<p> This study explored how citizen science programs can connect young people with nature while providing needed scientific data. The premise was that, with attention to proper design, modification of current programming might increase citizen science outcomes for conservation. Furthermore, combining sound scientific protocols with effective education and positive youth development strategies can lead to consequential benefits for youth and society. An embedded single-case study explored a set of 20 citizen science programs relevant to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine how the programs intended to educate and develop youth and to understand the programs&rsquo; designs. A theoretical framework based upon science education, environmental education, and positive youth development guided the inquiry. The study also explored how environmental educators, youth group leaders, scientists, and public land managers might work together to design and implement youth community and citizen science programs on federal lands. Study findings informed development of a prototype planning framework to guide planning and implementation of youth-focused community and citizen science programs on federal lands. Using the framework to design robust citizen science programs can assist scientists monitoring environmental conditions to inform land management decisions; and assist environmental education program coordinators to design meaningful service&ndash;learning activities for youth.</p><p>

<p> Feral pigs (<i>Sus scrofa</i>) are one of the most ecologically harmful species in North America and are expanding across the U.S. at alarming rates. Feral pigs are an extremely prolific, destructive species and native ecosystems will continue to suffer unless resource managers intervene to reduce the damages caused by feral pigs. In 2015, in cooperation with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department&ndash;Kerr Wildlife Management Area, I investigated the efficacy of several novel feral pig control prototype products (i.e., toxic baits) to: 1) compare lethality and length of intoxication times between 13 microencapsulated sodium nitrite (MESN) formulations in pseudo gavage dosed captive feral pigs; 2) evaluate residual sodium nitrite levels and potential risks of vomited MESN bait on non-target species; and 3) assess the lethality of 5 unique sodium nitrite formulations in group pen feeding trials. Pseudo gavage trials resulted in 4 MESN formulations achieving a 100% lethality rate with delayed emergence of intoxication symptoms compared to previous literature. Unexpectedly, gastric coatings delayed the onset of intoxication to the same degree as enteric coatings. Vomit appeared to be positively correlated with the delivery of a lethal dose of MESN paste bait as 55/56 pigs (98.21%) vomited and died. Residual sodium nitrite in vomited bait was 90% less than the sodium nitrite concentrations in the delivered paste matrix. Despite this reduction, vomited bait could serve as a potential threat to non-target and secondary consumers, although the degradation time, residual persistence, and probability of non-target vomit consumption remains unknown. Group pen trials, testing 5 unique sodium nitrite formulations, resulted in ?80.95% overall lethality, with the greatest individual formulation lethality equaling 96.77%. Results from these studies will be beneficial in determining a MESN feral swine toxicant formulation for registration with the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the future.</p>

No description available.

Den är studien avser en fallstudie över tre olika hotell i Kalmar. I studien har det undersökts vilka organisatoriska faktorer som påverkar frontlinjepersonalen på ett hotell. Human resource management har varit det största fokuset i studien. Det studien har kommit fram till är att de tre största och viktigaste aspekterna hos Scandic Kalmar Väst, Kalmarsund hotell och First hotel Witt när det gäller HRM är organisationsstruktur, motivation och till sist gästvänlighet. Organisationsstrukturen påverkar huruvida ett hotell som tillhör en större kedja kan arbeta med HRM och därmed motivation. Motivation är någonting som är viktigt för medarbetarna. De måste göra ett bra arbete för att kunderna ska bli nöjda och ha en bra upplevelse på hotellet. De tre största kategorierna i studien är väldigt sammanhängande och berör varandra genomgående i hela studien.

<p> The U.S. federal wildland fire management system continues to experience rises in the number of acres burned annually and increases in management expenditures surrounded by firefighter death and injury. Despite a wealth of relevant academic research regarding wildland firefighting operations, a prominent nexus of these dynamics, there is little research regarding the response organization used to facilitate these operations on the fireground. Owing to a lack of research, wildland firefighting operations have remained a black box, meaning something with unknown internal workings, between the top of the response organization and the environment. From the perspective of systems thinking, the absence of a complete understanding of wildland firefighting operations prevents the dynamics of the larger domestic federal wildland fire management system from being holistically understood. In response to this gap in knowledge, this thesis explores wildland firefighting operations from an organizational perspective through a secondary analysis of qualitative data.</p>

<p> Ranching social-ecological systems (SESs) in the semi-arid, western Great Plains persist under highly variable inter- and intra-annual weather conditions and globally influenced markets. Ranch spatial scales and manager decision-making processes have traditionally been excluded from conventional grazing experiments, leading to considerable debate between scientists and land mangers about grazing strategies to achieve both beef production and biodiversity conservation outcomes on rangelands. In this dissertation I use collaborative, interdisciplinary methodologies to link rangeland and grazing management decision-making processes and learning with ecological outcomes in the semi-arid rangeland social-ecological systems (SESs) of Wyoming and Colorado. </p><p> Chapter 2 analyzes relationships between ranchers and rangeland ecosystems, inspired by the rise of adaptive management discourses in the natural resource management literature and informed by post-colonial and feminist scholarship. Rancher decision-making processes during and after drought can be understood through an ethic of care, as ranchers try to reduce social and ecological vulnerability through adaptation, learning, and respect over long-term (generations-long) time frames. Chapter 3 follows a participatory grazing research project, the Collaborative Adaptive Rangeland Management (CARM) experiment, for four years (2012-2016). I track the social learning processes of a group of 11 stakeholders representing 3 groups: ranchers, conservation NGOs, and public agencies. These stakeholders manage 10 experimental pastures in the shortgrass steppe with comparison to the traditional grazing management practice. These pastures are managed to maintain or improve a viable cattle operation, grassland bird diversity, and rangeland vegetation structure, composition, and cover. Decisions by the stakeholder group about grazing and prescribed burning illustrate the complex role of existing management knowledge in social learning and the outcomes of participatory rangeland research. </p><p> In Chapter 4, I use repeated interviews and ecological monitoring on 17 family-owned and operated ranches in eastern Colorado and eastern Wyoming to categorize different grazing management strategies and compare plant species composition outcomes across those different strategies, accounting for environmental factors. After accounting for environmental influences, using non-metric multidimensional scaling and linear mixed models, I found a reduction of perennial cool-season grasses on ranches in higher grazing stocking rates and on cow-calf/yearling operations compared to cow-calf operations, but no significant differences in plant species composition on ranches with different grazing rotation strategies or different planning styles (tacit vs. explicit planners). I classified ranches into adaptive cycle trajectories to interpret ranch decision-making in terms of ranch SES-scale resilience. In Chapter 5, I review critical social literature to reflect on my positionality as a researcher, as well as the importance of consent and respect in social-ecological research. </p><p> Findings in this dissertation provide useful information for understanding the adaptation of ranch-scale rangeland SESs. Future research or outreach projects seeking to engage with rancher stakeholders may be improved by considering complex decision-making processes, caring practices, and the stewardship ethic of ranchers. Future efforts to bring multiple public-lands stakeholder groups with different management perspectives together for adaptive management will be improved if they consider the important role of stakeholder practices and experiences with rangeland management in social learning, and commit to building trust and knowledge through engagement that extends beyond the typical 3-5 year window for grazing research projects. My investigation of ranch-SES adaptive processes illustrates diverse decision-making strategies on different ranches. More research is needed on stocking rate decision-making, including around the social and political contexts of stocking rate decisions. This work suggests that a resilience lens can contribute to existing theory on ranch adaptive decision-making. Outreach and education efforts are likely to be more successful if they consider that one size does not fit all for ranch grazing management strategies.</p>

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. 01 December 2016. / Pressure on water as a resource is increasingly becoming inherent and unavoidable as economies continue to expand globally. The challenges experienced in water resource management inspired the need to understand institutional frameworks holistically. This lead to the primary purpose of this study: to explore perspectives of governance in sustainable policy development. The study intended to increase understandings of the strengths and weaknesses within governance structures in relation to contextual institutional operations and mandates. A comparative analysis of various governmental tiers in South Africa, with particular interest in Gauteng, was examined. Within Gauteng, the study focussed on district and local municipalities. Respondents comprised of participants operating at national, provincial and local level; and included institutions associated with water resource management. The participants were selected using a purposive sampling technique: snowball sampling. In assessing the identified institutions, data was gathered through the use of a questionnaire and interview questions. Together with content analysis, data was used to supplement the Institutional Analysis and Development framework; which provided a platform to incorporate actors into the research enhancing the researchers understanding of actors involved in the policy arena, including their features and functions. Areas contributing to institutional fragmentation and poor institutional linkages were indicated as management functionality in terms of the top-down management approach. This includes management styles, lack of funds, capacity and skills relevant to the implementation of IWRM. Emphasis on the development of the NWRS2 was noted to be a major driver of sustainable water resource management, rather than the IWRM. Control and coordination of cooperative governance is strongly emphatic of management functionality. Overall, key findings highlight the importance placed toward economic development, moreover than social and environmental development. Integration of institutional structures is highly recommended for successful policy implementation. / MT2017

Student Number : 0112584H - MSc research project - School of Mining Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / With the acquisition by AngloGold Ashanti Ltd of open pit mines in East and West Africa with possible addition of Greenfield and Brownfield operations, the emphasis of this research document was to improve the current open pit mines in this region. By identifying Mineral Resource Management (MRM) as a way to improve and manage operating practices, additional value and the accompanied risks have been identified. It was also realised that the current traditional, predominantly financial indicators are becoming increasingly inadequate, thus looking at alternative operating principles. Subsequent to this, proposals have been made to acquire the necessary production and cost change by integrating structure, strategy, systems, style, skills, staff and the defined goals as proposed in this document. Using a “process-based” approach integrating (best) operating practices, concepts such as: living out the company’s strategic values; a learning organisation; better informed decision-making; people management; self-directed teams; continuous improvement; asset and capital management; integrated information systems; and an improved internal and external customer relationship be obtained.

Teams have been presented as a panacea to complex and turbulent business environments, but there are few examples of genuinely high-performing teams. This study considers the utility of work design as a means of improving the performance of project teams and thereby resolving this paradox. Grounded in quantitative methodology, and supported by relevant qualitative data, this study has used a single case experiment to examine the effects of multiple work design variables on the climate and performance of 49 construction project management teams. The single case environment provided an opportunity to study a large number of real work groups, executing broadly similar tasks, while controlling for the effects of organisational culture on social and work behaviour. The results indicated that three levels of intervention - transformational leadership, team organisation and team performance orientation - were influential in either (a) directly influencing project team performance or (b) creating a team climate which was itself predictive of desired outcomes, specifically the moderation of project complexity and higher levels of productivity. In particular, the results showed that the `inspiring a shared vision' leader practice was influential in explaining the perceived satisfaction of customers with project team performance. This provides empirical evidence that visionary leadership is an important determinant of high performance in complex, fluid and uncertain work environments, such as construction project management. Although task orientation and shared vision emerged as reasonably strong performance norms in the sample, it is generally difficult isolating the referent group norm(s) which explain(s) the variation in the performance of project teams working in myriad social, temporal and task conditions. Rather than attempting to manage group behaviour in realtime, therefore, the results of this study suggest that a coherent and integrated package of work design interventions can leverage exceptional value from project teams by helping each team to develop unique performance and behavioural strategies.

<p> The conflict in the Pacific Northwest between competing visions of how federal forests should be managed resulted in a political stalemate in the early 1990s. The Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was initiated to resolve the demands for maintaining ecosystem processes and biological diversity with the social and economic needs for timber harvest. The foundation for the plan rested with the development of ecosystem management. The intent of this research is to explore the events which led up to the adoption of the NWFP, how it was implemented by the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management and the subsequent reactions to and consequences of the plan. </p><p> The primary research consisted of thirty-eight semi-structured interviews with individuals responsible for the development of the initial plan, those tasked with implementing the plan and current federal agency personnel from the land management agencies and regulatory agencies. With the use of thematic analysis, key meanings were captured as expressed by the interviewees. The data was analyzed using institutional theory, capturing the organizational relations within the organizational field of the land management agencies. </p><p> Research findings suggest that the NWFP was unsuccessful in meeting the goal of addressing the social and economic issues as well as the goals for ecosystem management. This dissertation explores the organizational practices and cultural meanings that led to the final instantiation of the plan. It seeks to shed light on the reasons why these goals were not met and how future forest plans can move beyond the current stalemate between conservation and preservation.</p><p>