Understanding spatial and temporal diversity and distribution patterns of species along with the drivers of these patterns has long been a theme of community ecology. Primates, a very species-rich taxonomic group, able to occupy various habitat types, are known for their broad behavioral repertoire and flexibility. This, in turn, allows them to adapt quickly to different ecological conditions. Therefore, they represent an ideal group for examining aspects of community ecology such as species diversity and co-occurrence, distribution patterns, and the ecological determinants of such factors. This dissertation investigates the ways in which members of a multispecies primate community inhabiting a mosaic landscape comprised of flooded and non-flooded forests in northeastern Peru (western Amazonia) distributes themselves across time and space. The main objectives of this study are threefold: 1) to categorize, confirm, and differentiate previously identified habitat types across a mosaic landscape; 2) to examine the diversity and distribution patterns (spatial and temporal) of a large multispecies primate community, and 3) to combine the habitat data with the primate data in order to determine which habitats are occupied by which species and to suggest ways in which the primates share and utilize the landscape throughout an annual cycle. However, special attention is paid to one particular species, the red uakari (Cacajao calvus ucayalii), because of its unusually large home and day ranges and its fluid social system known to change in size and composition daily and even hourly. One of the least studied primates to date, red uakaris, are investigated in order to determine whether or not their behavior varies across habitat types, seasons, and when other primates are present as they navigate a mosaic landscape. By identifying the ways in which uakaris modify their behaviors as they traverse multiple habitats throughout the year, determining both habitat-typical behaviors and seasonal behaviors exhibited by uakaris becomes possible. Moreover, shedding light on the community structure and habitat requirements of one of the least known primates has conservation implications. Research was conducted at the Tahuayo River Amazon Research Center (TRARC), located in northeastern Peru. Systematic data collection on primates and the environment occurred between September 2012 and February 2014, except April 2013. Sampling methods for primates consisted of two parts—a combination of line transect and reconnaissance (recce) surveys in order to determine encounter rates for each species across habitat types and 10-minute interval scan sampling during uakari follows in order to determine the effect that environmental and social factors have on their behavior as they traverse multiple habitats. Environmental sampling occurred in thirty plots established throughout the various habitat types. All trees within the test plots with a diameter breast height (DBH) > 10 cm were marked and the following parameters were recorded: DBH, height, and taxonomic classification. Additionally, plots were monitored monthly to record flooding data in order to determine variation in flooding patterns across habitat types. Plots allowed for the determination of which floristic variables and flood patterns are suitable to differentiate the habitat types described at the TRARC. Results indicate flood duration, average tree height, and (Importance Value Indices [IVIs] at the family, genus, and species levels) are suitable measures for defining and differentiating the five previously identified habitat types at the TRARC. Analysis of the entire primate community showed that the occurrence of species and patterns of distribution across a mosaic landscape vary throughout the year. Distribution patterns are more dependent on forest structure (habitat type) than on rainfall seasonality. While a few primates showed preferences for particular habitats (e.g., Lagothrix) or for certain seasons (e.g. Saimiri), the majority of primates demonstrated more generalized modes of ranging and foraging, with relatively equal encounter rates in all habitats across both wet and dry seasons. Results of the uakari data revealed that habitat and season had an effect on their behavior. There were meaningful differences in the behavioral categories of vocalizing, resting, moving, feeding, infant clinging, and being in polyspecific associations (PSAs) between flooded and non-flooded habitat types. Seasonal differences were seen for vocalizing, traveling, resting, and time spent in PSAs. Although results revealed that red uakaris spent the majority of the time alone (71.86%), when they were in PSAs with one other primate species, squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) were the most common monkeys. When uakaris were in PSAs with two other species, squirrel monkeys were always present, but woolly monkeys (Lagothrix lagotricha poeppigii) were the second most frequent species. In general, uakaris demonstrated behavioral differences across habitats and seasons. However, some behavioral consistencies across seasons were evident (e.g., moving, feeding, infant clinging), suggesting ecological flexibility in the species. Results of this dissertation provide a basis for understanding ecological parameters best suited for characterizing and differentiating habitat types in upper Amazonia and describe the diversity and distribution patterns of a multispecies community of primates occurring across a mosaic landscape, reinforcing the view that New World primates are largely ecological generalists within forest environments. Understanding the spatio-temporal relationships between species and their environments can aid in predictions of species occurrence/abundance and contribute to better management strategies and conservation prioritization.

The media industry has been evolving for several hundred years and this change is still ongoing today, and with it the forms of employment in journalism have also changed. There has been an increase in staffing companies and temporary employment within the flexible labor market. Within the Swedish journalism industry, temporary employment has increased, especially among journalists under the age of 35, where over half do not have permanent employment. The purpose of the essay is to investigate whether temporary forms of employment affect Swedish journalists and whether they feel that such forms of employment affect the journalism they produce. Using John Atkinson's (1984) economic theory of the flexible market and Mark Deuze's (2005) theory of journalism's professional ideology, the results of the study are analyzed and interpreted. The material consists of 14 qualitative interviews with people who work or have worked as journalists and have experience in temporary forms of employment. The results show that the respondents experience stress and worry about finances and career as a direct consequence of the form of employment. The results show that the respondents do not feel that the employment in itself leads to them producing lower quality journalism. However, temporary employment gives them less time to devote to thinking about their professional role and trying to live up to the professional ideals they themselves have. The study indicates that temporary employment within the journalistic field causes stress and insecurity, which in turn can lead to a weaker professional identity.

Uncertainty and complexity are two factors that make project planning a challenging task. Companies operating in a multiple project Engineer-to-Order environment face an additional dimension of difficulties because of interactions between projects. The changing environment and frequency of unforeseen events increases the difficulty of planning and re-planning and requires flexibility. This study explores how project planning is conducted and what the associated challenges are in a multiple project ETO context. To that end, a case study of a company operating in such a context was investigated using a qualitative approach. In so doing, we shed light on the challenges and provide some insight to mitigate the challenges. The findings suggest that there are challenges related to resource allocation, prioritization, communication and progress updates, and keeping the plan up to date and valid. Practically, the main takeaways are that synergies may be found when leveraging workflow reliability and flexibility as it comes down to deciding when the respective approach is suitable to mitigate the challenges found in the study. In addition, we suggest that prioritization should be integrated into the planning processes to create a better consensus within and among projects. Lastly, we also suggest an additional precondition for releasing work to production.

As procedural flexibility, previously understood as adaptive reasoning, emerges as an important consideration in math skill development, it is important to account for executive functioning in that process as well, as executive functioning a well-researched factor in math performance. The current study, a secondary data analysis, explores how students rate themselves on the Executive Skills Questionnaire – Revised (ESQ-R), an informal executive skills measure, and how those scores relate to procedural flexibility scores, which accounts for students’ efficiency in math problem solving. Using the factor structure relevant to the current sample, which varies significantly from the current ESQ-R, findings indicate that procedural flexibility is lower in seventh grade when compared to sixth and eighth grades. Perceived executive skills vary positively across sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, indicating more perceived difficulties with executive skills as students move up in grade. Additional analyses explored the relationships between procedural flexibility and ESQ-R scores. Although there was no evidence of a significant relationship between procedural flexibility and ESQ-R scores, the relationship varied across grade level, yielding a negative relationship for sixth grade, a neutral relationship fore seventh grade, and a positive relationship for eighth grade. This pattern indicates that procedural flexibility may become more readily demonstrated, and possibly more valuable, as students gain mastery of skills and procedures and students may become more critical of their executive skills. Procedural flexibility is also highly sensitive to context and curriculum, based on the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. / School Psychology

The application of commercial herbicide restricts weed growth and significantly improves control over crop vitality and yield. Despite their utility in the agriculture sector, herbicides have the potential to contaminate local water sources. To minimize environmental impacts, the development of efficient separation processes to clean-up contaminated water bodies is necessary. However, complex speciation and conformational flexibility in the condensed phase poses a significant challenge. In this work, we investigate structure and speciation of three common organic herbicides (glyphosate, atrazine, and metolachlor) in aqueous solution. We employ the PBE-D3 density functional to perform ab initio molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in the canonical and isothermal-isobaric ensembles. We analyze MD trajectories to understand hydrogen bonding dynamics and lifetime as well as diffusional and vibrational characteristics. To enhance configurational sampling, we conduct metadynamics simulations to obtain the free energies of dissociation and intramolecular proton transfer of glyphosate.

Cooperative learning refers to teaching methods that encourage students to work together in small groups to help each other learn educational content. In Sweden, cooperative learning methods are used in classrooms as an educational approach to organize classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. This thesis investigates how lighting can support cooperative learning in Swedish classrooms to enhance students' learning performance while taking into account visual tasks during different pedagogical activities and visual comfort. To answer this question, the existing lighting of a middle school classroom in Iggesund Skola, Sweden, was studied through a methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative methods. Analysis of literature review, personal observations and interviews, measurements of illuminance, luminance, and color metrics, and 3D simulations formed the foundation of the lighting design proposal for the refurbishment of classrooms.The results show that the lighting requirements of students and teachers have changed with time. To include cooperative learning methods, the users ask for a changeable lighting solution that can work with their flexible learning method. Hence, the design proposal focuses on enhancing students' learning performance while emphasizing the flexibility of their learning method.

The two important metrics for any primary care practice are: (1) Timely Access and (2) Patient-physician Continuity. Timely access focuses on the ability of a patient to get access to a physician as soon as possible. Patient-physician continuity refers to building a strong or permanent relationship between a patient and a specific physician by maximizing patient visits to that physician. In the past decade, a new paradigm called advanced access or open access has been adopted by practices nationwide to encourage physician to “do today’s work today.” However, most clinics still reserve pre-scheduled appointments for long lead-time appointments due to patient preference and clinical necessities. Therefore, an important problem for clinics is how to optimally manage and allocate limited physician capacities as much as possible to meet the two types of demand – pre-scheduled (non-urgent) and open access (urgent) – while simultaneously maximizing timely access and patient-physician continuity. In this study we use a quantitative approach to apply the ideas of manufacturing process flexibility to capacity management in a primary care practice. We develop a closed form expression for capacity allocation for an individual physician and a two physician practice. In the case of multiple physicians, we use a two-stage stochastic integer programming approach to investigate the value of flexibility under different levels of flexibility and provide the optimal capacity allocation solution for each physician. We find that flexibility has the greatest benefit when system utilization is balanced and when the individual physicians have unequal utilizations. The benefits of flexibility also increase as the practice gets larger.

<pre>In the first part of this thesis we show that, for a given non-arithmetic closed hyperbolic <i>$</i><i>n</i><i>$</i> manifold <i>$</i><i>M</i><i>$</i>, there exist for each positive integer <i>$</i><i>j</i><i>$</i>, a set <i>$</i><i>M_</i><i>1</i><i>,...,M_j</i><i>$</i> of pairwise nonisometric, strongly isospectral, finite covers of <i>$</i><i>M</i><i>$</i>, and such that for each <i>$</i><i>i,i'</i><i>$</i> one has isomorphisms of cohomology groups <i>$</i><i>H^*(M_i,</i><i>\Zbb</i><i>)=H^*(M_{i'},</i><i>\Zbb</i><i>)</i><i>$</i> which are compatible with respect to the natural maps induced by the cover. In the second part, we prove that hyperbolic <i>$</i><i>2</i><i>$</i>- and <i>$</i><i>3</i><i>$</i>-manifolds which arise from principal congruence subgroups of a maixmal order in a quaternion algebra having type number <i>$</i><i>1</i><i>$</i> are absolutely spectrally rigid. One consequence of this is a partial answer to an outstanding question of Alan Reid, concerning the spectral rigidity of Hurwitz surfaces.</pre>

An investigation was done on the methods used by performers of classical flute music to improve their flute tone. A literature study was done and a methodology created. This resulted in detailed dissection and then discussion of the various aspects that influence flute tone. Thereafter a series of practice charts were developed, which can be used to guide performers, students and teachers in their experiment to improve and diversify flute tone. The key areas of flute tone that were examined are: embouchure, lip flexibility, vibrato and tone colour. It has been found that different methods work for different people to improve their flute tone, and therefore personal experimentation is necessary in order to achieve the required tone, which also depends on personal taste. / Dissertation (MMus (Performing Art))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Music / MMus / unrestricted

Cognitive flexibility is an important mechanism enabling organisms to adapt to their changing environment. Different brain structures are involved in this complex process. It has been repeatedly shown that the striatum is one of the key structures controlling cognitive flexibility. Striatum receives rich input from different brain regions while its output is rather uniform. Striatal functions and signalling are greatly modulated by dopamine and acetylcholine. A number of studies have shown involvement of striatal acetylcholine and its receptors in the control of cognitive flexibility but very little is known about the role of M4 muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. These receptors are inhibitory, and they have been shown to induce long-term depression in striatal medium spiny neurons, therefore opposing the action of the dopamine D1 receptors. We hypothesize that the inhibitory effect of M4 muscarinic acetylcholine receptors may supress spiny projection neurons coding for outdated and no longer effective behavioural strategy and thus they may be necessary for the flexible change of behaviour. In the present thesis, I investigated the effects of pharmacological antagonism of M4 receptors on cognitive flexibility of mice tested in a simple reversal learning paradigm. Key words: striatum; cholinergic...