Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1986. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 383-416). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-71).

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-68). Also available via the Internet.

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This thesis explores topics in Agricultural Economics and is composed of five papers. In the first paper (Chapter 2), a latent-class stochastic frontier model is used to estimate efficiency scores of farmers in Ethiopia. Compared to conventional models, which assume a unique frontier, much lower inefficiencies are found, suggesting that part of the inefficiencies uncovered in the literature could be an artefact of the methods used. The second paper (Chapter 3) revisits the link between cereal diversity and productivity using a panel dataset in Ethiopia. The results suggest that the positive effect between cereal diversity and productivity becomes much smaller when households who produce teff (a low-productivity and high-value crop) are excluded from the sample, hinting at the possibility that results could be driven by yield differentials between cereals, rather than diversity. The third paper (Chapter 4) estimates the labour impacts of the adoption of Soil and Water Conservation technologies (SWC) in Ethiopia. The results suggest that adopting SWC technologies leads to an increase in adult and child labour. Understanding the labour impacts is important in itself, but it also raises concerns about using impact evaluation methods that require no change in inputs as an identifying assumption of impacts. Paper 4 (Chapter 5), assesses the pertinence of a drought index that has recently been proposed in the literature by Yu and Babcock (2010) and argues that it defines drought too narrowly. An extension to this index is proposed and we show, using a dataset of Indian districts, that the original index is likely to underestimate the impacts of drought. In Paper 5 (Chapter 6), we identify data-driven ranges of rainfall for which the marginal effects of a rainfall-temperature index (RTI) are different and then we discuss how the impacts of drought have changed over the 1966-2009 period in India. Finally, Chapter 7 concludes.

This thesis describes the results of an investigation into the effects of vertical alignment design standards upon the energy costs of constructing and operating major rural roads in the United Kingdom. Alternative road designs have been produced for a series of ground profiles, and for each of these designs the energy costs have been calculated. The construction energy cost has been calculated from the fuel consumption and production output of earthmoving plant. The energy costs of structures and surfacing was assumed to be constant for the design changes examined. The energy costs of operation were calculated from the results of fuel consumption tests undertaken by the author. These tests showed a clearer and more accurate relationship between gradient and fuel consumption than other tests undertaken in the United Kingdom. The alternative designs produced examined the effects of altering the standards for maximum gradient, minimum curve radii and length, formation width, minimum gradient, and side slope gradient. The effect of choosing an alternative route was also investigated. The results of the energy calculations for these alignments showed that in general, the more constrained the design, the lower the total energy costs. This conclusion is insensitive to changes in construction cost, but is highly sensitive to changes in vehicle numbers or types. For a motorway type design, the average flow on trunk and motorway roads, and a thirty year design life the maximum gradient standard that produced the minimum energy cost was about 1. 5 percent. This is considerably lower than used at present, and the most recent standard encourages the use of steeper gradients. This research suggests that vehicle operating costs are an important factor when designing the vertical alignment of a road, and that present methods do not accurately determine the effects of road design on vehicle costs.

For the past three decades, biologists and geographers have increasingly incorporated geographical information systems to inventory and analyze spatially organized data. The proliferation of computational tools and models for visualizing, processing, and quantifying landscape patterns has continued sometimes without thorough scrutiny and scientific understanding of their benefits and limitations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the structure and accuracy of the ecological modeling program Land Change Modeler for ArcGIS (LCM) and its analytical methods. A case study rich in land use change at Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge was used to focus on the program's ability to utilize imagery at multiple levels of spatial resolution and to quantify landscape change. The case study evaluated the LCM module on three primary criteria 1) inputs and outputs, 2) the impacts of scale and resolution in terms of proposed analytical methods, and 3) program structure, simplicity, flexibility, and function definitions. The study revealed that the module based structure of LCM demands specific inputs which allow for the assessment of landscape change, habitat, and biodiversity. But, the program is difficult to navigate and requires prior knowledge of analytical methods. The study also showed that the appropriate utilization of ecological computational programs should be based upon fundamental concepts of landscape ecology, the intended use of the outputs, and the prior knowledge of the user.

The work contained in this thesis is concerned with the performance of infrared integrating detector arrays, within the context of astronomical spectroscopy. A linear array of thirty-two InSb photo diodes is investigated. It is found to exhibit good capacitance and dark current uniformity across the array. By applying the principle of charge conservation to the multiplexed readout arrangement of this device, the signal response of the detector to different levels of illumination is derived. It is found from this, and confirmed experimentally, that the device has a highly linear radiation response over a range of reverse biases. The interaction between dark current and photo-current is studied,primarily by the application of a simple model. The results indicate that the effective signal gain of a detector can vary in the situation where dark current dominates the discharge processes, since in this instance accurate dark current subtraction becomes difficult. The predictions of the model are compared with experiments performed on two integrating arrays; one under study in the laboratory,and the other installed in the low background environment of a cooled grating spectrometer. Finally, suggestions are presented of ways of avoiding this problem, the simplest of which involves utilizing, where possible, low dark current detector materials. The importance of achieving good dark current uniformity with arrays is stressed, since this will improve the ability to flat-field faint object spectra. To illustrate the importance of these devices, infrared spectra obtained with array detectors, covering a range of astronomical objects,are presented and discussed.

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本文主要通過查閱和收集近年來有關武夷肉桂茶及茶葉研究相關的文獻和文章，介紹了武夷肉桂茶的產地、生物特性、製作工藝、審評、他學組分、相關藥理作用的研究等各方面的內容。分析了武夷肉桂茶的性味歸經、中醫學功效進而提出了目前的研究中尚存的一些問題，以及對茶療這一療法今後的研究和發展方向表達了自己的見解。 武夷肉桂茶，無性奈、灌木型、小葉類、中晚生種。原產於國家一級自然保護區武夷山，香氣辛銳濃長似桂皮香。其含有多種營養成分和藥理活性成分，如茶多盼、茶氯酸、咖啡鹼、茶多糖、複合糖、茶皂素、有機酸、芳香物質、類胡蘿蔔素、葉綠素、黃闢類、維生素C 、多種B 屬維生素、維生素P 及磷、主甲、鈣、鎮、鋒、氣、晒等礦物元素，均為人體保健的功能性物質。 經過武夷岩茶的製作工藝後的肉桂茶，其性味表現為“味辛，甘，苦，性溫’歸心、肺、腎、胃經。具有發汗解肌、補火助陽、他氣行水、溫經通絡、溫通心陽、溫脾胃、提神醒腦等功效。可用於治療外戚表邪、膀恍氣化失常、痛痹、心陽不振、下元虛冷、脾胃虛寒等證。 近年來研究資料顯示：武夷肉桂茶中的有效成分具有抗菌抗病毒、增強免疫力、利尿、抗炎、降血脂和抗動脈粥樣硬化、抗凝血及抗血桂、降壓、降血糖、對中樞性和末梢性血管系統的興奮和強心作用等因此，肉桂茶可用於外戚風寒、前列腺增生、月經不調、精神不振、風濕性關節炎、類風濕性關節炎、冠心病、高血壓、高血脂、高血糖、胃腸疾病、等防治以及日常養生。 然而，對於武夷肉桂茶乃至整個茶療體系的研究還是存在著一些問題，例如沒有從中醫方面進行有關療效的闡述等。所以，我們在瞭解中醫茶療歷史的前提下及茶葉組分的藥理研究的背景下，應當重新審視茶的醫療保健價值，開拓臨床治療及養生保健的新思路。