In this dissertation, we provide empirical assessment of government involvement in economic activities. This assessment is done within the framework of a two-part strategy. In the first part, we evaluate the effects of the government size on the overall rate of economic growth of a group of 30 developing countries. This approach can be regarded as macroeconomic in the sense that the economywide growth is the subject of investigation. In the second part, we conducted a comparative study of technical efficiency between privately owned and publicly owned companies in the international oil industry. We refer to this approach as microeconomic since a particular industry is under investigation. this dissertation consists of two essays. In the first essay, we examine the effect of government size, measured by the ratio of government consumption expenditures to gross domestic product (GDP) on the rate growth of GDP. Our sample includes 30 low-income and middle-income developing countries over the period 1970-90. We use a panel data approach to avoid the shortcomings of the cross-country models often used in such an analysis. The results indicate government size has a highly significant negative influence on the rate of economic growth. Therefore, privatization is viewed as a structural adjustment policy to overcome the negative effects of government size. However, we emphasize this policy can be effective only in the proper environment in a market-oriented economy with well-established political, social, and economic institutions, and a well-defined property right system. The essay provides some empirical evidence from a group of countries about the impact of privatization on the rate of economic growth. In the second essay, we measure the firm-specific technical efficiency for a sample of 44 publicly owned and privately owned petroleum companies in the international oil industry. The empirical investigation is carried out by using the stochastic frontier production function approach. The results indicate the private decision-making units in the oil industry overperformed their publicly owned counterparts in terms of technical efficiency. The implication is privatization can improve the performance of the transformed public enterprises.

Although typically associated with the provision of low-cost holiday accommodation, for over 30 years city-based caravan parks have provided an unrecognised source of permanent housing to the lower end of the market. Due to their often dilapidated condition and the demographic profile of their residents, caravan parks do not fit within the Australian housing ideal and are often considered enclaves of despondency. Residents are subject to harsh stereotypes and are often referred to as ??trailer trash?? ?? a tag which originated in the USA. However the reality is that caravan parks provide significant social benefits and are unique living environments for their permanent residents. This research involved an extensive discourse analysis complemented by in-depth interviews with caravan park residents and industry stakeholders, which found that the residential experience is typically based on solidarity, companionship, pride and a true sense of belonging. As urban land prices in Australia have increased exponentially and the footprints of its capital cities continue to grow, large parcels of under-developed land accommodating caravan parks have become ??land banks?? ripe for redevelopment. While it is the park owner??s prerogative to maximise profit, individuals and households are being displaced with little or no compensation, to make way for more lucrative land uses. With deficiencies in the public housing system and the failure of the housing market to provide an adequate level of low-cost accommodation, caravan park residents face an uncertain future, even homelessness. However, the understated impact of this trend is the social implications which affect some of the community??s most vulnerable members. The loss of home, community disintegration and feelings of insecurity appear to be disregarded in the planning process, and this trend seems certain to continue with a lack of responsibility and strategic vision by the government. For this reason, the continued closure of Sydney??s caravan parks should not be tolerated for the purpose of land profiteering. A comprehensive all-of-government and industry response is urgently required to address the threats to Sydney??s caravan parks and to develop mitigation strategies aimed at reducing the resultant outcomes for their vulnerable residents.

In New Zealand the development and promotion of sporting events is becoming increasingly popular, due in part to the role of sport in building the nation's identity, the economic benefits, and a growing awareness of the importance of health and fitness within the community. Given this increased popularity it is important that the impacts of these events upon the local 'host' communities be understood. Social impacts have been given more and more attention in recent years by event researchers, due to the recognition that the long term sustainability of such events can only be achieved with the approval and participation of residents. This research addresses these issues in the context of Taupo, New Zealand using the case of Ironman New Zealand.This thesis adopts a mixed method approach using interviews (n=7), participant observation, and a web-survey (n=111). The findings confirm that it is vital to investigate and understand impacts of events on host communities. The findings are also consistent with theories identified in the literature in terms of the nature of social impacts on host communities. The overall results indicate that residents are aware of both the positive and negative impacts of Ironman New Zealand. Respondents highlight positive impacts such as economic benefits, exposure of Taupo, community togetherness, and the encouragement of sports, yet they also recognize negative impacts such as inconvenience from traffic congestion, and road closures. Accordingly, the community was grouped into three distinct clusters with positive, negative and ambivalent perceptions, and were labelled 'Lovers', 'Pessimists' and 'Realists'. The findings further suggest that the use of web-surveying for community research is still in its infancy and needs further development enabling it to be used as an effective tool. Finally it is proposed that small to medium scale sporting event hosted in regional communities may contribute to a sense of community and to the creation of social capital. Further research is needed to confirm this proposition.

Given the rapidly increasing visitation levels to Fraser Island, there is increasing concern that tourist activities may threaten the long-term ecological health of the region's unique dune lakes. This project aimed to investigate the consequences of tourist use of Fraser Island's dune lakes and to develop appropriate monitoring tools and management objectives in light of the projected increases in visitation levels in the foreseeable future. The initial phase of this research aimed to identify the relative importance of some of the most popular dune lakes on the island as key destinations for tourists. Tourist surveys, in conjunction with the development of a Tourist Pressure Index (TPI), which quantifies logistic, social and natural variables, identified Lakes McKenzie, Allom and Birrabeen as the lakes most at risk from excessive tourist use. In addition, analyses of water quality in 15 lakes on Fraser Island aimed to determine the current trophic status of dune lakes on Fraser Island and the ecological implications of tourist use of these systems. Detailed comparisons of nutrient and chlorophyll a concentrations in five popular dune lakes in February 1990 (data from Arthington et al. 1990) and February 1999 suggested that productivity has increased significantly in the past decade. More detailed examinations of nutrient and algal variables in five popular perched dune lakes revealed that while ambient nutrient and phytoplankton chlorophyll a concentrations remained relatively stable, periphyton chlorophyll a concentrations increased over the course of the 1999-2000 summer in most lakes. Significantly, these increases were found only in heavily visited (disturbed) sites in the clear lakes examined (McKenzie and Birrabeen). In these lakes, where algal growth is likely to be only limited by nutrient availability, tourist nutrient additions may stimulate excessive periphyton production. Experimental algal bioassays identified that phytoplankton and to a lesser degree periphyton growth was stimulated by nutrient additions in all five perched dune lakes. However, the degree to which growth was stimulated was both lake and nutrient (nitrogen versus phosphorus versus nitrogen + phosphorus) dependent, highlighting the variable nature of systems within a relatively small geographic range. Since periphyton biomass was higher in heavily visited areas of lakes and was likely to be stimulated by nutrient additions by tourists, stable isotope analyses of littoral zone food webs were conducted to quantify the percent contribution of periphyton to consumer diets. There was a trend towards higher periphyton contributions in systems identified as key tourist locations (on the basis of their TPI scores) and this indicates that increasing visitation may increase the contribution of periphyton to littoral zone food webs, both via increases in the quantity and quality of periphyton as a food resource. To further explore the contribution of periphyton in littoral zone food webs of heavily visited lakes, a 15N-tracer addition experiment was conducted to establish the fate of nutrient additions within the littoral zone. Nutrients were added in quantities that mimicked those likely from tourists, to enable a realistic appraisal of the fate of tourist additions. As expected, periphyton rapidly assimilated the added 15N-tracer and was found to be the first and most significant sink for nutrients entering the littoral zone. Finally, the results from this research were used to develop a conceptual model of nutrient enrichment for perched dune lakes on Fraser Island. The model indicates that although nutrient additions from tourists may lead to undesirable increases in periphyton biomass, the degree to which this is deemed to be a detrimental ecological outcome is likely to be mediated by water level fluctuations and the consumptive capacity of grazers. Given that excessive periphyton growth is likely to be seen as negative impact of tourism, regular periphyton monitoring (biomass and percent contribution to littoral zone food webs) should be built into an updated monitoring program for this series of dune lakes. Whilst the implementation of periphyton monitoring is likely to enable the early detection of deleterious impacts of excessive tourist use, it is likely that the long-term conservation of the region will, in the future, require the implementation of strict visitation level guidelines, to ensure that the irreversible consequences of long term additions of nutrients are ameliorated.

Reintroduction programs have often been used to help redress serious declines across species' former ranges, but they suffer from high expense and low success rates. Tourism is one tool that could be used to support such programs, by generating funding for the programs and the local community, and by educating tourists about reintroductions and conservation. However, if tourism is not incorporated successfully into reintroduction programs, it may not provide any advantages and may even harm the reintroduction. There is a need to find ways to ensure efforts to integrate tourism and reintroductions achieve positive conservation outcomes. This is a topic that has been little researched to date. To achieve positive conservation outcomes, the enterprises must have financial sustainability and sustainable mammal populations. This thesis investigates ways to achieve these dual goals. The international literature is reviewed to establish what can be learnt from previous reintroduction attempts to increase the likelihood of reintroductions of mammals being successful. A number of broad measures are established, including starting the enterprises by reintroducing herbivores and early breeders, preferably wild caught, and then moving to carnivores or omnivores and captive-bred animals when staff have more experience. Some new ideas are developed for experimental releases that will add to the available knowledge on how to increase the chance of successful reintroductions. Tourism enterprises based on reintroductions of threatened native mammals in Australia and South Africa are reviewed. The review shows tourism enterprises based on reintroductions make significant contributions to conservation, but enterprises in Australia need to diversify further. It also describes a number of significant obstacles that enterprises in Australia and South Africa face in achieving financial sustainability and sustainable mammal populations. It then provides recommendations for dealing with the problems, such as employing staff or consultants with knowledge of wildlife management and marketing, and allowing tourists to view wildlife only on guided tours. Finally, the review identifies ways that government bodies in Australia could better facilitate enterprises based on reintroductions, such as making endangered species available free of charge or heavily subsidised at this stage, and then later running wildlife auctions. Legislation systems applying to tourism enterprises based on mammal reintroductions in Australia and South Africa are also reviewed. The review identifies a number of shortcomings of the current Australian legislation that affects the ability of government bodies to facilitate the development of such enterprises. Certain changes to the legislation are suggested. The international literature on factors influencing tourist satisfaction is reviewed and field research at an Australian case study site described, to determine ways tourism enterprises based on reintroductions can maximise tourist satisfaction. The field research draws out a number of new lessons for satisfying tourists, including: placing supplementary food or building waterholes in grasslands and areas with sparse vegetation; providing supplementary food for some species of wildlife; and providing pamphlets with information on the wildlife. The field research also illustrates some new ideas for tests to determine which methods should be used to maximise tourist satisfaction at a specific site, such as testing whether it is better to run tours in vehicles or on foot. The published international literature on minimising impacts of tourism on wildlife is reviewed and field research at one Australian case study site and one Chinese case study site described, to determine how to minimise the negative impacts of tourists on wildlife. The field research illustrates some new ideas for tests to determine which techniques should be used to minimise the impacts of tourism on wildlife at a specific site, such as tests to determine whether it is necessary to ensure tourists remain on the path at all times. The thesis then brings all these elements together into a flow chart giving recommendations to increase the rate of success of tourism enterprises that reintroduce mammals in achieving financial sustainability and sustainable mammal populations.

The Pieman River catchment has seen continuous mining of economic deposits of gold, silver, lead, copper, zinc and tin since the 1870’s. Tributaries of this river which receive mining effluent, either directly or from acid mine drainage (AMID), have total metal concentrations considerably above background levels and are of regulatory concern. The lower Pieman River is however classified as a State Reserve in which recreational fishing and tourism are the major activities. It is therefore important that water entering the lower Pieman River from upstream hydroelectric impoundments is of high quality. Metals in natural waters exist in a variety of dissolved, colloidal and particulate forms. The bioavailability and hence toxicity of heavy metal pollutants is very dependant on their physico form. Knowledge of the speciation of a metal in natural aquatic environments is therefore necessary for understanding its geochemical behaviour and biological availability. Complexation of metal ions by natural ligands in aquatic systems is believed to play a significant role in controlling their chemical speciation. This study has investigated temporal and spatial variation in complexation of metal ions in the Pieman River. The influence of pH, temperature, organic matter, salinity, ionic strength and time has been investigated in a series of field studies and in laboratory-based experiments which simulated natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Labile metals were measured using two techniques in various freshwater and estuarine environments. Diffusive gradients in thin-films (DGT) allowed in situ measurement of solution speciation whilst differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DPASV) was used to measure labile metal species in water samples collected from the catchment. Organic complexation was found to be a significant regulating mechanism for copper speciation and the copper-binding ligand concentration usually exceeded the total copper concentration in the river water. Complexation was highly dependent on pH and at the river-seawater interface was also regulated by salinity, probably as a result of competitive complexation by major ions in seawater (eg. Ca 2+ ions). Zinc complexation was also evident, however total zinc concentrations in the water column often far exceeded the potential binding capacity of available ligands. In addition to organic complexation, Zn speciation may also be associated with adsorption by flocculated or resuspended colloidal Mn and/or Fe oxyhydroxides. Metal ion complexation and hence speciation was found to be highly variable within the Pieman River catchment. This presents major difficulties for environmental managers, as it is therefore not possible to make catchment-wide assumptions about the bioavailability of these metals. These results emphasise the importance of site-specific sampling protocols and speciation testing, ideally incorporating continuous, in situ monitoring.

New information and communication technologies have excited considerable popular and expert attention over the last decades of the twentieth century. Predictions about their social effects range along a continuum from visions of heaven; where people slip the surly bonds of time and space, to glimpses of hell; where such slippage enables new manifestations of dominance and control. Along the continuum there is a basic determinist premise evident, that the technologies have developed in a marginal sphere, and will now bring a new way of life, or at least provide materials for a new way of life, whether this be for good or evil. The notion of cyberspace as a new communicative domain has in particular engaged this kind of attention. This thesis is concerned with the ways in which the rhetoric of cyberspace sheds light on deeper social preoccupations and relations. It is an attempt to move beyond discussion of particular technologies and their possible effects to examine the ways in which habitual social intercourse is reconstructed in and around cyberspace. As a feminist scholar of communication I am particularly interested in the ways in which existing gender relations are maintained in discursive constructions of women in cyberspace, and the ways in which feminist theorists may respond to the new domain. Because I seek to elude simple determinism, I have sought to contextualise the space by some focus on the known social needs, purposes and practices to which the development of cyberspace technologies has been central. Although I acknowledge the power of discourse to maintain extant social relations, I seek to elude discursive determinism by some focus on the ways in which women have creatively appropriated new technologies; on the disjunctions of discourse and practice.

In the marine environment, relatively little is known about how the effects of climatic change will manifest into future patterns of biodiversity and community stability, with the exception of recent work on corals in tropical reef ecosystems. In this thesis, I examine quantitatively how patterns of coral reef biodiversity will respond to the impacts of climatic change and provide essential information (i) to address a critical knowledge gap in the understanding of coral reef biodiversity and (ii) predict how a wide range of sessile invertebrates from coral reef ecosystems will respond to a range of potential impacts of climatic change such as increased physical disturbance and rising sea level. An initial descriptive component of my thesis was required to determine the distribution and abundance of a diverse assemblages of sessile non-scleractinian invertebrates, found along gradients of increasing physical disturbance from wave action and increasing intertidal shore height. I also examined the source, intensity and frequency of disturbance along these environmental gradients. This information was used to derive testable hypotheses about the potential impacts of increasing physical disturbance and rising sea level associated with climatic change. I found that physical disturbance had a substantial influence on the types of species that are able to survive in these intertidal rubble habitats, with diversity decreasing at more exposed shores and further down the shore. Physical disturbance was more important for determining the composition of sessile assemblages than other biotic factors such as predation, which only had weak effects on these sessile assemblages. Increased frequency and intensity of waves and storms will increase rates of physical disturbances such as scraping and overturning of rubble plates, which will have a substantial negative impact on biodiversity in these tropical intertidal habitats. These effects may be more complicated that first thought when combined with the effects of rising sea level which will not only alter the extent of inundation, but may also allow wave energy to propagate further up the shore, which has the potential to modify interactions among species through changes to the supply and recruitment of larvae, predator-prey interactions, competition and survival in harsher environments. However, the magnitude of these impacts may depend on how increased physical disturbance and rising sea level affect established species, and whether they will have a substantial effect on larval mortality rates, which currently appears to be limited by physical disturbance. Declines in biodiversity as a result of climatic change over the next 100 years could have important implications for the future health and productivity of coral reef ecosystems, especially given the ecosystem services these organisms provide. A greater understanding of the processes that drive the distribution and abundance of many different types of organisms on coral reefs, and indeed in other ecosystems, will provide essential information that managers can use to better understand and maintain these important ecosystems for future generations.

Les ouvrages type merlons, construits pour se prémunir contre les chutes de blocs rocheux, sont dimensionnés en pratique au moyen de méthodes empiriques. Afin d'optimiser la géométrie de ces constructions leur modélisation a été entreprise. La méthode aux éléments discrets est utilisée en raison des fortes restructurations du remblai constitutif pouvant intervenir durant un impact. A partir d'un état de l'art, les caractéristiques mécaniques du remblai sont évaluées. La calibration des paramètres quasi-statiques du matériau modèle est alors réalisée par simulations d'essais triaxiaux. Les paramètres gérant le comportement dynamique sont calibrés à leur tour par simulations d'impacts à énergies modérées. Le remblai modèle obtenu est validé par la modélisation d'essais d'impacts expérimentaux dont la gamme d'énergies correspond à celle rencontrée pour les merlons. Il est alors utilisé pour simuler des impacts sur merlons. Plusieurs tailles d'ouvrages sont étudiées, répondant chacune à des gammes d'énergies différentes. Une analyse paramétrique portant sur divers aspects du bloc et de l'ouvrage est réalisée. Elle permet de définir les variables principales gérant le phénomène d'impact. La variation couplée de ces dernières est réalisée afin d'établir leur influence sur la capacité du merlon à contenir le bloc.

<p>ID projects are characterized by a complex network of stakeholders that often lead to the tangledrelationships among various parties. Different stakeholders therefore can exert the influence overan ID project in different ways resulting in both constructive and counter-productive impacts tothe projects. The implementation stage, in many ways, is considered the most significantlyimportant phase in the project life cycle where all the project activities are materialized. Thus,understanding the intricacy of the stakeholders’ impacts to the project implementation is criticalto facilitate the project results.</p><p>A multiple-case study of the two ID projects executed in Vietnam is undertaken with the aim toinvestigate the impacts of the key stakeholders on ID projects beyond the early phases of IDproject life cycle, focusing in particular on the implementation phase. In order to have the wholepicture of the key stakeholders’ impacts to the project implementation, this research alsoexplores the contributing factors of the identified impacts as well as examines how powerful thekey stakeholders are in controlling the decisions making and/or facilitating the projecti mplementation represented through their different degrees of influence.</p><p>Results of the findings suggest both similarities and differences in which the reported impacts ofthe key stakeholders tend to be more counter-productive than constructive to the projectimplementation. The similarities of the findings indicate that the two distinctive projects facecommon issues in the implementation phase whilst the differences can be explained by thespecific circumstances that surround the projects. The representation of the counter-productiveaspects in the findings signify the risks associated with the key stakeholders which is worth while considering in terms of the risk mitigation in the implementation phase of an ID project.</p>