Plasticity in dendroclimatic response across the distribution range of Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis)

We investigated the variability of the climate-growth relationship of Aleppo pine across its distribution range in the Mediterranean Basin. We constructed a network of tree-ring index chronologies from 63 sites across the region. Correlation function analysis identified the relationships of tree-ring index to climate factors for each site. We also estimated the dominant climatic gradients of the region using principal component analysis of monthly, seasonal, and annual mean temperature and total precipitation from 1,068 climatic gridpoints. Variation in ring width index was primarily related to precipitation and secondarily to temperature. However, we found that the dendroclimatic relationship depended on the position of the site along the climatic gradient. In the southern part of the distribution range, where temperature was generally higher and precipitation lower than the regional average, reduced growth was also associated with warm and dry conditions. In the northern part, where the average temperature was lower and the precipitation more abundant than the regional average, reduced growth was associated with cool conditions. Thus, our study highlights the substantial plasticity of Aleppo pine in response to different climatic conditions. These results do not resolve the source of response variability as being due to either genetic variation in provenance, to phenotypic plasticity, or a combination of factors. However, as current growth responses to inter-annual climate variability vary spatially across existing climate gradients, future climate-growth relationships will also likely be determined by differential adaptation and/or acclimation responses to spatial climatic variation. The contribution of local adaptation and/or phenotypic plasticity across populations to the persistence of species under global warming could be decisive for prediction of climate change impacts across populations. In this sense, a more complex forest dynamics modeling approach that includes the contribution of genetic variation and phenotypic plasticity can improve the reliability of the ecological inferences derived from the climate-growth relationships.This work was partially supported by Spanish Ministry of Education and Science co-funded by FEDER program (CGL2012-31668), the European Union and the National Ministry of Education and Religion of Greece (EPEAEK- Environment – Archimedes), the Slovenian Research Agency (program P4-0015), and the USDA Forest Service. The cooperation among international partners was supported by the COST Action FP1106, STREeSS

The Key Factors of Evaluating Agile Approaches: A Systematic Literature Review

Currently, Agile Methods (AMs) are extensively being used in projects of various sizes and in different environments, thus surpassing their primary intended scope. For instance, they have been executed in distributed and non-distributed projects. In addition, AMs have been implemented in different project fields, such as engineering, medicine, banking, and manufacturing. Consequently, different Agile approaches have been proposed and integrated with other approaches in order to support the increased demand for diverse project environments. In this direction, various authors have examined the process of developing those approaches; however, the focus on explaining evaluation phases is scarce and scattered. Therefore, this study aims to review pertinent literature to identify the key factors and methodologies used to evaluate the proposed approaches in the Agile domain. The systematic literature review (SLR) methodology was adopted to identify, evaluate, and interpret all existing studies relevant to the research objective. SLR provides in-depth and more thorough results than an ordinary literature review. Forty-eight studies were selected and analyzed. The results show that applicability, effectiveness, and efficiency are the three most frequently examined evaluation factors, whereas case studies and surveys are the most frequently used research methods in evaluation studies. Factors identified in this review provide the evidence and the opportunity to design instruments or assessment forms that meet the needs of those researchers who are planning to evaluate their proposed Agile approaches

The key factors of evaluating agile approaches: a systematic literature review

Currently, the housing sector is one of the Malaysian government’s main concerns as it is continuously facing various problems. This sector is endlessly struggling with enormous difficulties that have caused negative implications to the industry’s performance. Since a well governed corporate governance is said to be associated with better company performance, a number of corporate governance mechanisms are being employed in this study so as to test on their impact on the firms’ performance. Independence of board of directors (BOD) and audit committee (AC) members, non-duality and frequency of board meetings held per annum are among the CG mechanisms tested in relation to the firms’ performance, Tobin’s Q. The three-year period (2013-2015) data is taken from the annual reports and Thomson Reuters Data stream for all the companies in the property industry in Bursa Malaysia. Number of board meetings, CEO/Chairman non-duality, Independence of BOD members. These empirical evidences from this study would enhance the importance of incorporating corporate governance mechanisms and international diversification in relation to organizational performance for property industry

The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Anglophone Postcolonial Caribbean Literature of the Twenty-First Century

The sharp increase in publications on classicisms in the Black Atlantic over the last two decades points to the continuing significance of the Classics to postcolonial cultures but also to the unceasing importance of postcolonial cultures to the reshaping of Graeco- Roman antiquity and its legacies in the twenty-first century. Despite the topicality and political relevance of this area of research to current Caribbean culture, past investigations in the field have predominantly focussed on twentieth-century classical reception, the Hispanic or French Caribbean and other areas of the world, or have been limited to specific aspects of twenty-first century Antillean literature such as the reception of Greek drama. This study investigates the reception of Graeco-Roman antiquity in twenty-first century Anglophone Caribbean literature. It spotlights three aspects that are central to the contemporary Caribbean classical tradition: modern dealings with epic, classical reception in Caribbean women writers and the relevance of notions of exile and migration to Caribbean Classics. Through the analysis of pieces of prose fiction and poetry as well as through a survey conducted among twenty-first century West Indian literary voices including Ishion Hutchinson, NourbeSe Philip, Lorna Goodison and Shara McCallum, I relate the status and uses of the Classics in the present-day Caribbean to their colonial legacy, especially as a pillar of the British Empire’s education system. Simultaneously, however, I argue that classical civilisations and literatures not only continue to be appropriated by Anglophone Caribbean writers for the sake of maintaining and extending a distinctive, regional tradition of reading the Graeco-Roman Classics but also to serve anti-imperialist, canon-redefining as well as anti-racist, feminist and history- and identity- establishing purposes

Lawrence Today, Volume 86, Number 1, Fall 2005

https://lux.lawrence.edu/alumni_magazines/1057/thumbnail.jp

FindBugsin arviointi ja tehostaminen kehittyneissä ohjelmistoissa; Tapaustutkimus Valuatumilla

Static code analysis (SCA) is a popular bug detection technique. However, several problems slow down the adoption of SCA. First of all, when first applying SCA to a mature software system, the SCA tools tend to report a large number of alerts which developers do not act on. Second, it is unclear how effective SCA is to find real defects. Therefore, we decided to conduct a case study in Valuatum to evaluate and enhance the effectiveness of FindBugs, a popular SCA tool for Java. The main goal of this thesis is to learn how to make FindBugs as an effective tool providing immediate, useful feedback for developers in Valuatum. We have used several approaches to study FindBugs. First, we have analyzed how many and what types of fixed defects could have been prevented with FindBugs. Second, we have developed custom detectors for the most important defects missed by FindBugs. Third, we have studied the precision of FindBugs to detect open defects. Last, we have presented several approaches, such as defect differencing and IDE integration, to deal with the large number of alerts. The results indicate that FindBugs is not very effective in detecting fixed defects. We estimated that 9-16% of the fixed bugs should be feasible to detect with SCA. However, only 0 - 2% of the reported fixed bugs and 1 - 6% of the unreported fixed bugs could have been prevented with FindBugs. Moreover, only 18.5% of the high-priority open alerts are considered actionable. Nevertheless, we think FindBugs is a cost-effective tool, because it detected several important open issues and can be enhanced with custom detectors.Staattinen koodianalyysi (SCA) on suosittu menetelmä ohjelmistovirheiden eli bugien etsinnässä. Sen käyttöönottoa kuitenkin haittaavat useat ongelmat. Ensinnäkin SCA tuottaa kehittyneissä ohjelmistoissa paljon varoituksia, joihin käyttäjät eivät reagoi. On myös epäselvää, kuinka tehokkaasti SCA löytää oikeita bugeja. Siksi toteutimmekin tässä työssä tapaustutkimuksen Valuatumilla, jossa arvioimme ja parannamme FindBugsin tehokkuutta. Työn päätarkoitus on oppia hyödyntämään FindBugsia niin, että se antaisi mahdollisimman hyödyllistä ja välitöntä palautetta Valuatumin ohjelmistokehittäjille. Käytimme tutkimuksessa useita eri tapoja FindBugsin arviointiin. Ensinnäkin analysoimme, mitä korjattuja ohjelmistovirheitä FindBugs olisi voinut estää. Kirjoitimme myös omia bugi-ilmaisimia niille tärkeimmille virheille, joita FindBugs ei löytänyt. Lisäksi tutkimme FindBugsin löytämiä avoimia bugeja sekä esitimme erilaisia tapoja, miten hallita suuria määriä varoituksia. Tutkimustulokset viittaavat siihen, että FindBugs ei ole kovin tehokas löytämään korjattuja ohjelmistovirheitä. Arvioimme, että SCA:lla pystyisi löytämään 9 - 16% korjatuista bugeista. Kuitenkin vain 0 - 2 % raportoiduista ja 1 - 6 % raportoimattomista bugeista olisi voitu estää FindBugsilla. Avoimista FindBugsin löytämistä korkeimman prioriteetin varoituksista vain 18,5 % luokiteltiin oleellisiksi. FindBugs on kuitenkin mielestämme kustannustehokas työkalu bugien etsintään, koska sitä pystyy tehostamaan omilla bugi-ilmaisimilla ja sen avulla olemme löytäneet useita tärkeitä virheitä koodista

Classical Myths on the Victorian Popular Stage: the Figure of Cassandra

The scope of the present thesis is to unveil the cultural processes behind the reception of the Cassandra myth in Victorian burlesque theatre. The main focus is on the semiotic dialogue between arts and reality which features nineteenth-century popular theatre as an essential tool for reading the social history of Victorian England. My principal argument is that the analysis of the convergence of popular, iconic and literary refigurations of classical myths and their representation on the Victorian popular stage underscores the relevance of burlesque both as a reflecting and a refracting mirror of the contemporary mindset. The texts and cultural objects under analysis in this thesis are in many ways embodiments of the ambivalence surrounding constructions of women both as social subjects and artistic objects in Victorian Britain. As I shall espouse, mixed attitudes towards women in burlesque reflected, as witness and chronicle of its own time, the social turmoil which was involved in the remapping of the role of women in modern societies. This thesis is structured into three chapters which cover at length the different aspects considered for my analysis. After an introductory section on methodology and critical antecedents, the chapter ‘Classical Mythology and the Evolution of Burlesque’ focuses on the terminological issues surrounding the comic theatre of the nineteenth century. Responses to the meaning and nature of Victorian burlesque are multifarious both in the nineteenth, the twentieth and the present century. As I shall argue, only a holistic consideration of the genre allows for the recognition of the role of burlesque as precedent of mass communication in the formation of modern cultures. The chapter proceeds with an analysis of the history of Victorian classical burlesque focused on particular works which evidence the topicality and ambivalence of the genre. The second chapter, entitled ‘Women and Cassandra in the Nineteenth Century’, analyses Victorian refigurations of the Cassandra myth in a two-fold approach. First, I focus on nineteenth-century translations of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Homer’s Iliad to map out the linguistic choices which juxtapose Cassandra with contemporary popular stereotypes such as prophets, witches and fortune-tellers. Second, I consider the ideological development underlying Victorian reworkings of the Cassandra myth both in highbrow and popular culture highlighting aspects such as the relationship between women and knowledge. A cross-class and crosscultural analysis of Victorian revisitings to the Cassandra myth evidences the profoundly intertwined dialogue between the socio-cultural substrata of the receiving culture and the Greek prototypes. Less canonical refigurations pave the ground to a responsive Cassandra who defies the ruling powers foreshadowing the collection of political female voices of the late years of the century. The third chapter delineates the presence of Cassandra in Victorian burlesque from its eighteenth-century precedents on the British street-theatre and the French stage. Once the literary antecedents of the burlesque Cassandra are established, the chapter moves on to the analysis of the case study of Robert Reece’s Agamemnon and Cassandra; or, the Prophet and Loss of Troy (1868). Reece’s burlesque is contextualized within the dramatic production of the author and then examined under the lens of the ambivalence of burlesque. The evolution of the depiction of Cassandra in the comic stage from Settle to Reece manifests the mixed responses to the gradual integration of women into the cultural structures of modern societies. The conclusions of the present thesis elaborate upon the metaphors of Cassandra which explain and account for the ambivalent representations of women in Victorian burlesque. Burlesque refigurations of the Cassandra myth epitomize the double standards which mould, measure and value the role of women in Victorian arts and culture. The recurring iteration of the motifs and images encompassed in the Cassandra metaphors of the Victorian woman evidence the need to unveil the ongoing dialogue between present and past civilizations in order to apprehend the cultural processes which have shaped modern societies.El propósito de la presente tesis es desvelar los procesos culturales tras la recepción del mito de Casandra en el teatro burlesco victoriano, prestando especial atención al diálogo semiótico entre la realidad y las artes que destaca el teatro popular del siglo diecinueve como una herramienta esencial para la compresión de la historia social de la Inglaterra victoriana. El análisis de la convergencia de reescrituras literarias, populares e icónicas de la mitología clásica en el teatro popular victoriano pone de manifiesto la importancia del burlesco como espejo reflectante y refractante del pensamiento de la época. Los autores y textos discutidos a lo largo de la tesis evidencian la comunión entre efectos espectaculares y referencias a la actualidad del momento para atraer al público, lo que influirá en la adopción de tópicos estéticos y sociales para perpetuar o cuestionar codificaciones sociales. Los textos y objetos culturales analizados en esta investigación encarnan la ambivalencia que rodea a la construcción de la mujer como sujeto social y objeto artístico en la Inglaterra victoriana. Actitudes enfrentadas sobre la mujer en el teatro burlesco reflejan, como testigo y crónica de su época, la agitación social que envolvía la reestructuración del rol de la mujer en los fundamentos de las sociedades modernas. Las conclusiones de la tesis elaboran metáforas de Casandra que explican y describen representaciones enfrentadas de la mujer en el teatro burlesco victoriano. Las recreaciones burlescas del mito de Casandra epitomizan la duplicidad que modela, mesura y valora el rol de la mujer en la cultura y el arte del siglo diecinueve. Dicotomías como la petrificación y la emancipación de la mujer se dan cita en metáforas relacionadas con la silenciación y la recuperación de la voz de la princesa troyana en las estructuras sociales imperantes. La iteración recurrente de motivos e imágenes que engloban las metáforas de Casandra sobre la mujer victoriana manifiestan la necesidad de desvelar el constante diálogo entre las civilizaciones del pasado y del presente para aprehender los procesos culturales que han dado forma al individuo contemporáneo