A qualitative description of the personal armour design system is elicited by comparing armour throughout the ages. Inputs that 'shape' designs are the materials technology, threat, wearer, task and environment. The emergent properties of protection, ergonomic effectiveness and financial cost form the basis of trade-offs to select final solutions. Work on the protection subsystem refines the key positive emergent property of personal armour. Existing quantifications of protection effectiveness are rejected in favour of a novel measure named the Usefulness Factor, UF. This is the first measure that accounts for the real benefit of armour. A five-stage model is proposed for the assessment of protection. Two feedback loops - due to making tasks as safe as possible and the ergonomic penalty of armour are evident. These must be considered in order to assess protection correctly. Casualty reduction analysis software (CASPER) is used to produce 'approach plots' and 'zones of usefulness' in order to make tasks safer and map the benefit of armour. This approach is demonstrated with the UK's Lightweight Combat EOD Suit against L2A2 and No. 36 Mills grenades, an HB876 area denial mine, a BL 755 sub-munition and a 105mm artillery shell. Assessment of secondary fragmentation from antipersonnel (AP) blast mines defines a threat input that is specific to Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). Trials are carried out with explosive charges of 50g to 500g, buried under 5 or 10cm of stones and sand at a range of 1m. The threat is defined in terms of the probabilities of (a) being hit, (b) a hit perforating armour and (c) a hit incapacitating an unarmoured person. The chances of being hit close to the ground decrease to approximately 15% of the value when directly above the mine. Secondary fragmentation is not likely to perforate armour that protects against primary fragments. However, it is likely to incapacitate an unarmoured person. Protection is traded-off against proxies for ergonomic and financial cost effectiveness by using quantitative optimisation of personal armour. This introduces the concept of a 'protection optimisation envelope', which defines the bounds of possibility rather than a single solution. CASPER is adapted to produce weight and cost as well as incapacitation parameters. This provides a model that generates both benefits and constraints of armour. Hence, the foundations are laid for the world's first fully integrated personal armour design tools. The ergonomic effectiveness subsystem is the primary constraint of personal armour. Visor demisting for the UK's Mk 5 EOD Suit provides a simple example. Existing methods of assessment of the ergonomic penalty of armour are considered. A novel development of biomechanics computational models is proposed to predict both the mechanical and thermal burdens of armour.

The dissertation underlines an approach towards mission, where the epistemology, hermeneutical key and methodology centre around relationship. This, by tracing trends in the pastoral context, verified through research and an analysis of congregational surveys. The results were then analysed in terms of biblical revelation (the creation narratives, God's covenental relationship with Israel, Christ as the New Israel, Christ's missiological methodology and an understanding of the Holy Trinity). The resulis were then also brought into conversation with recent developments in science, recognising the interdependence of all things, and also exploring recent definitions of mission. The study then grapples with a new way of engaging in theology. This new model simultaneously promotes the symbiotic nature of theologies, while placing them within the framework of relational objectives; using dialogue as medium, Holland and Henriot's Social Analysis and quantifiable relationship goals to engender a theological process accessible to people from all contexts and backgrounds. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / AtravÃs da anÃlise geoambiental este trabalho esta voltado para o estudo da bacia hidrogrÃficacomo categoria de anÃlise geogrÃfica. A bacia hidrogrÃfica do rio Apodi-Mossorà representa27% do territÃrio do estado do Rio Grande do Norte, cobrindo uma Ãrea total 14.271 kmÂ, tendo como recorte espacial para este estudo o baixo curso do referido rio cobrindo 973 Km2 . No tocante a geodiversidade trata-se de uma Ãrea caracterizada pela presenÃa de uma chapada, de tabuleiros costeiros, de planÃcie flÃvio-marinha, de faixa costeira com praias, falÃsias e dunas. Neste contexto, este trabalho teve como objetivo realizar a anÃlise do quadro ambiental, considerando a dinÃmica do uso e ocupaÃÃo, atravÃs de estudo multitemporal de 1989 a 2009, fundamentalmente, identificando e espacializando as unidades geoambientais, as pressÃes de uso, utilizando o sensoriamento remoto, o sistema de informaÃÃo geogrÃfica para manipulaÃÃo e cruzamento de informaÃÃes, pesquisa qualitativa-quantitativa, obtendo como resultado final um conjunto de sete mapas. O resultado tambÃm indicou em hectares a porcentagem das atividades econÃmicas em 1989 sendo: 16,4% de cultura cÃclica, 19,2% de cultura perene, 0,04% de Ãreas petrolÃfera, 64,4% salinas (artesanais e industriais), jà em 2009 a cultura perene representou 32,7%, as atividades petrolÃferas 33,4% e as salinas (artesanais e industriais) 34% e a carcinicultura 2%. Observandoâse, portanto um crescimento de 126% para culturas perenes, 1.847% da atividade petrolÃfera e 28,50% para as salinas. Entende-se que as diferentes formas de uso altera a dinÃmica ambiental da Ãrea de estudo, contribuindo na intensificaÃÃo dos processos fluviais, na deposiÃÃo de sedimentos, no assoreamento, na erosÃo, na destruiÃÃo da mata ciliar e do ecossistema manguezal. As alteraÃÃes no baixo curso do rio Apodi-Mossorà correspondem a modificaÃÃes muito significativas na morfologia original e na dinÃmica dos processos geomorfolÃgicos, na taxa de descarga fluvial mÃdia anual e na taxa de transporte de sedimentos. Esses fatos associados aos ambientes de ocupaÃÃo inadequada promovem o surgimento de Ãreas com elevado comprometimento da qualidade ambiental. / Through a geoenvironmental analysis, this work is related to the study of a hidrographic basin as a geographical analysis category. The hydrographic basin of the Apodi-Mossorà river represents 27% of the territory of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, covering a total area of 14.271 km2, having a spatial cutting for this study, the lower course of the mentioned river, which covers 973 km2. Regarding the geodiversity, it is characterized as an area with a presence of a plateau, coastal tablelands, fluviomarine plain, of coastal band with beaches, cliffs and dunes. In this context, the work had the objective to do an analysis of the environmental framework considering the dynamics of the use and occupation, through a study of a multitemporal scale from 1989 to 2009, basically identifying and putting on a spatial scale the geoenvironmental units, the pressure of use, using remote sensoring, the geographical information system for the handling and information crossing, qualitative quantitative research, obtaining as a final result a set of seven maps. The result also indicated, in hectares, a percentage of economic activities in 1989 as: 16,4% of cyclical cultures, 19,2% of perennial culture, 0,04% of petroliferous areas, 64,4 % of salt-mines (craft and industrial). In 2009, the perennial cultures represented 32,7% , the petroliferous activities 33,4%, saltmines 34% (craft and industrial) and the breeding of crabs and other crustaceous 2%. Therefore, it was observed a growth of 126% for perennial cultures, 1.847% for petroliferous activities and 28,50% for alt-mine activities. We can understand that the different forms of use alters the environmental dynamics of the studied area, contributing to the intensification of fluvial processes, to the deposition of sediments, to the silting up process, to the erosion, to the destruction of cilliary woods and to the ecosystemÂs mangal. The changes in the low course of Apodi-Mossorà river, correspond to the very significant modifications of the original morphology and in the dynamics of geomorphological processes, in the rate of average annual fluvial discharge and in the rate of transportation of the sediments. Those facts, associated with the environments of inadequate occupation foster the emergence of areas with high exposure of environmental quality.

Water shortage issues have been growing concerns in many cities around the world in recent years, especially in Eastern cities of Australia, which is the driest continent on the earth. The aim of this PhD thesis is a development of a model to study the use of waste incineration energy supplemented by alternative energy to power seawater desalination. It is to aid the freshwater supply of a drought stricken city in Eastern Australia. My work contributes to a development of efficient model in a simpler understandable way to reduce efforts required for modelling complex multi domain problems. This research is motivated by the successive severe drought conditions that affected many Australian cities in the past few years, compounded with an additional strain from a fast growing population. While we dump our waste into the Australian landscape, in more densely populated cities in Europe and Asia, the waste is incinerated to obtain thermal energy for various purposes. The waste is used as an energy source while at the same time reducing the amount of space needed for landfill. Seawater desalination has been uccessfully practiced for quite some time particularly in the Middle Eastern countries. To deal with increasing water shortage crisis, many cities around the world have opted or are considering seawater desalination to supplement their freshwater supply. The combination of both - waste incineration and seawater desalination - has rarely been studied. This is a twofold problem that requires modelling the problem of water demand and supply together with waste incineration to find a sustainable solution. This is a complex task. The effort needed for this can be reduced by using a modelling approach that is more efficient than the traditionally used statistical approaches. In this thesis, I present a comprehensive model developed using a dynamic system approach combined with artificial neural networks. It simulates water demand and supply as well as the possible amount of the desalinated water that can be produced using the energy from clean city waste incineration. This is done while taking in various influential factors including population growth and irregular weather patterns. This research comprises a literature review on seawater desalination and waste incineration, the establishment of water demand and supply dynamics of Gold Coast City as my case study and identifying any modelling difficulties that need to be overcome. This is followed by the development of a comprehensive model and its components, model calibration and simulation experiments. It was found that with the energy of waste incineration, up to 60% of the freshwater demand could be fulfilled by seawater desalination in a sustainable way.

This thesis deals with various aspects of indoor navigationfor mobile robots. For a system that moves around in ahousehold or office environment,two major problems must betackled. First, an appropriate control scheme has to bedesigned in order to navigate the platform. Second, the form ofrepresentations of the environment must be chosen. Behaviour based approaches have become the dominantmethodologies for designing control schemes for robotnavigation. One of them is the dynamical systems approach,which is based on the mathematical theory of nonlineardynamics. It provides a sound theoretical framework for bothbehaviour design and behaviour coordination. In the workpresented in this thesis, the approach has been used for thefirst time to construct a navigation system for realistic tasksin large-scale real-world environments. In particular, thecoordination scheme was exploited in order to combinecontinuous sensory signals and discrete events for decisionmaking processes. In addition, this coordination frameworkassures a continuous control signal at all times and permitsthe robot to deal with unexpected events. In order to act in the real world, the control system makesuse of representations of the environment. On the one hand,local geometrical representations parameterise the behaviours.On the other hand, context information and a predefined worldmodel enable the coordination scheme to switchbetweensubtasks. These representations constitute symbols, on thebasis of which the system makes decisions. These symbols mustbe anchored in the real world, requiring the capability ofrelating to sensory data. A general framework for theseanchoring processes in hybrid deliberative architectures isproposed. A distinction of anchoring on two different levels ofabstraction reduces the complexity of the problemsignificantly. A topological map was chosen as a world model. Through theadvanced behaviour coordination system and a proper choice ofrepresentations,the complexity of this map can be kept at aminimum. This allows the development of simple algorithms forautomatic map acquisition. When the robot is guided through theenvironment, it creates such a map of the area online. Theresulting map is precise enough for subsequent use innavigation. In addition, initial studies on navigation in human-robotinteraction tasks are presented. These kinds of tasks posedifferent constraints on a robotic system than, for example,delivery missions. It is shown that the methods developed inthis thesis can easily be applied to interactive navigation.Results show a personal robot maintaining formations with agroup of persons during social interaction. <b>Keywords:</b>mobile robots, robot navigation, indoornavigation, behaviour based robotics, hybrid deliberativesystems, dynamical systems approach, topological maps, symbolanchoring, autonomous mapping, human-robot interaction

<p>This thesis deals with various aspects of indoor navigationfor mobile robots. For a system that moves around in ahousehold or office environment,two major problems must betackled. First, an appropriate control scheme has to bedesigned in order to navigate the platform. Second, the form ofrepresentations of the environment must be chosen.</p><p>Behaviour based approaches have become the dominantmethodologies for designing control schemes for robotnavigation. One of them is the dynamical systems approach,which is based on the mathematical theory of nonlineardynamics. It provides a sound theoretical framework for bothbehaviour design and behaviour coordination. In the workpresented in this thesis, the approach has been used for thefirst time to construct a navigation system for realistic tasksin large-scale real-world environments. In particular, thecoordination scheme was exploited in order to combinecontinuous sensory signals and discrete events for decisionmaking processes. In addition, this coordination frameworkassures a continuous control signal at all times and permitsthe robot to deal with unexpected events.</p><p>In order to act in the real world, the control system makesuse of representations of the environment. On the one hand,local geometrical representations parameterise the behaviours.On the other hand, context information and a predefined worldmodel enable the coordination scheme to switchbetweensubtasks. These representations constitute symbols, on thebasis of which the system makes decisions. These symbols mustbe anchored in the real world, requiring the capability ofrelating to sensory data. A general framework for theseanchoring processes in hybrid deliberative architectures isproposed. A distinction of anchoring on two different levels ofabstraction reduces the complexity of the problemsignificantly.</p><p>A topological map was chosen as a world model. Through theadvanced behaviour coordination system and a proper choice ofrepresentations,the complexity of this map can be kept at aminimum. This allows the development of simple algorithms forautomatic map acquisition. When the robot is guided through theenvironment, it creates such a map of the area online. Theresulting map is precise enough for subsequent use innavigation.</p><p>In addition, initial studies on navigation in human-robotinteraction tasks are presented. These kinds of tasks posedifferent constraints on a robotic system than, for example,delivery missions. It is shown that the methods developed inthis thesis can easily be applied to interactive navigation.Results show a personal robot maintaining formations with agroup of persons during social interaction.</p><p><b>Keywords:</b>mobile robots, robot navigation, indoornavigation, behaviour based robotics, hybrid deliberativesystems, dynamical systems approach, topological maps, symbolanchoring, autonomous mapping, human-robot interaction</p>

From the Proceedings of the 1976 Meetings of the Arizona Section - American Water Resources Assn. and the Hydrology Section - Arizona Academy of Science - April 29-May 1, 1976, Tucson, Arizona / An environmental impact statement (EIS) is meant to be a predictor of the consequences of actions on the environment. However, uncertainties in the statements make it difficult to determine the reliability of the predictions and thus the consequences of the actions. Hence, use of an EIS could be counter-productive if the inherent uncertainties are not recognized and considered in its evaluation. Examination of several EIS's from a systems viewpoint is used to expose the following sources of uncertainty: (1) the identification of the components of the system, (2) the natural uncertainty of the inputs to the system and of the transformation functions producing the output, (3) uncertainties in the modeling of the system due to limitations of sample, economic and technological data. The above viewpoint is used to analyze the Colorado River Salinity Control Project EIS. Uncertainties are identified and classified and means for assessing and incorporating their effect on the environmental impact assessment are discussed.

På grund av den kraftiga tillväxt som skett i servicesektorn, vilken idag står för ungefär 70 procent av den totala ekonomiska aktiviteten i världen, har anpassning till nya krav blivit en förutsättning för att säkra en stark position på en snabbt föränderlig och konkurrensutsatt marknad. Oron för kvalitet har därmed vuxit och begreppet är idag, mer än någonsin, en viktig del av en organisations verklighet och vardag. Tidigare modeller för utvärdering av servicekvalitet betonar att kvalitetsbegreppet är mångfacetterat. Trots detta föreslås dessa modeller vara ganska begränsade utifrån en helhetssyn. Vidare är de heller inte tillräckligt anpassade till den specifika service som är föremål för utvärdering. Syftet med detta examensarbete var att utveckla en heltäckande modell och metod för utvärdering och förbättring av servicekvalitet, vilken medför att ett privat utbildningsföretag kan säkra en stark position på en konkurrensutsatt och snabbt föränderlig marknad. En fältstudie bestående av ett antal semistrukturerade intervjuer och en datorbaserad enkät genomfördes i samarbete med ett privat utbildningsföretag. Med hjälp av Voice of the Customer och ett systembaserat synsätt kunde kvalitetskonceptet definieras och de följande kvalitetsdimensionerna kunde identifieras: - Resultatkvalitet - Kvalitet hos lärarnas interaktionsförmåga - Struktur- och innehållskvalitet - Kvalitet hos den fysiska miljön - Kvalitet hos den administrativa Personalens interaktionsförmåga Kvalitetsansvariga inom sektorn för privat utbildning kan använda den föreslagna modellen som ett verktyg för utvärdering av nuvarande arbete och därigenom genomföra viktiga kvalitetsförbättringar. Vidare kan den föreslagna modellen och metoden också användas som grund för studier inom andra serviceområden för utveckling av liknande och för dessa områden anpassade modeller. / Due to the considerable growth of the service sector, which today accounts for roughly 70 percent of the total economic activity worldwide, adapting to new demands is a prerequisite for securing a strong position on a rapidly changing and competitive market. The concern for quality grows and the concept has become a more than ever important part of organizational reality. Existing models for evaluation of service quality share the common trait of emphasizing the concept of quality as a multifaceted one; still these models are proposed to be rather limited from a comprehensive view. Furthermore, they are not adapted specifically to the service being subject to evaluation. The purpose of this thesis was to develop a comprehensive model and approach for evaluation and improvements of service quality in order for a private education company to secure a strong position in a competitive and rapidly changing market climate. A case study consisting of a number of semi-structured interviews and a computer-based survey was performed in cooperation with a private education company. By using Voice of the Customer and a systems approach the concept of quality could be defined and the following dimensions of quality could be identified: - Outcome Quality - Teacher Interaction Quality - Structure and Contents Quality - Physical Environment Quality - Administration Interaction Quality Service Quality Managers in the sector of private education can use the proposed model as a tool for evaluation of current work and thereby enforce important quality improvements. Furthermore, the proposed model and approach can also be used as a foundation for studies within other service settings for development of similar and for those areas adapted models.

The dissertation underlines an approach towards mission, where the epistemology, hermeneutical key and methodology centre around relationship. This, by tracing trends in the pastoral context, verified through research and an analysis of congregational surveys. The results were then analysed in terms of biblical revelation (the creation narratives, God's covenental relationship with Israel, Christ as the New Israel, Christ's missiological methodology and an understanding of the Holy Trinity). The resulis were then also brought into conversation with recent developments in science, recognising the interdependence of all things, and also exploring recent definitions of mission. The study then grapples with a new way of engaging in theology. This new model simultaneously promotes the symbiotic nature of theologies, while placing them within the framework of relational objectives; using dialogue as medium, Holland and Henriot's Social Analysis and quantifiable relationship goals to engender a theological process accessible to people from all contexts and backgrounds. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

A comprehensive literature review indicated that there is a dearth of research focusing on female youth sex offenders and even less is known about the perceptions of female youth sex offenders regarding the factors that contributed to their offending. This study explores the perceptions of female youth sex offenders regarding their reasons for offending. The female youth sex offenders in this study indicated that various factors as discussed below contributed to their offending. The empirical findings of this study confirmed that female youth sex offenders are of the opinion that certain problems within their families possibly contributed to their offending behaviour. Some of these characteristics include factors such as divorce, poor parenting skills, domestic violence, substance abuse and lack of basic care and safety, just to mention a few. Female youth sex offenders’ lack of assertiveness, low self-esteem and identity issues were other factors that most probably contributed to their sexual offending. When taking into account that the majority of the participants’ parents were unemployed, poverty was another factor that most likely played a contributory role. Due to poverty in the household some of these youth were forced to relocate to Girls’ Homes, change schools or drop out of school. In order to curb female youth sex offending one would need to address these factors in a multidisciplinary and holistic manner. This study reports an in-depth qualitative understanding of the perceptions of female youth sex offenders regarding factors that contributed to their offending. In addition the last objective of this study will be the formulation of recommendations to address female youth sex offending more effectively. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / Social Work and Criminology / Unrestricted