In this thesis, the goal was to implement a method to do partial segmentation for general 3D volumetric datasets such as mummies, clay figurines or animal bodies. There are different approaches for segmenting volumes, such as automatic methods, semi-automatic methods and interactive methods. However, no automatic algorithm was found that could successfully segment any general 3D volume with high precision. Instead, the chosen approach are segmentation tools which allows the user to quickly and intuitively do partial segmentation from a 3D volume. The tools consist of a interactive 3D brush, a transfer function editor and a semi-automatic flood fill tool which performs region growing in 3D. User studies were carried out in order to evaluate the speed and effectiveness of the segmenting tools compared to the conventional method of segmenting using a stack of 2D images. Based on the user studies the results shows that the proposed method is faster compared to the old method as long as high precision is not required.

Almonds are one of the first commercial nut trees to bloom in early spring and thus are susceptible to temperature patterns prior to and during bloom which affect bloom timing, bloom length, pollination and nut set. Data used in this project include yearly dates of 90% bloom from 1996-2006, bloom length in days and final crop yields in pounds per tree for Nonpareil and Mission varieties. Data were collected from the University of California Cooperative Extension reports on the 1993-2006 Regional Almond Variety Trials in Butte, San Joaquin and Kern Counties. Temperature pattern models in the form of Chill Hours (Chill Hour Model), Chill Units (Chill Unit Model), Chill Portions (Chill Portion Model) and Growing Degree Hours (GDH°) (Heat Model) prior to bloom were used to predict the date of 90% bloom for each variety, site and year. Temperature model results were compared to averaged actual dates of 90% bloom by site and variety used to predict bloom timing (Calendar Model). The relationship between bloom length in days and GDH° during bloom and the relationship between bloom length, GDH° during bloom and final crop yields were also evaluated. The average error in predicting the 90% bloom date for both Nonpareil and Mission was smaller using the Calendar Model compared to the four temperature pattern models. The Chill Portion model did not have significantly higher average error in predicting the date of 90% bloom than the Calendar model in Nonpareil. The Chill Unit and Chill Portion models had smaller errors in predicting 90% bloom date than the Chill Hour or GDH° model in Mission. GDH° during bloom was positively correlated with bloom length. GDH° during the first four days of Nonpareil bloom was significantly correlated with crop yields, with each additional GDH° during bloom correlated with a 0.4 lbs./tree increase in crop yield. Further research is needed on specific temperature thresholds and their relationship to physiological changes during almond bloom and pollination. The practice of monitoring chilling and heat accumulation will allow growers to anticipate bloom, prepare to optimize bee activity during bloom, and plan for possible crop yield variations due to adverse weather conditions during bloom in almonds.

The direct effects of chemically- induced reduced transpiration on soil moisture were studied in a sub -watershed of the greater Logan River drainage. No statistically significant differences occurred among the total amounts of water transpired by the treated and control units. The seasonal low points of soil moisture, in September, showed no significant differences in final moisture retention for the two years studied, either for the control or the treated portions of the study site . The 1967 season showed a lag in soil moisture depletion compared to the 1966 season. Although a later spring in 1967 may have aided in the explanation of this lag, there was good reason to believe that the antitranspirant treatment incurred a significant delay in water use. There was evidence that more effective application of chemicals might have given more positive results.

The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is rising dramatically each year. Increases are certain to influence growth of C3 plants. This thesis focuses on the growth and development of rice (Oryza sativa L. cv. Jarrah).The major questions addressed in this thesis were whether elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations would : 1/ increase grain yield where the soil was flooded or unflooded under conditions of varying phosphorus supply; 2/ change the timing of development; 3/ alter the partitioning of dry weight and nutrients between the roots and shoots; and, 4/ influence grain quality. The mechanisms underlying growth and developmental changes at elevated CO2 were also investigated. After experimentation, it is concluded that the grain yield of rice will increase as the atmospheric CO2 concentration rises even when phosphorus supplies are low. The largest response to rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations will occur under dryland conditions but increases of up to 60 per cent are likely in flooded rice. Importantly, there is likely to be a reduction in the life cycle of rice crops as the CO2 concentration rises. This would have the advantage that more crops could be sown in one season. The quality of the rice grain produced at high CO2 concentrations will also change, with milling quality appearance likely to improve. The cooked rice will be firmer. Experiments also showed that rice grown in flooded soil at different CO2 concentrations is an excellent system for investigating the control of plant growth and development, particularly the influence of hormones. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Following concerns expressed by canegrowers in the Burdekin River Irrigation Area (BRIA) of Northern Queensland regarding rising groundwater and salinity the Department of Primary Industries instigated action to investigate and develop Best-On-Farm Water Management Practices. The purposes of this project were to improve landholder awareness of water use to maximise cane production while minimising the likelihood of salinity and changes in the groundwater balance, and to facilitate the development of soil and water management practices on a range of soils in the BRIA. The project lasted for 12 months, and this short duration affected research methodologies and techniques selected. Groups of farmers were organised, participation was good and useful outcomes resulted. These included: improved landholder awareness of the relationships between salinity, water use and groundwater; identification of a range of best practices; identification of social theories about water management practices; development of an extension model based on the value of indigenous knowledge; equality between government and farmers; examination of underlying assumptions in relation to water management by both government and farmers; identification of issues for future research and extension. / Master of Science (Hons)

<p>This thesis is aiming to describe and understand the access to and evolvement of necral land (burial and crematory grounds) in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania and one of the most rapid growing cities in Africa. The study is based on field work conducted in Kinondoni District during the spring of 2010. It could partly be described as intensive research, because it is done like a pioneer study, trying to describe and understand a phenomena; not so much trying to find out how widespread the phenomena is. The data was primarily produced through interviews with persons representing different actors. The result from the field study is that even if there are differences in costs and needs for permits to access the land, it seems like there are ways for everyone to bury or cremate a dead body. One common way of manage costs is to collect financial contributions from friends, family and neighbours. The problem however is the evolvement, where centrally located burial grounds are considered full but still used and the cemetery established by the municipality outside the centre is not used by city dwellers, because of the lack of information and the transportation cost.</p>

<p>Many Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) today face problems with growth and profitability due to lack of management training within the managerial staff. This study aims to create a holistic model for how to construct a Management Training Plan for such companies and test this model on a case company.</p><p>The study found four main phases in the creation of a training plan, and thus, the model consists of four parts. The first part deals with the motivation of the trainees to go through with the training. The second part deals with deciding the content of the training plan. The third part looks at how the training plan should be designed. The fourth part looks at how to evaluate the training after it has been conducted.</p><p>The main findings are that the most interesting areas of training for the managers at Cypress Security are customer communication and financial management. The training should be a mixture between group discussions and self-study material.</p><p>We believe the results in this study should prove useful when constructing training programs for other companies since the model can be applied to almost any type of company. By providing specialized management training of this kind, SMEs reduce the need for hiring and recruiting managers with academic background and allows them to recruit from within.</p>

Rapid judgments about the properties and spatial relations of objects are the crux of visually guided interaction with the world. Vision begins, however, with essentially pointwise representations of the scene, such as arrays of pixels or small edge fragments. For adequate time-performance in recognition, manipulation, navigation, and reasoning, the processes that extract meaningful entities from the pointwise representations must exploit parallelism. This report develops a framework for the fast extraction of scene entities, based on a simple, local model of parallel computation.sAn image chunk is a subset of an image that can act as a unit in the course of spatial analysis. A parallel preprocessing stage constructs a variety of simple chunks uniformly over the visual array. On the basis of these chunks, subsequent serial processes locate relevant scene components and assemble detailed descriptions of them rapidly. This thesis defines image chunks that facilitate the most potentially time-consuming operations of spatial analysis---boundary tracing, area coloring, and the selection of locations at which to apply detailed analysis. Fast parallel processes for computing these chunks from images, and chunk-based formulations of indexing, tracing, and coloring, are presented. These processes have been simulated and evaluated on the lisp machine and the connection machine.

The thesis explores how the way athletically active old men and women make sense of their acting-space affects their participation in competitive sports and conversely how their participation in competitive sports affect their sense-making process and acting-space. It puts emphasis on the sociological point of intersection of three different research fields; sports science, critical gerontology and gender studies. Concretely, it is inspired by grounded theory research design and based on interviews with twenty-two athletically active men and women over the age of 65. The thesis consists of four articles, and together these show that men and women experience certain constraints of acting-space in the context of competitive sports, which primarily seem to be related to norms of age and gender. At the same time, the thesis shows that by practising sports old adults, especially old women, are able to transgress these constraints and possibly challenge dominant constructions of age and gender.

This thesis is aiming to describe and understand the access to and evolvement of necral land (burial and crematory grounds) in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania and one of the most rapid growing cities in Africa. The study is based on field work conducted in Kinondoni District during the spring of 2010. It could partly be described as intensive research, because it is done like a pioneer study, trying to describe and understand a phenomena; not so much trying to find out how widespread the phenomena is. The data was primarily produced through interviews with persons representing different actors. The result from the field study is that even if there are differences in costs and needs for permits to access the land, it seems like there are ways for everyone to bury or cremate a dead body. One common way of manage costs is to collect financial contributions from friends, family and neighbours. The problem however is the evolvement, where centrally located burial grounds are considered full but still used and the cemetery established by the municipality outside the centre is not used by city dwellers, because of the lack of information and the transportation cost.