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The objectives of this research were to 1) compile a synthesis of information about polyester polymer concrete (PPC) from the literature; 2) conduct a scanning tour to observe PPC construction, inspect in-service PPC overlays, and discuss topics related to PPC; 3) revise the existing Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) PPC specification; 4) document a PPC field demonstration project; and 5) perform laboratory characterization of the material properties of field-mixed PPC. The scope of the research included a scanning tour, field testing, and laboratory experimentation. The objectives of the scanning tour included observation of a PPC overlay placement, inspection of existing overlays, and discussion of selected topics related to PPC. The scanning tour comprised a 3-day visit to California. Items related to material properties, mixture and overlay design, laboratory testing, and construction and field testing were investigated. Several recommendations relevant to Utah bridge deck preservation practice were developed based on the findings and then incorporated into a revised UDOT PPC specification. The objective of the field testing was to evaluate specific aspects of construction, quality assurance, and performance of PPC overlays on concrete bridge decks. The scope of the project included testing of a PPC test section overlay and three PPC bridge deck overlays during and after construction. Hardness tests were performed on the test section placements, and hardness, skid resistance, impact-echo, impedance, and resin content determination tests were performed on each of the bridge deck overlays. The field testing yielded valuable information about PPC overlays. Recommendations regarding hardness testing, skid resistance testing, patching, and surface preparation were developed based on the findings. The objectives of the laboratory experimentation were to characterize several material properties of field-mixed PPC sampled from actual bridge deck overlay placements in Utah and compare them to properties of laboratory-mixed PPC reported in the literature. Laboratory testing was conducted on a typical PPC mixture. Properties that were measured include density, modulus of elasticity, coefficient of thermal expansion, hardness, unconfined compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, rapid chloride permeability, and resin content. Measured properties were consistent with typical ranges cited in the literature.

Research question: What do dive tour operators perceive to be contributing factors for environmental change in coastal zones? Purpose: The aspiration is that the study will advance the understanding of factors impacting coastal zones in order to support achievements for Agenda 2030, Goal 14, Life Below Water. The purpose of the field study is therefore to investigate what aspects impact coastal zones through the case of the coastal zones in Moalboal. The study’s perspective is from workers within dive tour operations.  Method: The study was conducted through a qualitative strategy and an inductive approach. The empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews with dive tour operators. Additionally, observations were used to add further insight into the phenomenon.  Conclusion: This study concluded that dive tour operators have similar perceptions of the impacts on the environment, however, the degree to which each participant mentioned each factor varied. The research resulted in eleven factors that contribute to environmental change in the coastal zones in Moalboal. The conclusion ends by highlighting that environmental change is an important aspect that concerns the dive tour operators.

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This paper concerns the human rights aspect to tourism, more precisely the tour operator’s impact on human rights. It has become evident that companies within the industry are increasingly expected to also include the negative impacts on people’s human rights in their business. Not only because human rights matter but because the tourism industry is regarded to be next in line for a more careful examination on its negative effects. This study will therefore be an attempt to contribute towards this end by applying a stakeholder approach to the tour operator’s activities. I have chosen to examine the Swedish tour operator Apollo because they are already engaged in the debate and have expressed an ambition to lead the development of responsible tourism. The study shows that the result of their engagement so far is limited in scope because the company has not fully included all participants to their business as stakeholders. And therefore is human rights only partly incorporated in the company’s work toward corporate responsibility.

<p>Land use planning has gained popularity as a travel demand management strategy for the last two decades. Many urban authorities in North America have adopted smart growth policies in order to curb auto use and promote sustainable forms of travel, namely, public transit, bicycle and walking. The purpose of this study is to examine whether someone’s travel behavior is influenced by the characteristics of the built environment where one lives and works. The study area is Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. Two aspects of travel are analyzed for a weekday: total distance travelled by auto and average tour complexity. Separate models are developed for worker and non-worker by applying ordinary least square and spatial lag modeling techniques. The built environment variables are measured near home and workplace and at different geographical scales. The average auto distance and tour complexity are separately regressed against the built environment variables while personal characteristics, household attributes, preferences for residential location and transport mode, and meteorological conditions of survey days are accounted for. The results of auto distance models suggest that people living and working in high accessibility areas with mixed land uses make shorter travel by auto, which supports the claims of smart growth proponents. The built environment variables make significant contribution to the fitness of auto distance models. In case of tour complexity models, built environment variables also appear to be significant but with lower contribution to model <em>R²</em>. The results suggest that non-workers, who live in poor accessibility areas, make more complex tours. Workers living in poorly accessible neighborhoods and working in highly accessible areas make complex commuting and work-based, non-work tours. It means that, workers compensate poor neighborhood accessibility by trip chaining near workplace. The findings would be helpful to evaluate the existing growth strategies in Halifax Regional Municipality. In addition, it makes several contributions to the literature.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Multi-criteria scheduling provides the opportunity to create mathematical optimization models that are applicable to a diverse set of problem domains in the business world. This research addresses two different employee scheduling applications using multi-criteria objectives that present decision makers with trade-offs between global optimality and the level of disruption to current operating resources. Additionally, it investigates a scheduling problem from the product testing domain and proposes a heuristic solution technique for the problem that is shown to produce very high-quality solutions in short amounts of time. Chapter 2 addresses a grant administration workload-to-staff assignment problem that occurs in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at land-grant universities. We identify the optimal workload assignment plan which differs considerably due to multiple reassignments from the current state. To achieve the optimal workload reassignment plan we demonstrate a technique to identify the n best reassignments from the current state that provides the greatest progress toward the utopian solution. Solving this problem over several values of n and plotting the results allows the decision maker to visualize the reassignments and the progress achieved toward the utopian balanced workload solution. Chapter 3 identifies a weekly schedule that seeks the most cost-effective set of coach-to-program assignments in a gymnastics facility. We identify the optimal assignment plan using an integer linear programming model. The optimal assignment plan differs greatly from the status quo; therefore, we utilize a similar approach from Chapter 2 and use a multiple objective optimization technique to identify the n best staff reassignments. Again, the decision maker can visualize the trade-off between the number of reassignments and the resulting progress toward the utopian staffing cost solution and make an informed decision about the best number of reassignments. Chapter 4 focuses on product test scheduling in the presence of in-process and at-completion inspection constraints. Such testing arises in the context of the manufacture of products that must perform reliably in extreme environmental conditions. Each product receives a certification at the successful completion of a predetermined series of tests. Operational efficiency is enhanced by determining the optimal order and start times of tests so as to minimize the make span while ensuring that technicians are available when needed to complete in-process and at-completion inspections We first formulate a mixed-integer programming model (MILP) to identify the optimal solution to this problem using IBM ILOG CPLEX Interactive Optimizer 12.7. We also present a genetic algorithm (GA) solution that is implemented and solved in Microsoft Excel. Computational results are presented demonstrating the relative merits of the MILP and GA solution approaches across a number of scenarios. / Ph. D.

Forbidden City is a 3D virtual tour of an ancient Chinese architectural masterpiece, first of the world's top five palaces -The Imperial Palace in Beijing, China. This travel guide is designed to give you useful information that will greatly enhance your experience, and it will bring you into an immersive virtual world by using the device of the HTC VIVE rather than static texts and images. This 3D guide integrates cultural and historical information, which is practical and informative. You can get a comprehensive understanding of the palace history, architectural characteristics and Chinese culture through interaction within the immersive experience. Forbidden City travel guide 3D virtual tour provides all the necessary functions and information for planning a visit to the Forbidden Cty palace in the capital of Beijing, China. With the tour guide character "Doctor Guider" within this experience/game, your tour to this Forbidden City will be purposeful and fun. / Master of Fine Arts

"Une étude de tomographie par émission de positons à été entreprit dans le but d'évaluer l'apprentissage d 'une version modifiée de la tâche de la Tour de Londres. Dix participants en bonne santé ont solutionné 90 problèmes de cette tâche, et des données fonctionnelles ont été recueillies à quatre niveaux de pratique. Lors de la performance initiale de la tâche, une augmentation du flot sanguin a été observée dans les régions dorsolatérales préfrontales, orbitofrontales, pariétales ainsi que dans le cervelet du côté gauche. Toutefois, l'apprentissage de la tâche était accompagné d'une diminution significative de l'activité cérébrale dans certaines régions orbitofrontales du cerveau, ainsi que d'une augmentation transitoire de l'activité dans le striatum ventral. Ces résultats suggèrent que cette forme d'apprentissage entraîne une réduction de l'activité dans les régions impliquées lors de la prise de décision, de l'estimation des réponses à effectuer, et de l'évaluation des rétroactions, ainsi qu'une augmentation dans les structures qui jouent un rôle important dans les mécanismes d'apprentissage reliés à la récompense et dans l'automatisation de nouveaux comportements appris."

The following study is interested in Dorothy Wordsworth's formation of her unique authorial identity and environmental ethos. I attend to her poetry and prose, specifically her journals written at Grasmere and her Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland (1874) to demonstrate how she shaped her individual voice while navigating her occasionally conflicting roles of sister and writer. My project begins with a chapter providing a selective biographical and critical history of Dorothy Wordsworth and details how my work emerges from current trends in scholarship and continues an ongoing critical conversation about Dorothy Wordsworth's agency and originality. In my analysis of Dorothy's distinct poetic voice, I compare selections of her writing with William's to demonstrate how Dorothy expressed her perspectives regarding nature, community, and her place within her environment. In my chapter on Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, I analyze the ways in which Dorothy's narrative embraces the tenets of the picturesque while simultaneously acknowledging the tradition's limitations. Her environmental perspective was inherently rooted in domesticity; the idea of home and her community connections influenced how she engaged with and then recorded the environments she traveled to and the people she met. My project concludes by demonstrating how Dorothy Wordsworth's environmental ethos relates to the values promoted by modern environmental writers. Dorothy was intimately connected to her home and environment and modern environmental protection and conservation efforts encourage human connection to home and place. I consider how modern environmentalist movements could benefit from embodying the empathy that Dorothy showed for the natural world in their practices today. / Master of Arts / My thesis argues that while Dorothy Wordsworth was intrinsically involved in her brother William's poetic process, she actively created a unique writerly identity that can be detected throughout her journals and poems. My project begins with a chapter detailing how my work emerges from current trends in Dorothy Wordsworth scholarship, including feminist and ecocritical studies. In my analysis of Dorothy's individual poetic voice, I suggest that through her distinctive style and her mingling of poetry and prose, Dorothy was strongly asserting herself and her perspectives even when they conflicted with William's. Dorothy's Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland exemplifies her unique environmental perspective, which was influenced by her community-centered identity; this contributes to what she chooses to recollect in her journal. My project concludes by demonstrating how Dorothy Wordsworth's environmental ethos relates to the values promoted by modern environmental writers. Dorothy was intimately connected to her home and environment and modern environmental protection and conservation efforts encourage human connection to home and place. I consider how modern environmentalist movements could benefit from embodying the empathy that Dorothy showed for the natural world in their practices today.