Floral induction and development in Myosotidium hortensia and Phormium cookianum : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Plant Biology at Massey University, New Zealand

Little is known of the stimuli needed for flowering in two New Zealand endemic plants, Myosotidium hortensia and Phormium cookianum. These plants are widely recognised by the horticulture sector and the concerns of this thesis were to aid understanding of floral induction and development in the two species. Environmental stimuli were investigated by growing plants under factorial combinations of daylength and temperature in controlled growth rooms. The two daylengths used, termed long days (LD) and short days (SD), consisted of night / day periods of 8 / 16 h und 16/8 h respectively. Two night / day temperature regimes of 4 / 7°C and 18 / 24°C referred to as Cold and Warm respectively, were combined with the daylengths to make four treatments. Floral induction in both species was unaffected by temperature or daylength, with approximately 50% of the P. cookianum flowering under all environmental treatments. M. hortensia did not flower. The absence of flowering seen in half of the P. cookianum plants was associated with a small size (fewer nodes at the commencement of the environmental treatments). Floral development in those plants that did flower was accelerated in P. cookianum by eight weeks growth under Cold compared with Warm treatment. Floral development of P. cookianum was further enhanced by four weeks treatment at Cold temperatures followed by transfer for four weeks at Warm temperatures. Vegetative growth was enhanced under Warm temperatures compared with Cold, in both P. cookianum and M. hortensia. Hormonal floral stimuli were investigated by application of the gibberellin A 3 , followed by growth under Cold SD conditions. The proportion of plants flowering was increased by GA 3 in P. cookianum. GA 3 -treaied P. cookianum flowered with fewer nodes as GA 3 concentration increased. In M. hortensia, GA 3 application did not cause flowering although stem elongation was increased. A region of the P. cookianum FLORICAULA / LEAFY (FLO/LFY) homologue (PFL) mRNA was isolated by reverse transcriptase-PCR and sequenced, and shown to share strong sequence identity with other FLO/LFY-like genes. PFL mRNA expression was compared with levels of actin mRNA using Real Time reverse transcriptase-PCR, performed using a LightCycler and the double stranded DNA binding dye SYBR Green 1. Upregulation of PFL mRNA at the meristem occurred over time, and increases coincided with changes in morphology from vegetative to inflorescence development. As predicted, greater PFL expression was observed in fans of larger size, these being the fans with greater likelihood of flowering

Supply chain strategy for technology manufacturing : a case study

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 44-45).This thesis explores a variety of logistics strategies for Qualcomm Wireless Business Solutions (QWBS), focusing on the OmniTRACS system and MVPc display. I develop and apply a model that considers the interactions of inventory processing and inventory movement in the context of total supply chain costs. My goal is to minimize purchased product inventory while reducing product lead-times. Without a formal model, supply chain organization decisions tend to replicate existing designs because it is difficult to find a better solution by trial and error due to the numerous alternatives and the number of variables involved. To develop an understanding of the issues at QWBS, I began by researching technology manufacturing supply chains. I also developed a cost model for analyzing QWBS's supply chain. The final form of this model is a series of spreadsheets which accepts cost data, lead times, and variable demand as key inputs, and produces overall supply chain cost distributions. The supply chain is modeled as a series of processing nodes and transfer links. The model derives its results by simulating variable demand and summing the cost contributions of the nodes and links for each trial. The supply chain research and the cost model provide Qualcomm with a realistic and usable tool to compare both intra- and inter-company supply chain designs in terms of overall channel costs. Furthermore, my results suggest that QWBS should focus its direct shipping supply chain efforts on customers whose demand variation is smaller than QWBS's overall customer average.by John Creighton.S.M.M.B.A

Fluxgate gradiometry survey at North Leigh Roman Villa, Oxfordshire

North Leigh Roman villa ranks as one of thelargest known courtyard villas in Roman Britain. This note combines a fluxgate gradiometery survey of the site with a review of preceding excvations, drawing out evidence for additional buildings and changes in landscape layout over time

Distance measures in gravitational-wave astrophysics and cosmology

We present quantities which characterize the sensitivity of gravitational-wave observatories to sources at cosmological distances. In particular, we introduce and generalize the horizon, range, response, and reach distances. These quantities incorporate a number of important effects, including cosmologically well-defined distances and volumes, cosmological redshift, cosmological time dilation, and rate density evolution. In addition, these quantities incorporate unique aspects of gravitational wave detectors, such as the variable sky sensitivity of the detectors and the scaling of the sensitivity with inverse distance. An online calculator (https://users.rcc.uchicago.edu/~dholz/gwc/) and python notebook (https://github.com/hsinyuc/distancetool) to determine GW distances are available. We provide answers to the question: "How far can gravitational-wave detectors hear?

Inferring the neutron star equation of state from binary inspiral waveforms

The properties of neutron star matter above nuclear density are not precisely known. Gravitational waves emitted from binary neutron stars during their late stages of inspiral and merger contain imprints of the neutron-star equation of state. Measuring departures from the point-particle limit of the late inspiral waveform allows one to measure properties of the equation of state via gravitational wave observations. This and a companion talk by J. S. Read reports a comparison of numerical waveforms from simulations of inspiraling neutron-star binaries, computed for equations of state with varying stiffness. We calculate the signal strength of the difference between waveforms for various commissioned and proposed interferometric gravitational wave detectors and show that observations at frequencies around 1 kHz will be able to measure a compactness parameter and constrain the possible neutron-star equations of state.Comment: Talk given at the 12th Marcel Grossman Meeting, Paris, France, 12-18 Jul 200

Duality of Quasilocal Gravitational Energy and Charges with Non-orthogonal Boundaries

We study the duality of quasilocal energy and charges with non-orthogonal boundaries in the (2+1)-dimensional low-energy string theory. Quasilocal quantities shown in the previous work and some new variables arisen from considering the non-orthogonal boundaries as well are presented, and the boost relations between those quantities are discussed. Moreover, we show that the dual properties of quasilocal variables such as quasilocal energy density, momentum densities, surface stress densities, dilaton pressure densities, and Neuve-Schwarz(NS) charge density, are still valid in the moving observer's frame.Comment: 19pages, 1figure, RevTe

The circulation of money in Roman Britain from the first to third century.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D172233 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Comparisons of binary black hole merger waveforms

This a particularly exciting time for gravitational wave physics. Ground-based gravitational wave detectors are now operating at a sensitivity such that gravitational radiation may soon be directly detected, and recently several groups have independently made significant breakthroughs that have finally enabled numerical relativists to solve the Einstein field equations for coalescing black-hole binaries, a key source of gravitational radiation. The numerical relativity community is now in the position to begin providing simulated merger waveforms for use by the data analysis community, and it is therefore very important that we provide ways to validate the results produced by various numerical approaches. Here, we present a simple comparison of the waveforms produced by two very different, but equally successful approaches--the generalized harmonic gauge and the moving puncture methods. We compare waveforms of equal-mass black hole mergers with minimal or vanishing spins. The results show exceptional agreement for the final burst of radiation, with some differences attributable to small spins on the black holes in one case.Comment: Revtex 4, 5 pages. Published versio