Use of the fungal pathogen Hirsutella cryptosclerotium sp. nov. for the biocontrol of Rastrococcus invadens (Pseudococcidae)

Imperial Users onl

Parental involvement and the developmental stages of writing: knowledge and skills to assist children and parent perceptions on their experience

A kindergarten parent workshop series on the developmental stages of writing was created and assessed. The intended outcome was to empower parents with writing knowledge and writing skills so that they could apply this knowledge and skills at home with their child. The researcher developed the workshops from parent involvement research, developmental stages for writing, and the knowledge of adult learning. To assess the outcomes, the researcher utilized a mixed-methods qualitative approach analyzing responses from a pre and post assessment, oral discussions from videotaped sessions, researcher field notes, and parent responses to focused questions in a journal. Thirty-five Spanish-speaking parents from a low socio-economic status school in Southern California voluntarily participated in 4 workshops led by a bilingual teacher. Two separate series of workshops were conducted in Spanish, the participants\u27 primary language. Using McMillan and Schumacher\u27s (2006) inductive analysis of the data collected, 5 primary themes emerged: parent confidence, parent-child communication, parent-parent interaction, parent-child bonding, and parent increased knowledge of writing. Based on the analysis of the four data gathering methods, the following major conclusions were drawn. First, parents revealed a change in their self-efficacy during the oral portion of the workshops. Every session included a 20-minute parent oral discussion regarding parent-child interaction during the assigned writing activity at home. Most parents expressed more frequent and positive interactions with their child. Participants changed from a parent who simply checked that homework was completed to a parent who actively participated in the homework process. Also, parents reported that they provided resources, information, a place to study and personal feedback on their child\u27s work. Second, all parents expressed high satisfaction and benefits from the workshops. Third, all parents had an increase in knowledge and skills in the developmental stages of writing and 80% percent accurately assessed their child\u27s writing stage at the completion of the workshop. During the oral discussion portion of the workshops, the researcher noted high participation among all parents. The format and instrumentation of these workshops are highly recommended as valuable opportunities for teachers to educate and empower parents in the child\u27s development of writing

The effects of ocean acidification on walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) early life history stages

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2014Since the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700's, atmospheric and marine carbon dioxide levels have drastically increased. Ocean acidification is the result of the shift in the marine carbon cycle caused by the increase in marine and atmospheric carbon dioxide. Changing environmental conditions caused by ocean acidification have been shown to have adverse effects on different marine species as well as life history stages. As a result, ecologically and economically important teleost fish species such as walleye Pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) could be adversely affected by ocean acidification conditions. This study explores the responses of walleye pollock eggs and larvae incubated under different projected levels of ocean acidification, looking at hatch timing and growth parameters to examine potential adverse responses to more acidic conditions. Older walleye pollock juveniles (age 1+) were used to uncover potential physiological responses to ocean acidification pertaining specifically to stress, overall body condition indices, and blood chemistry. I found that while the two early life history stages of walleye pollock could survive under ambient, high, medium, and low pH conditions (pH 8.1, 7.9, 7.6, and 7.2, respectively), there were some physiological responses to projected levels of ocean acidification. Hatch timing was not delayed in the lowest pH treatment as expected. In addition, size at hatch, yolk area, and eye diameter did not differ among pH treatments. Walleye pollock juveniles reared under projected levels of ocean acidification demonstrated shifts in blood gas levels and blood pH. However, exposure to a lower pH environment of pH 7.9, 7.6, or 7.2 did not induce a response for either the stress indicators or body condition indices that were measured. To uncover the mechanism for their resilience, more testing is needed to gain further insight into underlying compensatory mechanisms of various life history stages and populations

HAVE SPANISH COMPANIES BUILT GREATER ENTREPRENEURSHIP AFTER PRIVATIZATION?

This study analyses some of the strategic and organizational changes experienced in public firms following privatization in its double facet: sale of companies and deregulation. Specifically, we analyse the process of innovation in terms of products, processes and organization. We also look into the development of new businesses and strategic renewal, which in the end shape the entrepreneurial capacity of a company. A sample of Spanish firms which were privatized between 1985 and 2000 shows that after privatization, these companies have experienced a significant increase in entrepreneurship. These changes are even more appreciable when a high sector competition is added to the ownership shift. Once they join the private sector, their level of product, process and organizational innovation is higher. They also develop new businesses at national level, reinforce their international activity and embark on strategic renewal processes by shedding the lesser profitable businesses and modifying their competitive strategy so as to gain efficiency.

Preventing Internal COVID-19 Outbreaks within Businesses and Institutions: A Methodology Based on Social Networks Analysis for Supporting Occupational Health and Safety Services Decision Making

This study aims at developing and demonstrating in a real case study a methodology for supporting Occupational Health and Safety Services in the design and assessment of preventive measures to reduce the risks of COVID-19 outbreaks within their entities. The proposed methodology applies the concepts from Social Network Analysis (SNA) to the current challenge of preventing risks of contagion of viruses like SARS-COV-2 among employees. For this purpose, the authors consider a network of employees whose interaction is caused by triggers, which are defined as common circumstances between two workers that may result in contagion, like sharing an office or participating in the same management board. The network cohesion is then evaluated, and those core nodes, which are the most significant contributors to its integration, are identified to be addressed in the design of the preventive measures. The impact of the designed preventive measures on the networks’ cohesion is assessed for its prioritization and further deployment. The methodology has been demonstrated in a real case, a Spanish Research Center, providing promising results in a quick and easy manner. The objective insights provided by its application were demonstrated as very valuable for the Occupational Health and Safety Services in the design and evaluation of the set of preventing measures to be implemented before the return of the employees to the facilities after the Spanish confinement period. The current COVID-19 outbreak brings the need to develop tools and methods to support businesses and institutions in the use of SNA for preventing outbreaks among their employees. Although some literature does exist in the field of SNA application in epidemiology, its adaptation for extensive use by the Occupational and Health Services is still a challenge

Rotochemical Heating of Neutron Stars: Rigorous Formalism with Electrostatic Potential Perturbations

The electrostatic potential that keeps approximate charge neutrality in neutron star matter is self-consistently introduced into the formalism for rotochemical heating presented in a previous paper by Fernandez and Reisenegger. Although the new formalism is more rigorous, we show that its observable consequences are indistinguishable from those of the previous one, leaving the conclusions of the previous paper unchanged.Comment: 14 pages, including 4 eps figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Exact solutions to a class of stochastic generalized assignment problems

This paper deals with a stochastic Generalized Assignment Problem with recourse. Only a random subset of the given set of jobs will require to be actually processed. An assignment of each job to an agent is decided a priori, and once the demands are known, reassignments can be performed if there are overloaded agents. We construct a convex approximation of the objective function that is sharp at all feasible solutions. We then present three versions of an exact algorithm to solve this problem, based on branch and bound techniques, optimality cuts, and a special purpose lower bound. numerical results are reported.