Tension between water sustainability goals and continuing economic reliance on natural resource extraction poses challenges for accelerating water governance reform. Robust accountability mechanisms, as well as collaborative, watershed-scale approaches to water governance are needed to enhance decision-making processes and outcomes, especially where high-risk activities like mining exist. Existing scholarship has not adequately explored how to implement such governance principles in resource extraction contexts, where private actors, and particularly multi-national companies (MNCs), are often primarily responsible for community engagement, operations management, and watershed planning. Through empirical investigation in British Columbia’s Elk River Valley, this thesis investigates how one MNC shapes water governance at the watershed scale currently, and in turn, how their influence may affect key governance principles and approaches. Along with document analysis and participation in local conferences, interviews were conducted with community members, community-based organizations, local/regional governments, independent consultants, industry and provincial government staff, Indigenous Nation members and scientific advisors, and academic experts. Findings indicate that despite the presence of water quality contamination linked to mining, community-industry relationships are widely perceived as positive, and there are benefits related to the MNCs’ involvement in the watershed. This includes capacity building in a community-based water group, who is consequently regarded as making valuable contributions to water governance processes at multiple scales. Additionally, in response to the Indigenous Nations’ concerns and leadership, the MNC supported the development of a collaborative cumulative effects management initiative, which gained momentum and attracted government leadership. Findings also suggested that challenges remain for enhancing water governance outcomes when controls and accountability of a private actors’ high-risk activities are insufficient. I document how ‘social license to operate’ is vaguely operationalized and understood by watershed actors as an accountability principle. I argue that social license does not represent a meaningful accountability mechanism because it cannot guarantee efforts to improve ecological outcomes, and it is unclear whether and how its terms can be defined and enforced. This research contributes to the environmental and water governance literature by providing empirical evidence of new approaches to water governance in a resource extraction context. Considering that B.C. is in the midst of developing and implementing a new Water Sustainability Act, this research also provides practical lessons for policy-makers and practitioners who are exploring options for implementing alternative governance approaches. / Graduate / noverdui@uvic.ca

Thesis (LL. M.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Business Agility could be the means to survive in a competitive environment of continuous andunanticipated change and to respond quickly to rapidly changing, fragmenting global markets that are catered by competitors. To leverage the potential benefits of Business Agility, many companies use Information Technology as a major force for augmenting their agility. The topic of increasing Business Agility through Information Technology has been pervasively studied in research papers. And in the context of this thesis, we will investigate research papers in order to develop an evaluation model for facilitating making informed decisions regarding agile Information Systems in computational Grid environments. The Information Systems in this thesis will focus on license management systems, which is an intricate but coherently integrated blend of many different modules compiled as a technical solution that enables software license management. We will use our evaluation model to compare license management frameworks, easily grasped as a draft for a license management system, for Grid environments and also underpin it with a case study on an in-use license management system in order to strengthen its business applicability. The research was conducted as a qualitative comparison and a case study, combining both research papers and a real business context in order to fulfill the goals and purposes of this thesis. The results of the analysis implies that most of the license management frameworks for Grid environments lacks various details needed for making a feasible implementation in a certain business context, whilst those that have been trialed in a real business situation fulfilled almost every aspect of our evaluation model. The conclusion drawn is that our evaluation model is a seemingly good start for making informed decisions when choosing or designing an agile license management system for Grid environments

Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst / This study investigates and analyzes the environmental licensing of the bridge over the River Coco at Sabiaguaba, Fortaleza â Cearà -Brazil. The licensing was initiated in 2001, being stopped a few times and being completed just in 2010. Through literature, and observation in the field, the public and private interests related to this building were checked. It was examined how is the lifestyles and cultural heritage of Sabiaguaba population, including their relationship with ecosystems, especially mangrove. It was analyzed howthe impacts on the natural environment were observed by the justifications given by the licensing documents and the government intitutes. For this, we examined the aspects ecodynamics and environmental services of mangrove ecosystems, including an investigation about the importance of mangrove ecosystem of the River Coco, the relationship of population of Sabiaguaba with ecosystems and environmental that exist in that area; and an analysis of the current legislation and legal doctrine that focuses on environmental licensing / Este estudo investiga e analisa o licenciamento ambiental da ponte sobre o rio CocÃ, no bairro Sabiaguaba, em Fortaleza â CearÃ. O licenciamento foi iniciado em 2001, sofrendo a obra paralisaÃÃes e sendo finalizada apenas em 2010. AtravÃs de pesquisa bibliogrÃfica, documental e observaÃÃo em campo, foram verificados os interesses pÃblicos e privados relacionados a essa construÃÃo e examinado como o modo de vida e o patrimÃnio cultural da populaÃÃo de Sabiaguaba, incluindo-se a sua relaÃÃo com os ecossistemas, principalmente o manguezal, e como os impactos sobre o meio ambiente natural foram observados pelas justificativas apresentadas pelos documentos do licenciamento e pelos ÃrgÃos envolvidos em torno da obra. Para isso, examinou-se os aspectos ecodinÃmicos e os serviÃos ambientais dos ecossistemas manguezais, investigando-se a importÃncia do ecossistema manguezal do rio CocÃ; a relaÃÃo da populaÃÃo de Sabiaguaba com os ecossistemas e os fluxos ambientais existentes naquela Ãrea; alÃm de uma anÃlise da legislaÃÃo vigente e da doutrina jurÃdica que versa sobre licenciamento ambiental.

This study investigated character color changes on the current Oregon license plate in an attempt to rectify character recognition problems currently experienced with personalized license plates. Red-violet, brown, and purple were tested against the blue color currently used on the Oregon license plate's characters. Aesthetic-preference analyses were conducted to ensure that the potential character color changes maintained the appeal of the current plate. A standard recognition paradigm was used to test errors in letter recognition for the 4 colors. Fifty-four subjects with normal or corrected normal visual acuity and normal color vision were solicited from undergraduate psychology courses. All 54 volunteers participated in the first experiment which scaled preferences of the four character color alternatives using Thurstonian scaling. Fifty subjects were used in the second experiment which examined character recognition differences. The analyses focused on the center character of a 3- character string positioned with the central character on the green tree. Thurstonian scaling results indicated that the current blue character color was most preferred and brown was least preferred. ANOVA results found significant differences in character recognition between the four colors. The current blue color yielded the best character recognition, followed by red violet, purple and then brown. The findings were not congruent with Indow's (1988) study suggesting colors further removed from green on the color cognitive map should produce superior character recognition. A theoretical explanation of the results indicating that brightness differences, not hue, may have led to blue's superior performance is discussed.

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Basically, my dissertation focuses on License Auctions. Four chapters of my dissertation are theoretical analysis of license auctions. Broadly speaking, I analyze the effects of different auction rules on revenue, efficiency and social welfare. The first chapter studies the flaw in the design of the 2000 Turkish GSM auction. In this auction, the Turkish government wants to raise as much revenue as possible and to increase competition in the cell-phone market by selling two licenses to new firms via a sequential auction, but it ends up with only one license sold. I identify this auction design failure. And I also show that if the auction were designed as a “simultaneous auction”, the government would sell two licenses and receive more revenue. In the second chapter, I show that if the cost asymmetry between the bidding firms is large enough, then having fewer firms in the market will surprisingly result in higher social welfare. This result is contrast to the common or general case in which “social welfare” will be higher if there are more firms competing in the market. In the third chapter, I characterize the optimal bidding strategies of local and global bidders for two heterogeneous licenses in a multi-unit simultaneous ascending auction with synergies. I determine the optimal bidding strategies in the presence of an exposure problem and show that global bidders may accept a loss even when they win all licenses and moreover, if a “bid-withdrawal” rule is introduced to the auction, the exposure problem disappears, and the simulation results show that revenue will be higher. In the last chapter, I study the Canadian AWS auction in which 40 percent spectrum are set aside for new firms. I characterize the effect of spectrum set-aside auctions on seller's revenue, consumer surplus and social welfare. I show that a spectrum set aside may not only encourage new entry and increase competition in the downstream market, but also under some circumstance, decreases the seller's revenue and consumer surplus. But a spectrum set aside results in inefficient allocation, and this inefficient entry further reduces social welfare.

Basically, my dissertation focuses on License Auctions. Four chapters of my dissertation are theoretical analysis of license auctions. Broadly speaking, I analyze the effects of different auction rules on revenue, efficiency and social welfare. The first chapter studies the flaw in the design of the 2000 Turkish GSM auction. In this auction, the Turkish government wants to raise as much revenue as possible and to increase competition in the cell-phone market by selling two licenses to new firms via a sequential auction, but it ends up with only one license sold. I identify this auction design failure. And I also show that if the auction were designed as a “simultaneous auction”, the government would sell two licenses and receive more revenue. In the second chapter, I show that if the cost asymmetry between the bidding firms is large enough, then having fewer firms in the market will surprisingly result in higher social welfare. This result is contrast to the common or general case in which “social welfare” will be higher if there are more firms competing in the market. In the third chapter, I characterize the optimal bidding strategies of local and global bidders for two heterogeneous licenses in a multi-unit simultaneous ascending auction with synergies. I determine the optimal bidding strategies in the presence of an exposure problem and show that global bidders may accept a loss even when they win all licenses and moreover, if a “bid-withdrawal” rule is introduced to the auction, the exposure problem disappears, and the simulation results show that revenue will be higher. In the last chapter, I study the Canadian AWS auction in which 40 percent spectrum are set aside for new firms. I characterize the effect of spectrum set-aside auctions on seller's revenue, consumer surplus and social welfare. I show that a spectrum set aside may not only encourage new entry and increase competition in the downstream market, but also under some circumstance, decreases the seller's revenue and consumer surplus. But a spectrum set aside results in inefficient allocation, and this inefficient entry further reduces social welfare.

Diploma thesis defines the elements of legal protection of copyright and intellectual property rights, which plays an important role in nowadays software development. It contains a general evaluation of the legal protection of copyright and its dynamics in the near future, which depends on the situation on the IT market, changes in the structure of customers, including their requirements. Maps the feedback between copyright law and the problems of business processes accompanying technical side of software development and modifications. Maps software links with third party products, development tools and its relationship to copyright issues. It describes distribution models and promotion to promote protection of computer programs.

<p>Due to the decrease in obtaining driver’s licenses among young people, the main purpose of this study was to acquire a deeper understanding of young people’s attitudes towards driver’s license and towards driver’s education. This is a qualitative study with a theoretical approach, which combines Bourdieu with post modern theories. By using focus groups a wide rage of attitudes among young people have been gathered. Having a driver’s license is still considered a standard among young people even though their attitude mostly depends on their need for one. They are also very positive towards alternative ways of transportation and towards public transport. The young are convinced that it is easy to obtain a driver’s license if they wish to have one. One main point that this study points out is that the driver’s license has lost its status as a transitional event between childhood and adulthood.</p>