Phosphorus, a mineral nutrient, is an essential element in aquatic systems. It is only available for biological activity in the form of orthophosphate and soluble restrictive phosphate. Eutrophication, caused by nutrient enrichment, is a problem in many freshwater systems, which results in increased algal blooms, anoxic conditions, and consequently, biodiversity loss and ecosystem failure. Low dissolved oxygen levels trigger the release of sediment bound phosphorus, which reinforces eutrophication. Nutrients in aquatic systems are provided by point and non-point sources and these sources can be affected by several factors, including population, land-use, and climate change. There are many long-term historical phosphorus studies on rivers, but there are very few that are conducted on the Grand River watershed and none that look at factors that might be driving the phosphorus loadings. The Grand River watershed, located in Ontario, Canada, is a highly agricultural watershed with a growing population of approximately one million. It has experienced eutrophication, which has led to excessive production of cyanobacteria and regions of hypoxia. In this study, historical phosphorus concentration data (Total Phosphorus, Soluble Reactive Phosphorus, and Particulate Phosphorus) in five sites along the Grand River were analyzed temporally and spatially from 1965 to 2010 in the upper, middle, and lower parts of the watershed. The Particulate Phosphorus was calculated by subtracting SRP from TP. Several other data such as climate, land-use, geology, and population were also explored and considered as possible factors that may have influenced the trends over time. TP, SRP, and PP average flow weighted concentrations and fluxes were calculated in 2-6 year intervals. SRP load was higher prior to the early 1970???s, declined in the 1970???s, was more stable in the 1980???s and 1990???s, and increased in the 2000???s. The initial decrease in SRP in the early 1970???s was likely due to the phosphorus ban in detergents in 1973 that was implemented over several years. The constant SRP loadings in the 1980???s and 1990???s, despite population and urban development growth, may have been due to upgrades in waste water treatment plants during that time period. The recent increase in phosphorus in more recent years coincides with a large increase in the number of livestock in the 2000???s and population growth. SRP and PP loads increase from upstream to downstream regions are likely due to nutrient accumulation by the river. The higher loads and concentrations of SRP in the CGR is expected because the region is highly urbanized and contains most of the tile drainage in the watershed.

The aim of this thesis is to study the relationship between the overall academic and profession-oriented goals for the degree project in Swedish teacher education. The methodology includes analyses of 26 syllabi, reviews of 33 scientific papers, interviews with 24 supervisors and analyses of 84 published degree projects.  The introduction of a degree project in teacher education in many European countries, as well as in academic professional programs in general, can be understood as being a part of a trend towards academization of teacher education programs.  At the same time, however, there is another trend in higher education, a “practical” trend, which upholds the importance of profession-oriented goals. While it is a main ambition in higher education to bring these two types of goals closer together and, if possible, integrate them, these two trends can interfere with each other. The interference can be seen as a new version of the long-running issue of theory versus practice in academic professional education. This study of the purposes, implementation and outcomes of the degree project shows that there are both possibilities and hindrances when it comes to integrating the academic and the profession-oriented goals. Firstly, the three degree project models in European teacher education, i.e. the traditional thesis, the portfolio and the action research model, all allow for the integration of the two kinds of goals. Secondly, five of the goals are conducive to an integration, namely those involving subject knowledge, data collection methods, documentation skills, analysis skills and distancing skills. However, as was mentioned above, the thesis also points to certain factors that may hamper such an integration. Firstly, the academic goals often tend to be seen as more important than the profession-oriented ones in a degree project. Secondly, there are eight goals that may make the integration difficult. Three of these are academic, namely academic level, priority of supervisors’ academic qualifications over their professional qualifications and academic writing, while five are profession-oriented, namely broad knowledge, experience-based knowledge, artistic knowledge, didactic skills and normativity. This thesis analyses the possibilities and difficulties involved in an integration using Bernstein’s concepts of vertical and horizontal discourse. As the academic goals belong to the vertical discourse, they can give teacher students an understanding of why professional activities are done in a particular way, and enable them to critically assess teaching situations, while the profession-oriented goals, which belong to the horizontal discourse, can give them an understanding of how to perform professional activities and introduce them to the practical aspects of teaching. A final conclusion of this thesis is that there are many ways in which academic and profession-oriented goals can be integrated in the teacher education degree project. A successful integration would result in a degree project that incorporates two different perspectives, an academic bird’s-eye-view and a narrower, more profession-oriented one with a closeness to the teaching practice.

Nutrition monitoring is important for determining nutrient intakes of a population but trend evaluation requires greater than two points. This thesis provides national mean nutrient intake estimates of Canadians aged 18 to 74 based on published 1990s provincial nutrition surveys that fall between the Nutrition Canada Survey (1970/72) and Canadian Community Health Survey (2004). The focus of this thesis was on four key nutrients (calcium, iron, folate, and vitamin C) reported by childbearing age women. Objectives included examining data for temporal or geographic patterns; reviewing for similarities to 1970/72; and assessing intake adequacy using Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). <p>Estimates were derived from 24-hour recall data reported by 16,915 adults of nine provinces, excluding Manitoba. Provincial group mean nutrient intakes were population-weighted using the Canadian census appropriate to the data collection years and totaled in proportion to provincial population size. The eight adult age and gender groups were then called the Province-derived Nutrition Survey (PNS). A temporal folate trend was noted as 1998 folate fortification doubled intake for the female population. In terms of geography, calcium intake appeared higher in British Columbia compared to Newfoundland. Nutrient intake declined with age except for some micronutrients associated with fruit/vegetables. Nutrient density indicated that the quality of womens diets improved with age. Nutrients which appeared inadequate for childbearing age women included fibre, potassium, magnesium, folate, iron, and calcium. Micronutrients that were below AI or RDA values suggest plant-based food intake was inadequate. Nutrient density showed that diet quality had improved since Nutrition Canada however, increased efforts are required to improve dietary intake further. <p>This thesis provides Canadas most recent comprehensive national nutrient intakes and a point with which to observe change. Intake in the 1990s compared to the previous Nutrition Canada Survey (NCS) showed that many nutrients had increased but education efforts did not appear to have resulted in optimum intake. Fortification and food consumption habits influenced which foods were the primary micronutrient sources, e.g., fortification with folic acid. While calcium and folate intake was higher in the 1990s compared to the NCS, these increases did not bring young women to their desired intake. When the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey cycle 2.2 (nutrition) is published, it could be compared to the PNS to confirm whether these patterns are trends.

Nutrition monitoring is important for determining nutrient intakes of a population but trend evaluation requires greater than two points. This thesis provides national mean nutrient intake estimates of Canadians aged 18 to 74 based on published 1990s provincial nutrition surveys that fall between the Nutrition Canada Survey (1970/72) and Canadian Community Health Survey (2004). The focus of this thesis was on four key nutrients (calcium, iron, folate, and vitamin C) reported by childbearing age women. Objectives included examining data for temporal or geographic patterns; reviewing for similarities to 1970/72; and assessing intake adequacy using Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). <p>Estimates were derived from 24-hour recall data reported by 16,915 adults of nine provinces, excluding Manitoba. Provincial group mean nutrient intakes were population-weighted using the Canadian census appropriate to the data collection years and totaled in proportion to provincial population size. The eight adult age and gender groups were then called the Province-derived Nutrition Survey (PNS). A temporal folate trend was noted as 1998 folate fortification doubled intake for the female population. In terms of geography, calcium intake appeared higher in British Columbia compared to Newfoundland. Nutrient intake declined with age except for some micronutrients associated with fruit/vegetables. Nutrient density indicated that the quality of womens diets improved with age. Nutrients which appeared inadequate for childbearing age women included fibre, potassium, magnesium, folate, iron, and calcium. Micronutrients that were below AI or RDA values suggest plant-based food intake was inadequate. Nutrient density showed that diet quality had improved since Nutrition Canada however, increased efforts are required to improve dietary intake further. <p>This thesis provides Canadas most recent comprehensive national nutrient intakes and a point with which to observe change. Intake in the 1990s compared to the previous Nutrition Canada Survey (NCS) showed that many nutrients had increased but education efforts did not appear to have resulted in optimum intake. Fortification and food consumption habits influenced which foods were the primary micronutrient sources, e.g., fortification with folic acid. While calcium and folate intake was higher in the 1990s compared to the NCS, these increases did not bring young women to their desired intake. When the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey cycle 2.2 (nutrition) is published, it could be compared to the PNS to confirm whether these patterns are trends.

In most of the optical interferometry techniques, one often get interferometric fringe patterns which include noises, and these noises will cause analysis difficulty. The method of median filter is used to sort the data in the region, and use median value to replace the center value of the region. Therefore, the median filter technique can find central tendency of the region, and less affected by the presence of a minority of aberrant value. So the median filter technique is used frequently in image processing of many optical fringe patterns The median filter technique is effective in removing noise with high frequency, but tends to smooth out details such as summits if the window size is large. So there are many improved methods developed corresponding to different properties of signal. Even though each of the improved methods has different considerations, such as to consider different integer weights, or different window size etc., their purposes are all the same, that is to make results more accurately. On the basis of these viewpoints, this thesis will use concept of least¡Vsquares fitting on 2-D interferometric fringe patterns. By finding the trend of the region, and avoid unnecessary signal consideration, make the results more accurately. In order to study the effect of the proposed technique, two sets of fringe patterns obtained from the phase-shifting speckle interferometry will be used as examples. They showed that the proposed technique presents a better result than traditional technique.

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This study proposes a program trading system and applied to Taiwan Stock Market , the trading rules refer to Curtis(2007) -¡yWay of the turtle¡z. In this research , we follow the trend following rule to invest in Taiwan Stock Market and not predict the future price of the market. To see if this system is good enough , we use average earn/loss ratio and average return to measure. Finally , we take trend following strategy compare with four different strategies. This research choose 16 stocks of Taiwan Stock Market , research period is from 1998/1/3 to 2007/12/31. The result show that trend following strategy gain positive return in different states and periods , its performance better than other strategies. We find the¡§Loss Stop¡¨is the key of trend following strategy in this research.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka och analysera fenomenet vintagemode. Genom att intervjua några aktörer inom andrahandsmarknaden vill jag studera denna konsumtionskultur och dess utveckling. Vidare vill jag undersöka de olika begreppen inom andrahandsmarknaden, om man hittar några distinkta skillnader mellan begreppen då det förekommer olika definitioner av orden. Jag har använt mig av en kvalitativ undersökning med en låg grad av standardisering och låg grad av strukturering. Till denna intervjustudie valdes sex informanter ut som arbetar inom andrahandsmarknaden. Dessa valdes ut då de besitter den kunskap och erfarenhet som rör mitt problemområde. Det diskuterades bland annat kring deras egen kvalitetsbedömning av vintageplaggen och vilka de utmärkande egenskaperna är hos begreppen secondhand och vintage. Det framgick i analysen hur historien bakom ett plagg var något som kunderna intresserade sig för. Genom att återberätta vem som har burit plagget och till vilket tillfälle kunde det ge kunderna en nostalgisk känsla. Om andrahandsbutikerna var kommersiella eller drevs av välgörenhetsorganisationer var en till viss del betydelsefull aspekt huruvida de benämndes som en secondhand eller vintagebutik. En fråga om unicitet kom på tal där vintage kom att bli ett verktyg som bidrog till att forma konsumenternas identitet. Om vintagemodet är här för att stanna återstår att se, men om man ser till enligt informanternas sägelse tillsammans med de teoretiska utgångspunkternas verkar de enade om att denna konsumtionskulturs framtid ser lovande ut.

Bachelor-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2005.

This study represents the first econometric study that has attempted to model energy demand exclusively for Jordan. In so doing, recent developments in time series econometrics modeling techniques are adopted to estimate total energy demand functions at the aggregate and sectoral levels together with demand functions for individual fuels for Jordan using a new data set covering the period (1968-2000). Different econometric approaches were employed to estimate the elasticities including OLS, Johansen's ML, DOLS and ARDL to enable a comparison of the statistical results and the estimated price, income, urbanization elasticities. The different econometric techniques therefore act as a check of the robustness of the results obtained. All estimates of the demand functions whether at the aggregate level or at the disaggregate levels are robust not only in terms of statistical competence but also in terms of economic intuition. At the aggregate level, the various econometric techniques yield almost identical elasticity estimates. The estimates indicate a long run elasticity of around unity with respect to per capita GDP, 0.35 with respect to per capita area constructed, -0.30 with respect to real energy prices, a coefficient around 0.1 for the dummy variable representing the level of conflict in the region and a coefficient around 0.7% p.a. for the time trend as a proxy to the Underlying Energy Demand Trend (UEDT). The income elasticity implies that economic growth is likely to be accompanied by proportional increases in energy consumption. The price elasticity suggests that taxes on their own are unlikely to achieve government goals for energy conservation or environmental improvement, although they may well be efficient for revenue raising. Furthermore, evaluating the impact of per capita area constructed on energy consumption levels helps provide guidance for the future need of power generation and refining capacities. The study present forecasts for aggregate energy, aggregate electricity and aggregate petroleum over the period 2001-2015 using 2000 forecasts from the Jordanian governments and international organizations for the exogenous variables. The forecasts are constructed using three different scenarios of the GDP and area constructed growth, with constant real energy price at the 2000 level and with real energy prices increasing by 2% annually. The low growth scenario assumes 4% annual growth of GDP and area constructed, the medium growth scenario assumes 6% for both annual growth of GDP and area constructed, and the high growth scenario assumes 8% annual growth of GDP and 6% annual growth of area constructed. With constant real energy price, the low growth scenario suggests that total energy demand will increase by an average annual growth rate of 3.9 % over the forecasted period. The medium growth scenario indicates that the total energy demand will increase by an average annual growth rate of 6.37 % over the forecasted period, implying that aggregate energy demand will double by the year 2012. The high growth scenario suggests that the total energy demand will increase by an average annual growth rate of 8.24 % over the forecast period and double by the year 2010.