I dagens samhälle blir det allt mer vanligt att människor lider av psykisk och fysisk ohälsa. Detta belastar sjukvården och många människors lidande kan förebyggas genom metoder såsom trädgårdsarbete. Det finns bevisat att trädgårdsarbete kan förebygga och bota livsstilssjukdomar som exempelvis hjärtsjukdomar, strokes, depressioner, diabetes och fetma. I denna studie har vi utgått från den psykologiska teorin Self-determination theory (SDT) som redogör för människors medfödda psykologiska behov. SDT berör de behov som påverkar människors val, dessa behov är autonomi, kompetens och samhörighet. Det teoretiska ramverket SDT presenterar även två olika motivationsområden, “inre” och “yttre” motivation. Studien undersökte om en applikation kan hjälpa till att skapa en “inre” motivation hos människor så att de blir mer inspirerande att vistas i utemiljöer och utföra trädgårdsarbete. Frågeställningen undersöktes genom en designorienterad ansats där vi utifrån de tre grundläggande psykologiska behoven, autonomi, kompetens och samhörighet, itererade fram sex designförslag. Dessa designförslag är menade att informera hur en e-hälsoapplikation kan designas för att främja inre motivation hos användare. / In today's society, people that suffer from mental and physical illness is becoming even more common. This burdens healthcare and many peoples suffering can be prevented through methods such as gardening. There is evidence that gardening can prevent and cure lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, strokes, depression, diabetes and obesity. In this study, we have worked from the psychological theory Self-determination theory (SDT) which describes people's innate psychological needs. SDT mentions that different needs affect people's choices and these needs are autonomy, competence andrelatedness. The theoretical framework SDT also presents two different areas of motivation, “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” motivation. The study examined whether an application can help create an "intrinsic" motivation in people so they become more inspired to engage in outdoor environments and gardening. The issue was investigated through a design-oriented approach where we, based on the three basic psychological needs, autonomy, competenceand relatedness, iterated six design proposals. These design proposals are intended to inform how an e-health application can be designed to promote intrinsic motivation in users.

This diploma thesis have for object to create a feasibility study focused on change the gardening to the production and implementation company. I have analysed the present structure and condition of management, I have created a proposal of enterprise development for years 2011 till 2013. The proposal’s essence is the enlargement of company capacity and maret share.

The diploma thesis deals at the beginning with the basic terms related with real estate appraisement, description of appreciated locality and description of individual appreciatment methods. In the practical part is described six holiday cottages in cottage area called Tři Dvory. The next their appraisement by using methods – according to regulations, cost method of valuation, the valuation by comparing the price and the valuation of substantive value, to compare choosen ways of valuation of property type holiday cottage in locality Osová Bítýška. The result will be valorization of appropriateness methods used for diferent types of valuation and their evaluation with the best method for choosen property type in the locality.

The diploma thesis deals at the beginnig part with the description of appreciated lokality, explanation of basic terms in real estate appraisement and description of valuation methods, that will be used in the practical part. The practical part deals with the description and valuation of six holiday cottages. In the final part of the thesis deals with the evaluation of the results the used methods and selecting the most suitable method for valuing holiday and gardening cottages in the area.

Thesis (M. Sc.) -- University of LImpopo, 2019 / Refer to document

My work uses plant material and soil as a record of personal, cultural, and ecological history. History is not only held in the buildings and monuments, but in the soil itself. I gather this soil and foliage from both cultivated and uncultivated locations for my artwork. Using traditional domestic techniques of drying and canning, I preserve the materials that I have gathered. These will then be sewn together, cooked, and encrusted into objects. Despite my labor of preserving, these organic art supplies are transient. When made into works of art, they can be viewed in their vulnerable state, fighting against time, as they decay. .

Thesis (Ph.D. (Plant Production)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a widely cultivated crop in many tropical countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Cassava is a staple food security crop for over one billion people worldwide. It is a multi‑purpose and well adapted to different agricultural production systems. Although cassava is adaptable to marginal soils with low fertility, and to irregular rainfall conditions, as it allows a relatively stable productivity and flexibility for harvesting process, the challenges posed by global climate change (both temperature and drought severity increasing) have caused negative impacts on this crop‘s productivity. Given the increasing demand for higher productivity to improve food security and alleviate poverty in the dry prone regions of Africa, there is a concurrent increasing demand to expand production into marginal ecologies and improve its adaptation in such ecologies. Breeding efforts have resulted in the development of high-yielding varieties, but due to late bulking and long time taken before crop is ready for harvest, the improved varieties were not easily adopted by farmers. The complex nature of yield and other productivity traits, coupled with the biology of cassava, make it more challenging to improve the crop. However, biotechnology has revolutionised breeding with the development of advanced molecular tools that have facilitated breeding-by-design approaches leading to effective manipulation of genes for complex traits. The potential and impact of the new tools are now providing a stronger basis to adopt molecular breeding to genetically improve the crop for key traits. The main objectives of the research were to: (i) Develop a mapping population and identify traits driving the physiological basis of drought tolerance in F1 cassava genotypes; (ii) Identify traits linked with early bulking in the F1 population; (iii) Identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for drought tolerance and early bulking in F1 cassava genotypes; and (iv) Estimate the genetic improvement for drought tolerance in the F1 population. Two genotypes (TMS98/0505 and TMS98/0581) with contrasting desirable traits such as high yield in marginal environment, good disease resistance, vigour, and flowering potentials were used in the development of the mapping population used in this study. Results indicate that there was a positive correlation between yield, yield-related traits .and morphological/physiological traits. Principal component analysis identified the scar level, height of stem with leaf, fresh root yield, dry root yield, root number and dry-matter content as traits driving drought tolerance in marginal environment. This study also identified early-bulking cassava varieties in the F1 population and traits associated with early bulking. Fresh root yield was significantly associated with morphological and productivity traits while principal component analysis identified important traits such as root weight, root number, plant biomass, fresh root yield, plant height, , and stem diameter. Composite interval mapping identified 27QTLs and 30 QTLs in the first and second year, respectively, associated with the traits phenotyped in dry savannah ecology of Nigeria, while 16 and 12 QTLs associated with early bulking at 7 MAP were identified in the first and second year. Identification of these loci will aid breeding for drought tolerance and early root bulking in cassava. There was a better performance among traits such as biomass, root number, dry-matter content, number of scars, number of leaves, and length of stem with leaf in the second population (population C) than in the first population (population B). Twenty superior genotypes were selected from population C, which will be incorporated in the breeding programmes for further evaluation and germplasm enhancement. KEY WORDS: Composite interval mapping, Fresh root yield, Manihot esculenta, morphological traits, Population C, physiological traits. / National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike

Este proyecto se encuentra basado en brindar ayuda al público amante de las plantas, ya sea desde crear su vivero en casa, tener una amplia colección de plantas, mantenerlas como decoración para el hogar e inclusive para los que les encanta las plantas pero no saben cómo hacer crecer esa semilla como cuando el sembrío y/o germinación de plantas falla, es por eso que nace la idea de crear PlantApp que es un aplicativo móvil que busca conectar a expertos en jardinería con personas con este interés y que buscan un eficiente proceso de germinación y no presente problemas. Además, la aplicación también ofrece el área de Marketplace en donde se encuentran todos los productos necesarios de jardinería. Por un lado, para determinar que el proyecto sea viable se realizó una investigación cualitativa en las cuales se encontraron algunas barreras para este emprendimiento, una fue la desconfianza de los usuarios hacia la app, porque no es muy conocida en el mercado y además muchos de ellos esperan que cumplan las expectativas y que sea eficaz la comunicación con el experto y encontrar una solución al problema que presente el usuario en este camino. Por otro lado, se realizaron las entrevistas y cotizaciones pertinentes para la investigación cuantitativa del presente proyecto con diferentes tiendas en el rubro de la jardinería y del rubro del desarrollo web para poder llegar a realizar un flujo de caja eficaz a lo largo de los 3 primeros años y encontrar nuestro periodo de recupero óptimo. / This project is based on providing help to the plant-loving public, either from creating a nursery at home, having a large collection of plants, keeping them as home decoration and even for those who love plants but do not know how to grow that seed as when the sowing and / or germination of plants fails, that is why the idea of creating PlantApp was born, which is a mobile application that seeks to connect gardening experts with people with this interest and looking for an efficient germination process and not present problems. In addition, the application also offers the Marketplace area where all the necessary gardening products can be found. On the one hand, to determine that the project is viable, a qualitative research was conducted in which some barriers were found for this venture, one was the distrust of users towards the app, because it is not well known in the market and also many of them expect it to meet the expectations and to be effective communication with the expert and find a solution to the problem that the user presents in this way. On the other hand, we conducted interviews and relevant quotes for the quantitative research of this project with different stores in the field of gardening and web development in order to get to make an effective cash flow over the first 3 years and find our optimal recovery period. / Trabajo de investigación

Urbanization has posed great challenges for environmental sustainability, human health, and wellbeing. One of these challenges is stormwater management stemming from widespread imperviousness in urban areas. For many cities, including New York City, stormwater management issues are being exacerbated by the impacts of climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of wet weather flows in multiple regions of the world. In New York City, stormwater runoff is collected with wastewater sewage in a combined sewer system (CSS) that dates back to over a century ago. At the time the system was put in place, it was designed to transport a combination of storm and wastewater to local treatment plants with a capacity of about twice the dry-weather flow. With the expansion of urbanization and population growth, this outdated system is now easily overwhelmed during wet weather flow. In some areas of the City, rainfall of less than a few millimeters can cause untreated combined storm and waste water in excess of the system’s capacity (Schlanger, 2014), to be discharged directly into a nearby surface water. The combination of storm and wastewater is referred to as combined sewerage, and overflow events are referred to as combined sewer overflows (CSOs). CSOs are a leading source of local water body pollution in NYC, as well as countless other older cities in the US and abroad that operate with combined sewer systems. To solve the CSO problem, many cities, including NYC, have adopted green infrastructure (GI) plans that aim to capture stormwater locally before it can make its way into a CSS. In New York City, right-of-way bioswales (ROWBs) are composed of about 60% of the GI that has been implemented to date (The New York City Department of Environmental Protection, 2020) for stormwater management and CSO reduction. However, despite the popularity of ROWBs as a GI intervention, few research studies have focused on quantifying their hydrological performance. This can be attributed, in part, to the greater complexity of ROWB behavior in comparison to other GI interventions, such as green roofs, which have attracted wider research interest. In addition, because ROWBs are located in the public right-of-way, monitoring and measurement of the behavior of these systems also poses additional challenges. The first study in this dissertation presents three new field methods for quantifying the stormwater retention capacity of individual ROWBs. By applying the field methods at a ROWB site located in the Bronx, NYC, the influence of rainfall characteristics and the monitored soil moisture content of the ROWB on the ROWB’s hydrological performance was explored. A definition of a so-called ‘rain peaky event’ (RPE) was introduced to divide an individual storm into several sub-events. A RPE event-based empirical model for predicting the stormwater retention behavior of the ROWB was then developed based on the monitored soil moisture content of the ROWB and the rain depth recorded every 15 minutes during a storm event. This study found that the predicted stormwater retention volume per rain depth per unit drainage area of the studied ROWB, is not significantly different from that of several NYC based extensive green roofs. However, compared to the drainage area of the green roofs, which is the same as the roof’s surface area, the drainage area of the studied ROWB was about 84 times its surface area. Thus, per unit area, the ROWB was found to have significantly higher (almost two orders of magnitude) total stormwater capacity than the extensive green roofs. The second study in this dissertation assessed the applicability of the physics-based one-dimensional finite element model HYDRUS-1D, for simulating the infiltration process of a ROWB during storm events using long-term monitored soil moisture content as an input. The simulation results from the HYDRUS-1D was validated by field measurement results taken at the ROWB site located in the Bronx, NYC, and compared with the RPE event-based empirical model presented in the first study. The HYDRUS-1D model was found capable of predicting the ROWB’s cumulative stormwater retention at intervals of one minute, as well as the total retention volume of stormwater inflows into the ROWB per rain peaky event, except for events with an average stormwater inflow intensity high than 20 cm/hr. The study revealed that HYDRUS-1D has a tendency to under-predict the retention capacity of the studied ROWB for a storm with an inflow intensity high than 20 cm/hr, thus providing a lower bound on ROWB stormwater retention. The current published version of the HYDRUS-1D was also found to be erroneous when simulating the ROWB stormwater infiltration process in cases where the ROWB’s soil moisture content was close to saturation. The third study investigated the effectiveness of increased perviousness on CSO reduction and water quality improvement in NYC, toward an aim of understanding how GI implementation can improve city-wide stormwater management issues. By using the enterococci (ENT) concentration as an indicator of water quality and the runoff coefficient to represent land perviousness over an area, a random forest classification model was developed for predicting whether a water body is swimmable or not at 50 shore sites along the main waterways of NYC. The model revealed the significant contribution of land perviousness, and hence GI interventions and green space, to CSO pollution reduction for CSO-shed areas located adjacent to slower-moving waterways. For CSO-shed areas located adjacent to faster moving waterways, the influence of land perviousness was found to be negligible. The random forest classification model developed in this third study can be used as a tool for city planners and agencies as part of plans for GI implementation that focus on the optimization of local water quality, among other objectives. Overall, the research presented in this dissertation aimed to provide a deeper insight into the factors governing the hydrological performance of the most prevalent GI in NYC – namely right-of-way bioswales. In addition, the research aimed to provide insight into linkages between land perviousness and CSO pollution levels in NYC local waterways, which can be used to inform the implementation and overall performance of the entire NYC GI system.

Recent studies suggest that integration of photovoltaic panels with green roofs may improve the performance of both. While vegetation may provide a benefit by reducing the net radiation load on the underside of the photovoltaic (PV) panels, it may also affect convective cooling of panels, and consequently, panel efficiency. Both effects likely diminish with the height of the PV panel above the roof, although placing PV panels too close to the vegetation increases the risk of the plants growing over the edges of, and shading the PV panel. There is a gap in the literature with respect to evaluating these competing effects. The present study aims to fill this gap. Experiments were conducted over a two-month period during summer using two identical PV panels within an array of rooftop-mounted panels. These experiments were performed at two heights (18 cm and 24 cm) using three roofing types: white, black and green (vegetated). Results showed that the mean power output of the system in which the PV panel was mounted above a green roof was 1.2% and 0.8% higher than that of the PV-black roof and the PV-white roof at the 18 cm height. At the 24 cm height, the benefit of the green roof was slightly diminished with power output for the PV panel above a green roof being 1.0% and 0.7% higher than the black and white roof experiments, respectively. These power output results were consistent with measured variations in mean panel surface temperatures; the green roof systems were generally cooler by 1.5˚C to 3˚C. The panel surface mean heat transfer coefficients for the PV-green roof were generally 10 to 23% higher than for the white and black roof configurations, suggesting a mixing benefit associated with the roughness of the plant canopy. As expected, the results indicate that the best PV panel performance is obtained by locating the PV panel above a green roof. However, the relative benefits of the roof energy balance diminish with distance between the PV panel and the roof. Moreover, the results of this study showed that the mean power output of the PV panel above the white roof was 0.7% and 0.44% higher than that of the PV panel above the black roof at 18 cm and 24 cm heights, respectively. The results of the power output differences in all the experiments were statistically significant at the 95% confidence interval (P < 0.01).