Building a new infrastructure facility requires a significant amount of time and expense. This is particularly true for investments in transportation for their longstanding and great degree of impact on society. The scope of time and money involved does not mean, however, we only focus on the economies of scale and may ignore other aspects of the built environment. To this extent, how can we achieve a more balanced perspective in infrastructure decision-making? In addition, what aspects should be considered when making more sustainable decisions about transportation investments? These two questions are the foundations of this study. This dissertation shares its process in part with a previous research project – Texas Urban Triangle (TUT). Although the TUT research generated diverse variables and created possible implementations of spatial decision support system (SDSS), the methodology still demands improvement. The current method has been developed to create suitable routes but is not designed to rank or make comparisons. This is admittedly one of the biggest shortfalls in the general SDSS approach, but is also where I see as an opportunity to make alternative interpretation more comprehensive and effective. The main purpose of this dissertation is to develop a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) that will lead to more balanced decision-making in transportation investment and optimize the most sustainable high-speed rail (HSR) route. The decision support system developed here explicitly elaborates the advantages and disadvantages of a transportation corridor in three particular perspectives: construction (fixed costs); operation (maintenance costs); and externalities (social and environmental costs), with a specific focus on environmental externalities. Considering more environmental features in rail routing will offset short-term economic losses and creates more sustainable environments in long-term infrastructure planning.

This thesis consists of two central Parts. Part 1 examines the extent to which an agent s transaction-specific investments (TSIs) in a customer relationship increase his/her concerns for opportunism by his/her own co-workers. Thus, unlike prior research in marketing that examines opportunism by the recipient of TSIs, I show that agents become concerned with opportunism by non-recipients of TSIs. I then introduce novel moderators that shape the relationship between TSIs and concerns for internal opportunism. Importantly, I also show that in response to concerns for internal opportunism, agents will engage in internal safeguarding behaviors. Notably, unlike external safeguards between firms which tend to benefit firms (e.g., relational norms), I show that internal safeguarding has a deleterious effect on performance. I test the set of hypotheses with data collected from two sources: account managers and their supervisors. In Part 2, I advance the emerging view on customer solutions by simultaneously examining the networks within and between selling and buying teams involved in the development and deployment of complex customer solutions. Such a concurrent within-and-between perspective helps to bridge research on buying and selling teams, which prior research tends to examine only in isolation of each other. This research also extends the literature by showing how within-team network characteristics interact with between-team network characteristics to affect solution effectiveness. Notably, I advance the literature by moving beyond firm-level and individual-level dyads to team-level dyads and introduce a new network characteristic mirrored ties to help our understanding of the interactions between these dyads. I develop my hypotheses in the context of a sales team selling a complex customer solution to a buying team and test the hypotheses using an innovative, picture-based conjoint field experiment from 233 purchasing managers.

The management of natural resources located on private lands often involves a perceived conflict between the mix of private and public benefit outputs they produce. Governments have tended to respond through legislation to restrict and redirect private decisions about resource management. However, the legislative response faces a lack of information about the costs and benefits of alternative management and policy instruments. A pertinent example of this debate is the management of wetlands on private lands. The goal in this thesis is to advance the design of policy relating to the production of environmental outputs on private lands. This goal is achieved by first estimating the welfare impacts of alternative private land management strategies on the wider community. These estimates are used as inputs into the development of alternative policy instruments that are then evaluated in terms of their potential cost-effectiveness in influencing private management. Two case studies of wetland management on private land in Australia are presented ??? the Upper South East Region of South Australia, and, the Murrumbidgee River Floodplain in New South Wales. The conceptual approach described in the first part of the thesis includes a description of the resource management problem and the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative decision frameworks widely employed in Australia. Identification of the cause and nature of transaction costs in the management process is the focus in this discussion. The welfare impacts of alternative wetland management strategies are investigated through the construction of a bio-economic model for each of the case study areas. The approach integrates biophysical analysis of changing wetland management with the value society places on wetlands. Outputs from this process are used in the development of a range of policy instruments directed towards influencing wetland management. The impact of poorly quantified and uncertain transaction costs on the potential cost-effectiveness of these options is evaluated using threshold policy analysis. The empirical results show that the perception of a conflict between the private and public values generated by resource management is accurate. For example, scenarios changing wetland management in the Upper South East of South Australia on the Murrumbidgee River floodplain in New South Wales were shown to generate net benefits of $5.2m and $5.1m respectively. Hence, changing wetland management could generate increased community welfare. The potential for these findings to be translated into wetland policy is less conclusive. Policies directed towards wetland management (in part or in whole) incur a range of transaction costs and deliver differential wetland protection benefits. Ten ???best bet??? policies are identified, but more information is required to determine conclusively whether a net benefit results to the wider community when transaction costs are included.

The management of natural resources located on private lands often involves a perceived conflict between the mix of private and public benefit outputs they produce. Governments have tended to respond through legislation to restrict and redirect private decisions about resource management. However, the legislative response faces a lack of information about the costs and benefits of alternative management and policy instruments. A pertinent example of this debate is the management of wetlands on private lands. The goal in this thesis is to advance the design of policy relating to the production of environmental outputs on private lands. This goal is achieved by first estimating the welfare impacts of alternative private land management strategies on the wider community. These estimates are used as inputs into the development of alternative policy instruments that are then evaluated in terms of their potential cost-effectiveness in influencing private management. Two case studies of wetland management on private land in Australia are presented ??? the Upper South East Region of South Australia, and, the Murrumbidgee River Floodplain in New South Wales. The conceptual approach described in the first part of the thesis includes a description of the resource management problem and the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative decision frameworks widely employed in Australia. Identification of the cause and nature of transaction costs in the management process is the focus in this discussion. The welfare impacts of alternative wetland management strategies are investigated through the construction of a bio-economic model for each of the case study areas. The approach integrates biophysical analysis of changing wetland management with the value society places on wetlands. Outputs from this process are used in the development of a range of policy instruments directed towards influencing wetland management. The impact of poorly quantified and uncertain transaction costs on the potential cost-effectiveness of these options is evaluated using threshold policy analysis. The empirical results show that the perception of a conflict between the private and public values generated by resource management is accurate. For example, scenarios changing wetland management in the Upper South East of South Australia on the Murrumbidgee River floodplain in New South Wales were shown to generate net benefits of $5.2m and $5.1m respectively. Hence, changing wetland management could generate increased community welfare. The potential for these findings to be translated into wetland policy is less conclusive. Policies directed towards wetland management (in part or in whole) incur a range of transaction costs and deliver differential wetland protection benefits. Ten ???best bet??? policies are identified, but more information is required to determine conclusively whether a net benefit results to the wider community when transaction costs are included.

The management of natural resources located on private lands often involves a perceived conflict between the mix of private and public benefit outputs they produce. Governments have tended to respond through legislation to restrict and redirect private decisions about resource management. However, the legislative response faces a lack of information about the costs and benefits of alternative management and policy instruments. A pertinent example of this debate is the management of wetlands on private lands. The goal in this thesis is to advance the design of policy relating to the production of environmental outputs on private lands. This goal is achieved by first estimating the welfare impacts of alternative private land management strategies on the wider community. These estimates are used as inputs into the development of alternative policy instruments that are then evaluated in terms of their potential cost-effectiveness in influencing private management. Two case studies of wetland management on private land in Australia are presented ??? the Upper South East Region of South Australia, and, the Murrumbidgee River Floodplain in New South Wales. The conceptual approach described in the first part of the thesis includes a description of the resource management problem and the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative decision frameworks widely employed in Australia. Identification of the cause and nature of transaction costs in the management process is the focus in this discussion. The welfare impacts of alternative wetland management strategies are investigated through the construction of a bio-economic model for each of the case study areas. The approach integrates biophysical analysis of changing wetland management with the value society places on wetlands. Outputs from this process are used in the development of a range of policy instruments directed towards influencing wetland management. The impact of poorly quantified and uncertain transaction costs on the potential cost-effectiveness of these options is evaluated using threshold policy analysis. The empirical results show that the perception of a conflict between the private and public values generated by resource management is accurate. For example, scenarios changing wetland management in the Upper South East of South Australia on the Murrumbidgee River floodplain in New South Wales were shown to generate net benefits of $5.2m and $5.1m respectively. Hence, changing wetland management could generate increased community welfare. The potential for these findings to be translated into wetland policy is less conclusive. Policies directed towards wetland management (in part or in whole) incur a range of transaction costs and deliver differential wetland protection benefits. Ten ???best bet??? policies are identified, but more information is required to determine conclusively whether a net benefit results to the wider community when transaction costs are included.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2006. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2006. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph.D. in Nursing) -- University of Colorado Denver, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-188). Free to UCD affiliates. Online version available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations;

Thesis (M.P.H.M. (Primary Health Care Management))--Mahidol University, 2004.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-07, Section: B, page: 4122. Adviser: John Michael Swint. Includes bibliographical references