Physical activity in youth has many benefits, but parallel to these benefits, sport related injuries pose considerable risks.  It is important to public health to address sport related injuries, particularly those affecting young people, who comprise the majority of participants in organised sport in Sweden.  The first study in this research showed that inspections of local sport environments, where injuries often occur, did not occur uniformly. Two additional studies pointed out the need for better surveillance of injuries, and described the use of ambulance attendance reports as a possible improvement to current surveillance systems, with a possibility to improve safety for youth and other sport participants. Two other studies identify risk factors that were specific to football and climbing sports, which can be used to guide targeted safety interventions for the young participants of these sports.  The studies, taken as a whole, provide new information about the factors associated with sport related injuries, particularly for young people, and point out the need for better sport injury surveillance, improved inspection strategies for fields maintained by organised sport clubs in local communities, and the need to address risk factors specific to different sport activities.

Running title: Climbing fibers in myosin Va mutants

The research presented in this thesis investigates the performance of some well-known heuristic algorithms on graph decomposition problems. First, a genetic algorithm is introduced and some modifications are trialled on finding Steiner triple systems (STS) of small orders. The results show that traditional genetic algorithms are not well suited to finding graph decompositions. Then a hill climbing optimisation technique is presented and investigated in the context of cycle decompositions. Such searches have previously proved to be effective at finding STSs. However, the general hill climbing approach is not immediately applicable to decompositions into cycles of length larger than 3. A modification of the hill climbing algorithm for cycles, called slippery hill climbing, is introduced and tested on decompositions of graphs into cycles of small lengths larger than 3. Slippery hill climbing successfully decomposed complete and dense non-complete graphs of considerable sizes into cycles of small lengths. In addition, we applied the slippery hill climbing approach to completing partial latin squares. It is reasonably expected that the algorithms developed in this study will also be applicable to other related problems in combinatorics and graph theory.

Thesis (Dr. Sc. Nat.)--Universität Zürich, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-209). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M.S.)--Marshall University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 62 p. illustrated with photos and maps. Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-31).

Konstanz, Univ., Diplomarb., 2005.

Thesis (Dr. Sc. Nat.)--Universität Zürich, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-209).

Devido ao histórico processo de exploração e conversão do uso do solo, as florestas tropicais hoje se encontram altamente fragmentadas e com os remanescentes de vegetação sobre constante pressão, como é possível observar para Florestas Estacionais Semideciduais do Estado de São Paulo. O aumento na frequência e intensidade de fatores de perturbação em pequenos fragmentos florestais pode ocasionar uma proliferação desequilibrada de plantas trepadeiras que acabam por contribuir com a degradação florestal iniciada pelas perturbações. Isto se reflete na crescente demanda por resolução de problemas ligados ao manejo de tais plantas em fragmentos florestais como forma de restauração florestal. Sendo assim o presente trabalho teve como objetivos caracterizar a comunidade de plantas trepadeiras em diferentes setores de conservação de um fragmento de Floresta Estacional Semidecidual degradado e avaliar os padrões de associação de variáveis como densidade, diâmetro e biomassa de trepadeiras com variáveis estruturais da flroesta como a regeneração natural e a biomassa arbórea da área total e estratos de conservação. As variáveis que mostraram associação em pelo menos algum estrato foram selecionados para compor modelos candidatos utilizando a densidade de regeneração natural como variável resposta, sendo feito uma seleção do melhor modelo através de Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Utilizando os modelos selecionados como indicativos, foram traçados e discutidos possíveis estratégias de manejo. Foram amostradas 2323 plantas trepadeiras pertencentes a 62 espécies, 50 gêneros e 20 famílias botânicas. As espécies Mansoa difficilis, Lundia obliqua, Dicella bracteosa, Fridericia triplinervia, Serjania fuscifolia, Adenocalymma marginatum, Bignonia sciuripabula e Bignonia campanulata representaram 50% da abundância total de indivíduos. Os resultados mostraram que a área possui uma grande riqueza e diversidade de plantas trepadeiras, sendo registrada uma abundância heterogênea nos diferentes estratos de conservação, com espécies exclusivas para cada um deles. Algumas espécies como Bignonia campanulata apresentou alta densidade em estratos \"pouco degradados\", média em \"degradados\" e não foi encontrada em \"muito degradados\". Em geral as variáveis de plantas trepadeiras não mostraram tendências de associação com a regeneração natural e biomassa arbórea quando considerado a área total, porém algumas associações moderadas foram obtidas em diferentes estratos de conservação. O modelo selecionado para área total e para setores \"degradado\" e \"muito degradado\" mostrou um efeito negativo da densidade de plantas trepadeiras e positivo da biomassa arbórea sobre a regeneração natural, sendo que para o setor \"pouco degradado\" o melhor modelo não mostrava qualquer efeito de preditoras. Os resultados mostram que parâmetros como a densidade de plantas trepadeiras e a biomassa arbórea do fragmento florestal influênciam a regeneração natural, sendo taís características importantes de serem levadas em conta em atividades de manejo através do corte de trepadeiras, sendo sugerido controle da densidade destas plantas e manutenção e promoção da biomassa arbórea em fragmentos florestais degradados. / Due to the historical process of exploration and conversion of land use in tropical forest, nowadays these regions are highly fragmented and the remaining vegetation under constant pressure, what can be seen in the semideciduous seasonal forests of São Paulo, Brazil. The increase in the frequency and intensity of disturbance factors in small forest fragments can cause an unbalanced proliferation of climbing plants that end up contributing to forest degradation initiated by the disturbances. Demand for solving problems related to the management of these plants as a forest restoration tool has increasingly risen. Thus, the present study aimed to characterize the pattern of climbing plants community in different conservation areas of a small and degraded Seasonal Semidecidual forest fragment and evaluate the patterns of association within variables such as density, diameter and biomass with forest structural variables as the natural regeneration and the tree biomass of the total area and conservation sectors. The variables that were associated with at least some strata were selected to compose candidate models using natural regeneration density as the response variable, being made a selection of the best model using Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Using the models selected as guides, were drawn and discussed possible management strategies. Were sampled 2323 individuals from climbing plants belonging to 62 species, 50 genera and 20 botanical families. The species difficilis Mansoa, oblique Lundia, bracteosa Dicella, triplinervia Fridericia, Serjania fuscifolia, Adenocalymma marginatum, Bignonia Bignonia campanulata sciuripabula and accounted for 50% of the total abundance of individuals. The results showed that the area has a wealth and diversity of climbing plants, and registered a motley abundance in different conservation sectors, with exclusive species for each of them. Some species as Bignonia campanulata showed high density in sectors \"little degraded,\" few individuals in \"degraded\" sectors and was not found in sectors \"highly degraded\". In general, the variables of climbing plants don\'t showed strong trends of association with natural regeneration and tree biomass when considering the total area, but some moderate associations were obtained in different conservation sectors. The model selected for total area and sectors \"degraded\" and \"highly degraded\" showed a negative effect by the climbing plants density and a positive effect by the tree biomass on natural regeneration. In the other hand the \"little degraded\" sector best model showed no effect of any precditive variable. By the results, the author suggests that the management focused on the control of density and maintenance and promotion of tree biomass would be more suitable in degraded forest fragments.

Airships provide an eco-friendly and cost-effective means to suit sustained airborne operations. Smaller autonomous airships are highly susceptible to adverse atmospheric conditions owing to their under-actuated, underpowered and bulky size relative to other types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). To mitigate these limitations, careful considerations of the size and shape must be made at the design stage. This research presents a methodology for obtaining an optimized shape of a semi-rigid airship. Rapid descent of the LTA ship is achieved by means of a moving gondola attached to a rigid keel mounted under the helium envelope from the bow to the mid-section of the hull. The study entails the application of a robust hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) for the multi-disciplinary design and optimization of an airship capable of rapid descent, with lower drag and optimum surface area. A comprehensive sensitivity analysis was also performed on the basis of algorithmic parameters and atmospheric conditions. With the help of HGA, a semi-rigid airship capable of carrying a payload of 0.25 kg to 1.0 kg and capable of pitching at right angles is conceptually designed. The algorithm is also tested on commercially available vehicles to validate the results. In multi-objective optimization problems (MOOPs), the significance of different objectives is dependent on the user.

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