This study examines the effects of clearcut regeneration with whole-tree harvesting on plant diversity. Three approaches were used to study changes in species composition and structure: (1) forest level, (2) stand level, and (3) diversity indices. Within each approach the forest was stratified into three horizontal vegetative regions based upon height: herb (< 1 m), shrub (between 1 and 5 m), and tree (> 5 m). Between the pre-harvest and 17-year-old forest, the relative percent cover of 3 out of 45 herbaceous and 2 out of 34 woody species were found to be significantly different (df = 3; a = 0.10) in the herb stratum; the importance value (average of relative basal area and stem density) of 2 out of 25 woody species in the shrub stratum; and 1 out of 21 woody species in the tree stratum. Within stands, the three lower quality, 17-year-old stands (SI50 = 12.2, 15.2, and 18.3 m) most resembled their pre-harvest composition; however, increases in ericaceous species were observed in the herb and shrub strata potentially inhibit the future regeneration of tree species. The SI50 = 21.3 m stand incurred the greatest changes in composition potentially due to the lack of fire as a disturbance mechanism. The major mechanism that has caused the shifts in species composition and structure is the change in the microenvironment due to the removal of the overstory, which has shifted the competitive advantages from one species to another. In all cases, diversity indices were not found to be significantly different between the 17-year-old and pre-harvest forests. Diversity indices were therefore determined to have limited use if a manager wants to know specific compositions and/or abundance of species. / Master of Science

The Cuesta Ridge ophiolite is one of the best-preserved remnants of mid-Jurassic ophiolite in California. Geologic mapping and petrologic studies show that it comprises (1) harzburgite mantle tectonite, (2) dunite-rich mantle transition zone (MTZ), (3) wehrlite and pyroxenite, (4) isotropic gabbro, (5) sheeted dike/sill complex, (6) volcanic rocks (7) late-stage dikes and flows, and (8) tuffaceous radiolarian chert. The sheeted dike/sill complex is dominated by quartz diorite, with significant modal quartz and hornblende. The volcanic section is dominated by arc tholeiite and boninitic lavas. Boninites, with high MgO, Cr, and Ni comprise 40% of the volcanic rocks. Latestage dikes and lava flows below the overlying chert, have a MORB-like affinity. These data suggest formation in a supra-subduction zone setting with three stages of arc-related magmatism before late-stage MORB magmatism. I infer formation above the east-dipping proto-Franciscan subduction zone and suggest that ophiolite formation was terminated by a ridge subduction/collision event.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第19497号 / 理博第4157号 / 新制||理||1597(附属図書館) / 32533 / 京都大学大学院理学研究科物理学・宇宙物理学専攻 / (主査)教授 鶴 剛, 教授 谷森 達, 准教授 成木 恵 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第20602号 / 理博第4317号 / 新制||理||1620(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科地球惑星科学専攻 / (主査)教授 山路 敦, 教授 山 明, 准教授 伊藤 正一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

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Among renewable energy resources, wind power is poised to contribute most significantly to meeting future wholesale electricity demand. However, the intermittent nature of wind power makes maintaining system reliability a challenge as the share of installed wind capacity on the grid increases. In New England, wind plants are currently unable to receive automatic dispatch instructions from the regional grid operator, but a centralized wind forecasting system under development will enable wind plants to be dispatched by ISO New England’s automatic dispatch software by 2016. Wind plants will receive an upper bound to their production through so-called Do Not Exceed (DNE) dispatch limits. This study evaluates how the automatic dispatch of wind plants in the ISO New England control area will impact wind plant output, emissions, wholesale energy market prices, and the system-wide generation mix. Wind generation is modeled using 10-minute time-series wind speed data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Eastern Wind Dataset. Market outcomes for 2020 are then simulated using the spreadsheet-based Oak Ridge Competitive Electricity Dispatch (ORCED) model which mimics the economic dispatch of power plants in deregulated wholesale electricity markets. Results show that imposing DNE dispatch limits reduce total wind generation by a small amount – 6.47% over the course of the study year. The study finds that DNE dispatch limits constrain wind generation often – 28.4% of the year on average – but that the levels of wind generation avoided were typically small – 72.4% of DNE limit curtailment events were at levels below 5% of plant nameplate capacity.

The cardiovascular systems in ectothermic reptiles have long been studied and its development represent a transition state between a single- and a double circulation. This literature review focus on the typical-reptilian heart and therefore distinguishes between orders within the class of Reptilia. The typical-reptilian heart is found in the non-crocodilian reptiles referring to the orders Chelonia and Squamata. The heart is composed of two atria and one common ventricle, compartmentalized into three interconnected ventricular cava. However, there is some species-specific variation in gross anatomy where the monitor lizard Varanus and Python pose a striking exception to the typical-reptilian heart. The cardiac building plan exhibits variation in size and relative dimensions, in particular the relationship between cava and the degree of ventricular septation. Varanus and Python have a larger and more muscular systemic side of the ventricle, a highly developed vertical septum and muscular ridge. Today, it is known that a ventricle with a less developed muscular ridge acts as a single pressure source, subsequently allowing admixture of oxygenated- and deoxygenated blood within the ventricle. In contrast, a ventricle with a more developed muscular ridge and vertical septum may function as a dual pressure source during parts of systole, temporarily separating the ventricle in a high-pressure systemic side and a low-pressure pulmonary side. Septal development provides different haemodynamic conditions and yield diverse functions. This literature review is a combination of practical laboratory work and a literature study. Dissections of the typical-reptilian hearts provide information about exterior and interior morphology, and findings are then compared to existing literature.

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Motion is one of the most important features describing an image sequence. Motion estimation has been widely applied in structure from motion, vision-based navigation and many other fields. However, real-time motion estimation remains a challenge because of its high computational expense. The traditional CPU-based scheme cannot satisfy the power, size and computation requirements in many applications. With the availability of new parallel architectures such as FPGAs and GPUs, applying these new technologies to computer vision tasks such as motion estimation has been an active research field in recent years. In this dissertation, FPGAs have been applied to real-time motion estimation for their outstanding properties in computation power, size, power consumption and reconfigurability. It is believed in this dissertation that simply migrating the software-based algorithms and mapping them to a specific architecture is not enough to achieve good performance. Accuracy is usually compromised as the cost of migration. Improvement and optimization at the algorithm level are critical to performance. To improve motion estimation on the FPGA platform and prove the effectiveness of the method, three main efforts have been made in the dissertation. First, a lightweight tensor-based algorithm has been designed which can be implemented in a fully pipelined structure. Key factors determining the algorithm performance are analyzed from the simulation results. Second, an improved algorithm is then developed based on the analyses of the first algorithm. This algorithm applies a ridge estimator and temporal smoothing in order to improve the accuracy. A structure composed of two pipelines is designed to accommodate the new algorithm while using reasonable hardware resources. Third, a hardware friendly algorithm is developed to analyze the optical flow field and detect obstacles for unmanned ground vehicle applications. The motion component is de-rotated, de-translated and postprocessed to detect obstacles. All these steps can be efficiently implemented in FPGAs. The characteristics of the FPGA architecture are taken into account in all development processes of these three algorithms. This dissertation also discusses some important perspectives for FPGA-based design in different chapters. These perspectives include software simulation and optimization at the algorithm development stage, hardware simulation and test bench design at the hardware development stage. They are important and particular for the development of FPGA-based computer vision algorithms. The experimental results have shown that the proposed motion estimation module can perform in real-time and achieve over 50% improvement in the motion estimation accuracy compared to the previous work in the literature. The results also show that the motion field can be reliably applied to obstacle detection tasks.