A resource assessment of the hydrokinetic potential in Canada's rivers was completed. The main objectives of the study were to (1) quantify the potential hydrokinetic energy avail- able for development both nationally and regionally, and (2) develop geospatial datasets identifying streams or areas of high hydrokinetic potential. Flow estimates at ungauged locations were found using multiple linear regression coupled with Canonical correlation analysis (MLR-CCA). Total theoretical hydro power, equivalent to total theoretical hydroki- netic power was calculated using these ow estimates and hydraulic head estimates from DEMs. It is estimated that there are 710 GW of potential power in Canadian rivers, with 97.5% con dence that there is at least 433 GW. Downstream hydraulic geometry (DHG) relations were applied to ow estimates to nd cross section velocity and power at ungauged locations. Further testing was done on DHG relations, and were found to be most accurate when characterized by soil drainage characteristics.

No description available.

Regional planning has become an important part of today’s politics. As a result of the ongoing globalization municipalties and cities now have to form partnerships accross borders to be able to compete for resources, residents and businesses establishments. Oresund collaboration was initiated when Denmark and Sweden formed The Oresund Committee, which today is called Greater Copenhagen and Skane Committee. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to investigate what the cooperation actually means to three selected municipalties in the region, how the region is perceived by media and how it is portrayed in planning documents. This has been done through a case study.Since the region is a cross-border region it struggles with problems that a region located in one country does not. The biggest issue that we have identified has to do with different laws and economic systems that exists within the region. This has affected the many residents living in Oresund, especially those who travel across the border on a daily basis. Another problem that has arisen concerns the undefined identity that is created by politicians and authorities, which becomes a problem when the citizens do not perceive themselves as a part of the mutual region. Furthermore we have identified an issue that affects the matter of democracy and the recently established border controls. This issue has become apparent due to low priority from the government and the politicians of the capital of Sweden. There are elements that demonstrate that some people consider Stockholm to be the most important actor for Sweden’s future growth, which leads to unequal distribution of power. This brings us to the final problem, dealing with the decision to impose border controls between Sweden and Denmark. The border controls have proven to be very costly for the society and for the travellers who lose a lot of time because of the inflexibility of the way the border controls are carried out. In the final section of this bachelor thesis we discuss what needs to be accomplished to be able to create a better future for Greater Copenhagen and Skane Committee.

Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) (A. lumbricoides, T. trichiura and hookworm) infections are a significant public health concern in Honduras. These infections are treatable using inexpensive anthelmintic medications, however long-term control and eradication will require large investments in public and private sanitation infrastructure. Importantly, both types of interventions are targeted towards high-risk populations and regions rather than individuals. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to improving the efficiency of soil-transmitted helminth control efforts in Honduras. In our first study, we use multiple regression analyses to identify determinants of STH infections and generate estimates of A. lumbricoides, T. trichiura and hookworm infection prevalence, as well as recommended deworming frequencies, for each of Honduras’ 298 municipalities. Our estimates suggest that prevalence of all three infections has declined over time, however 75% of municipalities still require annual or semi-annual deworming. In our second study, we quantify how the type of region used for measuring prevalence and allocating resources can impact the success and efficiency of public health programs. More specifically, we compare administrative regions to alternative zoning schemes at the same geographic scale. Our findings suggest that regions designed to be homogeneous with respect to prevalence can be more efficient than existing municipalities (at the same scale) for distributing resources. This research has implications on future control efforts. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Regionalization of hydrometeorological variables such as rainfall and temperature is necessary for various applications related to water resources planning and management. Sampling variability and randomness associated with the variables, as well as non-availability and paucity of data pose a challenge in modelling the variables. This challenge can be addressed by using stochastic models that utilize information from hydrometeorologically similar locations for modelling the variables. A set of locations that are hydrometeorologically similar are referred to as homogeneous region or pooling group and the process of identifying a homogeneous region is referred to as regionalization. The thesis concerns development of new approaches to regionalization of (i) extreme rainfall,(ii) maximum and minimum temperatures, and (iii) rainfall together with maximum and minimum temperatures. Regionalization of extreme rainfall and frequency analysis based on resulting regions yields quantile estimates that find use in design of water control (e.g., barrages, dams, levees) and conveyance structures (e.g., culverts, storm sewers, spillways) to mitigate damages that are likely due to floods triggered by extreme rainfall, and land-use planning and management. Regionalization based on both rainfall and temperature yield regions that could be used to address a wide spectrum of problems such as meteorological drought analysis, agricultural planning to cope with water shortages during droughts, downscaling of precipitation and temperature. Conventional approaches to regionalization of extreme rainfall are based extensively on statistics derived from extreme rainfall. Therefore delineated regions are susceptible to sampling variability and randomness associated with extreme rainfall records, which is undesirable. To address this, the idea of forming regions by considering attributes for regionalization as seasonality measure and site location indicators (which could be determined even for ungauged locations) is explored. For regionalization, Global Fuzzy c-means (GFCM) cluster analysis based methodology is developed in L-moment framework. The methodology is used to arrive at a set of 25 homogeneous extreme rainfall regions over India considering gridded rainfall records at daily scale, as there is dearth of regionalization studies on extreme rainfall in India Results are compared with those based on commonly used region of influence (ROI) approach that forms site-specific regions for quantile estimation, but lacks ability to delineate a geographical area into a reasonable number of homogeneous regions. Gridded data constitute spatially averaged rainfall that might originate from a different process (more synoptic) than point rainfall (more convective). Therefore to investigate utility of the developed GFCM methodology in arriving at meaningful regions when applied to point rainfall data, the methodology is applied to daily rainfall records available for 1032 gauges in Karnataka state of India. The application yielded 22 homogeneous extreme rainfall regions. Experiments carried out to examine utility of GFCM and ROI based regions in arriving at quantile estimates for ungauged sites in the study area reveal that performance of GFCM methodology is fairly close to that of ROI approach. Errors were marginally lower in the case of GFCM approach in analysis with observed point rainfall data over Karnataka, while its converse was noted in the case of analysis with gridded rainfall data over India. Neither of the approaches (CA, ROI) was found to be consistent in yielding least error in quantile estimates over all the sites. The existing approaches to regionalization of temperature are based on temperature time series or their related statistics, rather than attributes effecting temperature in the study area. Therefore independent validation of the delineated regions for homogeneity in temperature is not possible. Another drawback of the existing approaches is that they require adequate number of sites with contemporaneous temperature records for regionalization, because the delineated regions are susceptible to sampling variability and randomness associated with the temperature records that are often (i) short in length, (ii) limited over contemporaneous time period and (iii) spatially sparse. To address these issues, a two-stage clustering approach is developed to arrive at regions that are homogeneous in terms of both monthly maximum and minimum temperatures ( and ). First-stage of the approach involves (i) identifying a common set of possible predictors (LSAVs) influencing and over the entire study area, and (ii) using correlations of those predictors with and along with location indicators (latitude, longitude and altitude) as the basis to delineate sites in the study area into hard clusters through global k-means clustering algorithm. The second stage involves (i) identifying appropriate LSAVs corresponding to each of the first-stage clusters, which could be considered as potential predictors, and (ii) using the potential predictors along with location indicators (latitude, longitude and altitude) as the basis to partition each of the first-stage clusters into homogeneous temperature regions through global fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm. A set of 28 homogeneous temperature regions was delineated over India using the proposed approach. Those regions are shown to be effective when compared to an existing set of 6 temperature regions over India for which inter-site cross-correlations were found to be weak and negative for several months, which is undesirable. Effectiveness of the newly formed regions is demonstrated. Utility of the proposed maxTminT homogeneous temperature regions in arriving at PET estimates for ungauged locations within the study area was demonstrated. The estimates were found to be better when compared to those based on the existing regions. The existing approaches to regionalization of hydrometeorological variables are based on principal components (PCs)/ statistics/indices determined from time-series of those variables at monthly and seasonal scale. An issue with use of PCs for regionalization is that they have to be extracted from contemporaneous records of hydrometeorological variables. Therefore delineated regions may not be effective when the available records are limited over contemporaneous time period. A drawback associated with the use of statistics/indices is that they (i) may not be meaningful when data exhibit nonstationarity and (ii) do not encompass complete information in the original time series. Consequently the resulting regions may not be effective for the desired purpose. To address these issues, a new approach is proposed. It considers information extracted from wavelet transformations of the observed multivariate hydrometeorological time series as the basis for regionalization by global fuzzy c-means clustering procedure. The approach can account for dynamic variability in the time series and its nonstationarity (if any). Effectiveness of the proposed approach in forming homogeneous hydrometeorological regions is demonstrated by application to India, as there are no prior attempts to form such regions over the country. The investigations resulted in identification of 29 regions over India, which are found to be effective and meaningful. Drought Severity-Area-Frequency (SAF) curves are developed for each of the newly formed regions considering the drought index to be Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI).

Proponents of Canadian health reform in the 1990s argued for regional structures, which enables budget silos to be broken down and integrated budgets to be formed. Although regionalization has been justified on the basis of its potential to increase home care resources, political science draws upon the scope of conflict theory, which instead suggests marginalized actors, such as home care, may be at risk of being cannibalized in order to safeguard the interests of more powerful actors, such as hospitals. Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, constitute a natural policy experiment. Each has made different decisions about the regionalization model implemented to restructure health care delivery. The policy question underpinning this research is: What are the implications of the different regional models chosen on the allocation of resources to home care? Provincial governments are at liberty to fund home care within the limits of their fiscal capacity and there are no federal terms and conditions which must be complied with. This policy analysis used a case comparison research design with mixed methods to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Two financial outcomes were measured: 1) per capita provincial government home care expenditures and 2) the home care share of provincial government health expenditures. Hospital data was used as a comparator. Qualitative data collected from face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with regional elite key informants supplemented the expenditure data. The findings align with the scope of conflict theory. The trade-off between central control and local autonomy has implications for these findings: 1) home care in Prince Edward Island increased it share from 1.6% to 2.2% of provincial government health spending; 2) maintaining central control over home care in Nova Scotia resulted in an increase in its share from 1.4% to 5.4%, and 3) in New Brunswick, home care share grew from 4.1% to 7.6%. Inertia and entrenchment of spending patterns was strong. Health regions did not appear to undertake resource reallocation to any great extent in either Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick. Resource reallocation did occur in Nova Scotia where the hospital share of government spending went down and was reallocated to home care and nursing homes. But, Nova Scotia is the only province of the three in which home care was not regionalized. Regional interests in maintaining existing levels of in-patient hospital beds was clearly a source of tension between the overarching policy goals formulated for health reform by the provincial governments and the local health regions.

Globalių iššūkių veikiamas pasaulis nuolatos turi atsinaujinti ir adaptuotis prie besikeičiančių sąlygų. Valstybės šiame kontekste ne išimtis. Galima teigti, jog valstybės patyria didžiausią spaudimą surasti geriausią sprendimų variantą, kaip amortizuoti globalių jėgų spaudimą. Vienas iš palankiausių būdų tą padaryti, atsigręžti į regionines organizacijas. Šiai dienai sėkmingiausia regioninė organizacija yra laikoma Europos Sąjunga, o po jos rikiuojasi ASEAN. Visgi mokslinių tyrimų, lyginančių šias dvi organizacijas, nėra daug dėl to, kad yra nusistovėjusi nuomonė, jog ES yra n=1 atvejis, o didelė dalis klasikinių regioninių teorijų yra kilusios iš Europos intelektinio paveldo. Naujojo regionalizmo teorija meta iššūkį ir teigia, jog ES gali būti palyginama ir turi būti lyginama, kadangi tik taip galima suprasti regioninių procesų mechanizmus. Išanalizavus šių dviejų regioninių organizacijų regionalizacijos procesų kaitą buvo atrasta. ES ir ASEAN regionalizacijos procesų kaita yra beveik vienoda savo pradžia, dominuoja saugumo tematika. Yra visiškai skirtinga savo funkcionavimu, ES ryški institucionalizacija ir supranacionalinių institucijų skatinimas. ASEAN vengimas bet kokių institucionalizacijos formų ir neformalumo skatinimas. Tik iš dalies panaši įtaka valstybėms narėms ir trečiosioms šalims, kur ES turi sukaupusi solidesnę patirtį. Taip pat buvo atrasta, jog nevalstybiniai aktoriai turėjo skirtingas roles. ES atveju institucijų jau buvo paruošta platforma jiems ateiti... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Global challenges have been affecting the world constantly. Thus there are pressures to innovate and adapt to changing conditions. State in this context is not an exception. It can be argued that the states have been experiencing far greater pressures to find the best solutions to amortize global pressure. One of the most favorable way to do that, turn to regional organizations. To date, the most successful regional organization is considered to be the European Union, followed by ASEAN. However, the research comparing these two organizations is not much on the fact that there are well-established opinions, that EU n=1 case and a large part of the regional classic theories originate from the EU intellectual heritage. The new regionalism approach throw a challenge to claim that the EU can be compared and should be compared, because it is the only one way to understand the processes of regional mechanisms.The analysis of these two regional organizations regionalization processes shift have shoved that. EU and ASEAN regionalization processes change is almost the same at their start, dominates security issues. They are totally different in their functioning, the EU followed hard institutionalization and promotion of supranational institutions. ASEAN have avoided of any form of institutionalization and promoted the informality. Only partially comparable influence to Member States and third countries where EU has acquired a more solid experience. It was also discovered that... [to full text]

Dendroclimatologists often approach field work with the intent of reconstructing a particular climate variable (e.g. temperature, streamflow, precipitation). Although guidelines exist for species and site selection, isolating the signal of interest is difficult in areas with complex terrain or a lack of ideal sites. In this case study, I suggest climatological techniques for a more efficient sampling scheme and apply these techniques to identify criteria for selecting sites sensitive to winter precipitation in the north-central Rocky Mountains. These techniques include examining factors influencing the regional response of tree growth to climate by utilizing the International Tree-Ring Databank (ITRDB), using eigenvector analyses to identify modes of variability between sites, and delineating climate regions based on the variable of interest through climate regionalization. Results suggest that low- or mid-elevation Pseudotsuga menziesii sites should be targeted for maximizing the winter precipitation signal in the case study area. The season of precipitation impacting growth was found to be a major component of the overall variability between sites.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

An Overview of physicogeographical regionalisations and an analysis of their representation in Geography textbooks for secondary schools Abstract At present there is a large number of various regionalisations which concern the classification of the biosphere. The aim of the thesis is to develop an overview of the regionalisations of the physicogeographical sphere in the individual constituent spheres of physical geography. Firstly, the thesis provides an overview in terms of the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and pedosphere. The second part contains an analysis of secondary school Geography textbooks with respect to the occurrence of regionalisation of physicogeographical spheres. The analysis is based on 3 selected criteria. The first criterion is the frequency of occurrence of the very term itself and its more precise definition. The second criterion examines whether textbooks contain graphical demonstrations of the analysed terms in a map. The third criterion enquires whether the stated terms related to regionalisation are interconnected and put into perspective with other spheres. According to the results of the analysis, the highest-scoring textbook is "Geografie I., fyzickogeografická část (2012)". As for the representation of individual regionalisations in the physicogeographical...