Discutimos nesta pesquisa o uso dos elementos de Cortesia, em especifico, a atenuação, entendida como categoria pragmática que afeta as relações interpessoais enquanto atividade linguística (redução do dito e do dizer) e social (aproximação ou não distanciamento do outro). Enfatizando estes aspectos, o trabalho tem como objetivo comparar o emprego de procedimentos linguísticos de atenuação na produção de atos diretivos e respostas não preferidas (atos de fala não corteses), por estudantes universitários das cidades de São Paulo (Brasil) e Córdoba (Argentina). Ainda, explicar as diferenças tendo como base os conceitos de sociedades de aproximação e distanciamento (HAVERKATE, 2004 e BRIZ, 2007) e analisar as diferenças nas interpretações que realizaram os estudantes da cidade argentina dos enunciados formulados pelos paulistanos. Nesta investigação, formulou-se e aplicou-se questionário de coleta de dados denominado testes sociais no qual apareceram situações de interação no ambiente de trabalho e da faculdade. No processo analítico deste fenômeno, usamos o método comparativo salientando as relações quantitativas e qualitativas dos enunciados estabelecidos pelos paulistanos e cordobeses, analisando dois tópicos, a comparação dos procedimentos de atenuação empregados; e a interpretação dos enunciados (dos estudantes paulistanos) feita pelos alunos de Córdoba. Como resultado, verificamos o uso acentuado de procedimentos de atenuação por parte dos paulistanos, causando interpretações díspares por parte dos cordobeses. / Discussed in this study the use of Courtesy elements in specific, attenuation, understood as a pragmatic category that affects interpersonal relationships as linguistic activity (reduction of said and say) and social (approximation or not distancing from another). Emphasizing these aspects, the study aims to compare the use of linguistic attenuation procedures in the production of directive acts and not preferred answers (speech acts not polite), for university students from São Paulo (Brazil) and Córdoba (Argentina). Also explain the differences based on the concepts of proximity and distance in social interactions (HAVERKATE, 1994 and BRIZ, 2007) and analyze the differences in interpretations that made by students of Córdoba city from statements made by students of São Paulo. In this investigation, it is formulated and applied data collection questionnaire called social tests in which appeared interaction situations in the workplace and college. In the analytical process of this phenomenon, we use the comparative method emphasizing the quantitative and qualitative relationships of statements established by Paulistanos and Cordobeses, analyzing two topics, the comparison of attenuation procedures used and the interpretation of these statements (of São Paulo students) made by students of Cordoba. As a result, we see the vast use of mitigation procedures on the part of São Paulo, causing differing interpretations by the students of Córdoba.

O objetivo deste trabalho é a análise dos elementos de cortesia e atenuação no Português falado na região de São José do Rio Preto e no Espanhol falado na região de Málaga. Os corpora analisados foram obtidos por meio de entrevistas semidirigidas e fazem parte do Projeto ALIP Amostra Linguística do Interior Paulista, o brasileiro, e PRESEEA - Proyecto para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de España y América, o espanhol. Analisamos um total de 24 entrevistas, sendo 12 de nível médio e 12 de superior, seis em cada idioma, divididas igualmente entre falantes do sexo feminino e do sexo masculino. Os falantes de nível médio tinham idades entre 25 e 45 anos, enquanto que a faixa etária entre os de nível superior era entre 50 e 70 anos. Partindo da teoria pragmática dos Atos de Fala e de estudos mais recentes sobre cortesia e atenuação de teóricos como Leech (2007), Bravo (2001, 2004, 2005), Kerbrat-Orecchioni (2004, 2005, 2006), entre outros, analisamos tanto a fala dos entrevistadores quanto a dos informantes. A partir da fala dos entrevistadores, pudemos observar como as perguntas, as solicitações de informações eram elaboradas em ambos os idiomas. Tal análise possibilitou a verificação de como o entrevistador se posicionava e quais eram as estratégias utilizadas verbos no imperativo, enunciados diretos, uso de atos de preparação ou verbos que visavam a proteger a face do informante. Já a análise da fala dos informantes objetivou a averiguação do uso de outras estratégias, cuja intenção era a defesa pessoal ou de terceiros, protegendo sua própria face ou a do entrevistador. Entre essas estratégias citamos a desfocalização do eu, a proteção à própria face ou à do outro, o uso de elementos atenuadores no momento de expressar opiniões, entre outras. Ao longo de nossa análise investigamos também o posicionamento de cada entrevista no eixo de solidariedade ou poder de acordo com a teoria de Brown e Gilman (1960). Para isso, foi necessário o estudo das formas de tratamento empregadas, bem como o uso ou não de formas nominais. Os resultados obtidos, dentro dos corpora estudados, mostram que a Língua Espanhola é uma língua de mais aproximação com o interlocutor, enquanto que a Língua Portuguesa denota maior distância. Observou-se ainda que determinados elementos como o uso de um tratamento mais formal no caso da Língua Portuguesa se caracteriza mais como uma estratégia conversacional do que uma distância social. / The present paper aims at the analysis of the politeness and attenuation elements in both the Portuguese spoken in São José do Rio Preto region and in the Spanish spoken in Malaga region. The studied corpora were obtained by means of partially guided interviews and are part of the ALIP Project (São Paulo\'s Countryside Linguistic Sampling), the Brazilian one, and the PRESEEA ( Project for the Sociolinguistic Study of the Spanish Spoken in Spain and America), the Spanish one. A total of 24 interviews were analysed, being 12 of those on an average level and the other 12 on a superior one, six in each language, equally divided into male and female speakers. The average level speakers range aged from 25 to 45 whereas the superior level ranged from 50 to 70. Considering the pragmatic theory of Speech Acts and other more recent studies on politeness and attenuation by theorists such as Leech (2007), Bravo (2001, 2004, 2005), Kerbrat-Orecchioni (2004, 2005, 2006), among others, both interviewers\' and interviewees\' speeches were analysed. From the interviewers\' speeches it was possible to observe how the questions, the information required, were built up in both languages. Such an analysis made possible verifying how the interviewer was positioned as well as which strategies were used: verbs in imperative, direct enunciations, preparation acts usage or verbs aiming at protecting the informer\'s face. Yet the informers\' speech analysis aimed at the inquiry of other strategies usage being the intention of such the personal or third parties\' defense, proctecting oneself\'s face or the interviewer\'s one. Among these strategies we mention defocusing the self, protecting oneself\'s own face or the other\'s one, attenuating elements usage when expressing opinions, among others. Throughout our analysis we investigated also the positioning of each interview coming to the axis solidarity or power according to Brown and Gilman\'s theory (1960). For such, it was made necessary the study of the treatment forms applied as well as the use or not of noun forms. The achieved results in the studied corpora showed that the Spanish language proves to be a language of more approximation coming to the interlocutor whereas the Portuguese language denotes more distance. It could also be noticed that certain elements such as the use of a more formal treatment coming to the Portuguese language are characterized more as a conversational strategy than as a social distance element.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The Kars has a well-defined channel along the 62 km stretch from its sources in the Bredasdorp Mountains. After entering the Agulhas plain which has a very low gradient, this river changes into a triangular shaped wetland. This wetland is 7 km in length with no defined channel running through it. The wetland then discharges into another 7 km long channel that joins the Heuningnes River with its mouth at the Indian Ocean. The presence of the wetland causes frequent flooding which affects cultivated lands and a major highway linking towns on the coastal Cape Agulhas area with the rest of the country. Before this study, there was no monitoring of flows along the Kars River including water levels within the wetland. Consequently, the conditions leading to flooding of the wetlands were unknown. This study is aimed at understanding how the combination of local rainfall, Kars River inflow into the wetland, soil characteristics, and the morphology of the wetland influence flooding/inundation. The study monitored river inflows into and outflows from the wetland. A soil survey was conducted within the wetland using the augering method and an infiltrometer to determine soil type and infiltration rates. This was done to assess the hydrological characteristics of the wetland. Using the collected climate data and river flow data, a conceptual model was developed for predicting downstream outflows and possible flood events on a daily timescale. The results indicated that the Kars wetland comprises soil with high silt and clay content, and low infiltration capacity. The wetland causes flood attenuation and diffuse surface flows. Low infiltration rates result in ponding of local rainfall which can contribute to flooding.

<p>For marine sciences sometimes there is a need to perform underwater photography. Optical properties of light cause severe quality problems for underwater photography. Light of different energies is absorbed at highly different rates under water causing significant bluishness of the images. If the colour dependent attenuation under water can be properly estimated it should be possible to use computerised image processing to colour correct digital images using Beer’s Law.</p><p>In this thesis we have developed such estimation and correction methods that have become progressively more complicated and more accurate giving successively better correction results. A process of estimation of downwelling attenuation coefficients from multi or hyper spectral data is a basis for automatic colour restoration of underwater taken images. The results indicate that for each diving site the unique and precise coefficients can be obtained.</p><p>All standard digital cameras have built in white balancing and colour enhancement functions designed to make the images as aesthetically pleasing as possible. These functions can in most cameras not be switched off and the algorithms used are proprietary and undocumented. However, these enhancement functions can be estimated. Applying their reverse creates un-enhanced images and we show that our algorithms for underwater colour correction works significantly better when applied to such images.</p><p>Finally, we have developed a method that uses point spectra from the spectrometer together with RGB colour images from a camera to generate pseudo-hyper-spectral images. Each of these can then be colour corrected. Finally, the images can be weighted together in the proportions needed to create new correct RGB images. This method is somewhat computationally demanding but gives very encouraging results.</p><p>The algorithms and applications presented in this thesis show that automatic colour correction of underwater images can increase the credibility of data taken underwater for marine scientific purposes.</p>

This project was a part of a study to evaluate natural attenuation (NA) as a viable remedial option for petroleum hydrocarbon (PHC) contamination at upstream oil- and gas-contaminated sites in Alberta, Canada. Laboratory mesocosms were set up using groundwater and sediment materials collected from two PHC contaminated sites (Site 1 and Site 3) in Alberta to investigate the enhancement of anaerobic PHC biodegradation by amendment of terminal electraon acceptors (TEAs, nitrate or sulfate) and/or nutrients (ammonium and phosphate). Multiple lines of evidence, including the removal of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX) and CCME F1 fraction hydrocarbons (C6 to C10), rapid depletion of TEAs, the production of biogenic gases, and detection of the metabolites verified that anaerobic PHC biodegradation was occurring in both laboratory mesocosm studies. Selective biodegradation of PHCs under different reducing conditions was observed. However, there was no conclusive evidence that one reducing condition will universally favor the biodegradation of specific PHCs. In both studies, nutrient amendment showed no enhancement effects. The calculated first-order biodegradation rates in Site 1 mesocosm study ranged from 0.0032 to 0.033 d-1 for benzene, 0 to 0.028 d-1 for ethylbenzene, 0.0021 to 0.036 d-1 for m-, p-xylenes, and 0.0006 to 0.0045 d-1 for F1-BEX (F1 hydrocarbons exclduding BEX) under the tested conditions. The laboratory first-order biodegradation rates of BEX were higher than the estimated field rates, indicating the potential of enhanced anaerobic biodegradation in situ. However, when comparing the TEA amended mesocosms with the unamended controls (in which iron reduction might be the predominant process), the enhancement effects were less apparent and inconsistent. The calculated first-order biodegradation rates in Site 3 mesocosm study ranged from 0 to 0.0009 d-1 for benzene, 0 to 0.011 d-1 for ethylbenzene, 0 to 0.0016 d-1 for m- and p-xylenes, and 0 to 0.15 d-1 for o-xylene. Sulfate amendment significantly stimulated biodegradation of all xylenes and CCME F1 hydrocarbons. However, there was no definitive evidence that nitrate or sulfate amendment could enhance benzene or ethylbenzene biodegradation. / Environmental Engineering

To better study frequency related effects such as attenuation and tuning, we developed a frequency dependent seismic reflection analysis. Comprehensive tests on full waveform synthetics and observations from the Teal South ocean bottom seismic (OBS) data set confirmed that normal moveout (NMO) stretch could distort both frequency and amplitude information severely in shallow events and far offset traces. In synthetic tests, our algorithm recovered amplitude and frequency information ac-curately. This simple but robust target oriented NMO stretch correction scheme can be used on top of an existing seismic processing flow for further analyses. By combining the NMO stretch correction, spectral decomposition, and crossplots of am-plitude versus offset (AVO) attributes, we tested the frequency dependent workflow over Teal south and Ursa field data sets for improved reservoir characterization. As expected from NMO stretch characteristics, low frequencies have been less affected while mid and high frequency ranges were affected considerably. In seismic attribute analysis, the AVO crossplots from spectrally decomposed prestack data confirmed the improved accuracy and effectiveness of our workflow in mid and high frequency regions. To overcome poor spectral decomposition results due to low signal to noise ratio (S/N) in the Teal South application, we also implemented a substack scheme that stacks adjacent traces to increase S/N ratio while reducing the amount of data to process and increasing the accuracy of the spectral decomposition step. Synthetic tests verified the effectiveness of this additional step. An application to the Ursa, Gulf of Mexico, deep water data set showed significant improvement in high frequency data while correcting biased low frequency information.

For marine sciences sometimes there is a need to perform underwater photography. Optical properties of light cause severe quality problems for underwater photography. Light of different energies is absorbed at highly different rates under water causing significant bluishness of the images. If the colour dependent attenuation under water can be properly estimated it should be possible to use computerised image processing to colour correct digital images using Beer’s Law. In this thesis we have developed such estimation and correction methods that have become progressively more complicated and more accurate giving successively better correction results. A process of estimation of downwelling attenuation coefficients from multi or hyper spectral data is a basis for automatic colour restoration of underwater taken images. The results indicate that for each diving site the unique and precise coefficients can be obtained. All standard digital cameras have built in white balancing and colour enhancement functions designed to make the images as aesthetically pleasing as possible. These functions can in most cameras not be switched off and the algorithms used are proprietary and undocumented. However, these enhancement functions can be estimated. Applying their reverse creates un-enhanced images and we show that our algorithms for underwater colour correction works significantly better when applied to such images. Finally, we have developed a method that uses point spectra from the spectrometer together with RGB colour images from a camera to generate pseudo-hyper-spectral images. Each of these can then be colour corrected. Finally, the images can be weighted together in the proportions needed to create new correct RGB images. This method is somewhat computationally demanding but gives very encouraging results. The algorithms and applications presented in this thesis show that automatic colour correction of underwater images can increase the credibility of data taken underwater for marine scientific purposes.

Bubbles are often present in the natural ocean. Bubbly liquid will have the significant influence the sound propagation, and creates a significant disturbance to under water target's detection. Therefore, it is an important research subject of bubble influence to the sound wave propagation. This study used the sonar training system which developed by British's iTP corporation, through suitable additional design discuss the attenuation of sound propagating through a bubble screen. At first this study collects and infers the formula by the literature review. Secondly, the experimental design of measuring the attenuation of sound wave. The experiment process by using two parallel iron boards to carry on the measurement of gas-volume fraction. Then correlate with the sound pressure from the measurement of hydrophone. After curve fitting, we can clearly know the each other correlation. Finally taking the result compare with the attenuation coefficient formula. The experimental consists of two parts. The first part is to measure the gas-volume fraction of the bubbly liquid contained in the screen; while the second part is to measure the sound attenuation of the bubble screen. The result display that the bubble screen can attenuate about 8 dB per centimeter as the gas-volume fraction stay at 1 percent. At high gas-volume fraction the coefficient of attenuation has increased, and is different from theoretical value. This is because the bubble's correlation has not been considered. In addition, the low frequency sound wave is close to theoretical value, but the high frequency sound wave has big different to theoretical value. Because the high frequency sound wave's wavelength is too small to satisfy the condition. At experiment I suggest to use more appropriate transducers and precise bubble's tube. Thus the experimental result will be better.

Photon mass attenuation coefficients are indispensable input parameters for use in several disciplines. They are of value for medical diagnostics, radiation therapy, material science, etc. Currently, photon mass attenuation coefficients derived from model calculations are widely used. This project directly measured the photon mass attenuation coefficients of water and a number of water based solutions. These measurements were made using a High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector allowing for increased resolution beyond traditional techniques. Four sources were used (\Ba, \Eu, \Cs, \Am) producing multiple photons of interest over the range of 40 keV to 1.4 MeV, allowed for simultaneous collection of data and a refining of uncertainties beyond past techniques. Direct measurements using a new liquid technique supported the validity of Bragg's additive law, allowing for the mass attenuation coefficient of a constituent element to be calculated from a set of independent measurements. This technique allows materials not easily directly measured to be determined without an overburdening increase in uncertainty. The same direct measurements showed a deviation from the currently relied upon National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) database - XCOM. Investigations of the deviation and surrounding references showed XCOM being at most accurate to 5 \% relative uncertainty.

Imaging based muscle density (MD) is associated with poor lower extremity performance, the development of mobility impairments, frailty, and hip fracture. These associations are all related to falls, yet no studies have investigated MD in community dwelling fallers. The primary objective of this study was to determine whether lower leg MD differed between community dwelling elderly women who do and do not report falls. The secondary objective was to determine if lower leg muscle cross sectional area (MCSA), timed up & go (TUG) test, and relative grip strength (RGS; as a ratio to body mass) differed between fallers and non-fallers. Women (N = 135), 60 years or older (mean age 74.1, SD 7.6) were recruited from a random sample of Saskatoon residents. Fallers (n = 36) and Non-fallers (n = 99) were grouped based on 12-month retrospective falls survey response. A peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) scan of the non-dominant lower leg was acquired to determine MD and MCSA. Participant age, height, weight, TUG test result and RGS were recorded. Between-group differences in mean age, body mass index (BMI), MD, MCSA, TUG and RGS were compared using independent t-tests (P < 0.05). MD and TUG results were transformed to meet the assumption of normality for parametric analysis. Age, BMI, MCSA and RGS did not differ (P > 0.5). Fallers had 3.2% lower MD (P = 0.01) and 15.1% slower TUG scores (P = 0.02), than non-fallers. Muscle density may serve as a physiological marker for the assessment of muscular health and fall risk in community dwelling elderly women.