The incidence of falls in the elderly population is a growing concern in the healthcare industry as associated morbidity is high, particularly morbidity associated with falls from bed. Bedrails were implemented as a device intended to reduce the incidence of falls from bed; however, recent evidence may indicate that bedrails contribute to adverse events including entrapment and entanglement. As such, efforts have been madeto reduce the use of bedrails and implement alternatives including height adjustable beds and floor mats. An instrumented anthropomorphic test dummy was used in the current study to measure the deceleration profiles of the head, thorax, and pelvis upon impact onto a tile surface or floor mat. The height of the fall was varied by using a height adjustable bed, and the impact site was varied by head or feet first falls. The deceleration profiles were used to determine mean maximum values across repeated trials and to calculate injury criteria at the head (HIC), thorax (TIC), and pelvis (PIC). The mean maximum values were further used to estimate the effect of adding bedrails. Injury severity was then predicted from the injury criteria calculated for the head. From this study, the mean maximum values were found to significantly increase with an increase in height regardless of fall direction. As such, the addition of bedrails consequently increased these values. Furthermore, the use of a floor mat significantly reduced the mean maximum values at the head and pelvis during head first falls and at the head and thorax during feet first falls. Injury criteria were also calculated for each body region and found to be significantly increased with an increase in height and decreased with the use of the floor mat.

Revised 10/2015; Originally published 10/2013. / 2 pp. / Grain yield, test weight, and other characteristics of barley, durum, and wheat varieties are provided in this publication

No description available.

The recommended procedures for implementing COTMAN; a cotton management expert system; suggest frequent crop scouting at numerous locations for each field. Machine based height sensors coupled with the ability to spatially record height values make it possible to locate regions of a field that are height representative of the entire field. A machine based height measurement system called HMAP was used to assess plant height in various fields in the 2003 growing season while the same fields were monitored with COTMAN. The plant height data was used to determine an optimal COTMAN sampling scheme for each field consisting of significantly fewer sampling locations than recommended by COTMAN. It was possible to ascertain equivalent information from COTMAN using two sites selected from height data in place of six sites selected per COTMAN recommendations. The HMAP system was extended to monitor rate of growth in real time in addition to plant height by comparing historical plant height data recorded on previous field passes to current height values. The rate of growth capable HMAP system will make it possible to track cotton growth and development with an automated system.

No description available.

External flaming from buildings occurs as a result of a large amount of fuel being available in the room of fire origin in comparison to the amount of ventilation provided. The size of the openings in a compartment affects the amount of oxygen available within the fire room, and hence the amount of combustion that can take place inside. Excess fuel that is not burnt within the room flows out of the opening and combusts upon reaching the oxygen in the air outside. It is in this situation that flames are seen projecting out of the window. Flames projecting from openings pose the threat of fire spread from the room of fire origin. This threat increases with the size of the flames. Thus a dependable method for predicting the size of flames projecting from openings is required. This research addresses the issue of predicting flame heights projecting from openings, based on the heat release rate of a fire. The results are based on laboratory experiments and are presented in non-dimensional form, allowing application to scenarios that have not been specifically tested. This work supports the findings of other researchers, with appropriate adjustments made to compensate for differing experimental approaches. This indicates that the relationships established between the non-dimensional heat release rate and flame height are formed from a sound underlying principle. An empirical relationship between the non-dimensional flame height and heat release rate of a fire is presented in a simplified format to enable ease of use. The temperatures attained, and other observations from the compartment fire experiments are also presented and discussed. These were found to have dependence on a number of factors, with relationships varying between the individual experiments. The widely-used computational fluid dynamics model Fire Dynamics Simulator, Version 4 (FDS), was found to currently be unreliable in modelling the experimental scenarios. The results obtained were unrealistic and bore minimal resemblance to the experimental results, with extensive computational simulation time. The ability of the programme to model the compartment fire scenario requires further investigation to determine whether a finer grid resolution may improve results, or whether it is simply not able to model combustion processes involved at this stage.

This study looks at how professional male athletes—particularly undersized athletes—are represented throughout televised sport. Based on the assumption that televised sport is a gendered and predominantly masculine genre, the focus of this analysis is to demonstrate whether or not professional male athletes are evaluated differently based on physical stature, and whether or not such representations reinforce a dominant—mythic—male ideology. Grounded mainly in Gramscian hegemony and Peircean semiotics, the subsequent analysis compares broadcast commentary and visuals taken from the 2010 men’s Olympic ice hockey tournament and the 2010 men’s FIFA World Cup. In both events, it was generally found that taller athletes were praised more positively than smaller athletes. These findings appear to support common sports-related stereotypes, such as, the apparent media-reinforced expectation that professional male athletes be almost inhuman, mythical representations of ordinary men, i.e., the best athletes should be large, intimidating, aggressive, and hyper-masculine symbols.

Enhanced understanding of forest stocks and dynamics can be gained through improved forest measurement, which is required to assist with sustainable forest management decisions, meet Australian and international reporting needs, and improve research efforts to better respond to a changing climate. Integrated sampling schemes that utilise a multi-scale approach, with a range of data sourced from both field and remote sensing, have been identified as a way to generate the required forest information. Given the multi-scale approach proposed by these schemes, it is important to understand how scale potentially affects the interpretation and reporting of forest from a range of data. ¶ To provide improved forest assessment at a range of scales, this research has developed a strategy for facilitating tree and stand level retrieval of structural attributes within an integrated multi-scale analysis framework. The research investigated the use of fine-scale (~1m) airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data (1,125 ha in central Queensland, and 60,000 ha in NE Victoria) to calibrate other remotely sensed data at the two study sites. The strategy refines forest structure mapping through three-dimensional (3D) modelling combined with empirical relationships, allowing improved estimation of maximum and predominant height, as well as foliage and crown cover at multiple scales. Tree stems (including those in the sub-canopy) were located using a height scaled crown openness index (HSCOI), which integrated the 3D density of canopy elements within the vertical profile into a two-dimensional spatial layer. The HSCOI modelling also facilitated the reconstruction of the 3D distribution of foliage and branches (of varying size and orientation) within the forest volume. ¶ Comparisons between forests at the Queensland and NE Victorian study sites indicated that accurate and consistent retrieval of cover and height metrics could be achieved at multiple scales, with the algorithms applicable for semi-automated use in other forests with similar structure. This information has facilitated interpretation and evaluation of Landsat imagery and ICESat satellite laser data for forest height and canopy cover retrieval. The development of a forest cover translation matrix allows a range of data and metrics to be compared at the plot scale, and has initiated the development of continuous transfer functions between the metrics and datasets. These data have been used subsequently to support interpretation of SAR data, by providing valuable input to 2D and 3D radar simulation models. Scale effects have been identified as being significant enough to influence national forest class reporting in more heterogeneous forests, thus allowing the most appropriate use and integration of remote sensed data at a range of scales. An empirically based forest minimum mapping area of 1 ha for reporting is suggested. The research has concluded that LiDAR can provide calibration information just as detailed and possibly more accurately than field measurements for many required forest attributes. Therefore the use of LiDAR data offers a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between accurate field plot structural information and stand to landscape scale sampling, to provide enhanced forest assessment in Australia.

A new, high resolution, high precision and accuracy gravimetric geoid of Australia has been produced using updated data, theory and computational methodologies. The fast Fourier transform technique is applied to the computation of the geoid and terrain effects. The long, medium and short wavelength components of the geoid are determined from the OSU91A global geopotential model, 2'x2' (residual gravity anomalies in a 3 degrees cap and 1'x1' digital terrain model (DTM), respectively.Satellite altimeter gravity data have been combined with marine gravity data to improve the coverage of the gravity data, and thus the quality of the geoid. The best gridding procedure for gravity data has been studied and applied to the gravity data gridding. It is found that the gravity field of Australia behaves quite differently. None of the free-air, Bouguer or topographic-isostatic gravity anomalies are consistently the smoothest. The Bouguer anomaly is often rougher than the free-air anomaly and thus should be not used for gravity field gridding. It is also revealed that in some regions the topography often contains longer wavelength features than the gravity anomalies.It is demonstrated that the inclusion of terrain effects is crucial for the determination of an accurate gravimetric geoid. Both the direct and indirect terrain effects need to be taken into account in the precise geoid determination of Australia. The existing AUSGEOID93 could be in error up to 0.7m in terms of the terrain effect only. In addition, a series of formulas have been developed to evaluate the precision of the terrain effects. These formulas allow the effectiveness of the terrain correction and precision requirement for a given DTM to be studied. It is recommended that the newly released 9"x9" DTM could be more effectively used if it is based on 15"x15" grid.It is estimated from comparisons with Global ++ / Positioning System (GPS) and Australian Height Datum Data that the absolute accuracy of the new geoid is better than 33cm and the relative precision of the new geoid is better than 10~20cm. This new geoid can support Australian GPS heighting to third-order specifications.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv. / Härtill 8 uppsatser.