Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, March, 1998. / Title from PDF t.p.

Thesis (P. SC.)--University of Michigan, 1926. / Bibliography: p. 40-115.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-200). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

In the modern era consumer awareness on quality aspects has been a growing concern for the fresh produce market due to the fact that consumer perspective defines the bottom line of all agricultural businesses. External damage to produce does not only render fruit less attractive but damaged locations serve as entry points for pathogens resulting is food safety issues. Because tomatoes have a limited shelf life, it is vital to control the factors that lead to earlier deterioration of the quality of the product. Shipping, handling and distribution can cause numerous forms of cuts and bruises on harvested tomatoes which compromise their quality and appearance. Furthermore the economic value to the retailer and grower is reduced (Chonhenchob et al., 2009). Post-harvest science focus mainly on the quality of fresh produce. One of the areas of interest is the shipment of tomatoes using road transport. Trucks are one of the best methods for transporting perishable products because of shorter transport times and the ability to reach more inland destinations than any other mode of transport (Jarimopas et al., 2005; Chonhenchob et al., 2009). Although the flexibility of road transport is an advantage, previous studies have indicated that fruit and vegetables suffer mechanical damage due to in-transit vibrations which is caused by the road condition (Jarimopas et al., 2005). The condition of roads in South Africa is dependent on the management plan execution by the managing agent. The National Road Network, maintained by SANRAL is predominantly in a good condition (Ittmann, 2013). In contrast, condition assessment data for provincial roads indicate that roads are deteriorating at an alarming pace, not to mention that the majority of road networks under municipal authorities have no data at all (SAICE, 2011). To date there is no model that relates tomato damage and loss in shelf life to the road condition, fruit maturity and position in the container. For this experiment the in-transit conditions were monitored on trucks travelling from three farms in Limpopo, owned by the ZZ2 group, to the fresh produce market in Pietermaritzburg. These trucks drive on a variety of roads including gravel or rural roads where higher roughness values are probable along with more produce damage. The experimental setup consisted of two phases. The first phase was the in-transit monitoring of the conditions to which tomatoes are exposed when shipped from grower to the farmers market. The second phase was the laboratory simulation of in-transit conditions to create a model for the prediction of shelf-life under controlled conditions. Equipment for the field experiment included a profilometer to determine road conditions, accelerometers to determine in-transit vibrations, pressure sensors to determine in-transit pressures. Equipment for the laboratory experiment included a vibration table to simulate different road conditions, pressure sensors to measure pressures that can be related to in-transit pressures and a colour meter to measure colour changes in damaged and control tomatoes. From the in-transit pressure analysis it was concluded that the amount of pressure cycles that a tomato experience increase as the roughness of the road increase and the force distribution that is applied to the tomatoes becomes wider to include forces larger in magnitude. Good correlations existed between in-transit and laboratory pressures. Colour measurements had no strong trends that could be related to damage and an experimental model based on consumer perspective was developed. The experimental model was designed based on a marketability matrix that models the decision of the consumer on whether to purchase a tomato or not. Ultimately it is a subjective matter and each consumer would react differently towards the colour and firmness of the tomato in question. The model indicated that for roads with high roughness values (International Roughness Index (IRI) > 8 m/km), which mostly consist of farm roads that are poorly maintained, all tomatoes in the first and second layers would acquire significant damage irrespective of the maturity of the fruit. On well-maintained roads with roughness values less than 3.5 m/km red tomatoes in the top layers tend to damage more with an increase in time as compared to tomatoes in the lower layers. Green and pink tomatoes are more resistant to damage in the top layers than the red tomatoes. From the damage models it is apparent that as the roughness of the road increases the damage to tomatoes increase as well. Tomato maturity and the position of the tomatoes in a container also influence the amount of damage to the fruit. With this information in hand, logistic planners can make informed decisions during route planning in weighing transportation costs to the cost of losses to produce during transportation. Similar models can be developed to include other fruits and vegetables. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Tamatie Produsente Organisasie (TPO) / ZZ2 / Post-Harvest Innovation Program (PHI) / Civil Engineering / MEng / Unrestricted

This dissertation comprises two parts: Part I, which discusses the growing trend in project books in contemporary poetry, and Part II, a collection of poems titled, Road Debris. There is an increasing trend in the number of project books, which are collections of poetry unified in both thematic and formal ways. the individual poems in a project book share overt connections which allow the book to work on many different levels, blending elements of fiction and non-fiction or sharing a specific theme or speaker. While these books have the advantage of being easily memorable, which might gain poets an edge in book contests, there are also many risks involved. the main issue surrounding project books is if the individual poems can justify the book, or do they seem too repetitive or forced. As more poets, especially newer ones, try to use the project book as a shortcut to publication, it can result in poorly written poems forced to fit into a particular concept. By examining three successful cotemporary project books—The Quick of It, by Eamon Grennan; Incident Light, by H. L. Hix; and Romey’s Order by Astory Riley—this essay discusses how these books work in order to understand the potential of the project book. All of these books work in distinctly different ways, yet they all fall into the category of project book. While project books will inevitably result in poor imitations, it allows books of poetry to expand and explore in different directions.

The following collection includes three short stories and two essays compiled with a critical preface. “Valentine’s Day” explores the limits of friendship and love in various situations including, two road trips (one fictional and one factual), pet ownership, and the impersonations of Frank Sinatra.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Counselling Psychology) in the Department of Psychology, University of Zululand, 2010. / The main objective of this study was to find out the self-perceived psychological factors that may contribute to road rage in Empangeni. A phenomenological approach was adopted in this study to facilitate the understanding of the information gathered. The sample consisted of 10 participants, 9 males and 1 female. All participants were the drivers. Open-ended questions were asked from the participants. The findings of this study revealed the following themes: impatience, frustrations and anger; substance abuse contribution to bad driving; bad mood leading to aggressive driving; disrespecting other road users; poor compliance with the rules of the road; prolonged hours of driving leading to fatigue; family and work related problems impacting on drivers; attention and focus; gender issues; and bad driving viewed on media (television) impacting on drivers. The study concluded with a brief discussion on the limitations of the study and recommendations for future research.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / An important topic in autonomous vehicle related research in recent times is road departure warning (RDW) and road keeping assistance (RKA). RDW or RKA should be able to recognize and avoid roadside objects. Standard tests are needed to evaluate the performance of RDW and RKA feature of cars from different manufacturers. To avoid damage to the cars under test and the test environment during testing, there is a need of soft, durable and reusable surrogate targets representing various real roadside objects such as curb, concrete divider and metal guardrail. These surrogate objects should have representative characteristics of real roadside objects from the point of view of various commonly used object detection sensors on the vehicles such as camera, radar and LIDAR. Transportation Active Safety Institute (TASI) at Indian University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) is in the process of developing surrogate concrete divider, curb metal guardrail and grass that should be recognized as real roadside objects by LIDAR sensors, can be crashed without damage to the test vehicle and can be reused even after multiple crashes. The first step is to understand what the representative roadside objects should look like from the point of view of LIDAR units using laser of various wavelengths, and the next step is to design surrogate objects that successfully emulate the properties of the real roadside objects. Reflectance of an object is an important property for LIDAR detection. This thesis describes an approach for the determination of infrared reflectance property of concrete, metal guardrail and grass for different LIDAR view angles. Various samples of each of these roadside objects were evaluated. Based on these measurements, the suggested reflectance of surrogate roadside objects in the common LIDAR wavelength range of 800-1100 nm is specified. Finally, the design of surrogate roadside objects that satisfy these requirements is described, and the infrared reflectance of these surrogate objects are compared to the suggested reflectance bounds for different LIDAR view angles.

Classic studies found advantages of pictures over words in memory (picture superiority effect). This paper applied the picture superiority effect to road signs to examine whether people remembered picture road signs better than word road signs. People remembered picture road signs better than word road signs, as evidenced on a recognition test. However, in real driving situations drivers do not need to remember the meaning of one road sign for a long time; rather, they need to continuously update information from sequentially encountered road signs. Therefore, Experiment 2 explored the differences in updating memory between pictures and words. Memory for the most recently viewed road signs was different depending on the form (picture, word) of the previously encountered road sign. Previously encountered picture items impaired memory significantly more than previously encountered words. These findings demonstrate that superior picture memory sometimes can be detrimental, especially when remembering recent information.