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This thesis discusses the role of Environmental Impact Assessments in the implementation of the concept of sustainable development within the realm of North-South tensions regarding responsibilities for environmental conservation. Environmental Impact Assessments provide opportunities for realizing sustainable development not only because they operationalize the integration principle of sustainable development by facilitating the equilibrium between development and environmental conservation objectives, essential for ecological sustainability, but also because, in allowing for public participation in the assessment process, they promote the realization of the civil right of participation in public affairs, an essential component of good governance required for sustainable development to thrive. However, the thesis scrutinizes the reality in developing countries of adopting Environmental Impact Assessments. They are not yet accorded a lot of value because it is foreign technology imported from the North, which must be adopted often as a conditionality to that much needed development assistance, which often does not take into account cultural realities in developing countries and which inadvertently plays a role in the growth of Third World debt, corruption and erosion of sovereignty in the Third World. It argues, therefore that the utility of Environmental Impact Assessment in the realization of global sustainable development is limited by the existence of these realities unless modifications are made in the implementation of Environmental Impact Assessments in developing countries.

People with disabilities are a ‘disadvantaged’ group, not only due to their impairment, but also due to the formal and informal institutional inertia that they contend with in Western Societies. This disadvantage has been recognised and acknowledged in the social model of disability. This model understands that disability is a social construction placed on people with impairments. The Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a tool which identifies inequities in policy, and is potentially a useful tool to aid the response of policy makers to the needs of people with disabilities. Arguably, the New Zealand HIA guidelines reflect the underlying principles of the social model of disability. Using a mixed methods research strategy, this thesis sets out to understand in a global context using a top-down quantitative analysis, to what extent the New Zealand HIA guidelines which acknowledge the social model of disability are translated into practice. It then subsequently investigates from a bottom-up qualitative perspective, what factors influence this relationship. It is argued in this thesis that there are barriers to translating the rhetoric about people with disabilities found in the HIA guidelines into practice. Three sets of inter-related barriers identified include attitudinal barriers to people with disabilities, generic HIA barriers, and barriers related to the feminist interpretation of the construction of disability. In this thesis, the research findings conclude that it is difficult to operationalise the disability awareness present in the HIA guidelines due to barriers which are related to the ‘othering’ of people with disabilities. This is discussed in relation to feminist analyses of the construction of people with disabilities, and it needs to be addressed by wider societal reforms. The thesis makes the recommendation that a national awareness-raising campaign about people with disabilities be undertaken in New Zealand in an attempt to rectify this situation.

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Ammonia as a transportation fuel offers a carbon-free, hydrogen rich energy source that emits no greenhouse gases in combustion, and has no global warming potential. Furthermore, it may be produced from any renewable energy resource, and is a strong option for long term sustainability. Ammonia also provides a pathway towards a hydrogen economy, which is the long term goal for environmental sustainability. This thesis investigates the feasibility of integrating ammonia as a combustion fuel, hydrogen carrier, heat recovery and working fluid, and for indirect engine cooling, within locomotive propulsion systems for nine novel ammonia-based configurations. Thermodynamic, environmental, and economic analyses are conducted for a typical modern diesel-fueled locomotive and the proposed ammonia configurations. The study comparatively assesses potential long term solutions for sustainable, clean rail transportation. From the modeled results, the proposed systems operating with 50% of required fuel energy replaced by ammonia have a reduction in diesel fuel consumption from 0.211 kg/s to less than 0.10 kg/s. This is associated with a reduction in GHG emissions of more than 8 tonnes CO2eq for a typical daily locomotive duty cycle for commuter operation. Criteria air contaminants are reduced to below upcoming Tier 3 emission levels for NOx and HC emissions, and meet current levels for PM emissions. In total, ten locomotive propulsion systems are investigated including the diesel-fueled locomotive baseline, and the performance gains are considered against economic factors for fuel and equipment costs in a comparative assessment.

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This paper investigates the price impact cost for MSCI constituents on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) from Jan. 2001 to Dec. 2004. While the behavior of price impact cost in U.S. security markets has been extensively analyzed, there are few studies about it in the pure limit-order markets. Unlike Breen, Hodrick, and Korajczyk (2002), a panel data model is applied to fit our cross-sectional and time series data. We find that the price impact cost is well predicted by predetermined firm characteristics and exhibits a Ushaped pattern over the trading day. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that the reformations of trading regulations and the improvements of information disclosures would have a significant effect on the price impact cost for overall stocks.