MSCAGR (Plant Production) / Department of Plant Production / Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea) is one of the most important legumes cultivated primarily for food by smallholder farmers in Africa. It is an affordable source of protein and contributes to income generation as well as soil fertility. Despite its importance, it is cultivated largely for subsistence purposes in South Africa. Growers use landraces. The agronomic performance of the traditional varieties depends on environmental factors prevailing in a particular area. In Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces, there is no adequate information regarding the performance of bambara groundnut germplasm. The objectives of the study were to (i) determine the agronomic performance of Bambara groundnut across three contrasting locations in Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces over two cropping seasons (ii) determine the genotypic variation in the seed protein level among 42 bambara groundnut genotypes. Forty-two bambara groundnut genotypes were evaluated under three different environmental conditions (Syferkuil, Thohoyandou and Nelspruit) over two (2013/2014, 2014/2015) seasons in a 7 × 6 rectangular lattice design replicated three times. Eight agronomic traits including dry shoot weight (DSW), number of pods per plant (NPP), pod length (PL), number of seed per pod (NSP), pod weight per plant (PWT), seed weight per plant (SWT), 100 seed weight (100-SWT) and seed yield (SYLD) were measured. The results showed that there were significant genotype x location interactions which demonstrated that the prevailing agro-ecological conditions at the test locations were distinct from each other. Five genotypes (‘BGN-19‘, ‘BGN-11‘, ‘BGN-12‘, ‘BGN-4‘and ‘BGN-34‘) attained >25.0% seed yield advantage over the local check ‘BGN-39‘. The results also showed that light brown coloured genotypes attained relatively higher seed yield compared to the other seed colours types. The cultivar superiority index (CSI) showed that three genotypes (‘BGN-12‘, ‘BGN-19’ and ‘BGN-34’) were the most stable across the test locations and attained >900.0 kg/ha on average. There were significantly high positive correlations between PWT and each of the three other attributes (SWT, 100 SWT and SYLD). In terms of seed protein, the results showed a poor relationship between seed yield and protein levels. ‘BGN-12’ which produced the highest seed yield, attained the lowest percent seed protein while genotype. On average, the genotypes contained 21.72% protein. The highest and lowest seed protein quantities were attained by the genotypes ‘BGN-42’ (25.17%) and ‘BGN-12’ (19.89%) respectively. / NRF

The aim of this work is sexual dimorphism quantification of greater sciatic notch profile using 2D geometric morphometrics methods. The curvature was digitized by two different methods - manually with contact digitizer MicroScribe G2 and automatically with software Morphome3cs. Results from each method were comparised and advatages and disadvantages of boths methods were discussed. Target sample of 114 adult specimens of known sex was analyzed. This collection comes from Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and contains 57 male and 57 female hip bones. For the method verification the test smaple contains 112 adult specimens of known sex was used. This collection comes from Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México (UNAM). This collection contains 56 male and 56 female hip bones. The procrustes analysis, principal components analysis, thin plate spine and discriminant function analysis were used for analysis. We could make a detail description of morphologic differences in greater sciatic notch shape of men and women because of shape visualisation and difference of both group was confirmed by discriminant function analysis. Sex assesment achieves accuracy 92,11% - 98,25% in dependence on used methods and number of semilandmarks.

8 Abstract About fifteen years ago, the Czech education system underwent a curricular reform. Thanks to that, schools have gained more freedom, but also responsibility how education will look in their case. The implementation of the reform was accompanied by various expectations but also by misunderstandings and problems. A revision of Framework Education Programme (FEP) is now planned. At the moment, however, it is not yet clear what will be the subject or the goals of this revision. This work aims to examine the current situation in the field of natural science and to subject selected school educational programs (SEP) to quantitative analysis. SEPs are understood here as one of the possible indicators of how some ideas from the Framework Educational Programs for Lower Education were conceived and developed by teachers. The thesis focuses mainly on areas that have been newly accentuated by the curricular reform. These are topics of key competences, interconnection of subjects (either within cross-curricular topics or interdisciplinary links through selected curriculum) and last but not least the topic of methods and forms of teaching and work with the content itself. All online SEPs of Prague lower secondary schools (plus ten unpublished on the school websites) were analyzed, taking into account only the...

<p>Within the last few decades, swine breeding programs have been refined to include pork quality and novel carcass traits alongside growth, feed efficiency, and carcass leanness in the selection programs for terminal sire lines with a goal to produce high quality and efficient pork product for consumers. In order to accurately select for multiple traits at once, it becomes imperative to explore their genetic and biological architecture. The genetic architecture of traits can be explored through the estimation of genetic parameters, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), gene networks and metabolic pathways. An alternative approach to explore the genetic and biological connection between traits is based on principal component analysis (PCA), which generates novel “pseudo-phenotypes” and biological types (biotypes). In this context, the main objective of this thesis was to understand the genetic and biological relationship between three growth, eight conventional carcass, 10 pork quality, and 18 novel carcass traits included in two studies. The phenotypic data set included 2,583 records from female Duroc pigs from a terminal sire line. The pedigree file contained 193,764 animals and the genotype file included 21,344 animals with 35,651 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The results of the first study indicate that genetic progress can be achieved for all 39 traits. In general, the heritability estimates were moderate, while most genetic correlations were generally moderate to high and favorable. Some antagonisms were observed but those genetic correlations were low to moderate in nature. Thus, these relationships can be considered when developing selection indexes. The second study showed that there are strong links between traits through their principal components (PCs). The main PCs identified are linked to biotypes related to growth, muscle and fat deposition, pork color, and body composition. The PCs were also used as pseudo-phenotypes in the GWAS analysis, which identified important candidate genes and metabolic pathways linked to each biotype. All of this evidence links valuable variables such as belly, color, marbling, and leanness traits. Our findings greatly contribute to the optimization of genetic and genomic selection for the inclusion of valuable and novel traits to improve productive efficiency, novel carcass, and meat quality traits in terminal sire lines.<br></p><p></p>

Detta examensarbetes syfte var att undersöka möjligheter till förbättring av hantering av lagernivåer för Bygg Ole Saltsjö-Boo. En kombination av aspekter från både systemteknik och industriell ekonomi har använts. I rapporten applicerades Guaranteed Service-Level modellen baserad på historisk försäljning i kombination relevanta teorier om lagerkostnad. Rapporten var begränsad till att behandla utvalda produkter med hög omsättning från två utvalda leverantörer till Bygg Ole. Efterfrågan för alla produkter i rapporten utom en är icke säsongsberoende. Särskild hänsyn har dessutom tagits till servicenivå, kapitalkostnader och variation i efterfråga. Resultatet gav att en implementering av modellen skulle ge lägre lagernivåer och därmed lägre lagerkostnader. Slutsatsen från rapporten var att modellen skulle kunna implementeras, eventuellt med höga administrativa kostnader i början. Bygg Ole har också en möjlighet att använda ett ordersystem baserat på den matematiska GSL-modellen (Guaranteed Service-Level) i kombination med prognoser över efterfrågan producerade av försäljningsavdelningen på Bygg Ole. Detta skulle potentiellt kunna öka precisionen i lagerhanteringen. Den nuvarande lagerräntan är relativt lågt bestämd och därför minskas de beräknade besparingarna från implementering av modellen. Om lagerräntan skulle vara högre skulle den ekonomiska fördelen med implementeringen vara tydligare. Rekommendationen till Bygg Ole är att tillämpa den rekommenderade GSL-modellen i kombination med ett system för prognos över efterfrågan på några utvalda produkter och sedan utvärdera resultatet. / The aim of this thesis was to examine possible improvements in the inventory management and procedure of ordering at Bygg Ole Saltsjö-Boo. A combination of aspects from both Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering and Management has been used. In the report, a Guaranteed Service-Level model based on historical data of sales in combination with relevant theories about inventory carrying cost has been applied. The study was limited to specific chosen products with high sales from two selected suppliers of Bygg Ole. All these products in the study except one experienced low seasonal variety in demand. Furthermore special consideration was taken to service level, cost of capital and variability of demand. The result was that an implementation of the model would yield lower inventory levels and therefore lower carrying costs of inventory. The conclusion from the report was that the model could be implemented, although with possibly high administrative costs in the beginning. Bygg Ole also has a possibility of using an ordering system based on the mathematical GSL-model (Guaranteed Service-Level) in combination with forecasts of demand conducted by the sales department of Bygg Ole. This could potentially increase precision in the inventory management. The current inventory carrying charge is compounded relatively low and therefore decreases the calculated savings from implementing the model. If the carrying charge would be higher, the benefits of implementation would be more evident. The recommendation for Bygg Ole is to apply the recommended GSL-model in combination with a demand forecast planning system on a few selected products and then evaluate the result.

In today's society, companies are trying to find ways to utilize all the data they have, which considers valuable information and insights to make better decisions. This includes data used to keeping track of timber that flows between forest and industry. The growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) has enabled the development of ML modes to automate the measurements of timber on timber trucks, based on images. However, to improve the results there is a need to be able to get information from unlabeled images in order to decide weather and lighting conditions. The objective of this study is to perform an extensive for classifying unlabeled images in the categories, daylight, darkness, and snow on the load. A comparative study between partitional clustering and competitive learning is conducted to investigate which method gives the best results in terms of different clustering performance metrics. It also examines how dimensionality reduction affects the outcome. The algorithms K-means and Kohonen Self-Organizing Map (SOM) are selected for the clustering. Each model is investigated according to the number of clusters, size of dataset, clustering time, clustering performance, and manual samples from each cluster. The results indicate a noticeable clustering performance discrepancy between the algorithms concerning the number of clusters, dataset size, and manual samples. The use of dimensionality reduction led to shorter clustering time but slightly worse clustering performance. The evaluation results further show that the clustering time of Kohonen SOM is significantly higher than that of K-means.

Vegetation forms the basis for the existence of animal and human. Due to changes in climate and human perturbation, most of the natural vegetation of the world has undergone some form of transformation both in composition and structure. Increased anthropogenic activities over the last decades had pose serious threat on the natural vegetation in Nigeria, many vegetated areas are either transformed to other land use such as deforestation for agricultural purpose or completely lost due to indiscriminate removal of trees for charcoal, fuelwood and timber production. This study therefore aims at examining the rate of change in vegetation cover, the degree of change and the application of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in the dry sub-humid region of Nigeria using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data spanning from 1983-2011. The method used for the analysis is the T-mode orientation approach also known as standardized PCA, while trends are examined using ordinary least square, median trend (Theil-Sen) and monotonic trend. The result of the trend analysis shows both positive and negative trend in vegetation change dynamics over the 29 years period examined. Five components were used for the Principal Component Analysis. The results of the first component explains about 98 % of the total variance of the vegetation (NDVI) while components 2-5 have lower variance percentage (< 1%). Two ancillary land use land cover data of 2000 and 2009 from European Space Agency (ESA) were used to further explain changes observed in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. The result of the land use data shows changes in land use pattern which can be attributed to anthropogenic activities such as cutting of trees for charcoal production, fuelwood and agricultural practices. The result of this study shows the ability of remote sensing data for monitoring vegetation change in the dry-sub humid region of Nigeria.

No description available.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Many hydrocarbon reservoirs are situated in barren sequences that display poor stratigraphic control. Correlation between the wells can become extremely difficult and traditional correlation techniques can prove to be inadequate. Past studies have shown that trace and major element concentrations can be used as a correlation tool. This practice of using geochemical fingerprints to characterize between wells is called Chemostratigraphic analysis. (Pearce et al, 1999) Chemostratigraphy has been recognized as a very important correlation technique as it can be used for rocks of any age, in any geological setting as well as sequences that are traditionally defined as barren. Chemostratigraphic analyses can be used as a means of getting rid of ambiguities within data produced by traditional correlation methods such as Biostratigraphy, Lithostratigraphy and Geophysical Logging. In areas where stratigraphic data is not available it can be used to construct correlation frameworks for the sequences found in the area. The motivation behind this study is that the research is not only worthy of academic investigation, but can also provide the industry with new insights into areas that were previously misunderstood because traditional correlation methods were not adequate. The study area, the Orange basin, is located offshore South Africa and is largely underexplored. The basin, that hosts two gas field namely the Ibhubesi and the Kudu gas fields, has large potential but in the past has not been given due attention with only 34 wells being drilled in the area. The Orange basin has recently been the topic of investigation because of the belief that it may be hosts to more hydrocarbons. This study will utilise Chemostratigraphy to attempt to provide geological information on this relatively under-explored basin. The aim of this research study is to produce a chemostratigraphic framework -scheme for the Orange Basin in order to facilitate reservoir scale interwell correlation. The Objectives of this research study will be to identify chemostratigraphic units or indices, to prove the adequate use of chemostratigraphy as an independent correlation technique and to integrate the chemostratigraphy and petrophysical characteristics of the four wells to facilitate lithological identification. Element distribution Analysis was done on the data. This brought to the fore. the dominance of Si02 across the samples for the four wells. Ah03 concentrations were relatively high across the wells and were indicative of the clay rich nature of the samples. This also indicated that the samples were relatively immature. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) plots were constructed for the purpose of identifying diametrical relationships between the elements or element clusters. These diametric relationships were in turn used to calculate the geochemical indices. The relative positions of the elements on the PCA plot highlighted the presence of alternating units of sandstone, feldspathic sandstone, calcareous clays and non calcareous clays within the samples. The PCA plots displayed diametric relationships between Si02 and the carbonate mineral clusters, Si02 and the clay mineral clusters, Nd and V, Nb nad Ni, Zr and Co, Nb and Zn. Si02 and Co, Y and Pb, Zr and Sr, and lastly Nb and Ra / Downhole plots were constructed to illustrate recognizable trends in the PCA plot and to relate this to the occurrence of various lithologies in the wells. Based on the element distribution patterns, PCA plots and Major and Trace element downhole profiles geochemical indices were calculated. They are grouped into three clusters, ratios indicative of the presence of clean sandstones (High Si02/Ah03, Si02/Co, Zr/Co, Zr/Sr, YlPb and low Nd/V values); ratios indicative of the presence of clays (Low Si02/Ah03, Fe203/Ah03, Si02/Co, Zr/Co, YlPb and high Rb/Zn values); thirdly those indicative of the presence of feldspathic sandstones (High Na201K20) and lastly those indicative of the presence of carbonates (low Zr/Sr). Using the geochemical Indices six units were identified in Well A_AI, nine in A-II and 8 iin Well A-UI and A-LI. Four units (A-D) were found to correlate across the wells. I Well log interpretation for the Wells A-AI, A-II, A-Lland A-UI started with a general overview of the log responses. The log responses for the four wells highlighted the presence of sandstones, argillaceous sandstones, shales and shale components. Geophysical units were identified using the logs responses. Six units were identified in Well A-AI, nine in Well A-II and eight in Wells A-LI and A-UI. These units coincide with the units identified using Chemostratigraphic analysis. Neutron - Density cross plots were constructed for each unit across the four wells. The plotting of the points on the Neutron - Density cross plots for the wells A-AI, A-II, A-LI and A-UI indicated the presence of sandstones, shales or greywackes and either limestones and dolomites but from the geochemistry it is known that neither limestone nor dolomite is present in the wells and it was thus inferred that the points plotting between the limestone and dolomite lithology curves indicated the presence of calcareous shales. M-N plots were constructed for each unit. The patterns exhibited by the points on the M-N plots for the wells was indicative of the presence calcareous clays, sandstones, greywacke and shales. The Chemostratigraphic and Petrophysical results produced accurate and comparable results, however, the Chemostratigraphic analysis provided finer details regarding the lithology of the units. Based on the well log responses no distinction could be made between highly feldspathic sandstone, arkosic and argillaceous sandstone, while these distinctions were possible when analyzing the samples using Chemostratigraphy. The geochemistry was capable of providing signatures in areas where the wireline tools malfunctioned. The logs, on the other hand, sheds light on properties such as porosity and permeability of the rocks which cannot be obtained accurately from the geochemistry. When comparing the correlation capabilities of these two techniques, the one based on geochemical signatures and the other based on the responses obtained from wireline tools, it is important to acknowledge that both these techniques has strengths and weaknesses. The best of both these techniques can only be fully utilised when either technique is used in conjunction with other techniques. With respect to the Orange Basin, located offshore South Africa, it can be concluded that the dominant lithologies in the basin are sandstones, argillaceous sandstones, shales, feldspathic and arkosic sandstones and clays. In terms of petroleum prospectivity the sandstones in Wells A-AI, A-II, A-UI and A-LI could possibly be considered to be reservoirs and the shales could be considered to be seals or source rocks, depending on the organic matter content. On the down side, the sandstones display relatively poor permeabilities and the porosities are variable. The density logs indicate that the sandstones are highly compacted and that could be an indication of poor porosities but more research needs to be done. Another factor highlighted from the research is the presence of alternating lithologies. This means that the reservoirs are compartmentalised and that the area has a high degree of heterogeneity.

Background: Canadian youth obesity, and comorbidities, have paralleled trends in consuming nutrient-poor foods marketed by the food industry. In Canada, food marketing is largely self-regulated by the food industry under the Canadian Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CAI). Methods: Public television programming records benchmarked the volume of food advertising targeted to preschoolers, children, adolescents, and adults on Canadian television. Food advertising rates and frequencies were compared by age group, television station, month, food category, and company, using regression modelling, chi-square tests and principal component analysis. Results: Food advertising rates significantly differed by all independent variables. Fast food companies dominated advertising during adolescent-programming while food and beverage manufacturers dominated advertising during programming to all other age groups. CAI signatories contributed more advertising during children’s programming than non-signatories. Conclusion: Failings of self-regulation in limiting food advertising to Canadian youth demonstrate the need for statutory restrictions to rectify youth’s obesogenic media environments and their far-reaching health effects.