Institutions, the rules of the game that shape repeated human interactions, clearly play a critical role in helping groups avoid the inefficient use of shared resources such as fisheries, freshwater, and the assimilative capacity of the environment. Institutions, however, are intimately intertwined with the human, social, and biophysical context within which they operate. Scholars typically are careful to take this context into account when studying institutions and Ostrom's Institutional Design Principles are a case in point. Scholars have tested whether Ostrom's Design Principles, which specify broad relationships between institutional arrangements and context, actually support successful governance of shared resources. This article further contributes to this line of research by leveraging the notion of institutional design to outline a research trajectory focused on coupled infrastructure systems in which institutions are seen as one class of infrastructure among many that dynamically interact to produce outcomes over time.

This study aims to develop and establish an appropriately co-ordinated regime for infrastructure sharing facilities development and regulation in SSA that could be utilised by the various stakeholders involved in mining infrastructure related activities, as well as those not involved in mineral-related activities, to enable economic diversification and broad-based development within a country. The starting point of the study is the gap that exists within the mining legal framework of Sub-Saharan African countries regarding the development of large scale mining infrastructure related projects such as rails and ports infrastructure networks that require meticulous coordination and collaboration between the numerous stakeholders involved. Consequently, the thesis starts with an introductory chapter that introduces the subject area to be examined in the thesis and provides a rationale for why this topic has been chosen. It also outlines areas of concern within the research topic and sets out the research questions. Subsequently, it sets out the conceptual framework and the necessary analytical tools utilised to evaluate and analyse the concept of shared- use of rail and port infrastructure. Chapter 3 investigates mining infrastructure related projects in Australia, specifically those located in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. Chapter 4 explores mining infrastructure related projects in SSA, specifically projects located in Guinea and provide recommendations to SSA countries in general and to the Government of Guinea in particular, on how best to develop shared-use mining infrastructure. Finally, Chapter 5 highlights the findings of the thesis based on the comparison between mining infrastructure development undertaken in Australia with that of the SSA region. The study finds that most countries on the continent suffer from governance gaps expressed in institutional dysfunction, as well as from structures that do not foster collaboration but, on the contrary, deficient environments for national strategies for infrastructure that works for development.

This thesis analyzes and discusses the development of the Swedish government’s role as owner and financier of roads and railroads from the 1930s until the 2010s. The influence on the development of the government’s role from two main theoretical paradigms is discussed and analyzed. These are: a) neoclassical and welfare economics; and b) new institutional economic theory with an organizational focus. The thesis shows that there has been a shift from an institutional view on the organization and financing of the road and railroad systems following the nationalization in the 1930-40s, to a view more based on welfare economics from the 1970s. Technology, economics and politics are three important factors influencing the development of the transport systems and of the government’s role. In the thesis these factors are covered in a co-evolutionary approach applied for analysis of the historical development. This approach connects to a dynamic view on organizations and firms in institutional theory. Over time there have been shifts in the strength of the factors (technology, economics and politics) influencing the development. There have also been controversies around financing principles and contradictions between different elements in the policies actually pursued over time. One such controversy has been whether to aim for full cost coverage or for marginal cost coverage. The thesis discusses how planning and coordination in the transport infrastructure sector can come about. A centralized public sector planner mode is contrasted towards a private sector spontaneous ordering mode. It is argued that it is difficult for a centralized planner to collect the necessary information and transform it into deepened knowledge in order to coordinate. A decentralized spontaneous ordering mode might though allow for including the necessary knowledge. The thesis illustrates a number of trade-offs that must be taken into consideration when discussing a possible future development for transport infrastructure and the government’s role. The following aspects are discussed: - the balance between public and private as the basic organizing principle; - the balance between government and regions/local governments when it comes to - the geographical division of responsibility; and - the balance between the national and EU levels for strategic transport infrastructure planning and coordination, also in relation to spontaneous coordination and centralized planning. The government has acted reluctantly and pragmatically and gradually developed its ownership role and the general policies in the sector. The government’s emphasis on market failure as its basic assumption has become stronger over time. The thesis brings a deepened understanding of the long-term development of the government’s ownership and policy formation in the transport infrastructure sector in relation to the two theoretical paradigms. This combination of a historical view with the theoretical economic background gives new insights into the past and future of the government’s role for transport infrastructure. / <p>QC 20130614</p>

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) constitute core accessibility resources for Web designers and developers. To explore their deployment, I conduct interviews with 10 practitioners who use WCAG and WAI-ARIA in their work. Using techniques derived from grounded theory and situational analysis, I develop the concept of conformance work. Conformance work refers to how designers and developers develop harmonized interpretations of WAI-ARIA and WCAG, and the Websites these specifications are meant to instruct. Conformance work is the upstream work designers and developers engage in to invest categories such as “standards compliance” and “Web accessibility” with meaning.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) constitute core accessibility resources for Web designers and developers. To explore their deployment, I conduct interviews with 10 practitioners who use WCAG and WAI-ARIA in their work. Using techniques derived from grounded theory and situational analysis, I develop the concept of conformance work. Conformance work refers to how designers and developers develop harmonized interpretations of WAI-ARIA and WCAG, and the Websites these specifications are meant to instruct. Conformance work is the upstream work designers and developers engage in to invest categories such as “standards compliance” and “Web accessibility” with meaning.

During the 1960s large trenched expressways were introduced into our urban centres to accommodate the booming vehicular traffic. These expressways were built on an enormous scale, often traversing entire cities. Unfortunately, some neighbourhoods have been divided and now share a noxious physical boundary. The Vine Street Expressway in Philadelphia, the Cross Bronx Expressway in New York and the Décarie Expressway in Montreal are examples of such thoroughfares. They are noisy, polluted and uninspiring spaces. The auto-centric mindset with which these expressways were designed with is being challenged. A desire to make cities more sustainable, healthy and accessible for their citizens is emerging. Given the decreased mobility issues that would arise if these structures were to be completely eliminated, it is necessary to explore architectural solutions to remedy the destructive effects these massive artefacts have on the urban fabric. Through surgical interventions along the Décarie Expressway in Montreal, I will investigate realistic if slightly optimistic solutions in which we can foster a symbiotic relationship between these massive trenched urban vehicular infrastructures and the surrounding urban space. The large scale of interventions allows for the exploration of the inherent possibilities for expressive structural bridging solutions over the expressway, new configurations of urban public space by utilizing the captured space over the infrastructural thoroughfare and a productive urban fabric which begins to address the potential of a hybrid urbanism of the twenty first century.

The objective of this thesis is to outline steps that the Obama Administration could take to help pass legislation for an innovative funding mechanism known as a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB). The recommended steps are based on a historical analysis of the leadership provided by Presidents Roosevelt and Eisenhower when passing the original bills that authorized the Interstate system. Key policy recommendations include: framing the need for an NIB as a means of economic growth and natural disaster resilience, building strategic stakeholder support through education, and engaging and compromising with Congress while developing the NIB proposal. If successfully applied, these lessons can contribute to enabling the creation of an NIB that would increase infrastructure investment by billions of dollars while rehabilitating the struggling economy and transportation network.

Rapid development in information technology (IT) has substantially affected the hospital world and will continue to be important. This research presents an IT infrastructure and a set of IT capabilities for medical referral in a hospital setting. This includes the introduction of the networking, communication standards, software and hardware, IT capability, and medical referral process as a whole in an electronic environment. The results of this research provide a great knowledge in IT infrastructure and capability for hospitals to implement medical referral. Based on this finding, hospitals can implement electronic medical referral easily.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Oulu, 2007. / Title from PDF title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 226-238). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-113).