Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Building economics'
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Skinner, David. "Forecasting models of activity in industrial and commercial building." Thesis, University of Salford, 1999. http://usir.salford.ac.uk/26916/.
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Despite its importance in national income, the level of activity in the construction sector has received little attention in the economics literature. The lack of studies attempting to forecast construction activity is surprising given that its volatility is often regarded as destabilising to the economy. Here, we model an important and growing component of construction, namely private industrial and commercial building. Construction activity is typically measured by output. To the extent that new construction output represents capital formation, output can be modelled as an investment problem. The theoretical investment literature is disparate and confusing but here, the leading models are presented in a unified framework in which the similarities and differences between them can be easily identified. We then go on to estimate a number of the models empirically. Some are econometric models consistent with traditional theories of investment. Others are based on vector autoregression (VAR) analysis which provides a largely statistical representation of a set of variables with minimum use of a priori restrictions but in which long-run relationships are preserved. The data required for model estimation is considerable and complicated by the effects of investment incentives embodied in the tax system. The forecasting performance of all the models is evaluated against forecasts generated by a benchmark model suggested by the data rather than by economic theory. In terms of forecasting performance, some of the investment models considered here are shown to be superior to the benchmark model.
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Fortune, Christopher Joseph. "Factors affecting the selection of building project price forecasting tools." Thesis, Heriot-Watt University, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10399/1271.
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This thesis contributes to what is known about the investigation and formulation phases of the building project price forecasting advice process. The research has developed a greater understanding of what general factors affect the selection of non-traditional types of building project price forecasting models. The thesis adopted a two-phased combined research approach. The first phase required a population mailed survey to be executed with over two thousand three hundred quantity surveying organisations located across England in 1997. The second phase required thirty-one in-depth interviews to be executed, with informed practitioners, in five rounds of data collection. Consequently, this research firstly, established the types of building project price forecasting models or tools in-use in England. The study found that the called for paradigm shift away from the traditional types of models, had not yet been generally achieved. The study provided evidence that some types of quantity surveying organisations were moving towards the adoption of the non-traditional models, for use as additional tools. The study then, secondly, identified a number of general factors that were found to affect the selection of non-traditional types of building project price forecasting models. The thesis concluded by generating a grounded constraints-based theory of factors found to affect the selection of non-traditional types of building project price forecasting models. The emergent theory identified the parameters needed to enable all types of quantity surveying organisations to become involved with the selection of non-traditional models or tools.
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Hardwick, P. "Economies of scale in the United Kingdom building society industry." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.383625.
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Snyman, Gideon Johan Justus. "The development of leading indicators for the South African building industry using qualitative and quantitative data." Master's thesis, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, 1994. https://hdl.handle.net/11427/31855.
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The building industry is complex, diversified, and labour-intensive. These aspects, together with its inherent instability, are analysed. Improved forecasting methods can assist in economic planning within the industry and formulation of public policy. Economic stabilisation policies can benefit participants in the industry and society at large.
In this study leading indicators are developed for the South African building industry to assist in forecasting future demand levels. Use is made of qualitative survey data and quantitative time series. The quarterly qualitative data emanate from the Bureau for Economic Research, University of Stellenbosch. These data are gathered by questionnaire from building contractors and sub-contractors according to the Konjunkturtest developed by the lfo Institute, Munich, Germany. Principal component analyses of the business survey variables reveal that respondents behave purposefully and that these qualitative data are suitable for use as cyclical indicators in a composite index.
The monthly quantitative data are compiled by the South African Reserve Bank and the Central Statistical Service, Pretoria, South Africa. The variables used in the construction of the leading indicators are weighted according to the scoring system developed by the National Bureau of Economic Research, United States of America. The six criteria applied in this scoring system are: economic significance of the variables; statistical adequacy; timing at turning points; conformity to historical business cycles; currency; and smoothness.
Separate composite leading indices are compiled from 33 qualitative variables and 8 quantitative time series, with the relevant scores as weights. It is found that these indices lead turnjng points of the reference cycle by between three and a half months and ten and a half months. However, the lead times are not consistent. This finding is in accordance with international experience. A combined leading indicator is constructed from these qualitative and quantitative indices (1971 to 1991). It is found that the statistical performance of the final composite leading indicator does not surpass the performance of the individual composite indices. It is suggested that the best forecasting results can be achieved if the qualitative and quantitative leading indices are · used independently, yet in conjunction with other economic indicators and other forecasting models.
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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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Combs, Arthur. "Rural economic development as a nation building strategy in South Vietnam, 1968-1972." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1998. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2859/.
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Averill, Jason D. "Performance-Based Codes: Economics, Documentation, and Design." Digital WPI, 1999. https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/etd-theses/809.
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The advent of performance-based codes in the United States underscores the need for a thorough, systematic approach to the documentation and accomplishment of a performance-based design. This project has three objectives: economic analysis of performance-based codes from a social view point, documentation of a performance-based design, and an example application of the ICC Performance-Based Code to high-rise office building. Economic issues explored include the externalities, insurance, and liabilities associated with performance-based codes. Documentation of a performance-based design includes delineation of the scope and goals with agreement between the designer, architect, building owner, and authority having jurisdiction, examination of the relevant code statutes, development of appropriate fire scenarios which meet the requirements of the performance matrices, thorough documentation of all design tool and calculation assumptions and limitations, and a clear demonstration of satisfactory accomplishment of stated goals and objectives. Finally, performance-based design alternatives to a prescriptively-designed 40 story office building were developed. There were three major design alternatives. The first design feature was the evacuation of occupants using elevators. The second alternative was the use of the assured fire safety system, which combined emerging technologies in fire detection, alarm, and suppression. The final design alternative was the routing of the domestic water supply through the sprinkler riser in order increase the reliability of the sprinkler system and save design, material, and installation costs associated with the domestic water supply risers. Finally, this project analyzed the specific life-cycle economic impact of the design alternatives when compared to the prescriptive design.
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Peterschmidt, Max. "Cureating: Building Healthy Eating Habits with Design, Psychology, and Economics." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1367944842.
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Mayhew, Brian William 1967. "Reputation building and the demand for auditing." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/289400.
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The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the role auditor reputation plays in the demand and supply of audits and to examine the process by which an auditor builds a reputation for audit quality. The goal is to begin to develop a comprehensive theory of the demand for auditing and the incentives this demand creates for the supply of audits. Scott (1984) cites a lack of theory capturing the precise nature of the auditor's contribution to a production and exchange economy. This paper uses an experimental economy and related model to examine the role of an auditor's reputation for delivering high quality audits in such a multiple period economy. A theory of the demand and supply of audits is necessary to help assess the need for regulation of the audit market. The need for regulation in existing audit markets has been questioned by some members of the auditing profession (Arthur Andersen, et. al. 1992). In response, experimental economic markets (EEM) research has examined different regulatory regimes (Dopuch and King 1992, Dopuch et. al., 1994). However, this research has not examined whether reputation can serve as a substitute for regulation in motivating the supply of high quality audits. Existing EEM research has provided some evidence of reputation effects in general (DeJong, et. al., 1985, Dopuch and King 1991) but has produced limited evidence of auditor reputation. Unlike prior EEM research, this paper explicitly examines auditor reputation. Three different experimental treatments were used to test the derived model: one treatment with robot investors and two treatments with human investors. The robot investor replications produced strong support for an auditor reputation model. Two of six human investor replications supported an auditor reputation model while the other four collapsed into markets for lemons. The markets suggest that the managers' demand for audit quality drove the level of audit quality supplied by auditors. When the managers did not demand and auditors did not supply high quality audits, the markets collapsed.
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Yunqing, Liang. "Green Facility Management in a Shanghai Office Building : A Case Study of the "Asia Building"." Thesis, KTH, Fastigheter och byggande, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-41503.
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This paper aims to explore how well green facility management has performed in Shanghai office building and finds the possible way to improve the situation. Together with two interviews, questionnaire based on benchmarking approach is conducted in a case study of the Asia Building, which lead to the conclusion that green facility management has done a fair work in Asia Building, and suggestions that laws and regulations related to green facility management should be established; governmental organization, the Trade Association of Shanghai Property Management, should take responsibility to improve the situation concerning to the issue; property management company should develop a healthy relationship with property owner and occupiers.
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Khare, Varun. "Building Economic Efficiency into Multicast Content Delivery Networks." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/222613.
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Internet-scale dissemination of streaming contents (e.g. live sport games) is most successfully being provided by Multicast Content Delivery Networks (Multicast CDN). Multicast CDN is composed of dedicated servers placed strategically over the Internet, which forward content from origin site to end users. Multicast CDN delivers huge amount of data traffic, and therefore its major operational cost is the ISP cost for network access. Existing Multicast CDNs route user requests to most suitable server based on application performance, such as network delay, server throughput, Internet path congestion etc., without taking into account the potentially high ISP cost it may incur. Multicast CDNs need to control their ISP cost to remain commercially competitive since ISP cost is the most indicative factor affecting the pricing of their services. In this work, we present novel Multicast CDN Request Routing algorithms that minimize ISP cost while still maintaining good network performance for users. Multicast CDN Request Routing algorithms control majority of traffic assigned to servers and therefore directly impacts the ISP cost. ISP cost and user network performances are orthogonal metrics of performance and in order to balance the trade-off between them we introduce overall delay as a constraint to the Multicast CDN Request Routing algorithm. Multicast CDNs are business customers of ISPs and therefore can independently choose to reduce their bills by considering the ways in which ISPs charge. We have designed Request Routing algorithms that exploit the economy of scale in ISP charging function in assigning users to servers. We have developed Request Routing algorithms that exploit the nature of Percentile-based charging used by ISPs to compute the charging volume for traffic generated at server sites. Multicast CDN can cooperate with ISPs to reduce the operational cost of both the parties. Multicast CDN controls how traffic is redirected on the overlay, and that can conflict with how underlying ISPs want the traffic to be forwarded. We have developed Request Routing algorithms that assign users to servers that are available over cheaper IP routes. This reduces the transmission costs for ISPs and these savings can be transferred onto Multicast CDN.
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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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Glover, Jeffrey T. "Adventure Movement Project| Building a sustainable adventure movement." Thesis, Prescott College, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1557871.
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This thesis introduces the question of how to intentionally build a sustainable adventure movement, which is a grassroots effort to intentionally and significantly increase the use of outdoor adventure education as an innovative educational tool for schools, communities and businesses in perpetuity. Taking a whole-systems approach and applying leading social movement and diffusion theories, the Adventure Movement Project (AMP) seeks to develop a framework for integrating outdoor adventure education into whole communities to inspire servant leadership, achieve sustainability, and drive innovation. A socially just and sustainable planet can thrive with outdoor adventure education acting as a highly effective catalyst, which drives social, economic, educational, and environmental change. To that end, this thesis presents original applications of diffusion models and social movement theories to outdoor adventure education. The research used an original Delphi study—of outdoor adventure education experts—which explored how to build a sustainable adventure movement. The study aimed to understand ideas related to best practices and successful strategies for expanding outdoor adventure education participation. Findings exemplified for increasing outdoor adventure education include embracing a clear, unified message that establishes why outdoor adventure education matters as a tool, which can lead to achieving sustainability, driving innovation, and inspiring servant leadership. A second key finding calls for outdoor adventure education to be part of something larger and through integration into the larger experiential education and sustainability movements it may reach critical mass.
Key Words: outdoor adventure education, sustainability, servant leadership, innovation, social movement, experiential education
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Ye, Maoliang. "Gradualism in Coordination and Trust Building." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10231.
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Coordination and cooperation on public projects, as well as trust among society members are important for economic, social and political activities. This dissertation presents essays on the role of gradualism - increasing the stakes of projects slowly over time rather than starting with large-stake projects immediately - in coordination and trust building under various settings. The first two essays are on simultaneous coordination games when there are multiple equilibria in the one-shot game; the third essay is on sequential trust games when the only subgame perfect equilibrium in the one-shot game predicts that no cooperation occurs at all. The first essay, One Step at A Time: Does Gradualism Build Coordination? (joint with Sam Asher, Lorenzo Casaburi, and Plamen Nikolov), uses a multiple-period binarychoice weakest-link coordination experiment and finds that gradualism leads to better coordination in high-stake projects. The findings point to a voluntary mechanism to promote coordination when the capacity to impose sanctions is limited. This second essay, Gradualism, Weakest Link and Information: Theory and Coordination Experiments, extends the first essay and compares the effects of gradualism under various information and payoff structures. It proposes a belief-based learning framework to explore why and when gradualism may help coordination. It compares the role of gradualism in two weakest-link games under two different information structures: a limited information structure when subjects are only informed whether all group members contribute, and a richer information structure when they are informed exactly how many group members contribute. It finds that richer information feedback facilitates later coordination for the big-bang approach when a group is close to success, thus shrinking the advantage of gradualism. Finally, in a third experiment it finds that allowing free riding worsens coordination in all treatments, and gradualism with imperfect monitoring does not perform better. The third essay, Does Gradualism Build Trust? Evidence from A Multi-round Experiment, examines the effect of gradualism in trust building using a multi-round binarychoice trust (investment) experiment. It finds that gradualism leads to higher trustworthiness at the beginning and higher subsequent trust. However, trustworthiness and trust for all treatments sharply decrease in the end; even gradualism cannot avoid this end-of-game effect.
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Nekomanesh, Sarmad, and Martin Islo. "Institutions for Sustainability : The Case of Green Building Certifications." Thesis, KTH, Industriell ekonomi och organisation (Inst.), 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-120466.
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Society is becoming increasingly dependent on the development of institutions generatingsustainability. In order to speed up this development there is a need to find, evaluate andgeneralize existing institutional mechanisms holding this characteristic. In this study, the current theoretical framework is expanded to describe how an institution shouldbe designed to generate sustainability. To explain this, a distinction is made between short-termefficient markets (currently known as Pareto-efficient markets) and long-term efficient markets(currently known as ‘strong’ or ecologic sustainability). Further, a sustainable development isdefined as a combination of short-term and long-term Pareto-efficiency. This implies that aconsumption decision today cannot make an individual better off, without making anothercurrent or future individual worse off. Green building certifications are an interesting candidate to empirically test the theoreticalframework. An empirical study was made in cooperation with Confederation of Indian Industry -Indian Green Building Council, consisting of 18 qualitative interviews with companies andexperts in the Indian building industry. The main purpose of the study has been to investigatewhy actors engage in green building and green building certifications, or why they do not. Theresults have then been analyzed and put in an institutional context. Building on these results, conclusions have been drawn that bring a valuable perspective to theongoing debate on sustainability. Green building certifications have several interestingcharacteristics contributing to a sustainable development. Most importantly, results areindicating that short-term economic efficiency can lead to long-term mechanisms generatingsustainability. However, there are also limitations to the growth of certifications as an institution,e.g. cultural aspects, risk of ambiguity and insufficient levels of human capital.Utvecklingen av institutioner som genererar hållbarhet blir allt viktigare. För att påskynda dennautveckling finns det ett behov av att hitta, utvärdera och generalisera befintliga institutionellamekanismer som uppfyller denna egenskap. För att kunna beskriva hur en institution bör utformas för att generera hållbarhet, utökar dennastudie det aktuella teoretiska ramverket. En distinktion görs mellan kortsiktigt Pareto-effektivamarknader (detta är att likställas med nuvarande begreppet ’Pareto-effektiva marknader’) ochlångsiktigt Pareto-effektiva marknader (detta är att likställas med ’ekologisk hållbarhet’). Vidareär hållbar utveckling definierad som en kombination av kortsiktigt- och långsiktigt effektivamarknader. Detta innebär att ett konsumptionsbeslut idag inte kan öka välfärden för en individ,utan att minska välfärden för en annan nuvarande eller framtida individ. Certifieringar för hållbart byggande är en intressant kandidat för att empiriskt testa det teoretiskaramverket. Fallstudien gjordes i samarbete med Confederation of Indian Industry - Indian GreenBuilding Council, och består av 18 kvalitativa intervjuer med företag och experter inom denindiska byggindustrin. Det huvudsakliga syftet med studien har varit att undersöka varför aktörerengagerar sig i grönt byggande och certifieringar, eller varför de väljer att inte göra det.Resultaten har sedan analyserats och satts i ett institutionellt sammanhang. Som institution har certifieringarna flera intressanta egenskaper som bidrar till en hållbarutveckling. Slutsatserna i studien skänker ett värdefullt perspektiv till den pågåendehållbarhetsdiskussionen, framförallt genom att påvisa att kortsiktig ekonomisk effektivitet kanleda till mekanismer som skapar hållbar utveckling. Det finns också begränsningar i tillväxten avdenna typ av institution som kan härledas till t.ex. kulturella skillnader, antalet certifieringar påmarknaden samt tillgång till humankapital.
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Spurná, Martina. "Low-Energy and Passive Buildings Economics of New Technologies." Thesis, KTH, Byggnadsteknik, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-35054.
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The thesis is concerned with the theme of energy savings in the Building industry. It describes passive house development in detail with a focus on the construction part of buildings with low energy consumption. At first, there is an overview of the actual situation concerning the new European Union’s restrictions and a basic classification of energy efficient buildings is introduced. Further, construction compositions in two energy standards are designed for a few selected construction systems suitable for a passive house. They are evaluated from different points of view and compared to each other. Finally, an estimate of the passive house value is given as well as return of extra investments with regards to energy price increase. Key words The thesis is concerned with the theme of energy savings in the Building industry. It describes passive house development in detail with a focus on the construction part of buildings with low energy consumption. At first, there is an overview of the actual situation concerning the new European Union’s restrictions and a basic classification of energy efficient buildings is introduced. Further, construction compositions in two energy standards are designed for a few selected construction systems suitable for a passive house. They are evaluated from different points of view and compared to each other. Finally, an estimate of the passive house value is given as well as return of extra investments with regards to energy price increase. Key words The thesis is concerned with the theme of energy savings in the Building industry. It describes passive house development in detail with a focus on the construction part of buildings with low energy consumption. At first, there is an overview of the actual situation concerning the new European Union’s restrictions and a basic classification of energy efficient buildings is introduced. Further, construction compositions in two energy standards are designed for a few selected construction systems suitable for a passive house. They are evaluated from different points of view and compared to each other. Finally, an estimate of the passive house value is given as well as return of extra investments with regards to energy price increase.
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Himanka, L. (Laura). "Relationship building in cross-cultural business-to-business context." Bachelor's thesis, University of Oulu, 2017. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201705312240.
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During the past decades, international trade of goods and services has been growing fast. In the globalizing market, understanding cultural differences is essential. When building customer relationships across national borders, the possibility of cultural conflicts and misunderstandings is substantial and many factors must be taken into consideration. In business-to-business market the importance of individual customers is emphasized. High customer loyalty can improve a company’s performance significantly by increasing revenue and reducing customer acquisition costs. Therefore, the importance of relationship quality cannot be questioned. This thesis is a literature review that seeks to find the key elements of cross-cultural relationship strength by first studying the elements of relationship quality and then combining these findings to the cross-cultural context.
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Curtis, Wayne R. "Social Entrepreneurship and Wealth-Building Plans: Creative Strategies for Working Class Americans." Antioch University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1368636173.
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Gardner, John Thomas. "Logistics partnerships : an exploration of form and influencing factors leading to a normative model of partnership building." The Ohio State University, 1989. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1269535734.
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Modolin, Sarah, and Sekwao Grace. "Virtual Reality Games for Team Building Interventions : Comparison of team building interventions for university students." Thesis, Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, Informatik, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-40733.
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Teams are essential in today’s organisations. Thus, it is important to enable students early in the education process to work in teams. Moreover, we have new technologies emerging such as virtual reality (VR), that have the possibility to influence processes such as team building interventions. In addition, many researchers claim the importance of games in teaching as it leads to high engagement. Even though, there is much research available in the areas of VR, team building and games, no research connecting all three topics can be found. Nevertheless, it can be observed that VR and games have been used in teaching before, however not at the same time to enhance teamwork skills. This research provides a thorough literature review on the current possibilities and applications of VR in teaching and defines effective team building. Moreover, games in teaching and their possibilities and advantages are described. Eventually, the purpose of this study is to find out if team building interventions with the help of VR are more effective in comparison to non-VR based methods. We add to existing research by enhancing current team building techniques through VR technology. Being aware of the nature of this research we combine a qualitative and quantitative approach, namely content analysis and A/B testing, to research this topic. To support the content analysis, we apply a teamwork framework defined by Rosseau, Aubé and Savoie (2006). To validate our experiment results from A/B testing we triangulate by conducting an additional experiment. The analysis of this study shows that VR based team building interventions trigger more team processes than team building interventions without VR. Furthermore, the research points out possible future directions of studies since VR for team building is a rather new topic and thus needs to be further researched. Finally, the study can be used to encourage students and teachers at University level to apply VR technology when the opportunity is given
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Malmgren, Anna-Maria, and Giselle Sucre. "The Role of Trust in the Process of Building a Service Brand." Thesis, Linköping University, Department of Management and Economics, 2004. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-2166.
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Background: In the existing branding literature there is no distinction made between theories for building product- and services brands although services have very different characteristics compared to products. The services characteristics imply that the customer has a high need of reassurance that the right brand choice is being made, which ought to bring forth the role of trust in the relationship between the customer and the service brand.
Purpose: The purpose is to analyze the process of building a service brand and the role of trust in this process.
Delimitations: The study will include the financial service sector since the complexity of services is brought to its head in this case. Realization: In total, 13 interviews were conducted with company representatives at SEB and Östgöta Brandstodsbolag, a Brand Consultant and customers of financial service companies.
Results: We suggest that when it comes to the process of building a service brand, the emphasis of the elementsdiffer somewhat compared to the building of product brands, where the emphasis is put on brand identity and in particular trust. When it comes to trust, a positive reputation could initially serve to signal trust but it is the actual encounter with the staff that determines the trustworthiness of the service brand.
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Kamala, Adonis Mwijage. "Proliferation of different building procurement systems and their appropriate application : a case of Tanzania." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6053.
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Bibliography: leaves 150-156.The term ''Building Procurement System" has become a fashionable term within the Tanzanian building industry in recent years. It is a term that is surrounded by controversy and evokes strongly held opinions by both practitioners and researchers. This thesis attempts to analyse what these procurement systems have to offer and to match them to the objectives of the client and characteristics of the project.
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Ntiyakunze, Stanslaus Karoli. "Conflicts in Building Projets in Tanzania : Analysis of Causes and Management Approaches." Doctoral thesis, KTH, Bygg- och fastighetsekonomi, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-30340.
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The prime objective of a client in a building project is to attain a successful project, a project that has been properly planned, designed and constructed in accordance with plans and specifications, and completed within time and cost originally anticipated. However the success of a building project depends on a number of variables one of them is the way the building team approach conflicts facing the project. This study examines the causes and management approaches of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania. The main objective of the study is to identify issues/areas on which conflicts occur, factors causing them and how conflicts are managed in building projects in Tanzania. As a means to achieve the above objective, the study was structured into two main parts; the first part aimed at mapping up the nature of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania by establishing critical symptoms of conflicts, factors causing them and the approaches used in resolving the conflicts. This was done through literature review, interviews and questionnaire survey. The second part aimed at in-depth study of conflicts from their root cause, how they develop/progress and how they are managed in a real building project setting. Four case studies of building projects were studied for this part. The study found that factors causing conflicts are in several forms. There are those related to the nature of contracts, where the contracts are unclear and ambiguous they give room for contracting parties to develop opportunistic behaviour when post adjustments are needed. There are those factors which are related to role functions when the parties fail to perform as expected. As such the study confirmed that contractual incompleteness and consequent post contract adjustments and opportunistic behaviour of some project participants are root causes of conflicts in building projects in Tanzania. However, the study established that there are sufficient mechanisms to deal with conflicts in the standard forms of building contracts used and when the provisions are against the interests of the parties, the parties resort to amicable resolution approaches. Notwithstanding the availability of mechanisms in the standard forms of contracts to deal with conflicts, the study proposes the framework as a strategy that could reduce effectively the occurrences of conflicts in building projects.QC 20110223
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Friedmann, Anita Story. "Building communities of participation through student advancement programs: A first step toward relationship fund raising." W&M ScholarWorks, 2003. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1550154070.
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BROWNE, LYDIA ANN. "REGENERATE: REUSING A LANDMARK BUILDING TO ECONOMICALLY BOLSTER URBAN REVITALIZATION." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1147897475.
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Gitonga, Zachary Maina. "Leveraging improved seed technology, migration and climate information for building the adaptive capacity and resilience to climate risks in semi-arid regions." Doctoral thesis, Faculty of Commerce, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32707.
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Droughts induced by climate change will most likely push dryland ecosystems beyond their biophysical thresholds and lead to long-term decline in agricultural productivity. Subsistence farming in developing countries where agricultural productivity is low will become less viable for many families already ravaged by food insecurity and poverty. This dissertation examines three ways of reducing vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate variability and building resilience in the farming communities residing in semiarid lands. These include the use of adaptive seed technology, migration as a livelihood diversification and adaptive strategy, and the use of climate information in farm decision-making. The second chapter evaluates the impact of improved adaptive seed technology on market participation and food security, using data from a representative sample of 1344 households selected across six agroecological zones in Kenya. The study employed two estimation procedures for impact evaluation: a control function regression using OLS and IV regression estimated by Heckman bivariate sample selection model and 2SLS regression. The study used percentile shares approach to describe distributional inequalities in improved seed adoption across households. Kenya has a well-developed seed system, through which adaptive maize seed has been introduced for various agro-ecological zones. Despite its success with improved maize breeding programs, Kenya is still grappling with food insecurity. The marketed share of household's maize produce, among adopters, was on average 12 percentage points higher than for the control group. This increased with adoption intensity, albeit at a decreasing rate. The top 20% of households accounted for 63% of the quantity and 65% of the area planted with improved maize. The bottom 40% only accounted for 6% of the quantity purchased and 5% of the area planted with improved maize. Adopting households were less vulnerable to food insecurity and stored maize for longer than non-adopters. Larger families participated less in the market and were more food insecure. Wealth and education are other key determinants of food security and market participation. The results of the study indicate a need for a strategic policy on food security in Kenya that considers the concentrated nature of the maize farming sector, to address the problem of food insecurity. Such a policy could aim at food self-sufficiency for small farms and promote commercial production by large-scale producers for national strategic reserves. There is also a need for post-harvest policies that promote safe on-farm grain storage for small and medium scale producers. The third chapter focuses on migration, because of the growing interest among scholars in understanding the relationship between migration and adaptation to climate change. Past studies have looked at climate change as a trigger for migration, but the focus has now shifted to looking at migration as an enabler of climate-change adaptation and a livelihood diversification strategy. However, those most vulnerable to climate variability are the poor who are less able to afford mobility and entry costs. This study adds to the literature by evaluating, in chapter 3, the impact of migration on household consumption expenditure, relative food expenditure share, dietary diversity, spending on agricultural inputs and adaptive capacity. The study used survey data collected from a representative sample of 653 households across three arid regions of Northern Namibia. The study employed a novel identification strategy in migration studies by combining the standard exogenous instruments and Lewbel's constructed instruments using heteroscedastic errors. The study found two-thirds of the sampled households to be migrant-sending households. Poverty and the lack of economic opportunities in the rural villages were the main push factors driving migration to towns and cities. Although tertiary education and technical training of the migrants are key determinants of remittances received by migrant-sending households, over three quarters of the migrants were unskilled and very few having tertiary level training. Migrant-sending households had lower consumption spending and higher food budget share, suggesting relative deprivation. Although consumption spending increased with number of migrants, quality of human capital had greater impact on well-being. Migration had a positive impact on household's adaptive capacity but an inverse relationship between number of migrants and adaptation suggests failure of local adaptive strategies. The study finds households with migrants to have a significantly higher spending on agricultural inputs than those without migrants, with tractor-hire services for land preparation being a major component. The effect of family labour loss is somehow, through remittances, countervailed and compensated by mechanization. In conclusion, migration can potentially play a bigger role as an adaptive and risk-mitigation strategy in the face of climate variability, but poverty, lack of post-school skills training, and low transition to tertiary-level training are key barriers. Developing markets for credit, inputs and farm output, and preparing migrants for participation in labour markets and self-employment through training can further enhance the impact of migration and build resilience to climate shocks. Due to selfreinforcing poverty traps in poor households, the study recommends targeted public programs that support higher education and technical training. Lastly, chapter 4 examined the role of climate information and early warning in decision-making among farming communities in rural Namibia. Improved climate forecasting has been heralded as an important risk management and mitigation tool in climate-sensitive economic sectors such as agriculture. However, Africa has not reaped the benefits of improved climate forecasting and empirical studies about its impact are scanty. Chapter 4 first discusses access to and utilization of climate information in farm decisionmaking, and then evaluates its impact on dietary diversity, food spending and adaptive capacity of the households using propensity score matching, with a sensitivity analysis for hidden bias. Only half of the farmers had access to climate information and most of them relied primarily on traditional knowledge to make decisions on crop and livestock production. Many of the households without access to climate information also had little knowledge of alternative adaptive strategies. The likelihood of receiving climate information increased with the number of migrants per household, household size, social networks, trust and participation in community decision-making processes, but declined with age. Although male heads were more likely to receive climate information, females headed most of the households. The main sources of information for farmers were radios and peer learning. Respondents expressed a low level of trust in information from available channels and most of them rated the information received as insufficient for decision-making. Although 95% of households owned mobile phones, only 5% received information through them, indicating untapped opportunity of using an ICT platform to share information with farmers. Households with climate information had more diversified diets and significantly higher food spending. These households also engaged in more adaptive strategies, but the scale of adoption was small. Community empowerment through enhanced access to extension services, information on alternative adaptive choices, and the development of markets, rural communication and transport infrastructure are prerequisites to access to and effective utilization of improved climate forecast information for successful adaptation.
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Sacks, Maxwell. "Neural Networks: Building a Better Index Fund." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2017. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1666.
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Big data has become a rapidly growing field amongst firms in the financial sector and thus many companies and researchers have begun implementing machine learning methods to sift through large portions of data. From this data, investment management firms have attempted to automate investment strategies, some successful and some unsuccessful. This paper will investigate an investment strategy by using a deep neural network to see whether the stocks picked from the network will out or underperform the Russell 2000.
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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.published_or_final_version
Environmental Management
Master
Master of Science in Environmental Management
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Kumar, Ashok. "Building workers' power against globally mobile capital : case studies from the transnational garment sector." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ab1fa70e-8c27-46f2-a0de-3b005baecaba.
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Garment sector trade unions have proved largely powerless to combat hypermobile transnational capital’s systematic extraction of surplus value from the newly industrialized Global South. Optimized conditions for accumulation coupled with the 2005 phase-out of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) have meant a radical geographic reconfiguration of the globalised garment industry heavily in favour of capital over labour. The thesis approaches the global garment sector from multiple vantage points across the world with the goal of uncovering the obstacles to workers' organisation, examine workers' strategies of resistance, and analyse the changing composition of labour and capital within the clothing commodity chain. The thesis highlights five distinct but interconnected case studies including a transnational workers campaign from a garment factory in Honduras; a history and present-day feasibility of establishing a transnational collective bargaining from El Salvador to Turkey to Cambodia; the prospects for a countermovement in the organizing strategies at the bottom of the clothing commodity and supply chain in Bangalore; the growth of a 'full package' denim manufacturer in changing the relationship between 'buyers' and 'suppliers' on the outskirts of Bangalore; and finally a continuation of this analysis the case of a strike at a monopoly footwear supplier in China. The central research question is: How do workers build power and establish workers' rights in the globally hypermobile garment sector? Ultimately, what is demonstrated within this thesis is that the actions of garment workers shaped and circumscribed the actions of capital in the sector, and as capital transformed new landscapes for accumulation new vistas for opposition begin to emerge.
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Nurick, Saul. "An investigation into the mechanisms that are steering large property owning organisations to implement green building features." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/16958.
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Corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR/CER) are terms that are often used to brand a company in a positive light. This does not necessarily mean that every organisation implements social and environmental initiatives with the same degree of vigour and commitment. South African property owning organisations are becoming increasingly aware that being socially and environmentally responsible can encompass the design and operation of their buildings. It is for this reason that these types of organisations are searching for ways to implement green building initiatives in their property portfolios. The implementation of environmentally friendly/green initiatives is viewed as Socially Responsible Property Investments (SRPI). Green building initiatives are slowly being adopted by some property owning organisations in South Africa, especially after the formal establishment of the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) in 2007. Implementation of green building initiatives have been met with multiple barriers by property owning organisations, such as lack of education by the professional team with regards to cost of green features and the processes involved in gaining green certification. Three prominent property owning organisations in Cape Town, two corporate and the other an academic institution were chosen as suitable case studies and analysed. Multiple respondents were interviewed for each case study and asked questions regarding their social and environmental initiatives and to what degree, if at all, they are attempting to implement green building features in their buildings. These questions were used to compare the organisation's actions to the content of its CSR policy. It was found that the adoption of green building initiatives was based on the type of property owning organisation, be it corporate or non-corporate. The property owning type has resulted in differing motives for implementation of green initiatives; however there are some common motives regardless of the company type, such as the financial feasibility of implementing said initiatives. The final results of this research revealed that although there is a small gap between a property owning company's CSR policy to that of its stated social and environmental initiatives, the gap between the CSR policy and its green building initiatives is still relatively large.
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Heang, Rasmey, and Sauli Haikarainen. "Driving Factors for Building BusinessNetwork in SMEs : A Comparative Case Study of Cambodia and Finland." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Akademin för ekonomi, teknik och naturvetenskap, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-37795.
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Authors have identified that there are a number of researches concerning on only individualdriving factor of the business network in the SME, mostly done in a single context. Apartfrom that, there is also a lack of researches focusing on the comparison of the businessnetwork‘s driving factors, especially for SMEs.The purpose of this study is to explore and investigate the driving factors that drive SMEsto engage with the business network by focusing on two different contexts, Cambodia andFinland.The thesis adopts the inductive approach and employs a quantitative research method. Inthis study, the survey questionnaire is chosen to obtain the relevant data. The authors alsoextend the method by including four interviews to have better understanding andinterpretation of the content of the collected data. The primary data are collected through asemi-structured interview with two Cambodian companies and two Finnish companies. Thesource of secondary data such as articles, textbooks, scientific journals and websites arealso used in this thesis.The thesis first concludes that the five chosen factors (obtaining resources, cooperation,internationalisation, cost reduction, and lobbying government policies) play an essentialrole in driving SMEs to take part in the business network. Secondly, the study alsoconfirms that there are some different perceptions on the level of importance of eachdriving factor which the SMEs in Cambodia and Finland conceive that drive them toengage with the business network. Cost reduction factor has been perceived more critical inFinnish context compared to the Cambodian; while in Cambodia SMEs discern thelobbying government policies factor has a higher degree of importance than that in Finland.Lastly, the study has identified the influential aspects of the differences such as the culturalaspect, the definition and size of SMEs, and the private sector development support in thesetwo contexts.For the managerial implications, first partaking in the business networks could providevarious benefits to firms rather than just single aspect. Second, management could decidein which direction they should drive their company by having a better understanding ofSMEs behaviour toward the participation in the business network. Last, different factorscan be crucial to a different kind of SMEs.
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Niedbala, Steven Alexander. "Building the Post-industrial Community : New Urbanist Development in Pittsburgh, PA." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1479892713713989.
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Peveler, Edward. "The supply of building materials to construction projects in Roman Oxfordshire : logistics, economics, and social significance." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2018. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9208b07b-7c9d-447b-a2b1-26873f951018.
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Whilst Roman architecture has long stood as a discrete branch of classical studies, investigated for its artistic merit and cultural importance, the technical details of Roman construction have only recently started to receive considerable attention. This thesis contributes to a growing trend in Roman scholarship, that of the investigation of the processes, materials, and technologies behind the Roman built environment. The most prestigious buildings of the Empire often remain the focus of many of these studies, and so this thesis turns to explore the use of more everyday buildings and building materials, seeking a Romano-British vernacular, and investigating the processes of construction, building material production, and transport. It is argued, through using theoretical calculations of building material quantities, that even for relatively minor constructions, considerations of building material supply must have represented highly significant economic and logistical investment. To comprehend fully the subject it is asserted that building materials should not be treated, as they often are, as disparate artefacts, divided by substance into stone, ceramic, mortar, metal, etc., but rather they should be considered as related fragments of a building. They require synthetic analysis, through which a far truer understanding of the incredible effort involved in construction in the ancient world can be gained. The built environment of Roman Oxfordshire, and the Roman building material assemblage from Dorchester on Thames, are used as case studies. Primary analysis of building materials is carried out using an integrated analytical approach, combining thin section petrography with scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray analysis. The outcomes of these analyses are interpreted against a background of archaeological and historical evidence for construction and material supply, in both the Roman and later periods, in the region and beyond.
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Wanyona, Githae. "Risk management in the cost planning and control of building projects : the case of the quantity surveying profession in Kenya." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5063.
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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-305).This thesis examines financial risk management in the cost planning and cost control of building projects in Kenya. The quantity surveying professional in Kenya is faced with poor access to the recorded cost data needed for preparing final building cost estimates and for budget prediction. This shortcoming is exacerbated by the passive role played by the professional building cost consultant during design development. Passive professional building cost consultants are unlikely to implement risk management strategies as part of the cost planning and cost control process. The proactive identification of risks and their outcomes is essential for budget prediction and for estimating future risk impacts. The need exists for a generalised procedure that can use the limited available project information, adapting it to specific projects through identified risk indicators such as risk groups, clusters and broad subsets. The primary objectives of the research project were to identify the characteristics of risk in current practice of cost planning and cost control of building projects, and to investigate the efficacy of the techniques employed to assess risk and risk impact in cost prediction.
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Fung, Pik Ki. "House building movement in the context of rural-urban transformation : a case study on C village in southern China /." View abstract or full-text, 2009. http://library.ust.hk/cgi/db/thesis.pl?SOSC%202009%20FUNG.
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Bothra, Aditi. "Preferential trade agreements: building blocks or stumbling blocks - case study of the US imports." Thesis, Kansas State University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/16236.
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Master of ArtsDepartment of Economics
Peri da Silva
Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) are known to facilitate liberalization with respect to only a few trading partners and thus they have been a topic of debate for the past two decades especially because their effect on most favored nation (MFN) tariffs is known to be ambiguous. We provide insights for analyzing whether the PTAs indeed hamper or support multilateral liberalization. Using product level official and actual tariffs we provide evidence from the United States (US) import data that the stumbling block effect on the US MFN bound tariffs is present only for goods that receive full preference in books or in actual. However, my dataset does not statistically support the stumbling block hypothesis in the case of Applied tariffs.
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MUNKBO, SANNA, and MALIN NILSSON. "Varumärkesuppbyggnad-Små åtgärder som kan ge stora resultat." Thesis, Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen Textilhögskolan, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-20185.
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Titel: Varumärkesuppbyggnad – Små åtgärder som kan ge stora resultatFörfattare:Sanna Munkbo och Malin NilssonHandledare: Göran Andersson, Dana Reklambyrå Rebecca Enar, Capri CollectionTyp av arbete: B-uppsats i textil produktutveckling med entreprenörs- och affärsutveckling, 15 hpInstitution: TextilhögskolanSpråk: SvenskaHuvudämne: Varumärkesuppbyggnad och marknadsföringsmetoderBakgrund: I dagens samhälle märker man att marknadsföringen spelar en stor roll hos företagen, det har ingen betydelse hur bra produkten är om man inte kan nå ut med den på marknaden. Det krävs också att man lyckas skapa en stark varumärkesprofil och en nisch som gör att man skiljer sig från konkurrenterna. Det måste finnas ett helhetskoncept som är genomgående i allting som rör företaget. Syfte: Syftet med vårt arbete är att hjälpa Capri Collection att stärka sin varumärkesprofil och bättre nå ut till befintliga och nya kunder. För att kunna genomföra detta behöver vi svara på följande frågor:Frågeställningar: 1. Hur uppfattar anställda, kunder och återförsäljare Capri Collection idag?2. Vad kan vi göra för att stärka företagets varumärkesprofil och öka antalet kunder?Metod:Enkätundersökning hos kunder. Intervjuer med återförsäljare, anställda och ägare. Hjälp från handledare. Informationsinsamling från litteratur, internet samt föreläsningar. Resultat:Framtagning av åtgärder som kan stärka varumärket:-En ny affärsplan -Ett förbättrat helhetskoncept-Utformning av marknadsföringsmaterial-Mer fokus på återförsäljarna-Förändring av webbförsäljningenProgram: Textil produktutveckling med entreprenörs- och affärsinriktning
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Alldén, Pontus, and Dev Joshi. "Building a Green Living : Measuring the green bond premium on the Swedish real estate market." Thesis, Jönköping University, Internationella Handelshögskolan, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-54790.
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Background: With the first green bond being issued in 2008 as a joint venture between World Bank Organization and the Swedish bank SEB the financial instrument has made an impact on the financial markets. With a high demand for sustainable investments in Sweden partly due to policies a premium for the green bonds is to be expected at least according to theory. The real estate market has adapted to the increased demand for green investments by moving more towards green bonds, and rightfully so as it is one of the largest polluters seen by sector. In result, it is also one of the largest issuers of bonds which creates an excellent opportunity to research the industry as there is plenty of data available. Purpose: This report will examine the premium of green bonds in the Swedish real estate market. Furthermore, it will also examine the effects of Covid-19 and to what extent this pandemic had an impact on green bonds. Method: The thesis examines the Option Adjusted Spread (OAS) of 166 bonds of 9 different companies from the start of 2016 to December 2020 within the Swedish real estate market. Control variables such as Company risk, Market risk and Macroeconomic variables were used in an OLS regression to estimate the premium. The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic was also examined. Conclusion: After analyzing 53 green and 113 conventional bonds no significant results were found on how premium differs between green and conventional bonds. However more general findings were found that suggest bonds become more sought during the Covid-19. It was further found that the green bond market is rapidly growing and may in a few years be in a better position to be examined.
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Gupta, Chandrika. "From Building Blocks to Cell Blocks: An Analysis of the Effect of Public School Funding on Juvenile Delinquency." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1031.
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In this study, the primary question that is addressed is that of whether there exists a relationship between juvenile arrest rates and public school funding. Using publically available FBI arrest data, data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), and Census data, I used two OLS models to answer this question. The first model suggested that there was no statistically significant correlation between school spending per child and juvenile arrest rates. However, it indicated that juvenile arrest rates were correlated with median income, percentage of children below the poverty line, percentage of Black, Hispanic, and Mixed children in the state. The second model had conflicting results. The model suggested that with a $1000 increase in school spending per child, there would be a 0.46 percentage point decrease in juvenile arrest rates. In addition, it maintained that there was a statistically significant correlation between median income and juvenile arrest rates; however, the direction of the effect was positive.
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Dickinson, James Stuart. "An investigation into the geological, hydrogeological, and carbon reduction potential and economics for building ground energy systems in the UK." Thesis, University of Surrey, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.510919.
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DeLaine, Janet. "The baths of Caracalla : a study in the design, construction, and economics of large-scale building projects in imperial Rome /." Portsmouth (R.I.) : [Journal of Roman archaeology], 1997. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37004196f.
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Lei, U. Ian. "Building an e-government acceptance model, based on TAM, incorporating trust in e-commerce." Thesis, University of Macau, 2007. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b1637055.
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Johnson, Benjamin A. "Fundraising and Endowment Building at a Land Grant University During the Critical Period, 1910-1940: The Failure of Ohio State." The Ohio State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1386057443.
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Bouazzi, Cherif, and Suleiman Nadabo Lawal. "Building Trust in a Cross-Cultural Context: The National Investor in United Arab Emirates and Egypt." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Företagsekonomi, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-27534.
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Aim: The aim of the study is to examine trust development in international marketing of financial services marketing of the National Investor (TNI) in UAE and Egypt. To achieve this, the researchers adapted Fregidou_Malama and Hyder (2015) framework of international services marketing that explains cultural influences on Adaptation/Standardization, network and trust formation in international services marketing. Method: A single case study approach is used as the research strategy and qualitative research using semi-structured interviews. The research uses qualitative interviews as the primary source of empirical data. Results and Conclusion: This study indicates that cultural values play a major role on the way people communicate, interact and conduct their businesses within the financial services sector in UAE and Egypt, and that cultural values, origins, policies, rules and regulations are factors that can affect how international companies build trust relationships within local cultures. Our results show that cultural dimensions such as power distance, individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity/feminity affect trust building, networking and adaptation strategies in international marketing of financial service of the company. Research Contribution: This study contributes and shows the implication of the need for adaptation to satisfy customers’ needs and expectations in international marketing of financial services. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have almost identical cultural dimensions, in order to build trust, TNI adapts its services to meet up with the Egyptian customers' needs and expectations. In addition, all of the previous studies that were conducted using Fregidou_Malama and Hyder (2015) framework are in the marketing of healthcare services of Elekta AB, Sweden whereas this study focuses on financial services and also conducted and compared two identical national cultures from two different countries and their influence. Suggestions for Future Research: One of the limitations of this research is that it is a case study and doesn’t reflect the overall international financial sector and therefore the results and observations indicated in this research might differ along with the variation of the studied environment. Therefore, we recommend further study using the same model within the same financial service sector and the same business environment and compare with any European nation that is culturally distant from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
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Njie, Sulayman. "Where Market Meets Community: An Economic and Gender Study of Microfinance in The Gambia." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/95041.
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In The Gambia, financial sustainability and poverty alleviation have been largely based on the assumption that analysis of macro level growth will bridge the gap between the formal and informal sectors; alleviate poverty and exclusion, ignoring other important factors such as political, social, cultural and religious issues. The government, microfinance outlets and international development agencies have implemented many measures to bring the masses into the formal economy to no avail. This dissertation explores Reliance Financial Service and the role of the Osusus in poverty alleviation, and how the Osusus are the edifice of microfinance and economic sustainability in The Gambia.
Firstly, Osusus are small microfinance groups where participants receive substantial amounts of money to meet planned heavy expenditure commitments. To put things into perspective, Osusu is one of the oldest community based microfinance institutions in The Gambia, it has mostly resisted formalization. It is a social and financial system, where members contribute a set sum of money each week or month that is then allocated to one member. This has given some women a degree of independence and solidarity.
Secondly, despite women being the largest segment of the Gambian population, disparities in gender roles, illiteracy, high unemployment and the lack of mainstreaming the interest and needs of women in national policy and the system tends to leave many women economically disadvantaged. Hence, this dissertation found that the provision of microfinance services in the form of micro-credit, insurance and micro-savings could be a great sustainability tool to create equity, uplift the economic and social status of women in society. Also, women could use these services towards productive consumption such as feeding their families, sending their children to school, affording healthcare and engaging in productive economic activities to increase their income. Empirically, it examines the microfinance outlook in The Gambia, its impacts on socio-economics ramifications on the country. It also examines the role of microfinance, contextually Reliance Financial Services Kafoo scheme, as a viable alternative poverty-alleviation avenue.Ph. D.
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Mer'eb, Muhammad Musa. "Greenometer-7 a tool to assess the sustainability of a building's life cylce at the conceptual design phase /." Cleveland, Ohio : Cleveland State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1209184917.
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Thesis (D.Eng.)--Cleveland State University, 2008.Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 8, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 321-343). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in in print.
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Yao, Sha. "Relaying without Decoding." Doctoral thesis, KTH, Kommunikationsteori, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-29948.
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Relay networks and cooperative transmission have spurred considerable interest in recent years, promising performance improvements in, e.g., system capacity, robustness and transmission rate. In this thesis, the focus is on the so-called half-duplex relay channels, where in the system, a source node wants to transmit a message to a destination node and a relay node can potentially assist this transmission. The relay is said to be half-duplex in the sense that it cannot transmit and receive at the same time within the same frequency band. It is natural to categorize the potential relaying schemes (operations of the relay node) into two kinds. The relay can either decode the message of the source node, or it can process its received signal without decoding. The thesis investigates various schemes of the second kind and they are termed as ``relaying schemes without decoding.'' The first part of the thesis is devoted to the approach of instantaneous relaying. The instantaneous relaying schemes belong to the relaying schemes without decoding, where the relay node is implemented by a deterministic single-variable function. Both linear and non-linear functions are investigated and it is demonstrated that the functions with sawtooth-like shape give higher achievable rates than other functions investigated. Furthermore, the work is extended to half-duplex multiple-access relay channels, where an extra source node is present. For such channels, the relay's operation is ``instantaneous'' in the sense that it is represented by a deterministic function of two variables. Essentially, the function handles the received signals from the two source nodes, combining them together and transmitting the combined signal to the destination node. Novel functions based on the Archimedean spiral mapping and sawtooth-like functions are proposed and demonstrated to perform well, using achievable rate regions and achievable sum rates of the two source nodes as figures of merit. In the second part of the thesis, the class of relaying schemes without decoding and with memory is investigated, where for such schemes, information theoretic source and channel coding with long codewords is used at the relay node. The two predominant schemes of such kind are the so-called compress-and-forward (CF) and quantize-and-forward (QF) schemes. The achievable rate results of the two schemes and some of their variants are derived for static channels. Furthermore, under the assumption of slow fading channels, with transmitter channel state information (CSIT) not available at the source and relay nodes, outage probabilities, expected rates as well as diversity--multiplexing trade-offs (DMT) of the respective schemes are derived and compared. In addition, to compensate for the loss due to the absence of relay CSIT, a finite-resolution feedback link from the destination node to the source node is designed for the CF and QF schemes to provide the relay node with partial CSIT, and thus, the performance of the respective schemes can be improved. Lastly, the thesis considers the problem of lack of relay CSIT from another viewpoint. The concept of hybrid digital-analog coding, as is first investigated in source-channel coding, is adapted and applied at the relay node. Such relaying schemes are termed hybrid digital-analog relaying schemes and their performance in terms of expected rate is studied. It is shown that the hybrid schemes significantly outperform the conventional digital-only (e.g., the CF scheme) and the analog-only schemes (e.g., the so-called amplify-and-forward scheme).QC 20110222
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Wachira, Isabella Njeri. "An investigation into the training of labour in the informal construction sector in Kenya." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5064.
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Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-221).
The training of craftsmen in Kenya is the responsibility of their traditional employer the contractor. However, over the last 20 years, the contractors’ motivation to train has been eroded by increased casualisation. Concurrently, there was growth of the informal procurement system propagated by private sector clients, who have no incentive to train because they are ad hoc consumers of construction services. Together these phenomena led to the collapse of the formal craft training and growth of informal skilling. Currently however, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the nature of informal craft training. The intent of this research was to redress this by identifying the types of skills informally employed craftsmen are acquiring, how these skills are acquired and how training delivery can be enhanced. The hypotheses of the research were that the skills and skilling methods in the informal sector do not differ significantly from those in the formal sector and that the nature of training in the informal construction sector is clearly understood.
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Smith, Darrell Jon. "A values-based wood-fuel landscape evaluation : building a fuzzy logic framework to integrate socio-cultural, ecological, and economic value." Thesis, University of Cumbria, 2014. http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/3191/.
Full textAbstract:
In meeting the UK Government's national and international renewable energies commitments and their role in UK energy security, decarbonisation of energy use, carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation, the recognition of a potential for considerable scaling up of UK woodland coverage is emphasised. Also, UK forestry has increasingly become realigned with the global sustainability agenda encompassing issues such as native woodlands, the decline of woodland biodiversity, the Government’s quality of life indicators, and ideas of socio-cultural, ecological and economic landscape scale values. Accordingly, socio-cultural interaction with the natural world places structure and components into the landscape, the subsequent combinations of which are characterised by consequent ecological and economic conditions. As a consequence compositional, structural, spatial and temporal differences produce different value outcomes. This thesis explores these value outcomes illustrating the multi-dimensional nature of the relationships that society experience with their surrounding landscape, across a range of case study wood-fuel producing landscapes. The case study landscapes describe traditional silvo-pastoral management, Natura 2000 forest, primarily managed around ideas of ecosystem goods and services, co-operatively and commercially owned sustainable forestry. Differences in value are observed between and within landscapes, value domains and value components. These differences reflect tensions that exist between sustainability and society’s continued use of natural resources. Consequently value articulates the nature of relationships between and within multiple value components, characterised by competing socio-cultural, ecological, economic interests. Thus value, as a concept, is built through an understanding of the connected, embedded nature of society’s relationship with the natural world. Using a novel fuzzy logic modelling based approach to valuation, the consequences of land-use choices and the associated changes across socio-cultural, ecological and economic value domains are made visible. Understanding the complex nature of these interrelated and interdependent relationships can inform the political and institutional decision making and policy setting process. In this manner knowledge of interaction, interdependence and the reality of trade-offs, consistent with systems describe by finitude, can support and facilitate deliberative discourse. Where the true nature of value is considered an emergent property expressed through an appreciation of the value components and the outcomes of their relationships. Thus value is fundamentally a comparative property and not the outcome of an accumulative argument.
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Forrest, Brigham. "Analysis of Building Resiliency in an Ethiopian Pastoral System: Mitigating the Effects of Population and Climate Change on Food Insecurity." DigitalCommons@USU, 2014. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/2161.
Full textAbstract:
Worldwide expenditures on international development in the form of assistance or “aid” have continued to increase as developed countries look to both help and influence developing countries. In 2011, more than $140 billion in development aid was distributed globally, more than double the amount expended for international development aid in 2003. Many of the countries that are in need of aid have governments that do not have the resources, the experience, political stability, or well-functioning institutions to effect long-term structural change to bring their people out of poverty. Ethiopia is a country receiving large amounts of development aid, and one of the poorest regions in Ethiopia is the Borana Plateau in the Oromia state. The people are semi-nomadic pastoralists who live off the livestock they raise. Climate change, as well as overgrazing and population growth, has reduced the amount of land available for pasture. Additionally, drought conditions can cause huge livestock losses due to death and the pressure to sell animals during droughts to generate money to buy food. The pastoral system is in constant danger of overstocking and suffering a system crash when drought events occur. Linear programing was used in this study to test various “scenarios” that shed light on how drastically drought and overpopulation impacts livestock numbers and overall livelihoods of the Boran pastoralists. How well livestock survive through droughts determines, in large measure, the need for food aid in the Borana Plateau and, with climate change increasing the frequency of drought events, the system struggles to rebound following droughts. These scenarios examined in this study tested the economic incentive the Boran have to clear land, and what impact clearing land has on livestock numbers, especially during drought years. The analysis also tested how keeping livestock in the system, as a result of drought mitigation strategies such as brush clearing, reduces the need for food aid during droughts and also reduces the rebound time for livestock numbers following a drought. The results determined that brush clearing provided the forage needed to keep cattle alive through a drought at various stocking levels up to and including estimated full capacity. This suggested that brush-clearing activities created an environment where people could return to pre-drought production levels without any rebound time following a drought if enough brush clearing and/or kalo development is undertaken. Kalo(s) serve as forage reserves, created from land cleared of brush and produce much more grass than from brush clearing alone and do it at a lower household cost.