Arizona Cooperative Extension Publication 190043 / Originally published 1990, revised 1995, revised 1997.

Arizona Cooperative Extension Publication 190043 / Originally published 1990, Revised 1995.

No description available.

This study assessed the social and biophysical impacts of camping in the eucalypt forests of southwestern Western Australia. This was an integrated study examining both biophysical and social impacts in designated, developed and informal recreation areas used for camping. Four existing and proposed national parks and a Reserve, comprised of 110 designated and 12 informal campsites, provided the study sites. Previous research has focused on backcountry campsites and trails in wilderness areas in United States. A combined survey approach using multiple indicator ratings and measures was used to assess the biophysical impacts of camping. Adjustments to monitoring procedures used in backcountry areas were made so that the indicators were applicable to designated, developed campsites where a management footprint has been imposed. Visitors were surveyed at the designated campsites to establish how existing recreation opportunities were being used. Further, potential indicators and standards were identified to determine what kinds of social and resource conditions were acceptable to visitors and managers. A rating system was then developed combining biophysical and social indicators of importance to visitors and managers with their perceptions of acceptable change obtained from the surveys. Based on the indices derived from the rating system and results for a suite of associated indicators, designated campsites were significantly less impacted than informal ones. For both campsite types the amount of tree damage and litter exceeded the standards set by 50% of visitors and managers. Both visitors and managers were generally more concerned about biophysical impacts than they were about social ones, although site cleanliness was of concern. Both were generally satisfied with the size and number of groups encountered, in contrast to study findings from the United States. This study has developed and successfully applied an integrated approach to monitoring the impacts of recreational use on forested campsites in southwestern Australia. This system effectively and efficiently uses a combination of multiple indicator ratings and measures to produce an impact index, plus social surveys to provide information on conditions, indicators and standards of importance to managers and visitors. It also provides a means for the first time, of objectively monitoring designated, developed campsites where it is inappropriate to judge impacts against an undisturbed control.

Thesis (M.S.)--Central Connecticut State University, 1998. / Thesis advisor: Dr. Clayton Penniman. " ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Biology." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-63).

Thesis (M.Sc) - University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliography.

Software rarely comes without maintenance after it is released. There can be bugs not captured in development or performance that might not meet expectations; therefore, it is crucial to be able to collect data from running software, preemptively addressing such issues. A common way to monitor the general health of a system is by monitoring it through the users' perspective — so-called "black-box" monitoring. Making a more sophisticated analysis of software requires code that offers no functionality to the software, whose purpose is to create data about the software itself. A common way of creating such data is through logging. While logging can be used in the general case, alternatively, more specific solutions can offer an easier pipeline to work with; while not being suited for tasks such as root-cause analysis.This study briefly looks at four different frameworks, all having different approaches to collect and structure data. This study also covers the development of a proof-of-concept framework that creates structured events through logging — along with a SQL-server database to store the event data.

Bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor, requires monitoring in water for health safety. Glutamate, H2O2, and glucose are vital biomarkers for various diseases. However, lab-based methods are expensive, time-consuming, and require skilled personnel, making them unsuitable for point-of-care (POC) devices. The electrochemical sensor enables POC device development. However, it suffers from low sensitivity and selectivity. This thesis focuses on the use of nanomaterials to enhance the sensitivity and selectivity of electrochemical sensors to monitor BPA in water, along with glutamate, H2O2, and glucose in bio-fluids. A BPA sensor was developed using chemically modified MWCNTs with βCD on a screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE). The MWCNTs-βCD/SPCE exhibited high sensitivity, attributed to the catalytic activity of MWCNTs and the host-guest interaction ability of βCD. It provided a linear range (LR) of 125 nM −30 µM, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 13.76 nM (SNR = 3). We improved the performance by curing the MWCNTs-βCD/SPCE with CTAB. The sensor demonstrated a dynamic range of 500 fM to 10 μM, with a LOD of 96.5 fM, surpassing the Canada-assigned PNEC of BPA in water (0.77 nM). We fabricated a nonenzymatic glutamate sensor using CuO nanostructures and MWCNTs on SPCE. The sensor showed irreversible oxidation of glutamate involving one electron and one proton, and an LR of 20 μM−200 μM with LOD of 17.5 μM and sensitivity of 8500 μAmM−1cm−2. The sensor is promising to detect glutamate in blood. We developed a nonenzymatic glucose sensor using green synthesized gold nanoparticles and CuO-modified SPCE. The LR offered by the sensor (2 µM to 397 µM) is suitable for quantifying saliva glucose. We also created nonenzymatic H2O2 sensor by green synthesized silver nanoparticles modified SPCE which offers LR of 0.5- 161.8 µM with LOD 0.3 µM which is capable of H2O2 monitoring in urine. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Bisphenol A (BPA) is a plastic pollutant and an endocrine-disrupting chemical that causes reproductive and neurodevelopmental disorders, and many diseases including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. In addition, glutamate, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and glucose are vital biomarkers for various acute and chronic diseases. These diseases impose significant burdens on individuals, healthcare systems, and the economy. Therefore, they must be monitored. In this thesis, we developed a BPA sensor using chemically modified multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with β-cyclodextrin (βCD) and cetrimonium bromide (CTAB) which can detect BPA at very low concentration beyond Canada-assigned predicted-no-effect-concentrations (PNEC) of BPA. We also developed a glutamate sensor using MWCNTs and wet chemically synthesized copper oxide (CuxO) nanostructure which offers a linear range related to blood glutamate level. Moreover, we fabricated nonenzymatic H2O2 and glucose sensors using green synthesized gold (AuNPs) and silver (AgNPs) nanoparticles (using orange peel extraction as a reducing and stabilizing agent) which are useful to quantify urine H2O2 and saliva glucose respectively.

Current analysis of the life and death cycles of in vitro cellular systems is based on visual observation methods relying upon morphological changes monitored using a microscope. Data collected from these techniques are not as precise as scientists desire them to be. The methods are discontinuous, indirect, costly, and time and labor intensive. The human element plays a significant part in error propagation as individual style of the researcher lends to skewing the data. Experimental results will differ greatly from laboratory to laboratory just because the methods of monitoring cellular activity are not standardized. The researcher uses experience to determine the best way to collect data quickly and "accurately" according to his or her definition. There is a great need not only to standardize data collection processes, but also to eliminate human error induced by lack of experience or fatigue. This research proposes a fiber optic based monitoring system as a possible solution to eliminate a number of problems with current cellular data collection methods and to increase the data collection rate tremendously since the process could be automated. / Master of Science

Cardiovascular mortality continues to be the leading cause of death in the United Kingdom, China and the United States. Many of these deaths occur suddenly, called sudden cardiac death (SCD), with the number of these events estimated from these three Countries to be over 1,500,000 annually. In the vast majority of documented cases, the SCD is directly caused by ventricular tachycardia (V1). Prediction of the presence of the VT is of great importance. It has been found by using signal averaging (SA) techniques that the appearance of micro signals, called ventricular late potentials (VLPs), is highly correlated with the appearance of VT or SCD. The VLPs are about 0.1% - 1% of the size of the normal ECG in most patients and are masked by various noise sources, so that they can not be seen from the standard electrocardiogram (ECG). The SA techniques, depending largly on averaging many beats, can only detect the microvolt signals that are strictly constant in duration, morphology and timing relative to the QRS complex amongst the considerable amounts of noise which are present The main disadvantage of the technique is that it cannot offer information from an individual beat, i.e. variations among the beats and individual beat information are lost when averaging. This information can be very important in the diagnosis of the development of many heart abnormalities, particularly arrhythmias. This thesis describes various techniques that have been developed for a real-time processing system, in which the system can detect VLPs at the body surface with beat-to-beat variations. One of the most important techniques is the use of adaptive filters to reduce the most disruptive noise -random noise. Clinical investigations have been carried out based on 14 normal and 20 abnormal pathological subjects to produce reproducible results on the developed system. The results show that the system can produce much more information than SA techniques for the prediction of VT.