Water conservation is one of the important policy concerns. However, most water conservation practices have focused primarily on reducing use by customers. Since a large amount of water lost in supply systems causes water providers to lose money, resources, and reliability, and the current passive approach cannot deal with water losses effectively, a proactive approach is necessary for water-loss management. The goal of this study is to help policymakers and water utilities develop strategies that proactively solve water losses. To develop strategies for water-loss management, it is essential to identify key factors that determine the level of water losses as well as the factors that encourage the adoption of the innovative control practices. Using three different datasets and statistical methodology, this study analyzed the factors associated with water losses and utilities responses to the problems. Based on case studies, this study explored managers perceptions about the adoption of water-loss management and identified organizational characteristics that may influence managements decisions to adopt such strategies. Operational and Maintenance (O and M) factors had the most significant impacts on water losses. In particular, system size, represented by total production or population served, and infrastructure rehabilitation were crucial factors. The effects of some internal factors on water losses were predicted but those of several internal factors were rather unclear and relatively complicated. This study confirmed that utilities were more likely to be motivated to combat water losses if certain external conditions, such as higher water demand, limited resource availability, and institutional pressure exist. This study found several internal and external factors associated with the adoption of proactive water-loss management; however, internal factors seemed to dominate in the decision-making processes over such adoption. The utilities that have already adopted proactive water-loss management seem to be more amenable to adopt new practices because they have certain characteristics and their managers have more positive perspectives. The findings suggest several policy implications and recommendations for the water industry. Finally, this study discussed limitations of the study, and suggestions for further studies.

The authors of this paper will try to identify what different pressure factors have an influence over the Swedish mechanical pulp and paper industry. Moreover, the authors of this paper will try to identify whether different levels of environmental commitment can be identified within the organization. The results show that all of the pressure factors that were identified in the case study, except for regulations and social pressure, are influenced by economic benefits and, therefore, a reactive stance is almost always preferred by the firm when there is a negative correlation between economic performance and environmental performance. Results also indicate a gap in the internal communication of the organization. This is not related to the topic of this paper but might be useful information for the company used in the case study.

This thesis analyzes the process of proactive urban design in a theoretical framework. It asks searching questions about how built environments are conceived of, designed, delivered, protected, enhanced and managed, and it explores these by examining the proactive planning practices in Britain. It defines the proactive approach firstly as / how both the spatial policy and detailed guidance express and prescribe the desired physical form, and secondly / how this is pursued through active negotiation. While encompasses land use planning, spatial planning goes beyond physical planning with a clearly defined local vision which emphasises social, economic and environmental values. This inclusive approach defines urban design as a spatial policy describing both the form and the life of the city. It deals with how urban design infuses planning policies at all levels. The case study looks into policy mechanisms associated with the delivery of good urban design. It represents the proactive planning practice through involvement, partnership working and negotiation processes based on a sustainable community strategy. It focuses on the policies influencing design quality and how these shape the decisionmaking processes of public and private sector stakeholders resulting in better quality of built environment and a more vibrant public realm. This study examines the social structure that developed the proactive approach for best practice to become common practice. It explains the lessons to learn from the definition of spatial planning process with its context and implementation tools, even if these might not be adapted to Turkey without the same intellectual and philosophical backgrounds.

The present study investigates the effects of cognitive inhibitory mechanisms and tendency to suppress thoughts on the frequency and intensity of traumatic intrusions within the trauma film paradigm. Non clinical participants&rsquo / response inhibition and proactive inhibition levels and tendency to suppress thoughts were measured prior to exposure to a trauma film. One week after seeing the trauma film, participants reported the frequency and intensity of trauma film related intrusions with an intrusion diary and Impact of Events Scale. No significant effect of response inhibition, proactive inhibition and thought suppression tendency was found on the frequency and intensity of trauma film related intrusions. Findings of the study are discussed.

The limited capacity of working memory forces people to update its contents continuously. Two aspects of the updating process were investigated in the present experimental series. The first series concerned the question if it is possible to update several representations in parallel. Similar results were obtained for the updating of object features as well as for the updating of whole objects, participants were able to update representations in parallel. The second experimental series addressed the question if working memory representations which were replaced in an updating disappear directly or interfere with the new representations. Evidence for the existence of old representations was found under working memory conditions and under conditions exceeding working memory capacity. These results contradict the hypothesis that working memory contents are protected from proactive interference of long-term memory contents. / Aufgrund der begrenzten Kapazität des Arbeitsgedächtnisses müssen seine Inhalte ständig aktualisiert werden. Zwei Aspekte des Aktualisierungsprozesses wurden in Experimentalserien untersucht. Die erste Serie betraf die Frage, ob es möglich ist, mehrere Repräsentationen gleichzeitig zu aktualisieren. Ähnliche Ergebnisse ergaben sich sowohl für das Aktualisieren von Objektmerkmalen als auch für das Aktualisieren von ganzen Objekten, die Versuchsteilnehmer konnten Repräsentationen gleichzeitig aktualisieren. In der zweiten Experimentalserie wurde die Frage untersucht, ob Arbeitsgedächtnisrepräsentationen, die bei einer Aktualisierung ersetzt worden sind, sofort verschwinden oder mit den neuen Repräsentationen interferieren. Evidenz für das Vorhandensein alter Repräsentationen wurde unter Arbeitsgedächtnisbedingungen und unter Bedingungen, bei denen die Arbeitsgedächtniskapazität überschritten wird, gefunden. Diese Ergebnisse widersprechen der Hypothese, dass Arbeitsgedächtnisinhalte vor proaktiver Interferenz aus dem Langzeitgedächtnis geschützt sind.

Thirteen qualitative interviews have been conducted with key individuals who have profound knowledge and experience in the subject of crisis communication. The thesis used a theory testing approach and highlights the main issues regarding the influence of intercultural competence in crisis information, and to what extent social media channels are used for crisis communication. Also, it covers how the leadership during crises affects the communication from the perspectives of the key individuals. In this empirical investigation, the analytical method of thematization has been used in order to select essential themes throughout the qualitative interviews. These themes have been compared to the relevant theories within the subject - crisis communication, intercultural competence, and social media in crisis situations. The emerging conclusions from this study were the importance of pre-existing relations between organizations and authorities in crisis situations, and the amplifications of crisis communication through crisis networks operating between organizations. Another conclusion was that proactive crisis communication plans need to be of a consise and general design to be practical in crisis situations. Furthermore, one conclusion was that most organizations according to the interviewees were aware of the absence of intercultural competence, but due to lack of resources this was not prioritized. The last conclusion was that social media channels have a high interest level during crisis situations, but was seldom used to a large extent during crises

The present study proposed an integrated coping framework that included both personal and social resources and explored the interaction of these constructs with future-oriented, proactive coping processes. Expressive writing was utilized as a cost-effective and minimally intrusive intervention to encourage individuals to facilitate proactive coping in cognitive and behavioral domains. One-hundred and eighty five participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: 1) Proactive Writing (N = 63) to facilitate processing of a significant future stressor that is anticipated but is not certain to occur in the immediate future, 2) Expressive Writing (N = 53) to facilitate processing of the most difficult problem or situation experienced in the previous twelve months, or 3) Control Writing (N = 69) regarding time management as a credible placebo condition. The current study had three empirical aims. First, the current study experimentally tested whether implementing expressive writing as a proactive coping intervention increased proactive coping. Second, the current study tested whether proactive coping was positively related to adaptive functioning. Third, the current study vii examined reactive coping and perceived social support as mediators of the proactive coping to adaptive functioning relationship. Findings indicated that proactive coping and cognitive and behavioral coping efforts were associated with several clinical outcomes in the domains of psychological affect, life satisfaction, and physical health. Significant group differences in days per week of exercise and overeating behavior were present following the intervention, with a marginally significant trend found for social network size. Percentage of approach-oriented cognitive and behavioral coping towards anticipated and extant stressors, and perceptions of available support, enacted support, and satisfaction with one's social network were examined for mediational properties. Overall findings did not support the proposed mediation model of proactive coping. Implications of findings, limitations and future directions are discussed. / text

In traditional Wireless Sensor network's (WSN's), the sink is the only unconditionally trusted authority. If the sink is not connected to the nodes for a period of time then the network is considered as unattended. In Unattended Wireless Sensor Network (UWSN), a trusted mobile sink visits each node periodically to collect data. This network differs from the traditional multi hop wireless sensor networks where the nodes close to the sink deplete their power earlier than the other nodes. An UWSN can prolong the life time of the network by saving the battery of the nodes and also it can be deployed in environments where it is not practical for the sink to be online all the time. Saving data in the memory of the nodes for a long time causes security problems due to the lack of tamper-resistant hardware. Data collected by the nodes has to be secured until the next visit of the sink. Securing the data from an adversary in UWSN is a challenging task. We present two non-cryptographic algorithms (DS-PADV and DS-RADV) to ensure data survivability in mobile UWSN. The DS-PADV protects against proactive adversary which compromises nodes before identifying its target. DS-RADV makes the network secure against reactive adversary which compromises nodes after identifying the target. We also propose a data authentication scheme against a mobile adversary trying to modify the data. The proposed data authentication scheme uses inexpensive cryptographic primitives and few message exchanges. The proposed solutions are analyzed both mathematically and using simulations proving that the proposed solutions are better than the previous ones in terms of security and communication overhead.

Relational aggression encompasses behaviour meant to hurt others by destroying their friendships and reputation (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995). As peer relationships take on greater importance in early adolescence, relational aggression becomes more accepted and prevalent, yet perceived as equally or more harmful to its targets than physical aggression. The present study explored whether reactive and proactive subtypes of relational aggression were associated with an inability to empathize with others, regulate emotional states, and hold attitudes that it is acceptable to manipulate and harm others. Empathy, emotion regulation, and Machiavellianism’s roles in predicting reactive and proactive relational aggression was examined using Crick and Dodge’s (1994) reformulated Social Information-Processing Theory’s framework. Reactive relational aggression was expected to be associated with low empathy and high emotion dysreglation. Proactive relational aggression was expected to be predicted by high empathy, low emotion dysregulation, and high Machiavellianism. Low empathy was expected to predict overt aggression indices. One hundred and thirty-three children (73 females, 60 males, Mage = 12.84 years) in grades 6 through 8 from five schools in a public Ontario schoolboard were recruited. Caregivers completed a measure of their child’s emotions and behaviours (The Emotion Regulation Checklist; Shields & Cicchetti, 1995). Participating students completed four self-report measures assessing relational and overt aggression (Children’s Social Behaviour Scale – Self-Report; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995), proactive and reactive subtypes of aggression (Little, Jones, Henrich, & Hawley, 2003), empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index; Davis, 1980), and Machiavellianism (Kiddie Mach Scale; Christie & Geis, 1970) during one 60 minute session. Empathy, Machiavellianism, and emotion dysregulation scores were associated with total, reactive, and proactive relational aggression scores. When contrasting subtypes of aggression were controlled, however, these emotional and cognitive variables did not predict total and reactive relational aggression. There was a non-significant trend for higher levels of empathy to predict proactive relational aggression. Low empathy significantly predicted total and reactive overt aggression indices. Machiavellianism predicted reactive and proactive overt aggression. Emotion regulation was not a significant predictor in analyses. Results provide support for the role of Machiavellianism and empathy in relational aggression, particularly proactive or goal-oriented instances.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / The main aim of this thesis was to examine whether learning processes occur in fluid intelligence (Gf) tasks, whether it is essential for them to occur for induction to take place and whether they contribute to individual differences in performance. In mainstream differential research, Gf is conceptualised as a factor important in induction tasks that are considered novel and context-free (Cattell, 1963, 1987). Thus, performance has typically been assumed to be uninfluenced by previous acquisitions of knowledge structures. Sources of individual differences in Gf task performance have been attributed to working memory capacity (WMC), particularly individual differences in the ability to combat proactive interference. In contrast, the cognitive reasoning literature associates induction with the use of prior conceptual knowledge. A middle-ground position is that Gf tasks may require learning to occur across the task, which would draw upon WMC. That is, individual differences in Gf task performance may be due to knowledge learnt across the task, rather than knowledge brought to the task. Gf items have traditionally been presented in easy-to-hard order but easier items may unintentionally provide learning opportunity for harder items. This would contradict both classic and modern test theories which make the assumption that items within a task are independent of each other. The learning hypothesis was explored in the current work along with the issue of whether it is possible to reliably solve complex Gf items without some relevant, prior knowledge. Also, the distinction between within-item induction and across-item learning was investigated, along with the relationship between across-item learning and proactive interference. An experimental-differential approach was used to manipulate learning opportunity within Gf tasks in four experiments. The first experiment examined whether learning takes place in Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1962) and if so, to what extent this learning is a source of individual differences. Specifically, whether rule learning within the task is necessary for abstraction to take place and whether those of higher Gf ability learn faster than those of lower Gf ability. The next three experiments examined the distinction between knowledge that may be brought to the task, learning that occurs across multiple items in the task and induction within a single item that may be independent of any prior knowledge including knowledge learnt across the task. The effect of proactive interference as a consequence of learning and knowledge was also investigated. The experiments examined which of these are relevant to general performance (i.e., common to everyone) and which contribute to individual differences. Learning-opportunity was manipulated in a task from the cognitive reasoning literature – the Modified Sweller and Gee (MSG) Task. Traditional Series Completion tasks were used as Gf markers and data analyses employed Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM). The advantage of the MSG Task is that it has qualities typical of Gf tasks but unlike conventional Gf tasks, it is able to assess within-item induction in isolation from any potential influences from across-item learning. This is because it involves multiple attempts within each item with feedback, allowing single items to be administered reliably. When across-item learning opportunity is absent, the MSG Task is able to provide an estimate of participants’ within-item induction success through the number of attempts they need within a single item. The amount participants learn across items can be approximated by comparing performance on items preceded by learning opportunity (i.e., easier items with similar rule-types), with items not preceded by learning opportunity. Lastly, the effects of proactive interference can be evaluated by comparing performance on items preceded by interference (i.e., items with different rule-types) with those that are not preceded by interference. Overall, it was found that with no learning opportunity leading up to novel items (to provide relevant prior knowledge), solution was nearly impossible for all participants. When learning opportunity was provided, all participants were able to greatly improve their performance but those of higher Gf improved more. It was concluded that while Gf tasks appear visually novel, they must contain a combination of familiar elements in earlier items (which make use of knowledge that participants bring to the task) and novel elements in later items (which require the use of knowledge that must be learnt from earlier items); and those of higher Gf perform better on Gf tasks, at least partly because they are able to benefit more from the learning opportunity provided by earlier items. It was found that proactive interference affects all participants when they learn from prior items. However, insufficient evidence was found to suggest that the ability to combat proactive interference contributes to individual differences in performance.