In Scotland, bilberry is well known as a member of the dwarf shrub community on moorlands, which provide valuable habitats for wildlife. Recently it has been envisaged that bilberry populations could play an important role in improving the dwarf shrub vegetation in degraded moorland areas. This study was therefore undertaken to investigate the above-ground growth dynamics of bilberry with emphasis on responses to grazing by sheep and seedling establishment. The leaf production of bilberry was increased by higher nitrogen availability. High nitrogen supply also led to greater activation of dormant buds. Abortion of buds was less when nitrogen was continuously supplied. The reproductive capacity of bilberry was shown to be decreased by herbage removal. In contrast flowering was increased following supply of high nitrogen in glasshouse conditions. Almost all the flowers developed into fruits in the field, but a very low production of fruits was reported from bilberry plants that were grown in the glasshouse. Results of a series of laboratory experiments on seed production, germination, seed storage and evaluation of a moorland seed bank confirmed that the scanty seedling recruitment of bilberry was due to the limited production of 'germinable' seeds in berries and risks imposed by the environment after dispersal particularly when seeds are in the litter layer and/or soil. This could suggest that limited picking of bilberry fruits would not have a detrimental effect on establishment of bilberry populations in moorlands. Therefore, areas could be identified which were suitable for public access and berry exploitation in Scotland. The berry production was estimated approximately to be about 3220-9660 tones per year in this zone.

Purpose – The purpose of the thesis is to improve picking operations that kit materials to assembly lines and based on that, develop a model concerning work balancing in relation to varying demand. To achieve this purpose the following questions of issue are answered: 1. What difficulties can exist in picking operations that kit materials to assembly lines? 2. How can difficulties in picking operations that kit materials to assembly lines be resolved? 3. How can a model be developed that facilitates improvements concerning work balancing picking operations in relation to varying demand? Method – Through a summary, major difficulties are identified with support of literature studies, interviews, observations and documentation performed at a case company. The collected data form the base of the developed work-balancing model aiming at allowing users to work balance their picking operations. Findings – Initially, a comparison between literature studies, interviews and observations at the case company revealed five major difficulties: lack of parts, order handling, warehouse maintenance, standardization of picking operations and work balancing. When the first three difficulties are improved, a standardization of processes should be performed in order to achieve process perfection. Furthermore, as a last step in the developed four-step-improvement-process, work balancing could lead to improved resource utilization. Moreover, work balancing the picking operation at the case company through the developed model resulted in a reduced balancing loss of 39%. Research limitations – The conducted case study is structured as a holistic single case study. Since companies differ it would be appropriate to conduct multiple case studies in order to generalize results. Furthermore, the authors want to expand the extensive literature studies to identify all difficulties and alternative solutions. Nevertheless, this is not achieved in relation to the scale of the work and time limitations. Further research – If performing a similar investigation other factors need to be taken into consideration regarding gathering of time studies such as lack of parts, picking errors, deficiencies and other interruptions, this in order to acquire a accurate company reflection due to more precise measurements. Key words – Lean production, work balancing, kitting, improvements, standardization, picking operation, varying demand

Effective interactive computing methods are needed in a number of specific areas of geophysical interpretation, even though the basic algorithms have been established. One approach to raise the quality of interpretation is to promote better interaction between human and the computer. The thesis is concerned with improving this dialog in three areas: automatic event picking, data visualization and sparse data imaging. Fully automatic seismic event picking methods work well in relatively good conditions. They collapse when the signal-to-noise ratio is low and the structure of the subsurface is complex. The interactive seismic event picking system described here blends the interpreter's guidance and judgment into the computer program, as it can bring the user into the loop to make subjective decisions when the picking problem is complicated. Several interactive approaches for 2-D event picking and 3-D horizon tracking have been developed. Envelope (or amplitude) threshold detection for first break picking is based on the assumption that the power of the signal is larger than that of the noise. Correlation and instantaneous phase pickers are designed for and better suited to picking other arrivals. The former is based on the cross-correlation function, and a model trace (or model traces) selected by the interpreter is needed. The instantaneous phase picker is designed to track spatial variations in the instantaneous phase of the analytic form of the arrival. The picking options implemented into the software package SeisWin were tested on real data drawn from many sources, such as full waveform sonic borehole logs, seismic reflection surveys and borehole radar profiles, as well as seven of the most recent 3-D seismic surveys conducted over Australian coal mines. The results show that the interactive picking system in SeisWin is efficient and tolerant. The 3-D horizon tracking method developed especially attracts industrial users. The visualization of data is also a part of the study, as picking accuracy, and indeed the whole of seismic interpretation depends largely on the quality of the final display. The display is often the only window through which an interpreter can see the earth's substructures. Display is a non-linear operation. Adjustments made to meet display deficiencies such as automatic gain control (AGC) have an important and yet ill-documented effect on the performance of pattern recognition operators, both human and computational. AGC is usually implemented in one dimension. Some of the tools in wide spread use for two dimensional image processing which are of great value in the local gain control of conventional seismic sections such as edge detectors, histogram equalisers, high-pass filters, shaded relief are discussed. Examples are presented to show the relative effectiveness of various display options. Conventional migration requires dense arrays with uniform coverage and uniform illumination of targets. There are, however, many instances in which these ideals can not be approached. Event migration and common tangent plane stacking procedures were developed especially for sparse data sets as a part of the research effort underlying this thesis. Picked-event migration migrates the line between any two points on different traces on the time section to the base map. The interplay between the space and time domain gives the interpreter an immediate view of mapping. Tangent plane migration maps the reflector by accumulating the energy from any two possible reflecting points along the common tangent lines on the space plane. These methods have been applied to both seismic and borehole-radar data and satisfactory results have been achieved.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, 2002. / Title from PDF t.p.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, August, 2001. / Title from PDF t.p.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, August, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-125).

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, June, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-64)

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, August, 2004. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-125)

La presente investigación se basó en el análisis del proceso productivo de embolsado de arroz en la empresa Induamerica Chiclayo S.A.C. que actualmente presenta una baja productividad. El proceso de producción no cuenta con una correcta metodología de trabajo, por lo que el análisis consiste en diagnosticar la situación actual calculando indicadores de productividad que permitan medir cuantitativamente el proceso. Para ello se identificó las etapas que conforman el proceso, luego se registró los tiempos que toma ejecutar cada una de estas, los datos muestran que el principal limitante o cuello de botella es la etapa del picking debido a la forma como están distribuidos las áreas de almacenamiento y por la forma como se almacenan los productos terminados han ocasionado que la empresa deje de percibir ingresos por un valor de S/ 848 491,01 soles en un periodo de tres meses. Luego de identificarse el problema se desarrolló una propuesta de mejora siguiendo el método de (Errasti et al), en seguida se realizó los cálculos que permiten comparar indicadores los cuales demuestran que se optimizó el tiempo del picking para el cliente H. Tottus S.A y para Supermercados Peruanos S.A (SPSA) en un 28% y 31 %; el tiempo ahorrado permiten aumentar la capacidad de producción en un 17% lo cual pasa de producir 196 sacos por hora a 219 sacos por hora; con ello se logra aumentar la productividad de la mano de obra en un 14,9%; además el porcentaje de uso de espacio y la capacidad de almacenamiento aumenta en un 25% y 17% respectivamente; el costo por unidad almacenada disminuye en un 8% y el costo del picking para SPSA disminuye en un 28%. Finamente el indicador de productividad del proceso de embolsado aumenta en 0.81%. Lo que representa ingresos mensuales por un valor de S/ 1 060 534.8 soles. De evaluación económica se obtiene que la tasa interna de retorno es del 34,69% asimismo por cada S/ 1,00 invertido se obtendrá S/ 1,0140 además el tiempo de recuperación de la inversión será de 2 años 4 meses aproximadamente. En conclusión indica que la propuesta es viable. / Tesis

I dagsläget pågår reglering gällande hållbarhetsrapportering inom redovisningsområdet i syfte att uppnå harmonisering och jämförbarhet. Tidigare forskning visar att det finns problem med att uppnå jämförbarhet då det finns en flexibilitet i regleringen gällande innehållet i rapporterna som lämnar möjligheter att tillämpa cherry picking. Syftet med denna studie är därmed att öka förståelsen för vilken inverkan lagstiftning kan ha på företags hållbarhetsrapportering. I syftet ingår att särskilt granska potentiella effekter av reglerad hållbarhetsrapportering med avseende på jämförbarhet och cherry picking. Studien klassificeras som tolkande forskning där forskningsansatsen växlar mellan deduktiv och induktiv ansats. Studien kan i huvudsak kategoriseras som en kvalitativ dokumentstudie eftersom empirisk datainsamling sker genom innehållsanalys av remissvar. Även juridisk metod tillämpas då förstudie av lagstiftning presenteras.Teorin består av en allmän referensram, en teoretisk referensram samt tidigare forskning. Den empiriska sammanställningen bygger på kategorier i form av frågeställningar och i analysen ställs teori mot empiri med hjälp av en analysmodell. Både teori och empiri tyder på att det finns begränsningar med att reglera hållbarhetsrapportering som kan ha negativ inverkan på transparens och jämförbarhet i hållbarhetsrapporterna. Det uppmärksammas att flexibilitet i lagstiftning är nödvändig, men att företags möjligheter att välja ut (cherry pick) innehåll i hållbarhetsrapporter bör begränsas, vilket aktualiserar behov av övervakning. Ur ett teoretiskt perspektiv belyser denna studie behovet av att reglera kvalitetssäkring av hållbarhetsrapporter som en övervakningsmekanism. Ur ett praktiskt perspektiv visar studien att företag som omfattas av lag om hållbarhetsrapportering fortfarande kommer att kunna välja vad som lyfts fram i hållbarhetsrapporterna, men att det kan ha negativ inverkan på jämförbarhet. Då studien endast kan bidra med potentiella effekter av lagstiftning kan det vara intressant att i framtida studier utvärdera vilka faktiska effekter som reglerad hållbarhetsrapportering haft på jämförbarhet och cherry picking. / Currently there is an ongoing regulation process of sustainability reporting in order to achieve harmonization and comparability of non-financial information. Previous research indicates that there is a problem with achieving comparability when there is a regulatory flexibility regarding the content in the sustainability reports. The aim of this study is therefore to increase understanding of what impact regulation may have on sustainability reporting. The aim is particularly to review the potential impact of regulated sustainability reporting in terms of comparability and cherry picking. The study is classified as interpretive research and the research approach alternates between deductive and inductive approach. Qualitative document analysis is applied, where the empirical data is collected using content analysis of consultation responses. A pilot study based on legislation has been carried out, which makes legal methodology applicable. The theoretical framework consists of general concepts and notions, established theory formations and previous research. The empirical compilation is based on categories composed as questions and the empirical results are analyzed using an analytical model. Both previous research and empirical results suggest that when it comes to regulation of sustainability reporting there are limitations which can result in a negative impact on transparency and comparability. It has been noted that flexibility in legislation is necessary, but the opportunities for companies to choose (cherry pick) content of sustainability reports should be limited, which raises the need for monitoring mechanisms. From a theoretical perspective, this study highlights the need to legislate quality assurance of sustainability reports as a monitoring mechanism. From a practical point of view, the study shows that companies subject to the legislation of sustainability reporting still will be able to choose what content to emphasize. However, this may result in difficulties considering the comparability between reports.  As the study only can highlight potential effects of legislation, it may be interesting in future studies to evaluate the actual impact of regulated sustainability reporting in terms of comparability and cherry picking.