This thesis contributes to the research literature by reporting the results of an investigation that explores whether regulatory governance practices in Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector are fit for purpose. The rationale for the study originated from issues relating to the management of Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector that were identified in the extant literature. These issues were of such significance that their resolution could impact positively and materially on Nigeria’s economy and at the same time the research would fill a gap in the relevant literature. The data for this empirical research were collected using questionnaire and interview instruments and the findings were analysed against a backdrop of the Public Interest Theory of Regulation. The results obtained revealed perceptions of major weaknesses in the regulatory governance practices adopted by Nigeria’s downstream regulatory agencies namely: the regulatory independence of Nigeria’s downstream regulators has declined over time; there are flaws in the accountability practices of Nigeria’s downstream regulators; and there are other related factors such as the absence of openness, poor consultation and a lack of public sensitisation that affect the transparency practices of Nigeria’s downstream regulators. Interestingly, the results also revealed that although Nigeria’s downstream regulators appear to possess the required skills to regulate the sector, their talents are not being fully utilised. Recommendations to resolve the weaknesses identified are made which, if properly and effectively implemented, should have a significant positive impact on the Nigerian economy. Such recommendations may also be applicable to those countries with similar regulatory governance challenges.

<p>This case study was made in Kiru Valley in the northeast Tanzania in order to study the water management to get a picture of which institutions that are involved, how conflicts are resolved, and also to see if all farmers in the area have an influence in the management. The area consists of big-scale farmers, small-scale farmers with IFAD irrigation scheme and small-scale farmers without irrigation scheme. The irrigation scheme was built in 2004 in the villages Mawemairo and Matufa. Mapea village is located downstream and has got less water after the scheme was built. The case study was conducted by semi-structured interviews with some officials at different institutions in the District, Mawemairo and Mapea and also with some farmers in Mawemairo. The results were mainly analysed with Integrated Water Resources Management approach which have been adapted by Tanzania government. Mawemairo and Matufa have established a Water Users Association (WUA) and the water management seems to work quite good for those who are members of this. But those farmers who are not members of a WUA seem to be outside of the management of the rivers in Kiru Valley. What is missing is a platform where all relevant stakeholders in Kiru Valley, like farmers, can participate in the decision-making and where conflicts can be resolved.</p>

This case study was made in Kiru Valley in the northeast Tanzania in order to study the water management to get a picture of which institutions that are involved, how conflicts are resolved, and also to see if all farmers in the area have an influence in the management. The area consists of big-scale farmers, small-scale farmers with IFAD irrigation scheme and small-scale farmers without irrigation scheme. The irrigation scheme was built in 2004 in the villages Mawemairo and Matufa. Mapea village is located downstream and has got less water after the scheme was built. The case study was conducted by semi-structured interviews with some officials at different institutions in the District, Mawemairo and Mapea and also with some farmers in Mawemairo. The results were mainly analysed with Integrated Water Resources Management approach which have been adapted by Tanzania government. Mawemairo and Matufa have established a Water Users Association (WUA) and the water management seems to work quite good for those who are members of this. But those farmers who are not members of a WUA seem to be outside of the management of the rivers in Kiru Valley. What is missing is a platform where all relevant stakeholders in Kiru Valley, like farmers, can participate in the decision-making and where conflicts can be resolved.

The sources and sinks of energy for transient waves in the Martian atmosphere are investigated, applying diagnostic techniques developed for the analysis of terrestrial baroclinic waves to output from a Mars General Circulation Model. These diagnostic techniques include the vertically averaged eddy kinetic energy and regression analysis. The results suggest that the primary source of the kinetic energy of the waves is baroclinic energy conversion in localized regions. It is also shown that there exist preferred regions of baroclinic energy conversion. In addition, it is shown that downstream baroclinic development plays an important role in the evolution of the waves and in the baroclinic energy conversion process. This is the first time that evidence for downstream baroclinic development has been found for an atmosphere other than the terrestrial one.

Made available in DSpace on 2009-11-18T19:00:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 carlosmarcal.pdf: 3313126 bytes, checksum: d6d4591f8e1952ab5c4eddd542d632cf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / This study aimed to verify the steps involved in the deployment of Balanced Score Card as a system of strategic management at a Brazilian public company. It also had intended to verify if company can be considered a Strategy Focused Organization, by comparing the results of the management system implementation with the items listed in the literature, which also highlights the ability to obtain maximizing the financial and human resources through the strategic alignment. The results demonstrated that the company has implemented the management system according to the method indicated in the literature and after implementation presented evidence that, although has optimizing points on the alignment process, it can be considered a Strategy Focused Organization. / Esse trabalho buscou verificar a etapas envolvidas na implantação do Balanced Score Card como sistema de gestão estratégica em uma empresa pública brasileira. Também tinha como objetivo verificar se a empresa poderia ser considerada uma organização orientada para estratégia, através de comparação entre os resultados obtidos com a implantação do sistema de gestão e os itens de verificação apontados na literatura, entre os quais se destaca a capacidade de se obter a maximização dos recursos financeiros e humanos através do alinhamento estratégico. Os resultados encontrados, demonstraram que a empresa estudada implantou o sistema de gestão segundo a metodologia indicada na literatura e após a implementação apresentou evidências de que , embora apresente pontos de otimização no processo de alinhamento, pode ser considerada uma empresa orientada para estratégia.

Doctor of Philosophy / Economics / Yang M. Chang / This dissertation comprises of three essays in industrial economics. My first essay analyzes social efficiency of entry into a downstream oligopoly of a vertical market structure, where an upstream supplier sells an essential input to all firms producing downstream. In the downstream markets, a multiproduct firm is both a monopoly in its own product and a leader in a different product market with free entry of followers. We show that in the presence of scale economies, entry is socially insufficient. The insufficiency of entry is due to the fact that entry generates a business-creating effect significantly large enough to dominate a business-stealing effect, regardless of whether the upstream supplier's input pricing strategy is discriminatory or uniform. This suggests that entry regulation as a public policy is socially undesirable in the downstream oligopoly of a vertical market structure. My second essay examines differences in welfare implications between discriminatory and uniform input price regimes in vertically related markets where a multiproduct firm operates downstream in two separate markets: one is a monopoly and the other is an oligopoly with entry of new firms. In the analysis, we analyze how the downstream entry into the oligopolistic market affects social efficiency. In an open economy, whether the input price regime is discriminatory or uniform, entry is always socially excessive in the presence of scale economies. This contrasts with the existing studies in the literature that entry is always socially insufficient in an open economy with the presence of scale economies. Focusing on the scenario where vertically integrated producer (VIP) adopts a non-foreclosure strategy, my third essay shows that downstream entry is socially insufficient despite scale economies and the marginal cost difference between the VIP and its retail competitors. The non-foreclosure equilibrium arises when the VIP's wholesale profit from the sales of an essential input is sufficiently large and the VIP shares the profit with its downstream competitors. For the case of an open economy where the VIP is a foreign firm, downstream entry continues to be socially insufficient. Entry regulation is therefore socially undesirable, but a production subsidy encouraging downstream entry is shown to be a welfare-improving policy.

Orientadores: Telma Teixeira Franco, Reginaldo Guirardello / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Quimica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-28T22:33:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Santos_EveraldoSilvinodos_D.pdf: 4348712 bytes, checksum: f3506ac5746394a5083752c78e0b99b3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2001 / Resumo: O presente trabalho refere-se ao uso da técnica de adsorção em lejto expandido para recuperar e purificar enzimas. Aspectos fundamentais da adsorção em leito expandido são abordados, utilizando lisozima e soro albumina bovina como proteínas modelo, e as enzimas, gliceraldeído-3-fosfato desidrogenase de Saccharomyces cerevisae, xilanase (extrato comercial) e quitosanase produzida por Bacil/us cereus. A avaliação da influência do uso de dois distribuidores, poroso e do tipo prato perfurado, mostrou que o distribuidor do tipo prato perfurado favoreceu mais à adsorção em leito expandido e que os adsorventes Streamline@ SP e Streamline@ DEAE possuem uma ampla distribuição de tamanho de partículas favorecendo ao fenômeno de segregação (Capítulo 2 - Artigo publicado no IEX 2000 (Cambridge/UK)). O uso de um processo integrado para recuperar e purificar a enzima intracelular Gliceraldeído 3-fosfato desidrogenase mostrou-se bem sucedido. O desempenho hidrodinâmico e cromatográfico foi estudado usando um adsorvente de estrutura pelicular (Pellicular) e dois adsorventes porosos comerciais (Stream1ine e Macrosorb) . Os resultados mostraram que o adsorvente Pellicular apresentou as melhores propriedades hidrodinâmicas e cromatográficas. (Capítulo 3 - Artigo em parceria e que será submetido à periódico internacional). O estudo da influência do uso de uma altura do leito empacotado, de 0,050 m e de 0,075 m na ALE operando-se em 10% da curva de ruptura, mostrou que uma altura de 0,075 m foi mais eficiente. Para o sistema lisozima - Streamline@ DEAE o rendimento aumentou com o aumento da velocidade linear enquanto que para o sistema BSA - Streamline@ SP esse fato não foi observado. Neste caso, para o sistema BSA - Streamline@ SP, a transferência de massa parece ser limitada pela menor densidade de carga acarretando assim em menores valores de eficiência em 10% de ruptura. (Capítulo 4 - Artigo aceito para publicação no periódico Biosepara_ion). O estudo da influência do conteúdo de células na adsorção em leito expandido mostrou que quando foi utilizado o extrato com o conteúdo de 5% de células (peso úmido), em leito expandido, o desempenho da purificação foi comprometido. (Capítulo 5 - Artigo aceito para publicação no periódico Joumal of Chromatography A). A adsorção de quitosanase de um caldo de fermentação de Baci/lus cereus em leito empacotado permitiu à obtenção de um pico com um fator de purificação de 7,6 e uma recuperação de 67,4% que eluiu com 0,51 M de NaCL Valores muito próximos a estes foram obtidos com o uso da adsorção em leito expandido com ambos os caldos, bruto e clarificado. Eletroforese em gel de poliacrilamida (SDS­P AGE) realizada para o tubo que exibiu a maior atividade, quando o leito foi no modo expandido e com células, mostrou a presença de duas bandas. Este fato sugere três possibilidades, a existência de duas quitosanases, a presença de um proteína contaminante ou a existência de uma quitosanase com duas sub-unidades (dímera). Entretanto, grande parte dos contaminantes foram separados da quitosanase em uma única etapa. (Capítulo 6 - Artigo que será submetido à um periódico internacional) / Abstract: This work deals with the application of Expanded Bed Adsorption (EBA) to recovery and purify enzymes. Model proteins, lisozyme and bovine serum albumin (BSA), as well as some enzymes, glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (G3PDH) from baker's yeast, xylanase (from a commercial extract) and chitosanase from Bacil/us cereus were used to study the EBA background and application. The influence of two distributor (porous and perfurated plate) showed that the perfurated plate distributor was more favorable for the EBA. The Strearnline@ SP and the Strearnline@ DEAE adsorbents have a wide size distribution favourable for the segregation phenomena. (Chapter 2 - artic1e published in IEX 2000 (Carnbridge/UK». An integrated process was successful to recover and to purify an intracellular enzyme, Glyceraldehyde 3-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G3PDH). Performance of the hydrodynamic and chromatographic properties using a pellicular adsorbent (Pellicular) and two porous commercial adsorbents (Stream1ine and Macrosorb) showed that the former presented the best hydrodynarnic and chromatographic properties. (Chapter 3 - paper that wiil be submmited to an international journal). The influence of two settled bed height, 0.050 m and 0.075m, respectively, in the EBA operating at 10% of the breaktrough curve, showed that the former was more efficient. For the lisozyme - Strearnline@ DEAE system yield increased with the increase of the velocity while for the BSA - Strearnline@ SP system this behaviour was not observed. In this case, mass transfer seems to be limited problably due to its lower charge density. (Chapter 4 - paper accepted for publication in the Bioseparation Journal). The influence of cell contents in the EBA using a 5% (wet weight) cell content showed that the purification perfonnance was hampered. (Chapter 5 ­paper accepted for publication in the Journal ofChromatography A). The chitosanase adsorption of fermentation broth from Bacillus cereus, in packed mode, showed a chitosanase peak that eluted with 0.51 M NaCl, in this case a 7.6-fold purification factor with 67.4% of activity recovery were obtained. Similar values were obtained for both c1arified and unc1arified fermentation broth using the bed in the expanded mode. Experiment in expanded mode showed that two bands were present in the peak showing the highest activity, this suggests three possibilities, the existence of two chitosanases, the existence of a contaminant protein or the existence of a chitosanase with two sub-units. However, it was possible to separate the chitosanase from the-main contaminants in just one step. (Chapter 6 - paper that will be submitted to an international journal) / Doutorado / Desenvolvimento de Processos Químicos / Doutor em Engenharia Química

Sportswear is growing into a fashion trend due to consumers growing desire for a healthy lifestyle. Some years back functional sportswear companies sold their clothing mostly via retailers, in recent years however these companies have integrated downstream in the supply chain. Now most functional sportswear brands operate their own stores: flagship or brand stores. Many researchers have investigated how companies use integration in the supply chainas a strategy. Few of these researchers have solely looked into functional sportswear companies and their unique products. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to examine why functional sportswear brands operate brand stores. In this paper several researchers suggested reasons to why companies integrate downstream in the supply chain, which has been taken into account. Researchers such as Penaloza (1998), Pine and Gilmor (1998) and Thomas et. al (1999) have suggested that brand image, a relationship with the consumer and the chance of giving the consumer an experience are important advantages that comes with a brand store. Researchers have also discussed how the brand store generates sales through other channels. These advantages of brand stores as well as reasons for downstream integration have been used to critically examine why functional sportswear brands operate brand stores. The study shows that all examined sportswear brands use the brand store as a way of building image. The companies all find the chance of giving the consumer an experience as an important aspect of the brand store.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2020 / Employee perceptions of Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) are pivotal for researchers to ascertain the degree of employee satisfaction and as a quality indicator of such an initiative within an organisation. However, there are considerable challenges faced regarding participation in WHP as employees do not trust the confidentiality of the programme. The problem is further exacerbated in that employees experience the wellness programme as a demand by the employer rather than a beneficial resource to the employee. Thus, this research study aimed to determine the effect of workplace health promotion on downstream outcomes within an organisation. To realise the primary research objective, this study looked into the effect of WHP on clothing and textile employee’s (CTE) physical, mental, cognitive and affective outcomes, and social wellbeing. It also explored the effect of the facilitation of preventive interventions. This study evaluated the perceptions of employees on workplace health promotion in the clothing and textile industry in Cape Town. A combination of both qualitative and quantitative research approaches was followed. Quantitative data were collected from 121 CTEs through a survey questionnaire. The qualitative data were collected via interviews amongst managers, clinical staff and WHP program promotors. SPSS was utilised for analysing the quantitative data, and content analysis was conducted for qualitative data. The results of the study mostly pointed to the fact that employees in the clothing and textile industry perceived WHP in a very positive light. Most respondents recognised the benefits of WHP to the organisation which includes reduced healthcare costs in the long term and employee satisfaction, among others. The findings further revealed that the majority of CTEs were either unsure or noticed no effect of WHP on their physical health. However, this statement is contradicted in that 84.3% of respondents stated that they feel physically better due to participation in the WHP service offering. A previous study reported disagreement or indecisiveness to this statement amongst WCWs. This study revealed that there had been a positive impact on absenteeism and psychosocial issues. Most of the CTEs perceived that participation in WHP made the prevention of illnesses financially affordable.

The need of purified biomolecules, such as proteins or antibodies, has required the biopharmaceutical industries to look for new recovering solutions to reduce time and costs of bioseparations. In the last decade, the emergent field of membrane chromatography has gained attention as possible substituent of the common used protein A affinity chromatography for bioseparations. In this scenario, gold nanoparticles can be used as means for offering affinity, mainly because of their biocompatible and reversible binding behavior, together with their high surface area-to-volume ratio, which offers a large number of binding sites. This work introduces a new procedure for purification of monoclonal antibodies based on polymeric membranes functionalized with gold nanoparticles. This novel approach shortens the process of purification by promoting selective binding of antibodies, while separating a mixture of biomolecules during a filtration process. The effects of gold nanoparticles and the surrounding ligand on the proteins adsorption and filtration are investigated. The results confirm that the functionalization helps in inducing a selective binding, preventing the non-selective one, and it also improves the selectivity of the separation process.