This thesis is a journey that unfolds alongside the transformations of a river during springtime. Moods and movements captured by Ted Hughes in his poem Stump Pool in April inspire a series of explorations that set out to express the affective vectors of the river???s becoming through sculpture and architecture. The thesis is a manifestation of this search. Arranged as a narrative in five chapters, each offers an account of the emergence of the five works. The first three are a sculptural response to each stanza of the poem: Prometheus manifests the river???s phase-shift from ice to water, Sky Burial from water to steam and Icarus the passage of steam rising towards the sun. Prometheus??? torment, the tearing dispersal of the body during a funerary ritual and the ecstatic flight of Icarus are caught through three material and fire based experiments. Chapter four reflects on these works while investigating the conception and construction of the Bruder Klaus Chapel by the renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The fifth chapter moves the exploration from sculpture to architectural design deploying the lessons learned from the previous works. Forces of descent rather than ascent now inform the creation of a torrential void, A Lover???s Enclosure. The trajectory in each work and through the series is guided by what feels right, by the unpredictability of the material imagination, working by hand, and by forming and re-forming reoccurring themes as they reverberate and transform in a continuum of affective transformations.

During the summer of 1982, trapping and vegetation surveys were carried out on permanent study plots within 6 of 7 different types of plant communities within the South-eastern Manitoba Taiga, which had been subjected to fire in May of 1980. A unique feature of this study area was the existence of an 8 year pre-fire data base. A total of 129 mammals, 123 of which are typified as "small mammals" were captured in 2100 trap nights. The number captured in each plant community were as follows: Jack Pine Ridge 19, Alder Jack Pine Ecotone 30, Alder Tamarack Bog 20, Jack Pine Sand Plain 5, Black Spruce Bog 5, Aspen Upland 21, Black Spruce Tamarack Bog 29. Pre-fire small mammal data for the permanent study plots were available, and up to ten years of data were used for comparative evaluation of fire effects. The effects of the fire vary according to the severity of the burn, but small mammal population numbers and biomass estimates for most plots increased the fall immediately after the burn, and then dropped in 1981. Specifically, Clethrionomys gapperi and Peromyscus maniculatus increased with the fire, and Sorex cinereus continued to fluctuate. Three growing seasons after the fire, population numbers and biomass estimates have declined, but are equal to or above minimum pre-fire levels. The effects of fire on other local wildlife, such as ungulates, fur bearers, and birds are discussed briefly. Current vegetation data were compared with pre-fire data and some basic post-fire reproductive strategies were observed. Pioneer or fugitive species with numerous light-weight wind-disseminated seeds, or those with Long-lived seeds stored in soil seed banks, which grow and mature rapidly were present. Frugivores are also suspected to have been an agent of post-fire seed dispersal. Vegetative reproduction through root sprouting or suckering was a dominant strategy observed on some plots. Relatively slow growing, late maturing species with larger, heavier seeds were also observed, and these are expected eventually to regain their upper canopy status. In an attempt to place a dollar value on the study area, the user's willingness to pay for benefits from use of the resources of the area, was combined with the potential attainable revenue from exploitation of local resources. The combined value is calculated to be in excess of $597,208.93. Interest in timber resources 80 years hence could present a conflict for land use management. It is recommended that the Taiga Biological Station study area be protected in its natural state, with controlled educational, research, traditional, and recreational activities permitted.

No description available.

Fire is the most significant natural disturbance agent in the MSdm biogeoclimatic subzone and has a determinant role in the dynamics of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta ssp. latifolia Engelm.ex S.Wats.) dominated forests. Fire severity is a controversial term that usually refers to a qualitative measure of the fire effects on soil and vegetation and ultimately on ecosystem sustainability. The main objective of the thesis was to evaluate methods for quantifying and modelling the effects of fire severity on live biomass and dead organic matter and post-fire coarse woody debris (CWD) dynamics. A review of the representation of fire in models was conducted and several of the most commonly used fire models in North America have been described in terms of fire severity representation. The potential for developing the fire severity concept as a fire effects descriptor in an ecosystem management model were assessed. Severity matrices summarizing the probabilities of occurrence for fires of varying severity were constructed for two sites in the MSdm biogeoclimatic subzone of British Columbia, using weather data and past fire records. These matrices provide information to improve fire representation in the ecosystem based model FORECAST by quantifying the effects of fire severity on dead and live biomass components. Although this represents only a preliminary step, the severity matrix approach appears toprovide a viable methodology for improving the representation of fire effects in FORECAST. Patterns of post-fire coarse woody debris (CWD) accumulation were also assessed in the context of model development. Data were collected from a chronosequence of fire affected sites in the MSdm subzone of the TFL 49 Kelowna. The ability of the FORECAST model to simulate accumulation patterns in CWD and soil organic matter and nitrogen following fire was tested by comparing model outputs with field data. The evaluation of the model against chronosequence-derived data highlighted the fact that caution needs to be taken when using such data for model testing. The very slow recruitment pattern for new CWD illustrates the need to retain sources of CWD recruitment following fire by not salvage logging all killed trees and/or surviving live trees.

Initial fire spread is composed of the processes of ignition, flame spread, and burning rate. The effects of a material's thermal characteristics and burning behaviors on flame spread are important. However, many zone and field models of compartment fire can not predict spread on objects accurately enough due to the neglect of these behaviors in their fire growth sub-models. As a result, a model dedicated to the early stage of fire growth is needed to provide the accuracy necessary for competent assessment of the response of safety systems, as well as satisfying the requirement for a comprehensive risk assessment. This study is undertaken to investigate the use of formulations outlined by previous researchers by review of the theory of flame spread models. A computer model is proposed that can determine the impact of the material properties with emphasis on practical engineering analyses. Through this computer program, we can obtain the pyrolysis zone, the flame height, the burnout time, the burnout portion, the mass loss rate, total heat release rate, and mean flame velocity of a material at specific time. The effort in this study has been focused on developing a relatively simple model for fire spread on a vertically oriented material which contains the most common aspect of fire growth theory such as the transit burning rate, material properties, burner affection, flame spread rate and burnout. This study used Vc++ as a program development platform which has an easy to use interface and reasonable execution times. The model is a combination of two sub-models. One is to simulate the flame spread on horizontal surface. The other is to simulate it on a vertical surface. In two sub-models, the spread process model is two-dimensioned yet symmetric. By using empirical physical equations and correlations, this model predicted flame spread by solving a set of closed coupled correlations simultaneously. Each sub-model contains several functions: ignition, mass loss rate calculation, burning area and the surface temperature calculation. The results of this proposed computer model are compared with experimental studies involving a limited number of comparisons of experimental data for early stage vertical flame spread. The model calculations and experimental measurements of the mass loss rate, heat release rate, and radiation flux were found to be in good agreement. Recommendations are made for further development of the more complex initial stage fire growth model.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xvii, 180 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-173).

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2006. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Science and Engineering. Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-243).

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-103). Also available via the Internet.