Oblique UAS imagery and point cloud processing for 3D rock glacier monitoring

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesRock glaciers play a large ecological role and are heavily relied upon by local communities for water, power, and revenue. With climate change, the rate at which they are deforming has increased over the years and is making it more important to gain a better understanding of these geomorphological movements for improved predictions, correlations, and decision making. It is becoming increasingly more practical to examine a rock glacier with 3D visualization to have more perspectives and realistic terrain profiles. Recently gaining more attention is the use of Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) used separately and combined to gather high-resolution data for 3D analysis. This data is typically transformed into highly detailed Digital Elevation Models (DEM) where Differences of DEM (DoD) is used to track changes over time. This study compares these commonly used collection methods and analysis to a newly conceived multirotor UAS collection method and to a new point cloud Multiscale Model to Model Cloud Comparison (M32C) change detection seen from recent studies. Data was collected of the Innere Ölgrube Rock Glacier in Austria with a TLS in 2012 and with a multirotor UAS in 2019. It was found that oblique imagery with terrain height corrections, that creates perspectives similar to what the TLS provides, increased the completeness of data collection for a better reconstruction of a rock glacier in 3D. The new method improves the completeness of data by an average of at least 8.6%. Keeping the data as point clouds provided a much better representation of the terrain. When transforming point clouds into DEMs with common interpolations methods it was found that the average area of surface items could be exaggerated by 2.2 m^2 while point clouds were much more accurate with 0.3 m^2 of accuracy. DoD and M3C2 results were compared and it was found that DoD always provides a maximum increase of at least 1.1 m and decrease of 0.85 m more than M3C2 with larger standard deviation with similar mean values which could attributed to horizontal inaccuracies and smoothing of the interpolated data

Political Economy of Agricultural Trade Interventions in Africa

This paper uses new data on agricultural policy interventions to examine the political economy of agricultural trade policies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Historically, African governments have discriminated against agricultural producers in general (relative to producers in non-agricultural sectors), and against producers of export agriculture in particular. While more moderate in recent years, these patterns of discrimination persist. They do so even though farmers comprise a political majority. Rather than claiming the existence of a single best approach to the analysis of policy choice, we explore the impact of three factors: institutions, regional inequality, and tax revenue generation. We find that agricultural taxation increases with the rural population share in the absence of electoral party competition; yet, the existence of party competition turns the lobbying disadvantage of the rural majority into political advantage. We also find that privileged cash crop regions are particular targets for redistributive taxation, unless the country's president comes from that region. In addition, governments of resource-rich countries, while continuing to tax export producers, reduce their taxation of food consumers.African and African American Studie

'Baptism of Fire': The First Year in the Life of a Newly Qualified Social Worker.

This paper describes research commissioned by Skills for Care South West to identify and track the learning and development needs of newly qualified social workers through their first year of employment. The perceptions of 22 newly qualified social workers based in statutory settings are reported concerning the effectiveness of the social work degree (England), their induction and probationary periods and their progress towards post-qualifying social work education as part of their continuing professional development. The perspectives of line managers, people who use services and carers are also discussed. Findings from the research suggest that the social work degree has been well received by most newly qualified social workers and highlights the perceived importance of a statutory placement for social work degree students. Key social work practice skills that require further development are identified and a rationale is presented for greater investment in the induction and probationary periods of newly qualified social workers

Revisiting African Agriculture: Institutional Change and Productivity Growth

Africa is largely agrarian, and the performance of agriculture shapes the performance of its economies. It has long been argued that economic development in Africa is strongly conditioned by politics. Recent changes in Africa’s political systems enables us to test this argument and, by extension, broader claims about the impact of political institutions on economic development. Building on a recent analysis of total factor productivity growth in African agriculture, we find that the introduction of competitive presidential elections in the last decades of the twentieth century appears to have altered political incentives, resulting in policy reforms that have enhanced the performance of farmers.African and African American StudiesGovernmen

A highly efficient and versatile carbon nanotube/ceramic composite filter

Copyright © 2013 Elsevier. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Carbon. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Carbon Vol. 54 (2013), DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2012.11.032Carbon nanotubes were grown in the open pores of a commercial porous ceramic matrix consisting of mainly Al2O3 and SiO 2 with an average pore size of 300 and 500 μm, using a pre-formed nickel catalyst inside the pores and a camphor solution precursor at 780 °C. The resulting composites, ∅27 mm × 10 mm discs containing about 3 wt.% of carbon nanotubes, were then assessed as a filter for the removal of yeast cells and different heavy metal ions from water, and for the removal of particulates from air. The results showed that the carbon nanotube containing composite filter demonstrated a high efficiency of yeast filtration (98%), ca. 100% heavy metal ion removal from water and excellent particulate filtration from air. The composite filter also exhibited good reusability for these applications, owing to the excellent thermal and chemical stability of the carbon nanotubes. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

The unfulfilled gene is required for the development of mushroom body neuropil in Drosophila

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The mushroom bodies (MBs) of <it>Drosophila </it>are required for complex behaviors and consist of three types of neurons, γ, α'/β' and α/β. Previously, roles for transcription factors in MB neuronal differentiation have only been described for a subset of MB neurons. We are investigating the roles of <it>unfulfilled </it>(<it>unf</it>; <it>HR51</it>, CG16801) in MB development. <it>unf </it>encodes a nuclear receptor that is orthologous to the nuclear receptors fasciculation of axons defective 1 (FAX-1) of the nematode and photoreceptor specific nuclear receptor (PNR) of mammals. Based on our previous observations that <it>unf </it>transcripts accumulate in MB neurons at all developmental stages and the presence of axon pathfinding defects in <it>fax-1 </it>mutants, we hypothesized that <it>unf </it>regulates MB axon growth and pathfinding.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that <it>unf </it>mutants exhibit a range of highly penetrant axon stalling phenotypes affecting all neurons of the larval and adult MBs. Phenotypic analysis of <it>unf</it>^{<it>X1 </it>}mutants revealed that α'/β' and α/β neurons initially project axons but stall prior to the formation of medial or dorsal MB lobes. <it>unf</it>^{<it>Z0001 </it>}mutants form medial lobes, although these axons fail to branch, which results in a failure to form the α or α' dorsal lobes. In either mutant background, γ neurons fail to develop larval-specific dorsal projections. These mutant γ neurons undergo normal pruning, but fail to re-extend axons medially during pupal development. <it>unf</it>^{<it>RNAi </it>}animals displayed phenotypes similar to those seen in <it>unf</it>^{<it>Z0001 </it>}mutants. Unique asymmetrical phenotypes were observed in <it>unf</it>^<it>X1</it>/<it>unf</it>^{<it>Z0001 </it>}compound heterozygotes. Expression of <it>UAS-unf </it>transgenes in MB neurons rescues the larval and adult <it>unf </it>mutant phenotypes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data support the hypothesis that <it>unf </it>plays a common role in the development of all types of MB neurons. Our data indicate that <it>unf </it>is necessary for MB axon extension and branching and that the formation of dorsal collaterals is more sensitive to the loss of <it>unf </it>function than medial projections. The asymmetrical phenotypes observed in compound heterozygotes support the hypothesis that the earliest MB axons may serve as pioneers for the later-born MB neurons, providing evidence for pioneer MB axon guidance in post-embryonic development.</p

In Candida albicans, the Nim1 kinases Gin4 and Hsl1 negatively regulate pseudohypha formation and Gin4 also controls septin organization.

In the development of hyphal germ tubes of Candida albicans, a band of septin forms at the base of the germ tube (basal septin band). Later, a septin ring forms, which organizes the first septum within the germ tube (septin ring). We have investigated the role of the Nim1 kinases, Gin4 and Hsl1, in the formation of these septin structures. We show that during germ tube formation, Gin4 is required for the organization of the septin ring but not the basal septin band. Hsl1 is not required for the formation of either septin rings or basal bands. Unexpectedly, we found that both gin4Delta and hsl1Delta mutants form pseudohyphae constitutively, in a fashion that in the case of gin4Delta, is partly independent of Swe1. Gin4-depleted pseudohyphae are unable to form hyphae when challenged with serum, but this can be overcome by ectopic expression of Gin4 from the MET3 promoter. Thus, Gin4 may regulate the developmental switch from pseudohyphae to hyphae

The New Institutionalism and Africa

After briefly reviewing the new institutionalism, this article uses the history of political reform in Africa to test its key tenet: that power, if properly organised, is a productive resource. It does so by exploring the relationship between changes in political institutions and changes in economic performance, both at the macro- and the micro level. The evidence indicates that political reform (Granger) causes increases in GDP per capita in the African subset of global data. And, at the micro level, it demonstrates that changes in national political institutions in Africa strongly relate to changes in total factor productivity in agriculture.African and African American StudiesGovernmen

Everything Matters: The ReproNim Perspective on Reproducible Neuroimaging

There has been a recent major upsurge in the concerns about reproducibility in many areas of science. Within the neuroimaging domain, one approach is to promote reproducibility is to target the re-executability of the publication. The information supporting such re-executability can enable the detailed examination of how an initial finding generalizes across changes in the processing approach, and sampled population, in a controlled scientific fashion. ReproNim: A Center for Reproducible Neuroimaging Computation is a recently funded initiative that seeks to facilitate the last mile implementations of core re-executability tools in order to reduce the accessibility barrier and increase adoption of standards and best practices at the neuroimaging research laboratory level. In this report, we summarize the overall approach and tools we have developed in this domain