abstract: The overall purpose of this investigation is to examine the differences between the Best Value Approach and Best Value Procurement, and to test if the Best Value Approach can be used for the successful delivery of roofing systems. Best Value Procurement has been run on delivering roofing services for many years. However, in the last three years, it was discovered that Best Value Procurement was not sustainable and filled with risk. To examine if the Best Value Approach can be used for the successful delivery of roofing systems, the researcher identified a client in need of a new 70,000 sq. ft. industrial roof installation at their facility in the Phoenix Metropolitan area. The client willingly agreed to test the Best Value Approach as the project delivery method. The results of the project were documented, and they show that the Best Value Approach can be successfully implemented on an industrial roofing project with high performance results. The Best Value Approach’s advantage over Best Value Procurement is it addresses risk using “level of expertise” and cost to select a vendor. This paper identifies the differences between the methodologies and shows how the Best Value Approach can be an optimal approach for other roofing projects. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Construction Management 2017

abstract: It has been identified in the literature that there exists a "spatial mismatch" between geographical concentrations of lower-income or minority people who have relatively lower rates of car ownership, lower skills or educational attainment and who mainly rely on public transit for their travel, and low-skilled jobs for which they more easily qualify. Given this situation, various types of transportation projects have been constructed to improve public transit services and, alongside other goals, improve the connection between low-skilled workers and jobs. As indicators of performance, measures of job accessibility are commonly used in to gauge how such improvements have facilitated job access. Following this approach, this study investigates the impact of the Phoenix Metro Light Rail on job accessibility for the transit users, by calculating job accessibility before and after the opening of the system. Moreover, it also investigates the demographic profile of those who have benefited from improvements in job accessibility----both by income and by ethnicity. Job accessibility is measured using the cumulative opportunity approach which quantifies the job accessibility within different travel time limits, such as 30 and 45 minutes. ArcGIS is used for data processing and results visualization. Results show that the Phoenix light rail has improved job accessibility of the traffic analysis zones that are along the light rail line and Hispanic and lower-income groups have benefited more than their counterparts. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.U.E.P. Urban and Environmental Planning 2014

A Thesis submitted to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine.

Memoria para optar al Título Profesional de Ingeniero Agrónomo Mención: Economía agraria / El dátil es una fruta conocida mundialmente, producida y comercializada hace miles de años; en Chile, en cambio, es totalmente desconocida. Estudios y experiencias anteriores en el país revelan la existencia de áreas con condiciones para la producción de dátiles en el norte del territorio, obteniéndose resultados negativos en su comercialización a nivel local y nacional, y señalando al mercado internacional como destino principal. En este contexto, es fundamental caracterizar el mercado mundial del dátil en la actualidad, y evaluar las posibilidades de inserción de Chile en el mercado mundial del producto. Para cumplir con este objetivo, se caracterizó a los mayores países productores, exportadores, importadores y consumidores de dátiles en el mundo en el periodo 2001-2009, y se identificó a los mercados importadores más prometedores, y a los exportadores más competitivos. Además se calculó el costo variable unitario de producción en Chile, usándose diversas herramientas de análisis (FODA, DELPHI y PEST), para evaluar la posibilidad de inserción en el mercado mundial de dátiles, y seleccionar la estrategia más exitosa de desarrollo para este rubro en Chile. A nivel mundial entre los años 2001 y 2009, la producción anual promedio de dátiles llegó a las 6,8 millones de toneladas, creciendo un 1,29% anualmente, siendo Egipto, Arabia Saudita, Irán y los Emiratos Árabes Unidos los productores más importantes. En el mismo periodo, las exportaciones a nivel mundial alcanzaron en promedio las 695 mil Ton/año, originándose principalmente en Túnez, Irán y Emiratos Árabes Unidos, y mostrando un valor unitario FOB promedio que llegó a los US$ 776/Ton. Las importaciones durante este periodo alcanzaron las 666 mil Ton/año en promedio, y fueron generadas mayoritariamente por India, Francia y Emiratos Árabes Unidos, promediando un valor unitario CIF de US$ 663/Ton. Tanto el valor las importaciones como las exportaciones crecieron durante el periodo de análisis, (12,75% y 14,96% respectivamente), observándose que ambas tendieron a aumentar en los últimos 5 meses de cada año, lo que se refleja en mayores valores unitarios durante esa temporada. En el periodo 2001-2007, el consumo mundial de esta fruta alcanzó los 4,8 millones de toneladas en promedio anualmente, creciendo un 1,92% al año, generándose fundamentalmente por Egipto, Arabia Saudita, e Irán. Túnez se visualiza como el exportador más competitivo, pues entre los años 2001 y 2009, el volumen y el valor unitario conseguido por los dátiles tunecinos muestran magnitudes, y tendencias crecientes en ambos ítems superiores al promedio mundial. De forma similar, Alemania se muestra como el importador más prometedor, exhibiendo un valor unitario medio de unos US$ 2.366 (CIF) /Ton. Según los requerimientos edafoclimáticos de esta especie, las condiciones presentes en Chile delimitan un gran área con potencial de cultivo, abarcando todo el litoral de las regiones I, II, III y XV, extendiéndose por los valles transversales de las regiones I y XV. Prácticamente no existe producción de dátiles en Chile. Entre los 2001 y 2009, el consumo es limitado, promediando 11 Ton/año. Las exportaciones llegan en promedio a las 10 ton/año, importándose el doble de este volumen (20 Ton/año). El costo variable unitario de producción calculado en Chile asciende a US$ 2.012 (CIF) por tonelada, observándose como los ítems más importantes los costos por mano de obra, empaque y envío (mercado europeo), dejando un margen de contribución de US$ 354 por tonelada, al acceder al mercado más atractivo (Alemania). La situación del cultivo, sus problemáticas y la realidad de la agricultura en el norte del país, llevan a sostener como estrategia de desarrollo, el establecimiento de esta especie como un cultivo borde o perimetral, para uso productivo y de protección contra el efecto del viento, al menos inicialmente.

abstract: Objective: Migration to the United States (U.S.) has been associated with food insecurity and detrimental changes in diet quality. How these changes affect women in context of their neighborhood food environment has not been thoroughly explored. This study aimed to assess if food security is associated with diet quality and to explore if perceived food availability moderates this purported association in a sample of Mexican immigrant women. Methods: Mexican-born women (n=57, 41±7 years) residing in the U.S. for more than 1 year self-reported food security status, monthly fast-food frequency, and their perception of fruit, vegetables, and low-fat product availability within their neighborhood via survey. Diet was assessed using the Southwest Food Frequency Questionnaire to estimate intake of fruit, vegetables, salty snacks, sugar, and healthy eating index (HEI)-2015 score. Bivariate correlations assessed the relationships between study variables. Independent samples t-tests compared dietary outcomes between women classified as food secure (n=41; high or marginal food security) and food insecure (n=16; low or very low food security). A moderation analysis assessed the effect of the perception of the neighborhood food environment on the relationship between food security and HEI-2015 score. Results: Fifty four percent of participants worked full time and 42% had a monthly household income <$2,000. Time residing in the U.S. was 20±9 years. Relative to women classified as food secure, participants experiencing food insecurity had lower HEI-2015 (61±8 vs. 66±6; p=0.03). Albeit not significantly different, women experiencing food insecurity reported lower intake of fruit (236±178 vs. 294±239 g), vegetables (303±188 vs. 331±199 g), and salty snacks (6±5 vs. 8±10 g), as well as higher intake of sugar (99±55 vs. 96±56 g) and fast food (2.5±2.5 vs. 1.8±1.7 times per month); p>0.05 for all. Among women experiencing food insecurity, there was a trend for a lower perception of neighborhood fruit, vegetable and low-fat product availability being associated with lower HEI-2015 scores (54±6) relative to those who perceived moderate (63±6) or high (65±8) neighborhood availability of those foods (p=0.07). Conclusions: HEI-2015 scores were associated with participants’ food security status. Findings suggest a need for better understanding of how neighborhood food availability may affect diet quality among Mexican immigrant women experiencing food insecurity. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Nutrition 2020

Oil palm can accumulate up to 90% oil in its mesocarp, the highest level observed in the plant kingdom. In contrast, the closely related date palm accumulates almost exclusively sugars. To gain insight into the mechanisms that lead to such an extreme difference in carbon partitioning, the transcriptome and metabolite content of oil palm and date palm were compared during mesocarp development. Compared with date palm, the high oil content in oil palm was associated with much higher transcript levels for all fatty acid synthesis enzymes, specific plastid transporters, and key enzymes of plastidial carbon metabolism, including phosphofructokinase, pyruvate kinase, and pyruvate dehydrogenase. Transcripts representing an ortholog of the WRI1 transcription factor were 57-fold higher in oil palm relative to date palm and displayed a temporal pattern similar to its target genes. Unexpectedly, despite more than a 100-fold difference in flux to lipids, most enzymes of triacylglycerol assembly were expressed at similar levels in oil palm and date palm. Similarly, transcript levels for all but one cytosolic enzyme of glycolysis were comparable in both species. Together, these data point to synthesis of fatty acids and supply of pyruvate in the plastid, rather than acyl assembly into triacylglycerol, as a major control over the storage of oil in the mesocarp of oil palm. In addition to greatly increasing molecular resources devoted to oil palm and date palm, the combination of temporal and comparative studies illustrates how deep sequencing can provide insights into gene expression patterns of two species that lack genome sequence information.

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Brown patch, caused by <i>Rhizoctonia solani</i> Kuhn, is an important disease on tall fescue (TF, <i>Festuca arundinacea</i> Schreb, synonym <i>Schedonorus phoenix</i> (Scop.) Holub). <i>Rhizoctonia zeae</i> Voorhees, a related pathogen, causes similar symptoms. Confusion over which <i>Rhizoctonia</i> species is causing symptoms and subjective visual evaluations of disease severity may contribute to variability in observed BP resistance of TF cultivars at multiple locations. The objectives of this study were to develop an objective digital image analysis (DIA) method for evaluating disease and to use DIA to screen tall fescue plant introductions (PIs) for resistance to <i>R. solani</i> and <i>R. zeae</i>. There was a strong correlation (r² = 0.97) between actual disease severity, measured by applying lesioned tissue of a known area to healthy leaves, and DIA calculated disease severity using scanned images of individual leaves (DIA-IL). The accuracy and precision of visual evaluations and DIA evaluations of entire plants (DIA-WP) were evaluated using DIA-IL as a standard of accuracy. Accuracy of DIA-WP was not significantly different from visual evaluation accuracy. Precision was significantly higher for DIA-WP. Evaluation of PIs and putatively BP resistant TF cultivars for resistance to <i>R. solani</i> and <i>R. zeae</i> using DIA-WP identified clones within each PI that ranked high for resistance to <i>R. solani</i> or <i>R. zeae</i>. No clones were identified with high resistance to both <i>R. solani</i> and <i>R. zeae</i>. Improved precision of DIA evaluation methods and inclusion of <i>R. zeae</i> in BP resistance breeding may decrease variability of TF cultivar performance across locations. / Master of Science

No description available.