The performance of an MBR under chemical shock loading conditions was investigated, to ascertain the robustness of the treatment system for urban water reuse. 32 household products and industrial substances, likely to be found in urban wastewater were assessed for toxicity, using Microtox and respirometry to obtain EC50 values. Six of these toxins were dosed into bench scale porous pots to observe any detrimental effects on the treatment system, in terms of effluent quality and potential foulant release. Four toxins were dosed into a pilot scale MBR to observe the effects of scale and enhanced biomass retention on the perturbations seen at bench scale. Mitigation of the foulants observed was investigated by the addition of ancillary chemicals. 10 household products and 6 industrial products were identified as being of risk to a biological treatment system with EC50 concentrations of the order that could be present in urban wastewater. 2 of the 6 toxins dosed into the porous pots caused a serious impact on the system reducing COD removal rates to 45%, compared with 92% average for the control pots, and increasing SMP turbidity to 11 NTU. 1 of the 4 toxins dosed into the MBR caused an impact, although less than observed in the porous pots, with the COD removal rate reducing to 77% and SMP turbidity increasing to a maximum of 9 NTU. Jar tests carried out to investigate mitigation potential of SMP turbidity found the cationic polymers MPE50 and high molecular weight polyDADMAC most efficient with reductions of SMP turbidity to <1 NTU possible although the toxins increased the dose necessary to achieve this.

Research questions 1. What kind of risks in the supply side of HUAWEI supply chain can be identified? 2. How can supply side risks of HUAWEI supply chain be assessed? 3. How can supply side risks of HUAWEI supply chain be mitigated? Purpose This paper describes supply side risks in HUAWEI in China, the types of risks identified, provides guidelines for assessment of these risks and suggestions for mitigation. Methodology In order to answer above research questions empirical data have been collected through observations, interviews at with logistics managers of HUAWEI in China, and from the official documents, annual reports and authentic web pages of the HUAWEI. Theoretical framework has been built through scientific articles, peer reviewed journals, authentic web based documents, and textbooks. The information is then assessed and analyzed, which result in conclusion and recommendations for the company. Conclusion There can be four major risks identified on the supply side. Manufacturing risk, logistics risk, information risk and inventory risk. The manufacturing risk include risks related to production, skill, and quality. The logistics risk further include delivery risk, lead time risk, and transportation risk. Production risk and skill risk are critical and they can be avoided by enhancing risk awareness, evaluating production feasibility, strengthen staff training, investing in high skills, strengthening R&amp;D, and analysis of the external environment. The quality and inbound delivery risks can be reduced through supplier inspection and establishing good supplier relations. Lead time risk and inventory risk can be reduced by vendor based managed inventory system and mass customization. Meanwhile, transportation risk can adopt risk transfer strategy. The information risk can be reduced by increasing information sharing levels and adopting modern communication technologies.

The expansion of wind power comes with additional risks for bird populations, one of which is the collision with wind turbine components, mainly the rotating blades. In order to mitigate this risk, few systems on the market propose solutions with modules that deter the birds from the wind turbine or trigger the temporary shutdown of the turbines.The thesis seeks to obtain a common view from different stakeholders in order to create a list of requirements that the bird protection systems must have so as to be accepted by all the parties involved in the wind industry in Sweden. In order to meet this objective, interviews were conducted with interested stakeholders. Consequently, the interviews were summarized and common points were extracted to create a list of requirements and additional suggestions.Firstly, a comprehensive literature review was done that has pointed out issues like impacts of wind farms on bird species, especially raptors, causes of bird mortality, environmental legislation in European Union and Sweden, and current solutions on mitigating the risk of collisions with wind turbines onshore. Additionally, the author looked up into the most efficient ways to engage the stakeholders in constructive discussions and develop an easy framework for presenting the requirements.The primary data was collected through interviews with stakeholders representing 12 organizations. In the next steps, the data was analyzed by summarizing each interview and identifying the common and differentiating points in respondents’ views and suggestions over automated bird mitigation systems. The identified points laid the basis for a list of requirements considered important for safe and efficient bird mitigation systems in Sweden. Among others, stakeholders identified that the most crucial issues regarding bird mitigation systems are the response time to shutdown of the turbine, distance from the birds’ species living areas, need of species identification in bad weather conditions and night time and overall financial feasibility of such technologies.

There are many opportunities for consumers to design their lives more sustainably. While a rapidly growing body of literature has investigated how consumers can reduce carbon footprints in key con- sumption areas, such as food, housing and mobility, an overall framework that allows structuring those options across all consumption areas is still missing. Hence, this paper presents a novel and systematic framework to identify improvement options that promote climate change mitigation and structure them based on their primary mode of impact on GHG emissions. The framework targets consumer practices and focuses on ambitious, but technically and socioeconomically feasible strategies for consumers to lower their carbon footprint. Four major categories for reducing consumption-based emissions form the basic framework, which are then subdivided into behavioural strategies and sub-strategies. The practical application of the framework is illustrated by using food consumption as an example. Systematically identifying improvement options can advance a holistic understanding of the range of behavioural strategies targeting consumer choices that operate at different stages in the supply chain. It thus provides a starting point for addressing critical questions related to the role of consumers in supporting climate change mitigation. (authors' abstract)

The evolutionary economic geography of climate change is concerned with the processes by which the landscapes of greenhouse gas emissions and vulnerability to climate change are transformed from within over time. Unlike neoclassical economics, evolutionary economic geography is interested in how economic change is driven by innovation and shaped by structural, historical, and contextual factors at different scales. This thesis articulates an evolutionary economic geography perspective on three debates: (1) What factors influence human systems’ capacity to adapt to climate change, and how can these factors be assessed? (2) What forces drive and inhibit economic change towards low-carbon economies, and how should governments induce and manage such shifts? (3) What role should climate finance play in promoting developing countries’ shifts to low-emitting and climate-resilient economies, and how should it be managed? The thesis includes five academic papers. The first reviews the literature on vulnerability and adaptation. It argues that the adaptive capacity of human systems is constrained by structural and historical factors, and that the rich data necessary to identify these factors can only be obtained through qualitative research methods. The next two papers offer case studies from the Global Islands’ Vulnerability Research Adaptation and Policy Development project, which assess the adaptive capacity of Soufriere, Saint Lucia and Whitehouse, Jamaica, respectively. The fourth paper examines the mechanics of three low-carbon shifts in Brazil: the diffusion of no-till agriculture, the decrease in the deforestation rate in the Amazon, and the growth of the ethanol biofuel industry. It found that the driving forces behind each of the shifts were far more varied and complex than the price-based market dynamics analysed in neoclassical economics. The final paper argues that climate finance will need to perform a variety of functions beyond attracting low-carbon private investment. It concludes that the institutional architecture governing climate finance should enable direct access to national governments to incentivise them to implement sustainable innovation policy regimes.

This thesis deals with the fragmentation of the landscape as a result of highway infrastructure and human settlement. The aim is to analyze the current level of fragmentation and permeability of the landscape for large mammals in the region of Moravska Brana, which is a significant migration area between the West Carpathian and Hercynian sub-provinces. The results confirm the increased degree of fragmentation in this area due to the accumulation of several line barriers from the Northeast to the Southwest, and it particularly shows the negative impact of Highway D1. By comparing the degree of fragmentation with supra- regional corridors, this thesis evaluates the Territorial system of ecological stability (TSES) and the habitat model of large carnivores. This thesis shows that the current migration corridors provide only a fragmented landscape with unsuitable habitat. While making a comprehensive analysis of the permeability of the D1 motorway, the effectiveness of the migration corridor between Klimkovice and Dolni Ujezd was evaluated with an emphasis on monitoring the ecoduct of Suchdol nad Odrou, which is used primarily by medium-sized mammals. The results show that large mammals in this area have found the most appropriate migration corridor a long elevated road through the river valleys. Key...

Landscape permeability is currently significantly decreasing mainly due to anthropogenic barriers - transportation infrastructure and sub/urban development. The construction of these barriers has various environmental impacts on animals that differ among taxa. Ensuring a certain degree of permeability of the landscape is crucial for the survival of many species of organisms. Effective tools for the planning protection and restoration of the permeability of the landscape are series of models, whose theoretical framework and practical use are described in this thesis. The practical part deals with the modeling of changes in landscape permeability in the southern hinterlands of Prague. The effectiveness of the implemeted mitigation measures is also evaluated. Keywords: landscape fragmentation, landscape permeability, ecoducts, mitigation measures, suburbanization

Ce document étudie les risques associés à une transformation du Centre d’Essais en Vol (Flight Test Centre) de l'UAE AF & AD en une organisation civile compétitive, indépendante et autonome, capable d'entreprendre des projets aéronautiques complexes.Dans cette thèse, l'auteur décrit le FTC « PRESENT », tel qu’il est aujourd’hui, sa mission et sa fonction, tout en ayant comme perspective l'avenir, le FTC « FUTUR ». Il souligne les défis existants et développe les besoins futurs du FTC.L'auteur résume la description générale du Cadre d'Architecture d'Entreprise. Dans sa tentative d'identifier le cadre le plus approprié, il compare quatre cadres de référence : « The John Zachman Enterprise Architecture Framework, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) et The Gartner Methodology ». Sa conclusion démontre qu'une approche mixte, combinant plusieurs cadres, serait appropriée au contexte du FTC, ayant en particulier la dimension - « Z ».Les constatations et les conclusions de l’auteur ont apporté une meilleure connaissance et compréhension des disciplines de gestion des changements organisationnels et des processus de gouvernance / A number of Defence organizations worldwide are moving towards outsourcing. The United Arab Emirates Air Force & Air Defence (UAE AF&AD) is also transforming some of its activities from military entities into civilian organizations. This paper studies the risks associated with the transformation of the UAE AF&AD Flight Test Centre (FTC) into a civilian organization to become a competitive, independent and autonomous outsourcing agency able to undertake additional, complex and specialized aeronautical projects.In this paper, the author describes the FTC “AS IS” organization, mission and function while focusing on the future “TO BE”. He underlines the existing challenges and develops the future needs of the FTC. In his mind, it is clear that the future of the FTC has to be sustainable, competitive, process oriented, cohesive and dynamic in response to changes. The need of an enterprise framework is, in the authors view, a critical matter. The greatest challenge is to identify or develop the right framework with a risk dimension and governance for a specific FTC application: a framework that will assist the FTC to identify, determine and assess at an earlier stage various risks

The concept of ecological compensation (EC) assumes that ecological values are substitutable across spatial units. EC is increasingly recognised in Sweden as a novel policy instrument for land-use planning, however, it suffers from inconsistency in application and outcome. For example, there are no legal provisions to require EC for urban development or new roads and railways. This study shows that there are many context dependent variables affecting the performance of EC in Sweden, which can partly be explained by authorities’ lacking experience in administrating these questions, and by the absence of a standardised structure for handling the full EC process. These shortcomings together with an inadequate legislation may cause EC to result in “license-to-trash” and fails to guarantee no net loss of ecological values. The performance of EC in Sweden was assessed through two case studies: the Sigtuna trading estate and the Aitik mine expansions. Implementation procedures and compensation designs were investigated by analysis of written documents and semi-structured interviews. The data was structured in an analytical framework, displaying similarities and context dependent disparities. The results suggest that, for the Aitik-case, licence-to-trash is a risk if compensation schemes are reviewed by the regulatory authorities during the processing of the application. The Sigtuna case suggests, opposed to earlier findings, that the Plan and Building Act can be utilised for EC if the compensation measures are regulated in a development agreement between the municipality and the landowner/developer. Both cases suggest that additionality can be met by appropriate institutional design, whereas no net loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services hardly can be achieved within the existing Swedish legal framework. To improve the performance of EC, structures for handling the process from quantification of social and ecological values, to monitoring of compensation outcomes must be implemented in all development projects affecting nature.

Biomass is the world’s largest renewable energy source, accounting for approximately 10% of global primary energy supply, and 5% of energy consumed in the United States. Prominent national programs like the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard incentivize increased use of biomass, primarily as a transportation fuel. There has been comparatively little government support for using biomass as a renewable feedstock for the chemical sector. Such asymmetry in incentives can lead to sub-optimal outcomes in the allocation of biomass toward different uses. Greenhouse gas reduction is among the most cited benefits of bioenergy and bio-based products, however, there is increasing controversy about whether increased use of biomass can actually contribute to greenhouse gas emission targets. If biomass is to play a role in current and future greenhouse gas mitigation efforts its use should be guided by efficient use of natural and economic resources. This thesis addresses these questions through a series of case studies, designed to highlight important tradeoffs in the use of biomass for greenhouse gas mitigation. Should biomass be used as a fuel, a chemical feedstock, or neither? The first case study in this thesis focuses on the ‘fuel vs feedstock’ question, examining the greenhouse gas implications of expanding the scope of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard to include credits for bioethylene, an important organic chemical readily produced from bioethanol. Results suggest that an expanded policy that includes bioethylene as an approved use for ethanol would provide added flexibility without compromising greenhouse gas targets – a clear win scenario. Having established that bioethylene based plastics can achieve similar greenhouse gas reductions to bioethanol used as fuel, this thesis expands the analysis by considering how the greenhouse gas emissions from a wider range of bio-based plastics compare to each of the main commodity thermoplastics produced in the U.S. The analysis demonstrates that there are large uncertainties involved in the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions from bio-based plastics, and that only a subset of pathways are likely to be preferable to conventional plastics. The following chapter then builds on the existing model to compare the greenhouse gas mitigation potential of bio-based plastics to the potential for reducing emissions by adopting low carbon energy for plastics production. That chapter concludes that switching to renewable energy across the supply chain for conventional plastics energy cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 50-75%, achieving a greater reduction, with less uncertainty and lower cost, than switching to corn-based biopolymers – the most likely near-term biopolymer option. In the long run, producing bio-based plastics from advanced feedstocks (e.g. switchgrass) and/or with renewable energy likely offers greater emission reductions. Finally, this thesis returns to the dominant form of policy surrounding biomass use: biofuel mandates. That study takes a consequential approach to the ‘fuel or neither’ question. Specifically, this work examines how petroleum refineries are likely to adjust their production in response to biofuel policies, and what this implies for the success of these policies. The research demonstrates that biofuel policies induce a shift toward greater diesel production at the expense of both gasoline and non-combustion petroleum products. This has the potential to result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, even before accounting for the emissions from producing the biofuels themselves.