Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-109). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

In the year 2003, twenty seven pieces of Shan¡¦s bronzes pit with inscriptions were excavated in Yangjiachun village of Mexian County, Shannxi. Except for the work in mid Western Zhou The Tien Yu, all of them were cast in late Western Zhou. The most noteworthy items among these bronzes are The Lai Ding Tripod of the 42th Year, the 43th Year and The Lai Pan. The former two were cast for King¡¦s awards for Lai¡¦s military contributions, plus the honorary title Li-Ren that conferred to Lai in the following year. By contrast, the later was to record Lai¡¦s family history about his ancestors¡¦ loyalty to Kings of Western Zhou, which also explained his succession to fathers¡¦ position in the government. Since the Lai¡¦s bronzes pit got excavated, many studies have addressed to them such as exegetics of inscriptions, history of Western Zhou, or sociopolitical system in that era. However, there are still some issues remained controversial including decipherment of particular texts, the history, and nature of specific government positions. Therefore, we investigated issues over these bronzes with reference to previous findings, and the theses are presented here: Our introduction can be found in Chapter 1, and in Chapter 2 we selected some meaning-unsolved individual inscriptions on The Lai Ding Tripod of the 42th Year, the 43th Year as well as the Lai Pan for interpretation. Chapter 3 is an in-depth association for Shan¡¦s family, in which we connected the inscriptions of Lai¡¦s name and his ancestors in the Lai Pan with other possible associated bronzes for inductive reasoning. In Chapter 4, we discussed some questions related to the three bronzes mentioned above which included figures, geographical names, and nobility succession system of the Western Zhou. All our findings were summarized in Chapter 5, the conclusion. We hope that this article can provide some suggestions to the lost parts of history documents.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Guelph, 2001. / Author requested name be removed from all areas of the catalog record. Includes bibliographical references.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Les modèles empiriques simulant le résultat de l'interaction du signal radar sur les cultures agricoles utilisent peu la constante diélectrique foliaire comme paramètre intrant contrairement aux modèles théoriques, à cause de la difficulté à mesurer cette constante diélectrique. Notre projet porte sur la technique et la mesure in situ de la constante diélectrique foliaire. Puis, nous avons évalué le potentiel d'explication de la variation du coefficient de rétrodiffusion d'un signal radar (bande C) sur une culture de maïs par des paramètres tels que la constante diélectrique, l'humidité gravimétrique et l'indice de surface (LAI) des feuilles de maïs. Nos analyses ont démontré que la partie réelle diélectrique foliaire expliquait mieux la variation du coefficient de rétrodiffusion que l'humidité gravimétrique des feuilles de maïs.Les résultats de régression multiple ont conduit à l'élaboration d'un modèle simple, fonction de la partie réelle diélectrique, de LAI et de l'angle d'incidence. Le modèle explique 60 % à 90 % de la variation du coefficient de rétrodiffusion. Cependant, l'observation des résultats indique qu'il manque un terme géométrique fonction de l'angle de visée, par rapport aux rangs de culture, pour la configuration de polarisation VV. La constante diélectrique a été mesurée directement sur les feuilles, sans perturber leur état naturel, à l'aide d'une sonde expérimentale. Le procédé technique étant différent des études antérieures (perturbation de l'état des feuilles), l'intensité des constantes diélectriques mesurées est inférieure à celle des modèles existants. Cela s'explique par la différence d'énergie potentielle de l'eau libre contenue dans l'échantillon, entre les deux états (échantillon perturbé ou non) : c'est-à-dire une variation de la quantité de molécules d'eau disponibles pour interagir avec l'énergie d'excitation du signal radar. Des études futures reliant la constante diélectrique avec l'énergie potentielle de l'eau libre des feuilles permettraient de mieux comprendre le phénomène d'interaction interne du signal radar avec la végétation.

Remote sensing provides methods to infer vegetation information over large areas at a variety of spatial and temporal resolutions that is of great use for terrestrial carbon cycle modeling. Understory vegetation and foliage clumping in forests present a challenge for accurate estimates of vegetation structural information. Multi-angle remote sensing was used to derive and refine new information about the vegetation structure for the purpose of improving global leaf area index mapping. A field experiment with multi-angle, high resolution airborne observations over modified and natural backgrounds (understory, moss, litter, soil) was conducted in 2007 near Sudbury, Ontario to test a methodology for the background reflectivity retrieval. The experiment showed that it is feasible to retrieve the background information, especially over the crucial low to intermediate canopy density range where the effect of the understory vegetation is the largest. The tested methodology was then applied to background reflectivity mapping over conterminous United States, Canada, Mexico, and Caribbean land mass using space-borne Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) data. Important seasonal development of the forest background vegetation was observed across a wide longitudinal and latitudinal span of the study area. The previous first ever global mapping of the vegetation clumping index with a limited eight-month multi-angular POLDER 1 dataset was expanded by integrating new, complete year-round observations from POLDER 3. A simple topographic compensation function was devised to correct negative bias in the data set cause by topographic effects. The clumping index reductions can reach up to 30% from the topographically non-compensated values, depending on terrain complexity and land cover type. The new global clumping index map is compared with an assembled set of field measurements, covering four continents and diverse biomes. Finally, inclusion of the new vegetation structural information, including background reflectivity and clumping index, gained from the multi-angle remote sensing was then shown to improve the performance of LAI retrieval algorithms over forests.

Buildings are one of the major consumers of energy and make up a considerable portion in the generation of greenhouse gases. Green roofs are regarded as an appropriate strategy to reduce the heating and cooling loads in buildings. However, their energy performance is influenced by different design parameters which should be optimized based on the corresponding climate zone. Previous investigations mainly analyzed various design parameters in a single climate zone. However, the interaction of parameters in different climate zones was not considered. Also, the studies have been conducted mostly for commercial or residential buildings. Among different building types, schools with large roof surface are one of the major consumers of energy in North America. However, the literature review shows the lack of study on the effect of green roof on the thermal and energy performance of this type of building. This study performs a comprehensive parametric analysis to evaluate the influence of the green roof design parameters on the thermal or energy performance of a secondary school building in four climate zones in North America (i.e. Toronto, ON; Vancouver, BC; Las Vegas, NV and Miami, FL). Soil moisture content, soil thermal properties, leaf area index, plant height, leaf albedo, thermal insulation thickness and soil thickness were used as variables. Optimal parameters of green roofs were found to be closely related to meteorological conditions in each city. In terms of energy savings, the results show that the light substrate has better thermal performance for the uninsulated green roof. Also, the recommended soil thickness and leaf area index in the four cities are 0.15 m and 5, respectively. The optimal plant height for the cooling dominated climates is 0.3 m and for the heating dominated cities are 0.1 m. The plant albedo had the least impact on the energy consumption while it is effective in mitigation effect of heat island effect. Finally, unlike the cooling load which is largely influenced by the substrate and vegetation, the heating load is considerably affected by the thermal insulation instead of green roof design parameters. / Graduate

The use of airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) as a direct method to evaluate forest canopy parameters is vital in addressing both forest management and ecological concerns. The overall goal of this study was to develop the use of airborne LiDAR in evaluating canopy parameters such as percent canopy cover (PCC) and leaf area index (LAI) for mixed pine and hardwood forests (primarily loblolly pine, Pinus taeda, forests) of the southeastern United States. More specific objectives were to: (1) Develop scanning LiDAR and multispectral imagery methods to estimate PCC and LAI over both hardwood and coniferous forests; (2) investigate whether a LiDAR and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data fusion through linear regression improve estimates of these forest canopy characteristics; (3) generate maps of PCC and LAI for the study region, and (4) compare local scale LiDAR-derived PCC and regional scale MODIS-based PCC and investigate the relationship. Scanning LiDAR data was used to derive local scale PCC estimates, and TreeVaW, a LiDAR software application, was used to locate individual trees to derive an estimate of plot-level PCC. A canopy height model (CHM) was created from the LiDAR dataset and used to determine tree heights per plot. QuickBird multispectral imagery was used to calculate the NDVI for the study area. LiDAR- and NDVI-derived estimates of plot-level PCC and LAI were compared to field observations for 53 plots over 47 square kilometers. Linear regression analysis resulted in models explaining 84% and 78% of the variability associated with PCC and LAI, respectively. For these models to be of use in future studies, LiDAR point density must be 2.5 m. The relationship between regional scale PCC and local scale PCC was investigated by resizing the local scale LiDAR-derived PCC map to lower resolution levels, then determining a regression model relating MODIS data to the local values of PCC. The results from this comparison showed that MODIS PCC data is not very accurate at local scales. The methods discussed in this paper show great potential for improving the speed and accuracy of ecological studies and forest management.