Diss. Tech. Wiss. Zürich, 1982. / Diss. Nr. 6980.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2005.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Zugl.: Göttingen, Universiẗat, Diss., 1997.

L’intensification des pratiques agricoles de ces dernières décennies a engendré des modifications profondes des écosystèmes agricoles. Les oiseaux prairiaux sont particulièrement concernés par ces changements et ont fortement décliné. La mise en place de Mesures Agro-Environnementales (MAE) n’ont pas permis d’enrayer ce déclin et une évaluation de leur efficacité passe au préalable par une compréhension affinée des réponses écologiques des espèces dans l’écosystème considéré. Nous avons ainsi tenté de mieux comprendre la distribution et la sélection d’habitat des oiseaux prairiaux dans les plaines d’inondation du bassin de la Loire dans l’ouest de la France. Cette étude visait à construire et à tester à l’échelle de la zone d’étude des prédicteurs environnementaux pertinents d’humidité, de climat, de végétation et de paysage. Il a ainsi été possible d’établir la réponse des espèces à ces prédicteurs et de construire des modèles de distribution locaux. Cette étude a permis de confirmer le rôle structurant du gradient d’humidité pour les populations d’oiseaux prairiaux en plaine alluviale. Ce gradient conditionne la qualité de l’habitat pour ces espèces en contrôlant notamment la végétation présente. Il contrôle en outre la phénologie des fauches qui est le facteur-clé dont dépend le succès reproducteur. Enfin, il est largement déterminé par la susceptibilité à l’inondation, qui peut affecter la distribution lorsqu’elle intervient au printemps induisant ainsi un découplage spatial entre les MAE et la distribution des espèces prairiales en milieu alluvial. Nous avons également mis en évidence l’évitement par les oiseaux prairiaux du bocage qui concentre par ailleurs des enjeux importants de conservation de la biodiversité. Enfin, nous avons utilisé les prédicteurs environnementaux pour modéliser la distribution des oiseaux prairiaux lesquels mettent en évidence des différences d’utilisation de l’habitat prairial entre les espèces. Ces résultats mettent en avant la nécessité de redéfinir les priorités de conservation à l’échelle du paysage. Ils pourraient également être pris en considération pour améliorer l’efficacité des MAE. / The intensification of agricultural practices in the last decades profoundly changed agricultural ecosystems. Grassland birds are particularly affected by these changes and have been declining sharply. The implementation of Agro-Environmental Schemes (AES) failed to halt this decline. Assessing their effectiveness requires a better understanding of the ecological responses of species in the ecosystem. We attempted to quantify and analyze the distribution and habitat selection of grassland birds in the floodplains of the Loire basin in Western France. This study aimed at building and testing relevant environmental predictors of moisture, climate, vegetation and landscape. Then, we established species response to these predictors and built local distribution models. This study confirmed the prominent rôle of moisture gradient for grassland bird populations in floodplains. The location on the gradient determines habitat quality for these species especially by affecting vegetation composition. It also controls the phenology of mowing, a key factor for reproductive success. Finally, this gradient is largely determined by flooding susceptibility, which may affect bird distribution when flood occurs in spring. In such years, we observed a spatial mismatch between AES and grassland bird distributions in floodplain. We also highlighted the avoidance of hedgerows by grassland birds, which stresses the incompatibility at fine scale between two objects of biodiversity conservation. Finally, we used the environmental predictors to model the distributions the main grassland birds, which models highlighted differences in habitat use between grassland species. These results emphasize the need to redefine the priorities of conservation at the landscape scale. They could also be considered to improve the efficiency of AES

Le concept de quasi-espèce, introduit par Manfred Eigen dans les années 70, décrit l'état d'équilibre d'une population subissant des forces de mutation et sélection. La plupart des modèles classiques présentant un phénomène de quasi-espèce sont déterministes et considèrent une population de taille infinie. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier plusieurs modèles stochastiques, dont la taille de la population est finie, afin de montrer que le phénomène de la quasi--espèce est aussi présent dans ces modèles comme dans le modèles déterministes. Nous étudions en détail les modèles de Galton-Watson, Wright-Fisher et Moran. Nous confirmons que les trois modèles présentent un phénomène de quasi--espèce, et que la distribution de la quasi--espèce est la même pour les trois modèles, ainsi que pour le modèle original d'Eigen. De plus, nous décrivons explicitement la distribution de cette quasi--espèce pour le paysage de fitness à un pic, ainsi que pour des fonctions de fitness qui ne dépendent que de la distance de Hamming à la master sequence. / Manfred Eigen introduced the concept of quasispecies in the early 70s, in order to describe the steady--state distribution of a population subject to mutation and selection forces. Most classical models showing a quasispecies phenomenon are deterministic and deal with a population of an infinite size. The aim of this thesis is to study several stochastic and finite--population models, and to show that a quasispecies phenomenon arises in these models too. We study in detail the Galton--Watson, Wright--Fisher and Moran models. We confirm that a quasispecies phenomenon is present in the three models, and that the distribution of this quasispecies is common to all three models as well as to Eigen's original model. Moreover, we describe explicitly the distributionof the quasispecies for the sharp peak landscape, as well as for fitness functions which depend only on the Hamming distance to the master sequence.

No / This research aims to conduct an exploratory analysis into current industrial reverse logistics practice in business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer relationships (B2C), and determine the financial and operational impact of customer non-compliance in returning distribution equipment back to their source. The analysis was conducted over multiple industry sectors using qualitative research techniques. The research sample included seven industry sectors, providing a response rate of 72 per cent (53 sources approached). The focus was on both B2B and B2C relationships to determine similarities and differences in financial and operational repercussions. The research findings indicate that the efficacy of the reverse logistics system can be undermined by lack of customer compliance, with losses of up to £140 million (B2B). In both B2B and B2C relationships, there is evidence of suppliers suffering financial loss due to customer non-compliance. Due to the small scale of the analysis and the breadth of the industry sectors investigated, these results are not generalisable, but do indicate that this is an area, which could undermine supply chain effectiveness. Practical implications – Non-compliance of this nature carries a direct and highly applicable cost for manufacturers and distributors in the practitioner arena. Suppliers within industry need to acknowledge this issue and manage their reverse logistics more effectively. This paper adopts an innovative focus on an understated feature of the reverse logistics cycle, i.e. the recycling of distribution equipment used to transport outbound and returned products. The paper identifies a range of options, which practitioners can use as guidance when managing the returns system.

In order to satisfy the huge demand energy transmission in future, the DC grid concept is proposed based on voltage sourced converter (VSC) HVDC and modular multilevel converter (MMC) HVDC technologies. It provides an attractive approach for long distance power transmission such as offshore renewable energy transmission in Europe. However, there are two main obstacles in the DC grid development. The first obstacle is the DC fault detection and selective isolation. Under severe fault condition, the DC grid is desired to isolate the healthy and faulty part which implies the whole grid system will operate normally during the fault. The second obstacle is the voltage stepping in DC grid system. The high power converter is desired to achieve high voltage stepping ratio yet must be cost-effective. In this thesis, an IGBT-based DC/DC converter employing an internal inductor-capacitor-inductor (LCL) passive circuit is presented to overcome above two obstacles. The proposed converter can achieve high voltage stepping without internal AC transformer implying smaller converter size and it is also designed to have reasonable efficiency in high power application. In addition, the converter has good response even under extreme fault conditions. The IGBT-based LCL DC/DC converter design procedure and performance under fault condition is investigated based on the theoretical studies initially. The converter is modelled on PSCAD platform under normal/fault operation and the simulation results are used for converter efficiency calculation and fault analysis. The advantages of IGBT-based LCL DC/DC converter are demonstrated by comparing with other two high power DC/DC converter topologies. A low power level prototype of LCL DC/DC converter is built following the design principle. The hardware results are used to verify the theoretical conclusions. The VSC converter is defenceless to DC faults in DC grid application. In order to overco The VSC converter is defenceless to DC faults in DC grid application. In order to overcome this major drawback, a fault tolerant VSC converter employing LCL passive circuit is studied in this thesis. The LCL VSC converter design principle is presented by analysing the converter equations. The converter model is developed on PSCAD platform under normal/fault operation. An advanced control method is designed based on developed MATLAB analytical model to improve the LCL VSC converter stability. The advantages of LCL VSC converter are presented by comparing with its performance with conventional L-VSC converter considering efficiency and fault response. A fault tolerant DC grid topology employing LCL VSCs and using low speed protection is also investigated in this thesis. The simple mechanical DC circuit breakers are used at DC bus bars and at connecting points of each DC cable. A comprehensive protection scenario including DC cable differential protection, DC bus bar protection and back up protection is employed to protect the whole DC grid against any probable DC faults. An accurate DC cable model is adopted for a four-terminal DC grid which is modelled on PSCAD platform. The advantage and feasibility of this method in DC fault protection is investigated based on the developed grid model.

Internposten inom Norrköpings kommun analyserades för att utvärdera om Tekniska kontoret kunde ta över planering och distribution av internposten i egen regi och därmed inte längre vara beroende av en extern part.

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