Although there is a growing literature on non-climatic drivers of vulnerability to climate change, there are only a few empirical case studies that demonstrate the process through which vulnerability is produced. Moreover, existing climate literatures offer very limited insights on the linkages between governance and vulnerability to climate change. Within the governance framework, this dissertation tends to contribute to the current body of knowledge by exploring the role of governance in producing vulnerability to climate change. Using southwest coastal Bangladesh as an example, this study addresses three specific research questions: (1) how mastaanocracy, a form of uneven power relations shapes vulnerability to climate change; (2) the impact of corruption, particularly bribery and extortion on livelihoods in the face of climate change; and (3) the linkage between social exclusion and climate change vulnerability. Findings suggest that unequal power relation and corruption reduces the ability of the population to cope with the stresses of climate change. Social exclusion adds an extra burden to already vulnerable segments of population. On the other hand, climatic change pushes marginalized community further away thus exacerbating social exclusion. Based on the findings, I argue that it is difficult to build resilience and achieve successful adaptation without addressing the structural factors of power and inequality.

Magistro darbe, analizuojant metodinę literatūrą, aprašomuoju metodu pateikiama automobilinio transporto techninės būklės vaidmuo eismo saugumo ir aplinkosaugos teorijose, bei analizuojami automobilinio transporto priemonių techninę būklę sąlygojantys veiksniai. Taip pat remiantis metodine literatūra, norminiais aktais atskleista automobilinio transporto priemonių techninės būklės kontrolės sistema bei nagrinėjami reikalavimai institucijoms, kurios užtikrina kelių transporto priemonių tvarkingą techninę būklę, atlikta Šiaulių TAC kokybės vadybos sistemos (KVS) analizė bei Šiaulių TAC atsakomybės, įgaliojimų ir ryšių analizė. Darbe pateikiami Lietuvos gyventojų nuomonės apie korupciją automobilių techninių apžiūrų centruose tyrimo rezultatai. Magistro darbo pabaigoje pateikiamos išvados bei rekomendacijos. / In this master’s paper the role of motoring transport technical condition in the fields of road safety and environment control by analyzing methodical literature and using descriptive method is given as well as the factors, conditioning motoring vehicles’ technical condition, are analyzed. Also with reference to methodical literature, there is a motoring vehicles’ technical condition inspection system revealed by the means, based on the normative acts and the requirements for institutions, ensuring road vehicles orderly technical condition is under consideration as well as analysis of Šiauliai TAC (technical inspection center) quality management system (KVS) and Šiauliai TAC responsibility, authorities and communications performed. There are given the opinions of Lithuanian citizens about corruption that takes in technical inspection centers concerning test results. The conclusions and recommendations are given in the end of the Master’s work.

No description available.

La Convention des Nations Unies contre la corruption, adoptée en 2003, est le premier outil international criminalisant la corruption de façon aussi détaillée. Ce mémoire tente d'évaluer sa portée en analysant les dispositions concernant la prévention, la criminalisation, la coopération internationale et le recouvrement d'avoirs. Il tente d’évaluer la pertinence et l'efficacité de la Convention en illustrant ses défis en matière de conformité, pour ensuite étudier d'autres outils internationaux existants qui lui font compétition. Malgré sa portée élargie, il est débattu que la Convention souffre de lacunes non négligeables qui pourraient restreindre son impact à l'égard de la conduite d'États Membres. / The United Nations Convention Against Corruption (adopted in 2003) is the first global in-depth treaty on corruption. This work attempts to assess its significance by analyzing its provisions, in particular concerning the areas of prevention, criminalization, international cooperation and asset recovery. It then seeks to assess its relevancy and effectiveness by giving an overview of the Convention's main compliance challenges, as well as other existing initiatives that tackle corruption. Although the Convention innovates in many respects, it is argued that it also suffers from weaknesses that cannot be overlooked, preventing it from having a real impact on States' behavior.

This thesis consists of four essays. The first essay looks at pollution taxation under capital mobility, and analyzes the role of pre-commitment by countries to their pollution tax rate. A polluting firm sells its product in two countries, and can locate and produce in a single country or in both countries. Due to the discrete-choice nature of the firm's location problem, the countries' welfare functions are discontinuous in their pollution tax rate. We show that when the countries cannot pre-commit to their pollution tax, the firm can still engender tax competition between them by strategically locating in both the countries. Moreover, pre-commitment pollution taxation may not be welfare improving for the countries, although it always makes the firm better off. / The second essay studies the effect of liberalization on corruption. Corruptible inspectors enforce an environmental regulation on firms, and are monitored by an honest regulator. Liberalization not only increases the variety of goods and the marginal utility of accepting a bribe, but also puts pressure on the regulator to curb corruption. The interaction of these two effects can cause corruption to initially increase with liberalization, and then decrease beyond a threshold. Moreover, equilibrium corruption is lower when the regulator is able to pre-commit to her monitoring frequency. / The third essay analyzes optimal labeling (information revelation) procedures for hidden attributes of credence goods. Consumers are heterogeneous in their preference for the hidden attribute, and producers can either self-label their products, or have them certified by a third party. The government can impose self or third-party labeling requirements on either the "green" or the "brown" producers. When corrupt producers can affix spurious labels, the government needs to monitor them. A mandatory self-labeling policy is shown to generally dominate mandatory third-party labeling. / The fourth essay develops formulas for computing the economy-wide energy intensity decline rate by aggregating sectoral energy efficiency improvements, and sectoral shifts in economic activities. The formulas are used to (i) construct plausible scenarios for the global rate of energy intensity decline, and (ii) show the restraining role of the "electricity generation" sector on the energy intensity decline rate.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

Le Mexique est reconnu comme étant l’un des endroits le plus dangereux au monde pour exercer la profession de journaliste. Depuis 2000, plus de 80 journalistes y ont été tués. Cette violence est en partie attribuable à la lutte au narcotrafic que mène le gouvernement mexicain. Cette guerre au crime organisé est particulièrement intense depuis 2006, date de l’arrivée au pouvoir du gouvernement de Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. Pris au centre d’un véritable feu croisé, voire triangulé, les journalistes subissent les pressions exercées par le crime organisé, les médias qui les emploient et les autorités gouvernementales. Afin de comprendre la situation dans laquelle ils se trouvent, une étude qualitative, par le tranchement d’entrevues et de questionnaires, a permis d’identifier et de mieux comprendre les dilemmes auxquels les journalistes font face. L’étude révèle que le journaliste mexicain est avant tout préoccupé par sa santé, la protection de sa vie, de son intégrité physique ou celle de ses proches. Les dilemmes auxquels ils font face sont aussi d’ordre économique, éthique et moral.

Sensor networks consist of small sensing devices that collaboratively fulfill a sensing task, such as monitoring the soil in an agricultural field or measuring vital signs in a marathon runner. To avoid cumbersome and expensive cabling, nodes in a sensor network are powered by batteries and communicate wirelessly. As a consequence of the latter, a sensor network's communication is affected by its radio environment, i.e., the environment's propagation characteristics and the presence of other radio devices. This thesis addresses three issues related to the impact of the radio environment on sensor networks. Firstly, in order to draw conclusions from experimental results, it is necessary to assess how the environment and the experiment infrastructure affect the results. We design a sensor network testbed, dubbed Sensei-UU, to be easily relocatable. By performing an experiment in different environments, a researcher can asses the environments’ impact on results. We further augment Sensei-UU with support for mobile nodes. The implemented mobility approach adds only little variance to results, and therefore enables repeatable experiments with mobility. The repeatability of experiments increases the confidence in conclusions drawn from them. Secondly, sensor networks may experience poor communication performance due to cross-technology radio interference, especially in office and residential environments. We consider the problem of detecting and classifying the type of interference a sensor network is exposed to. We find that different sources of interference each leave a characteristic "fingerprint" on individual, corrupt 802.15.4 packets. We design and implement the SoNIC system that enables sensor nodes to classify interference using these fingerprints. SoNIC supports accurate classification in both a controlled and an uncontrolled environment. Finally, we consider transmission errors in an outdoor sensor network. In such an environment, errors occur despite the absence of interference if the signal-to-noise ratio at a receiver is too low. We study the characteristics of corrupt packets collected from an outdoor sensor network deployment. We find that content transformation in corrupt packets follows a specific pattern, and that most corrupt packets contain only few errors. We propose that the pattern may be useful for applications that can operate on inexact data, because it reduces the uncertainty associated with a corrupt packet. / WISENET

Corruption is a major cause and result of poverty around the globe. It arises at all levels of society, from national governments and military to small businesses and sports. Corruption affects all elements of society in some way as it undermines democracy and economic growth as well as the environment and people’s health. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine if corruption has a significant effect on economic growth in developing countries. The empirical analysis is conducted with a regression analysis, using data from recognized institutions. Other variables that can affect GDP per capita growth are also examined such as the level of democracy, fertility rate, life expectancy, education and the Initial GDP per capita to test for conditional convergence. In our main model, the empirical results show that corruption does not have a significant effect on economic growth but this is basically due to that the model exhibits multicollinearity. In our second model, where we omitted the variables Democracy, Initial GDP and Life expectancy, we found that corruption has a significant, negative effect on economic growth. This is in accordance with previous empirical results which hold that more corruption in a nation leads to less economic growth.

Special Issue on Institution Design for Conflict Resolution and Negotiation : Theory and Praxis (February 1-2, 2014, Nagoya, Japan)