The Greater Everglades system imparts vital ecosystem services (ES) to South Florida residents including high quality drinking water supplies and a habitat for threatened and endangered species. As a result of the altered Everglades system and regional dynamics, restoration may either improve the provision of these services or impose a tradeoff between enhanced environmental goods and services and competing societal demands. The current study aims at understanding public preferences for restoration and generating willingness to pay (WTP) values for restored ES through the implementation of a discrete choice experiment. A previous study (Milon et al., 1999) generated WTP values amongst Floridians of up to $3.42 -$4.07 billion for full restoration over a 10-year period. We have collected data from 2,905 respondents taken from two samples who participated in an online survey designed to elicit the WTP values for selected ecological and social attributes included in the earlier study (Milon et al. 1999). We estimate that the Florida general public is willing to pay up to $854.1- $954.1 million over 10 years to avoid restrictions on their water usage and up to $90.8- $183.7 million over 10 years to restore the hydrological flow within the Water Conservation Area.

Creating sustainable urban landscapes in light of growing population pressures requires interdisciplinary multi-functional solutions. Alternative agro-ecosystems described as food forests, permaculture gardens, and/or edible landscapes among others could offer potential ways to address the social, economic and ecological goals of various stakeholders simultaneously. The present research used a unique rubric, the Permaculture and Agro-ecosystems Sustainability Scorecard (PASS) that combines existing agricultural and landscape sustainability indicators in order to assess alternative agro-ecosystems. The rubric evaluates provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services such as pollinator presence, biodiversity, pesticides and fertilizer use, carbon sequestration and human interactions. The PASS was used to score twelve sites in South Florida that meet specific criteria in the small farm, residential and public space categories. The results showed that the majority of the sites scored highest in the supporting services provided, followed by regulating and cultural services and lowest in the economic services category.

During oil-sands mining all vegetation cover, soil, overburden and oil-sand is removed, leaving pits several kilometres wide and hundreds of metres deep. These pits are reclaimed by a variety of treatments using mineral soil or a mixed peat and mineral soil as the capping layer and planted with trees with natural colonisation from adjacent sites. A number of reclamation treatments covering different age classes were compared with a range of natural forest ecotypes to identify the age at which the treatments become similar to a natural site with respect to vegetation composition and key soil attributes relevant to nutrient cycling. Ecosystem function was estimated from plant community composition, litter decomposition, development of an organic layer and bio-available nutrients. Key response variables including moisture, pH, C:N ratios, bio-available nutrients and ground-cover were analysed by non-metric multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis to discover which reclamation treatments were moving towards or merging with natural forest ecotypes and at what age this occurs. On reclaimed sites, bio-available nutrients including nitrate generally were above the natural range of variability but ammonium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and manganese were generally very low and limiting to ecosystem development. Plant diversity was similar to natural sites from 5 years to 30 years after reclamation, but declined as reclaimed sites approached canopy closure. Grass and forb leaf litters decomposed faster than aspen or pine in the first year, but decomposition on one reclamation treatment fell below the natural range of variability. Development of an organic layer appeared to be facilitated by the presence of shrubs, while forbs correlated negatively with first-year decomposition of aspen litter. The better restoration amendments for tailings sands involved repeated fertilisation of peat: mineral mixtures in the early years of plant establishment, these became similar to a target ecotype at about 25 years. Good results were also shown by subsoil laid over non-saline overburden and fertilised once, these became similar to a target ecotype at about 15 years. Other treatments receiving a single application of fertiliser remain entrenched in the early reclamation phase for up to 25 years. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

It is well known that invasive alien plants (IAPs) pose a significant threat to natural biodiversity and human well-being. Through various pressures exerted on natural ecosystems, IAPs decrease and alter natural processes that provide important ecosystems services and livelihoods to human communities. These plants also displace and out-compete natural plant communities in the areas in which they invade. Management of IAPs is a complex issue with social, environmental and financial challenges. The long-term sustainable management of IAPs requires a management approach that monitors and measures the outcomes of current management practices, and considers the lessons learnt in future decision making. Adaptive management is such an approach and is characterised by monitoring, assessment, reflection and adaptation. In this dissertation I explore IAP management within the South African National Parks (SANParks) organisation. I focus on the quality of the available IAP clearing data for monitoring and environmental decision-making and explore how strategic adaptive management (SAM) is being applied to IAP management. Strategic adaptive management is a form of adaptive management that SANParks adopted to deal with the inherent unpredictability of the social ecological systems they manage, and is primarily a learning-by-doing approach. In chapter one I describe the various impacts that IAPs have on natural environments. I also discuss management of IAPs, the national Working for Water (WfW) programme and how SANParks control IAPs in partnership with WfW. Clearing of IAPs within the borders of SANParks is funded by the Department of Environmental Affairs‘ (DEA) Natural Resource Management programmes and carried out through the Working for Water programme, under SANParks‘ Biodiversity Social Projects programme and is done on a contract basis. Contract data are stored in the Working for Water Information Management System (WIMS) database. Although IAP clearing is well established, the efficiency of overall clearing operations within the parks, and quality and reliability of the data available in the WIMS, needs to be examined. In Chapter two, I (i) assess the status of IAP clearing and the direct clearing costs in each of the five national parks (costs are inflated to 2012 equivalents using the consumer price index), (ii) assess the accuracy of workload estimations for WfW IAP clearing, and (iii) discuss the utility of WIMS as a system to collate and store accurate data for monitoring purposes, focusing on the integrity and reliability of the data, the accuracy of density estimations and whether it can inform sound decision making. The planning of future clearing contracts lacks efficiency due to inaccuracies and unreliability of input data, specifically estimates of invasive alien plant density. The accuracy of density estimation and cost of clearing varies greatly between parks and does not appear to reflect the reality on the ground. In Chapter 3, through an interview process with IAP managers, I 1) unpack the steps in the SAM ‗cycle‘ and investigate the effectiveness of implementation of each step according to respondents; 2) assess the barriers that are currently keeping managers from implementing effective IAP management; 3) discuss whether learning and adaptation is taking place, and 4) discuss how the SAM process can be modified to promote its effectiveness.

The Lake Minnewanka area is one of Banff National Park's most scenic and highly visited regions. Impacts such as the loss of significant montane habitat (characteristic of the Lower Bow Valley ecosystem) and social implications like crowding led to the need to develop a strategy for managing the area. The author worked with a planning team from the Canadian Parks Service(CPS) in Banff National Park (BNP) to develop the Minnewanka Area Plan. The primary purpose of the thesis is to evaluate the Minnewanka Area Plan to determine whether it effectively serves to maintain and enhance ecological integrity. A theoretical framework based on integrated ecosystem management was developed to evaluate the plan. Normative criteria from literature on recreational carrying capacity management and meaningful public participation were defined and applied to the plan. Overall, the plan was rated as successful according to the normative criteria. All of the criteria for an effective approach to carrying capacity management were considered and the plan reflected a fair and efficient public participation process. Stakeholder input influenced plan decisions to a high degree and several partnerships were developed through the planning process. Several inadequacies in the plan were identified through the evaluation. The adoption of an approach to ecosystem management called the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) was recommended as a guiding principle within the plan. The step-by-step LAC model was seen as overly complex in the context of the case study. Indicators and a monitoring program which are central to the LAC process were not defined as part of the plan. The evaluation of the public participation process indicated that stakeholder participation was high early in the planning process and reflected a partnership relationship where stakeholders shared the power of decision-making. During completion of the draft and final plan, the process became one of public consultation where the level and frequency of participation was lowered. Recommendations for improving the efficacy of the Minnewanka Area Plan are made within the thesis. A simpler approach to visitor and resource management which maintains the essential criteria of the LAC approach is suggested. Measures for maintaining a high level of public participation and improving the accountability of the CPS in decision-making are proposed. The normative criteria based on carrying capacity management and meaningful public participation processes are presented as a model for facilitating integrated ecosystem management in area planning within national parks. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Unexpected changes occurring in complex and dynamic domains render supporting systems unsuited to the new conditions. Examples of such domains include business ecosystems, digital service ecosystems, manufacturing, transport, and city modelling. These are regarded as ecosystem domains. Multi-agent systems are seen as an appropriate technology for their support, yet they lack the required ability to adapt to unexpected changes. The research presented in this thesis aims to create a multi-agent system based in-silico model endowed with the capability of adaptation to unexpected changes occurring in ecosystem domains. The approach taken consists of applying adaptation properties of complex adaptive systems, such as natural ecosystems, to multi-agent systems to create one which can cope with unexpected changes. A dynamic agent-based ecosystem model called DAEM is formalised by combining characteristics of natural ecosystem and principles of adaptive multi-agent systems. A set of experiments is presented using a DAEM prototype to demonstrate its resilience to unexpected changes in a hypothetical ecosystem. A comparison is made against a simulated typical solution for showing how DAEM is more resilient to unexpected changes than the typical approach. This supports the claim of this thesis that DAEM represents a significant contribution to knowledge. A software embodiment of DAEM to drive adaptation in ecosystem domains is presented and placed in an execution context evaluated by two practical examples of ecosystem domains. These show how DAEM suggests interactions to the supporting system of the execution context, and incorporates taken decisions into the ecosystem regarding interactions with other individuals. This supports the claim that the DAEM software embodiment is suitable for providing adaptation support in ecosystem domains, thus representing another significant contribution of this thesis. The contributions to knowledge of this thesis are then a) a formal model of a dynamic agent-based ecosystem called DAEM; and b) a software embodiment of DAEM, called DAEM layer, to support adaptation in ecosystem domains. Future work includes further tests to analyse patterns and make estimations in existing ecosystems, among others.

This master thesis deals with the analysis of the possibilities of Cloud Computing for information system solutions in small and medium businesses. The main objective is to analyze these options, identify key areas for the transition to the cloud and propose an approach to develop Information system in this direction. The main contribution of this work is the practical experience which is involved in a view of the problems being solved and an emphasis on aspects that have been verified in practices. The main text of the work is divided into five chapters. The first chapter defines the basic concepts and limitations on which further work is based. The second chapter deals with the current form of IS in SMEs, its description and identifying problems. The third chapter analyzes the Cloud Computing from the perspective of the suitability of various models for SMEs, identifies the major trends that affect the Cloud Computing and describes some basic elements on which Cloud Computing is based. It also analyzes the issue of security. The fourth chapter deals with the state of Cloud Computing market and identification of key problem areas which need to be solved in various stages of market development. The last chapter uses several case studies to show a meaningfulness and readiness of Cloud Computing for running information system. In the end the recommended approach to the adoption of cloud services is defined.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-04-15T14:32:54Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação - Nicolle Lagos de Melo Nogueira.pdf: 6595592 bytes, checksum: 3addd91d17b83db7049eb2c3d95ed483 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-15T14:32:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Dissertação - Nicolle Lagos de Melo Nogueira.pdf: 6595592 bytes, checksum: 3addd91d17b83db7049eb2c3d95ed483 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-02 / FACEPE / Esta pesquisa aborda a relação do crescimento urbano e meio ambiente no bairro Barra de Jangada no município Jaboatão dos Guararapes, Pernambuco. Sustenta-se que existe uma relação entre a aceleração desse crescimento com a degradação do meio ambiente natural da região. O objetivo foi analisar a dinâmica territorial urbana e suas transformações socioespacais, utilizando material cartográfico, no bairro Barra de Jangada, que a partir de 2010 passou a receber influência do desenvolvimento econômico da região como a construção do empreendimento imobiliário Reserva do Paiva e dos investimentos do Poder Público no Complexo Industrial e Portuário Suape, localizados no município vizinho, o Cabo de Santo Agostinho. O empreendimento imobiliário Reserva do Paiva trouxe ao bairro Barra de Jangada uma nova configuração espacial e socioeconômica com empreendimentos imobiliários de verticalização para atender uma classe social de alta renda, enquanto o Complexo Industrial e Portuário Suape trouxe ao bairro uma classe social de renda inferior em busca de oportunidade de trabalho. Rotulada como “Nova Barra”, uma nova realidade espacial da orla contracena com a velha Barra de Jangada de classe social de renda mais baixa que a Nova Barra, e em boa parte destituída de infraestrutura básica. A região abriga o ecossistema litorâneo como os manguezais, além de parte da rede hidrográfica do rio Jaboatão como o seu estuário, sendo importante um estudo que sirva para discussão do planejamento urbano da região, avaliando as áreas de grande fragilidade e sua capacidade de suportar a crescente ocupação urbana, além de contribuir para gestão pública em recuperar áreas degradadas e importantes para a manutenção do ecossistema litorâneo. Para o desenvolvimento da pesquisa foram realizados revisão bibliográfica, observações in loco, coletados dados sociais do IBGE e desenvolvida uma análise multitemporal a partir do processamento de imagens com softwares livres no auxílio da gestão territorial e que mostraram a tendência do crescimento urbano da área. / This research addresses the urban relationship growth and the environment of Barra de Jangada district in Jaboatão dos Guararapes city, Pernambuco. It is argued that there is a relationship between the acceleration of this growth with the degradation of the natural environment of the region. The purpose was to analyze the urban land dynamics and its sociospatial transformations using cartographic material, in Barra de Jangada district, where from 2010 began to receive influence of economic development of the region as the construction development Reserva do Paiva and government investments in the Industrial and Port Complex of Suape, located in the Cabo de Santo Agostinho, border with Jaboatão dos Guararapes. The estate development Reserva do Paiva brought Barra de Jangadas neighborhood a new spatial and socio-economic configuration with vertical project to further a social class of high income, while the Industrial and Port Complex Suape brought the neighborhood a social class income below in search job opportunity. Called Nova Barra, a new spatial reality around beachfront acts with the old Barra of social class with the lowest income that New Barra, and largely devoid of basic infrastructure. The region is place of the coastal ecosystem as mangroves, and part of the river system of the Jaboatão river as its estuary, it is important to a study that fits discussion of urban planning in the region, assessing the areas of great fragility and its ability to support the growing urban occupation, and contribute to public management in recovering degraded areas and important for maintaining the coastal ecosystem. For the development of research were conducted a literature review, on-site observations, collected social data from the IBGE and developed a multitemporal analysis from image processing with free software to aid the territorial management which showed the trend of urban growth area.

Orientador: Ademar Ribeiro Romeiro / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T06:26:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TipactiMilachay_MiguelAngel_D.pdf: 7064414 bytes, checksum: 67ab9884438d4999c7f76e07899398d2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: A presente pesquisa analisa a experiência piloto de gestão participativa dos Serviços Ecossistêmicos Hidrológicos (SEH) da cidade de Moyobamba no Peru, faz uma avaliação dos processos da gestão do piloto Moyobamba para identificar e propor diretrizes políticas que favoreçam os processos de gestão que ainda não estão regulamentados no Peru. Utiliza-se conceitos da economia neoclássica e ecológica fazendo uma diferenciação de ambas para ter diretrizes de desenvolvimento para a análise. Também foram utilizados os conceitos da ciência pós-normal e o principio de precaução. Além do mais, a experiência analisa a contextualização histórica da área de influência do piloto Moyobamba abordando os aspectos físicos, sociais, econômicos e culturais da região, que situa o espaço-tempo para a tomada de decisões, incluindo-se o espaço regional e nacional. Para tanto, abraça as etapas do planejamento e suas interações com o gerenciamento ambiental para identificar e explicar os entraves existentes no piloto e aplica a metodologia multicritério de auxilio à tomada de decisão MACBETH para registrar o conhecimento e valores dos pares involucrados na experiência. Reconhece-se como maiores entraves: a inexistência de uma proposta sustentável da manutenção dos SEH, e as falhas institucionais do governo, tanto de índole de intervenção como de formulação de políticas adequadas que facilitem a gestão dos SEH. Ressalta-se também que o fortalecimento do empoderamento social no processo vivido no piloto se constitui no principal pilar da gestão dos SE em Moyobamba. As considerações finais demonstram que a experiência piloto permitiu fazer recomendações de diretrizes para politicas públicas de gestão dos SEH no Peru. Ressalta-se a necessidade de manter um equilíbrio no desenvolvimento dos elementos dos cluster de relações de mercado, empoderamento e governo identificados, sendo necessária uma intervenção centrada em valores, diferenciada do que o Sistema Nacional de Investimento Público (SNIP) estipula, pois o tema da gestão dos SEH é mais que a soma de execução de projetos pontuais e precisa considerar as complexas interações sócias e institucionais / Abstract: This research analyzes the pilot experience on hydrological ecosystem services (HES) participative management in the city of Moyobamba, Peru. It assesses pilot management processes in order to identify and propose policy guidelines which would favor yet to be regulated management processes in Peru. This work makes use of ecological and neoclassical economy concepts, while distinguishing them both, in order to find development guidelines for analysis. It also utilizes concepts such as the post-normal science and the precautionary principle. The experience's analysis also holds a historical contextualization on the Moyobamba pilot's influential area, focusing on physical, social, economic and cultural aspects in the region, it¿s constitutes a space-time situation for decision-making, includes regional and national space. To do so, this research embraces some planning steps and their interactions with environmental management, in order to identify pilot's hot points and barriers, and applies MACBETH decisions making aid multicriterial methodology to register knowledge and values of stakeholders. The greatest barriers recognized: the non-existence of any maintenance economical sustainability proposal in HES and government institutional failures, concerning intervention as well as formulation of appropriate policies that would facilitate the HES management. Social empowerment through the experienced pilot process is valued, that is the basis for the Moyobamba ecosystem service management pilot. It can be concluded from this work that pilot analysis allowed us to make policy guidelines recommendations for being considered in public policies formulation for HES management in Peru. We emphasize the need to maintain a balance in elements development in the cluster market relations, empowerment and government identified; that an intervention focused on the values apart is needed than the National System of Public Investment (SNIP) states, and that the issue of HES management is more than the sum of implementing specific projects: it has to consider the complex interactions and institutional members / Doutorado / Desenvolvimento Economico, Espaço e Meio Ambiente / Doutor em Desenvolvimento Economico

Infecções hospitalares são um problema de saúde pública. Quatorze linhagens de fungos isolados de mangue foram avaliadas quanto ao potencial de síntese de nanopartículas de prata (NP Ag) por método biológico com atividade antimicrobiana, sendo dois fungos selecionados. A caracterização físico-química das NP foi realizada por espectrofotometria, microscopia eletrônica e espectroscopia de correlação de fótons. A banda de plasmon evidenciou a formação de NP entre 10-30 nm. A ação antimicrobiana foi avaliada em espécies de Candida e bactérias. As NP foram mais efetivas nas espécies de C. guilhermondi, C. parapsilosis, P. aeruginosa e S. aureus com concentrações inibitórias variando de 0,015 a 0,132 µg/mL. A ação antifúngica de tecidos impregnados com NP Ag foi testada em C. albicans, C. glabrata e C. parapsilosis com inibição do crescimento na faixa de 68,41 97,91 %. Em E. coli e S. aureus a inibição do crescimento foi de 100% na concentração de 2,2 µg/mL. Os fungos foram identificados como Bionectra ochroleuca e Aspergillus tubingensis, respectivamente. / Hospital infections are a public health problem. Fourteen strains of fungi isolated from the mangrove were evaluated regarded to their capacity to synthesize silver nanoparticles (Ag NP) by a biological method with antimicrobial activity and two fungi were selected. The physicochemical characterization was performed by spectrophotometry, electron microscopy and photon correlation spectroscopy. The plasmon band evidenced the formation of NP from 10-30 nm. The antimicrobial activity was evaluated against Candida species and bacteria. The NP were more effective against the C. guilhermondi, C. parapsilosis, P. aeruginosa e S. aureus especies with inhibitory concentrations from 0.015 to 0.132 µg/mL (1.3 a 12 µM). The antifungal activity of the fabrics impregnated with Ag NP was tested against C. albicans, C. glabrata and C. parapsilosis, presenting inhibition from 68.41 97.91 %. Against E. coli and S. aureus the growth inhibition was of 100% in the concentration of 2.2 µg/mL. The fungi were identified as Bionectra ochroleuca and Aspergillus tubingensis, respectively.