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Wetland Vegetation Monitoring, 1999/2000 (Salinity Action Plan), R. Gurner, R. Froend, G. Ogden, B. Franke Jan 2000

Wetland Vegetation Monitoring, 1999/2000 (Salinity Action Plan), R. Gurner, R. Froend, G. Ogden, B. Franke

Research outputs pre 2011

This report represents the vegetation component of a project designed to provide on-going monitoring of wetland salinity and biological resources in wetlands of the agricultural zone of south-west Western Australia. Maintenance of wetland biological diversity in the agricultural zone is one of the major objectives of the Salinity Action Plan. Due to their low position in the landscape, wetlands are the habitat most affected by salinisation.


Vhdl Design And Simulation For Embedded Zerotree Wavelet Quantisation, Hung Huynh Jan 2000

Vhdl Design And Simulation For Embedded Zerotree Wavelet Quantisation, Hung Huynh

Theses : Honours

This thesis discusses a highly effective still image compression algorithm – The Embedded Zerotree Wavelets coding technique, as it is called. This technique is simple but achieves a remarkable result. The image is wavelet-transformed, symbolically coded and successive quantised, therefore the compression and transmission/storage saving can be achieved by utilising the structure of zerotree. The algorithm was first proposed by Jerome M. Shapiro in 1993, however to minimise the memory usage and speeding up the EZW processor, a Depth First Search method is used to transverse across the image rather than Breadth First Search method as initially discussed in Shapiro's …


The Applicability Of Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis To Measure The Water Use Efficiency Of Melaleuca Preissiana Populations On The Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia, Hayley E. Valentine Jan 2000

The Applicability Of Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis To Measure The Water Use Efficiency Of Melaleuca Preissiana Populations On The Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia, Hayley E. Valentine

Theses : Honours

Stable carbon isotope (δ13C) analysis is a tool used to understand the water use efficiency (WUE) of plants. The advantage of measuring the carbon isotope composition in plant tissue over other measures of WUE (such as the ratio of photosynthesis to transpiration) is that it provides a time-integrated, rather than an instantaneous measure of plant-water relations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the applicability of using δ13C analysis in natural populations of the fringing tree Melaleuca preissiana based on short and long term sampling methods. There were three components to this study; a controlled, …


The Use Of Stable Isotopic Signatures Of Marine Biota To Map Sewage Effluent Disposed Into The Marine Environment, Adam Gartner Jan 2000

The Use Of Stable Isotopic Signatures Of Marine Biota To Map Sewage Effluent Disposed Into The Marine Environment, Adam Gartner

Theses : Honours

Recent work indicates that nitrogen stable isotopic signatures of aquatic biota can be used to link nutrient inputs in the marine environment to terrestrial sources. While this technique of tracing nutrients has been shown to be effective in environments that are not nutrient limited, it has not been proved that this method is effective in oligotrophic environments. This study examined whether nitrogen stable isotopic signatures of marine biota can be used to trace the distribution of sewage effluent in highly mixed, nitrogen limited waters, by examining the δ15N values of marine biota situated close to and distant from …


Identification Of Wetland Plant Hydrotypes On The Swan Coastal Plain Western Australia, Robyn Loomes Jan 2000

Identification Of Wetland Plant Hydrotypes On The Swan Coastal Plain Western Australia, Robyn Loomes

Theses : Honours

The hydrology of 19 Swan Coastal Plain wetlands was described in relation to its influence on the composition and stn1cturc of wetland vegetation. Sixty species were identified as ‘wetland’ plants. The water depth ranges, or hydrological envelopes, of these species were determined and species grouped together based on the water regimes they experienced. Descriptions of wetland hydrology suggested that the surface and groundwater levels of the majority of study wetlands had declined in both the short (3-5 years) and long-term (20-50 years). Wetlands belonging to the Bibra Suite did not follow this trend as surface water levels either increased or …


Detecting The Cause Of Acidification At A Seasonal Wetland On The Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia, Through Laboratory And Field Mesocosm Experiments, Kelli O'Neill Jan 2000

Detecting The Cause Of Acidification At A Seasonal Wetland On The Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia, Through Laboratory And Field Mesocosm Experiments, Kelli O'Neill

Theses : Honours

Acidification (pH< 4.5) was detected at Lake Jandabup, a shallow, seasonal wetland on the Swan Coastal Plain. Western Australia. Concern has been raised because populations of invertebrate species have declined or disappeared since acidification, potentially compromising the status of the lake as a nature reserve. The Jake bed is underlain with pyrite (feS2), which oxidises when dry producing sulfates, hydrogen ions and ferrous iron. Being seasonal, Lake Jandabup would be expected to be naturally acidic, but the more recent trend has been a prolonged (> 1 year) and extreme acidification (pH < 4.0). This study endeavoured to explain why the Jake may have undergone an acidic change, why it may have recovered and whether it will happen again. It was hypothesised that the acidification may have been caused by prolonged drying of the lake causing excessive oxidation of pyrite which produced more acid than the wetland could neutralise through buffering. The hypothesis was tested through laboratory and field experiments. The laboratory experiment involved taking intact sediment cores from around the lake, drying them for various lengths of time, and measuring pH, sulfate, total iron, total alkalinity and total aridity upon rehydration. Dried sediment from diatomaceous earth under Fe(OH)3 precipitate gave the lowest pH of less than 4.0. High sulfates, low alkalinity and low pH were interrelated. While drying in its own right produced low pH, generally there was no significant difference between drying times for release of selected variables. The field experiment involved the establishment of small in situ mesocosms to test for the effects …


Virtual Reality And The Modern Ideology Of Order And Control, Craig I. Murrihy Jan 2000

Virtual Reality And The Modern Ideology Of Order And Control, Craig I. Murrihy

Theses : Honours

In this thesis I will examine the construction of the concept of Virtual Reality. I argue that rather than a technology of liberation as it is often perceived, virtual realities' conception has been influenced significantly by a discourse of control and order. I examine books, articles and films concerning Virtual Reality to support this claim. Furthermore this discourse of control and order is born out of a larger ideology of Western culture that values order and control. Throughout modernity this ideology has manifested itself through techniques and technologies of social and environmental control. I provide a brief historical outline highlighting …


Sicnn Optimisation, Two Dimensional Implementation And Comparison, Grant Walker Jan 2000

Sicnn Optimisation, Two Dimensional Implementation And Comparison, Grant Walker

Theses : Honours

The study investigates the process of optimisation, implementation and comparison of a Shunting Inhibitory Cellular Neural Network (SICNN) for Edge Detection. Shunting inhibition is lateral inhibition where the inhibition function is nonlinear. Cellular Neural Networks are locally interconnected nonlinear, parallel networks which can exist as either discrete time or continuous networks. The name given to Cellular Neural Networks that use shunting inhibition as their nonlinear cell interactions are called Shunting Inhibitory Cellular Neural Networks. This project report examines some existing edge detectors and thresholding techniques. Then it describes the optimisation of the connection weight matrix for SICNN with Complementary Output …


Managing The Acidity Of Abandoned Water Filled Coal Mining Voids In Collie (Western Australia) Using Organic Matter, Scott A. Thompson Jan 2000

Managing The Acidity Of Abandoned Water Filled Coal Mining Voids In Collie (Western Australia) Using Organic Matter, Scott A. Thompson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The effectiveness of using organic matter additions to increase pH in abandoned water filled coal mining voids in Collie was investigated. Previous studies have demonstrated that passing acidic drainage through organic matter increased the waters pH. Laboratory trials using intact sediment cores (collected from Ewington, Collie, Western Australia) were used to assess the effects of additions of hay, manure and mulched vegetation on pH, nutrients an sulphate levels. In a series of experiments the effect of different quantities of organic material, sulphate reducing bacterial inoculations and alkalinity generation were measured. A subsequent field experiment was conducted to examine the impact …


The Effect Of Leaf Movement On Algal Epiphytes In Seagrass Meadows, T. R. Reid Jan 2000

The Effect Of Leaf Movement On Algal Epiphytes In Seagrass Meadows, T. R. Reid

Theses : Honours

Artificial seagrass units were used to determine whether seagrass leaf movement influences the biomass, species richness and composition of epiphytic macroalgae on the leaves of seagrasses, and whether the influence of leaf movement is altered by the degree of exposure to water movement and to depth. The influence of leaf movement on epiphytic biomass is important from an environmental management perspective, as there is the potential for epiphytic productivity to be underestimated if leaf movement is reducing the standing crop of epiphytes on seagrass leaves. Two forms of artificial seagrass units were used in three experiments to achieve these objectives; …


An Investigation On Sun Microsystems Jini Technology, Ferdina D. Soeyadi Jan 2000

An Investigation On Sun Microsystems Jini Technology, Ferdina D. Soeyadi

Theses : Honours

Sun Microsystems introduced the JiniTM Technology as its vision of the future in networking, where services can be registered dynamically and he used easily regardless of their location in the network. This is an investigation of feasibility on such claims made by Sun regarding JiniTM and comparisons with the directly similar Universal Plug and Play from Microsoft. The aim is to implement a simple application of the JiniTM Technology in order to demonstrate its capabilities as a contribution to the distributed computing research.


Biofilm Composition And Function In Stormwater Constructed Wetland Systems On The Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia, S. A. Hawkins Jan 2000

Biofilm Composition And Function In Stormwater Constructed Wetland Systems On The Swan Coastal Plain, Western Australia, S. A. Hawkins

Theses : Honours

The ability of natural wetlands to act as effective nutrient sinks and to absorb new nutrient loadings is well documented. Constructed wetland systems (CWSs) aimed at optimising these nutrient removal mechanisms have been used for the removal of nutrients and pollutants from a variety of waters and wastewaters over the past thirty years. Over the past decade, the use of CWSs has extended to the removal of nutrients from urban stormwater, as a more ecologically sensible management option to the traditional method of discharging stormwater into natural wetlands. Stormwater CWSs on the Swan Coastal Plain are designed to remove phosphorus. …


Biogeography Of A Changing Landscape: Pipidinny Swamp, Yanchep National Park Western Australia, Bradley W. Boucher Jan 2000

Biogeography Of A Changing Landscape: Pipidinny Swamp, Yanchep National Park Western Australia, Bradley W. Boucher

Theses : Honours

The resources of Pipidinny Swamp were utilised by the Nyoongar Aboriginal people for possibly 40,000 years. Since the late 1800s, the resources of Pipidinny Swamp were used by non-Indigenous settlers. More recently, the wetland was incorporated in the Yanchep National Park in 1991.This study sought to reconstruct the changes to the natural and cultural environments within the wetland to provide background knowledge for the management board of the Park. Field investigations abo demonstrated the dynamic state of the wetland over a six-month period between low water (Feb-Apr) and high water (Aug-Oct) by monitoring the groundwater system, the vegetation system, and …


Mapcast : Real-Time Collaboration With Concept Maps, Brett Greay Jan 2000

Mapcast : Real-Time Collaboration With Concept Maps, Brett Greay

Theses : Honours

This thesis describes the development of the application mapCAST, a computer-based concept-mapping tool that allows synchronous collaboration via TCP/IP networks, such as the Internet The useability and feasibility of mapCAST as a computer-based tool was examined and analysed in a real world situation. Results indicate that mapCAST is successful as a collaborative tool in a situations involving knowledge organisation, but lacks certain functionality that many Macintosh users are accustomed to.


An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Organisational Size And Industry Type With The Development And Use Of Executive Information Systems In The Manufacturing Sector, Nigel Warne Jan 2000

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Organisational Size And Industry Type With The Development And Use Of Executive Information Systems In The Manufacturing Sector, Nigel Warne

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this investigative research is to provide quantitative detail to better understand the development and use of Executive Information Sysytems (EIS) in the Australian Manufacturing sector. This investigation is an extension of previous research done on EIS in Australia (Prevan, 1992; Pervan and Phua, 1997) and looks more closely at the independent variables of organisation size and industry type in their relationaship with the development and use of EIS. A broad literature review provides a descriptive model that gives some insight into the development and use of EIS over more than fifteen years. Over eighty per cent of …