Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--University of Louisville, 2007. / Title and description from thesis home page (viewed May 14, 2007). Department of Industrial Engineering. Vita. "May 2007." Includes bibliographical references (p. 34-35).

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Helsinki, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the World Wide Web.

Marine renewable energy developments (MREDs) are becoming an increasing feature of the marine environment. Scotland has considerable potential for generating energy from the marine environment in the form of extensive wind, wave and tidal-stream resources. Scotland also hosts numerous internationally important breeding populations of seabirds and Scottish territorial waters represent a key overwintering area for many species. EU legislation requires that MREDs do not damage the integrity of protected seabird populations but potential effects of MREDs on seabirds are not yet fully understood. This thesis aims to address gaps in knowledge regarding how MREDs may affect seabird populations. I generate vulnerability and confidence indices to predict the effects of offshore wind, wave and tidal-stream renewable energy developments on Scottish seabird populations; track the movements of a seabird species identified as lacking in data to better understand overlap with MREDs; and investigate seabird use of a high current flow environment leased as a tidal-stream energy development site. Overall, this thesis indicates that seabird responses to MREDs are likely to be species-specific and will vary dependent on the development location and design of the energy generating technology. My findings indicate that effects of MREDs will differ dependent on individual foraging strategies, age and life stage of individuals, which implies that MREDs are likely to differently affect subsections of seabird populations.

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D.Ing. / Transmission networks change continuously when new supply requests are made, network reinforcements are installed and equipment configuration changes. Therefore, network design, operation and control requirements change. To manage this, controllers are being developed to assist human network controllers who might not always be specialists in equipment operation and characteristics. A transmission network comprises multiple variables, some dependent on others. The resistive portion of a load (PLoad) and the total reactive power (Q) installed close to the load can be set in relation to each other. This relationship forms the basic concept of the QP ratio for a transmission network. This ratio is not standardly used as a variable in network operation or control. This thesis explores this new QP ratio in more depth for application in different networks. This concept is developed and investigated in detail and equations are derived from first principles. The usability of the QP ratio is described and calculations are done for existing networks. It is shown that each network has its own unique QP ratio that can be used as information for human operators or as part of a controller device. This information can assist in determining actions required to be taken by controllers and operators. This thesis investigates aspects related to the use of a QP ratio in transmission networks as far as system operation and network control is concerned. The information provided in this thesis could be developed further to assist in implementing of the QP ratio in transmission network control rooms or systems. This will contribute to the provision of more reliable, robust and controlled electrical networks.

M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / Engineering design capabilities are highly specialised skills and are often begot through a number of years in a field of specialisation, the research’s aim is to establish how this engineering design capability can be brought into a an organisation through the International Technology Transfer (ITT) medium. In this paper a case study is presented whereby a South African State Owned Organisation (SOC) collaborated with an international company for the acquisition of a new technology, which in turn meant the acquisition of new know-how for the organisation. Despite the dynamics that inherently arise due to the Developed versus Developing Country dynamics it is imperative that the knowledge transfer (KT) initiatives are just as successful, however the difficulty is faced in actually measuring the effectiveness of the knowledge transfer processes. The local engineering industry is still growing and many more of these collaborations are still to be seen in the country, hence it makes it imperative from an engineering management perspective that the quality of the knowledge that can be salvaged from these collaborations is great value for money and is unquestionable. To not only prove the main drivers of the effectiveness of the transfer but to also highlight the areas for improvement a survey in the form of a questionnaire was issued out to the participants of the ITT within the local organisation. Based on literature on similar studies and from the survey results, it is clear that training and engineering human resource development in engineering designs of the technology being transferred is the most important method of ensuring maximum technology transfer. Moreover it was established from the survey results that most often than not this aspect of the transfer process, although ranked as important, is not structured strategically for the benefit of the transferee. Herein, a proposal is thus made as to the key interventions that may be adopted to close the gaps in the technological knowledge aspirations of the organisation.

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to analytical Jurisprudence by studying in depth a concept that is characteristically legal and, at the same time, both a traditional term of descriptive political analyses and familiar in ordinary non-technical usage. The concept selected for study is "judicial power". The intended point of the study is fourfold: (1) to illustrate a useful method of analytical jurisprudential enquiry: (2) to discover and illustrate the types of features, problems and lessons connected with the use of legal concepts, or of theoretical or commonsense concepts in a legal context: (3) to compare the approaches of descriptive theorists and of lawyers to those problems and features , and (4) to provide thereby some concrete evidence of the distinction (or absence of distinction) between legal thought, method and system, and the thought, method and system of commonsense and the purified commonsense no of descriptive theory. A long introductory chapter seeks to explicate these particular aims, and to place them in the context of contemporary analytical jurisprudence. In the first place, it argues that the sharp distinction, drawn by Prof. H. L. A. Hart, between descruotive statements or "statements of fact", and legal statements or "conclusions from rules", is misleading and ought to be abandoned as a solution for the puzzle it was put forward to resolve. This argument, if correct, clears the ground for a more-or-less straightforward comparison between the "descriptive" use of the term "judicial power" by political analyst from Aristotle to modern times, and the use of the same term in "conclusions of law" arrived at by Justices if the High Court of Australia in interpreting the Australian federal Constitution. Moreover, in the course of the argument it is suggested that the general criterion of the correctness of statements, legal or otherwise, is the absence of further relevant questions that would lead to a revision of the statement, so that an analysis of the special feature of legal language should not rely on the simple distinction put forward by Hart, but should seek to identify the general and special conditions surrounding the making of correct statements in legal as compared with other realms of discourse. Several such conditions are suggested a priori; legal discourse is distinguished from commonsense discourse by (1) the desire for a system in affairs; (2) the need to resolve disputes by giving final answers; (3) the consequent definition of terms, and limitation on further questions; (4) the consequent possibility of authority and precedent, further limiting questions, and providing (5) an actual system of definite terms and relations on which to base a transition to more abstract concepts expressing generically various systematic relationships possible between definite terms. A conclusion of the whole thesis is that such features or conditions of legal discourse may readily be identified in the history of the Australian discussions of judicial power.

University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology / Department of Electromechanical Engineering