Three dimensional laser scanning, also known as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) has quickly been expanding in its applications in the field of geological engineering due to its ability to rapidly acquire highly accurate three dimensional positional data. Recently is has been shown that LiDAR scanning can be easily integrated into an excavation sequence in an underground environment for the purpose of collecting rockmass and discontinuity information. As scans are often taken multiple times of the same environment, the next logical application of LiDAR scanning is for monitoring for change and deformation. Traditionally, deformation and change in an underground environment is measured using a series of five or more permanent control points installed around the profile of an excavation. Using LiDAR for profile analysis provides many benefits as compared to traditional monitoring techniques. Due to the high density of the point cloud data, the change in profile is able to be fully characterized, and areas of anomalous movement can easily be separated from overall closure trends. Furthermore, monitoring with LiDAR does not require the permanent installation of control points, therefore monitoring can be completed more quickly after excavation, and scanning is non-invasive therefore no damage is done during the installation of temporary control points. The main drawback of using LiDAR scanning for deformation monitoring is that the raw point accuracy is generally the same magnitude as the smallest level of deformations that need to be measured. To overcome this, statistical techniques for profile analysis must be developed. This thesis outlines the development one such method, called the Elliptical Fit Analysis (EFA) and LiDAR Profile Analysis (EFA) for tunnel and shaft convergence analysis. Testing of the EFA and LPA has proved the robustness of this technique in its ability to deal with accuracy and precision issues associated with LiDAR scanning. / Thesis (Master, Geological Sciences & Geological Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2012-05-15 13:24:28.398

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The following study was conducted over 21 months in the South Pacific. I served as Academic Coordinator for World Learning’s SIT’s Study Abroad program in Samoa for three semesters. While overseeing independent study projects, facilitating working relationships, and promoting cross-cultural communication among the American and Pacific Islander/Samoan tertiary students, I concluded that -- through cultural immersion, experiential education and deliberate, academically fostered communication and discussion both Western and Indigenous identities are capable of converging to better mutual and lasting understanding. I spent ten months in Samoa completing my field research and five months in New Zealand completing my library research. Over the course of three academic semesters, this study evolved through my volunteer work with the group Rotaract Samoa, my research and teaching experiences with an experiential education programme, and indirectly incorporating 36 American students from various US tertiary institutions participating in the SIT Study Abroad’s Pacific Communities and Social Change semester in Samoa, and over 120 Pacific Island students and staff on the University of the South Pacific (USP) campus in Alafua, Samoa. Encouraging American students to foster relationships with indigenous peoples offered insights into the process and progress of the students’ shared interactions. Students were uncomfortable and awkward in their initial associations, however, over time, through the program’s immersion techniques, the students learned valuable lessons, about Samoan culture and themselves as human beings. I found the use of experiential education programmes and convergence methodology in multicultural learning environments ultimately promoted multi-perspective, culturally responsive student development. I collected my data through interviews, participant-observations, surveys, questionnaires, volunteering and teaching. I analysed my data using a self-reflexive anthropological perspective.

The ongoing transition of former communist countries from planned to market economies has been one of the most important economic phenomena in the last few decades. Among these, China is one of the largest and fastest growing emerging economies in the world since the reforms initiated in the late 1980s. China’s economic growth has been phenomenal. Therefore, understanding China’s energy economy is crucial in the new millennium for politicians, businessmen and energy economists. In particular, China’s energy policy directions will bring about both challenges and opportunities to the world in terms of an increasing share of primary energy consumption and investment in the energy industry. However, after surveying the literature, it is surprising to find that a few major areas of China’s energy economics are missing and the views on China’s energy economics are already out dated. Therefore, given the size and growth of its economy and the effect of its energy consumption on global energy markets, reviewing China’s energy situation and filling the missing literatures are essential for those who are interested in and concerned about China’s economic development in the new millennium. This study was motivated after conducting a survey of the literature on the study of China’s energy economy and reviewing China’s energy situation in the new millennium. The goal of the research is focused on providing readers the most important and the newest information on China’s energy economy. The study consists of three introductory sections and three core sections. The former includes a survey of literature, China’s energy situation in the new millennium, institutional evolution and changing energy prices. The latter includes tests for the emergence of an energy market in China, factor substitution and demand for energy, and technological change and the determinants of energy intensity. The main findings are as follows. China’s energy economy is still underdeveloped. It is crucial to review China’s energy situation in the new millennium. Energy, industrial deregulation and price reforms have been fast in China since the early 1990s. Empirical investigations have found evidence for the emergence of an energy market economy in China. The estimates demonstrate that there appears to be significant substitution possibilities between energy and labor when compared with international findings. Significant effects of substitution mainly come from the adoption of labor-intensive technology. Coal and electricity are significantly substitutable, while the demand for energy is elastic, in general. Finally, decomposing energy intensity shows that the budget constraint (a kind of price effect) reduces energy intensity while technological change increases energy intensity. These findings bring us to the following major implications. Firstly, it is important to understand the potential effect of new energy regulation and pricing mechanism on the future directions of China’s energy economy, which suggests that former predictions of China’s energy demand may have to be significantly discounted, and the potential effect on the global energy markets and emissions may need to be re-evaluated. Secondly, significant substitution between energy and labor is potentially good news as China possesses some of the most abundant labor sources in the world. However, because capital more easily substitutes for energy than labor, more policy incentives are needed for labor to substitute for energy. Thirdly, significant substitution between coal-electricity suggests that the effects of environmental taxes, however, may be smaller than expected due to the fact that most primary energy coming from coal. Also any shift from coal to electricity implies more investment in transmission lines rather than railways. Fourthly, energy constraints on energy supply may only slightly impede economic growth in China because the elasticity of substitution between energy and other factors is quite large compared to internationally. Fifthly, while many factors are responsible for the inelasticity of demand for energy, rising income may be one of the most important given the high levels of energy prices. Increasing energy prices may be unable to constrain energy consumption at present. Thus other energy policies need to be considered to encourage or depress certain types of energy consumption. Finally, reducing exports of energy-intensive commodities, reducing the high-level energy-using sectors, lowering capital investment and constraining imports of second-hand and obsolete equipment, would all help reduce growth in energy intensity. Politically, however, this may be at an unacceptable cost to economic growth. Although this study has conducted a series of investigations into the institutional changes and consumption behavior of China’s energy economy, continuous updating required as more data is continually added in a highly dynamic and changing environment. JEL Classifications: D24, O33, Q41.

This dissertation investigates the determinants of economic growth in China since 1978, with a focus on the determinants of spatial growth. A study of the theories of economic growth shows that both proximate and fundamental factors can contribute to economic growth. In the case of China, institutional changes are the keys to the Chinese transitional economy. Given the special nature of China's economy, the main institutional reforms since 1978 are examined, together with the gradual transition process. Furthermore, from the overview of empirical literature, it is found that the proximate determinants such as initial gross domestic product (GDP), investment, population growth, human capital and openness are determinants of economic growth in China based on the findings in cross-country growth literature. From growth accounting exercises, capital formation and total factor productivity (TFP) growth can be seen to play important roles in the rapid economic growth in China. However, while the nationwide economic growth is impressive, the pace of reform and economic development has been uneven across provinces. In the existing literature, geography and preferential policy are emphasised as particular factors that affect coastal-interior disparity. This study incorporates the economic variables identified as important stimulants to growth, drawing on major findings in the study of convergence and economic growth to estimate the determinants of regional economic growth in China. To address the weaknesses of using ordinary least squares (OLS) for cross-country regression analyses, fixed-effects ordinary least squares (OLS) and random-effects generalised least squares (GLS) panel data estimators are applied to provincial data from 1994 to 2003. It is concluded that the convergence hypothesis does not hold in China, and that export, investment, education, foreign direct investment (FDI) growth and coastal dummy have a positive effect on regional GDP per capita growth in China while population growth affects the annual growth rate negatively. / Thesis (M.Com. (Economics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-182).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. 99-100.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, December 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Apr. 13, 2009). "School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering." Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-105).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [186]-198).