Thesis (Ph. D.)--Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, 2008.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2002 / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-101). Also available via World Wide Web.

学位授与大学：京都大学 ; 取得学位: 博士(工学) ; 学位授与年月日: 2007-09-25 ; 学位の種類: 新制・課程博士 ; 学位記番号: 工博第2846号 ; 請求記号: 新制/工/1419 ; 整理番号: 25531 / 1.1.1 Disaster planning and management: an overview With the rapid economic development and urbanization, the cities are growing fast. Throughout the world it is common to observe that large cities and urban agglomerations along with a wide range of opportunities also bring a variety of safety risk. Cities, as those grow bigger and bigger and become more complex, generally become increasingly vulnerable to hazard, both natural and man-made (Misra, 2004). Many cities are located on seismically active zones, near active volcanoes and on areas prone to cyclones and floods and possibilities of damage by these hazards have increased significantly. Due to the lack of proper awareness and preparedness to disasters, the number of casualties affected and economic losses caused by natural disasters have been increasing over recent decades (EM-DAT, 2004). For example, the Tangshan earthquake (July 28, 1976) in China devastated the whole municipality, and killed 242, 000 people with millions of people homeless (Liu, 1985). The Indian Ocean earthquake (December 26, 2004) and subsequent tsunamis caused a total of 229, 866 people lost, including 186, 983 dead and 42, 883 missing (United Nations, 2005). Now, most of the countries have taken various countermeasures to reduce the losses due to disasters. Safety, risk management and disaster preparedness, are now becoming very import aspects of city management in Japan. In the wake of accelerated urban growth and emergence of strong market forces, local area needs and priorities in Japan changed and so was the perception of day to day risks and security from disasters (Misra, 2004). The structural countermeasures are effective in saving people’s lives and properties especially from the small-scale low-impact disasters. While for the low-frequency high-impact disasters, these measures probably cause more losses especially when the risks level greatly exceeds the resilience capacity of infrastructure. That was exactly what happened in the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake (January 17, 1995) in Japan (The Asashi Simbun, 1996). The earthquake also taught people that the impact of a low-frequency high-impact disaster (catastrophic disaster) may exceed the present capacity of the public rescue and relief services. In most of the similar cases of catastrophic disasters, the local governments are found to be not able to provide the sufficient services to the citizens in the time of disaster. Though various types of national or international assistances from outside of the suffered region may be available, such as those provided by NGOs, NPOs and INGOs, that kind of external assistance is not at all sufficient, particularly for rescue, relief and recovery. So, it is needed to stress the need for community capacity building. Both communities and local authorities should be empowered to manage and reduce disaster risk by having access to the necessary information, resources and authority to implement actions for disaster risk reduction (Hyogo Framework, 2005). If the local government is only the decision-maker in such cases, they may inevitablely be in bias due to the lack of local knowledge even with the experts’ help. The local government should also learn from the local residents. On the other hand, the individual citizens and the local community should have sufficient professional advice for preparation in advance to cope up with the sudden disaster shocks (The Asashi Simbun, 1996). Often due to the lack of professional knowledge, the individual citizens and the local community fail to find their best way to get prepared for disaster risks. They also need to learn from the local government, experts, or NGO/NPOs. This kind of two-way risk communications are often called “social co-learning” (Okada, 2005). Japan, realizing the need for promotion of ‘bottom-up’ planning and closer involvement of the civil society in urban development, also brought in appropriate changes in its Urban Planning Law in the 1992 and made it mandatory for the local governments to adopt participatory urban planning at the local level (Misra, 2004). After the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, the local government has started to take the proactive countermeasures in collaboration with the local communities and individual citizens. Institutional changes are also under way, which gradually shifted the conventional type of top-down approach towards the bottom-up approach (multi-stakeholder participatory approach) (Okada et al., 2004). In Japan, self help (“Jijyo” in Japanese) and mutual aid (“Kyojyo” in Japanese) are now more advocated by many policy makers and frequently quoted as keywords for community-based disaster reduction, in the official documents and manuals on disaster planning and management. For example, the Disaster Planning Manual of Kagawa Prefecture (2006) emphasizes the importance of self help, and mutual aid for disaster risk management. Such self-help and mutual-aid activities can enhance the individual citizen’s awareness, and enhance their internal communications with other neighboring individuals and communities. Besides the individuals and the community, disaster volunteers, such as NGOs and NPOs, are also taking more and more important roles in the community’s disaster prevention planning and management. / Kyoto University (京都大学) / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第13375号 / 工博第2846号 / 新制||工||1419(附属図書館) / 25531 / UT51-2007-Q776 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 岡田 憲夫, 教授 中川 大, 教授 多々納 裕一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当

This research is concerned with improving the planning process in large construction projects where the management and planning of the preconstruction planning process itself is a significant and complex task. Preconstruction planning in the construction sector has become a complex task requiring substantial collaboration, with ad-hoc teams (especially from design and construction) created to bring all the project resources involved together in a timely manner, to ensure a construction project is completed effectively and efficiently. This, combined with the iterative nature of the planning process, has challenged even the best companies in the industry. Three major weaknesses in current practice were identified in the research: first, the planning preconstruction planning process is heavily reliant on a planner's experience (i.e. a planner develops a new programme of a preconstruction planning through personal determination of the planning tasks and their precedence, starting afresh at the beginning of each project). For large projects this is not only time consuming but subject to the limitations ohhe planner's knowledge and experience, often resulting in simplistic programmes in which many of the dependencies are ignored. Secondly, guesses (i.e. estimates) are frequently made in the planning process, which neither the initial planner nor the downstream planner will later check. They are usually ignored and left until the execution of the plan, when the problems reveal themselves. Finally, the current techniques for the management of preconstruction planning, such as the critical path method and bar charts, cannot account for the iterative nature of the planning process that requires estimations to be made and work to be redone until a satisfactory so lution is developed. As a result, it may be said that preconstruction planning is currently managed poorly. It can be. argued that if preconstruction planning is to be undertaken effectively, it must be better managed and planned.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / This study has evaluated the strategic planning and management of the University of Namibia. The crucial objective was to assess the strategic planning process of the University of Namibia to see if the strategic plans were properly developed and also determine how the Northern Campus feature in the overall strategic plan of the University of Namibia. The research has used the body of knowledge on strategic planning and management to investigate the problem.

This thesis is about the standardization of the planning phase in a project management office (PMO). The purpose of the research is to find the way to standardize the planning phase in PMO. This purpose is motivated by the relevance of planning phase in projects. Planning is about to forecast, and the consequences of a bad forecasting can be critical for the developing of the project. The research question of the study is the following one:➢ How can the planning phase be standardized in a Project Management Office?To answer this question five interviews have been performed. The interviewees were senior project managers from different companies in Sweden. In order to keep the confidentiality, the names of the managers and the companies which they belong to are omitted. A literature review has been done to set up a theoretical framework and validate the results from the interviews. The study concludes that the only part in planning which can be easily standardized is the work breakdown structure. The results showed that standardization of planning phase as a whole is a big challenge for PMO and also that specialization helps in great measure the standardization of planning.

This study reports research about innovation and change in the professional practice of the staff at the Library and Information Service (LIS) staff at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, in Western Australia. The historical context of the study is Australian higher education and university libraries in the early 1990s. It reports, examines and analyzes key events and activities of the LIS staff strategic planning process both as an educational innovation and a driver of change in professional practice. The investigation of educational innovation and change is the object of the study, specifically the application of strategic planning.Literature from the 30-year history of writing and research about educational innovation and change is reviewed in terms of its relevance to the study. In addition, selected literature about organizational theory and strategic planning in libraries is presented. From this literature emerged the particular innovation and change framework, which guide the research.A justification for the selection of the particular research approach is explained and data collection, organization and analysis are described. The study uses official LIS corporate records as its primary source of data, supplemented by published materials to assist in the explanation of the particular circumstances of the LIS case.The results of the data analysis are presented in terms of the key events and activities of the LIS case. From this analysis conclusions are drawn in relation to the research questions which underpin the study and in terms of the component parts of the innovation and change framework. In particular, conclusions relate to the key organizational factors shaping the response to innovation; the characteristics of the context of change; key organizational processes helping to ensure successful adoption; the articulation of a shared vision and ++ / processes to ensure a shared vision. In relation to the innovation and change framework the change process is viewed as adoption dominated; as a move towards a learning organization; through the characteristics of the context of change and through other factors influencing change.Flowing from the research findings, recommendations are made for professional practice and further research.As a case study that reports, examines and analyses the complex dimensions of organizational change, the study is rich in detail and provides a real-life example of organizational and educational change.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2001. / Bibliography: leaves 133-138.

Thesis (Ed.D.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2009. / Thesis advisor: Karen Beyard. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-210). Also available via the World Wide Web.

<p> Sharp-tailed grouse habitat on the Dakota Prairie Grasslands are assessed by habitat structure with the use of the Robel pole to measure visual obstruction readings (VOR). The purpose of this study was to determine 1) if all selected ecological sites (loamy, thin loamy, and claypan) are biologically capable of producing high structure (VOR > 3.5 in) with 3 years of protection from livestock grazing and 2) if strong and consistent correlations exist between standing crop and visual obstruction among ecological sites and across years. Results showed that 1) all selected ecological sites were biologically capable of producing high structure, 2) strong correlations between standing crop and visual obstruction were not consistent among ecological sites and across years, 3) year effects were evident in plant community composition, and 4) 2,534 kg/ha (se &plusmn; 205.3) of standing crop provides the mean threshold to determine if the selected ecological sites are biologically capable. </p>