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Chiang, G. T. "Building an eScience infrastructure for environmental science." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.597598.
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The objective of this project is to build an eScience/grid infrastructure suitable for use with environmental sciences and especially with hydrological science. The infrastructure allows a wide range of hydrological problems to be investigated and is particularly suitable for either computationally intensive or multiple scenario applications. To accomplish this objective, this project discovered the shortcomings of current grid infrastructures for hydrological science and developed missing components to fill this gap. In particular, there were three primary areas which needed work; firstly, integrating data and computing grids; secondly, visualization of geographic information from grid outputs; and thirdly, implementing hydrological simulations based on this infrastructure. A grid infrastructure, which consists of a computing and a data grid, has been built. In addition, the computing grid has been extended to utilize the Amazon cloud computing resources. Users can implement a complete simulation job life cycle form job submission, and data management to metadata management based on this infrastructure. In order to deal with the visualization and metadata within the grid, XMLization is used in this project. I developed a Writing Keyhole Markup Language (WKML), which is a Fortran library allowing enviornemntal scientists to visualize their model outputs in Google Earth. I have also developed a Writing Hydrological Markup Language (WHML) to describe the hydrological data. Finally, an XPath-based tool integrated with RMCS has been developed to extract metadata from XML files. A hydrological scientific pilot project tries to discover whether SHETRAN modelling could be used to predict hydrological behaviour at downstream. The outcomes proved that the SHETRAN synthetic Flood Frequency Curves (FFCs) suggest that simple short-term modelling can be extrapolated to estimate the impact on FFCs of changes in land use/management.
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Kong, Shui-sun. "Building superhighways in PRC /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1997. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B18873352.
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Mangione, Anthony F. "Reconciling Craft with Digital Design: Building a New Infrastructure." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1448037156.
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Stefan, Silviu Nicolae. "Develop healthy building infrastructure for KTH LIVE-IN-LAB." Thesis, KTH, Reglerteknik, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-217121.
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The following master thesis is conducted on behalf of The Royal Institute ofTechnology and KTH Live-in Lab with the purpose of proposing a healthybuilding infrastructure for the KTH Live-in Lab. The Lab will serve as atestbed for products and services that can be tested and veried within anoptimal space that can simulate a real life usage of the tested products or services.Since the KTH Live-in Lab proposes to create a smart environment inorder to fulll its goal, this thesis proposes to design a system that measuresthe key factors that inuence the user's health while living in the building.The problem that this thesis is solving is that of understanding the relevantmetrics that aect the person living in the building, then identify andplace the sensors that can measure the health metrics and nally encapsulatethe result in a WSN, paying close attention to the topology and the communicationprotocols used, capable of monitoring and collecting all the relevantdata for further use.The most dicult part of the thesis is translating the health parametersinto the optimal quantiable metrics so that a developed system couldbecome a feasible solution for a home automation. The attempted way ofsolving this problem is through literature review of health studies in order tounderstand which are the quintessential parameters that should be measured.The system considers dierent health factors from 9 dierent domainsVentilation, Air Quality, Thermal Comfort, Moisture, Dust and Pests, Safetyand Security, Water Quality, Noise and Lighting and Views. Each of thesedomains will be analyzed and the best metrics for monitoring will be selected.The solution will be tailored on the KTH Live-in Lab as the sensor placementis done on the schematic of the Housing Design, of the Fall Semester 2017.In order to choose the optimal way to implement the wireless sensor network,several topologies and communication protocols are compared, the chosen onebeing ZigBee as protocol while the topology was separated in how sensorsare organized in every room which will be a mesh topology and how they areorganized in the whole building for which the chosen topology is the Two-tierhierarchical cluster topology. The system also proposes a security encryptionalgorithm for data protection and a way to evaluate the system based on thestandard of the WELL Building Institute.Future work will consist in implementing all the features that are designedin this paper while nding the perfect trade-o between the cost andtechnology accuracy when this project will be scaled for a whole apartmentbuilding.As a conclusion, there are certain variations that one can follow whenimplementing the designed system as the implementation will be a trade-obetween the quality of the equipment used which translates into the accuracyof the measurements and the nancial and social constraints. This thesisproposes a set of core elements that cannot be replaced in monitoring andalso provides approximations for other less common metrics.<br>Foljande masteravhandling har utfardats pa uppdrag av The Royal Instituteof Tecnology och KTH Live-in Lab med syftet att foresla en halsosambyggnadsinfrastruktur for KTH Live-in Lab. Labbet kommer att fungerasom en testbadd for produkter och tjanster som kan testas och verierasinom ett optimalt utrymme som kan simuleras till en verklig situation foranvandandet av de testade produkterna eller tjansterna. Eftersom att KTHLive-in Lab foreslar att skapa en smart miljo for att uppfylla sitt mal, foreslardenna avhandling att man designar ett system som mater huvudfaktorernasom paverkar anvandarens halsa under den tid som anvandaren vistas i byggnaden.Det problem som denna avhandling amnar losa ar att skapa en forstaelsefor de relevanta matvarden som paverkar den person som bor i byggnadenoch darefter identiera och placera de sensorer som kan mata halsomatvardenoch slutligen sammanfatta resultatet i en Tradlost sensornatverk, men ocksaagna stor uppmarksamhet till topologin och kommunikationsprotokollen somanvants, som ar kapabla att monitorera och samla all relevant data for vidareanvandning.Det svaraste med denna avhandling ar att oversatta halsoparametrarnatill optimala kvantierbara matvarden sa att ett utvecklat system kan bli engenomforbar losning for en hemautomatisering. Tillvagagangssattet for attlosa detta problem ar genom att granska litteratur om halsostudier for attforsta vilka parametrar som ar vasentliga och som bor matas.Systemet tar hansyn till olika halsofaktorer fran 9 olika domaner; Ventilation,Luftkvalitet, Temperaturkomfort, Fukt, Damm, Sakerhet, Vattenkvalitet,Ljud och Ljus och Syn. Var och en av dessa domaner kommer att analyserasoch de basta matvardena for monitorering kommer att bli utvalda. Losningenkommer att skraddarsys pa KTH Live-in Lab medan sensorplaceringen arutfardad pa schematik av husets design, hostterminen 2017. For att kunnavalja det mest optimala sattet att implementera det tradlosa sensornatverkethar era topologier och kommunikationsprotokoll jamforts. Genom att goradetta har ZigBee valts som kommunikationsprotokoll medan topologin hardelats upp i hur sensorer ar organiserade i varje rum, vilket kommer att varaen "mesh"-topologi, och hur de ar organiserade i hela byggnaden och darav arden valda topologin"Two-tier hierarchial cluster topology". Systemet foreslarocksa en sakerhetskrypteringsalgoritm som dataskydd och som ett satt attutvardera systemen som ar baserade pa standarden av "the WELL BulidingInsitute".Framtida arbete kommer att innefatta implementering av alla funktionersom ar designade i denna avhandling medan det perfekta utbytet mellankostnad och teknologiprecision hittas da detta projekt kommer att skalas foren hel lagenhetsbyggnad.Som slutsats, nns vissa variationer som en kan folja vid implementeringav det designade systemet da implementationen kommer att vara ett utbytemellan kvalitet av utrustningen som anvands som oversatts i noggrannhetav matningar och nansiella och sociala begransningar. Denna avhandlingforeslar ett set av karnelement som inte kan bytas ut i monitorering och somocksa bistar med approximationer for andra mindre vanliga matvarden.
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Caceres, Jhon. "Classification of building infrastructure and automatic building footprint delineation using Airborne Laser Swath Mapping data." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2008. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0023693.
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Welsh, Joshua. "The St. George Rainway : building community resilience with green infrastructure." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/45766.
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This thesis was written with cognizance of humanity’s passage into the current epoch: the Anthropocene. Impacts the human species currently have upon the biosphere are physically and chemically altering it to degrees that have crossed thresholds of sustainability. The side effects of this call for resilience to enable healthful transitions into the unstable and unpredictable future. Central to global climate change and central to the profession of landscape architecture is the element: water. The St. George Rainway offers a new opportunity to be a demonstration project for the City of Vancouver where the City and the community of Mount Pleasant act as collaborators with design, construction, and maintenance of a project with water in the public realm.
There are three components essential to this work: a community survey, a series of stakeholder and expert interviews, and a design-application of theory using landscape architecture. The survey and interviews establish the local context for the thesis, a baseline for presence of social cohesion, and a framing for the applicability of the ten prominent characteristics of resilient communities. Taken together, the application of design responds to the collective voice and needs of the community and provides a set of goals, phases, strategies for design as a framework to help realize future implementation of the St. George Rainway.
The voluntary engagement in the physical transformation of one’s community can provide opportunity for a growth in social cohesion. Subsequently, this growth can improve the conditions that fostered the bonds and bridges within that community that inspired the initial voluntary engagement. Green infrastructure, when considered through this lens, has a reciprocal relationship with social cohesion, where the improvement of one feeds into the improvement of the other. This model could therefore provide both a resilient option for physical development of land and for social development of community for a neighbourhood like Mount Pleasant by encouraging more interaction among neighbours and with the local public realm. The St. George Rainway: Building Community Resilience with Green Infrastructure aims to provide a framework for this.
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Zhu, Xiaoyang. "Building a secure infrastructure for IoT systems in distributed environments." Thesis, Lyon, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019LYSEI038/document.
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Le principe de l'Internet des objets (IdO) est d'interconnecter non seulement les capteurs, les appareils mobiles et les ordinateurs, mais aussi les particuliers, les maisons, les bâtiments intelligents et les villes, ainsi que les réseaux électriques, les automobiles et les avions, pour n'en citer que quelques-uns. Toutefois, la réalisation de la connectivité étendue de l'IdO tout en assurant la sécurité et la confidentialité des utilisateurs reste un défi. Les systèmes IdO présentent de nombreuses caractéristiques non conventionnelles, telles que l'évolutivité, l'hétérogénéité, la mobilité et les ressources limitées, qui rendent les solutions de sécurité Internet existantes inadaptées aux systèmes basés sur IdO. En outre, l'IdO préconise des réseaux peer-to-peer où les utilisateurs, en tant que propriétaires, ont l'intention d'établir des politiques de sécurité pour contrôler leurs dispositifs ou services au lieu de s'en remettre à des tiers centralisés. En nous concentrant sur les défis scientifiques liés aux caractéristiques non conventionnelles de l'IdO et à la sécurité centrée sur l'utilisateur, nous proposons une infrastructure sécurisée de l'IdO activée par la technologie de la chaîne de blocs et pilotée par des réseaux peer-to-peer sans confiance. Notre infrastructure sécurisée IoT permet non seulement l'identification des individus et des collectifs, mais aussi l'identification fiable des objets IoT par leurs propriétaires en se référant à la chaîne de blocage des réseaux peer-to-peer sans confiance. La chaîne de blocs fournit à notre infrastructure sécurisée de l'IdO une base de données fiable, immuable et publique qui enregistre les identités individuelles et collectives, ce qui facilite la conception du protocole d'authentification simplifié de l'IdO sans dépendre des fournisseurs d'identité tiers. En outre, notre infrastructure sécurisée pour l'IdO adopte un paradigme d'IdO socialisé qui permet à toutes les entités de l'IdO (à savoir les individus, les collectifs, les choses) d'établir des relations et rend l'IdO extensible et omniprésent les réseaux où les propriétaires peuvent profiter des relations pour définir des politiques d'accès pour leurs appareils ou services. En outre, afin de protéger les opérations de notre infrastructure sécurisée de l'IdO contre les menaces de sécurité, nous introduisons également un mécanisme autonome de détection des menaces en complément de notre cadre de contrôle d'accès, qui peut surveiller en permanence le comportement anormal des opérations des dispositifs ou services<br>The premise of the Internet of Things (IoT) is to interconnect not only sensors, mobile devices, and computers but also individuals, homes, smart buildings, and cities, as well as electrical grids, automobiles, and airplanes, to mention a few. However, realizing the extensive connectivity of IoT while ensuring user security and privacy still remains a challenge. There are many unconventional characteristics in IoT systems such as scalability, heterogeneity, mobility, and limited resources, which render existing Internet security solutions inadequate to IoT-based systems. Besides, the IoT advocates for peer-to-peer networks where users as owners intend to set security policies to control their devices or services instead of relying on some centralized third parties. By focusing on scientific challenges related to the IoT unconventional characteristics and user-centric security, we propose an IoT secure infrastructure enabled by the blockchain technology and driven by trustless peer-to-peer networks. Our IoT secure infrastructure allows not only the identification of individuals and collectives but also the trusted identification of IoT things through their owners by referring to the blockchain in trustless peer-to-peer networks. The blockchain provides our IoT secure infrastructure with a trustless, immutable and public ledger that records individuals and collectives identities, which facilitates the design of the simplified authentication protocol for IoT without relying on third-party identity providers. Besides, our IoT secure infrastructure adopts socialized IoT paradigm which allows all IoT entities (namely, individuals, collectives, things) to establish relationships and makes the IoT extensible and ubiquitous networks where owners can take advantage of relationships to set access policies for their devices or services. Furthermore, in order to protect operations of our IoT secure infrastructure against security threats, we also introduce an autonomic threat detection mechanism as the complementary of our access control framework, which can continuously monitor anomaly behavior of device or service operations
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Stenbeck, Torbjörn. "Promoting Innovation in Transportation Infrastructure Maintenance : Incentives Contracting and Performance Based Specifications." Doctoral thesis, KTH, Bro- och stålbyggnad (byte av engelskt namn 20110630), 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-4311.
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Knowledge of what action that is needed to drive innovation at a desired speed is in demand in civil engineering and its related maintenance. 1. What measures to stimulate innovation have been tested? 2. How much innovation has been achieved by contracting? 3. How much innovation was achieved by performance-based specifications? 4. How can cost models contribute to innovation? Methods include qualitative and quantitative methods that have been timed and mixed to optimize their merits. Sweden, France, USA and Canada have used as research ground. Technology transfer, multi-criteria evaluation, variant bidding, idea mailbox, weatherregulated payment, contests and earmarked funds for innovative projects were some of the method beside and within contracting and performance-based specifications that have been tested. Contracting as such has cut costs in Sweden but not in North America. Neither Sweden nor North America has noticed any increase of innovation, rather the contrary. The savings have primarily been achieved by cuts on staff and by using standardized, less expensive and less advanced machinery. Contracted highway maintenance provinces in Canada and Sweden on average had about 50 % higher costs than inhouse provinces and Washington State. The difference is reduced to 26 %, when corrected by weather and the higher traffic in the contracted provinces. Prestige, politics and competitivity made it difficult to extract economic data from private contractors, and even from the public owners and may explain the contradictory results in previous studies. The internally driven innovation appears small and incentives to innovation weak in inhouse systems, but contrary to expectation even less in contracted systems. Performance-based specifications (PBS), such as Design-Build (DB), have reduced delivery times and kept the budget better than traditional contracts, but quality, lifecycle cost and technical progress was rarely analyzed and even less confirmed in the literature, why a multiple case study was carried out. The result was that three out of four PBS cases delivered lower quality in the long run or showed higher costs already on the opening day, when compared to a traditional contract alternative. Cost models contribute to innovation by making regions with different conditions comparable and provide tools for rational planning and decision making. One model for how highway maintenance costs depend on snow, bridges and traffic and one model for how bridge maintenance costs depend on size and age were elaborated. Models included in contracts, e.g. to allow a contractor to reduce the weather risk, appear to have contributed to a more successful contracting rollout in Sweden than in Canada. France provides experience of how inhouse innovation contests and industry-own patent-like routines can promote innovation. After the first two years with an incentive contract, Banverket received 10 % better quality measured as train delay and 20 % better quality measured as the number of technical errors at no cost. A lesson learnt is that the success of performance-based specifications depends on how well the owner can describe and define the contracts, how compliance is measured and how deviations are handled, i.e. how the contractor is penalized for non-fulfillment or awarded for excess delivery<br>QC 20100819
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Adetola, Alaba Ekekiel. "A conceptual collaborative engagement framework for road infrastructure management in Nigeria." Thesis, University of Central Lancashire, 2014. http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/10982/.
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Lau, Jasmin. "Building a national technology and innovation infrastructure for an aging society." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/38566.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2006.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-192).<br>This thesis focuses on the potential of strategic technology innovation and implementation in sustaining an aging society, and examines the need for a comprehensive national technology and innovation infrastructure in the U.S., capable of supporting the development and use of technologies by the aging population and their caregivers. The pervasiveness of population aging makes it a primary concern for nations around the world today. As the inadequacies of existing resources become apparent, policy makers .are now turning to technology and innovation to cope with the changing demographics. 'Technological innovations to accommodate the elderly have existed since centuries ago, and they been useful in extending the human capability beyond perceived limitations of aging. However, new technologies developed with the same objectives are not widely adopted and accepted by the aging population today. The thesis is divided into two complementary sections.<br>(cont.) The first examines three hypotheses for the slow penetration rates of new technologies for aging: 1) Useful, affordable and usable technologies are unavailable, 2) Professional carers that can play a catalytic role between technological innovation and implementation are not technologically educated and prepared to incorporate the technologies into elderly care, and 3) The dynamics of policy formation and agenda setting are not conducive to the design and implementation of "technology for aging" policies. The second section consists of two comparative studies to highlight the gaps within the existing "technologies for aging" industry infrastructure. A study of the domestic automobile and mobile telecommunications industry provides a national perspective, whereas a study of eleven industrialized nations engaged in technological innovations for the elderly provides an international perspective. The research shows that useful, affordable and usable technologies are available, but their diffusion is hindered by inadequate human capital development and an unconducive policy formation and agenda setting climate.<br>(cont.) The comparative studies further illuminate existing infrastructure gaps and also provide useful frameworks to facilitate the bridging of these gaps. By facilitating the development of a robust "technology for aging" infrastructure, policy makers can help to ensure that the U.S. is ready to meet the challenges of an aging population.<br>by Jasmin Lau.<br>S.M.
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Behrens, Ilse. "infraTECTURE : transforming infrastructure into architecture, a services building in Pretoria CBD." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/30289.
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How does one appropriately design a selfsufficient building in the existing urban fabric without damaging historical urban centres? The role of architecture is to adapt, to not only serve and support people but, also to support its context and surrounding architectures. Thus a new typology needs to be created, by designing the architecture of ‘giving’. By looking at how resources travel between and through buildings, one could start to re-address the nature of services within architecture, starting with the outer workings of infrastructure. Through experimenting with the potential of creating space&place as an architectural expression via the re-imaginative design of infrastructure, the existing urban fabric can be served in a sustaining manner. The design is of a services building housing a parkade for conventional and electrical cars and bicycles which generates its own energy, harvests and stores water for itself and surrounds, process waste and sewage and cycle on site resources.<br>Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2011.<br>Architecture<br>unrestricted
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Loh, Nolan. "Buildings as urban climate infrastructure: A framework for designing building forms and facades that mitigate urban heat." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1553513750865168.
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Madziva, Tonderayi Jafias. "The effect of partnering, infrastructure gaps and currency weakness on the cost of an infrastructure-building nonmarket strategy in emerging markets." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/67295.
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This study examined effect of partnering, infrastructure gaps and currency weakness on the implementation cost of infrastructure-building nonmarket strategy. Limited knowledge on cost of nonmarket strategy existed, leading to absence of meaningful understanding of the business competitive and performance benefits of its implementation. The study was conducted in the mining sector of the South African emerging market, characterized by unavailable or underdeveloped business aiding infrastructure and ageing physical infrastructure.
Nonmarket strategy has performance and competitiveness benefits from its implementation as reported in previous studies. Other studies examined its integration with market strategy, taxonomies, antecedents, and internationalization. No studies had examined the implementation cost of nonmarket strategy. To address the gap, hypotheses were developed to answer the research question: what are the effects of strategy option, institutional & economic factors on the cost of infrastructure-building nonmarket strategy implementation? A quantitative method embedded in a cross-sectional survey design using a snowball non-probability sampling technique was used to collect data from 239 participants.
Analysis using factor analysis and structural equation modelling showed a positive relationship between a partnering strategy option and cost of implementing infrastructure-building nonmarket strategy likely driven by the absence of: contractual agreements; political ties and networks; project management; regulatory requirement understanding; and capacity building among partners. The relationship with institutional & economic factors was not significant likely driven by the fact that these factors are embedded in the business environment and participants perceived no impact. This study has made significant progress toward the understanding of the cost of implementing nonmarket strategy, as well as providing meaningful understanding of its perceived organizational performance and competitiveness benefits. The study illuminates a surprising observation, where the natural expectation is that partnerships would lower cost of implementing an infrastructure-building nonmarket strategy. Contrary to this expectation the study shows that a partnering relationship increases cost suggesting antecedents that drive the direction of the relationship. Future research can focus on a single set of factors among strategy options, institutional factors, economic factors, as well as examine the antecedents on the relationship with cost of implementing nonmarket strategy.<br>Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2018.<br>Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)<br>PhD<br>Unrestricted
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Rogers, Juan D. "Implementation of a national information infrastructure : science and the building of society /." Diss., This resource online, 1996. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-09062007-142652/.
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Lin, Chan-Li. "Boston Garden and North Station area : building the architectural infrastructure for development." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/79953.
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Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1990.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-143).<br>In recent years, the advancement of structural technology, the accumulation of capital, and legal manipulation of land ownership have made available for development air rights parcels above existing buildings and, in particular, transportation systems. Some cities, including Boston, have chosen to develop these air right parcels after development had exhausted all downtown real estate. These parcels above transportation systems, such as highways and railroads, are by their nature very large. Unfortunately, these large tracts of land have often attracted singular, over-scaled buildings which are isolated from the surrounding downtown fabric. In this thesis, attempts are made to design the architectural infrastructure for development-one which allows for continuity and variety based on the hierarchical organization of spaces, buildings, and their sizes. Boston Garden and the North Station Area is the project site. An open-ended infrastructure IS designed for development of a mixed-use district. Drawings and photographs of models are used to illustrate design concepts and processes.<br>by Chan-Li Lin.<br>M.Arch.
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Aleid, Abdulaziz Sulaiman. "Building up the housing finance market in KSA : improving the legal infrastructure." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2017. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/17235/.
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This research project purports to offer a comprehensive analysis of how the legal framework in Saudi Arabia might be improved to further the development and efficacy of the housing finance market. The research aims to achieve the following objectives: enhancing the efficiency of the main participants, lender and borrower, in the housing finance market by providing them with the desired protection; facilitating access to that market; building up a proper regulatory framework for governing the market; and finally, addressing the legal barriers that hinder the provision of cheap liquidity in the market. Although the Housing Finance Laws (HFLs) 2012 were introduced and enacted with similar objectives in mind, this thesis argues that four issues still present significant obstacles to the development of the housing finance market, albeit some are a result of the provisions of the HFLs themselves. As a consequence, the thesis has sought to address the following questions; what barriers to the development of the housing finance remain unaddressed? How should Saudi law be reformed to provide adequate protection for lender and borrower in the market? Can the Land Fees Law 2016 play a critical role in addressing the current issue of increasing land prices which hinders access to the housing finance market? How can the regulatory framework for regulating the housing finance market in general, and for adopting the macro-prudential policy in particular, be developed to achieve the HFLs’ aims? And, finally, how might Saudi laws be reformed to enable the launch of a securitisation market, in order to assist in the development of the housing finance market by providing new means of liquidity? It is hoped that critical analysis of the above questions will help to facilitate development of the housing finance market and contribute to its further improvement, by addressing potentially workable solutions to the obstacles listed above.
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江垂燊 and Shui-sun Kong. "Building superhighways in PRC." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1997. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31267981.
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Bakhteyari, Karim. "Public Private Partnerships : As a public infrastructure optimizer." Thesis, Mälardalen University, Department of Public Technology, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-734.
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<p>A public private partnership is an alternative to procurement of the facility by the public sector, using funding from tax revenues or public borrowing. In a typical public sector procurement, the public authority sets out the specifications and design of the facility, calls for bids on the basis if this detailed design, and pays for construction of the facility by a private sector contractor. The public authority has to fund the full cost of construction, including cost overruns. Operation and maintenance of the facility are handled by the public authority and the contractor takes no responsibility for the long term performance of the facility after the construction warranty period has expired. In a public private partnership, on the other hand, the authority specifies its requirements in terms of outputs, which set out the public services which the facility is intended to provide, but which do not specify how these are to be provided. It is then left to the private sector to design, finance, build and operate the facility to meet the longterm output specifications. The project company receives payments over the life of the PPP contract, which are supposed to repay the financing costs and give a return to investors. The payments are subject to deductions for failure to meet output specifications, and there is no extra allowance for cost overruns which happen during construction or in operation of the facility.</p>
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Vernikos, Vasileios K. "Realising offsite construction in the civil engineering and infrastructure sector." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2016. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/23521.
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Offsite construction solutions have gained significant prominence over recent years. Much of the interest however, has been focussed on the building sector, in particular housing. The Civil Engineering and Infrastructure sector (CE&I) has comparatively seen little growth in this aspect. Specific exemplars for some high-profile projects, such as the Heathrow Airport control tower, do exist, but there have been far less applications of the new and emerging technologies and approaches that have been influential in the building sector recently. In addition, Offsite itself is not a well-defined supply sector, but rather a conglomeration of various, largely material or technology-based supply networks. This makes it difficult to realise new opportunities, especially in different sectors of the construction industry. This thesis is the culmination of a four-year Engineering Doctorate (EngD) research programme investigating the components that affect the realisation of offsite in the CE&I sector. It commences with an introduction to the research and its aims and objectives, and moves on to present the methodological considerations. During the four Work Packages (WP) conducted, a total of 78 individuals participated and contributed to workshop and interviews, together with an extensive critical review of literature. All primary and secondary data was examined with appropriate methods, such as a comparative case study and an emergent thematic analysis, upon which a series of conclusions and subsequently recommendations were drawn. The findings clearly identify that CE&I is more risk averse, and defines offsite differently, to the building sector. Each CE&I sub-sector has specific drivers and barriers to offsite, and due to the relative longevity of CE&I projects (both procurement, design, and construction) makes it difficult to benchmark and quantify offsite and its benefits. Large programmes of works rather than small projects are key to realising offsite as they provide confidence to the supply chain of long term investment. In addition, clients are pivotal for driving offsite as they can influence the industry s focus; nevertheless, investment cycles in infrastructure clients hinders offsite realisation. For holistic offsite implementation organisation need to have a top-down strategy. Therefore offsite requirements should be embedded within the project delivery governance processes. Its realisation is linked directly to recruitment, training and research and development plans. Building information modelling (BIM) now plays a key part in offsite realisation in CE&I as from 2016 it will be compulsory for all centrally-funded government works. BIM however, does not directly increase the offsite implementation, but it can help enable offsite due to the ability to define the design earlier in the project lifecycle. In addition, BIM encourages the use of software that can help identify the repetition of components, therefore increasing the potential for economies to scale. Finally, with the use of such software, delivery teams can simulate the construction sequence and therefore further help to enable offsite by reducing logistical challenges.
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Passavanti, Lenore Antonia. "Building upon ruins : the evolution of an urban artifact from infrastructure to public space." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/69329.
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Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1994.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-82).<br>A thesis is about what architecture can be. In my thesis I propose that urban infrastructure built in the late nineteenth-century, can be the foundation for urban public space in the late twentieth-century. I propose that by exploring the value inherent in an existing structure, or fragment thereof, we can derive reasons to retain and perhaps add to that structure, all for the enrichment of the urban environment. The why is the value of the artifact. To explore the possible valuations of the urban artifact I have studied various theories of the ruin, monuments, and their role in urban culture. Writings by Alois Riegl, Aldo Rossi. David Lowenthal. Francoise Choay, Theodor Adorno, Manfredo Tafuri , and Giorgio Grassi. among others, have guided this exploration. The second part of the thesis is designed to test the proposition by linking the urban artifact with the present. This linkage would be achieved through the design of a new intervention which would be responsive to the contemporary situation. The programmatic ideas of theater and promenade were employed as both the methods of linkage, and generators of design.<br>by Lenore Antonia Passavanti.<br>M.Arch.
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Githaiga, Nyambura. "Building Peace that Lasts: A Study of State-Led Peacebuilding in Kenya." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/35664.
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The concept of peacebuilding evokes the image of international interventions in countries emerging from civil wars. Despite the visibility of this engagement, post-civil war peacebuilding is just one form of peacebuilding. As a response to smaller scale violent conflicts, ongoing peacebuilding interrupts cycles of violence and prevents the escalation of violent conflict. The 2007/8 post-election violence in Kenya captured international attention due to the scope and magnitude of the conflict. In 1992 and 1997, Kenya had experienced lower levels of electoral violence. The recurring and escalatory nature of violent conflict implies that peacebuilding should be a strategic response, earlier on, to prevent violence from reaching new levels. Since 2002, the Kenyan state has actively engaged in peacebuilding. This study on state-led peacebuilding in Kenya deviates from the typical post-war interventions to analyse peacebuilding as an ongoing preventative response by national actors to intermittent violence.
This thesis seeks to explain the impact of this state-led peacebuilding approach on the practice and prospect of peace. To do so, I first explore the multiple conceptions of peace held by those engaged in this approach to understand what type of peace is being built. Second, I analyse the paradox of the state in peacebuilding and how the role of the state has influenced the nature of peacebuilding and consequently the prospects for peace. The state in peacebuilding presents a paradox because of the state’s direct and indirect involvement in violent conflict as well as the top-down nature of state engagement. Third, I interrogate the relationship between the institutionalisation of peacebuilding and the sustainability of peacebuilding and peace. I find that state-led peacebuilding in Kenya has raised the profile of peacebuilding, improved the synergy between peacebuilding actors and increased the inflow of resources available to build peace. This positive influence is countered by the negative implications of the state’s role in promoting a reductive conceptualisation of peace and unsustainably institutionalising peace building. I conclude that, though the state has a role to play in peacebuilding, the contradictory implications of state-led peacebuilding challenge the sustainability of peacebuilding and peace.
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Catota, Quintana Frankie. "Cybersecurity Capabilities in a Critical Infrastructure Sector of a Developing Nation." Research Showcase @ CMU, 2016. http://repository.cmu.edu/dissertations/697.
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When information technology is incorporated into the operations of financial critical infrastructure, it brings with it a range of cyber risks, and mitigating them requires that firms and regulators develop capabilities to foster protection. The sophistication of cyber threats to the financial sector has been growing rapidly. Developed nations have worked hard to improve their knowledge of these threats and establish strategies to respond accordingly. However, in developing nations, both the understanding of the risks posed by cyber threats and the ability to address those risks have been slower to evolve. Developing the needed cybersecurity capabilities in developing countries encounter challenges that need to be identified and addressed. In order to begin to do that, this thesis reports on three studies conducted in the context of Ecuador. The first study identifies and assesses incident experiences, challenges, barriers, and desired actions reported by financial security managers with the objective of identifying strategies to enhance incident response capabilities. The second study begins with the security incidents reported by the Ecuadorian financial stakeholders during the first study and assesses the potential effectiveness of the government policy that is intended to address IT risk in the financial sector. The third study explores the challenges that universities face in order to provide cybersecurity instruction to protect critical infrastructure and explores potential strategies to advance cybersecurity education at the university level. In support of this work we collected data from national practitioners involved in responding to security incidents and in developing cybersecurity skills. Sixty-one in-depth, semi-structured interviews across five cities were conducted (95% in person, the rest by telephone) with respondents who had good knowledge in the subjects. Respondents come mainly from: the financial sector (CISOs, risk and IT managers, security chiefs, security officers, authorities); telecommunications sector, especially ISPs (managers, directors, engineers, authorities); and academia (deans, directors, professors). We transcribed all the interviews, coded them and conducted qualitative text analysis. This research finds that (1) the financial sector is already facing risks driven by outsiders and insiders that lead to fraud and operational errors and failures. The main barriers to improving protection are small team size, network visibility, inadequate internal coordination, technology updating, lack of training, and lack of awareness. The sector has little community support to respond to incidents, and the national legal framework has not supported appropriate prosecution of cyber criminals; (2) the national IT risk management policy has reasonably covered most countermeasures related to reported security incidents. There are however, several areas of gap, one of the most important is network security, which can enable sophisticated malware attacks; (3) today the level of cybersecurity education is mostly elementary in Ecuador. Academic interviewees at only four of the thirteen universities studied expressed confidence that they can provide students with reasonable preparation. Ecuador needs to design a national cybersecurity plan that prioritizes protection for critical infrastructure and should support strategies that allow the country to enhance cybersecurity capabilities. Properly designed these initiatives should allow the nation to develop a core structure to confront current and emergent cyber challenges in the financial sector and other critical national operations, and build the human resources necessary to continue that effort.
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Beane, George H. (George Holton). "Infrastructure as a vehicle for community building : an urban design strategy for Iztapalapa, Mexico City." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99057.
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Thesis: M.C.P., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, June 2015.<br>Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, June 2015.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. "June 2015."<br>Includes bibliographical references (pages 104-109).<br>Mexico City suffers from flooding, water scarcity, pollution, subsidence and enormous financial costs related to water infrastructure. Poor governance contributes to the city's water troubles by creating overlapping political organizations whose interests and administrative purview often conflict. This thesis proposes decentralized water infrastructures implemented at the neighborhood scale, that engage directly with dominant institutional arrangements - namely, the complicated relationship between local government and social organizations representing the needs of informal settlements. The proposal articulates x) a site-specific exploration of design solutions for improving water service in one neighborhood of lztapalapa, 2) a template for coupled social and hydrological development that can be replicated elsewhere in the borough, and 3) a broad argument for multi-performative infrastructure that incorporates, and strengthens, existing reserves of social and political capital. Through these strategies, the thesis addresses the question of how urban designers can use physical infrastructure to not only improve basic service provision but also create new opportunities for community building within and between marginalized urban settlements.<br>by George H. Beane.<br>M.C.P.<br>S.M.
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Mtuleni, Rose T. T. "Building adaptive capacity to flood risk in Philippi, Cape Town, through infrastructure-led planning interventions." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22942.
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There is a global trend of increase in urban population growth rates. Much of the population growth occurs in cities of developing countries, with high percentages of the populations living in informal settlements on the peripheries of cities. The often unplanned expansion of cities is increasingly exposing a large number of urban residents and economic assets to disaster risk. The City of Cape Town (CCT) is no exception to the rapid expansion of informal settlements. Heavy winter rainfall leads to flooding in Cape Town, with severe flooding impacts mainly manifesting in low income settlements. Flooding occurs due to the natural setting of Cape Town, and due to lack of adequate water-related infrastructure in some parts of the city. Although infrastructure interventions for flood risk reduction have had some success in reducing flood impacts in some parts of Cape Town, much of the local government response to flooding disasters has been reactive, short term and generally not designed to effectively support informal settlements. The township of Philippi is highly impacted by flooding events, which often compromise the township's safety and public health, and destroy livelihood assets, leaving adverse impacts on local livelihoods. This dissertation uses Philippi as a case study to assess and investigate how an infrastructure-led planning approach to flood risk can provide solutions and contribute to building better adaptive capacity to flooding, for a rapidly growing population exposed to flooding and lacking adequate water infrastructure services. Utilizing policy review, key informant interviews, Census data, geospatial data mapping and observation, this study identifies the major impediments to enhancement of flood resilience through infrastructure planning in Philippi. It explores the opportunities and potential that Philippi has to set precedent for flood-resilient developments in Cape Town. A Spatial Flood Resilience Framework is presented as a spatial planning tool providing an infrastructure-led planning approach to flood risk and guiding decision-making towards effectively making Philippi more floodresilient. The study highlights the need for risk-informed local plans to reduce disaster risk in Cape Town and identifies collaborative governance as a significant aspect of the planning and implementation processes for flood risk reduction, as it integrates different actors in working towards a common agenda. This study aims to identify and improve the role of urban planning in moving towards flood resilient neighbourhoods in Cape Town. The study highlights the role of planning in ensuring that development avoids or mitigates flood risk, and identifies flood resilience as a valuable aspect of the spatial quality of a city. Enhancing flood resilience is an essential premise for the facilitation of development in areas of disaster risk and a major step toward socio-spatial justice in the city. The research conducted for the study contributes to the Global South research base and provides a possible precedent for future spatial development plans regarding flood risk in cities of the Global South.
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Babatunde, Solomon. "Developing public private partnership strategy for infrastructure delivery in Nigeria." Thesis, Northumbria University, 2015. http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/27295/.
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The success of any public-private partnership (PPP) project in a country is largely dependent on the country’s maturity on critical success factors (CSFs) that made PPP projects successful. Thus, identification of metrics and standards for measuring the maturity of stakeholder organisations on CSFs for PPP projects implementation remains a challenge. Though studies on CSFs for PPP projects abound, approaches of using CSFs to develop PPP process maturity received scarce attention. Against this backdrop, this research becomes imperative to create efficient and transparent operational strategies with a view to using CSFs to develop process maturity for stakeholder organisations in PPP projects in Nigeria. Data for the research were obtained through mixed methods approach namely: quantitative and qualitative approaches. Questionnaires were administered on five different stakeholder organisations comprised public sector authorities (i.e. ministries, department, and agencies), concessionaires, local lenders/banks, consultants, and contractors involved in different PPP projects implementation in Nigeria. The data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Also, the qualitative approach was conducted through an expert forum and six PPP infrastructure project case studies in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria. The expert forum was constituted to refine and verify the conceptual framework developed. Also, structured interviews were conducted with primary stakeholders in the six PPP infrastructure project case studies in the study area. The research identified fourteen CSFs that made PPP infrastructure projects successful in Nigeria. These CSFs were employed for capability maturity levels definition ranging from level 1(Ad hoc) to level 5(Optimising) in accordance to Capability Maturity Model (CMM) concept. This led to the development of stakeholder organisations capability enhancement framework (SOCEF) in PPP infrastructure projects in Nigeria. The framework was validated by PPP experts to ensure it is comprehensive, objective, practical, replicable, reliable, and suitable for use in Nigeria. Thus, a quantitative assessment tool was developed with the framework in assessing the current capability maturity levels of stakeholder organisations involved in PPP infrastructure projects on fourteen CSFs identified in this research. The findings revealed that public sector organisations were between maturity level 1 and maturity level 2 (out of 5 maturity levels) on CSFs applicable to them. The majority of the private sector organisations were in maturity level 2 on CSFs associated with them. It is established in this research that Nigeria’s maturity is between maturity level 1 and maturity level 2 (out of 5 maturity levels) on CSFs that made PPP infrastructure projects successful. The findings emanated from this research provided both the theoretical and practical contributions to knowledge. The theoretical contributions include the methodology for developing capability maturity levels in PPPs, new insights into the usefulness of CSFs in PPP projects, and contributed to the wider body of knowledge of process improvement in the construction industry at large. The practical contributions are the capability level definitions and enhancement framework for PPP practice, and the specific CSFs for PPP infrastructure projects in Nigeria. The framework developed in this research had provided the benchmark for the identification of methodical approach and standard to process improvement in PPP infrastructure projects in Nigeria. It is believed that the framework would provide a useful guide and roadmaps for improvement by indicating ‘what’ needs to be done by stakeholder organisations involved in PPP projects in achieving higher capability maturity levels on identified CSFs for PPP projects in Nigeria and developing countries at large. Thus, the framework could be used to benchmark future studies.
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He, Shu. "Building Marketing Capacity of Local Food Systems: Case Studies from the Shenandoah Valley." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/64911.
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Small and medium-sized farms are an important demographic of the agricultural sector in the Shenandoah Valley and Chesapeake Bay watershed. Having sufficient food system infrastructure available and accessible to these farm operations is essential to help them add value to their farm products; diversify their operations and differentiate their farm and food products in an increasingly competitive and commodity-based food system. Despite its importance, however, local food systems (LFS) frequently have incorrect types or insufficient amounts of the equipment and facilities needed to support these systems. Through the use of two case studies, this study investigates current circumstances, future needs, and offers recommendations for two important components of LFS infrastructure in the Shenandoah Valley. The first study inventories and assesses existing infrastructure capacity available in the region. Using data collected from farmers, LFS organizations, and institutional foodservice organizations, a needs assessment is then completed to determine the specific amounts and types of equipment and facilities which would be needed to meet current LFS infrastructure needs. The second study explores current and potential benefits, and future challenges of a produce auction to impact Mennonite communities in the Shenandoah Valley. This analysis of the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction (SVPA) was conducted using data obtained from both interviews and surveys.
Results indicate that producers, existing infrastructure, and institutional buyers in the region would like to own, use, or rent food system infrastructure. There is unmet LFS infrastructure demand in due to the current lack of enough food cleaning, processing, packaging, and storing equipment in this area. For the SVPA, most of participants were satisfied with the auction. Buyers, however, reported that their procurement from the SVPA is limited by fluctuating prices, demand outpacing supply of produce, insufficient delivery services.
Overall, food system infrastructure in general, and the SVPA in particular, were reported to have an important role in the region in supporting market access for local small and medium sized farmers, improve viability of local food system and the regional economy, and facilitating connections between consumers and their local food system. Several recommendations to strengthen the region's LFS are derived from these results.<br>Master of Science
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Adams, Amanda Gayle. "Between Auto(mobile) and Building: A Study of Pedestrian Oriented Parking Lots." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34478.
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The automobile is undeniably an icon of our modern era. Decades of accommodating the automobile have dramatically transformed the shape and the quality of our physical environment. The typical suburban retail parking lot is one symptom of our automobile dependence.
Frequently the proposed solutions to sprawl development tend to minimize the economic and marketing appeal of a large surface parking lot. For many communities, the anticipated economic benefit and convenience of a suburban retail development overcomes any reservations about the appearance and effect of the associated sea of asphalt. A more achievable design goal might be a pedestrian-oriented parking lot. Is that feasible? What present and future advantages might be gained? What would it be like?
This thesis studies the typical commercial surface parking lot through observation and analysis, leading to the design of an infrastructural system of elements to develop pedestrian-oriented parking lots.<br>Master of Architecture
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Lu, Zhiyan, and 卢智妍. "Community capacity building for sustainability : case studies of Guangdong China." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/194568.
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Academic studies tend to focus on environmental and economics aspects in achieving sustainability. This paper emphasizes the social sustainability aspect from the angle of building community capacity. Community capacity can be viewed as readiness for empowerment, a prerequisite condition for greater social equity and social justice leading to inter- and intra-generation equity. A community capacity building framework is derived from the existing literatures to guide the analysis of four communities to assess the current status of the community capacity in Guangdong by conducting interviews and survey. It is found that the community capacity is relatively low and residents are lack of proactivity in contributing to community development if they are living in a comfort neighborhood; more professional social workers are needed to support capacity building.<br>published_or_final_version<br>Environmental Management<br>Master<br>Master of Science in Environmental Management
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Unyolo, Thokozani. "Building consumer mobile money adoption and trust in conditions where infrastructures are unreliable." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/23059.
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Mobile money is gaining momentum in emerging markets as the solution to bank those who were previously unbanked. The number of people in Africa who have mobile phones is 644 million subscribers and has for a long time exceeded those who have bank accounts and access to formal financial services (Cobert, Helms,&Parker, 2012). About 2.5 billion adults, just over half of world’s adult population, do not use formal financial services to save or borrow, of this number 2.2 billion of these unserved adults live in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East (Chaia et al., 2009). This study sought to explore factors that will determine adoption of mobile money by adapting Venkatesh, Thong and Xu’s (2012) Unified Theory of Acceptance and Technology Use (UTAUT 2) research model to assess the drivers of behavioural intention. The model was extended by incorporating two additional constructs; trust and infrastructure reliability, which have been excluded in previous studies that have been done in developed countries. Further to this, the findings of this study will make a significant contribution to Information Systems (IS) research by identifying factors that influence technology adoption in a developing market context.This main aim of this quantitative research was to empirically discover the deeper motivations that affect the consumer behavioural intention and usage behaviour to use mobile money in Malawi. The value of this paper lies in the use of interviews to unveil new determinants of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Technology use in the adoption of mobile money in a developing market that influence behavioural intention and usage behaviour. The seven factors examined in this study are performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), price value (PV), infrastructure reliability (IR), and trust (T) moderated by gender and age impact on technology adoption. The study sample consists of 508 respondents with a response rate of 84%.The findings indicate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, trust, and price value were positively associated with consumer behavioural intention to use mobile money in Malawi. In addition, infrastructure reliability and social influence were found to have an insignificant effect on consumer behavioural intention to use mobile money.The research adds value on existing studies on technology adoption as it contributes to understanding disruptive technology from a consumer perspective in a developing market which has been excluded in previous research papers. Another value of this paper lies in the use of UTAUT 2 to identify a new construct, trust, as a determinant of mobile money adoption in a consumer perspective which is applicable in Malawi. In addition to this it enables us to contribute to current literature on the emerging mobile money market in Malawi, which is largely under researched.<br>Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012.<br>Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)<br>unrestricted
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Al-Khaili, K. S. K. "Building disaster resilience within the Emirati energy sector and its infrastructure through a comprehensive strategic mitigation plan." Thesis, University of Salford, 2015. http://usir.salford.ac.uk/36773/.
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The energy sector dominates in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and consists of various assets - electricity, oil and natural gas - that are geographically dispersed and connected by systems and networks. The protection of these systems and assets within the energy sector, especially the safeguarding of the oil and gas infrastructure from any internal and external threats, should become a top priority in the UAE. Threats to geopolitical and economic stability that need to be considered and prepared for include tectonic activity, climate change, nuclear energy, terrorism and war. The aim of this research is to develop a framework to enhance the resilience of the UAE’s critical energy infrastructure facilities through a strategic disaster mitigation plan. The philosophy of this research is interpretivism. The research approach is inductive, whilst the research strategy is case study. The secondary data was taken from various academic and professional sources whilst the primary data collection included questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Three facilities were selected for this research and they were electricity generating plants using gas - one in Abu Dhabi, one in Dubai and one in Sharjah. In total 100 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 42 were answered by energy sector workers (20 from Abu Dhabi, 15 from Dubai and 7 from Sharjah). Respondents of the questionnaire discussed issues such as energy sector preparedness, vulnerability and barriers to be overcome. Respondents believed that while the energy sector is best prepared for terrorism, extreme heat, and health and safety related accidents, it is ill prepared when it comes to facing natural hazards. The risk of terrorism was thought to be the greatest vulnerability. In addition, a total of 9 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Emirati energy sector managers who discussed the questionnaire responses and proposed further solutions to the concerns raised. This thesis provides important practical knowledge and makes a contribution to the provision of advice and methodological steps, derived from fieldwork, when it comes to developing a strategic mitigation plan and communicating it to the energy sector. It provides key information that could be used to improve the design and structure of current educational and professional programmes undertaken by individuals in the 2 disaster sector. The thesis provides tools for qualitatively evaluating the various threats and vulnerabilities faced by the UAE and acts as a platform for change. In terms of theoretical contributions, this research represents the first of its kind that engages both workers and managers in the Emirati energy sector. This gives academics and professionals unique insights into some of the significant problems that have become latent and perhaps would have continued unnoticed but require more comprehensive investigation. The study has specific implications for policy and practices within energy organisations operating in such settings, not to mention the way disaster is viewed.
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Daly, Brenda. "Building biodiversity data infrastructure for science and decision-making: information needs and information-seeking patterns in South Africa." Master's thesis, Faculty of Humanities, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32635.
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Biodiversity information is critical to inform science-based policy development as well as to support responsible and accountable land-use planning and decision-making practices. The uptake of available information for these uses is, however, not yet quantified or understood. Here, the extent to which the needs of biodiversity information end-users in South Africa are supported via existing information sources was investigated, at the science, practice and policy interface, using the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI's) online conservation mapping service users as a case study. A quantitative investigation of the information needs of end-users of biodiversity information was made, their information-seeking patterns analysed and the various uses of information by different user groups in South Africa investigated. This allowed for the implications of these needs and behaviour on system design and information provision to be formulated to better design the envisaged National Biodiversity Information System at SANBI. Based on a representative sample of end-users from policy, implementation and research backgrounds, a questionnaire was used and the responses were examined to determine which content was most useful, what barriers and enablers they face when trying to access biodiversity information, and what degree of interdisciplinary information is needed in addressing environmental problems. A sample of 778 (13%) respondents from a total of 5977 biodiversity information users was analysed from across the country. The study found that the lack of appropriate or available information remains one of the three highest unmet needs of biodiversity information end-users. The absence of good prior knowledge of sources of biodiversity information and unreliable and inaccurate information are two additional factors that hinder respondents in finding biodiversity information and achieving their goals. The major implication of information deficiency identified by respondents related to uncertain and/or inaccurate outcomes resulting in ill-informed decision-making. A key outcome of the analysis of the survey results are a series of recommendations on how these issues might be addressed, and it is envisioned that these may be used to help guide the development of a National Biodiversity Information System. A broad range of recommendations have been proposed, principally that the interoperability of information from various adjacent and disparate fields of study be combined with biodiversity information as a means of addressing environmental problems.
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Stoker, Alexander. "Building a Medical App: Approach, Infrastructure, and Challenges of Developing a Congenital Heart Defects App for Educational Purposes." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/603666.
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A Thesis submitted to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine.<br>Mobile software application (apps) have exploded in popularity since 2008,
when Apple’s App Store opened and have become increasingly present in medical
education and medical practice. As evidence of educators realizing the potential apps
have for educating students, the University of Arizona has created a department called
the Office of Instruction and Assessment (OIA), which has a programming team that is
committed to assisting faculty in the design, development and implementation of apps
for University of Arizona Students. Congenital heart defects are the most common type
of birth defect in the United States, affecting nearly 1% of, or about 40,000, births per
year. There are complex three‐dimensional relationships involved in many of the
congenital heart defects that may be difficult for students to fully understand through
the traditional method of reading and looking at two‐dimensional diagrams. The
principle goal of this project was to participate in the design and development of an
educational mobile app that allows the user to interactively rotate digital 3D models of
hearts with congenital heart defects. Multiple approaches to developing an educational
medical app were explored including utilizing basic app‐building programs that do not
require computer coding or programming, paying a for‐profit company to develop an
app, and collaborating with a larger educational institution that has the resources
available for developing an app and has a potential use for the app. This thesis aims to
describe the resources available to develop an educational app, the major factors that
determine the best approach for app development and the challenges associated with
each approach. Through the case example of developing “Heart Defects” with the
Office of Instruction and Assessment at the University of Arizona and publishing the app
on the Apple App Store it was determined that the major factors guiding the approach
to app development are complexity of the app, computer programming experience of
the individual planning to develop an app, and having access to a larger institution with
the ability to develop apps and the institution having a perceived benefit from
developing the app.
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Cubol, Eliseo Magsambol. "Building Urban Resilience in New York City." Antioch University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1628516458046903.
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Yi, Claire. "Re-Imagining Nature in Dense, High Rise Urban Environment: the Present and Future of Green Building Infrastructure in Singapore." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2020. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_theses/217.
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From the futuristic Jewel at Changi Airport, the healing gardens at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Yishun to School of the Arts at Orchard Road, greenery has sprouted in buildings vertically and horizontally in Singapore, painting a growing green canopy for the dense, high rise city. This paper combines both analyses from first-hand site visits and case studies from external scholar studies to examine the performance of existing Green Building Infrastructures (BGIs) within Singapore’s unique urban context. The study reveals that the success of BGIs is highly dependent on the programming (i.e. thermal comfort design, accessibility, amenity facilities etc.), as well as the function and users of the existing building. Designs and planning that take those factors into consideration while being in line with the city’s general development goals, such as storm water management and pervasive greenery, are likely to bring out the most benefits in BGIs. To demonstrate, this paper also proposed several policy and planning recommendations that included several sets of rudimentary yet relevant parameters. Future research is encouraged to explore more complex combinations of considerations, their incorporation in design and policy making process, as well as a scientific and systematic method to evaluate BGI performance that includes both objective environmental impacts and subjective user experience that might be achieved through smart city developments.
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Benatia, Mohamed Amin. "Optimisation multi-objectives d’une infrastructure réseau dédiée aux bâtiments intelligents." Thesis, Rouen, INSA, 2016. http://www.theses.fr/2016ISAM0024/document.
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Au cours de cette thèse, nous avons étudié le problème de déploiement des Réseaux de Capteurs Sans-Fil (RCSF) pour des applications indoor tel que le bâtiment intelligent. Le but de notre travail était de développer un outil de déploiement capable d'assister les concepteurs de RCSF lors de la phase de déploiement de ces derniers. Nous avons commencé cette thèse par la modélisation de tous les paramètres qui interviennent lors du déploiement des RCSF, à savoir : coût, connectivité, couverture et durée de vie. Par la suite, nous avons implémenté cinq algorithmes d'optimisation, dont trois multi-objectifs afin de résoudre le problème de déploiement. Deux cas d'études réelles (grande et petite instance) ont été identifiés afin de tester ces algorithmes. Les résultats obtenus ont montré que ces algorithmes sont efficaces quand il s'agit d'un petit bâtiment (petit espace). Par contre, dès que la surface du bâtiment augmente les performances des algorithmes étudiés se dégradent. Pour répondre à cela, nous avons développé et implémenté un algorithme d'optimisation multi-objectifs hybride. Cet algorithme se base sur des notions de clustering et d'analyse de données afin de limiter le nombre d'évaluations directes qu'entreprennent ces méthodes pendant chaque itération. Afin d'assurer cette limitation d'évaluation les fonctions de fitness sont approximées grâce aux réseaux de neurones et l'algorithme de classification K-means. Les résultats obtenus ont montré une très bonne performance sur les deux instances de tailles différentes. Ces résultats ont été comparés à ceux obtenus avec les méthodes classiques utilisées et sont compétitives et prometteuses<br>In this thesis, we studied the Wireless Sensor Network deployment for indoor environments with a focus on smart building application. The goal of our work was to develop a WSN deployment tool which is able to assist network designers in the deployment phase. We begin this thesis with network modeling of all the deployment parameters and requirement, such as : cost, coverage, connectivity and network lifetime. Thereafter, we implement five optimisation methods, including three multi-objective optimization agorithms, to resolve WSN deployment problem. Then, two realistics study cases were identified to test the performances of the aforementioned algorithms. The obtained results shows that these algorithms are very efficient for deploying a small scale network in small buildings. However, when the building surface becomes more important the algorithms tends to converge to local optimum while consuming high processing time. To resolve this problem, we develop and implement a new Hybrid multi-objectif optimization algorithm wich limits the number of direct evaluation. This algorithm is based on data-mining methods (Artificial Neural Networks and K-means) and tries to approximate the fitness value of each individual in each generation. At every generation of the algorithm, the population is divided to K clusters and we evaluate only the closest individual to cluster centroide. The fitness value of the rest of population is approximated using a trained ANN. A comparative study was made and the obtained results show that our method outperformes others in the two sudy cases (small and big buildings)
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Tato, Genc. "Lazy and locality-aware building blocks for fog middleware : a service discovery use case." Thesis, Rennes 1, 2019. http://www.theses.fr/2019REN1S079.
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Au cours de la dernière décennie, le cloud computing est devenu l’environnement standard de déploiement pour la plupart des applications distribuées. Alors que les fournisseurs de cloud ont étendu de manière continue leur couverture géographique, la distance entre leurs centres de données et les utilisateurs finaux se traduit toujours par une latence et une utilisation du réseau importantes. Avec l'avènement de nouvelles familles d'applications telles que la réalité virtuelle / augmentée ou les véhicules autonomes, nécessitant de très faibles latences, ou l'IoT, qui génère d'énormes quantités de données, l'infrastructure centralisée des clouds s’avère incapable de supporter leurs exigences. Cette situation a mené à l’expérimentation de nouvelles alternatives plus distribuées telles que le fog computing. Bien que les prémisses de cette infrastructure semblent prometteuses, une plate-forme de type fog n’a pas encore été créée. Par conséquent, une attention particulière doit être consacrée à la définition des contraintes appropriées de conception qui permettront de réaliser pleinement ces objectifs. Dans cette thèse, nous visons à concevoir des blocs de construction pouvant fournir des fonctionnalités de base pour la gestion d’une infrastructure de type fog. En partant du principe de préservation de la localité intrinsèque au fog, nous concevons un réseau de recouvrement paresseux et tenant compte de la localité, appelé Koala, qui permet une gestion décentralisée efficace sans créer de surcharge de trafic lié à la maintenance du réseau. Afin de capturer des exigences supplémentaires provenant de la couche applicative, nous avons étudié le déploiement d’une application fondée sur une architecture à base de microservices, à savoir Sharelatex, dans un environnement fog. Nous examinons comment ses performances en sont affectées et quelles fonctionnalités la couche de gestion peut fournir afin de faciliter son déploiement dans le fog et améliorer ses performances. En se fondant sur les blocs de bases définis et sur les exigences extraites du déploiement de l'application dans le fog, nous concevons un mécanisme de découverte de service qui répond à ces exigences et intègre ces composants dans un seul prototype. Ce prototype permet une évaluation complète de ces composants sur la base de scénarios dans des conditions réelles<br>In the last decade, cloud computing has grown to become the standard deployment environment for most distributed applications. While cloud providers have continuously extended their coverage to different locations worldwide, the distance of their datacenters to the end users still often translates into significant latency and network utilization. With the advent of new families of applications such as virtual/augmented reality and self-driving vehicles, which operate on very low latency, or the IoT, which generates enormous amounts of data, the current centralized cloud infrastructure has shown to be unable to support their stringent requirements. This has shifted the focus to more distributed alternatives such as fog computing. Although the premises of such infrastructure seem auspicious, a standard fog management platform is yet to emerge. Consequently, significant attention is dedicated to capturing the right design requirements for delivering those premises. In this dissertation, we aim at designing building blocks which can provide basic functionalities for fog management tasks. Starting from the basic fog principle of preserving locality, we design a lazy and locality-aware overlay network called Koala, which provides efficient decentralized management without introducing additional traffic overhead. In order to capture additional requirements which originate from the application layer, we port a well-known microservice-based application, namely Sharelatex, to a fog environment. We examine how its performance is affected and what functionalities the management layer can provide in order to facilitate its fog deployment and improve its performance. Based on our overlay building block and the requirements retrieved from the fog deployment of the application, we design a service discovery mechanism which satisfies those requirements and integrates these components into a single prototype. This full stack prototype enables a complete end-to-end evaluation of these components based on real use case scenarios
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El-Zefzafy, Hend. "Evaluation of the environmental effects on the behaviour of GFRP composite tubes for new sustainable building and urban infrastructure applications." Thèse, Université de Sherbrooke, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/11143/6125.
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The advantages of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite material have attracted structural and architectural engineers as alternative construction materials of the traditional wood, steel and concrete. Concrete-filled FRP tubes (CFFTs) system is one of the most promising applications of the FRP composit material. This innovative integrated system can protect RC structures from aggressive environmental conditions; sequentially expand the service life of structures. Nevertheless, limited knowledge is available on the CFFT system at extreme service environments. Data related to durability of the CFFT as integrated system comparing with conventional ones is one of the major challenges that need to be addressed. These data are moer required prior to the widespread acceptance and implementation of FRP materials in civil infrastructure. Farther, comprehensive databases in this specific are critical to provide designers and practicing engineers with the knowledge to select the best solution toward achieving a sustainable built environment. This thesis focuses on evaluating the short and long term effect of freze-thaw cycles on the mechanical behavior of the filament wound glass-FRP (GFRP) tubes. In addition, the thesis evaluating the axial performances of reinforced and unreinforced CFFT columns through experimental and theoretical study. To fulfill the objectives of this research, an experimental program has been designed to examine three main parts. (I) Mechanical properties of the GFRP tubes; (II) The axial behavior of CFFT cylinders; (III) The axial behavior of CFFT reinforced and unreinforced columns. The effect of five parameters and their interactions were investigated; namely, the effect of different freze-thaw cycles (in dry air, frsh and/or salt water), number of cycles (100 and/or 300 cycles), two different thicknesses (2.65 mm and 6.4 mm) of the GFRP tube. The influence of using different types of internal longitudinal reinforcement (steel, GFRP, and carbon FRP bars) and the type of transverse reinforcements (spiral steel or FRP tubes) are included in the test variables. Based on the finding of experimental investigation regarding mechanical properties of the GFRP tubes (part I), neither the type nor the number of freze--thaw cycles affect the strength of GFRP tube used in this study. However, increasing in the stiffness, reductions in the strains and transition in failure mechanisms are identified after 300 freze-thaw cycles. The experimental results of axial compression tests on CFFT cylinders (part II) indicated low influence of the freze-thaw cycles on the average ultimate strength of CFFT tube with the large thickness. While, significant and sever degradation was reflected on the behavior of CFFT cylinders with the small thickness after 300 freze-thaw cycles. Based on the experimental test results of (part II) environmental reduction factors were proposed to consider the effect freze/thaw cycles on the strength capacity of CFFT cylinders. Also, the regression analysis was used to predict the service life environmental reduction Factors to design CFFT member for up to 75 years. In addition, an assessment of selected FRP-confined models has been presented to predict the ultimate strength of CFFT cylinders based on the test results of (part I). Finally, comparisons between the experimental results and those predicted by the selected models were presented. The experimental investigation on the performance of reinforced CFFT columns (part III) indicated that the freze-thaw exposure brings about individual degradation, in different levels, in the component of the CFFT (GFRP tube, concrete and reinforcement) as integrated systems. This degradation resulted in reduction in the axial carrying capacities of the conditioned columns. Nevertheless, an increase in compressive strength of the CFFT columns was evident over the RC conventional columns. Based on the test results of this (part III), environmental reduction factors were proposed to account for the effect of freze/thaw cycles on the axial load capacity of reinforced and unreinforced CFFT columns. The data obtained from the test results of (part I), predicted confined compressive strength optained from (part II) and the proposed environmental reduction factors from (part III) were used in the ACI440-2R-08 and CAN/CSA S806-08 design equations to predict the nominal capacity of CFFT columns in sever environmental condition.
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Tovatt, Oliver. "Building Social Capital : A Field Study of the Active, Beautiful and Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Programme in Singapore." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-265245.
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This thesis presents a field study examining the effect of the Active, Beautiful and Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Programme in Singapore on social capital. Based on a multi-disciplinary approach and following the theoretical framework of bonding and bridging social capital developed by Robert Putnam and others, three different cases of the ABC Programme were compared, looking particularly at the level of blue-green landscape integration. The three cases comprised the ABC flagship project ‘Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park’ with high level of blue-green integration as well as the green and the grey section of the Ulu Pandan Park Connector with medium and low level of blue-green integration, respectively. Quantitative data was obtained by counting the share of park users engaged in social interaction and by surveying 330 park users on the perceptions of social interaction and integration. In addition to the quantitative data, a total of 60 face-to-face interviews were carried out in the three park areas, providing an in-depth understanding of the perceptions of the surrounding areas. The study concludes that the ABC Waters Programme is a strong generator of social capital, offering an attractive place for social bonding and to some extent also for social bridging.
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Le, Lann Roos Caroline. "Competitive Dialogue in Practice." Thesis, KTH, Mark- och vattenteknik (flyttat 20130630), 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-171803.
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Public procurement is often regarded as rigid, which is why competitive dialogue was implemented. It was also believed to give rise to technical innovations and to create beneficial buying conditions for the public sector. However, many people are sceptic of it, arguing that it does not meet the principles of equal treatment of suppliers and transparency. This thesis seeks to investigate the potential of competitive dialogue and to identify its main challenges. A study of Sweden’s first large infrastructure contract, the Kvarnholmen link, procured with competitive dialogue was therefore undertaken, as well as an extensive literature review. The results show that competitive dialogue is beneficial in several ways: It involves contractors at an early stage and encourages them to find the best solutions to the lowest price. The suppliers get to adapt their tenders to their competence and to take benefit from it. This is a model that seems to have a great potential to improve both public procurement and urban planning.
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Rhodes, Kyle N. "Response to Intervention Innovation Configuration Map: A Model for Implementation and Evaluation of a School-based Response to Intervention Program." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/77055.
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The Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act (IDEA) was reauthorized by Congress in 2004 (IDEA, 2004). The new legislation permits educational practitioners to identify students suspected of having a learning disability by continuing to use the ability-achievement discrepancy model or by the analysis of the child's response to prescriptive intervention delivered through a systematic multi-tiered instructional intervention approach which has become to be known as Response to Intervention (RtI). However, the change in the federal legislation does not provide specific guidelines for the planning and implementation of intervention services.
The examination of the effectiveness of instructional intervention programs, the reliability of the ability-achievement discrepancy model to identify a child of having a suspected learning disability, and an introduction to the concept of Response to Intervention (RtI) is included in this work. The purpose of the present work is the development of a RtI Innovation Configuration Map that may be utilized as a guide for the planning, development, and implementation of a school-based RtI program that is also useful to assess the operationalization of a school-based RtI program in use. The procedures followed for the development of the RtI Innovation Configuration Map included the selection of a national review panel of educational practitioners from across the country to confirm the essential components and action steps to be considered when planning for the implementation of a RtI program. A RtI Innovation Configuration Map Team was selected from a school in Virginia that had successfully opertionalized a RtI program as a result of the schools participation in the Virginia Department of Education's RtI Initiative. The RtI Map Team developed a RtI Innovation Configuration Map that included varying levels of implementation of the essential components and action steps that were identified by the national review panel. To assess the utility of the RtI Innovation Configuration Map to illustrate the varying levels of implementation of a school-based RtI program, individuals from four schools taking part in the Virginia Department of Education's RtI initiative were randomly selected and interviewed regarding the RtI program being implemented in their school. Based on those interviews and other evidence obtained at the four schools, the utility of the RtI Innovation Configuration Map was revised.<br>Ed. D.
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Kinzer, Kirsten (Kirsten Lee). "Building green infrastructure through urban land conservation : the social and ecological value of dispersed open space in the Boston urban wilds." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37866.
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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2006.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-123).<br>Through an analysis of the thirty-year history of the Boston Urban Wilds, this thesis investigates the ability of distributed urban open spaces to provide social and ecological value to the surrounding community. The capacity of the Urban Wilds to act as system to provide simultaneously ecosystem services, public space and wildlife habitat is examined. The evolving understanding of green infrastructure is used as a lens through which to understand the elements of the Urban Wilds model applicable to other communities. Through this lens, the ability of the Urban Wilds to provide social and ecological value greater than the sum of its individual parts is considered. Reflecting on the tools that have been used to enact Urban Wilds conservation, the tools best suited to preserving the Urban Wilds' social and ecological value are assessed. Drawing from the evolution of the Boston Urban Wilds over the past three decades, this thesis concludes with designation, preservation and stewardship recommendations for other cities and towns considering a similar system of distributed open spaces.<br>by Kirsten Kinzer.<br>M.C.P.
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Greene, Tyler Gray. "Accessible Isolation: Highway Building and the Geography of Industrialization in North Carolina, 1934-1984." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2017. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/431217.
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History<br>Ph.D.<br>Between the 1930s and mid-1980s, North Carolina became one of the most industrialized states in the country, with more factory workers, as a percentage of the total workforce, than any other state. And yet, North Carolina generally retained its rural complexion, with small factories dispersed throughout the countryside, instead of concentrated in large industrial cities. This dissertation asks two essential questions: first, how did this rural-industrial geography come to be, and second, what does the creation of this geography reveal about the state of the American political economy in the post-World War II era? I argue that rural industrialization was a central goal of North Carolina’s postwar political leaders and economic development officials. These industry hunters, as I call them, wanted to raise their state’s per capita income by recruiting manufacturers to develop or relocate operations in North Carolina. At the same time, they worried about developing large industrial cities or mill villages, associating them with class conflict, congestion, and a host of other ill-effects. In the hopes of attracting industry to its countryside, the state invested heavily in its secondary roads and highways, increasing the accessibility of rural communities. In their pursuit of rural industrialization, however, North Carolina also constructed a political economy that anticipated the collapse of the New Deal state. While historians typically see New Deal liberalism as the prevailing form of statecraft in the postwar United States, North Carolina achieved economic growth through a model that state officials termed “accessible isolation.” What accessible isolation meant was that North Carolina would provide industries with enough of a state apparatus to make operating a factory in a rural area possible, while maintaining policies of low taxes, limited regulations, and anti-unionism, to make those sites desirable. Essentially, industry hunters offered industrial prospects access to a supply of cheap rural labor, but isolation from the high wages, labor unions, government regulations, and progressive tax code that defined New Deal liberalism. Accessible isolation was attractive to businesses in postwar America because it offered a “business-friendly” alternative to the New Deal, and factories began sprouting throughout rural North Carolina. But the success of accessible isolation was built on a shaky foundation. Indeed, most of the employers persuaded by its promises were those in low-wage, labor-intensive industries, making North Carolina’s rural communities especially vulnerable to transformations in the global economy by the late twentieth century.<br>Temple University--Theses
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Wesslowski, Viktoria. "Facilitating a contested practice : building and growing urban transport cycling in Santiago de Chile." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2014. https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/facilitating-a-contested-practice-building-and-growing-urban-transport-cycling-in-santiago-de-chile(c3b5841f-c7b0-4e97-8315-d38062b179bd).html.
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This research aims to achieve a better understanding of interventions in the trajectories of practices. It is based on a case study of transport cycling in Santiago de Chile. The research uses a practice approach combined with concepts from Science and Technology Studies in order to explore the practice of transport cycling and examine interventions aimed at increasing the modal share of cycling in Santiago. The research is based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, participant observation, photography and document analysis. While transport cycling is a recognisable practice in Santiago, it is also the site of several conflicts. The stigmatisation of cycling in its recent history as mode of transport for the most marginalised part of the urban population is challenged by new images of cycling as environmentally-friendly, healthy mode of transport for young professionals. As cycling becomes more popular, conflicts over the location of cycling emerge with motorists as well as pedestrians. Finally, different performances and understandings of cycling have generated conflicts among the urban transport cyclists. By focusing on relations between practices, the research thereby brings to the forefront the contested nature of practices which has so far been underemphasised in practice research. The research then focuses on interventions in the trajectory of urban transport cycling in Santiago, how they are developed and how they take effect. The research identifies two categories of interventions: building practice and growing practice. Building practice is the government-led provision of material infrastructure for cycling, while growing practice is led by civil society and includes a variety of small-scale interventions in the everyday engagement in the practice. The research argues that building practice produces infrastructure which is developed within the dominant system of automobility and is shaped by and reflects the inherent conflicts of the practice. Growing practice interventions are shaped by the core of the community of practice. They do not only provide targeted support for individuals, but more importantly contribute to the creation of a community of practice. This research aims to contribute to practice research by proposing a relational perspective for the analysis of practices, which emphasises five relational dimensions of practice: the individual situated experience of the performance in which meaning is created, the socio-technical system in which the practice is embedded, the relations between co-existing practices which bring to the forefront the contested nature of practices, the material infrastructure which emerges from the socio-technical system and shapes the performance of the practice, and finally the community of practice which constitutes practice and may be able to grow practice.
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Talele, Suraj Harish. "Comparative Study of Thermal Comfort Models Using Remote-Location Data for Local Sample Campus Building as a Case Study for Scalable Energy Modeling at Urban Level Using Virtual Information Fabric Infrastructure (VIFI)." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2018. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1404602/.
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The goal of this dissertation is to demonstrate that data from a remotely located building can be utilized for energy modeling of a similar type of building and to demonstrate how to use this remote data without physically moving the data from one server to another using Virtual Information Fabric Infrastructure (VIFI). In order to achieve this goal, firstly an EnergyPlus model was created for Greek Life Center, a campus building located at University of North Texas campus at Denton in Texas, USA. Three thermal comfort models of Fanger model, Pierce two-node model and KSU two-node model were compared in order to find which one of these three models is most accurate to predict occupant thermal comfort. This study shows that Fanger's model is most accurate in predicting thermal comfort. Secondly, an experimental data pertaining to lighting usage and occupancy in a single-occupancy office from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has been implemented in order to perform energy analysis of Greek Life Center assuming that occupants in this building's offices behave similarly as occupants in CMU. Thirdly, different data types, data formats and data sources were identified which are required in order to develop a city-scale urban building energy model (CS-UBEM). Two workflows were created, one for an individual scale building energy model and another one for CS-UBEM. A new innovative infrastructure called as Virtual Information Fabric Infrastructure (VIFI) has been introduced in this dissertation. The workflows proposed in this study will demonstrate in the future work that by using VIFI infrastructure to develop building energy models there is a potential of using data for remote servers without actually moving the data. It has been successfully demonstrated in this dissertation that data located at remote location can be used credibly to predict energy consumption of a newly built building. When the remote experimental data of both lighting and occupancy are implemented, 4.57% energy savings was achieved in the Greek Life Center energy model.
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Ndau, Lloyd. "Building designers' perception and the effect on sustainability in Malawi." ScholarWorks, 2016. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3185.
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Environmental sustainability in buildings is an important part of preserving the environment and reducing climate change. The increasing amount of physical infrastructure systems in Malawi has not been accompanied by policy-makers clearly understanding perceptions and attitudinal behaviors of building designers to promote environmental sustainability. Some building designers in Malawi might not be practicing sustainability innovations adequately, requiring more research to understand their perceptions and behaviors. The purpose of this mixed methods sequential and explanatory study was to explore how building designers' behaviors relate to the implementation of sustainability innovations in Malawi. Ajzen's theory of planned behavior explaining how attitudinal behaviors relate to individual's actions, served as the conceptual framework. The central research question investigated perceptions and attitudinal behaviors building designers hold about sustainability, and how these behaviors connect with practicing sustainability innovations. Data collection used a Likert scale questionnaire to capture behavior items. A sample of 99 individuals working in building organizations completed the questionnaire. Multiple linear regression analysis showed attitude behavior influenced practicing sustainability more than the subjective and perceived control behaviors. Interviews with 24 participants supported the analytical finding. Government and policy-makers were the target audience. Knowledge about behaviors toward sustainability innovations enables government and policy-makers strategize and change stakeholders' mindset to increase sustainability practices thereby impacting societal change in the construction communities.
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Zhu, Zhenhua. "Column recogniton and defects/damage properties retrieval for rapid infrastructure assessment and rehabilitation using machine vision." Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/44768.
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No matter how inspection techniques have been advanced, manual visual inspection is currently still the first and fundamental step in assessing civil infrastructure. If no sign of deterioration has been spotted in manual inspection, any future inspection actions is not necessary to take. However, manual inspection has been identified with several limitations including the qualitative nature of inspection results, the time-consuming inspection process, and the heavy reliance on inspectors' and/or engineers' experience. In order to overcome these limitations, automated visual inspection systems have been proposed to enhance and/or replicate the manual inspection process. A number of image processing methods have been developed in detecting defects (i.e. coating rusts) and damage (i.e. cracks) on civil infrastructure. Their effectiveness has been verified in inspecting structures, such as bridges, underground pipes, and tunnels.
Although existing methods are effective in finding defects and damage from digital images, missing two important links limits their application for rapid infrastructure assessment and rehabilitation. The first link is the correlation between the defects/damage and the structural members that the defects/damage lie on. The second link is the relationship between the defects/damage and their impacts on the structural members.
The purpose of this research is to investigate the way of establishing these two links. It is focused on the retrieval of critical structural members and defects/damage information from images/videos, and then the utilization of this information for automated and rapid assessment and rehabilitation of civil infrastructure. Specifically, a combination of techniques from the areas of visual pattern recognition, digital filtering, and machine vision have been used in order to develop a set of methods for concrete column recognition, crack properties retrieval, and air pockets and discoloration detection and evaluation. The methods proposed in this research were implemented in a Microsoft Visual Studio environment, and tested on the real images/videos of concrete structures inflicted with cracks, air pockets and discoloration. The test results indicated that the methods could automatically recognize concrete columns, correctly measure the properties of the cracks in a crack map, and accurately evaluate the impacts of air pockets and discoloration on the visual quality of concrete surfaces.
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Marwah, Hanaan. "Investing in ghosts : building and construction in Nigeria's oil boom and bust c.1960-2000." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:44dde983-2993-41c9-9346-9783f3d6e52a.
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Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has been portrayed in scholarly literature as a prominent case of postcolonial African ‘growth failure’. Between 1960 and 2000 oil reserves were exploited resulting in revenues of more than $300 billion to the Nigerian government, while real per capita income fell over the same period. This thesis, by focusing on building and construction in Nigeria from 1960 to 2000, explains how and why Nigeria failed to invest its oil revenues to create long-term economic growth. Its findings have important implications for investment analyses of other commodity-rich countries in Africa and across the developing world. It draws on a wide range of primary quantitative and qualitative sources including government surveys, construction-related company financial data and project lists, industry publications, newspapers, and the correspondence files of a major Nigerian architecture firm. These are used to present a picture of historical building activity which includes a 40-year dataset of cement price and consumption, and a construction supply curve for both the oil boom and bust periods. By quantifying for the first time the long-observed ‘ghost construction’ of the oil boom, this thesis finds that annually about two thirds of what scholars and national accounts statistics had estimated was being invested in construction was never actually invested, implying that what was invested offered a greater return than has previously been acknowledged. Although investment in construction was overstated during the oil boom, during the oil bust construction was understated as major government projects were funded off-budget and away from public scrutiny. This thesis demonstrates that the most productive area of public investment has been infrastructure, and further that the private sector construction industry was a valuable asset which greatly enhanced the government’s ability to implement investment programmes, when it had the political will to do so.
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Abraham, Johannes, and Robin Romano. "Automatisk kvalitetssäkring av information för järnvägsanläggningar : Automatic quality assurance of information for railway infrastructure." Thesis, KTH, Hälsoinformatik och logistik, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-252832.
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Järnvägsbranschen står i dagsläget inför stora utmaningar med planerade infrastrukturprojekt och underhåll av befintlig järnväg. Med ökade förväntningar på utbyggnaden av den framtida järnvägen, medför det en ökad risk för belastning på det nuvarande nätet. Baksidan av utbyggnaden kan bli fler inställda resor och förseningar. Genom att dra nytta av tekniska innovationer såsom digitalisering och automatisering kan det befintliga system och arbetsprocesser utvecklas för en effektivare hantering. Trafikverket ställer krav på Byggnadsinformationsmodeller (BIM) i upphandlingar. Projektering för signalanläggningar sker hos Sweco med CAD-programmet Promis.e. Från programmet kan Baninformationslistor (BIS-listor) innehållande information om objekts attribut hämtas. Trafikverket ställer krav på att attributen ska bestå av ett visst format eller ha specifika värden. I detta examensarbete undersöks metoder för att automatisk verifiera ifall objekt har tillåtna värden från projekteringsverktyget samt implementering av en metod. Undersökta metoder innefattar kalkyleringsprogrammet Excel, frågespråket Structured Query Language (SQL) och processen Extract, Transform and Load (ETL). Efter analys av metoder valdes processen ETL. Resultatet blev att ett program skapades för att automatiskt välja vilken typ av BIS-lista som skulle granskas och för att verifiera om attributen innehöll tillåtna värden. För att undersöka om kostnaden för programmen skulle gynna företaget utöver kvalitetssäkringen utfördes en ekonomisk analys. Enligt beräkningarna kunde valet av att automatisera granskningen även motiveras ur ett ekonomiskt perspektiv.<br>With increased expectations for the expansion of the future railway, this entails an increased load on the current railway network. The result of the expansion can be an increasing number of cancellations and delays. By taking advantage of technological innovations such as digitalization and automation, the existing system and work processes can be developed for more efficient management. The Swedish Transport Administration sets requirements for Building Information Modeling (BIM) in procurements. The planning of signal installations within the railway takes place in Sweco using the CAD program Promis.e. From the program, lists containing the information of the objects (BIS-lists) can be retrieved. The Swedish Transport Administration requires that the attributes must consist of a certain format or have specific values. In this thesis project, methods for automatic quality assurance of infrastructure information and the implementation of the method for rail projects were examined. The investigated methods include the calculation program Excel, the query programming language SQL and the process of ETL. After analyzing the methods, the ETL process was chosen. The result was that a program was created to automatically select the type of BIS list that would be reviewed and to verify that the examined attributes contained allowed values. In order to investigate whether the cost of the programs would benefit the company in addition to the quality assurance, an economic analysis was carried out. According to the calculations, the choice of method could also be justified from an economic perspective.
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Sackey, Enoch. "A Sociotechnical Systems Analysis of Building Information Modelling (STSaBIM) Implementation in Construction Organisations." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2014. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/15006.
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The concept of BIM is nascent but evolving rapidly, thus, its deployment has become the latest shibboleth amongst both academics and practitioners in the construction sector in the recent couple of years. Due to construction clients buy-in of the BIM concept, the entire industry is encouraged to pursue a vision of changing work practices in line with the BIM ideas. Also, existing research recognises that the implementation of BIM affects all areas of the construction process from design of the building, through the organisation of projects, to the way in which the construction process is executed and how the finished product is maintained. The problem however is that, existing research in technology utilisation in general, and BIM literature in particular, has offered limited help to practitioners trying to implement BIM, for focusing predominantly, on technology-centric views. Not surprisingly therefore, the current BIM literature emphasises on topics such as capability maturity models and anticipated outcomes of BIM rollouts. Rarely does the extant literature offer practitioners a cohesive approach to BIM implementation. Such technology-centric views inevitably represent a serious barrier to utilising the inscribed capabilities of BIM. This research therefore is predicated on the need to strengthen BIM implementation theory through monitoring and analysing its implementation in practice. Thus, the focus of this thesis is to carry out a sociotechnical systems (STS) analysis of BIM implementation in construction organisations. The concept of STS accommodates the dualism of the inscribed functions of BIM technologies and the contextual issues in the organisations and allows for the analysis of their interactive combination in producing the anticipated effect from BIM appropriation. An interpretive research methodology is adopted to study practitioners through a change process, involving the implementation of BIM in their work contexts. The study is based on constructivist ontological interpretations of participants. The study adopts an abductive research approach which ensures a back-and-forth movement between research sites and the theoretical phenomenon, effectively comparing the empirical findings with the existing theories and to eventually generate a new theoretical understanding and knowledge regarding the phenomenon under investigation. A two-stage process is also formulated for the empirical data collection - comprising: 1) initial exploratory study to help establish the framework for analysing BIM implementation in the construction context; and 2) case studies approach to provide a context for formulating novel understanding and validation of theory regarding BIM implementation in construction organisations. The analysis and interpretation of the empirical work follows the qualitative content analysis technique to observe and reflect on the results. The findings have shown that BIM implementation demands a complete breakaway from the status quo. Contrary to the prevailing understanding of a top-down approach to BIM utilisation, the study revealed that different organisations with plethora of visions, expectations and skills combine with artefacts to form or transform BIM practices. The rollout and appropriation of BIM occurs when organisations shape sociotechnical systems of institutions, processes and technologies to support certain practices over others. The study also showed that BIM implementation endures in a causal chain of influences as different project organisations with their localised BIM ambitions and expectations combine to develop holistic BIM-enabled project visions. Thus, distributed responsibilities on holistic BIM protocols among the different levels of influences are instituted and enforced under binding contractual obligations. The study has illuminated the centrality of both the technical challenges and sociological factors in shaping BIM deployment in construction. It is also one of the few studies that have produced accounts of BIM deployment that is strongly mediated by the institutional contexts of construction organisations. However, it is acknowledged that the focus of the research on qualitative interpretive enquiry does not have the hard and fast view of generalising from specific cases to broader population/contexts. Thus, it is suggested that further quantitative studies, using much larger data sample of BIM-enabled construction organisations could provide an interesting point of comparison to the conclusions derived from the research findings.
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Eriksson, David. "Bridge building and the restoration of roads in the rural areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo : A case study in the Mai Ndombe region, populated by the Basakata people." Thesis, KTH, Bro- och stålbyggnad, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-36934.
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