No description available.

Recovery of tropical rain forest in Gogol Valley, Papua New Guinea was monitored for 2 years following clear-fel1ing in the wet and dry seasons. Further redevelopment, reconstructed by measurements of regrowth of known ages from 1.5-10.8 years, were compared with forest heavily disturbed by fire 55 years ago and primary forest. The vegetation, survey was assessed principally by Counting and measuring trees. Because of the importance of soil seed bank in influencing vegetation recovery processes, special attention was given to the spatial and temporal changes in the soil seed bank and the seed rain which supplies it. The major findings were: (1) vegetation recovery was rapid and 97% of all colonizing trees regenerated from seeds while 3% were resprouts; (2) regrowth after felling in the dry-season differed from that following wet-season felling in having lower density, slower growth and mostly comprised resprouting tree species; (3) after 10 years, regrowth is composed principally of large pioneer trees (65% of basal area or 64% of stems); (4) the 55 year-old forest also had many (48%) pioneer trees: much of the forest in the area is of this kind and may be classified as advanced secondary forest; (5) forest soil seed bank following felling was rapidly depleted due to germination, but was rapidly replaced as early pioneer herbs matured and set seed. Trees in soil seed bank do not approach that of primary forest until after 10 years of regrowth; (6) the intensity of pioneer trees' seed rain was correlated with the fecundity of nearby parent trees and clearly controlled soil seed bank redevelopment. There was evidence of dispersal of pioneer seeds several hundred metres into an isolated area of closed forest; (7) trees left uncut following felling contribute significantly to seed rain and therefore to soil seed bank.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Scholars are usually attracted to South America because of the characterization of this zone of the Western Hemisphere as a zone with a "long peace". However, almost 200 years after achieving independence from Spain and Portugal, some countries are still facing unsolved territorial and boundary disputes. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to assess the importance the balance of power has in the inter-state relationships in the Western Hemisphere. This thesis argues that Plan Colombia is creating an imbalance of military power between Colombia and Venezuela and this balance is important to their relations. Three possible explanations are used to explore the relations between these two countries, which are democratic peace, balance of power, and spiral model. The major conclusion of this thesis is that the implementation of U.S. policy in the region is creating an imbalance of power, and that the situation could lead the unbalanced country to increase military capabilities. The long history of misperceptions of the capabilities and intentions of the adversary could provide the dynamics that might trigger a war. Therefore, this U.S. policy is likely to increase tensions and instability in the dyad. / Major, Venezuelan Air Force

The problem of this study was to investigate the effect of the rotation around two axes of the body upon static balance as measured by the stork stand, the headstand, and the one foot balance.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Concerns about the state of public finances in the main advanced economies have increased as a result of the global financial and economic crisis that started in late 2007 - 2008. The fiscal solvency of several euro area peripheral countries has been put under the spotlight of the market participants who started to believe that a sovereign default was likely to happen in an advanced economy member of the euro area. This thesis seeks to investigate the sovereign risk in the euro area countries during the period before, during and after the crisis by focusing on the sovereign bond and credit default swaps spreads and the factors that drive them. In Chapters 2, we investigate the determinants of the government bond yields and sovereign credit default swaps. In our analysis for the government bond yields we find that the macroeconomic fundamentals used in our analysis are highly significant for the periphery countries, while they are less or not significant at all for the core euro area countries. We also find evidence that during the crisis the fluctuations of the government bond yields are not only explained by the macroeconomic fundamentals but also explained by factors related to the uncertainty in the euro area. In Chapter 3, we employ the panel cointegration approach in order to investigate the macroeconomic and financial indicators that impacted the sovereign credit default swaps in the crisis period using data from October 2008 until December 2014. We provide fresh evidence that the financial indicators, proxied by the iTraxx index as well as liquidity indicators, proxied by the bid-ask had a dominant role in explaining the CDS in almost all countries. In Chapter 4, in regard to the study of the price discovery relationship between the government bond yields and sovereign CDS, we suggest the use of cointegration methodology and also test for a structural break using the Gregory and Hanson approach to investigate the linkages between the two instruments. The structural break test suggests that the relation changed during the crisis and that the price discovery took place in the CDS market. Finally, in Chapter 5, we investigate the main factors causing the sovereign defaults. We use a panel of 99 countries to assess the impact that various macroeconomic and political risk indicators have on sovereign defaults on foreign currency bank loans, foreign currency bonds and local currency debt, utilizing an extended database constructed by the Bank of Canada. Our results suggest that the favorable economic indicators, lower debt levels, and higher political stability all reduce the likelihood of default. We also find that the capital outflows restrictions are positively associated with higher probability of default.

No / This paper explores the responses of 17 participants to using photo-elicitation as part of a project exploring their daily experiences of work-life balance. We explicitly asked participants about their experiences of using the method that involved taking photographs of their work-life balance experiences and interpreting these photographs through participation in semi- structured interviews. Participants took 108 photographs in total. We explore important methodological issues for researchers seeking to use these methods and explain that photograph-elicitation has much to offer management and organizational researchers. A major benefit of the method is the role of photographs as a ‘conversational technology’ in encouraging re-interpretation and reflection of experiences in a manner not always achieved when using other qualitative techniques.

The following thesis applies equations of motion used in linear locomotion (gait analysis) to the analysis of the purely rotational motion of the fouetté or tour à la seconde. Modifications to the method of analysis include the creation of several MATLAB programs to compute improved estimates of the moment of inertia tensor, three-dimensional angular momentum about the dancer’s centre of mass. The results of this investigation—the quantification of angular momentum and external moments—are compared to similar results from gait analysis to demonstrate how the dancer maintains balance during rotational motion. The variables calculated by the MATLAB programs are particularly relevant in the field of balance control research in the context of inputs into the body’s balance control systems.

Bicycle dynamics and behaviors have been vastly studied through modeling and simulation. Due to the complexity, software models are often assumed subjecting to di erent nonholonomic constraints in order to simplify the models and control algorithms. A real life autonomous bicycle faces perturbances from the road, wind, tire deformation, slipping among other external forces. Limitations of simulations will not always allow these to apply. All these issues make the autonomous bicycle research very challenging. To study the bicycle control problems a few research results from the literature are reviewed. A nonlinear bicycle model was used to conduct control simulations. Model based nonlinear controllers were applied to simulate the balance and path tracking control. A PID controller is more practical to replace the non-linear controller for the balance control. Simulation results of the di erent controllers are compared in order to decide the proper control strategies on the hardware platform. The controller design of the platform complies with practicality based on the hardware con guration. Two control schemes are implemented on the test platform; both are developed with PID algorithms. The rst scheme is a single PID control loop in which the controller takes the roll angle feedback and balances the running platform by means of steering. If the desired roll angle is zero the controller will try to hold the platform at the upright position. If the desired roll angle is non-zero the platform will be balanced at an equilibrium roll angle. A xed roll angle will lead to a xed steering angle as the result of balance control. The second scheme is directional control with balance consisting of two cascaded PID loops. Steering is the only means to control balance and direction. To do so the desired roll angle must be controlled to achieve the desired steering angle. The platform tilts to the desired side and steering follows to the same side of the tilt; the platform can then be lifted up by the centrifugal force and eventually balanced at an equilibrium roll angle. The direction can be controlled using a controlled roll angle. Many implementation issues have to be dealt with in order for the control algorithm to be functional. Dynamic roll angle measurement is implemented with complementary internal sensors (accelerometer and gyroscope). Directional information is obtained through a yaw rate gyroscope which operates on the principle of resonance. To monitor the speed of the platform, a rotational sensor was formed by using a hard drive stepper motor attached to the axis of the vehicle's driving motor. The optoelectronic circuit plays the vital role to ensure the system functionality by isolating the electromagnetic noise from the motors. Finally, in order to collect runtime data, the wireless communication is implemented through Bluetooth/RS232 serial interface. The data is then plotted and analyzed with Matlab. Controller gains are tuned through numerous road tests. Field test results show that the research has successfully achieved the goal of testing the low level control of autonomous bicycle. The developed algorithms are able to balance the platform on semi-smooth surfaces. / UOIT

The City of Regina Fleet Street landfill, north-east of Regina, Saskatchewan, is approaching its maximum capacity after a 47-year operating life and plans are now being made for its closure. As part of closure planning work, four test plots encompassing two different cover designs (a capillary break cover and a store-and-release cover) were constructed on the landfill in the summer of 2004. One cover of each design was constructed on both the north facing and the south facing slopes.<p> The overall objective of this thesis is to evaluate the preliminary performance of the four test plots on the City of Regina landfill with regards to net percolation, gas flux, water balance and vegetation. To meet this overall objective three specific objectives were developed as follows:<p> Evaluate the performance and integrity of the monitoring scheme. <p> Characterize the properties of the soil covers on the four test plots. <p> Develop a preliminary water balance using the monitoring field data. <p> A field instrumentation program was carried out which included detailed monitoring of gas composition, volumetric water content, matric suction and temperature within the cover profile as well as measurements of interflow, runoff and site-specific meteorology. Generally, the instrumentation performed well with the exception of the tipping bucket which did not accurately measure precipitation.<p> Evaluation of the covers revealed that the slope aspect exerts greater influence over the water balance than that exerted by cover design itself. The south test plots were drier than the north, experienced more net radiation, and generally had more abundant vegetation. A water balance was conducted for each test plot at the upper, mid and lower slope. It is clear that a capillary break was not maintained on the north slope for the entire monitoring period and the percolation from the store-and-release cover was less than that of the capillary break cover. The south test plots were very dry and net percolation was nearly the same for both test plots. Therefore, it is believed that the store-and-release covers are performing better than the capillary break covers.