In this thesis, a landcover simulator module is developed to incorporate non-stationary landcover into the hydrological model WATFLOOD. Objectives are to quantify the uncertainty inherent in assuming landcover stationarity in the Winnipeg River basin (WRB), and to improve the projections of future streamflow. Forest fires commonplace in the WRB are modelled through logistic regression and a generalized extreme value distribution for occurrence and extent respectively, fit from historical data. Fire regeneration and natural changes in landcover are modelled though a first order Markov chain, with transition probabilities derived from satellite imagery. Using satellite imagery directly into historical simulations in a sub-basin with substantial forest fire activity improved WATFLOOD results. With climate change, incorporating non-stationary landcover results in lower flows than assuming stationarity, albeit still greater than baseline (1971 - 2000) flows. Projected streamflow uncertainty under climate change also increases as a result of introducing non-stationary landcover in the WRB.

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This thesis examines the ability of the wavelet transform to form features which may be used successfully in a discriminant analysis. We apply our methods to two different data sets and consider the problem of selecting the 'best' features for discrimination. In the first data set, our interest is in automatically recognising the variety of a carrot from an image. After necessary image preprocessing we examine the usefulness of shape descriptors and texture features for discrimination. We show that it is better to use the different 'types' of features separately, and that the wavelet coefficients of the outline coordinates are more useful. In the second data set we consider the task of automatically identifying individual haddock from the sounds they produce. We use the smoothing property of wavelets to automatically isolate individual haddock sounds, and use the stationary wavelet transform to overcome the shift dependence of the standard wavelet transform. Again we calculate different 'types' of wavelet features and compare their usefulness in classification and show that including information on the source of the previous sound can substantially increase the correct classification rate. We also apply our techniques to recognise different species of fish which is also highly successful. In each analysis, we explore different allocation rules via regularised discriminant analysis and show that the highest classification rates obtained are only slightly better than linear discriminant analysis. We also consider the problem of selecting the best subset of features for discrimination. We propose two new measures for selecting good subsets and using a genetic algorithm we search for the 'best' subsets. We investigate the relationship between out measures and classification rates showing that our method is better than selection based on F-ratios and we also discover that our two measures are closely related.

The objectives of this study are threefold: to describe and analyse what reading material was available in Canada; to explain the business methods by which it was made available; and, to delineate by specific criteria the Scottish contribution to such availability. The study is the first to use newspaper advertisements, circulating library catalogues and business records to examine book availability, at the individual title level, in selected colonial Canadian towns. The primary research material is analysed by means of a customized database, BOOKSCAN, which includes bibliographic, business and geographic information in a single database. BOOKSCAN is a union catalogue with one record for each title, and multiple repeatable fields which detail where, when, how (for sale or loan, at what price, etc.) and by whom the title was made available. Narrative and graphical analyses include: intellectual content, occupation of book provider, geographic route of acquisition, business practice and, country of origin of shipment. Scottish contributions in terms of authorship, publishers, wholesalers and book trade personnel are examined in detail, and some preliminary comparisons are drawn between the trade in the Canadian colonies and that in provincial Scotland. The principal findings question previous assumptions about the role of Scots in the early Canadian book trade. Scottish general merchants were frequently retailers of books in Canada, but Scottish publishers were not proactive in seeking Canadian markets, and Scottish printers tended not to emigrate to Canadian towns in this early period, as they did to American towns. The key business factor which determined whether Scottish publishers and booksellers exported to Canada was having a known contact in a Canadian town. Case studies of several Scots include: Alexander Morrison, bookbinder and stationer in Halifax; Richard, William, James and Alexander Kidston, general merchants in Halifax; and, John Neilson, printer in Quebec. The greatest quantities of books shipped from Scotland were not those works of the Scottish Enlightenment, which tended to be shipped from London, but were school books, Bibles and chapbooks, categories supplied by stationers. The role of wholesaling stationers in book exports, uncovered in this study, suggests that previous surveys of book exports from Scotland may greatly underestimate the total, as stationers' shipments were entered in the Customs Accounts generically as "stationery" rather than as "books". Wholesaling stationers in Scotland and Scottish general merchants in Canada are the two principal groups of Scots who contributed to early Canadian book availability. This study contributes new information to the book histories of both Scotland and Canada, and provides a methodological model for future comparative research.

Graduation date: 1993

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 1993. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-36). Also available on the World Wide Web.

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Appraisal theory posits that the addition of new, relevant, information can alter the outcome of the appraisal process for a given emotional elicitor, such as an animal. The current study aimed to explore whether the addition of animal movement would sufficiently influence the intensity of emotional reactions and action motivation ratings for animals. The current study compared self-reported emotional reactions and self-reported action motivations for still images and videos for six animal categories (snakes, spiders, cockroaches, tortoises, deer, and ducks). Our findings indicate that movement increases the intensity of relevant emotional reactions to cockroaches, tortoises, deer, and ducks, but not snakes or spiders. Action motivation ratings indicate that movement increases approach motivations for the positively associated animals but does not alter avoidance motivations for the negatively associated animals. The implications for our understanding of the perception of and reactions to animals are discussed. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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