Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Community centers Energy conservation'

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996.
Includes special report study entitled: Re-integration of a historic building : the YMCA building at Bridge Street, Sheung Wan and system integration in the conservation project. Includes bibliographical references.

Community energy has drawn interest from the general public, policy makers and researchers in the UK over the last few years. Community energy projects, such as energy saving measures and renewable energy projects, are usually organised by civil society groups rather than commercial businesses. This DPhil research approaches community energy as local grassroots innovation and compares its development in two different countries, Finland and the UK. Key research question is: Why and how do community energy projects develop and how do they contribute to niche development? The thesis uses Sustainability Transitions studies literature, especially literature on Strategic Niche Management (SNM), as a theoretical framing, and empirical in-depth analysis of four community energy projects, two in the UK and two in Finland. The research examines how community energy projects develop in ‘niches'. Research findings highlight that motivations for projects include monetary savings, energy savings and climate change. Projects are developed by pre-existing community groups or groups that have come together to develop an energy project. Local embedding of community energy projects to each project's individual circumstances helps successful project delivery. Pre-existing skills and tacit knowledge such as the ability to seek information and fill in funding applications can aid success. Engagement with key stakeholders further shapes projects' aims and objectives. Community energy projects benefit from a clear leader who works with a supportive team. There is evidence of projects networking at the local and national level in the UK, while in Finland networking remains limited to the local area and projects often develop in isolation. Furthermore, there is a clear lack of active intermediary organisations in the Finnish context. Policy discourse at the government level can aid the attractiveness of community energy, while continued funding support encourages more people to get involved in projects in their local areas.

Throughout the United States, and globally, there has been recent interest in large-scale monitoring of bats, driven largely by the many threats that bats currently face such as climate change, white nose syndrome, habitat loss, and wind energy development. Additionally, many human activities generate sensory disturbances including anthropogenic light and noise pollution that have been shown to affect habitat use and foraging efficiency in bats and other wildlife. My research took place in the Piceance Basin of northwestern Colorado, where there has been considerable development of natural gas resources in recent years. During the drilling phase for natural gas, drill rigs run continuously for weeks to months at each well development site. In addition to the physical disturbance and increased human presence at the well pad, drill rigs are brightly lit, and also emit high amplitude anthropogenic noise. The light and noise from active drill rigs can travel many miles from the source, far beyond areas where wildlife habitat has been physically disturbed. The goal of my research was to isolate noise from the other associated forms of disturbance, and investigate what, if any, effects drilling noise is having on the bat community.

My dissertation is comprised of three stand-alone chapters, as follows. In Chapter 1, I test two different strategies for deploying bat detectors to determine which strategy yields higher detection and species identification rates. In Chapters 2 and 3, I present the results of noise playback experiments. Chapter 2 compares bat activity levels at control sites, and at treatment sites where noise was added experimentally. In Chapter 3, I monitor bat activity patterns both during and after a noise playback experiment to determine how rapidly activity levels recover post-exposure. A brief summary of each chapter follows.

In Chapter 1, I focus on the methods for recording bat echolocation calls, and identifying free-flying bats in the field. Unlike capture techniques, current acoustical methods for bat monitoring do not provide information about unique individuals, age, sex, or reproductive status. What acoustical monitoring can provide is information about bat activity levels, habitat use, and species identification in some cases, without interfering with bat movement, foraging, or other activities. The commercially available technology for recording bat echolocation calls has rapidly advanced, and there are many ultrasound detector–recorder systems (hereafter, ‘bat detectors’) available with a wide range of recoding options. Due to rapid attenuation of ultrasound signals, one of the challenges to acoustical monitoring is the relatively limited recording range of bat detectors. To increase this range, I took advantage of a bat detector that had the ability to record on two channels (in stereo). By attaching microphone extension cables, I was able to increase the distance between the left and right channel microphones, thereby increasing the acoustical sampling space. When this data collection effort took place, the SM2BAT+ detector from Wildlife Acoustics, Inc. was the only commercially available bat detector that had the two-channel recording capability. I deployed two identical bat detectors at each study site, and compared the recordings made using the stereo option to recordings made from a single channel.

In general, the stereo setup outperformed the single-channel systems. With the stereo microphones separated by approximately 10 m, the bat detectors that recorded in stereo produced 2.7 times more recordings overall. The increased number of recordings resulted in a higher number of calls that could be identified to species. The benefit of the stereo setup was not equal for all species. With the stereo microphones only about 10 m apart, there was some overlap between the calls that were identified on the left and right channels. The highest rate of overlap (19.5%) was in big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus ). Rates of overlap for species in the Myotis genus were all less than 5%, and none of the recordings of pallid bats (Antrozous pallidus ) were identified on both channels for the same bat-pass-event. The stereo option is a promising way to increase the number of bat recordings, which may be a particularly useful when surveying for rare species.

In Chapter 2, I used a noise playback experiment to isolate noise from other forms of anthropogenic disturbance, and monitored the bat activity level response. I recorded the sounds of an active drill rig, and played these recordings at treatment sites. I measured sound pressure levels at the drill site, and estimated the sound pressure levels at the noise playback sites. Using outdoor speakers, I was unable to project the drill rig noise at the same amplitude of an actual rig, but I was able to significantly elevate the sound levels at treatment sites. The noise levels at treatment sites roughly corresponded to noise levels that can be experienced approximately 100 m from a drill rig. This distance from a drill rig is typically beyond the well pad, in habitat that is not physically disturbed. There is widespread recognition that noise, light, and other sensory disturbances can affect the behavior and physiology of wildlife. The goal of the experiment was to determine if noise alone impacted the activity levels of bats, after being separated from the other forms of disturbance at a drilling site. I projected noise at treatment sites that were not already developed, and paired these treatment sites with control sites with no added noise. I conducted this experiment in 2013 and 2014, and present the results from 20 sites each year (10 control-treatment pairs annually).

Both years, there was an overall decrease in bat activity at treatment sites, when compared to control sites. In 2013, 8 of the 10 treatment sites had lower estimated bat activity levels. In 2014, all 10 treatment sites had lower estimated activity levels, although for some control-treatment pairs there was overlap in the credible intervals. Multiple species showed signs of reduced activity at treatment sites. For both years, M. ciliolabrum and L. cinarius had reduced activity levels at treatment sites. The response of other species was more idiosyncratic, with reduced activity in one field season, and inconclusive or no response during the other year. The species that did respond to the noise treatment have very different life histories, making it difficult to generalize about how any given species may respond to noise.

Chapter 3 focuses on bat activity level trends over time during a two period cross-over experiment. The classic two-period crossover experiment consists of two treatments (i.e., treatments ‘A’ and ‘B’), where each site is exposed to both treatments, and the order of the treatments is randomly assigned. For this study, ‘A’ refers to no added noise, and ‘B’ refers to a noise treatment consisting of the projected recording of drilling noise. A total of 12 sites were randomly assigned to the A:B sequence, and 13 sites were assigned to the B:A sequence. I acoustically monitored bat activity throughout the experiment, with particular interest in understanding the activity level dynamics post-exposure to the noise treatment. Most studies that investigate the impacts of noise on wildlife have focused on the response to noise during a noise treatment period, or noise event. Only a handful of previous studies have addressed the post-exposure period after noise ends. In these studies, noise treatments or events were relatively short in duration (a few minutes), and the corresponding recovery period was monitored over a similarly brief timeframe. My study differs in both the duration of the noise treatment (continuous noise over six days/nights), and in the duration of the post-exposure monitoring period (also six days/nights). I focused on the response of four bat species, Myotis ciliolabrum, Myotis evotis, Lasiurus cinareus, and Taderida brasiliensis.

Of the four focal species, M. evotis showed no substantial response to the noise treatment. The responses of M. ciliolabrum and T. brasiliensis were somewhat challenging to interpret. The overall activity levels of these species were lower during the treatment period in the A:B sequence, but they also had declining activity levels throughout the pre-exposure period. The activity patterns of L. cinareus provided the most convincing evidence of noise avoidance. Furthermore, L. cinareus activity levels did not show signs of recovery after the noise treatment ended in the B:A sequence. This suggests that after the six-day post-exposure period, there were still lingering effects of noise on L. cinareus activity levels. This study provides evidence that the effects of noise can linger for multiple days post-exposure. Future wildlife studies that assess periods of post-exposure could contribute meaningfully to this area of research, and aid in the development of conservation and mitigation efforts.

This thesis advances knowledge in the household energy conservation field by developing a transdisciplinary, systematic program that improves the well-being and conservation levels of households with low-income. Drawing on proven and recognised principles from self-determination theory and psychology this thesis conducted three studies. It examines therapeutic approaches that enhance well-being and facilitate change, and suggestions for an effective energy conservation program. Next, Brisbane renters with low-income intrinsic motivations, energy conservation program suggestions, and overall needs, values, and life satisfaction are evaluated in order to create applied solutions for NGOs, governments, and HCI and psychological fields.

Rooted deep in Germany's past is its modern socio-political grounding for environmental respect and sustainability. This translates into individual and collective action and extends equally to the economic and policy realm as it does to educational institutions. This thesis evaluates research conducted in Germany with a view to what best approaches are transferable to the United States liberal arts setting. Furthermore, exemplary American models of institutional sustainability and environmental education are explored and combined with those from abroad to produce a blueprint and action plan fitting for the American college and university.

数据中心在运转过程中需要消耗大量的电能。但是这其中的很大一部分电能都在工作负荷少时被空闲的服务器消耗了。动态供应技术通过在工作负荷少时，关掉不必要的服务器来节省这一部分的电能。在这篇文章中，我们研究未来工作负荷信息到底能给动态供应带来多大好处。特别地，对于有或没有未来工作负荷信息的两种情况，我们提出了在线的动态供应算法。我们首先发现了离线动态供应的最优解有一个很优美的结构，通过这个优美的结构我们可以以分而治之的方法完全确定离线动态供应的最优解。在这个基础之上我们设计了两个在线算法，它们的竞争比分别为2-α和e/(e - 1 + α),其中α表示标准化的预测未来窗口的长度。在这个预测未来窗口中，未来的工作负荷信息可以精确的获得。一个重要的发现是超出一个完整的预测未来窗口的未来工作负荷信息不会对动态供应的性能有任何提高。我们提出的在线算法是分散的，因此易于实现。最后，我们用真是数据中心的数据测试了我们的在线算法。
在设计在线算法的时候，我们利用了未来工作负荷信息。这是因为在很多的现代系统中，短期的未来工作信息可以被精确的估计。我们也测试了我们的算法在有预测噪声时候的性能，结果表明我们的算法在有噪声时，也能很好的工作。我们相信利用未来信息是设计在线算法的一个新的角度。在传统的在线算法设计过程中，我们通常不考虑未来输入信息。在这种情况下，许多在线问题有简单的最优的算法，但是这个最优算法的竞争比却很大。其实未来输入信息在很多在线问题中都能在一定程度上被精确预测，所以我们相信我们可以利用这些未来输入信息去设计竞争比较小的在线算法，这样设计的在线算法具有更多的应用优点，并在理论上也给予我们启发。
Energy consumption represents a significant cost in data center operation. A large fraction of the energy however, is used to power idle servers when the workload is low. Dynamic provisioning techniques aim at saving this portion of the energy by turning of unnecessary servers. In this thesis we explore how much gain knowing future workload information can bring to dynamic pro-visioning. In particular we develop online dynamic provisioning solutions with and without future workload information available. We first reveal an elegant structure of the offline dynamic pro-visioning problem which allows us to characterize the optimal solution in a "divide-and-conquer" manner. We then exploit this insight to design two online algorithms with competitive ratios 2 - α and e/ (e - 1+ α), respectively where 0 ≤ α ≤ 1 is the normalized size of a look-ahead window in which future workload information is available. A fundamental observation is that future workload information beyond the full-size look-ahead window (corresponding to α =1) will not improve dynamic provisioning performance. Our algorithms are decentralized and easy to im-plement. We demonstrate their effectiveness in simulations using real-world traces.
When designing online algorithms, we utilize future input information because for many modern systems their short-term future inputs can be predicted by machine learning time-series analysis etc. We also test our algorithms in the presence of prediction errors in future workload information and the results show that our algorithms are robust to prediction errors. We believe that utilizing future information is a new and important degree of freedom in designing online algorithms. In traditional online algo¬rithm design future input information is not taken into account. Many online problems have online algorithms with optimal but large competitive ratios. Since future input information to some extent can be estimated accurately in many problems we believe that we should exploit such information in online algorithm design to achieve better competitive ratio and provide more competitive edge in both practice and theory.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
Lu, Tan.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-81).
Abstracts also in Chinese.
Abstract --- p.i
Acknowledgement --- p.iv
Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1
Chapter 1.1 --- Motivation --- p.1
Chapter 1.2 --- Contributions --- p.4
Chapter 1.3 --- Thesis Organization --- p.5
Chapter 2 --- Related Work --- p.6
Chapter 3 --- Problem Formulation --- p.10
Chapter 3.1 --- Settings and Models --- p.10
Chapter 3.2 --- Problem Formulation --- p.13
Chapter 4 --- Optimal Solution and Offline Algorithm --- p.15
Chapter 4.1 --- Structure of Optimal Solution --- p.15
Chapter 4.2 --- Intuitions and Observations --- p.17
Chapter 4.3 --- Offline Algorithm Achieving the Optimal Solution --- p.18
Chapter 5 --- Online Dynamic Provisioning --- p.21
Chapter 5.1 --- Dynamic Provisioning without FutureWorkload Information --- p.22
Chapter 5.2 --- Dynamic Provisioning with Future Workload Information --- p.23
Chapter 5.3 --- Adapting the Algorithms to Work with Discrete-Time Fluid Workload Model --- p.31
Chapter 5.4 --- Extending to Case Where Servers Have Setup Time --- p.32
Chapter 6 --- Experiments --- p.35
Chapter 6.1 --- Settings --- p.35
Chapter 6.2 --- Performance of the Proposed Online Algorithms --- p.38
Chapter 6.3 --- Impact of Prediction Error --- p.39
Chapter 6.4 --- Impact of Peak-to-Mean Ratio (PMR) --- p.40
Chapter 6.5 --- Discussion --- p.40
Chapter 6.6 --- Additional Experiments --- p.41
Chapter 7 --- A New Degree of Freedom for Designing Online Algorithm --- p.44
Chapter 7.1 --- The Lost Cow Problem --- p.45
Chapter 7.2 --- Secretary Problem without Future Information --- p.47
Chapter 7.3 --- Secretary Problem with Future Information --- p.48
Chapter 7.4 --- Summary --- p.50
Chapter 8 --- Conclusion --- p.51
Chapter A --- Proof --- p.54
Chapter A.1 --- Proof of Theorem 4.1.1 --- p.54
Chapter A.2 --- Proof of Theorem 4.3.1 --- p.57
Chapter A.3 --- Least idle vs last empty --- p.60
Chapter A.4 --- Proof of Theorem 5.2.2 --- p.61
Chapter A.5 --- Proof of Corollary 5.4.1 --- p.70
Chapter A.6 --- Proof of Lemma 7.1.1 --- p.72
Chapter A.7 --- Proof of Theorem 7.3.1 --- p.74
Bibliography --- p.76

Tu, Jinlong.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-95).
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Abstracts also in Chinese.

碩士
淡江大學
建築學系碩士班
98
Buildings have reached saturation state for the last decade in Taiwan.Major energy consumption generally does not concern energy saving issues particularly for old buildings which are accounted for 97% of all. This study is to detect and analyze problems of energy consumption in Taipei City administrative office buildings. As a doctor has to know the symptoms in order to diagnose and give treatments to diseases, problems for energy consumptions have to be detected and solutions evaluated before they are solved. The research uses district office space in Taipei City as samples for detecting and diagnosis energy consumption problems. Case studies and documents are reviewed to understand strategies and methods employed in office energy conservation in Taiwan. EUI data are collected to evaluate energy efficiency in office spaces. Temperature, humidity and wind speed are measured and recorded on site in the cold term for PMV-PPD calculation to generate comfort evaluation indexes. In the mean time, on site interviews are also conducted to understand real users’ immediate experience. The following results are concluded based on statistical data analysis： 1.Small office buildings have highest EUI values followed by medium-size and large size office buildings, indicating that small office buildings are in fact most energy consuming while large office are more energy efficient. 2.PMV-PPD values suggest that small office buildings have best human thermal comfort level, followed by medium-size office buildings and large office buildings. 3.Based on the above findings, medium size office buildings are considered most energy efficient without air conditioning in the cold terms due to fenestration distance between the two laterals of a building which allows natural ventilation for less energy consumption as well as better human thermal comfort level.

In this thesis, we study economics and operations of cloud computing, and we propose new matching methods in observational studies that enable us to estimate the effect of green building practices on market rents. In the first part, we study a stylized revenue maximization problem for a provider of cloud computing services, where the service provider (SP) operates an infinite capacity system in a market with heterogeneous customers with respect to their valuation and congestion sensitivity. The SP offers two service options: one with guaranteed service availability, and one where users bid for resource availability and only the "winning" bids at any point in time get access to the service. We show that even though capacity is unlimited, in several settings, depending on the relation between valuation and congestion sensitivity, the revenue maximizing service provider will choose to make the spot service option stochastically unavailable. This form of intentional service degradation is optimal in settings where user valuation per unit time increases sub-linearly with respect to their congestion sensitivity (i.e., their disutility per unit time when the service is unavailable) -- this is a form of "damaged goods." We provide some data evidence based on the analysis of price traces from the biggest cloud service provider, Amazon Web Services. In the second part, we study the competition on price and quality in cloud computing. The public "infrastructure as a service" cloud market possesses unique features that make it difficult to predict long-run economic behavior. On the one hand, major providers buy their hardware from the same manufacturers, operate in similar locations and offer a similar menu of products. On the other hand, the competitors use different proprietary "fabric" to manage virtualization, resource allocation and data transfer. The menus offered by each provider involve a discrete number of choices (virtual machine sizes) and allow providers to locate in different parts of the price-quality space. We document this differentiation empirically by running benchmarking tests. This allows us to calibrate a model of firm technology. Firm technology is an input into our theoretical model of price-quality competition. The monopoly case highlights the importance of competition in blocking "bad equilibrium" where performance is intentionally slowed down or options are unduly limited. In duopoly, price competition is fierce, but prices do not converge to the same level because of price-quality differentiation. The model helps explain market trends, such the healthy operating profit margin recently reported by Amazon Web Services. Our empirically calibrated model helps not only explain price cutting behavior but also how providers can manage a profit despite predictions that the market "should be" totally commoditized. The backbone of cloud computing is datacenters, whose energy consumption is enormous. In the past years, there has been an extensive effort on making the datacenters more energy efficient. Similarly, buildings are in the process going "green" as they have a major impact on the environment through excessive use of resources. In the last part of this thesis, we revisit a previous study about the economics of environmentally sustainable buildings and estimate the effect of green building practices on market rents. For this, we use new matching methods that take advantage of the clustered structure of the buildings data. We propose a general framework for matching in observational studies and specific matching methods within this framework that simultaneously achieve three goals: (i) maximize the information content of a matched sample (and, in some cases, also minimize the variance of a difference-in-means effect estimator); (ii) form the matches using a flexible matching structure (such as a one-to-many/many-to-one structure); and (iii) directly attain covariate balance as specified ---before matching--- by the investigator. To our knowledge, existing matching methods are only able to achieve, at most, two of these goals simultaneously. Also, unlike most matching methods, the proposed methods do not require estimation of the propensity score or other dimensionality reduction techniques, although with the proposed methods these can be used as additional balancing covariates in the context of (iii). Using these matching methods, we find that green buildings have 3.3% higher rental rates per square foot than otherwise similar buildings without green ratings ---a moderately larger effect than the one previously found.

碩士
嘉南藥理科技大學
環境工程與科學系
100
In order to reduce the effects of globe warming, the government of Taiwan has focused all attentions on promoting the policies and subsidies in terms of energy saving and carbon reduction (ESCR). The purpose of this study was to investigate the different aspects concerning with energy conservation and carbon reduction between Chong-Xing community of North Dist. and Wen-Nan community of South Dist. in Tainan. In terms of the conception of low carbon city, low carbon community, environmental satisfaction, and the recognition of low carbon community implementation, the Wen-Nan community got better positive sense and higher mean value of Likert scale than Chong-Xing community. Nevertheless, with higher potential to develop the low carbon community, Chong-Xing community reached better recognition related to a positive relationship between ESCR and environmental quality than Wen-Nan community. In terms of ESCR facilities, both communities showed relatively differences in the recognition, preferential purchase and actual possession. Particularly, highest recognition and lowest possession characteristics were observed in solar devices. For both communities, the main reason for purchasing ESCR devices is for environmental awareness. The most favorable action of ESCR for both communities is to turn off the light and pull the plug after you left. ESCR facility questions irrelevant to economic factors, differences of ESCR cognition affected by the occupations and salaries were also found.

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009, holds important lessons for United States climate policy. A one-time infusion of funding given primarily to local governments to for the purpose of reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, the policy had important but uneven effects. Most recipients were able to show progress on energy efficiency goals to meet program requirements. But communities with pre-existing interest in and experience with climate and energy programs tended to multiply the effects of the funding, using it to launch long-term efforts or prove concepts in order to secure further funding and support. The dissertation shows the value of communities’ participation in voluntary policy initiatives related to climate and energy, as municipalities with even a small amount of related experience were better positioned to turn a one-time infusion of federal funding into long-lasting programs. At the same time, the program’s outcomes demonstrate the enduring power and influence of the federal government in achieving more widespread success, as municipalities that had not previously participated in climate and energy planning were generally unable to continue their work once federal funding was removed, even in the presence of local champions and demonstrated successes. The program also demonstrates that using federal grants-in-aid to accomplish policy goals has important limitations. Though EECBG grants often had a major impact on local policies, their uneven impact exposes the risk that grants-in-aid may further stratify local governments’ capacities in the policy areas to which they are applied. Rather than evening out the playing field, it is possible for such programs to increase the disparities between policy leaders and the rest. The dissertation points to the importance of tailoring federal programs to varying local needs and to the importance of building local differences into program evaluations.

碩士
嘉南藥理科技大學
環境工程與科學系暨研究所
99
The science of global warming has become a political and policy issue. In response to the international trend toward energy conservation and carbon reduction, the Environmental Protection Administration, Executive Yuan, R. O. C (Taiwan) has adopted energy conservation and carbon reduction into the implementation of environmental reforms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the different aspects concerning with energy conservation and carbon reduction between Jin-hwa community, South District of Tainan City, and Da-hu community, Hu-nei District of Kaohsiung City. The results indicated the positively environmental satisfaction questionnaire of Jin-hwa community was higher than it of Da-hu community due to the urban-rural gap and experiences in implementing environmental reforms. The positive approval of energy conservation and carbon reduction of Jin-hwa community was also higher than that of Da-hu community because of higher information flows and living standards. For both Jin-hwa and Da-hu communities, prior initiative to purchase energy conservation and carbon reduction devives was economic issue. Concerning advanced analysis of approval of purchasing energy conservation and carbon reduction devives, a higher consistence existed in Jin-hwa community. Based on the results of Five-Point Likert Items, the positive satisfaction questionnaire was considered as a reliable tool in the qualitative evaluation of satisfaction questionnaire. Key words: Community Empowerment, Energy Conservation and Carbon

While the utilization of energy efficiency has grown in recent years, it has not been distributed evenly across the country. In some states, over 2% of a utility’s budget is spent on energy efficiency; in other states that number is 0. Much of the growth in energy efficiency has been due to state policies and the development utility-level energy efficiency programs. Yet, all utility programs are not created equal. Because they are often exempt from state regulation (and therefore state energy efficiency policy), publicly-owned utilities have traditionally lagged behind IOUs when it comes to EE programs. This research quantifies energy efficiency programs in four Midwestern states: Iowa, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. The first part of the thesis evaluates 474 electric utilities as to whether they had an energy efficiency program in 2010. The second part of the thesis evaluates each utility’s EE program spending in terms of energy and utility specific factors, as well as socio-economic, housing stock and political variables. Through descriptive statistical analysis and the creation of a predictable linear regression model, this thesis identifies relationships between the dependent variable (EE program spending as a % of a utility’s total revenue) and commonly cited barriers to EE program development. Through the analysis, this study finds widespread EE program coverage in Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin. Also, it finds states are the greatest predictor of utility energy efficiency program spending. A utility’s ownership type and the share of homes that heat with electricity are also significant predictors of program spending.

The purpose of this research was to assess the condition of open spaces, community perceptions, benefits, threats and challenges faced by open spaces within KwaDukuza. The research is regarded as important within the context of threats posed by uncontrolled development to urban biodiversity. Primary and secondary documentary sources on open spaces in the study area were consulted. Data was gathered through the use of a questionnaire, with a sample of 100 respondents; observation; structured interviews with key respondents and discussions with focus groups. The research revealed a consistent pattern of threatened urban biodiversity when compared with other studies. The main finding was that the open spaces were under severe strain and threat in the area of KwaDukuza due to development. There was a noted lack of knowledge about key tools meant to safeguard the environment. The study concluded by recommending community participation, education and an open space policy framework for KwaDukuza.
Geography
M.A. (Geography)