Pyrenophora teres f. teres is the causal agent of net form net blotch of barley. P. teres f. teres is prevalent globally across all barley growing regions and globally is the most devastating foliar disease of barley. Though economically important, the molecular mechanism whereby P. teres f. teres causes disease is poorly understood and investigations into these mechanisms have been hindered by a lack of genomic resources. To set a genomic foundation for P. teres f. teres the reference isolate 0-1 was sequenced and assembled using PacBio single molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing and scaffolded into 12 chromosomes to provide the first finished genome of P. teres f. teres. High confidence gene models were generated for the reference genome of isolate 0-1 using a combination of pure culture and in planta RNA sequencing. An additional four P. teres f. teres isolates were sequenced and assembled to the same quality as the reference isolate 0-1 and used in a comparative genomic study. Comparisons of the five P. teres f. teres isolates showed a two-speed genome architecture with the genome being partitioned into core and accessory genomic compartments. Accessory genomic compartments clustered in sub-telomeric regions of the P. teres f. teres genome with a majority of previously identified quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with avirulence/virulence being spanned by these accessory regions. Using these genomic resources, with a bi-parental mapping population and a natural population for QTL analysis and genome wide association study (GWAS), respectively, we identified a candidate gene for the previously mapped AvrHar. QTL analysis identified a locus extending off the end of P. teres f. teres chromosome 5 and GWAS analysis identified significant associations with a gene encoding a small secreted protein. The candidate AvrHar gene was validated using CRISPR-Cas9-RNP gene disruption in parental isolates 15A and 0-1. Disruption of AvrHar in isolate 15A did not result in a phenotypic change while disruption of the 0-1 allele resulted in a complete loss of pathogenicity. This is the first identification of an effector from P. teres f. teres validated using CRISPR-Cas9-RNP gene editing. / North Dakota Barley Council

This thesis deals with creating application for PDA for multimedia stream presentation and processing. Introduction of the thesis is devoted to the theoretical explanation of terms such as PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and Windows Mobile 6.0. Readers will be acquainted with the technology of .NET Framework and also with its version for mobile equipment .NET Compact Framework. Advantages as well as disadvantages of .NET technology are dealt with in this section together with the same phenomena of C# programming language, which is the basic language used for running our application. Next chapters of the thesis deal with my own design of multimedia application, especially from the point of view of classes. For better orientation and understanding UML diagram is used. UML (Unified Modeling Language) is a graphic language intended for visualization and documentation of programming systems. Except of general description of the classes there is also a detailed explanation of individual attributes and application methods. Their function and purpose are explained here as well. In the next part of the thesis attention is paid to the network communication of the application, both in terms of individual multimedia files transmission and stream transmission. Principles of connection and disconnection between client and server are analyzed in this part. Client’ s part of the application is designed for the mobile equipment with Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 operation system and server’s part of application is designed for computers, where Microsoft Windows XP operation system is installed. A concise manual for operating both the applications is included. This part also describes some exceptions which may occur in case of problems with connection. Last chapters describe synchronization of mobile equipment or emulator with a desktop computer and provide the reader with the summary of supported audio formats in multimedia application. All achieved results are summarized in the concluding part of the thesis.

Aim of this thesis is the description of the Microsoft .NET Framework, its different versions, architecture, and its assembly, used for its simplistic architecture, and ease of use with the assembly it is the ideal environment for creating modular applications. The work describes the C# programming language and its versions. It includes a description of the different stages and evolution of the web application framework ASP.NET. It includes a short description of the ADO.NET and LINQ technologies, used to access data from databases. It describes different databases, they structure and classification. At the end there is a layout for a database structure, blogging system, aim and structure of the files, the different system parts and functions.

archives@tulane.edu / Introduction: Mass distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) is a core malaria prevention strategy that has proven to be efficacious and cost-effective in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Monitoring ITN coverage, use, and access has relied on household surveys which are expensive and time consuming. Recently, mobile phone survey (MPS) methodologies have emerged as a comparatively inexpensive alternative to large scale population-based household surveys and are becoming increasingly attractive considering the rapid growth trend of mobile phone ownership in LMIC. The overall research objective of the current body of work is to determine if interactive voice response (IVR) MPS can serve to rapidly and reliably monitor ITN indicators in LMIC. Methods: Data collection used either household surveys or IVR MPS – all of which included a module on bed net ownership, access, and use. The first study aim analyzed data from the last five nationally representative household surveys conducted in Tanzania in order to assess and quantify the potential for bias as a result of using MPS over traditional household surveys in estimating bed net coverage indicators. The conceptual design compares surveyed households reporting mobile phone ownership, and thus the potential for participation in an MPS, against all other households regardless of mobile phone ownership over the course of a 10-year period. The second study aim was designed as an individual-level test of inter-rater reliability of bed net indicator estimates between a face-to-face household survey and a follow-up IVR MPS to these same households. The third study aim was designed as a population-level test of external validity comparing ITN coverage indicator results from a nationally representative random-digit dial (RDD) IVR MPS and the malaria module from a nationally representative household survey. Results: Household mobile phone ownership increased by over 50 percentage points from 28.1% in 2007-08 to 81.5% in 2017. In more recent years, survey results show that bias in measuring ITN coverage indicators is minimal under a scenario that compares estimates calculated from DHS surveys for all households against those households reporting mobile phone ownership. For the four ITN coverage indicators assessed using the 2017 MIS data, national-level measures of bias did not exceed a 2.5-percentage point difference for mobile phone-owning households compared to the overall sample of households. Further, regional measures of bias for these same indicators rarely exceeded ± 3-percentage points in 2017. The second study aim, which compared bed net indicator estimates between the small-scale a household survey and a follow-up MPS, found that agreement between survey modalities was variable depending on the indicator, but was highest for household ownership of at least one bed net of any type (Gwet’s AC1 = 0.8). There was low agreement for indicators calculated from counts reflected in the low concurrent validity of key data elements used to calculate bed net use and access indicators. The third study aim comparing bed net indicator estimates from a national household and IVR RDD survey found that the external validity was variable but, in general, the RDD MPS tended to underestimate bed net indicators at the national level. Differences in bed net indicator estimates ranged from 3 to 23-percentage points but overall, it appeared that indicators non-specific to net treatment status demonstrated less bias in measurement through the RDD MPS when compared against the nationally representative household survey. Conclusions: According to estimates, mobile phone ownership has increased drastically in Tanzania since 2007 suggesting that MPS could presently be used to track population-level indicators of ITN coverage, among others. The IVR MPS methodology we applied has the potential to serve as a mechanism that can accurately estimate certain bed net indicators – primarily those that would make use of data elements derived from binary response options. Their use could be scaled to much larger RDD surveys to collect discrete packets of information. At a total cost of approximately US$22,000 (2017 USD) to obtain nationally and regionally representative bed net indicator estimates, the cost-for-information benefit is promising, but more research needs to be done to optimize question sets in order to ensure RDD survey results are able to repeatedly track with face-to-face household survey results. / 1 / Matt Worges

In this work we have examined an application from the insurance industry. We first reformulate it into a problem of projecting a markov process. We then develop a method of carrying out the projection many steps into the future by using a combination of neural networks trained using a maximum entropy principle. This methodology improves on current industry standard solution in four key areas: variance, bias, confidence level estimation, and the use of inhomogeneous data. The neural network aspects of the methodology include the use of a generalization error estimate that does not rely on a validation set. We also develop our own approximation to the hessian matrix, which seems to be significantly better than assuming it to be diagonal and much faster than calculating it exactly. This hessian is used in the network pruning algorithm. The parameters of a conditional probability distribution were generated by a neural network, which was trained to maximize the log-likelihood plus a regularization term. In preparing the data for training the neural networks we have devised a scheme to decorrelate input dimensions completely, even non-linear correlations, which should be of general interest in its own right. The results we found indicate that the bias inherent in the current industry-standard projection technique is very significant. This work may be the only accurate measurement made of this important source of error.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Several factors affect the activities of the mining industry. For example, accident rates are critical because they affect company ratings in the stock market (Standard & Poors). Considering that the corporate image is directly related to its stakeholders, this study conducts an accident analysis using quantitative and qualitative methods. In this way, the contingency rate is controlled, mitigated, and prevented while serving the needs) of the stakeholders. The Bayesian network method contributes to decision-making through a set of variables and the dependency relationships between them, establishing an earlier probability of unknown variables. Bayesian models have different applications, such as diagnosis, classification, and decision, and establish relationships among variables and cause–effect links. This study uses Bayesian inference to identify the various patterns that influence operator accident rates at a contractor mining company, and therefore, study and assess the possible differences in its future operations.

Att utveckla applikationer kräver mer än kod. Docker förenklar och accelererar utveckling av mjukvara, samtidigt som det ger utvecklare friheten att använda sig av olika verktyg, metoder och publiceringsmiljöer. Prevas utvecklar idag många system som använder sig av MS SQL Server och .NET i Docker men saknar ett smidigt sätt att testa systemen innan leverans. Målet med projektet är att skapa en prototyp åt Prevas i Karlstad som gör det möjligt att smidigt testa och säkerställa förväntad funktionalitet hos MS SQL-serverbaserade applikationer. Resultatet av projektet är ett program som gör det möjligt att testa kommunikationen mellan en MS SQL Server och en applikation, samt presentera resultatet för användaren i en webbklient. Vår prototyp visar att det är möjligt att utveckla ett sådant system. Dock finns det delar av systemet som behöver utredas t.ex. nedladdning av testresultat, robust felhantering, samt att utveckla den till en mer generell lösning som går att anpassa efter databasens struktur. / Application development requires more than skills in writing good code. Tools like Docker can accelerate the development of software and it gives the developer the freedom to change the tools, methods, and deployment environments. Prevas is developing systems that use MS SQL Servers and .NET environments in Docker but they need to make it more effective by automating the process of testing the database before deployment. The goal of this project is to create a prototype for Prevas that makes it possible to easily test and ensure expected functionality of MS SQL Server based applications. The result of the project is a program that makes it possible to test the communication between a database and an application as well as present the outcome in a web client for the user. Our prototype shows that the development of similar systems is possible but there are pieces of the system that needs further development. Some examples include downloading the results of the tests, robust error handling methods, as well developing a more general application to adapt the system to a database structure.

The Manta platform is a unified commercial product for data flow analysis and vi- sualization. Manta platform supports many technologies. One category of technologies is intermediate languages. These include, for example, Java or C#. There is a scanner for each of these technologies. This thesis focuses on extending the C# Scanner with support for database and ORM related plugins. First, we provide a brief description of how the Manta platform works. Then we quickly introduce the C# Scanner, some of its important parts, and explain some of the concepts and algorithms that are used to analyze C# code. This is followed by an analysis of the context of ORM frameworks and Entity Framework Core from the perspective of data flow analysis. After explaining the context, we describe the C# Scanner extensions, solutions and troubleshooting. Towards the end of the thesis we describe support for one specific ORM framework - Entity Framework Core. Again, we discuss problem solving and solution description. At the end of the thesis it is possible to find limitations of the solution and possible extensions. 1

To support further technology development and to promote the growth of a renewable biofuels industry that will satisfy the stated expectations of anticipated energy needs, it is essential that energy production systems provide a net energy gain over the course of their lifetime. As a means to provide accurate analysis to the value of alternative energy systems this paper provides a mechanism to evaluate energy systems in terms of energy generation ratios that is in terms of existing analysis techniques utilized in existing energy generation areas, such as the oil industry. This paper also proposes techniques that help perform this net energy analysis in terms of the specific economy considering the infrastructure investment.

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