An investigation into the application of international environmental Greenroads Certification standards to road construction in New Zealand

Greenroads is a USA designed environmental certification system for quantifying sustainable best practices for roadway design and construction. The major objectives of my research were to evaluate the suitability of Greenroads certification for use in New Zealand and compare the potential impacts of Greenroads compliance with the environmental outcomes achieved under the current New Zealand legislation and standards. A further two environmental certification systems, CEEQUAL (Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Awards Scheme based in the UK) and INVEST (VicRoads – Integrated VicRoads Environmental Sustainability Tool managed by VicRoads in Australia) were also evaluated. For the Greenroads certification process to operate in New Zealand it was first necessary to undertake several Pilot Projects so that Greenroads criteria could be adapted to New Zealand conditions. Greenroads offered NZTA the option of undertaking an “A-Lined (pilot) Assessment” for the Te Rapa Bypass Road construction project that was underway in the Waikato region in 2011/12. Information regarding the design and construction of the Te Rapa Bypass was collated and submitted to Greenroads for the A-Lined Assessment. The results of the Greenroads A-Lined Assessment showed that the Te Rapa Bypass, with limited additional work, could have achieved a Greenroads Bronze Certificate. The collated information was also used as a basis to evaluate the CEEQUAL and INVEST systems. It was estimated that the Te Rapa Bypass could have achieved a CEEQUAL “Pass Award” or an INVEST two star rating. However to get any rating from CEEQUAL or INVEST a considerable amount of work would be required on all documentation. Greenroads, INVEST and CEEQUAL assessments show that currently, under the requirements of the New Zealand Resource Management Act (1991) (RMA) and other New Zealand legislation, New Zealand roads are already designed and constructed to a high environmental standard. Of the Greenroads, INVEST and CEEQUAL, certification systems, I consider that Greenroads is the better system for road projects in New Zealand. I recommend that New Zealand should use the Greenroads accreditation system to demonstrate that we meet international environmental standards in road construction. Much of the reporting required for Greenroads accreditation can be developed with, and incorporated into, the RMA consent process

A NASA/RAE cooperation in the development of a real-time knowledge-based autopilot

As part of a US/UK cooperative aeronautical research program, a joint activity between the NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility and the Royal Aerospace Establishment on knowledge-based systems was established. This joint activity is concerned with tools and techniques for the implementation and validation of real-time knowledge-based systems. The proposed next stage of this research is described, in which some of the problems of implementing and validating a knowledge-based autopilot for a generic high-performance aircraft are investigated

Engaging Norway Through the Lens - A qualitative study of the communicative behaviors of three of Norway’s most acclaimed TV hosts.

The ever-evolving television industry is experiencing increasing competition from a diverse set of platforms. Subsequently, audiences have become more selective as they have ample alternatives to choose from. The aim of this thesis is to add to our understanding of effective entertainment TV show hosting and efforts to engage audiences by studying what characterizes the communicative behaviors of three of the most accomplished and prominent Norwegian television hosts. Solveig Kloppen, Jon Almaas and Fredrik Skavlan´s communicative behaviors and their efforts to engage audiences were examined through conducting a content analysis of their communicative behaviors on their respective TV shows, combined with individual in-depth interviews with the personas themselves. Key findings indicate that the presenters are particularly high in verbal and non-verbal immediacy and sociability. The notion of providing the audience with adequate levels of information and speaking in a comprehendible manner is prominent. A significant observation is that their communicative behaviors ultimately appear aimed at adding value to the audience in one form or another. Furthermore, they present themselves as highly engaged in the material and appear poised in their role as host. A key notion among all was wanting to appear authentic, which is predominantly portrayed by all of the presenter

Whole-organism integrative expressome for C. elegans enables in silico study of developmental regulation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-119).The C. elegans nematode has been extensively studied as a model organism since the 1970s, and is the only organism for which the complete cell division tree and the genome are both available. These two datasets were integrated with a number of other datasets available at WormBase.org, such as the anatomy ontology, gene expression profiles extracted from 8ooo peer-reviewed papers, and metadata about each gene, to produce the first ever whole-organism, cell-resolution map of gene expression across the entire developmental timeline of the organism, with the goal to find genomic features that regulate cell division and tissue differentiation. Contingency testing was performed to find correlations between thousands of gene attributes (e.g. the presence or absence of a specific 8-mer in the 3' UTR, the CG-content of the sequence upstream of the transcriptional start site, etc.) and thousands of cell attributes (e.g. whether cells that express specific genes die through apoptosis, whether cells become neurons or not, whether cells move in the anterior or posterior direction after division). The resulting database of contingency test scores allow us to quickly ask a large number of biologically-interesting questions, like, "Does the length of introns of expressed genes increase across the developmental timeline?"; "Across what period of development and in which cell types is this specific gene most active?"; "Do regulatory motifs exist that switch on or off genes in whole subtrees of the cell pedigree?"; "Which genes are most strongly implicated in apoptosis?", etc. This whole-organism expressome enables direct and powerful in silico analysis of development.by Luke A. D. Hutchison.Ph.D

Patients´, Pharmacy Staff Members’ and Researchers’ Perceptions of ´Central Elements in Prescription Encounters at the Pharmacy Counter

Background: Studies suggest that the way pharmacy counselling takes place does not fully support patients in obtaining optimal medicine use. To understand the basis of current challenges in pharmacy counselling, we investigated which selected related cues, i.e., objects, sounds, or circumstances in prescription encounters, patients, and pharmacy staff notice, and how they interpret these cues. Pharmacy practice researchers’ cue orientation was also investigated to explore possible differences to those of staff and patients. Methods: Twelve focus group interviews representing 5 community pharmacies (staff and patients) and 2 universities (researchers) were conducted during 2017–2018 in Denmark. A total of 20 patients, 22 pharmacy staff, and 6 pharmacy researchers participated. A theoretical analysis based on cue orientation and social appraisal was conducted. Results: Pharmacy staff, patients and researchers noticed different selected related cues in prescription encounters. Staff particularly noticed ‘types of patients’. Patients were more divided and grouped into three overall categories: ‘types of staff’, medical content, and the situation around the encounter. Pharmacy researchers noticed multiple cues. Different emotions were integrated in the construction of the cues. Conclusion: Differences in the cue orientation between all three groups were identified. The identified types of cues and emotions can explain an underlying dissatisfaction with the encounters. Patients lack, in particular, more personal contact. Staff need to consider these aspects to provide relevant counselling