The mission of this creative project was to naturalize a school site for the purposes of environmental education. The naturalization process can either take the form of landscape/ecosystem restoration or natural landscaping. Utilizing the Ladysmith Elementary School as a case study, this creative project dealt with both forms of the naturalization process. The entire school site was natural landscaped and a portion of the school grounds was devoted to the restoration of a forest and wetland ecosystem. This area where ecosystems are to be recreated will serve as an environmental learning laboratory for the school.The topics reviewed for this project ecology, naturalization, landscape restoration, environmental education, outdoor education, and ecosystems. The product of this creative project was a master plan which included site inventory and analysis. / Department of Landscape Architecture

ABSTRACT This pilot study examines the knowledge about tree root systems amongst five tree planting professionals. The aim is to find out the professionals’ collective knowledge of the nature of root systems of various trees used in green areas. Furthermore; to explore how the professionals adapt landscaped green areas to the tree root properties in a sustainable manner. Questions: Which tree species have special root properties to consider and how do the professionals utilize this knowledge? And: How do the professionals in general adjust planting according to the root systems of trees in areas to create sustainable green environments? Interviews with the professionals were performed. Four of the five interviewees expressed that they had no root systems in mind when they chose trees to an area. However they considered properties such as wet soil, clay soil, sandy soil and the urban environment when they decided on the trees for an area. The interviewees discussed 22 different trees and their root systems and what kind of adaptations in landscaping they would make for the special root features to create sustainable tree plantings. As a result of the information a list was compiled and the collective knowledge of landscaping amongst the professionals was gathered into themes. These themes were then divided in to four headings: nutrition, root ball, design and soil conditions. In addition, all of the interviewees agreed that the most important thing for tree planting is to select the right tree species for the right soil. / SAMMANFATTNING Syftet med den här intervjustudien är att ta reda på en grupp yrkesverksammas samlade kunskap om rotsystemens olika egenskaper hos träd och sedan utforska hur de yrkesverksamma anpassar anlagda gröna miljöer till trädens rotegenskaper på ett hållbart sätt. Fem personer som arbetar med trädplantering intervjuades för att besvara studiens tre frågeställningar om rotsystemen hos träd. De två första frågeställningarna gällde: Vilka träd har särskilda rotegenskaper att ta hänsyn till och vilka anpassningar i anläggandet gör yrkesverksamma för de respektive trädens rotsystem? Utifrån intervjusvaren sammanställdes en lista där 22 träd med särskilda rotegenskaper presenteras tillsammans med vilken typ av anpassning de yrkesverksamma rekommenderar. Den tredje och sista frågeställningen var; Hur arbetar de yrkesverksamma generellt med rotsystem hos träd i anläggningar för att skapa hållbara gröna miljöer? Frågeställningen utmynnade i fyra huvudområden som beskriver hur de yrkesverksamma arbetar med näring, rotklump, design och mark för att skapa hållbara gröna miljöer. Slutligen svarade fyra av de fem informanterna att de inte hade rotsystemet i tanke när de valde träd till en plats. Trots det tog alla hänsyn till egenskaper som t.ex. blöt mark, lerjord, sandjord och urban miljö när de valde träd till en plats. Därutöver var alla var överrens om att artvalet är viktigt när träd ska planteras i en anläggning, dvs. rätt träd på rätt jord.

Auf Versuchsflächen des Friedhofes in Pirna (Sachsen) wurden unter alten und jungen Birken verschiedene Stauden und Gräser getestet. Untersucht wurde, wie sich die Konkurrenz um Wasser, Nährstoffe und der Einfluss von Schatten und Laubfall der Gehölze auf das Anwuchsverhalten, die Entwicklung, den Pflege- und Materialaufwand der getesteten Pflanzen auswirkt. Besonders geeignet als Unterpflanzen sind im Ergebnis der fünfjährigen Versuche die Gänsekresse (Arabis), das Stachelnüsschen (Acaena) und der Schlangenbart (Ophiopogon). Der Bericht enthält Informationen zum Anwuchsverhalten der Arten in den ersten zwei Jahren und ihrer weiteren Entwicklung. Empfehlenswert sind eine optimale Pflanzvorbereitung mit mindestens 10 cm Bodenaustausch, die Pflanzdichte von 18 Pfl./m² und vier Pflegedurchgänge im Jahr. Ein Ereigniskalender zeigt die Monate der Blüten- und Fruchtschmuckbildung und der Laubfärbung der Versuchspflanzen.

The function of a protein is largely dictated by its natural shape called the "native conformation." Since the native conformation and the global minimum energy configuration highly correlate, predicting this conformation is a global optimization known as the "protein folding problem." It is computationally intensive due to the high-dimensional and complex energy landscape. Typical conformation algorithms combine a probabilistic search with analytical optimization. The analytical portion typically takes longer than the probabilistic part since more function evaluations are required, which are algorithm bottlenecks. To reduce the computational cost, this research studies the effects of exponential energy landscaping (XEL) on three analytical optimization algorithms: Newton's method, a quasi-Newton algorithm (QNA), and the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) algorithm. The XEL changes the heights and the depths of the extrema but keeps their location the same, which eliminates the troublesome process of remapping minima onto the original landscape. The Newton-XEL is found to have a similar convergence property as Newton's method by showing that their error residues are of the same order. Found by observation, stability and convergence are improved when the error residue is bounded. While XEL is found to have no effect on the similarity of resulting configurations to the native conformation, results show that the XEL can improve the speed in terms of average iterations in the QNA by 47% and in the BFGS by 41%. In terms of the average score improvement, which indicates how the energy of the resulting configuration is compared to that of the initial configuration, the XEL can improve the quality of resulting configurations in the QNA by 12% and in the BFGS by 10%. Since both results were not achieved simultaneously, the adaptive exponential energy landscaping (AXEL) is developed. The results lead to the conclusion that a trade-off between quality and speed must be considered when XEL is implemented. To improve speed by 15% to 47% and efficiency by 13% to 75%, XEL with n within 2⁻⁹-2⁻⁵ should be used and to improve quality by 4% to 7%, AXEL with Scheme E that keeps the error residue bounded should be used.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2005. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2005. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2004.

Diss. Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2003.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniv. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Alnarp : Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.