No description available.

There is interest in forest sampling methods which have the ability to provide reliable estimates of volume without incurring unreasonable costs. Fraser (1977), to this end, described an individual tree variable probability sampling method which selects sample trees with probabilities based on the areas of polygons derived from triangles. A comparison of some alternative methods of sampling these polygons confirms Fraser's work and demonstrates that the method proposed by him probably has the greatest potential for practical forest sampling. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

I dagens fotboll har ekonomin en stor betydelse för föreningars möjligheter att bedriva sin elitverksamhet. Många elitföreningar i Sverige är beroende av att utveckla och sälja talangfulla spelare för att få föreningen att gå runt ekonomiskt. Samtidigt drömmer många unga fotbollsspelare om att spela på elitnivå, och försörja sig på att spela fotboll. Forskning visar på att det är mycket svårt att tidigt identifiera de spelare som kommer bli bäst. Därför är det viktigt att föreningar har klart för sig hur det ska träna, påverka och utveckla sina talanger. I många fall har föreningar klart för sig hur de vill och ska träna sina spelare, men trotts detta är det få som verkligen når elitnivå. Det finns faktorer runt unga fotbollsspelare som inte alltid ses som självklara när man pratar om talangutveckling. Denna litteraturstudie har som syfte att identifiera i vilken miljö och genom vilka vägval en pojke i Sverige har störst chans att nå elitnivå i fotboll. I den här studien har empiri samlats in genom att analysera 32 olika dokument, forskningsrapporter och böcker. Empirin har analyserats och presenterat en slutsats. Slutsatsen av studien visar att föräldrar och tränare anses vara de viktigaste faktorerna i en spelares miljö, de har den störst betydelse för en spelares möjligheter att nå elitnivå inom fotboll. När det kommer till vägval rekommenderas en spelare sampla till och med ungefär 16 års ålder. Därefter rekommenderas spelaren att specialisera sig på fotboll och satsa helhjärtat. I övrigt kan studien se att forskning kan stödja den spelarutbildningsplan som svenska fotbollförbundet tagit fram. Spelarutbildningsplanens upplägg känns högst relevant att följa, för att ha goda möjligheter att nå elitnivå inom fotboll i Sverige. Nyckelord: Fotbollsspelare, talangutveckling, vägval, miljö, elitnivå / Today's football is strongly affected by economy to be able to stay at elite level. Many elite clubs in Sweden depend on develop and selling their talented players. Research shows that it is very hard to identify the players most likely to reach the elite level. This makes it important for the clubs to have a good plan on how to develop their young players. The aim of this study is to identify in which environment and through which choices in sport a young teen has the best chances reaching elite level in football. Results demonstrate that family and coaches has the biggest impact on a player’s journey to elite level. Studies also show that sampling before the age of 16, is strongly recommended. Keywords: Football player, talent development, sport choices, environment, elite level

Salmonella and Cronobacter sakazakii are two leading causes of foodborne illness associated with low-moisture foods, including infant formula. Both causative organisms can persist in food manufacturing processing environments and contaminate finished product if programs are not in place to limit their introduction and control their spread. An environmental sampling and monitoring program is an important tool that food manufacturers use to determine the effectiveness of their sanitation practices and pathogen control efforts. Guidance for initiating an environmental sampling plan and evaluating the plan is lacking. The objective of this study was to develop microbiological environmental sampling plans based on the answers to a series of questions related to product hazards, processing risks and controls, and knowledge of appropriate microbiological sampling and testing protocols. Furthermore, these initial sampling plans were related to the volume of product and size of the processing facility.  An interactive spreadsheet tool for designing sampling monitoring plans for an infant formula process was developed using Microsoft Excel. Additionally, the tool can be used to record qualitative and quantitative sample test results, and to alert the user how the upcoming sampling plan will be changed, if necessary, based on monthly test summaries. The sampling tool provides a simple method for selecting an appropriate environmental sampling plan (samples per zone per month) and provides a rationale and guidance for creating and modifying these plans.  Effective sampling plans and trend analysis of sample test results support the food processors decisions for implementing controls to enhance food safety. / Master of Science in Life Sciences

Forest community characteristics on six forest stands in northeastern Mississippi were investigated. Study sites included two cottonwood stands, two managed hardwood stands, and two unmanaged hardwood stands. Relationships between forest stand components and habitat characteristics were estimated. Measured forest stand characteristics included regeneration, midstory and overstory to estimate species composition and forest structure. Basal area, crown density, standing dead trees and fallen dead tree measurements were also taken in the fall of 2010. A higher amount of tree species in the cottonwood and managed hardwood stands with the unmanaged hardwood stands having the lowest number of tree species. It was also detected that the unmanaged hardwood stands contained a higher DBH of 29.0 cm than the remaining stands. Cottonwood stands had a higher tree per hectare than the other stands. The unmanaged hardwood stands also contained the largest amount of standing and fallen dead trees.

The use of remotely sensed imagery (e.g. Landsat TM) for developing forest inventory strata has become increasingly more common in recent years as data have become more readily available. Errors are inherent with the use of this technology, either from user mis-classification of conditions represented in the imagery or due to flaws in the technology. Knowledge of these errors is important, as they can inflate the variance of inventory estimates. Forest inventory estimates from the Mississippi Institute for Forest Inventory (MIFI) were applied to determine the extent that classification errors affect volume and area estimates. Forest strata (e.g. hardwood, mixed, and pine) determined by the classification of imagery and used for inventory design were compared with field verification data obtained during the inventory. Mis-classified plots were reallocated to their correct strata and both area and volume estimates were obtained for both scenarios (i.e. mis-classified and correctly classified plots). The standard error estimates for mean and total volume decreased when plots were re-allocated to their correct strata. Mis-classification scenarios were then performed, introducing various levels of mis-classification in each stratum. When the scenarios were performed for the Doyle volume unit the statistical efficiencies were larger than for cubic foot volume. Care should be taken when utilizing moderate resolution satellite imagery such as Landsat TM as image mis-classification could lead to large losses in the precision of volume estimates. The increased efficiency obtained from a correct classification/forest stratification scheme, as demonstrated here, could lead to the exploration of additional image classification methods or the use of higher resolution satellite data. Knowledge of these errors in advance could be useful to investors seeking a minimum-risk area for a forest products mill location.

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To overcome some limitations of manual insect sampling in soybeans, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) sampling platform was developed that could collect insects in a sweep net attached to the bottom of a UAV. Before this UAV sampling platform can be used to make management decisions, correlations with manual sweep net and/or drop cloth sampling methods are needed. This will allow action thresholds for the various pests to be calculated for the UAV sampling platform. To make the correlations, 87 soybean fields were sampled during 2020 and 2021 with each of 4 sampling methods, a UAV travelling 50-m, the same UAV travelling 25-m, 25 manual sweeps with sweep net, and a 1.5-row-m sample on a drop cloth. Data were compiled for 12 insect pests of soybeans in 5 families. Significant positive correlations between all sampling methods showed that all methods were useful for sampling all the insects of interest.

Composite sampling can be more cost effective than simple random sampling. This paper considers how to determine the optimum number of increments to use in composite sampling. Composite sampling terminology and theory are outlined and a model is developed which accounts for different sources of variation in compositing and data analysis. This model is used to define and understand the process of determining the optimum number of increments that should be used in forming a composite. The blending variance is shown to have a smaller range of possible values than previously reported when estimating the number of increments in a composite sample. Accounting for differing levels of the blending variance significantly affects the estimated number of increments.

This thesis develops a generalized form of Monte Carlo integration called Resampled Importance Sampling. It is based on the importance resampling sample generation technique. Resampled Importance Sampling can lead to significant variance reduction over standard Monte Carlo integration for common rendering problems. We show how to select the importance resampling parameters for near optimal variance reduction. We also combine RIS with stratification and with Multiple Importance Sampling for further variance reduction. We demonstrate the robustness of this technique on the direct lighting problem and achieve up to a 33% variance reduction over standard techniques. We also suggest using RIS as a default BRDF sampling technique.