The state of poverty in South Africa dictates how social policies should intervene to make an impact on poverty alleviation. Government formulated the three pillars of Land Reform Programme i.e. the Land Restitution Programme, Land Redistribution Programme and the Security of Tenure Programme. The Land Restitution Programme was utilised, through which people were given the opportunity to choose their preferred option ranging from original land, alternative land, financial compensation and involvement in development projects. The Programme aimed to reduce the unequal distribution of land amongst the racial groups of South Africa and alleviating poverty. During the process of land restitution the subjective impacts were debated more than the objective impacts, which were exacerbated by the experience of Zimbabwe as one of South Africa’s neighbouring countries. To date, little empirical evidence exists concerning the actual objective and subjective impact of the Land Restitution Programme. The aim of the study was to evaluate the objective and subjective impacts of the Land Restitution Programme on poverty. A quantitative research approach was used to conduct an impact evaluation study. Data was gathered by means of self-administered questionnaires. Respondents included land restitution applicants, namely: the claimants who were dismissed because they did not meet the acceptance criteria, the claimants who rejected the offer of financial compensation and the claimants who accepted the land restitution offer of financial compensation and eventually became the beneficiaries of the Land Restitution Programme. The research findings revealed that the Land Restitution Programme has both objective and subjective impacts on poverty. The subjective and objective impacts have both positive and negative impacts. The positive objective impacts were revealed to include the improvement in the aspects of quality of life as individuals and as communities, reconciliation at an individual, family and community level, and personal development such as improvement in community participation, empowerment and capacity building. The line, however, between the subjective and objective impacts was found to be very thin. The greatest impacts were amongst the accepted land restitution claimants and the least impact was amongst the dismissed and refused claimants in comparison with the accepted land restitution beneficiaries. The findings confirmed the hypothesis of the study, namely that if the poorest of the poor beneficiaries receive the land restitution compensation their levels of poverty decreases, compared to those that are refused or dismissed for land restitution compensation. The study revealed that the negative impact of the Land Restitution Programme is on its ability to acquire title to land. The claimants and beneficiaries of the Land Restitution Programme still regarded the programme as effective even though it has challenges in terms of addressing poverty alleviation. The study concluded that the Land Restitution Programme should be implemented within a Framework for Poverty Alleviation. Such a framework needs to go beyond the legalistic framework that is provided by the Land Restitution Act no 22 of 1994 which currently do not address approaches to poverty alleviation, strategies for alleviating poverty and aspects of quality of life that are measurable. The study recommended the implementation of a Land Restitution Programme Framework for Poverty Alleviation, which include elements of measuring poverty and aspects of quality of life and poverty alleviation approaches such as the livelihood approach, asset vulnerability approach, compulsory asset redistribution approach, and social development strategies. It is further recommended that the Land Restitution Programme Framework for Poverty Alleviation should be informed by the voices of the poor, professionals and international donor communities in order to comprehensively make an impact in graduating the poor from being poverty stricken to being self sufficient and self reliant. / Dissertation (MSD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

Dans le cadre de son travail, un psychologue organisationnel peut être appelé à jouer plusieurs rôles dans une organisation, dont celui de consultant pour faciliter un changement. Pour être efficace, il met en action des habiletés à deux niveaux, sur le plan du contenu de la problématique et pour les aspects relationnels entre les membres du système client et lui. Tout comme l'ont affirmé plusieurs auteurs en psychologie organisationnelle (Block, 2000; Kampa-Kokesch & Anderson, 2001; Kurpius, Fuqua, & Rozecki, 1993; Lescarbeau, Payette, & St-Arnaud, 2003; Lippitt & Lippitt, 1980; Schein, 1999), l'alliance de travail entre le consultant et le client est un élément essentiel à la réalisation efficace et à la réussite d'une démarche de consultation. Cette relation, surtout lorsqu'elle est de bonne qualité, lui permet entre autres, d'obtenir de l'information à propos de la problématique de l'organisation. Même si les écrits en psychologie organisationnelle abordent parfois cette relation client-consultant, cette variable a peu fait l'objet de recherches empiriques dans le contexte organisationnel. Une description et une compréhension floues, rendent pertinent le questionnement au sujet de la nature de cette relation. Pour mieux comprendre cette relation, cette recherche s'inspire des travaux sur un concept apparenté, l'alliance thérapeutique. Ainsi, cette étude de type exploratoire vise à comprendre l'alliance de travail qui existe entre un consultant et son client dans un contexte organisationnel en questionnant a) les caractéristiques de la relation client-consultant en contexte d'intervention dans une organisation, b) les indicateurs de mesure de la qualité de l'alliance de travail et c) l'impact de la qualité de l'alliance de travail sur les résultats de la consultation. Puisque des études sur cette relation réalisées dans le contexte de psychothérapie (Brossart, Willson, Patton, Kivlighan, & Multon, 1998; Castonguay, Constantino, & Holtforth, 2006), démontre que la vision de l'alliance de travail chez les clients et les consultants est quelque peu différente, les membres de sept dyades de client-consultant impliquées dans une intervention de consultation organisationnelle ont participé à cette recherche. Des entrevues individuelles semi-structurées d'une durée moyenne de 65 minutes ont été réalisées. L'analyse thématique de ces entrevues comporte plusieurs étapes : lecture de la transcription de chaque entrevue, subdivision de la transcription en unités de sens, thématisation en continu, construction de deux arbres thématiques et mise en relation ainsi qu'interprétation des thèmes des arbres thématiques en fonction des questions de recherche. Les 14 participants ont identifié huit caractéristiques à l'alliance de travail en fonction de deux dimensions : 1) contractuelle, dans le cas d'une relation de confiance, de partenariat et professionnelle et 2) affective, dans celui d'une relation ouverte, transparente, agréable, stimulante et loyale. Ils ont aussi lié à ces caractéristiques des indicateurs de mesure se regroupant en sept catégories soit associés à la communication, aux attitudes, aux tâches associées au mandat, à l'impact du consultant, à l'atmosphère des rencontres, à la chimie des caractéristiques individuelles et aux bénéfices perçus. À l'aide des indicateurs de mesure, il est possible d'évaluer le degré de présence de chaque caractéristique permettant ensuite de classer l'alliance de travail selon quatre types : absente ou mauvaise, correcte, plaisante et exceptionnelle. Finalement, selon les participants, la qualité de l'alliance de travail a de l'impact sur les résultats de la démarche de consultation. Une alliance de travail de qualité permettrait non seulement d'atteindre les résultats attendus mais de les dépasser. Ainsi, les solutions identifiées seraient de meilleure qualité et plus adéquates en fonction du contexte du client. La présente étude permet d'avoir une meilleure connaissance de l'alliance de travail en contexte organisationnel par rapport à ce qui la définit ainsi que pour en mesurer sa qualité et son impact. Ainsi, la prise en compte de ces connaissances par les consultants pourra améliorer leur pratique.

No description available.

No description available.

Expanded production of hydrocarbons by means of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing of shale formations has become one of the most important changes in the North American petroleum industry in decades, and the Eagle Ford (EF) Shale play in South Texas is currently one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the United States. Since 2008, more than 5000 wells have been drilled in the EF. To date, little research has focused on landscape impacts (e.g., fragmentation and soil erosion) from the construction of drilling pads, roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure. The goal of this study was to assess the spatial fragmentation from the recent EF shale boom, focusing on La Salle County, Texas. To achieve this goal, a database of wells and pipelines was overlain onto base maps of land cover, soil type, vegetation assemblages, and hydrologic units. Changes to the continuity of different ecoregions and supporting landscapes were then assessed using the Landscape Fragmentation Tool as quantified by land area and continuity of core landscape areas (those degraded by “edge effects”). Results show an increase in ecosystem fragmentation with a reduction in core areas of 8.7% (~333 km²) and an increase in landscape patches (0.2%; 6.4 km²), edges (1.8%; ~69 km²), and perforated areas (4.2%; ~162 km²) within the county. Pipeline construction dominates sources of landscape disturbance, followed by drilling and injection pads (85%, 15%, and 0.03% of disturbed area, respectively). This analysis indicates an increase in the potential for soil loss, with 51% (~58 km²) of all disturbance regimes occurring on soils with low water-transmission rates and a high runoff potential (hydrologic soil group D). Additionally, 88% (~100 km²) of all disturbances occurred on soils with a wind erodibility index of approximately 19 kt/km²/yr or higher, resulting in an estimated potential of 2 million tonnes of soil loss per year. Depending on the placement of infrastructure relative to surface drainage patterns and erodible soil, these results show that small changes in placement may significantly reduce ecological and hydrological impacts as they relate to surface runoff. Furthermore, rapid site reclamation of drilling pads and pipeline right-of-ways could substantially mitigate potential impacts. / text

No description available.

The objectives of this study were two fold. The first was to quantify the nature and extent of current levels of human impact in alpine areas at four sites within Fiordland and Mount Aspiring National Parks along walking tracks at Key Summit, Gertrude Saddle, Borland Saddle and Sugarloaf Pass. In order to do so, a survey was carried out with transects placed perpendicular to the track, and distributed among different vegetation types. In each transect, plant structural and compositional aspects, and soil and environmental parameters were measured. Transects were divided into track, transition, undisturbed and control zones, and changes to dependent variables were compared with distance from the track centre. Damage from visitor impact was largely restricted to within 1m from the track centre. The most significant impacts were to structural aspects of plant and soil properties with significant reductions in plant height, total vegetation cover and bryophyte cover, and increases in bareground and erosion on tracks. Erosion was more prevalent on slopes greater than 25°, while tracks on peat soils contained greater bareground exposure, particularly of organic soil. The second study objective was to investigate the relationship between specific levels of impact and the resulting damage to two key alpine vegetation types, tussock herb field and cushion bog. This was undertaken by carrying out controlled trampling experiments, measuring changes to plant structural and compositional aspects four weeks and one year after treatment. Both vegetation types saw dramatic reductions in total vegetation cover and height immediately after trampling, however overall composition and species richness varied little. These two alpine vegetation types showed moderate-low resistance to initial impact and low resilience, with very little recovery evident one year later. Research intothese two areas is important for managing visitor use within alpine areas in order to meet conservation and recreation goals. The survey indicates that alpine community types are very sensitive to visitor use, showing significant structural damage, however the spatial extent of impact is limited within the broader landscape. Instead, visitor impacts associated with tracks are likely to be more visually and aesthetically significant, influencing the visitor experience. The trampling experiments indicate that use levels over 25-75 passes per year within tussock herbfield and cushion bog vegetation on peat soils will result in ongoing damage to previously undisturbed sites. Methods for minimising impacts include limiting visitor numbers, public education in low impact practices, redirection of tracks and use to areas that are less sensitive, the dispersal of visitor activity at very low use intensities (less than 75 direct passes per year) and the concentration of activity on tracks above this level.

The aim of the thesis is to investigate local impacts of large investments. This problem has been approached from three directions and, therefore, the study consists of three themes, namely: the changing spatial patterns of corporate activities, the short-term local economic impacts of invest­ments, and the long-term socio-economic impacts of investments on the local municipality. In order to put the impact studies of investments into a broader context the first theme provides an analysis of the macro-orientated processes that change the spatial pattern of a forest- based industry. The empirical investigation is based on a case-study of a major Swedish forest company (SCA — Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget), analysing its development from the 1950s to the present (Paper I). The locational changes of production plants, sales units and headquarters have been mapped and, parallel to this study of the company's spatial evolution, the underlying corporate strategies are discussed. The second theme focuses on the short-term local economic impacts of investments which are carried out at production units. The empirical data has been collected from a major investment introducing a new technology (Light Weight Coated paper - LWC) at Ortviken, an SCA-owned paper mill in Sundsvall. The point of departure for the analysis is the identification of contracted suppliers and their location in order to obtain a picture of the investment's diffusion in the local economy. As the choice of supplier is an important part of the study, criteria on how suppliers are chosen have also been examined (Paper II). Moreover, by using results from a number of similar investment studies, an attempt is made to summarize general experiences within a tentative model for estimating the share of local purchase deriving from major investments: the Local or Non-Local (LNL) model (Paper III). The third theme of the thesis pinpoints long-term local impacts of large investments. The investment generates impacts not only concurrently with the implementation phase, but also during the operation period of the invested item. The investigation of long-term socio-economic impacts has been performed by two studies employing different methodological approaches. The first study (Paper IV) deals with ex ante local impacts of locating a nuclear waste repository in Storuman or Mala, two sparsely populated municipalities in northern Sweden. The model is a traditional macro- formulated cohort model which is combined with a 'basic/non-basic' assumption regarding the intcrdependency within the local trade and business. The second study (Paper V) refers once again to the forest-based industry by emphasising the long-term socio-economic impacts of the investment examined in Paper II. This paper employs a micro-analytical modelling approach, so that, the municipal population is represented individually within the model. A microsimulation model is elaborated in order to analyse the long-term (15 years) local population and labour market dynamics induced by the LWC-investment. Some major findings of the thesis are: * The share of local purchase is connected to the composition of the investment. Analyses have shown that the higher the technological demand and the more technically advanced the goods and services related to the investment, the smaller is the local share of the purchase. *  It has proved possible to trace chain effects on different local labour-markets induced by changes in production at a particular place of work. Through linkages between the partial labour markets the closure of a major place of work will not only affect the occupational groups to which laid-off employees belong, but also give rise to changes in unemployment levels in many other occupations. / digitalisering@umu

Cette thèse porte sur les capacités d'extraction d'une mousse déposée sur un support poreux dans le but d'y déloger un contaminant ayant imprégné la porosité. Nous avons donc considéré l'imprégnation forcée de fluides dans un pore unique, étudiée pour deux cas particuliers : (i) lors de l'impact d'une goutte de liquide à l'aplomb d'un pore unique vertical cette situation visant à modéliser l'imprégnation du poreux par le contaminant, et (ii) lors de l'aspiration d'une mou sse liquide à travers le pore qui illustre la compétition d'aspiration entre la mousse et le poreux. Dans chaque cas, le diamètre du pore est inférieur à celui des gouttes ou des bulles.Pour le premier cas, nous nous sommes intéressés au volume et à la profondeur d'imprégnation pour des surfaces hydrophiles et hydrophobes. Nous établissons les diagrammes d'imprégnation en fonction du diamètre du pore et de la vitesse d'impact et un travail de modélisation nous permet de déterminer les limites entre les différentes régions de ces digrammes.Pour le second cas, nous montrons que lors de l'aspiration, la mousse entre dans le pore uniquement dans un domaine bien déterminé dans le diagramme fraction liquide, rapport de taille pore/bulle et débit d'aspiration. En dehors de ce domaine, l'aspiration peut faire entrer soit le gaz seul, soit le liquide seul. La encore, un travail de modélisation nous permet de prédire les limites des différentes zones du diagramme. Dans une dernière partie, nous revenons à un problème pratique d'imprégnation sur support textile et quantifions les capacités d'extraction d'une mousse dans cette configuration dans le but d'y déloger un contaminant / This thesis is about the ability of foam to extract a pollutant trapped in a fabric. We studied the forced impregnation of fluids into a single pore, in two particular cases : (i) when a liquid droplet impact vertically on the pore (this situation corresponds to the model of the impregnation of the pollutant into the fabric), and (ii) when a foam is sucked through a pore, which illustrate the competition between the suction on the foam and those of the porous media. For each case, the diameter of the pore is smaller than the diameter of droplet or bubble. At first, we studied the volume and how deep penetrates the liquid penetrates, for hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces. We established diagrams of impregnation as a function of the pore diameter and impact velocity, and a model determines the limits between the different areas of the diagram. For the second case, we showed that during the suction, the foam go into the pore only for one delimited area of the diagram liquid fraction, ration pore diameter / bubble diameter. Out of this area, suction force solely liquid or solely gas into the pore. Again, a model determines the limits between the different areas of the diagram. Finally an applied part of our work is about the ability of foam to extract a pollutant trapped in a fabric

Le secteur du bâtiment contribue grandement aux impacts environnementaux occasionnés par les activités anthropiques. Pour tenter de réduire ces impacts, divers systèmes de certification pour le bâtiment ont été développés. Toutefois, ces certifications ont tendance à se concentrer principalement sur la consommation énergétique durant la phase d’exploitation du bâtiment. Par conséquent, leur application pour un bâtiment qui consomme de l’énergie occasionnant de faibles impacts sur l’environnement peut parfois mener à des effets indésirables sur les impacts environnementaux des bâtiments. Tandis que certaines certifications ne se concentrent que sur quelques aspects du bâtiment, comme Passive House qui est axé principalement sur la consommation énergétique, d’autres, comme LEED v4, qui est la plus présente en Amérique du Nord, ont une portée plus large. Néanmoins, LEED v4 accorde une plus grande importance à la consommation énergétique qu’à la sélection de matériaux. Basé sur une étude d’un bâtiment à bureaux situé au Québec (Canada), l’objectif de ce projet de recherche est de comparer les effets des matériaux sur les impacts environnementaux du cycle de vie d’un bâtiment en fonction de la considération de ces matériaux dans LEED v4. Ici, le terme matériaux est utilisé à des fins de simplification et signifie matériaux de construction utilisés pour construire le bâtiment. Les effets des matériaux sont évalués en analysant la contribution de ces derniers aux impacts environnementaux du bâtiment à l’étude ainsi qu’en déterminant leur potentiel de faire varier ces impacts par le changement de certaines configurations de matériaux de ce bâtiment. Les impacts environnementaux sont évalués par une analyse du cycle de vie (ACV) attributionnelle à l’aide du logiciel SimaPro 8.2, la base de données ecoinvent 3.1 et la méthode d’évaluation des impacts du cycle de vie (EICV) IMPACT 2002+. Les résultats montrent que les matériaux contribuent de façon importante aux impacts environnementaux du bâtiment (> 50 %) et que la sélection de différentes configurations alternatives de matériaux peut faire varier considérablement ces impacts (de 0 % à plus de 50 %). Par ces résultats, il est montré que LEED v4 ne semble pas bien capturer ces effets des matériaux sur les impacts environnementaux sur le cycle de vie des bâtiments par son système de pointage dans le cas où le bâtiment consomme exclusivement de l’énergie provenant du réseau électrique du Québec (où l’électricité produite est principalement de source hydraulique). Effectivement, le pointage accordé aux matériaux dans LEED v4 est de 13 points (ou 30 %) en comparaison à la consommation énergétique, qui est de 33 points (ou 70 %). Les résultats de ce projet de recherche permettent donc d’amener les diverses parties prenantes du secteur de la construction vers une réflexion plus éclairée sur le rôle à jouer de la sélection des matériaux et des certifications dans l’amélioration environnementale des bâtiments dans le cas où l’énergie consommée par les bâtiments occasionne de faibles impacts sur l’environnement, ainsi que sur la complémentarité de l’ACV avec les certifications. / Abstract : Buildings being one of the highest contributors to environmental impacts globally, various Green Building Rating Systems (GBRS) have been proposed in support to reduce their impacts. Primarily oriented towards energy consumption from use stage, their application in low impact energy contexts can result in some undesirable side effects. While some GBRS focus only on few aspects of the building, like Passive House, others like LEED v4, the most present in North America, have a broader scope. However, this GBRS grants more importance to energy consumption than material selection. Based on a office building case study in Quebec (Canada), the aim of this study is to compare the material effects on building LCA impacts and their considerations in LEED v4. Here, the term material is used, for simplicity purpose, to mean construction material used to build the building. Thus, the material effects can be reflected by the material contribution on building LCA impact and their potential to vary these impacts from the adoption of different material configurations. The environmental impacts are evaluated using the attributional LCA approach with SimaPro 8.2 software, ecoinvent 3.1 database and IMPACT 2002+ method. Building LCA results indicate the high environmental impact contribution from materials (> 50 %) and their good potential to vary LCA impacts (0 % to more than 50 %). By comparison, the LEED v4 rating system did not seem to be as effective in capturing the effects of materials in low impact energy context like the one of Quebec (where the electricity generation is hydro-based). As a matter of fact, material selection represents 13 points (or 30%) by comparison with 33 points (or 70%) for energy consumption. Conclusions drawn from this research project will help stakeholders from the building sector in their efforts to improve building environmental profiles providing answers about the implication of material selection and GBRS to this end and the complementarity between LCA and GBRS.