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Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the traditional commercial linefishery on South Africa’s southern Cape coast, informed by social-ecological systems (SES) thinking, and directed by a participatory action research approach, the work facilitated the co-development of a series of applied responses to local challenges identified by research participants including commercial linefishers, school learners, teachers, and other local community members. The thesis is presented in four chapters, each focussing on a different challenge: marine water temperatures; school learning for social learning; fishers’ organisations; and branding of linefish. The objectives of the thesis are to explore the processes, constraints, motivators, and lessons learnt in addressing each of the four challenges drawing on four emergent themes: 1) trust and social capital, 2) social learning, 3) resilience and transformation, and 4) participatory action research/co-development. The thesis underlines how participation leads to co-developed strategies to address realworld challenges. The work on water temperatures resulted in the co-development of a novel water temperature measuring device for deployment on commercial linefishing boats. However, despite initial successful deployment, fishers’ time and financial concerns, paired with a short-term focus undermined the participatory process. The social learning and teaching work facilitated the co-development of a series of integrated teaching modules that addressed challenges observed in the school, transforming the approach to teaching, and laying the foundation for future community social learning. The work also raised the challenge of ‘high stakes testing’ which may constrain teacher participation. The work on fishers’ organisations revealed the role of leadership, competing economic and lifestyle foci, competence and political trust, as well as ‘bonding’, ‘bridging’, and ‘linking’ forms of social capital in the formation, maintenance and dissolution of these bodies. The research found that different forms of trust and social capital, paired with leadership, were critical to successful participation and collaboration throughout the fieldwork. Finally, the branding work resulted in an adaptation on the part of the fishers, but one which was constrained by and highlighted the economic influence of inshore trawling that continues to limit the extent of linefishers’ adaptive strategies.

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No description available.

Colleges and universities in the United States have attempted for years to implement policies and procedures to promote racial diversity in their student bodies, as well as to ensure reflective minority representation in student programs at their institutions. I have done an independent evaluation assessment of the necessity and program theory for a policy aimed at assuring diversity of the undergraduate student government at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, covering the period 2003-2005. The policy in effect during those years was a system which guaranteed minority representation reasonably mirroring the known minority population of the undergraduate student body by reserving 13 percent of Senator positions in the Student Government Association for students affiliated with the African, Latino/a, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American caucus. The policy intent was to achieve campus fair and just minority representation in UMass student government. In reality, however, that policy produced unintended consequences instead – bitter, and sometimes violent racial tensions, and widespread and prolonged charges of reverse and illegal discrimination. As a result of this evaluation of that policy, and its attendant procedures for implementation, in the conclusion I offer recommendations which would allow UMass to replace a problematic policy with one which could achieve reflective minority representation in student government acceptable to, and supported by, the majority of the undergraduate population.

The remanufacturing industry emerged as many countries and increasing number of environmentally conscious consumers come to realize the natural resources depletion and widely spread pollution. While commonly believed as a compromise to the strict government regulations, remanufacturing is actually becoming a profitable business model. Moreover, researchers have found that it may increase market share under right circumstances. In this thesis, we study one major problem in remanufacturing, namely, sorting policies that specify which returned items should be remanufactured and which should be scrapped. We examine a remanufacturer who acquires used products from third party brokers or directly from the market in both single and multiple periods. In single period setting, we examine the optimal policies when the acquisition cost is piecewise linear convex as well as linear. We show that a simple sorting policy exists when the acquisition cost is linear. We study the multi-period problem and prove that the unique optimal policies in multiple periods exist. While the remanufacturer may decide to keep inventory for final products only or he may decide to keep inventory for raw cores as well, we illustrate the algorithm to solve the optimization problem. For linear acquisition cost problems in both single and multiple period problems, we show that they can be solved as general inventory problems which may include setup costs, backlogging and uncertain demand.

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The Goal Oriented Systems Approach to Building Fire Safety developed by the U.S. General Services Administration is presently the only probabilistic methodology for fire protection evaluation in use in the United States. This paper describes and analyzes the GSA approach and formulates a more scientific procedure by synthesizing GSA concepts with additional probability theory. Discussion of systems analysis and modeling concepts emphasizes the need for probabilistic considerations of fire safety. The revised model, identified by the hyphenated expression Goal-Oriented, simplifies data requirements through parameter estimation techniques. The new approach is consistant with the GSA model for several example cases. Facility for sensitivity analysis of alternative fire protection strategies is a demonstrated advantage of the new methodology.

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No description available.