National transport policy should be determined by choosing among existing policy and alternatives to it on the basis of national and regional development objectives. This approach to transport policy formulation is explored within one important transport sector: high-bulk, long-haul freight in Western Canada. The implications of national rail policy are most pertinent, and most keenly felt, in economic regions dependent upon the export of primary resources, and it is in these markets which rail displays an enduring natural competitive advantage. The two transcontinental rail carriers are in fact dominant in Western freight movement. The methodology rests upon an analysis of the theoretical literatures, federal legislation, published statistics, empirical studies, regulatory decisions, and various position statements pertaining to rail policy. The analysis is augmented by a case study of "policy in action" with regard to Saskatchewan's potash industry. Four policy options are presented, comprised of existing policy and three recommended changes advocated by various interests. Each policy option represents a cumulatively greater degree of government intervention, and each is evaluated against five criteria, developed out of the facts of Western Canadian economic geography, stated objectives of the 1967 National Transportation Act and Bill C-33 (1977), and basic development objectives on which there is broad national consensus. Application of the evaluative criteria to the four policy options leads to the following conclusions: 1) Integration of the two national railroads is a requisite for achieving maximum economic and operating efficiency within the rail industry itself. Despite increasing competition from trucking, rail continues to constitute a natural monopoly in the markets for which it has an inherent advantage, and these in turn remain a significant proportion of total rail markets. In these bulk commodity markets, intramodal competition is weak or non-existent, and a policy response of encouraging the two national carriers to compete under conditions of commercial freedom results in duplication of capital investment, loss of cost and quality-of-service benefits to users, retardation of technological innovation, skew-ness of industrial location patterns, and an inhibition of rail's ability to compete intermodally in other markets. The history of the CNR is a testimony to the inappropriateness of contrived competition as a policy response in a natural monopoly market. 2) National transportation policy must serve the goals of national and regional policy. The railways' exclusive pursuit of economic efficiency impedes the achievement of allocative efficiency by its inattention to the significant externalities (both positive and negative) attendant the rail industry, and by its potential to thwart existing national policies and programs whose goals go beyond economic efficiency. Second, rationalization of routes and services arising from legislative directives to provide only compensatory rail service is resulting in atrophy of a developed rail network which may later be required to meet increased demand for rail service. 3) The unified national rail system must come under public ownership. Canadian history shows that the two favoured remedies for abuse of rail monopoly power (contrived competition and regulation) have proved in- effective. Alternatively, public ownership provides the best opportunity for ensuring performance of public duties by rail, and for achieving public accountability for the considerable sum of public-sector investment that rail will require within the next decade. 4) Planning for rail must be decentralized, participatory and integrated with planning for other modes. At present, no clear demarcation of policy-making authority exists between the legislative and judicial functions of the federal government with respect to rail transport: in the absence of unambiguous directives from the Ministry (Transport Canada), the Canadian Transport Commission is, in practice, assuming a policy role through its semi-judicial decisions. The Ministry must re-establish its full responsibility for transport policy, and: a) revise the CTC's regulatory mandate to include only the making of regulatory and appeal decisions on a case-by-case basis, according to directives or criteria from the Ministry; b) reorganize the structure of the CTC to permit both regional representation and an intermodal approach to regulation; c) provide clear policy directives to the management of the rail company; and d) provide an institutional mechanism by which provincial governments and labour can participate in the formulation of transport policy affecting them. 5) A unified, publicly-owned national rail system will deliver its full promise only when accompanied by public-sector economic planning. Employing transport as a policy tool re-introduces the opportunity for "political interference" in the rail industry, but future intervention should take place only in the form of formally-adopted economic strategies. To have the railways respond to the demands of regional populism or special-interest lobbies per se invites squander of scarce resources, but to have them respond to public duties required in the service of planned economic development enhances the probability of a rational, economic and politically responsible allocation of those resources. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

This thesis deals with the conversion of financial statements and accounting data from the national adjustments to IFRS. Includes ways and means by which the transfer can be achieved, but also their limitations and problems that are associated with the conversion. In the theoretical part the selected blocks converted tries to analyze national approaches with a view looking in the IFRS conversion and outline possible if the sector is needed. The theoretical part is then applied to data from real companies and calculations are made each conversion.

Memory (cache, DRAM, and disk) is in charge of providing data and instructions to a computer’s processor. In order to maximize performance, the speeds of the memory and the processor should be equal. However, using memory that always match the speed of the processor is prohibitively expensive. Computer hardware designers have managed to drastically lower the cost of the system with the use of memory caches by sacrificing some performance. A cache is a small piece of fast memory that stores popular data so it can be accessed faster. Modern computers have evolved into a hierarchy of caches, where a memory level is the cache for a larger and slower memory level immediately below it. Thus, by using caches, manufacturers are able to store terabytes of data at the cost of cheapest memory while achieving speeds close to the speed of the fastest one. The most important decision about managing a cache is what data to store in it. Failing to make good decisions can lead to performance overheads and over- provisioning. Surprisingly, caches choose data to store based on policies that have not changed in principle for decades. However, computing paradigms have changed radically leading to two noticeably different trends. First, caches are now consol- idated across hundreds to even thousands of processes. And second, caching is being employed at new levels of the storage hierarchy due to the availability of high-performance flash-based persistent media. This brings four problems. First, as the workloads sharing a cache increase, it is more likely that they contain dupli- cated data. Second, consolidation creates contention for caches, and if not managed carefully, it translates to wasted space and sub-optimal performance. Third, as contented caches are shared by more workloads, administrators need to carefully estimate specific per-workload requirements across the entire memory hierarchy in order to meet per-workload performance goals. And finally, current cache write poli- cies are unable to simultaneously provide performance and consistency guarantees for the new levels of the storage hierarchy. We addressed these problems by modeling their impact and by proposing solu- tions for each of them. First, we measured and modeled the amount of duplication at the buffer cache level and contention in real production systems. Second, we created a unified model of workload cache usage under contention to be used by administrators for provisioning, or by process schedulers to decide what processes to run together. Third, we proposed methods for removing cache duplication and to eliminate wasted space because of contention for space. And finally, we pro- posed a technique to improve the consistency guarantees of write-back caches while preserving their performance benefits.

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The master thesis focuses on problematics of preparation of consolidated financial statements. In the first part the important terms and methods, which are linked to consolidation, are explained. Based on this theoretical background the practical part focuses on making of consolidation rules and consolidated financial statements.

Master’s thesis deals with the use of virtualization and consolidation technologies in order to optimize IT infrastructure in a selected company. The analysis contains current state of IT infrastructure and requirements for future upgrade. The theoretical part contains description of technologies and procedures used in virtualization and consolidation. Subsequently, the proposal of optimization and expansion of IT equipment is created together with management, implementation and economic evaluation of the solution.

An acquisition bid is like any other proposal for risky investment. The difference arises due to additional source of risk arising from two different sources of information asymmetry due to private knowledge held by the bidder and target. We hypothesize that the bidding process evolves in a manner to optimize bidder's investment in the target through a process of joint signalling. Medium of exchange and bid premium are used as the two signal elements simultaneously by the bidder. We develop a multiple signalling model of the bidding process which is fully revealing in equilibrium.

Research has been completed in order to rapidly manufacture spacecraft thermal control technologies embedded in spacecraft structural panels using ultrasonic consolidation. This rapid manufacturing process enables custom thermal control designs in the time frame necessary for responsive space. Successfully embedded components include temperature sensors, heaters, wire harnessing, pre-manufactured heat pipes, and custom integral heat pipes. High conductivity inserts and custom integral pulsating heat pipes were unsuccessfully attempted. This research shows the viability of rapid manufacturing of spacecraft structures with embedded thermal control using ultrasonic consolidation.

A report on a research study presented to The Department of Social Work School of Human and Community Development Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Social Work January 2018 / When change is introduced in the workplace, marginalized employees may develop a negative attitude towards the process due to ignorance and fear. The study aimed to explore the cleaning staffs’ perceptions on the municipal pre- mergers between two West Rand Municipalities. The focus study was to explore the cleaning staff members’ emotions and reactions towards the merger before it was to be implemented specifically focusing on their perceptions around job security, job responsibility, and communication. There is currently little research done on pre-mergers, especially between political organizations. The research followed a qualitative approach in a form of a case study. Face to face interviews were conducted with seventeen (17) cleaning staff from two Municipalities to collect data utilizing a self – developed, semi structured interview schedule. Sampling was done using a non-probability convenience sampling method. These employees are usually marginalized and have limited if any decision making powers in their working space. The data was analysed utilizing thematic analysis. The findings identified that even the most marginalized of employees could have an impact on change processes based on several factors and there is a relationship between a previous workplace change experience and a new one. The study transformed into a comparative study as marked differences emerged because one of the Municipalities had been through a merger previously and it had a different impact as compared to those who had not gone through the merger process previously. The findings revealed that communication strategies impact on the perceptions of all levels of employees regardless if they participate in the planning process of any organisational change process or not. Open communication and constant consultation by an employer was found to inspire employees to do well because they become confident of their future within the organization. The research findings carve a way to future pre- merger studies with deeper insight into the usually marginalized groups in the workplace. / MT 2018

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