Primary Progressive aphasia (PPA) is a disorder characterized by gradual decline in language functions, with relative sparing of other cognitive abilities. This behavioral profile results from neurodegenerative disease that preferentially affects language cortex. As is the case in aphasia resulting from stroke, any of several critical language processing domains may be affected in PPA, including syntax, semantics, phonology, and orthography. In stroke-induced aphasia, traditional lesion mapping approaches have provided important insight into the localization of cortical regions supporting these domains. Specifically, left perisylvian cortex has been implicated in syntactic and phonological aspects of language, whereas left extrasylvian cortical regions are associated with lexical-semantic and orthographic functions. The goal of the present study was to seek converging evidence for the role of left hemisphere cortical regions in language using a voxel-based imaging technique in individuals with PPA. Fifteen individuals with progressive aphasia and fifteen normal controls were given a comprehensive language battery comprising tasks in the domains of syntax, semantics, phonology, and orthography. A subset of patients and all normal controls underwent high-resolution structural MRI scanning. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to characterize patterns of regional cortical atrophy in the patients relative to controls and to correlate language tasks with gray matter volumes. Results confirm a key role for left perisylvian cortex in phonological and syntactic processes, and indicate that left temporal regions are critically involved in semantic processes. Findings shed light on the veracity of the "primary systems" hypothesis of written language, which posits that written language impairments arise from core cognitive deficits affecting semantic and phonological systems.

The fight against poverty in the United States has existed since the inception of the country. Each successive generation has had their own unique view on the causes of poverty and the use of institutions to suppress it. This dissertation focuses on institutions helping the poor during the Progressive Era from 1900 to 1930. During this time period poverty relief fundamentally evolved from private charities providing the bulk of relief efforts to government agencies becoming the more important source of aid.Research into poverty relief for this time period has been deficient mostly from a lack of quality data. To further the literature, I have created a unique data set that provides information about both governmental and private relief efforts throughout the era. The first chapter of the dissertation focuses on quantitatively and qualitatively documenting the evolution of institutions from 1900 to 1930 in Massachusetts. Particular emphasis is on how the public's changing attitudes towards the poor altered the institutions used to provide relief. The second chapter studies the effects of government spending on private spending. I highlight how nonprofit managers' behavior would lead them to reduce spending when the government became the first avenue of support for the poor. The third chapter tests assumptions made in the second chapter about nonprofit managerial behavior. Unfortunately, data from 1900 to 1930 does not have the quality to answer these questions. Therefore, I use a similar data set from 1998 to 2003 to test how nonprofit managers adjust their spending, program service revenue, and savings to the business cycle.

Ingeniera Civil Industrial / El cambio climático puede impactar sustancialmente en el sector forestal, existen diversos estudios que demuestran que los inviernos serán más cálidos y las temporadas secas aumentarán. El objetivo de este proyecto es elaborar un método que permita incluir el factor del calentamiento global en las decisiones de producción forestal. Esto a partir de un trabajo anterior, el cual concluye que agregar incertidumbre en estos modelos aumenta el beneficio esperado a través de la inclusión de 32 escenarios climáticos, agrupados en un árbol de escenarios. El aporte de este trabajo será especificar hasta qué punto es provechoso seguir aumentando los escenarios considerados. La complejidad del problema viene dada por la cantidad de datos a utilizar, ya que al aumentar el tamaño del árbol de escenarios, los tiempos de resolución incrementan considerablemente, esto ya que los escenarios comparten etapas, que deben tener valores comunes para las variables de decisión. Así, se obtiene un plan contingente, condicional a lo que ocurra en cada etapa, teniendo siempre la mejor respuesta. La metodología considera generar los escenarios de clima basado en predicciones ya hechas en distintas estaciones meteorológicas de Portugal, país donde está ubicada la zona de estudio. Luego, se busca construir un modelo de programación lineal, donde la decisión corresponde a qué áreas de un bosque talar en cada periodo. Se busca maximizar los beneficios obtenidos según los precios que corresponden a cada escenario. Para llegar a una solución con una gran cantidad de escenarios, será necesario utilizar un algoritmo que permita simplificar la resolución, en este caso Progressive Hedging, cuyo principio es resolver a través de la descomposición por escenarios. Se estudian mejoras al algoritmo, además de opciones de reducción y agrupación de escenarios, para mejorar la eficiencia del mismo. Los resultados obtenidos indican que la utilización de Progressive Hedging ofrece una eficiencia superior para instancias de gran tamaño. Esto a partir de las instancias mayores a los 300 escenarios, y además se concluye que el número óptimo de escenarios a considerar rodea los 650, en dicho punto el costo adicional para general la solución no se ve justificado, ya que la calidad de la misma no aumenta significativamente. Por otra parte, la técnica de clustering para la reducción de escenarios resultó efectiva para mejorar aún más los tiempos de resolución, considerando su correspondiente pérdida en la calidad de la solución.

Page | 5 Abstract The MA thesis explores finite progressive forms in the academic spoken and written monologue. The English progressive forms generally appear much less frequently than the simple forms do. In academic spoken language 90 per cent of the finite verb forms consist of simple forms and the representation of simple forms is even higher in academic written language with 95 per cent of the finite verb forms being simple. The reasons for this distribution are related on the one hand to the specific meaning of the progressive forms, and on the other hand to the restricted compatibility of the progressive forms and some semantic verb classes. The present study considers both of these aspects in the attempt to describe the progressive forms in the academic spoken monologue (university lectures) and in the academic written language (advanced students' papers). The material is excerpted from two British academic English corpora, namely BASE (spoken language) and BAWE (written texts), 100 examples from each corpus. The material is analyzed at the formal, functional and discourse levels. The formal analysis deals with the distribution of tense forms, negation, the subject (person and animacy) and clause types. The functional criteria involve the semantic features of the verb and subject, as well as the...

Magíster en Gestión de Operaciones / Ingeniero Civil Industrial / El trabajo desarrollado en esta tesis se enmarca dentro del área de investigación de operaciones, en el campo de la optimización estocástica para un problema de planificación forestal, el cual se modela como un problema lineal de carácter mixto. El problema de planificación forestal abordado en esta tesis consiste en la maximización del valor presente del plan de explotación táctico de un conjunto de 17 bosques sujeto a incertidumbres internas (rendimiento de los diversos predios) y externas (precio de los productos y cantidad demandada de estos), incertidumbres que se representan a través de árboles de escenarios. Dentro de las principales decisiones a realizar se encuentra la construcción y/o mejora de caminos de la red interna junto a la cantidad de cada predio que será cosechada, almacenada y vendida durante cada periodo. Llevar a cabo la resolución de este tipo de problemas estocásticos bajo las técnicas de optimización tradicionales se vuelve inabordable en la medida que el tamaño de la instancia aumenta, lo que justifica la utilización de un algoritmo adecuado para alcanzar resultados en tiempos razonables. La metodología de resolución utilizada se basa en el algoritmo de descomposición por escenarios Progressive Hedging (PH) sobre el cuál se realizan una serie de ajustes según las características del problema con tal de obtener mejores rendimientos. Junto a esto, se realizan una serie de comparaciones de diversas implementaciones del mismo algoritmo con respecto a técnicas de optimización tradicionales, determinando y analizando las ventajas que ofrece PH para el problema en estudio. Se implementa una metodología de generación de árboles de escenarios basada en un modelo matemático robusto, utilizando como punto de partida un proceso estocástico para representar el movimiento de las variables aleatorias, lo que permite obtener soluciones rigurosas y de calidad. Se lleva a cabo un estudio detallado respecto a técnicas de reducción de escenarios, así como del desarrollo de una metodología de simulación que permite comparar de forma cuantitativa el rendimiento de modelos estocásticos y determinísticos, permitiendo estimar el número suficiente de escenarios que logran representar de buena manera la realidad, manteniéndose óptimo el trade-off entre calidad de solución y tiempos de cómputo involucrados. Los resultados concluyen que la utilización del algoritmo PH bajo las configuraciones y ajustes realizados ofrece rendimientos superiores a las técnicas de optimización clásicas y tradicionales para problemas estocásticos de gran escala, con la posibilidad de explotar de gran manera su implementación en paralelo, obteniéndose así rendimientos superiores en la medida que se cuente con mayores recursos computacionales. Se determinan los mejores métodos para llevar a cabo la reducción del número de escenarios de la instancia original, permitiendo así el manejo abordable de instancias que inicialmente se presentan complejas. Finalmente, la aplicación de la metodología de comparación de rendimiento entre modelos determinísticos y estocásticos fue satisfactoria, determinándose un rango para el número suficiente de escenarios a utilizar dentro del modelo en estudio de tal forma de alcanzar un punto óptimo entre calidad de la solución y el rendimiento computacional del modelo.

L’objectif de cette thèse est le développement et l'extension de la méthode SPH pour l'analyse de structures de type coque, isotropes et composites multicouches soumises à des chargements dynamiques. Les différents verrouillages de la méthode SPH classique, tels que la non consistance, l'instabilité en traction, sont résolus par la méthode dite "Corrective Smoothed Particle Method", l'utilisation d'une Formulation Lagrangienne Totale et l'introduction de viscosité artificielle. Le modèle de coque basé sur la théorie de Reissner-Mindlin est adopté pour la modélisation des structures de coque épaisses en utilisant une seule couche de particules dans le plan moyen. La forme forte d’équations gouvernantes de coque sont discrétisées directement par la méthode SPH améliorée et résolues par un schéma explicite basé sur les différences finies centrées. Une extension de la méthode a été faite pour la modélisation d'impact de coques par des objets rigides à faible vitesse. La force de contact est calculée en utilisant la théorie de Hertz. Une dernière extension de la méthode concerne l'intégration du critère de rupture de Tsai-Wu pour la modélisation de la dégradation progressive pour les structures composites multicouches. / The objective of this thesis is the development and the extension of the SPH method for the analysis of isotropic and multilayered composite shell structures, undergoing dynamic loading. Major defects of the classical SPH method such as the lack of consistency, the tensile instability are solved by "Corrective Smoothed Particle Method", the use of the Total Lagrangian Formulation and artificial viscosity. Mindlin-Reissner Theory is employed for the modeling of thick shells, by using only one layer of particles in the mid-plane. The strong form of the governing equations for shell structures are discretized directly by the modified SPH method and solved using the central difference time integration scheme. An extension of the method has been introduced for the modeling of low-velocity impact of shells by rigid impactors. The contact force is calculated based on the Hertzian contact law. A last extension of the SPH method concerns the integration of Tsai-Wu failure criterion for the modeling of progressive degradation of multilayered structures.

Pautando-me pelos dados colhidos em formulários enviados a um grupo de pessoas convertidas ao judaísmo, entre os anos de 2006 e 2016, pela sinagoga da Associação Religiosa Israelita do Rio de Janeiro, pretendo avaliar se aqueles que se convertem causam augum tipo de reconfiguração na identidade da A.R.I. / Guided me on data collected from forms have sent to a group of people converted to Judaism (between 2006-2016) by the synagogue of the Israelite Religious Association (IRA) of Rio de Janeiro, I intend to present the perspectives of those who was converted to cause some kind of reconfiguration of identity IRA.

In 2015 the term Progressive Web Application was coined to describe applications that are getting the advantage of all Progressive App features. Some of the essential features are offline support, app-like interface, secure connection, etc. Since then, case studies from PWA’s implementation showed optimistic promises for improving web page performance, time spent on site, user engagement, etc. The goal of this report is to analyze some of the effects of PWA. This work will investigate the browser compatibility of PWA’s features, compare and analyze performance and memory consumption effect of PWA’s features compared to Regular WebApp. Results showed a lot of the features of PWA are still not sup-ported by some major browsers. Performance benchmark showed that required https connection for PWA is slowing down all of the PWA’s performance metrics on the first visit. On a repeat visit, some of the PWA features like speed index is outperforming the Regular Web App. Memory consumption on PWA increased more than 2 times the size of RWA. The conclusion is that even if some features are not directly supported by browsers, they still might have workaround solutions. PWA is slower than regular web app if https on your web server is not optimized. Different browsers have different memory limitations for PWA caches. You should implement https and PWA features only if you have HTTP/2 support on your web server, otherwise, performance can decrease.

Student Number : 0204752J - MSc research report - School of Construction Economics and Management - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / Most governments in developing countries are unable to assist in the ever-growing housing needs of the informal sector, which constitutes the major part of most economies. The two reasons for this state of affairs are (i) the ever-shrinking resource base of countries, which makes the provision of subsidies impractical; and (ii) the fact that this sector is normally characterized by irregular incomes, which makes provision for loans by financial institutions difficult. This situation is particularly true for the Kingdom of Lesotho. Due to their unfortunate predicament, the informal sector has become innovative in addressing their housing needs. Various informal credit methods are widely employed to finance their houses, which are built progressively. This research therefore investigates the possibilities of linking the progressive housing investment to bank housing finance, using Maseru - Lesotho as the research focus. In order to achieve the above aim, a household survey was conducted coupled with structured interviews. The structured interviews were held with the commercial banks as well as the government housing authorities. These interviews were mainly to elicit their views about the option of Microfinance of housing. It was established that the respondents as well as the government authorities were not aware of this option. The banks were equally unaware of it and in addition to this, the perceived risk led to skepticism. As such these made Microfinance of housing impractical in the short-run. However it would be advisable to mobilize the formation of a revolving fund to which the commercial banks could on-lend, as a solution to the lack of housing finance.

MA, Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand