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Sustainability is vital to the success of our cities and settlements. While communities are becoming increasingly conversant with sustainability concepts, uncertainty remains over how to translate these into planning practice. This practicum explores the role of sustainability checklists as one tool for planning and designing more sustainable communities. The inquiry examines the design, implementation and effectiveness of these tools and seeks to understand the motivation and context in which they are developed, the varying approaches and components of checklist tools, and the impact that they are having on planning and development practices. A review of twenty-four sustainability checklists from a selection of BC municipalities, an online survey and key informant interviews were used to inform this study. Nine key findings are identified suggesting that while checklists are helping to communicate sustainability objectives and are encouraging better development, they are not resulting in the large scale shifts to development patterns and urban systems that are required to achieve sustainable outcomes; therefore, checklists need to be integrated with other policies, regulations and tools in order to assist in achieving sustainable settlements.

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The importance of search partnerships has grown as a mode to search for innovations. However, in spite of this development, notions of open innovation combined with new propositions to change the search process in favour of sustainability have unravelled a need to take stock of the existing literature of search partnerships and the aims that these partnerships follow. This review addresses this shortcoming and synthesises the literature on search partnerships to analyse the current state of knowledge to deliver future research opportunities. A systematic review process was adopted by means of a set a set of pre-defined stages. These stages included the formulation and positioning of the review question within the larger literature domains, a systematic research process which included the adoption of search strings, relevance and quality appraisal criteria, as well as a stock-taking process of descriptive and thematic features, which followed the logic of prescriptive synthesis. This process led to a representative sample of 73 articles which were analysed subsequently. The tentative findings reveal that the literature is underpinned by a combination of theories linking to evolutionary or transaction-based understandings of search partnerships. Also, six conditions were found to drive search partnerships and when they are likely to form. Moreover five interventions were identified that relate to the use of search methods, boundary spanning activities, and the number, type and involvement levels with the partner. Finally search partnerships have been found to yield five outcomes: partnerships, and various types of innovations, higher social goals, as well as market knowledge. By combining contexts, interventions, and outcomes, research opportunities are identified that should inform future reviews, including the need for more research in sustainability-led search partnership contexts and a better understanding of search strategy configurations in relation interventions used and anticipated search partnership outcomes obtained.

Soon after the discovery of radioactivity it was shown that radionuclides can be used both for diagnostic and therapeutic studies, depending on the characteristic radiations emitted by them. By 1960’s the radionuclide production technology using nuclear reactors was well established. In early 1970’s a renaissance of the cyclotrons occurred because many of the neutron deficient radionuclides could only be produced using irradiations with charged particles, like protons, deuterons, α-particles, etc. Initially, interest was directed towards radioactive gases for inhalation studies and other radionuclides for scintigraphy. Later, with the advent of emission tomography, i.e. Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET), the emphasis shifted to 123I and positron emitters [cf. 1–3], and tremendous progress ensued. In order to keep abreast of the fast developments, a Symposium was organized at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), USA, in 1976, with the title “Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry”. This became a biennial event, with alternate meetings in North America and Europe. It included all aspects of radionuclide and radiopharmaceutical research. About a decade later, however, it was realized that for discussion of technical aspects, a separate forum would be more appropriate. A group of experts therefore convened the first Targetry Workshop in Heidelberg in 1985. Thereafter it was established as a recurring Workshop, with its scope enlargened to include also nuclear and radiochemical problems. Today, the major conference on Radiopharmaceutical Sciences and the specialist International Workshop on Target-ry and Target Chemistry are held in alternate years. The present Workshop is No. 15 in the series and it is being jointly held by the research groups in Dresden and Prague, both of which have a long tradition of cyclotron production of radionuclides. In this talk, some personal reminiscences and impressions of the historical de-velopments in the field over the last 40 years will be briefly described.

The thesis investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance. The thesis is organised into three parts. The first part, the literature review, is in three sections, the first section provides an introduction to the field of corporate social responsibility, its grounding in economic theory and its historical background. The second part of the literature review covers the social and environmental issues relevant specifically to the food and agriculture sector. The third section is a systematic review of the studies that examine the relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance. This review was carried out using a modified Cochrane systematic review method, more commonly found in the medical literature than in the economics literature. The results showed that 70% of the studies reviewed showed a positive and statistically significant relationship between CSR and financial performance. The second part of the thesis includes three empirical studies. The first study, an event study, assessed the impact of the FTSE4Good Index on firm price. The study examined the return to companies of being included in a modified share index that signals good performance in terms of CSR. The results of this event study showed that companies are not rewarded for being included in the index and are not penalised for being deleted from it. The second empirical study, a probit analysis, aimed to identify the probability of a company passing a social and environmental screen given information about the company’s size, financial performance and sector. Results showed that companies with small market capitalisation, low income gearing and high net profit margins were more likely to pass the screen than other companies. Companies in the energy sector were less likely to pass than other companies, and financial sector companies more likely to pass. The third empirical chapter assessed the effect on the financial performance of companies of passing a socially responsible investment screen. The results showed that there was a relationship between passing the screen and higher earnings per share, but the relationship between passing the screen and other financial indicators was not proven. These studies demonstrated the difficulties that exist to provide statistically strong evidence for the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance. Thus the third part of the thesis moved into a different area, from the supply to the demand side. This is the valuation of non-financial indicators and their relationship with CSR, this included a discursive chapter on intangibles and their relationship with CSR and a final empirical study: a choice experiment. This study demonstrated that MBA students take nonfinancial and ethical issues into account when making investment decisions. In conclusion, providing strong evidence for the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance is difficult. There are many ways of measuring CSR and many ways of measuring financial performance. Depending on the measures used, different results are obtained. Looking beyond conventional financial performance measurements, to intangibles, provides a more holistic picture of what is going on in the relationship and shows that there is more to company valuation and investment decision making than financial performance indicators. CSR is an important component of company reputation and has an intrinsic value that is difficult to measure but is no doubt very high.

This thesis investigated behaviour and behavioural phenotypes in the Mucopolysaccharide (MPS) disorders. The MPS disorders are a group of rare lysosomal storage disorders which are characterised by a period of normal development followed by gradual cognitive and/or physical decline.Paper 1 describes a systematic review of the extant literature on cognitive, motor, social, linguistic and behavioural presentation in all of the MPS disorders. 25 papers were reviewed and the methodology they employed was assessed. Sleep disturbance was found to be part of the behavioural phenotype of MPS III. In MPS I and II fearfulness and sleep problems occurred in most cases. In MPS II participants with the mild form were found to have relatively normal development and few or no behavioural problems, while those with the severe form had behavioural problems, delayed speech, delayed development and limited motor function. High rates of challenging behaviour, most commonly associated with aggression, hyperactivity, orality, unusual affect and temper tantrums were consistently observed in children with MPS III.Paper 2 describes an empirical study investigating the behavioural phenotype of MPS III, Sanfilippo syndrome. Parents of 20 children with MPS III, 5 adults with MPS III and 25 children with Intellectual Disability (ID) completed questionnaires relating to their son/daughter’s behaviour and adaptive skills. The frequency of challenging behaviours displayed by children aged 2-9 years with MPS III and ID were high but not significantly different. Behaviours associated with hyperactivity, orality, body movements and inattention were seen significantly more frequently in 2-9 year olds with MPS III than ID. The frequency of challenging behaviours displayed by children with MPS III and their adaptive skills was found to decrease with age. Children age 10-15 years with MPS III displayed significantly fewer problem behaviours than children of the same age with ID. It is recommended that parents with a child with MPS III aged 2-9 years are offered clinical services to support them with managing challenging behaviour while those with a child of 10 years or over are offered support with managing health concerns and end of life care.The third Paper, provides an evaluation of the strengths and limitations of the literature review and the empirical study. The findings and clinical implications from both studies are discussed. The process of conducting research into rare, life limiting, genetic syndromes is reflected upon and recommendations for replication and further research are made.

During the last few decades peer collaboration has been commonly practised in Second Language (L2) writing classrooms. Despite the conceptual shift towards process, student-centred orientation to writing pedagogy, there are still many L2 composition courses around the world which consider writing as a finished product and assign a central role to writing instructors. This qualitative case study research is one of the first attempts which have been set out to probe the interactional dynamics, revision behaviours, writing performance, and perceptions of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students engaged in peer review and collaborative revision activities in two genres, process and argumentation, in light of sociocultural perspective of learning. The participants were 5 lower intermediate to intermediate English translation student dyads enrolled in a semester long essay writing course. Drawing on the data collected from audio-recordings, observations, written texts, and interviews, the study investigated how this group of L2 learners approached these two distinct tasks, how they reacted to the feedback they received either from their partners or teacher, how they used the comments to improve their writing performance, and how they viewed each of the tasks they were involved in. Analysis of audio-recorded data revealed that students stayed on task for most of the allocated time and employed three distinct dyadic negotiations; evaluative, social, and procedural with both partners being capable of pooling ideas and providing each other scaffolded help regardless of their level of L2 writing proficiency. However, the majority of conversations and scaffolding concentrated on surface level features of compositions. Further, examination of written texts produced by students during writing cycles demonstrated that they incorporated higher number of teacher‟s comments into their subsequent drafts than their peers‟ feedback and collaborative revision contributed to greater degree of improvement in the quality of the essays they developed compared to peer reviewing. Retrospective interviews also indicated that collaborative tasks were generally perceived as useful, yet the participants expressed scepticism about the validity of peer comments and did not feel competent enough to address their partners‟ papers. Nevertheless, they showed more favourable reactions towards collaborative revision activity than peer reviewing. The researcher concludes that collaborative revision can be used as an interim activity for the move from the traditional, product-based, teacher fronted L2 writing pedagogy to a more theoretically sound, process-based, student fronted approach to writing instruction in EFL contexts.

<p>In this project, I examine why the judicial authority of the United States Supreme Court has increased. I propose a theoretical explanation of endogenous institutional change at the Court whereby the actions of the Court---specifically its decisions and the opinions in which it announces those decisions---have, over the long-run, altered the structures of the American separation-of-powers system. The Court has built up public support for the institution of judicial review to such a degree that its rulings are respected even when opposed by strong political actors---including the public. I evaluate this theory by analyzing three important transitional periods of Supreme Court history. The first case study explores the Court under Chief Justice John Marshall, and examines how the Court established judicial review as the most important means of constitutional interpretation. The second case study explores the Court's first cases interpreting the three Reconstruction Amendments, and shows that through these decisions the Court established itself as the arbiter of the meaning of these new amendments. The third case study looks at the Court's decision to hear reapportionment cases and its articulation of the political question doctrine that provided a legalistic method of expanding the political power of the Court. I conclude from these case studies that my theory provides a useful explanation for the expansion of judicial authority.</p> / Dissertation