positional behavior in infant, juvenile, and adult white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) and mantled howling monkeys (Alouatta palliata) inhabiting the same tropical forest in Costa Rica. During growth and development ontogenetic changes in body size, limb proportions, and motor skills are likely to influence locomotion and posture through the arboreal canopy. I collected data on positional behavior, activity, prehensile-tail use, branch size, branch angle, and crown location during a 12 month period at Estación Biológica La Suerte in northeastern Costa Rica. The data set is comprised of 401.3 hours of data on Cebus capucinus and 554.3 hours of data on Alouatta palliata totaling 955.7 hours of data or 57,344 individual activity records.Life history timing and differences in rates of growth did not predictably influence the development of adult-like positional behaviors in Cebus and Alouatta. In both species, infancy was characterized by high proportions of dorsal, ventral, and side riding on the mother with smaller proportions of independent positional modes observed during play, explore, active posture, and feed/forage. Young Cebus resembled the adult pattern of positional behavior by six months of age while howlers exhibited significant differences in several positional behavior categories through 24 months of age. The positional repertoire of both species revealed similarities in the types of modes used during feed/forage and travel in juveniles and adults. For example, in juvenile and adult age categories of Cebus, feeding and foraging included high proportions of quadrupedal walk, sit, and squat in conjunction with climbing, leaping, and suspensory behaviors. In howlers, the degree to which coordination and increases in body mass during ontogeny as limiting factors in the development of adult-like positional competence is unclear. Data presented here suggest that the environment exerts different pressures on growing Cebus and Alouatta that may relate to diet, energy expenditure, foraging skill, and/or social learning.

Women’s entrepreneurship is a much touted topic of research with researchers competing to contribute to the growing body of knowledge. Although literature is replete with articles and opinions on the various aspects concerning women’s entrepreneurship, still more needs to be done. Much of the research produced until now has focused on specific contexts like western countries and results obtained are either not conclusive or generalizable and in many cases incomplete. Research on women’s entrepreneurship conducted in the contexts of developing nations appears to be grossly inadequate, bordering almost on a neglected category. Specifically, research on women’s entrepreneurship conducted in the context of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries is almost nil except for a few sporadic articles here and there. How women entrepreneurs have fared in the GCC countries is not clear and there is a need to know what their current status is, how they have performed and what challenges contribute to their lack of progress. There is a huge gap in the literature in this area and this research has made some modest contributions to remove this gap partially. The literature review shows that a number of challenges affect women entrepreneurs’ success. Although the research output used in this research was derived from studies conducted largely in a western context, some of the factors grounded in theories like institutional theory were found to be applicable to the context of women entrepreneurs in the GCC. Five of these challenges, namely lack of adequate training and education; legal constraints; cultural constraints and a lack of social support; lack of access to financial resources; and work–family interface have been investigated in this research using a conceptual model and survey questionnaire. Women entrepreneurs in three GCC countries, namely Kingdom of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, were chosen for studying the phenomenon of women’s entrepreneurial involvement in business activities. A random sampling method was used. Hypotheses were developed and verified and the five challenges were found through rigorous statistical tests to significantly affect the involvement of women entrepreneurs in business activity in GCC countries. The challenges selected were part of a larger set of challenges, not all of which could be investigated due to paucity of time, resources and the large territory comprising three nations in the GCC region. In addition, an exploratory study using interviews was conducted to identify specific challenges that affect women entrepreneurs in the GCC countries. Three additional challenges, namely intellectual property; patronage and connections; and lengthy regulatory procedures were revealed through this. Mixed method research was used which led to triangulation of the results obtained from analysing data gathered through questionnaire survey and interview. The challenges that emerged from the analysis of the questionnaire survey and interviews resulted in the development of a new and comprehensive model that combined the challenges tested through the empirical model and those derived from interviews. The findings from the analysis indicated that much needs to be done to enable women entrepreneurs involved in business activities in the GCC region to succeed. Many challenges need to be tackled. The findings clearly point out that the challenges are responsible for the low percentage (around 2%) of business activities attributable to women-owned enterprises in the GCC countries. This research contributes to the growing body of knowledge in the area of women’s entrepreneurship in the specific context of the GCC region. The research outcomes clearly indicate that specific challenges can be tackled to improve the involvement of business activities of women entrepreneurs in the GCC region. Since the topic of involvement of women entrepreneurs in business activities in the context of GCC countries is not well investigated, the research outcomes of this research add to the current knowledge from a contextual point of view. In addition, the research has expanded the application of institutional theory to understand about the various challenges that affect involvement of women entrepreneurs in business activities in the context of GCC and contributed theoretically in terms of developing a new framework that could be used to examine how the challenges could be tackled. Methodologically, the research has shown how a mixed method research can be used to combine the outcome of survey research with interviews. Practical implications of the research outcomes show that the framework developed in this research could be adopted in practice by women entrepreneurs themselves, as well as various institutions and organizations that are concerned with women entrepreneurs, for improving the involvement of women entrepreneurs in business activities in the context of the GCC. Although the limitations of this research have been highlighted, how to overcome those limitations through future research has been explained. Thus, overall, this research effort is expected to stimulate further discussion and debate with regard to the involvement of women in business activities in the GCC and act as some kind of a basis for initiating steps to improve the position of women entrepreneurs involved in business activities in the GCC and perhaps in other regions surrounding the GCC countries.

Fossils of the giant short-faced bear, Arctodus simus (Cope, 1879), have been recovered from over 100 localities in North America, extending from Mexico to Alaska and California to Virginia. Despite this large range, the species has never been recorded from the southeastern United States. The lesser short-faced bear, Arctodus pristinus Leidy, 1854 is well represented from this region, particularly Florida, but all known occurrences are late Pliocene middle Pleistocene in age (about 2.5 to 0.3 Ma). Differentiating A. simus from A. pristinus can be difficult because large individuals of A. pristinus overlap in size with small individuals of A. simus, and there are few morphological differences. However, these two taxa can be clearly separated based on the relative proportions of their molars and premolars. Two Pleistocene records of A. simus representing a minimum of three individuals from the Withlacoochee River drainage of central Florida are reported here, substantially extending the distribution of this massive bear into southeastern North America. A late Pleistocene age for these occurrences is corroborated by an associated Rancholabrean fauna and rare earth elemental analyses. One of the reported individuals is quite large, supporting the hypothesis of extreme sexual dimorphism in A. simus and rejecting a hypothesis of two subspecies.

Reproductive success of white-faced ibis (Plegadis chihi) was measured in nine colonies on marshes in northern Utah during 1979. The effects of pesticides and characteristics of colonies and sub-colonies on reproductive success were examined. DDE was present in all 80 eggs sampled and had a geometric mean concentration of 1.25 ppm. Shell thickness of 176 eggs was 4.3 percent below pre-1945 thickness. Shell thickness was weakly correlated with residues of DDT, DDE, Dieldrin, and heptachlor epoxide. Residues of these four pesticides were all correlated with each other. However, because of the stronger correlations between shell thickness and two residues, DDE and DDT, and because of studies in the literature, it was concluded that these two residues were responsible for the observed shell thinning. Observed levels of pesticides did not cause sufficient shell thinning to reduce hatching success, but clutch size was negatively correlated with pesticide residues. Only two characteristics of colonies were observed to be associated with differences in reproductive success. Earlier sub-colonies had larger clutches and larger colonies suffered higher rates of predation. If there are effects of subcolony size, degree of nesting synchrony, vegetation type, or avian species association on reproductive success, they may not be detectable with one year of data.

No description available.

Use of soil retaining walls for roads, embankments and bridges is increasing with time and reinforced soil retaining walls are found to be very efficient even under critical conditions compared to unreinforced walls. They offer competitive solutions to earth retaining problems associated with less space and more loads posed by tremendous growth in infrastructure, in addition to the advantages in ease and cost of construction compared to conventional retaining wall systems. The study of seismic performance of reinforced soil retaining walls is receiving much attention in the light of lessons learned from past failures of conventional retaining walls. Laboratory model studies on these walls under controlled seismic loading conditions help to understand better how these walls actually behave during earthquakes. The objective of the present study is to investigate the seismic response of geosynthetic reinforced soil wall models through shaking table tests. To achieve this, wrap faced and rigid faced reinforced soil retaining walls of size 750 × 500 mm in plan and 600 mm height are built in rigid and flexible containers and tested under controlled dynamic conditions using a uni-axial shaking table. The effects of frequency and acceleration of the base motion, surcharge pressure on the crest, number of reinforcing layers, container boundary, wall structure and reinforcement layout on the seismic performance of the retaining walls are studied through systematic series of shaking table tests. Results are analyzed to understand the effect of each of the considered parameters on the face displacements, acceleration amplifications and soil pressures on facing at different elevations of the walls. A numerical model is developed to simulate the shaking table tests on wrap faced reinforced soil walls using a computer program FLAC (Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua). The experimental data are used to validate the numerical model and parametric studies are carried out on 6 m height full-scale wall using this model. Thus, the study deals with the shaking table tests, dynamic response of reinforced walls and their numerical simulation. The thesis presents detailed description of various features and various parts of the shaking table facility along with the instrumentation and model containers. Methodology adopted for the construction of reinforced soil model walls and testing procedures are briefly described. Scaling and stability issues related to the model wall size and reinforcement strength are also discussed. From the study, it is observed that the displacements are decreasing with the increase in relative density of backfill, increase in surcharge pressure and increase in number of reinforcing layers; In general, accelerations are amplified to the most at the top of the wall; Behaviour of model walls is sensitive to model container boundary. The frequency content is very important parameter affecting the model response. Further, it is noticed that the face displacements are significantly affected by all of the above parameters, while the accelerations are less sensitive to reinforcement parameters. Even very low strength geonet and geotextile are able to reduce the displacements by 75% compared to unreinforced wall. The strain levels in the reinforcing elements are observed to be very low, in the order of ±150 micro strains. A random dynamic event is also used in one of the model tests and the resulted accelerations and displacements are presented. Numerical parametric studies provided important insight into the behaviour of wrap faced walls under various seismic loading conditions and variation in physical parameters.

CFRD (Concrete Faced Rockfill Dam) construction becomes more frequent recently not only because of its secure nature, but also its economical cost where its built up material is feasible to obtain. Although CFRDs are known to be safe compared to other dam types, it is behavior during an earthquake loading still not a well-known aspect since it is mostly constructed in regions of low seismicity until now. Considering this fact, this study

In this study settlement behaviour of K&uuml / rt&uuml / n dam, which is the first concrete faced rockfill dam in Turkey, is investigated. Two dimensional plane strain finite element analyses are carried out in order to determine the total stresses and displacements during construction and reservoir filling conditions. Hardening soil model is used in order to represent the non-linear, inelastic and stress dependent behaviour of rockfill material. Material model parameters are selected mainly referring to the previous studies on the dams consisting of similar materials. Calculated stresses and settlements are compared with the observed values and in general, they were found to be in good agreement for the construction stages. It is seen that, due to the relatively narrow valley and steep abutment slopes, arching is a significant parameter as far as the stresses and settlements are concerned. For the reservoir impounding condition, calculated settlements were found to be slightly larger than the observed values, which may indicate that during the reservoir impounding, the rockfill embankment behaves in a stiffer manner as compared to that of during construction stages.

A presente dissertação trata das Ações Afirmativas na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). A pesquisa foi embasada na modalidade de pesquisa qualitativa que através da observação participante possibilitou a coleta de dados contidos em nove entrevistas de alunos cotistas do curso de Pedagogia da Faculdade de Educação que acessam o Laboratório de Informática do Ensino superior – LIES. A história desses alunos nos cursos da UFRGS e, portanto, em Pedagogia se inicia no concurso vestibular de 2008, quando começa a vigorar o sistema de reserva de vagas – Programa de Ações Afirmativas - aprovado pelo CONSUN em 29/06/2007. É um estudo de caso que pretende compreender como acontece o acesso e a permanência desse aluno, principalmente no Curso de Pedagogia da Faculdade de Educação da UFRGS. Também busca-se entender o papel do LIES/FACED, enquanto facilitador da democratização do acesso ao conhecimento. O embasamento teórico constitui-se de autores como Brandão (2006), Streck (2012), Orlandi (2012), Santos (2008) e Freire (1981). Os discursos dos sujeitos da pesquisa foram analisados tendo como inspiração a ecologia de saberes de Boaventura de S. Santos e os ensinamentos de Paulo Freire. Nas análises o que ficou destacado é que as histórias desses alunos sempre foram marcadas pela vontade de vencer, ultrapassar os limites impostos pela condição social tanto em suas vidas em comunidade quanto no meio acadêmico, que agora faz parte de suas realidades. Por outro lado, os dados conseguidos nos depoimentos nos levam a constatar que os programas de assistência estudantil ainda não são suficientes para atender as necessidades da maioria dos entrevistados. Concluiu-se que ainda persiste a necessidade de refletir sobre o acesso, a permanência, a formação e a conclusão da educação superior, não só para os alunos cotistas, mas para todos os alunos do curso de pedagogia e, também como o LIES/FACED poderá ser um facilitador nessa empreitada ao democratizar o acesso ao conhecimento. Desse modo, a implantação do Programa de Ações Afirmativas na UFRGS ainda se constitui em uma conquista social parcial, pois há limites tanto no acesso, quanto na acolhida mais inclusiva dos alunos cotistas. / The following dissertation deals about affirmative actions at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).The research was based on the particular type of qualitative research that, through participant observation, enabled the collection of data contained in nine interviews with quota students from the Pedagogy Course of the Faculty of Education (FACED) that access the Higher education's Computer Lab - LIES. The history of these students in the faculty began in the college entrance exam of 2008, when it started to rule the system that reserve vacancies - Program of affirmative action's - approved by the CONSUN in 29/06/2007. It is a case study that aims to understand how occur the access and the permanence of this student, especially in the Pedagogy Course from the Faculty of Education of UFRGS. It also seek to understand the role of LIES/FACED, as a facilitator of the democratization of access to knowledge. The theoretical basis consists of authors like Brandão (2006), Streck (2012), Orlandi (2012), Santos (2008), Freire (19821). The speeches of the research subjects were analyzed taking as inspiration the ecology of knowledge from Boaventura de S. Santos and the teachings of Paulo Freire. In the analysis, what was most noticed is that the stories of these students have always been marked by the will to win, to overcome the limits imposed by their social status in both their lives in community and academic, which is now part of their reality? On the other hand the data obtained in the interviews lead us to see that the student assistance programs are not yet sufficient to meet the needs of most respondents. It was concluded that there is still a need to reflect on access, retention, and completion of higher education, not only for quota students, but for all students of pedagogy and also as LIES / FACED can be an enabler in this endeavor to democratize access to knowledge. Thus, the implementation of the Affirmative Action Program at UFRGS still constitutes a partial social achievement as there are limits both in access and in more inclusive welcome of quota students.

A presente dissertação trata das Ações Afirmativas na Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). A pesquisa foi embasada na modalidade de pesquisa qualitativa que através da observação participante possibilitou a coleta de dados contidos em nove entrevistas de alunos cotistas do curso de Pedagogia da Faculdade de Educação que acessam o Laboratório de Informática do Ensino superior – LIES. A história desses alunos nos cursos da UFRGS e, portanto, em Pedagogia se inicia no concurso vestibular de 2008, quando começa a vigorar o sistema de reserva de vagas – Programa de Ações Afirmativas - aprovado pelo CONSUN em 29/06/2007. É um estudo de caso que pretende compreender como acontece o acesso e a permanência desse aluno, principalmente no Curso de Pedagogia da Faculdade de Educação da UFRGS. Também busca-se entender o papel do LIES/FACED, enquanto facilitador da democratização do acesso ao conhecimento. O embasamento teórico constitui-se de autores como Brandão (2006), Streck (2012), Orlandi (2012), Santos (2008) e Freire (1981). Os discursos dos sujeitos da pesquisa foram analisados tendo como inspiração a ecologia de saberes de Boaventura de S. Santos e os ensinamentos de Paulo Freire. Nas análises o que ficou destacado é que as histórias desses alunos sempre foram marcadas pela vontade de vencer, ultrapassar os limites impostos pela condição social tanto em suas vidas em comunidade quanto no meio acadêmico, que agora faz parte de suas realidades. Por outro lado, os dados conseguidos nos depoimentos nos levam a constatar que os programas de assistência estudantil ainda não são suficientes para atender as necessidades da maioria dos entrevistados. Concluiu-se que ainda persiste a necessidade de refletir sobre o acesso, a permanência, a formação e a conclusão da educação superior, não só para os alunos cotistas, mas para todos os alunos do curso de pedagogia e, também como o LIES/FACED poderá ser um facilitador nessa empreitada ao democratizar o acesso ao conhecimento. Desse modo, a implantação do Programa de Ações Afirmativas na UFRGS ainda se constitui em uma conquista social parcial, pois há limites tanto no acesso, quanto na acolhida mais inclusiva dos alunos cotistas. / The following dissertation deals about affirmative actions at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).The research was based on the particular type of qualitative research that, through participant observation, enabled the collection of data contained in nine interviews with quota students from the Pedagogy Course of the Faculty of Education (FACED) that access the Higher education's Computer Lab - LIES. The history of these students in the faculty began in the college entrance exam of 2008, when it started to rule the system that reserve vacancies - Program of affirmative action's - approved by the CONSUN in 29/06/2007. It is a case study that aims to understand how occur the access and the permanence of this student, especially in the Pedagogy Course from the Faculty of Education of UFRGS. It also seek to understand the role of LIES/FACED, as a facilitator of the democratization of access to knowledge. The theoretical basis consists of authors like Brandão (2006), Streck (2012), Orlandi (2012), Santos (2008), Freire (19821). The speeches of the research subjects were analyzed taking as inspiration the ecology of knowledge from Boaventura de S. Santos and the teachings of Paulo Freire. In the analysis, what was most noticed is that the stories of these students have always been marked by the will to win, to overcome the limits imposed by their social status in both their lives in community and academic, which is now part of their reality? On the other hand the data obtained in the interviews lead us to see that the student assistance programs are not yet sufficient to meet the needs of most respondents. It was concluded that there is still a need to reflect on access, retention, and completion of higher education, not only for quota students, but for all students of pedagogy and also as LIES / FACED can be an enabler in this endeavor to democratize access to knowledge. Thus, the implementation of the Affirmative Action Program at UFRGS still constitutes a partial social achievement as there are limits both in access and in more inclusive welcome of quota students.