Background. In the field of risk management, focusing on digital infrastructure, there is an uncertainty about which methods and algorithms are relevant and correct. Behind this uncertainty lies a need for testing and evaluation of different risk management analysis methods in order to determine how effective they are in relation to each other. Purpose. The purpose of this thesis is to manufacture a reproducible and universal method of comparison between risk management analysis methods. This is based on the need to compare two risk assessment analysis methods. One method relies solely on impact information and the other expands on that concept by also utilizing information about the network environment. Method. A network is modeled into a scenario. A risk assessment is conducted on the scenario by risk assessment experts which will be used as the correct solution. The tested risk management analysis methods are applied to the scenario and the results are compared with the expert risk assessment. The distance between the assessments are measured with Mean Square Error; A smaller distance between one assessment and the experts assessment indicates that it is more correct. Result. The result shows that it is possible to reproducibly compare risk management analysis methods by comparing the respective output with an established truth. The conducted comparison shows that a method that use network environment data is capable of producing a more correct assessment than one which simply uses impact data. Conclusion. A scenario based approach to compare risk management analysis methods for risk assessment has been proven effective.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / MAGISTER SCIENTlAE IN THE FACULTY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE. This thesis focuses on Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA's) as prepared in the Western Cape Province. The thesis attempts to summarise the legal requirements for EIA's and then to analyse two recent assessmentsin the light of the concern raised by Alex Weaver, at the South African chapter of the International Association for Impact Assessment National Conference in 1999, that EIA's~l§_cLI>listoricaily _gisadvantag~and do not give sufficient attention to social impacts. The thesis also attempts to analyse the EIA's and to critically assess whether they comply with the intention of the legal requirements. The applicable legislation and regulations are analysed to determine whether there are sufficient guidelines for practitioners to assessthe socio-economic impacts of development in an equitable manner to the assessmentof the biophysical impacts. It was found that the legislation and the regulations do not provide clear guidance for the consideration of the socia-economic aspects of the environment or impacts in the preparation of EIA's. The EIA's regarding the Relocation Of The Informal Settlement At Stanford and for the Koringberg-Platvlei-MiddelburgWater Supply Pipeline required to provide potable water to rural communities are analysed, as both have socio-economicgoals. In the Stanford case, an informal settlement located on the town's water source has to be relocated to the town, where there is a shortage of land available for development and site-specific impacts on a major employer, with the threat of a potential loss in employment opportunities. In the Koringberg-Platvlei-Middelburg case, the rural community has insufficient potable water and a supply scheme is proposed in a potentially sensitive environment. In order to analyse the two assessments,the ideal EIA and recent trends are first established from literature. Criteria for the assessment of the EIA's are determined and then used to ascertain whether the concern raised by Weaver is correct. In the analysis of the subject EIA's it was found that both address the social issues of concern, albeit without clear guidance from the applicable legislation and regulations. Following on the critical assessmentof the recent EIA's, the thesis provides proposals and stepby-step guidelines for the drafting of EIA's for use by students and inexperienced practitioners in the field of environmental management. Weaver's concern is found to be correct and recommendations are made to adjust the relevant regulations, to give clear guidance for the consideration of seclo-economic concerns in the preparation of EIA's.

The Privacy Act of 1974 was designed to protect personal privacy captured in the records held by government agencies.  However, the scope of privacy protection has expanded in light of advances in technology, heightened security, ubiquitous threats, and the value of information. This environment has raised the expectations for public sector management of sensitive personal information and enhanced privacy protections.  While the expanse of privacy policy implementation is broad, this study focuses specifically on how agencies implement privacy impact assessments (PIAs) as required under Section 208 of the E-Government Act of 2002.  An enhanced understanding of the PIA implementation process serves as a portal into the strategic considerations and management challenges associated with broader privacy policy implementation efforts. A case study of how the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have implemented PIAs provides rich insights into privacy policy implementation and outcomes.  Elite interviews enriched by process data and document analysis show how each organization undertook different approaches to PIA implementation over time.  This study introduces the sociology of law literature using Lauren Edelman's conceptual framework to understand how organizations respond to and interpret law from within the organization, or endogenously.  Building upon Edelman's model, certain characteristics of the PIA implementation are analyzed to provide rich description of the factors that influence the implementation process and lead to different policy outcomes. The findings reflect valuable insights into the privacy policy implementation process and introduce the sociology of law literature to the field of public administration.  This literature furthers our understanding of how organizations enact policy over time, how the implementation process unfolds and is impacted by critical factors, and for identifying emergent patterns in organizations.  This study furthers our understanding how privacy policy, in particular, is implemented over time by examining the administrative capacities and levels of professionalism that are utilized to accomplish this effort.  This research comes at a critical time in the context of the emerging legal and political environment for privacy that is characterized by new expectations by the public and the expanding role of government to manage and protect sensitive information. / Ph. D.

A number of developing countries including Uganda have of recent experienced tremendous growth of microfinance industry in financial and credit service provision. Microfinance development in developing countries and its’ impacts on the poor’s livelihood have been a central point of focus by academic community and development stakeholders. A number of actors like donors and government agencies have accredited microcredit as a program to help the poor improve their living conditions, fight extreme poverty and reduce the number of people living in absolutely lacking situations. The growth of microcredit schemes in Uganda has incited donors, government agencies, different microfinance institutions, individual and academia to measure the achievements of the program in relation to its’ different objectives. Despite the growing efforts and attention to measure microcredit impacts on livelihood transformation, less focus has been given to this scientific process of measuring program impacts. Ensuring credibility and validity is an important aspect that guarantees realistic representation and quality in scientific research when researchers seek to understand what has been achieved. It is upon the above background that this study established strong interest to understand and explore how different scientific research processes of impact evaluation relate to the quality of impact reports or outcomes measured. The study examines the main debate about microcredit impacts, this is aimed at providing necessary information required (epistemological benefit) to understand microcredit impacts within different perspectives of development. Different researchers’ background more specifically their academic qualifications, expertise, gender, institutions attached to and roles played during different impact studies is assessed by this study. The study looks at different methods of data collection, analysis employed by different microcredit impact studies and they impacted on different studies being assessed. The study uses text and systematic method of data and information analysis, different articles searched from Linnaeus University library website and other organizational reports got from different organizations databases, form set of data used in this study. A total of sixteen impact studies done in Uganda have been systematically reviewed. Conceptual framework in which validity is used as the main tool in the analytical discussion of study has been employed.

Science communication is a skill that can be strengthened with practice. Like any skill, it helps to know what you need to practice in order to get better at it. When presenting information to an audience, the skill of science communication comes into play as early as the first draft of a presentation. As you think about how you will tell your story to the audience, you likely consider including text on slides, images, graphs, maps, or even videos. However, it is crucial to remember that accessibility barriers are something we must often consciously work to rid our presentations of, in order to make sure we are telling the same story to everyone in the audience. How you present your research inherently determines the way in which your audience learns and engages with that information. If a presentation has many accessibility barriers, it can lead to an incomplete picture forming for members of your audience. For instance, if a member of your audience experiences colorblindness, they may not be able to get a full understanding of your charts, maps, or graphs depending on your color choices. Individuals that have difficulty with hearing may not be able to clearly perceive your take home messages without captions or clear points in easily readable fonts. Doing something small like enabling captions in your presentation can help more than just those that are hard of hearing follow along, but also audience members who use visual assistance with auditory processing or who do not have the same native language as the one in which you are presenting (Cooke et al., 2020). This project is going to dive into one of the examples from earlier: maps. Maps used in the scientific community for disseminating information to general audiences have historically been two dimensional, with some exceptions. However, thanks to the ease of access to rapidly evolving technology, turning the story of your spatiotemporal data into a 3D map with 360 visualization that tells a more powerful story to your audience is becoming more common. One use example of this is modeling projected sea level rise (SLR) in coastal communities, which will be the focus of this capstone. Capstone products: Included in zip file under Download Button: Capstone paper Accessibility Tips for Scientific Presentations.[PDF] Link: https://go.wm.edu/b6g7S5 360 Scene of Norfolk Sea Level Rise Projections.[3VR file] Norfolk_SLR_VIMS_CCRM_Data_360VR.3vr Link: https://go.wm.edu/j9mgFQ Link Only: 3D Map of Norfolk Sea Level Rise Projections:https://go.wm.edu/QdYPGq

Carbon export from the land to the ocean are an important part of the global carbon cycle, linking terrestrial watersheds and the global carbon cycle. Burial of terrestrial organic carbon represents a long term sink for atmospheric CO2. Approximately 0.4 Pg Cy-1 is delivered to the global ocean from rivers, equally divided between POC and DOC. However, the amount of carbon entering the ocean is a small portion of the total amount entering rivers from the terrestrial environment, suggesting a large amount of processing in inland waters and estuaries. Most monitoring efforts have focused the processing of organic matter on baseflow conditions. However, recent studies have shown that POC and DOC exported during storm events, a small time period during a hydrologic year, can account for the majority of the annual carbon exported from small watersheds. This dissertation identifies the impact different magnitudes of storm events have on the source, composition and reactivity of organic carbon released to downstream waters from the terrestrial environment at Taskinas Creek, Virginia. The proximity of the Creek to the York River estuary, the changes in water table at the site, along with the small size of the watershed allowing opportunity to examine the connectivity between the watershed processes and delivery of organic matter made the site ideal for identifying how hydrology and environment alter POM and DOM export and reactivity. The sources, composition and flux of DOM and POM were measured during four storm events of different magnitudes to determine how events impacted the sources and fluxes of organic matter and the % reactive DOC exported. Events of different magnitudes with varying sources of DOC and POC had similar % reactive DOC that was not predicted using excitation emission spectroscopy. The events resulted in DOC fluxes 1.5-490 fold higher than baseflow. POC fluxes for storm were 6.7-55 times higher than DOC fluxes. Although the % reactive DOC did not increase during storm event conditions, coupled with the overall flux, storm events represent a considerable pulse of % reactive DOC to downstream waters, well above baseflow levels. When considered with increases in storm intensity due to climate change, storm event fluxes of reactive OM may have broad impacts on estuaries and the global carbon cycle through changes in carbon storage.

The predatory beetle, Laricobius nigrinus Fender (Coleoptera: Derodontidae), has been released in the eastern U.S. since 2003 for the management of hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), Adelges tsugae Annand (Hemiptera: Adelgidae). The establishment of L. nigrinus at release sites in Virginia was assessed in 2017 and 2018. Sampling was performed in both years to determine presence or absence L. nigrinus. Stand level HWA densities, tree health, predator-prey ratios, and Laricobius spp. identifications were also assessed at each site. Laricobius nigrinus established at 82% of sites and was the primary species recovered. HWA densities appeared to decline, and tree health appeared to improve in year two. Predator-prey ratios were lower than those indicated in the native range, however much is left to be understood about the dynamics of this system in its introduced range. A separate two-year study to assess the impact of L. nigrinus on HWA was initiated in 2014 (Phase One) at nine sites in the eastern U.S. Significant predation of HWA sistens ovisacs was demonstrated during this period, therefore, it was continued from 2016-2018 (Phase Two) to provide longer-term evaluations. Predator exclusion cages were used to monitor predator and prey populations. In Phase Two of the study, mean ovisac disturbance rates on no-cage branches were significantly greater than caged branches and were as high as 80%, suggesting that L. nigrinus can have a significant impact on the sistens generation. Microsatellite analysis of Laricobius larvae indicated that L. nigrinus was the primary species recovered at study sites. / Master of Science in Life Sciences / Hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), an invasive insect native to Asia and western North America, is a significant threat to two native hemlock species in the eastern U.S. Since 2003, a predatory beetle, Laricobius nigrinus, has been released for management of HWA. In biological control programs such as this one, it is important to evaluate the ability of predators to establish and impact prey in areas where they are introduced, as this helps guide future management decisions. As such, a study was conducted to examine the ability of L. nigrinus to establish after being released at 26 locations in Virginia. In those investigations we found that L. nigrinus established at 82% of the sites. Although promising, longer-term studies are needed to understand if the predation of HWA by L. nigrinus helps improve the health of our native hemlocks. A separate two-phase study was carried out from 2014-2016 and 2016-2018 evaluating the impact of L. nigrinus on HWA at nine release sites in the eastern U.S. In Phase Two reported here, cages were used to exclude L. nigrinus on some HWA infested branches while on others, no cage was applied to allow free access to HWA. Comparisons between branches were made to determine the level of predation by L. nigrinus. These studies showed a significant impact by L. nigrinus on the winter generation of HWA with as many as 80% of those insects being attacked on study branches which indicates that this species has potential as an effective predator.

This study assesses the research benefits of IPM technologies and management practices aimed at reducing the virus problem in tomatoes in West Africa. Surveys are conducted with producers, extension agents, scientists, and other experts to obtain information and economic surplus analysis is used to project benefits over time. The determinants of adoption are assessed using a probit model. Results show that adoption of the host-free period reduced the amount of insecticide sprays by 71% and the production cost by $200/ha in Mali. The cost-benefit analysis indicated that the use of virus-tolerant seeds generated profits ranging from $1,188 to $2,116/ha in Mali and from $1,789 to $4,806/ha in Senegal. The likely factors influencing adoption of the technologies in both countries are the frequency of extension visits, farmer's field school training, gender, education, seed cost, tomato area, and experience in tomato losses. The benefits in the closed economy market vary from $3.4 million to $14.8 million for the host-free period, $0.5 million to $3 million for the virus-tolerant seeds, and $4.8 million to $21.6 million for the overall IPM program. In the same order, the benefits under the open economy market range from $3.5 million to $15.4 million, $0.5 million to $3million, and $5 million to $24 million. The distribution pattern indicates that producers gain one-third and consumers two-thirds of the benefits. Our results support policies aiming to increase the adoption rate or the expected change in yield. / Master of Science

Eggplant grafting implemented implemented in two field sites in the Philippines, in Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan are used as proofs of concept to illustrate and validate the feasibility of an impact assessment framework for determining the nutritional impact of technology-oriented agricultural activities. Nutritional impacts are assessed by disaggregating the market demand curve into demand curves by income groups using their separate price elasticities of demand. Considering only price effects, the increase in yields following a per unit cost reduction due to eggplant grafting has positive effects on the daily caloric intake per capita in the different income classes with the greatest impact on the lowest income class for both sites. Net increases in calorie intake ranges between 0.09 and 0.6 kilocalories per capita per day. / Master of Science

Mission impact assessment (MIA) research has been explored to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of a mission system, such as enterprise networks with organizational missions and military or tactical mission teams with assigned missions. The key components in such mission systems, including assets, services, tasks, vulnerability, attacks, and defenses, are interdependent, and their impacts are interwoven. However, the current state-of-the-art MIA approaches have less studied such interdependencies. In addition, they have not modeled strategic attack-defense interactions under partial observability. In this work, we propose a novel MIA framework that assesses measures of performance (MoP) or measures of effectiveness (MoE) based on the service requirements (e.g., correctness or timeliness) of a given mission system based on full and comprehensive modeling and simulation of the key system components and their interdependencies. Particularly, we model intelligent attack-defense strategy selections based on hypergame theory, which allows considering uncertainty in estimating each player's hypergame expected utility (HEU) for its best strategy selection. As the case study, we consider an Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based mission system aiming to accurately and timely detect an object, given stringent accuracy and time constraints for successful mission completion. Via extensive simulation experiments, we validate the quality of the proposed MIA tool in its inference accuracy of the mission performance under a wide range of different environmental settings hindering the mission performance assessment and attack-defense interactions. Our results prove that the developed MIA framework shows a sufficiently high inference accuracy (e.g., 80%) even with a small portion of the training dataset (e.g., 20-50%). We also found the MIA can better assess the system's mission performance when attackers exhibit clearer patterns to take more strategic actions using hypergame theory. / Master of Science / In our increasingly interconnected world, mission systems play a crucial role, whether in organizational networks or tactical military operations. We often evaluate these systems to ensure they perform effectively, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Imagine an intricate web of resources, tasks, services, assaults, and defenses that are intertwined and have an impact on one another. The strategic interactions of attack and defense in uncertain environments have been majorly ignored by conventional techniques for mission impact assessment (MIA). Our research introduces a new way of thinking about MIA. We've developed a framework that delves deep into the heart of mission systems, considering how each component affects the others. This comprehensive approach considers not just what's happening but also the interplay of actions and reactions. Hypergame theory, a technique that enables us to model intelligent choices in the face of uncertainty, is at the foundation of our approach. Imagine it as a chess game in which players must predict their opponents' moves and adjust their strategies appropriately. In our case study, we used an Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based mission system tasked with timely and accurate object detection to apply this architecture. In this mission system, both cyber attackers, whose aim is to compromise the mission, and cyber defenders, whose aim is to ensure mission success, are present, and they use the proposed hypergame-based decision-making to perform intelligent actions. What did we find? Through extensive simulations, we confirmed the effectiveness of our MIA framework. Even with limited training data, our tool demonstrated a remarkable 80% accuracy in assessing mission performance. Moreover, it excelled when attackers followed discernible patterns, allowing us to predict and respond strategically. In simpler terms, our research provides a valuable tool for evaluating the success of mission systems in our increasingly connected world. It goes beyond surface-level assessments, considering the intricate relationships between system components and the dynamic nature of strategic decision-making. Ultimately, our framework empowers us to ensure mission success in an ever-evolving landscape.