To create more sustainable power systems, as well as achieve environmental goals, further integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) is essential. However, this may result in a power system more vulnerable to disturbances, since RES do not contribute to the system’s inertia. A power system’s ability to counteract disturbances is highly dependant on inertia. This is because the power system uses the kinetic energy of rotating machines, i.e. inertia, to restore the power balance after a disturbance. This causes a deviation of the system’s frequency, which must be contained within certain limits or, in the worst case scenario, a blackout could follow. Frequency Containment Reserves (FCR) stabilizes the frequency first dozens of seconds after a disturbance, therefore, it is the inertia that plays the major role in controlling the initial frequency deviation. One possibility to counter disturbances in a power system with less inertia is to use electrical batteries as fast power support, by injecting power into the system when needed. This project aims to investigate the dynamics of the FCR as well as the possibility to use batteries as fast power support. Different parameters of the batteries are also analyzed. The project is conducted through a case study of a power system model in Simulink and Matlab. Additional aspects, such as sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and future research, are discussed. / För att skapa mer hållbara kraftsystem, men även uppnå miljömål, är fortsatt integrering av förnyelsebara energikällor viktigt. Dock kan detta resultera i ett kraftsystem som är mer sårbart mot störningar, då förnyelsebara energikällor inte bidrar till systemets svängmassa. Ett kraftsystems förmåga att möta störningar är direkt relaterad till svängmassan i systemet. Detta är på grund av att systemet använder kinetisk energi från roterande maskiner, deras svängmassa, för att återställa balans mellan produktion och konsumtion efter en störning. Dock orsakar detta en avvikelse hos systemets frekvens, som måste hållas inom vissa gränser, annars kan det i värsta fall leda till strömavbrott. Primärreglering stabiliserar frekvensen först dussin sekunder efter en störning, därför är det svängmassan som spelar den avgörande rollen för att kontollera den initiella avvikelsen. En möjlig lösning för att möta störningar i ett kraftsystem med mindre svängmassa är att använda elektriska batterier som snabbt kraftstöd, genom att tillföra effekt till systemet vid behov. Detta projekt syftar till att undersöka dynamiken hos primärregleringen men även huruvida batterier kan användas som snabbt kraftstöd. Olika parametrar hos batterierna analyseras även. Projektet görs genom en fallstudie av en model av ett kraftsystem i Simulink och Matlab. Andra aspekter, så som hållbarhet, kostnadseffektivitet samt framtida forskning diskuteras.

This dissertation has three chapters studying accounting conservatism in the property-liability (P&L) insurance industry. There are two types of accounting conservatism – ex-ante (unconditional) conservatism and ex-post (conditional) conservatism. The former means that firms over-report liabilities initially, before more detailed information becomes available. The latter means that firms respond to this new information asymmetrically by recognizing expected losses more quickly than expected gains. My analysis throughout the dissertation focuses on the loss reserve accruals since it is the most significant accruals on the balance sheet. One benefit of studying the P&L insurance industry is that we have specific and detailed information regarding the development of loss reserve accruals over time. Chapter 1 is an executive summary of the next two chapters, highlighting the key results, the policy implications, and the contributions of the dissertation. Chapter 2 studies the two types of accounting conservatism and explore three research questions: (1) whether ex-ante and ex-post conservatism prevails in the P&L insurance industry; (2) what the relations are between ex-post conservatism and other managerial incentives including ex-ante conservatism; and (3) how much the opportunity cost is for being conservative. I study all U.S. domiciled P&L insurance companies from 1996 to 2012 and follow the previous literature to measure accounting conservatism in Chapter 2. I find that both types of accounting conservatism prevail in the insurance industry. Besides, the back-of-the-envelope estimates based on the industry average insurer indicate that their opportunity costs are trivial compared to the amounts of net income and total assets. Chapter 2 also shows that the practices of ex-ante and ex-post conservatism exhibit a nonlinear, U-shape relationship. This finding supports the view that the two types of conservatism can be compliments because they can serve for different purposes. Ex-ante conservatism is mainly used to create a cushion against future unexpected losses, whereas ex-post conservatism can reduce informational frictions. In Chapter 3, I develop a new method of assessing conditional conservatism using more detailed data from the insurance industry. I look at how conditional conservatism affects insolvency risk and the financial strength rating of P&L insurance companies. I also investigate how a change to accounting rules affects conditional conservatism. The new method of measuring conditional conservatism is based on the concavity of the loss development curve. I study all U.S. domiciled P&L insurance companies from 1995 to 2015 and find that the greater the degree of conditional conservatism, the lower is insolvency probability, and the better is the financial strength rating, with other things being constant. The result indicates that regulators and rating agencies do reward insurers that voluntarily utilize conditional conservatism accounting strategy. Moreover, I find that the level of conditional conservatism is reduced after the enactment of the Model Audit Rule (MAR). MAR, like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 404, increased board oversight of internal risk management. The result suggests that complying with additional disclosure requirements provides a “safe harbor” for insurance companies so that they have fewer incentives to be conditionally conservative. / Business Administration/Risk Management and Insurance

Outdoor recreation on national forests near large urban centers is changing and diversifying as users of many ethnic and racial backgrounds increasingly choose urban-proximate forests as recreation sites. These changes are particularly evident on the national forests of Southern California where large numbers of individuals of Hispanic origins are utilizing dispersed, relatively undeveloped sites for day-use recreation activities including picnicking, barbecuing, and swimming. This usage is the focus of the study. Previous studies of outdoor recreation participation have treated ethnic group membership as a unidimensional, categorical variable. Using a social structural model, this study more fully explores inter- and intra-ethnic differences by examining the role of ancestry, generational status, and acculturation in influencing recreation experiences. Additionally, the study attempts a more holistic exploration of recreation experiences, including their meaning and significance as a way of more fully understanding the experience from the visitor's point of view. The study uses a combination of quantitative (on-site, self-administered surveys) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews and observations) methods to accomplish these objectives. From the results of the study it appears that Hispanic visitors to the study sites vary in terms of their structural characteristics. Certain forest sites are visited primarily by relatively unacculturated immigrants to the United States, with few Anglos or more acculturated Hispanic present. Other areas are composed of more acculturated individuals of longer generational tenure. In addition to structural variation in the study site's Hispanic visitors, there is also variation in meanings and preferences related to the recreation experience. Among the variables examined were past use history, social group composition, primary reason for the visit, what respecting the forest means, and place attachment. The largest differences among the study's respondents in the above questions were found between those of Anglo and Central American descent. Among the study's findings are that those of Anglo descent come to the sites more frequently and had been doing so for a longer time, are in smaller groups, and are less attached to the sites than those of Hispanic descent. Considerable structural differences between the two primarily Hispanic ancestral groups were revealed. The Central American response group contained more individuals born outside the United States and of lower acculturation levels. Hispanic participants born outside the United States were more dissimilar to Anglos in their responses to the questions related to recreation experiences than those born in the United States. / M.S.

The existing literature regarding the national forest planning process was reviewed and critiqued. This critique was aimed at identifying the planning process that was most likely to produce workable multiple-use national forest management plans without relying on procedures outside the process itself to make additional planning decisions. Using this criterion, it was determined that a planning process based on negotiations between the forest service and interested groups and/or individuals was the most promising planning process proposed to date. The nature of negotiated planning processes, national forest management plans, and computerized planning tools were investigated. Based on these investigations, performance criteria for computerized planning tools designed to operate within a negotiated national forest planning process were developed. These criteria called for such a planning tool to (1) be available and usable to all individuals and/or groups involved in the planning process, (2) be able to manage the planning process’s data management and modeling tasks, (3) be able to present data in a manner that facilitates understanding and communication, and (4) be able to develop an initial management plan that can serve as a starting point for the negotiation process. Finally, a prototype planning tool designed to meet the performance criteria just presented was developed and tested. In order to meet the third performance criterion, this prototype used maps as its primary data representation and presentation medium. Since the prototype was based on mapped data manipulation, it relied heavily on geographic information system (GIS) technology. The prototype also utilized simulation, optimization and economic modeling techniques. In addition to its ability to function within a negotiated planning framework, the prototype planning tool developed in this study also demonstrated the ability of such tools to build spatially defined forest management plans. No existing planning tool has this ability (including FORPLAN, the Forest Service’s current planning tool), and some authors have expressed doubt that any computerized system could develop spatially defined management plans. However, since this study’s prototype tool developed management plans that could be represented using maps, it by definition developed management plans that were spatially defined. When the prototype was tested, it was found to behave in a logical, intuitively appealing manner. For example, the system responded to increased timber values by increasing cutting operations, and to increased recreational values by decreasing management actions that adversely impact recreation (i.e., timber production). It was concluded that building an operational version of such a planning tool was feasible, and specific recommendations regarding how such a tool could be built were provided. / Ph. D.

Throughout the development of our country attitudes toward wilderness have gradually evolved, reflecting ever changing values and concerns. While colonial man viewed wilderness with fear and distaste and believed the worth of such areas was solely dependent on the economic value of its resources, his modern counterpart has begun to realize that the absolute preservation of wilderness is desirable and necessary in order to protect important inspirational, educational and ecological values generated from these lands. It follows that the federal agency we consider to be one of the largest holders of wilderness lands—the National Park Service—has not always employed wilderness preservation as a major criterion for national park establishment. The intent of this thesis is, thus, to trace the evolution of national attitudes toward wilderness through an examination of the development of the national park system, focusing on the types of parks created in different periods of time and the rationale used to justify park establishment. In this investigation the national park system was divided into five peak periods of establishment. Two parks were then selected from each period for examination as representative case studies. It was found that the parks of each period tended to possess similar physical characteristics, featured objects of preservation and rationale for inclusion into the system. As the park system developed a gradual broadening of concerns was apparent. With the introduction of new rationale and featured objects of preservation from peak to peak, rarely were previous concerns displaced entirely. Thus, the overall development of the park system can be interpreted as an additive process, resulting in the representation of an entire spectrum of environmental concerns by the fifth period of park establishment. / Master of Landscape Architecture

Small-scale fisheries in low and middle-income countries lag significantly behind in access to trustworthy, consistent, and easily available fisheries data. Empirical studies on the effectiveness of mobile apps for transparent data sharing to address gender disparities and women's engagement in small-scale fisheries remain limited. Data is important because it identifies the reporting source, facilitates the evaluation of fishing activities, and ensures accountability within the fishing sector. This study examines the potential of mobile apps for increasing the visibility of women's contributions to small-scale fisheries using Mexico as a case study. Current research on the role of apps in promoting equitable and sustainable fisheries is insufficient, as it lacks detailed information on who is reporting the data and its impact on the fishing sector. The primary method for this study is Q-methodology, a participatory mixed-methods approach appropriate for extracting patterns of opinions held in common within a group. Ten representative fishers from different communities and villages in Mexico participated in the study, and the analysis highlighted two key perspectives. First, mobile apps facilitate increased visibility of women within the fishing community, promoting collaboration and partnership between male and female fishers; this builds a sense of trust and group identity within the community, leading to stronger collective action. Second, collective action in the community leads to male fishers entrusting women with more fishing tasks like reporting catch data on their behalf– a task traditionally performed only by male fishers. This results in women using mobile apps to take a more active role in reporting both community solutions and catch data which leads to increased compliance to marine reserves in the fishing community. The findings are important because the study explores the potential of technology, specifically mobile apps, in recognizing women's transformative roles in reporting fishing data for equitable and sustainable small-scale fisheries.

As competing uses of our coastlines increase, natural resource agencies are employing marine spatial planning (MSP) to designate areas for different uses or activities in order to reduce conflicts while achieving ecological, economic and social objectives. A central challenge of implementing MSP is development of a rigorous approach for analyzing tradeoffs across the provision of ecosystem services (i.e., the benefits humans receive from nature). This study develops an operational approach to this problem that is founded on community-based methods, ecological production theory, and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). The approach merges ecological models with surveys to identify marine ecosystem services for use in tradeoff analysis. The approach allows for a single set of marine ecosystem services to at once be valued by local stakeholders and measured by biologists, thus connecting social and biological monitoring efforts. To develop the approach in a real-world context, I examined ecosystem services associated with nearshore marine ecosystems in Oregon, where marine reserves are being introduced for biodiversity conservation. I worked with stakeholder focus groups in three Oregon communities to identify 24 marine ecosystem services. I then linked the ecosystem services with ecological indicators, which I then consolidated to derive 11 items for use in a survey-based tradeoff analysis exercise. I administered the survey to a nonrandom sample of stakeholders in Oregon (n=31), from which their relative preferences and preference weights for ecosystem services were derived. The weights and preference measures may then be used in MSP decision-making. Furthermore, I grouped the stakeholder survey data in three ways: by location of residence (coastal vs. non-coastal), by eight categories of affiliation (e.g., business owners, conservationists, commercial and recreational fishers, etc.), and by resource use patterns. I then analyzed the various groupings of stakeholders for within- and between-group homogeneity of preferences. Results of the analyses showed that there are statistically significant variations in preferences within and between most groupings. Capturing the variations in stakeholder preferences is important when developing policies that affect different stakeholder groups. Thus, when implementing the survey instrument, I suggest random sampling of stakeholders stratified by location, affiliation, and resource use. This study provides one of the first examples of a systems-based approach to ecosystem service valuation operationalized to inform MSP, and novel features of the approach have a number of implications for advancing marine research and management. First, by using stakeholders to identify ecosystem services, the approach allows for a tailored implementation of ecosystem-based management at the community level. Second, by integrating ecological and economic information on the provision and value of ecosystem services, the approach provides relevant data for MSP decision-making during the siting, evaluation, and monitoring stages. And third, by applying both stated-preference and MCDA methods, the approach may capture the array of values represented by diverse stakeholder groups. / Graduation date: 2013

Many people in Africa, due to high levels of poverty, rely directly on natural resources and the environment for their livelihoods. Different mechanisms have been employed over the years to address poverty and local livelihoods in the context of conservation. Community Conservation Areas and the sustainable livelihood approach are examples of these mechanisms. Increasingly, these and other mechanisms have reinforced the view that unless the risks and opportunities presented by poverty to local livelihoods are addressed, many conservation efforts are bound to fail. The research reported here was based on the premise that appropriate mechanisms that explicitly address poverty and local livelihoods are a necessary prerequisite to successfully engaging local people in conservation. Such mechanisms assure the sustainability of local livelihoods and present opportunities for conservation initiatives to succeed within the context of human societies that are dependent on associated ecosystems and resources. The Maloti-Drakensberg mountains region in South Africa was the study site and the proposed Ngelengele Nature Reserve, a Community Conservation Area, was used as a case study. The amaHlubi community people constituted the study's respondents. The study was largely qualitative, drawing on both primary and secondary sources of data in the form of interviewer-administered questionnaire and documentary analysis respectively. Field observations and discussions with respondents complemented the interviews. By adopting the sustainable livelihoods framework to understand and analyse the livelihoods of the amaHlubi community, the study highlighted concerns about livelihood assets with the conclusion that there is a high dependence on natural resources mainly for domestic purposes, and in general most of the assets are non existent. The study also highlighted the level of awareness and community support towards Ngelengele Nature Reserve, as well as the reserve's implications on local livelihoods. Although some stated that the objectives of Ngelengele Nature Reserve remain unclear, the majority of respondents showed high expectations and support for the project. / Thesis (M.Env.Dev.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

The study was conducted in the Greater Kruger National Park Complex (GKNP), which consists of the Kruger National Park (KNP) and adjacent private game reserves and focuses primarily on the following objectives: • To monitor and evaluate the standard of the existing disease surveillance programmes for the following diseases, Foot and Mouth, Anthrax, Tuberculosis, Brucellosis and Rabies, within the Kruger National Park and adjacent private game reserves by evaluating the level of competency and knowledge in field rangers, field guides and trails rangers with regard to these specific diseases. It can be stated that important differences exist between disease surveillance techniques used for domestic animals and those used for wildlife (Bengis, R.G., Kock, R.A., & Fischer, J., 2002). According to Morner, T., Obendorf, D.L., Artios, M., & Woodford, M.H., 2002, it is more difficult to monitor diseases in wildlife than in domestic animals because wild animals are not constrained by boundaries and can roam over large. distances. For significant diseases in wildlife, an active surveillance programme may be the preferred approach with the aim to collect a certain number of samples from a target population (live or dead animals) to determine the point prevalence of certain pathogens. Active veterinary participation is essential in protected area management, with emphasis on training of technicians, rangers and field biologists with regard to specific diseases and their clinical signs, surveillance and sampling techniques, data collection, and reporting. For the purpose of this study, data collection was conducted by means of a questionnaire drawn up according to the related critical points as described in the Dufour grid (Dufour, 1998). The results of this study clearly showed a need to address certain important aspects regarding a wildlife disease programme within the GKNP. A more efficient wildlife disease surveillance programme, which included more specific and “hands-on” trained staff, would definitely ensure a better early warning system which would detect new or emerging disease outbreaks. / M. Tech. (Nature Conservation))

Marine populations worldwide are in decline due to anthropogenic effects. Spatial management via marine reserves may be an effective conservation method for many species, but the requisite theory is still underdeveloped. Integrodifference equation (IDE) models can be used to determine the critical domain size required for persistence and provide a modelling framework suitable for many marine populations. Here, we develop a novel spatially implicit approximation for the proportion of individuals lost outside the reserve areas which consistently outperforms the most common approximation. We examine how results using this approximation compare to the existing IDE results on the critical domain size for populations in a single reserve, in a network of reserves, in the presence of alongshore currents, and in structured populations. We find that the approximation consistently provides results which are in close agreement with those of an IDE model with the advantage of being simpler to convey to a biological audience while providing insights into the significance of certain model components. We also design a stochastic individual based model (IBM) to explore the probability of extinction for a population within a reserve area. We use our spatially implicit approximation to estimate the proportion of individuals which disperse outside the reserve area. We then use this approximation to obtain results on extinction using two different approaches, which we can compare to the baseline IBM; the first approach is based on the Central Limit Theorem and provides efficient simulation results, and the second modifies a simple Galton-Watson branching process to include loss outside the reserve area. We find that this spatially implicit approximation is also effective in obtaining results similar to those produced by the IBM in the presence of both demographic and environmental variability. Overall, this provides a set of complimentary methods for predicting the reserve area required to sustain a population in the presence of strong fishing pressure in the surrounding waters.