Enterprise Resource planning has gained prominence in the field of IS literature and is a significant phenomenon in practice in organizations and now also in higher educational institutions. These Institutions have their own unique method of operation and infrastructural facilities; and one of the biggest single most expenditure made by them is in their Enterprise Resource Planning Systems. The drive towards ERP is based on a desire to rationalize and streamline information systems across the whole organization seeking both improvement and business benefits. The ERP systems combine all discrete information into a single, integrated, real-time database. In the HEI context the ERP systems are seen as software solutions that address the diverse needs by tightly integrating all departments and functions within a single computer system configuration to serve particular needs such as students systems which manage all the student records/data and VLE systems like Blackboard which is a course management system. ERP addresses the institutions needs by providing a better service to its various users. The aim of this research study is to explore the quality, impact, benefits, utility and challenges of ERP systems specifically the student systems and VLE Blackboard in a Higher Educational Institution and analyse these ERP systems from a multiple perspective. The ERP systems have been applied by many Educational Institutions around the world as a key part of their organizational infrastructure and these systems tend to have a long life cycle in organizational use. The requirement is for the smooth functioning and utilization of these ERP systems while taking into consideration the changing demands as universities operate in a dynamic environment where there is a rapid change in technology. Millions of pounds and extensive deliberation is made on the implementation of the ERP system on the basis of expectations to align the institution objectives with business needs. This presents a huge challenge, if not properly addressed may lead to heavy investment without the corresponding institution efficiency.

Being a part of social studies of finance, i.e. a perspective that, in its narrow sense, investigates the role of science and technology in financial markets, the thesis suggests that one can understand science in a wider sense, as an expert knowledge domain. The social studies of finance, then, can be broadened out to encompass the different ways in which expert knowledge shapes financial practices. Legal expertise is another instantiation of expert knowledge in the sense that both (science and law) are different forms of power; therefore this research aims at answering the question how finance is shaped by legal expert knowledge. The study employs the method of ‘opening the black box’ of regulation, and thus it argues that technicalities of regulation, which embody legal expertise, are crucial for the construction of financial markets. The thesis demonstrates how ‘just’ a concise amendment to Article 1062 of the Russian Civil Code has had significant ramifications for the interbank USD/RUB cash-settled forward market, and explores the controversies involved in and details of the law making process. The amendment was made in 2007 and changed the legal status of non-deliverable forwards, which had been classified by Russian courts as gambling transactions under Russian law in 1998-1999. Based on the evidence obtained from the study of the legal developments that resulted in the amendment, the thesis shows that the politics of the law-making process, as well as shaping the outcome, can in equal measure be disruptive and result in a delay in legal changes that market participants felt were much-needed. After almost a decade of painstaking negotiations, the amendment stated that cashsettled derivatives are legally enforceable under the Russian law. It rendered cash-settled forwards legally secure, hence encouraged cross-border transactions and enhanced the market’s liquidity; it is also made possible the introduction of netting as a risk management tool in the market. The contested, long-delayed amendment is thus an example of a pervasive process: the constitutive role of law (including esoteric law, little noticed outside of specialist spheres) in shaping markets.

Hedonic pricing (HP) is an economic technique for placing monetary values upon costs or benefits which do not have market prices. This thesis applies the HP method to the valuation of road transport and visual disamenity impacts, as reflected in variations within property prices. In order to carry out such a study one has to determine not only the magnitude of the environmental impact at each property, but also structural, neighbourhood and accessibility variables characterising each property. These have to be controlled for before the portion of the property price attributable to the environmental variable can be observed. In the past all these variables have been calculated using labour intensive techniques such as house to house surveys. These led to high study costs and limited the scope of such research. This thesis circumvents these problems through the use of large scale digital data and a Geographical Information System (GIS). This study demonstrates how a GIS can significantly improve a HP study through the calculation of a wider range of more sophisticated variables. However the calculation of such a large number of variables causes difficulties when these data are modelled. This study illustrates how these problems can be overcome through a combination of Principal Components Analysis and a Multiple Regression. The final model had a higher degree of explanation and a lower incidence of collinearity than in previous research vindicating the use of GIS. Prices and values for a range of road transport and visual disamenity impacts are presented. The main limitations upon the research was the time and effort required to obtain data and to convert them into a GIS format. This took half of the research time. Various developments that might improve this situation in the future are presented, along with ways in which the study could be extended.

Este estudo tem como objetivo a previsão de impactos gerados por tempestades sobre os sistemas praial e de dunas frontais nas costas Leste (praias expostas) e Norte (praias abrigadas) da Ilha de Santa Catarina. A área de estudo abrange as praias entre a Barra da Lagoa e a Praia da Daniela. As respostas da costa frente aos eventos de tempestades foram classificadas em quatro diferentes regimes: Espraiamento (Swash), Colisão (Collision), Sobrelavagem (Overwash) e Inundação (Inundation). A delimitação entre cada regime é baseada na mais alta e mais baixa elevação vertical do nível d’água em relação às características morfológicas da duna frontal (base e crista). Para a Costa Leste, onde as praias são expostas à incidência de ondas, a máxima elevação do nível do mar foi definida pela soma do wave runup, maré astronômica e maré meteorológica, calculada para quatro distintos períodos de retornos (5, 10, 25 e 50 anos). A mais baixa elevação do mar foi definida como sendo a elevação na qual a praia é, na maior parte do tempo, continuamente submersa. Enquanto que para a Costa Norte, onde as praias são abrigadas da incidência das ondas, a máxima elevação do nível do mar durante eventos de tempestades foi calculada levando-se em consideração a soma das marés astronômica e meteorológicas para cada período de retorno analisado; enquanto que a mínima elevação foi representada pelo nível mais alto da maré astronômica. Em ambas as costas, foram adicionados os valores de elevação do nível do mar baseados nas previsões de pior caso do relatório do Painel Intergovernamental de Mudanças Climáticas. De acordo com este estudo a elevação do nível médio do mar vem ocorrendo em uma taxa de 4 mm/ano com uma aceleração anual de 0,019 mm/ano². Os resultados mostram que para a maioria das praias expostas não houve mudança de regime entre os períodos de retorno analisados. As exceções foram a porção central da praia dos Ingleses que apresentou passagem do regime de sobrelavagem (5 e 10 anos) para o regime de inundação (25 e 50 anos) e a Praia Brava que foi classificada como sujeita ao regime de colisão para o período de retorno de 5 anos passando a ser classificada como submetida ao regime de sobrelavagem para os demais períodos. O regime de sobrelavagem foi predominante para as praias abrigadas, sendo este o único regime registrado em toda a Costa Norte para o período de 50 anos. / This study aims to forecast the impacts of storms on the beache and foredune system along the East (exposed beaches) and North (sheltered beaches) coast of Santa Catarina Island. The study area covers the beaches between Barra da Lagoa and Daniela Beach. The coastal storm response were classified into four different regimes: Swash, Collision, Overwash and Inundation. The limits between regimes are based on the highest and lowest vertical elevation of the water level in relation to the elevation of geomorphic features of the foredune (base and crest). To the East Coast the maximum rise in sea level was defined as the sum of the wave runup, astronomical tide and storm surge, calculated for four different return periods (5, 10, 25 and 50 years). The lowest elevation of the sea is defined as the elevation at below which the beach is, most of the time, continuously subaqueous. On the North Coast the maximum rise in sea level during storm events was calculated taking into account the sum of astronomical and meteorological tides; the minimum level was defined as the maximum vertical range of astronomical tide for each return period. On both coasts the sea level rise (SLR) based on worst-case of the Climate Change Intergovernmental Panel report predictions was added to the maximun and minimum sea level elevation. According to this study the increase on the mean sea level has been occurring at a rate of 4 mm/year with an annual acceleration of 0.019 mm/ano². The results show that most of the exposed beaches did not change their regimes between the return periods analyzed. The exceptions being the Central-North portion of Ingleses, that went from overwash (RP 5 and 10 years) to inundation (RP 25 and 50 years) and Brava which changed from collision (RP 5 years) to overwash regime (RP 10, 25 and 50 years). Overwash was the predominant regime on sheltered beaches, being the only recorded regime for the 50-year return period.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the environmental changes across the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition (c.7000-5000 cal BP) at two sites in north-west Europe. Specific research questions focus on the role of fire, the interaction of climate and environmental change and human impacts, and the degree of continuity across the transition. Previous work has led to hypotheses of human impacts in the late Mesolithic, usually through the use of fire, increasing the abundance of food. Detection of these practices and the change to farming in the Neolithic has long been the study of pollen analysts, but in this project additional techniques of NPPs, size-class differentiated charcoal, and silicon and titanium were added at high resolution in order to determine the relationships between the different forcing factors on mid-Holocene environments. Sites were selected close to locations where known later Mesolithic artefacts have been found, with dated archaeological excavations. An upland UK bog site (Dan Clough Moss, near March Hill, West Yorkshire) and a lowland Swedish lake (Bökeberg, Skåne) provided contrasting environments, and enabled a range of proxies to be used from terrestrial peat and limnic sediments. 14C dates from selected macrofossils enabled an age-depth curve to be produced from each profile, with a Bayesian model applied to estimate the age of each sample. Results show a detailed record of woodland change from both areas. At Dan Clough Moss, disturbance phases with evidence of local fires occur frequently (typically every 20-30 years) in the late Mesolithic, and have low magnitude but consistent records of coprophilous fungi. Some phases of disturbance are different however, without the fungal spore evidence, and with heath plants increasing in representation. Drier phases appear to correlate with more local fire, and increased hazel. The transition is marked by a change to longer duration but distant fires, and longer periods of woodland disturbance, increased ruderal species and more heathland. The dates of occupation phases show a late survival of Mesolithic practices, overlapping with the Neolithic by around 300 years. At Bökeberg, a contrasting pattern is shown, with longer-duration phases of inferred human impact being replaced by shorter episodes of fire-associated disturbance after the date of the transition. Pollen and spore zones of disturbance concur with the dated occupation of late Mesolithic sites at the former lake edge. There is some evidence for markedly wetter, and then significantly drier, climate through the transition, and it could be inferred that this influenced the change in food production economies. However, the overall landscape changed only subtly, with more evidence of potential weeds of cultivation. At Bökeberg, there was no overlap- both radiocarbon and palynology suggest an abrupt transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic. The landscape impact of the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic at both sites was not a clear and consistent one. While Ulmus decline levels and thereafter had increases in weed species and other herbs the overall balance of trees and shrubs changed less than 20%. At both sites, climate may have been influential, although the evidence is inconclusive. Fires were important at both sites and in both periods, but at different scales and duration. Disturbance phases varied within the Mesolithic as well as between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.

This research has three parts. Part 1: The Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Street provides 5 methods of superelevation (e) distribution. Many states use methods 2 and 5 for low speed, urban and rural high-speed facilities. Method 5 aims to address speed variations; but is complicated, computationally intractable and may violate design consistency. Design recommendation by NCHRP439 accounts for speed variation, tractable; but is cumbersome along with irregular/step-wise design curves. New reliability based e distribution method is developed that addresses the speed variation; which is simple in determining and evaluating acceptable required e rates. At 95% level of reliability, the e rate obtained is lower than that from current practice resulting in cost savings. Part 2: Current practice/research does not address safety issue of the left-turn-bay at high degree of saturation (x). Left-Turn-Bay distance has three components: clearance, breaking to a stop and queue. The variation in the queue length reduces clearance and breaking distance resulting in unsafe breaking. Failure = clearance plus breaking distance < demand. The reliability of the left-turn-bay defined as the availability of the three components for left-turning vehicles to complete clearance and breaking maneuver safely; measured as increase in the deceleration rate over limit of 11.2ft/s2, safety index and probability of failure. Results show that at 95% reliability, current design practice fails when x exceeds 50%. Part 3: Current practice uses mean traffic volumes (Vd) as input for traffic signal control at roadway intersections. Variations in traffic flows affect the performance of intersection measured by the delay per vehicle traversing the intersection in seconds. Peak hour factor (PHF), the hourly volume divided by the peak 15-min flow rate within the peak hour is adopted by Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) to control surge. HCM suggests PHF design value of 0.92 for urban and 0.88 for rural areas. Fixed PHF may lead to increase in delay. Effects of variation of peak hour volumes on intersection signal delays are examined with large data. A new model is developed for PHF and Vd and used in signal timing to minimize intersection delay. The results show that the assumption of Poisson distribution for Vd is not reliable; delay reduction of 6.2 seconds per vehicle is achieved. Annual savings in travel time, fuel consumption and emissions cost is estimated in billions of dollars.

The massive number of injuries sustained in trafficaccidents is a growing problem worldwide, especially indeveloping countries. In 1998, more than one million peoplewere killed in traffic accidents worldwide, while about tentimes as many people were injured. Injuries to the centralnervous system and in particular to the headare especiallycritical to human life. This thesis contains five researchpapers looking at head injuries and head protection, proposingnew and more efficient ways of protecting the head, especiallyin traffic accidents. In order to define the national dimensions of the patternsof injuries incurred in motorcycle and moped accidents inSweden, a statistical survey was performed on data spanning a13-year period (Paper A). In Sweden, 27,100 individualsreceived in-patient care for motorcycle and moped accidentinjuries between 1987 and 1999. The motorcycle and moped injuryrate reduced in the second half of the study period, so toowere the total number of days of treatment per year. Males hadeight times the incidence of injuries of females. Head injurieswere the single most frequent diagnosis, followed by fracturesof the lower limbs. Concussion was the most frequent headinjury. These statistics clearly show the need for better headinjury prevention systems. According to the statistics, the most common type of impactto the head in motorcycle and moped accidents is an obliqueimpact. Oblique impacts generate rotations of the head, whichare a common cause of the most severe head injuries. Thereforea new test rig was constructed to reproduce oblique impacts toa helmeted dummy head, simulating those occurring in real lifeaccidents (Paper B). The new test rig was shown to provideuseful data at speeds of up to 50 km/h and with impact anglesvarying from purely tangential to purely radial. Thisinnovative test rig appears to provide an accurate method formeasuring accelerations in oblique impacts to helmets. When testing the performances of motorcycle helmets,discrepancies are usually seen in the test results. In order toevaluate these discrepancies, the finite element method (FEM)was used for simulations of a few oblique helmet impacts (PaperC). Amongthe parameters studied, the coefficients of frictionbetween the impacting surface and the helmet and between thehead and the helmet had the most significant influence on therotational accelerations. Additionally, a thinner andconsequently also weaker shell and a weaker liner, providedbetter protection for the impacts studied. Since there are no generally accepted global injurythresholds for oblique impacts to the human head, a study wasdesigned to propose new injury tolerances accounting for bothtranslations and rotations of the head (Paper D). In thatstudy, FE models of (a) a human head, (b) a Hybrid III dummyhead, and (c) the experimental helmet were used. Differentcriteria were proposed for different impact scenarios. Both thetranslational and the rotational effects were found to beimportant when proposing a predictor equation for the strainlevels experienced by the human brain in simulated impacts tothe head. In order to reduce the level of head injuries in society andto better understand helmet impacts from different aspect, aballistic impact was also studied (Paper E). The effects ofdifferent helmet shell stiffness and different angles ofimpacts were simulated. In this study, the same FE head modelfrom Paper D was used, however here it was protected with amodel of a composite ballistic helmet. It was concluded thatthe helmet shell should be stiff enough to prevent the insideof the shell from striking the skull, and that the strainsarising in the brain tissue were higher for some obliqueimpacts than for purely radial ones. In conclusion, this thesis describes the injury pattern ofmotorcycle and moped accidents in Sweden. This thesis showsthat the injuries sustained from these accidents can bereduced. In order to study both translational as well asrotational impacts, a new laboratory test rig was designed. Byusing the finite element method, it is possible to simulaterealistic impacts to the head and also to predict how severehead injuries may potentially be prevented.

The emergence of the zoonotic disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Canada resulted in a severe agricultural crisis. However, little is known about the ways in which farmers and rural communities were affected. The overall objective of this study is to characterize and better understand the impacts on and responses of farmers and rural communities as they relate to this crisis. Research was undertaken in strata throughout the diverse three Canadian prairie provinces – Alberta, Saskatchewan and Alberta – by employing surveys and focus groups. Results indicated there were numerous direct and ‘spillover’ impacts on farmers and rural communities resulting from the BSE crisis. Declines in cattle prices, herd equity and cash flow, often resulting in the need for bank loans, farm credit or off farm employment, as well as emotional and psychological stress were all experienced by farmers as a result of BSE. Importantly, many additional factors such as adverse weather and market volatility compounded the impacts related to BSE, adding to what was already a crisis situation for many farmers. These impacts were not restricted to farms but, rather, extended into the surrounding community fabric in the form of financial and social stress. Results further indicated government policies contributed to the impacts and the effectiveness of farmer responses related to BSE. A longer-term policy shift that has embraced agro-industrialization and entrenchment into the global marketplace has resulted in clear disparities between the biggest and smallest players in the beef industry and agriculture as a whole. This was illustrated in the ways in which governments responded to the BSE crisis, favouring the needs of the largest farmers and agri-businesses over those of smaller-scale, cow-calf producers. This policy shift and response has left the Canadian beef industry, family farmers and rural communities more susceptible to the emergence of similar future risks. A more inclusive approach to risk research and policymaking that meaningfully involved farmers and their rich, longer-term local knowledge might help mitigate similar risks that will inevitably confront agriculture in the future. / February 2009

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Purpose: The purpose with this study is to clarify what importance a co-occurrence event can have on a smaller town, and also what positive and negative consequences it can have on the town seen from a social, economic and political aspect. I will also look at what magnitude the festival have on the local commercial and industrial life and how it affects those who live there. I will also determent how the moving of the festival might come and affect the local businesses, the local population and the community it-self. Method: I will thorough-out this study work with qualitative research methodology. I will there-for process the empirical data that will be collected and used for this study from a qualitative research methodology point of view. I will likewise go through with two deep-going interviews with people well familiar with the subject to increase and strengthen the validity of my study. The information this will give me will be discussed and analyzed from a hermeneutic perspective.  Result: The result of this study shows the tremendous value a specific event can have on its host community. In Hultsfred, where the local population is very proud over the music festival, there are no limits for the development of the event it-self, and its impact on Hultsfred. The festival contributes with a big local commitment and a lot of enthusiasm, which makes the expansion of the festival possible. In the case of Hultsfred, the festival has generated in several education opportunities, a new form of truism, increase knowledge of the town Hultsfred, a stronger community brand and a bigger and more improved industrial life. The town of Hultsfred has seized the opportunity of maximizing the music festival and its benefit towards the community. They have also used the festival for making them-self a brand and a niche, all in favor of evolving and expanding the community. / Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att se vad ett stort återkommande evenemang kan har för betydelse för en liten ort, och vilka positiva och negativa konsekvenser evenemangen kan leda till sett ur ekonomiska, sociala och politiska perspektiv. Syftet är också att undersöka vilken betydelse Hultsfredsfestivalen har för lokalsamhället och dess näringsliv, hur orten Hultsfred påverkats av festivalen och hur den fått festivalen att bli en så stor del av kommunen. Slutligen kommer jag kartlägga vilka konsekvenser kommunen kan komma att ställas inför i och med festivalens flytt. Metod: Jag kommer igenom studien arbeta med kvalitativa forskningsmetoder. De empiriska data som samlas in och används som grund för studien kommer därför bearbetas på ett kvalitativt sätt. Jag kommer även genomföra två semistrukturerade intervjuer på personer med god insikt i ämnet för att öka studiens giltighet. Datan som dessa ger, samt den empiri studien innefattar kommer tolkas och analyseras utifrån ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv. Resultat: Resultatet av denna studie visar vilken oerhörd betydelse ett arrangemang kan ha på en ort. I Hultsfred, där lokalbefolkningen känner en oerhörd stolthet för festivalen, finns det inga begränsningar för hur långt man kan ta det. Festivalen bidrar till ett stort lokalt engagemang vilket ger festivalen utrymme att växa och utvecklas. I Hultsfreds fall har festivalen genererat i flertalet utbildningar, en ny turism i form av upplevelseindustri, ökad kännedom om kommunen i nationella sammanhang samt ett förbättrat och utvecklat näringsliv. Man har i Hultsfred och kommunen tagit vara på festivalen och använt sig av den för att skapa sig ett varumärke och en nisch, allt för att förbättra orten och dess tillväxt.