Bus-based Park and Ride (P&R) schemes have become increasingly popular over the past 40 years in the UK, as a result of them being considered a positive traffic reduction policy by many, not least local authorities. There have nevertheless been concerns over the true effects of P&R. For instance, surveys of P&R users have long since revealed that up to a third transfer from conventional public transport. This induces car travel for the access portion of the P&R trip, which is generally large compared to the bus portion, owing to the edge-of-town location of P&R sites. Combined with the mileage effects of high-frequency bus services, evidence has suggested that P&R may thus result in an increase, compared to alternative travel behaviour, in the mean vehicle miles travelled (VMT) of its users. This thesis aims to investigate how UK bus-based P&R may be developed to reduce users VMT. As such, it applies to P&R the Characteristics Approach to Consumer Demand and delineates the attributes of interchange from which users derive utility. The research also develops this approach to consider the characteristics that affect the traffic impacts of P&R. The characteristics of P&R are adjusted to provide alternative concepts of interchange that aim to reduce VMT. These concepts are then examined to understand the level of utility that they are likely to provide. Local authorities perceptions of utility are examined initially, through a national survey which also looks at general attitudes towards P&R, its effects and its future. The city of Cambridge (UK) is selected as a case study in which an in-depth document analysis and interview survey of local stakeholders is carried out to understand the role of P&R in local policy and the implications of the implementation of alternative concepts of interchange. In this context, a survey of P&R users is also undertaken which considers the VMT effects of the current and alternative concepts of P&R as well as the change in the level of utility that would be derived from using them. It is concluded that local authorities generally consider P&R to be an effective policy in reducing car use whilst also playing important roles in the local economy and political arena. Yet the evidence on the Cambridge P&R scheme suggests that VMT is increased to a higher degree than previously proven. Alternative concepts of interchange are shown to offer some potentially significant benefits by reducing the VMT of users. Furthermore, some of the alternative concepts are also shown to offer benefits in terms of the utility that they may provide to the user, and the perceptions on this by local authorities. The VMT and utility results are combined to suggest that future implementation of interchange should consider operating feeder bus services into interchange sites (an intermediate solution offering some VMT benefits with relatively small resource requirements) or, operating a series of small interchange sites along main access routes to host cities (likely to require more resources but providing significant VMT benefits).

The purpose of this research was, in order to forestall future failures of foresight, to provoke those responsible for risk governance into new ways of thinking through a greater exposure to and understanding of the body of existing academic knowledge. The research, which focused on the scholarship of application, synthesised the existing knowledge into a ―coherent whole‖ in order to assess its practical utility and to examine what is to be learnt about existing knowledge by trying to use it in practice. The findings are in two parts. The first focuses on how one ―thinks about thinking‖ about an issue. Early work identified three issues that were seen as being central to the understanding of risk governance. The first is the concept of risk itself, the second is to question whether there is a single paradigm used and the third is what is meant by the term ―risk indicator‖. A ―coherent whole‖, structured around seven-dimensions, was created from the range of definitions used within existing literature. No single paradigm was found to be used when discussing risk issues. Three paradigms were identified and labelled ―Line‖, ―Circle‖ and ―Dot‖. It was concluded that Risk Indicators were used to performance manage risk mitigation barriers rather than as a mechanism by which organisations may identify emerging risks. The second focus was the synthesis of academic work relevant to risk governance. It produced a list of statements which encapsulated the concerns of previous writers on this subject. The research then operationalised the issues as questions, which were seen to have practical utility. The elements of the ―coherent whole‖ suggest a way to provide access into the original research. The research suggests that it is unlikely that practitioners would wish to access the original research in its academic format. Further work therefore needs to be done to present the original work in a format that is more digestible to the practitioner community if it is to be used effectively. The results of this research are considered to be preliminary. No claim is being made that these questions are definitive. The research is however addressing an area which is of concern to those in practice and has not been previously examined.

The voting system a government chooses has influence upon the way people vote, as it has some bearing on the average person’s utility received from voting. In the United States the Electoral College system is used to determine who becomes president-elect, but theoretical arguments have been made to support a change in voting structure to Proportional Representation. I developed my model to understand more about how a change in the voting structure would affect voter utility. My contribution to the research question focuses upon relative benefits of one voter in a specific party to another voter in another party. I used an empirical approach, using data pulled from past elections and survey data. My model suggests that Republican voters would receive a higher utility from a change in the voting system from the Electoral College to Proportional Representation. It is unclear whether Democrats would receive a higher benefit, but at least would receive a lesser utility change than that of the Republican voters.

L’expropriation pour cause d’utilité publique est une opération par laquelle l’administration peut contraindre un individu à lui céder sa propriété, dans un but d’utilité publique, moyennant une juste et préalable indemnité. En droit français, la procédure d’expropriation est répartie en deux phases, la phase administrative qui relève des autorités administratives et la phase judiciaire qui relève de la compétence du juge judiciaire. En ce qui concerne la législation iranienne, celle-ci se fonde seulement sur la phase administrative. Ici, les autorités administratives bénéficient d’une grande marge de manœuvre. Par contre, le rôle du juge y est très marginal. Afin d’améliorer le droit iranien, il serait nécessaire de modifier la législation à la fois sur le fond et sur la forme et en particulier de codifier, avec plus de logique et de cohésion des textes dispersés et tout ce qui touche l’expropriation. Par ailleurs, il serait temps de moderniser et de reconnaître les institutions juridiques inconnues du droit iranien qui renforcent la valeur de la propriété privée et qui garantissent l’intérêt public face aux abus de pouvoir. A ce sujet, le droit français pourrait inspirer la législation et la jurisprudence iraniennes. / The expropriation for public utility is a process by which the government can compel a person to give him his property in a public purpose, subject to fair and prior compensation.Under French law, the expropriation procedure is divided into two phases, the administrative phase which falls administrative authorities and the judicial phase within the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. Regarding the Iranian law, it relies solely on the administrative phase. Here, the administrative authorities enjoy a wide margin of maneuver, but the judge's role is very marginal.To improve the Iranian law, it is necessary to amend the legislation on both the substance and the form and particularly to codify, with more logic and coherence of scattered texts and everything related expropriation. Moreover, it is time to modernize and recognize unknown legal institutions in Iranian law that reinforce the value of private property and guarantee the public interest against the abuse of power. In this regard, the French law could inspire Iranian legislation and law.

This thesis endeavours to model a trip demand function for recreationalangling in Sweden, including the individual expected per-trip utility of regionalattributes. The analysis is conducted with the use of a Random Utility Model (RUM)for the estimation of ‘site-specific’ utility, and a negative binomial logit model fortrip demand. The site quality variable is stated as expected catch-rates (CR) definedin terms of three different specifications: sample mean CR, individually perfectlyforesighted CR, and an econometrically predicted individual CR. Results indicatethat the econometrically estimated individual catch-rate specification performs wellas an explanatory variable both when modelling discrete site choice and trip demand,while the sample mean and perfectly foresighted CR specifications provide withunintuitive and insignificant parameter values. The inclusive value of the regionchosen by the angler, estimated with the RUM, was subsequently found to be asignificant predicting variable for the number of recreational angling trips conductedby Swedish anglers.

Master of Science / Department of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science / Fred L. Hasler / This paper discusses the advantages of applying a utility centralized chilled water system as the district cooling choice for facilities in the high-density urban areas of China and how it will influence China’s development in the next decades. Presently, the Chinese government is trying to contribute to the world’s energy-saving goals as well as determine its sustainable development framework. As air pollution has become one of the main problems in China, indoor air quality (IAQ) is likely to gain priority as a building design consideration in the future. Consistent with this fact, this paper proposes an optimum HVAC system for cooling purposes to the Chinese government. Compared to unitary HVAC systems, the centralized HVAC system has significant advantages in system efficiency, energy reduction and cost savings and can, therefore, be a better choice. Furthermore, the paper will focus on the centralized chilled water system and demonstrate why they better match the development model in China. The application of the system in high-density urban areas will also be discussed. Due to a lack of understanding that the energy consumption of unitary systems, the first comparison presented is between unitary HVAC systems and centralized HVAC systems in individual buildings. The comparison presented will focus on the energy-saving benefits of the centralized HVAC system in individual buildings and its contribution to sustainable development. Consequently, prescribing a centralized chilled water system as a utility district cooling system and applying a centralized chilled water system to each individual building in the highdensity urban areas will be compared. Cost savings, including initial cost and life cycle cost, are the metrics used in this comparison. Additionally, energy consumption and system reliability will be explored in determining which model will be more appropriate for China's development. The paper concludes that the centralized chilled water system should become the mainstream in the high-density urban area in China. Several recommendations are also made to the Chinese government on setting up utility centralized chilled water systems.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering, 2016 / The power system frequency must be kept as close as possible to the nominal value. This is due to the inherent design of electrical equipment to operate efficiently at the nominal frequency. Frequency regulation in an interconnected power system is the duty of all members of the interconnection. However, in the Eskom-ZESA interconnected power system Eskom engineers ignore the contribution of the ZESA system to primary frequency control. This is mainly due to the prevalent assumption that the ZESA control area is small relative to the Eskom control area and its contribution to primary frequency control of the interconnected power system is negligible. This document presents a project that examines the validity of this assumption via determination of the contribution of the ZESA system to the interconnected power system’s primary frequency control. The interconnected power systems background was studied to understand the theory behind the operation of two or more interconnected power systems. System frequency disturbances deemed to be a good representation of the Eskom-ZESA interconnected power system’s performance were selected and analysed to validate the current assumption. The results show that there is a significant support from ZESA during a system frequency disturbance. This proves that the existing assumption is not valid anymore. Furthermore; the generator model that mimics the Eskom-ZESA tie-line governing behaviour was developed. Two different types of governor models were employed; firstly the IEEEG1 governor was tuned to control generator output to match the tie-line performance and then the TGOV5 governor model was used. The IEEEG1 governor model is a simplified governor representation; as a result, it is not easy to tune the parameters to match tie-line response. However, the performance is acceptable and it can be used to represent the tieline governor response. The TGOV5 governor model is very complex as discussed in section 4.2. The model includes boiler dynamics, and this improves performance such that it is possible to tune the parameters to follow the tie-line performance as close as necessary. / GR2016

Bitcoin is a new evolutionary development within the internet and payment system. Its price has a high volatile nature what brings a lot of attention to this cryptocurrency. This paper investigates the price formation of the Bitcoin by looking at three determinants: speculative position, transaction volume and the utility users obtain from joining the network. To see the correlation between these determinants and the influence it has on the Bitcoin price a multiple regression model has been built over the time period from 2017 to 2019.  The model shows that the effect of speculation is heavier than any other variable, reflecting the uncertainty brought by the sensible sentiment of speculators and users.

Na Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, Adam Smith estabelece um esquema pluralista para explicar a aprovação moral, com quatro tipos de juízos morais: 1) em relação ao motivo da ação, o juízo que determina a conveniência ou inconveniência (propriety ou impropriety); 2) em relação aos efeitos imediatos da ação, o juízo determina seu mérito ou demérito; 3) ao analisar o acordo entre o ato e determinada regra geral de conduta, o juízo determina se o indivíduo agiu de acordo com seu dever; e 4) em relação aos efeitos não imediatos do ato, isto é, à maneira como esse ato se insere no funcionamento global da sociedade (juízo que Smith analisa sob o nome de aparência de utilidade). Esses quatro tipos de juízos se fundam na imaginação e formam a totalidade do princípio de aprovação que estrutura a parte especulativa de sua teoria moral. / In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith establishes a pluralist scheme to explain moral approbation, with four kinds of moral judgments: 1) regarding the motives of the agent, the judgment determines its propriety or impropriety; 2) regarding the immediate effects of the action, the judgement determines its merit or demerit; 3) analyzing if this act is a particular case of a general rule, the judgement determines if the agent has acted according to his duty; and 4) regarding the remote effects of the action, that is, the way this action is a part of the global operations of society (a judgement that Smith calls the appearance of utility). These four kinds of moral judgments are grounded in imagination and form the totality of the principle of approbation that structure the speculative part of his moral philosophy.

Performance measurement of Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) is of increasing importance for aid agencies, policy-makers and donors. A widely used benchmark for measuring the efficiency of NPOs is the overhead cost ratio, consisting of the total money spent on administration and fundraising relative to the budget. Donors generally favor a lower overhead cost ratio as it ensures that more Money directly reaches beneficiaries. Unlike fundraising expenses, administrative costs do not contribute to advertising the actions of an NPO even though they account for a significant proportion of overhead cost. Reducing administrative expenses is a logical consequence from a financial viewpoint, but might negatively affect NPOs through the resulting administrative capacities. This phenomenon is known as "Nonprofit Starvation Cycle" This work provides an analytical framework for analyzing NPO decision making concerning administrative costs. The paper provides answers to important research questions on the optimal level of administrative spending, the influencing factors and the effects of available information on NPOs. The research shows that focusing on financial performance measurements can result in reduced utility created for NPOs. Less transparency often leads to increased utility for NPOs, but more transparency can increase NPOs' utility if the information available exceeds a certain threshold. Fluctuating donations are challenging for NPOs' planning and may Impact administrative capacities negatively.