Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2003. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-206). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 1989. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 82-83a). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 1983. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-71). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.F.)--Oregon State University, 1980. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 117). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 1990. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

The forest products industry often uses intermediate-support cable logging systems to transport logs from the harvest site to a staging area. A method is presented to assist in the analysis and design of these cable systems. The method determines tensions in individual cables, forces on and stresses in the support trees, and the geometry of the system under load. Static equilibrium and cable length compatibility are used to generate a system of simultaneous equations. This system of coupled, non-linear algebraic equations is solved numerically using the Newton-Raphson algorithm. A good, automated initial guess for the unknown quantities, based on the physics of the problem, is provided. A model of an example intermediate support cable logging system is analyzed by the proposed approach and the resulting behavior discussed. The method includes the effects of catenary sag and elastic stretch in the cables, and elastic behavior in the support trees. Friction is ignored in the formulation. The catenary and elastic stretch methodologies for the cables are each demonstrated on a single cable span as well as on a demonstration cable system. The effect of the support tree flexibility and cable mass are found to be significant on the response of the cable logging system. The effects of elastic stretch in the cables is not found to be significant for the cable logging systems considered. / Graduation date: 1997

In recent years, we have witnessed a massive acquisition of data and increasing need to support multi-criteria decision support (MCDS) queries efficiently. Pareto-optimal also known as skyline queries is a popular class of MCDS queries and has received a lot of attention resulting in a flurry of efficient skyline algorithms. The vast majority of such algorithms focus entirely on the input being a single data set. In this work, we provide an adaptive query evaluation technique --- AdaptiveSky that is able to reason at different levels of abstraction thereby effectively minimizing the two primary costs, namely the cost of generating join results and the cost of dominance comparisons to compute the final skyline of the join results. Our approach hinges on two key principles. First, in the input space -- we determine the abstraction levels dynamically at run time instead of assigning a static one at compile time that may or may not work for different data distributions. This is achieved by adaptively partitioning the input data as intermediate results are being generated thereby eliminating the need to access vast majority of the input tuples. Second, we incrementally build the output space, containing the final skyline, without generating a single join result. Our approach is able to reason about the final result space and selectively drill into regions in the output space that show promise in generating result tuples to avoid generation of results that do not contribute to the query result. In this effort, we propose two alternate strategies for reasoning, namely the Euclidean Distance method and the cost-benefit driven Dominance Potential method for reasoning. Our experimental evaluation demonstrates that AdaptiveSky shows superior performance over state-of-the-art techniques over benchmark data sets.

Thesis (M.F.)--Oregon State University, 1982. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-70). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 1980. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

As the world’s cities have grown, so too, have their skylines, such that they are now common sights to behold both in reality and in media. Despite being one of the most popular sights of a city, the planning profession has not given much attention to skylines in its daily practice. By pulling together a limited body of research, this study shows that some academics and professionals have deemed skylines to be an intriguing and important aspect of our cities’ built form. This exploratory study builds upon Kevin Lynch’s work on city image by asking people what skylines they prefer and why, and what skylines mean to them. Using a qualitative interviewing technique, 25 participants from planning departments and neighbourhood associations in Kitchener and Waterloo provided their input by viewing a series of skyline images. Participants were found to prefer complex skylines, and they identified important physical features that were necessary to achieve high levels of preference. The same physical features that contributed to preference also sent strong messages about a place, leading participants to find a wealth of meaning in a skyline. The implications of these results for planning practice are presented along with a discussion of how cities may be branded due to the messages their skylines send. Recommendations to introduce skyline planning in mid-size cities are made, based upon the lessons learned from the larger cities used in this research. The exploratory and qualitative nature of this study helps to fill in the literary gaps of this relatively unexplored field, and recommendations for future research are made.