No description available.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

In recent years, the general public and the government are becoming more aware about heritage conservation, not only the built heritage, but also its intangible cultural aspects after the controversies of the demolition of Lee Tung Street (Wedding Street) in Wan Chai, Star Ferry and Queen’s Pier in Central. People realize that the understanding of a place of heritage value should not be confined to the tangible built or physical elements, but should also include the community life, unique living habit, the emotional attachment to the place, or in short the intangible social significance, which cannot be easily qualified. “Dai Pai Dong” as a local culture forming part of the urban fabric. With only 28 numbers left in Hong Kong, “Dai Pai Dong” is a form of collective attachment of the community, however, its social value, which is abstract, non-physical, difficult to explain and few people can understand, has hardly been assessed or recorded systematically. This research aims to find out what the relevant data is and how to qualify and assess the people’s perception for the social significance of “Dai Pai Dong” in an urban development context, using the Dai Pai Dongs at Stanley Street as case study. The relevant data collected in the research forms a base and can be further used to provide references for cultural resources management, conservation management plan, and policy or decision making, which are brought out for readers’ further thinking. / published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Detroit Mercy, 2009. / "4/28/2008." Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-172).

Thesis (M.S. in civil engineering)--Washington State University. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Humboldt State University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-38). Also available via Humboldt Digital Scholar.

Thesis (M.S.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2007. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Tracy A.O. Dougher. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 247-258).

The traffic safety and efficiency applications made possible by vehicular communications have the potential to improve the lives of millions of people who, every day, use automobiles as their primary means of transportation. To be well connected and fully functional, these networks of cars require a minimum number of active nodes, which often may not happen due to a lack of radio-equipped vehicles on the road. These same networks can also be overwhelmed with traffic and signaling in the presence of too many cars, requiring careful coordination between all nodes to ensure proper operation. One way to overcome both these problems is to supplement vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications with vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) systems by deploying Roadside Units (RSUs) along the road to support the network of moving cars. RSUs are infrastructure nodes that can supplement sparse networks in low-density scenarios, and help coordinate and move data in denser networks. RSUs have an associated cost, however, and so their numbers need to be minimized while still maintaining a significant improvement to the vehicular network. he work presented in this thesis quantities the benefits of Roadside Unit deployments and proposes innovative approaches that can reduce and even eliminate the need for RSUs altogether.he first part of the thesis focuses on highway networks: first, an analytical model is developed to analyze communication delay in scenarios with sparse bi-directional traffic, considering both disconnected and connected RSUs.hen, a study on connectivity and message dissemination in these networks reveals how significant benefits of RSUs are only achieved when the deployed RSUs are interconnected. Extensive simulation work paired with sets of experimental measurements validate both model and study. Supplementing the work on sparse highway networks, an infrastructure-less approach is then proposed, consisting of two methods to improve communication delays in these scenarios: decelerate disconnected vehicles as they receive safety messages, and boost the same vehicles’ radio transmit power, to shorten the time to restore connectivity. Both techniques are modeled analytically, and data from a simulation study validate the models and show significant improvements in the connectivity of sparse highway networks with this infrastructure-less approach. he second part of the thesis sets its sights on urban vehicular networks. High costs associated with RSUs prevent their deployment at scale, and therefore finding alternative solutions to this longstanding problem is very important. A novel, low-cost self-organizing network approach to leveraging parked cars as RSUs in urban areas is proposed here, enabling parked cars to create coverage maps based on received signal strength and to decide whether to become RSUs from that knowledge. Initial simulation work reveals significant benefits to emergency message broadcasting delay in sparse scenarios and shows the ability of the self-organizing approach in providing robust and widespread coverage to dense urban areas, using only a small fraction of the cars parked in a city. he parking behaviors of individual drivers are then studied, by analyzing and gathering statistics on travel survey data from various metropolitan areas. Daily and hourly analytical models of parking events are provided, along with important derivations.he statistical data show that parking events can be classified into two major groups based on the time a car spends parked, and that these patterns vary substantially throughout the day while being markedly similar across different cities. he last part of the thesis focuses on self-organization for parked car RSUs. Novel mechanisms for self-organization are introduced that are innovative in their ability to keep the network of parked cars under continuous optimization, in their multicriteria decision process, and in their control of each car’s battery usage, rotating roadside unit roles between vehicles as required.he first comprehensive study of the performance of such approaches is presented, via realistic modeling of mobility, parking, and communication, thorough simulations, and an experimental verification of concepts that are key to self-organization. his analysis leads to strong evidence that parked cars can serve as an alternative to fixed roadside units, and organize to form networks to support smarter transportation and mobility.

Ecological restoration, or assisting the recovery of damaged ecosystems, is recognized as a crucial activity for reversing biodiversity loss across the globe. Roadside rights-of-way may be suitable areas for the restoration of endangered grassland communities, because they occupy significant areas of underutilized land, are managed as early successional plant communities, and may serve as corridors for wildlife movement and gene flow. However, though many roadside restoration projects have been undertaken in North America, few studies have evaluated their long-term success and most monitoring is narrow in scope. True restoration includes restoring an appropriate species composition, vegetation structure and ecosystem functions, and thus these ecosystem components must be measured when evaluating success. I assessed the plant community, bee community, soil carbon and plant-fungal relationships at roadside restorations of various ages along three major highways in Southern Ontario and compared these measures to unrestored roadsides and reference sites. I found that roadside restorations successfully increased native plant richness, though not to the level of a remnant grassland. Bee communities varied mostly by highway rather than site type, though bee abundance was positively correlated with plant diversity and bare ground. Soil carbon in roadside sites was similar to that of a remnant grassland but did not differ among restored and control sites. Plant growth response to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi collected from roadside sites varied depending on the site and showed a weak negative correlation with site age. Taken together, these results suggest that roadside restoration can benefit some ecosystem components, but simply seeding native plants along roadsides may not be sufficient for improving ecosystem function. This study highlights the importance of evaluating success in a comprehensive manner that includes multiple ecosystem components. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Ecological restoration is crucial for reversing global biodiversity loss. Roadsides may be suitable for the restoration of grassland ecosystems, but few studies have comprehensively evaluated the long-term success of roadside restorations. I assessed the plant community, bee community, soil carbon and plant-fungal relationships at roadside restorations along three Southern Ontario highways and compared these measures to unrestored roadsides and a remnant grassland. Restoration increased native plant diversity, though not to remnant levels. Bee communities varied mostly by highway, though bee abundance was positively correlated with plant diversity. Soil carbon in roadside sites was similar to the remnant but did not differ among restored and unrestored sites. Plant response to soil fungi collected from roadside sites varied significantly by site. Thus, roadside restoration can benefit some ecosystem components, but more intervention may be required to restore ecosystem function. This study highlights the importance of evaluating restoration success in a comprehensive manner.

No description available.