Electricity supply industries (ESI) around the world are subject to structural and regulatory change. The environmental implications of these changes will depend, largely, on future investment within cleaner technologies. As developing countries (Des) increase levels of electricity supply, the incentives for investment in clean technologies is particularly important. Policy-makers wishing to promote renewable electricity technologies (RETs) in Des need to understand the nature of technological change in large technical systems (LTS). Broadly this thesis adopts the view that technological change is the outcome of the complex interaction of technical, economic and political factors. Initially technological change in LTS is shaped by social and political factors. As the system increases in both size and complexity driven by economies of scale and scope, and through co-evolution of technical and institutional features, it exhibits 'momentum,' whereupon technological change tends to be 'incremental' and autonomous. Through problem-solving activities to address 'reverse salients' the system evolves on a 'technological trajectory,' its path confined by technological and economic boundaries defined by the prevailing 'techno-economic' paradigm. Subsequently new technologies such as RETs, with characteristics different to those of the 'Traditional Electricity System Trajectory' (TEST) are unlikely to be favoured. Restructuring the electricity system provides a discontinuity in its momentum, allowing the drivers and interactions of different stakeholders to be more transparent. During such periods of instability there are important opportunities for systemic change through meaningful policy input. The socio-economic importance of electricity supply in Des further increases the 'technoinstitutional complexity' within the electricity system, and so resistance to restructuring. The thesis argues that restructuring of the ESI is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement for commercialisation of RETs. Rather policies supported by legislation should ensure that conservative techno-institutional mechanisms are replaced by ones that encourage a 'Balanced Electricity System Trajectory.' The BEST framework incorporates 'economies of the system' as a driver and is characterised by distributed technologies including small-scale and modular generation and sophisticated control technologies. As well as being characterised by flexible control in the technical sense, the BEST model is also characterised by flexible institutional arrangements.

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Since the events of 9/11, there has been tremendous amount of renewed interests in the study of trade security. There has been an influx of security regulations and the private sector has been trying to keep pace in complying with them. However, due to the public externalities of security improvements and the lack of quantified and proven benefits, the private sector is struggling to establish business cases for their security initiatives. There is very little quantitative research in this area. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM), this study serves to fill this gap by introducing a statistical way of analysing and understanding the complex relationships amongst security effort, its motivators and performance and traditional supply chain performance (SCP). This study also proposes an evaluation framework for security efforts. EFA results show that security is a dimension of SCP. This means that organizations have all along been measuring an aspect of their operations that relates to security. As such, organizations should not perceive the current heightened interests in security as throwing them off-balance. In evaluating security efforts, organizations should select key performance indicators (KPIs) that represent each of the four areas of information, cargo, people and cost. SEM results show that organizations undertake security efforts as a result of both perceived security benefits and perceived collateral benefits, with perceived security benefits carrying a greater weight in the decision-making process. Results also show that organizations are implementing security initiatives out-of-compliance i.e. implementing initiatives that they perceive as not having significant impacts on security and SCP. In view of the positive relationships among perceived security impact, security effort and security performance, there is further imperative for an objective method for evaluating security efforts to prevent effort justification behaviour in determining the effectiveness of the same. Results also show that organizations perceive an improved performance in security leads to an overall improvement in SCP. However, as with other supply chain strategies, there are tradeoffs and not all aspects of SCP are impacted in the same way. Time, responsiveness and efficiency for instance are negatively impacted while reliability is positively impacted.

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This thesis analyses transformations in pediatrics during its history as an organized medical specialty. Pediatricians emerged in a period of high infant and child mortality and poor public health to fight disease and treat difficult feeding problems. After mortality rates began to decline they turned to prevention, supervising the normal growth and development of healthy children. However, as prevention absorbed an ever larger proportion of their time, they became bored and dissatisfied. During the 1970s, competing groups of child health care providers such as pediatric nurse practitioners and family practitioners exacerbated pediatricians' difficulties. Worried about their possible disappearance as primary care specialists, pediatricians sought a new mission in ministering to children's non-physical problems. The "new pediatrics" focuses on the behavioral and psychosocial problems of children and adolescents. This study contributes to understanding how professions respond to changes and threats in their environment.

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