Food Security is a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO, 1996). 17% of Kentuckians are food insecure (Kentucky Department of Agriculture, 2016). This study explored the quality of life (QoL) impact of the Bluegrass Double Dollars (BGDD) program on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants through secondary data analysis. Utilizing the categories of quality of life indicators established by The Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP) the results from this study concluded that participating in the BGDD program provides some level of quality of life benefits.

The study was conducted to explore the role of social capital in the implementation of Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Programs (FVIP) through a case study of the Appalachian Farmacy (AF) program and to fill a gap in literature on social capital utility in the implementation and evaluation of FVIPs. The study was guided by a conceptual model adopted from Berkman et al. (2000) to identify the mechanisms through which social networks can impact health. A qualitative content analysis was conducted retrospectively on secondary data from the evaluation of AF program to identify social capital attributes. In addition, the study conducted two focus groups with AF participants and four interviews with AF program administrators to explore their perceptions on the role of social capital in the implementation of FVIPs using a phenomenological approach. The study utilized both inductive and deductive analysis techniques with the conceptual model as the guide for analysis. The Bengtsson’s four steps for conducting content analysis were used for AF content analysis and Tracy’s (2013) two-level coding was used to analyze the focus groups and interviews. All the findings were triangulated and mapped on the study’s framework to identify the main and emergent themes. The findings revealed the main avenues for social networks were: cooking classes, farmers markets, recruitment sites, and a low-income housing complex. The main social capital 3 mechanisms were: instrumental and informational social support; social participation and engagement; and social influence. The main actors in the networks were the program administrators, market vendors, and other participants. Lastly, the health pathways identified were the changes in perceptions towards diet and health. The emergent themes revealed that barriers to access and individual characteristics were potential moderating themes, and case management by the program administrators was a potential mediating theme to program implementation. The study showed that the model was effective in exploring social capital in FVIPs. It highlighted the role that social networks, program actors and social capital play in implementation of public health interventions. Social capital may play an important role in health promotion and more research is needed to identify the mediating influences of the model.

Nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners have been major players in increasing forest productivity and improving forest health. Understanding what factors influence landowner participation in government programs, and furthermore, what factors determinate how quickly after harvest landowners regenerate, is critical for developing policies to improve landowner participation in government assistance programs and timely regeneration of harvested lands. Two studies were conducted to investigate these issues. The necessary data were obtained through a 2006 telephone survey of randomly selected Mississippi NIPF landowners. Factors considered included an array of land, ownership, management, and demographic characteristics. In the first study, a two-step landowner behavior model was constructed to explain NIPF landowner participation in government incentive programs, conditional on their awareness of these programs. The second study used duration analysis to analyze the time elapsed between harvest and regeneration. Interest in timber production, past regeneration experience, education, and membership in forestry organization influenced NIPF landowner knowledge of incentive programs and were significant predictors of participation. Those NIPF landownersn who regenerated, did so on average, 11 months after harvest. After the 16th month following harvest, the probability of regenerating harvested lands decreased rapidly. The interval between harvest and reforestation was reduced by maintaining an interest in timber production, consulting a forester to coordinate the harvest, residing on the forest land, having planted pines, and increasing timber prices.

How important is conservation planning to society today? It impacts the quality of our most precious natural resources: water, air, soil, wildlife, and plant material as well as every aspect of one of the largest industries in the United States: agriculture. In order to gain a better understanding of the conservation planning process, as well as the elements involved in creating an effective conservation plan, a Web-based survey was administered to one of the leaders in the advancement of conservation planning and planning technology, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The purpose of this study is to identify the trends and needs within the Mississippi NRCS, as well as to identify the characteristics of a potential end user of a conservation planning tool. The purpose of the survey was to identify the agents’ comfort levels with the conservation planning process, conservation practice design and implementation, numerous incentive programs, water quality testing, and most importantly digital technology.

No description available.

Att arbeta i olika typer av arbetsgrupper är idag vanligt förekommande i organisationer, och många företag tillämpar någon form av incitamentsprogram med rörlig lön för att motivera arbetsgrupperna till högre prestationer. Den forskning som finns är framförallt genomförd i laboratoriemiljö och undersöker hur individer påverkas av olika faktorer såsom andel rörlig lön och storlek på arbetsgrupper. Dock finns en brist på forskning som undersöker hur dessa program påverkar till exempel motivation och samarbete i verkliga miljöer. Syftet med denna studie är att studera hur incitamentsprogram för grupper kan utformas. Med studien vill vi ge företag ökad kunskap om hur de kan utforma incitamentsprogram för att öka prestationen i sina arbetsgrupper. Studien har en kvalitativ ansats. Semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med totalt 15 personer ur två säljorganisationer i ett tjänsteföretag med verksamhet spridd över hela Sverige. Genom intervjuerna har vi sökt få svar på hur olika aspekter av incitamentsprogram för grupper motiverar de individuella medarbetarna samt påverkar samarbetet. Respondenternas svar antyder att faktorer som gruppstorlek, andel rörlig lön och frekvens på utbetalningar alla påverkar hur medarbetare beskriver att de motiveras av incitamentsprogrammen. Därutöver har att ett tydligt syfte och klara spelregler framträtt som avgörande för hur incitamentsprogrammen tas emot av de anställda, vilket har föranlett oss att ge ett förslag på hur befintliga modeller kan kompletteras. / Today it is very common to work in different types of teams in organizations, and companies are applying incentive programs with variable salary to motivate their teams to increase performance. Existing research is primarily done in laboratory environments and only analyzes how individuals are affected by various factors, such as share of variable salary and team size. However, previous studies are missing to investigate how these programs affect for instance, motivation and collaboration in real environments. The aim of this study is therefore to study how incentive programs for groups in can be designed. With this study we want to give companies a deeper understanding for how they can design incentive programs to increase the performance in their teams. The study has a qualitative approach. Semi-structured interviews have been performed with a total of 15 persons from two sales organizations in a service company with its business spread over the whole of Sweden. Through the interviews we searched for answers to how different aspects of team-based incentive programs motivate the individual employees and how they affect collaboration. The respondent’s answers suggest that factors such as size of the team, share of variable salary and frequency of payments, all affect how employees describe how they are motivated by the incentive program. In addition, a clear purpose and a set of rules emerged as vital parts for how the incentive program will be received by the employees. This led us to propose how existing models may be complemented. The language of this thesis is Swedish.

I denna framställning görs en kritisk granskning och analys av samspelet mellan regelverken för beskattning av incitamentsprogram och beskattning av ägare till fåmansföretag. Framställningen ämnar precisera hur olika rättigheter som följer av incitamentsprogram ska klassificeras skatterättsligt, när beskattningstidpunkten inträder och slutligen hur beskattningen påverkas av att programmet införs i ett fåmansföretag. Programmen utlöser enligt gällande rätt skatt i inkomstslagen tjänst och kapital. När en programdeltagare erhåller en rättighet utan att betala marknadsmässig ersättning uppstår en förmån. Denna ska, om rättigheten inte följer av en kvalificerad personaloption, alltid beskattas i inkomstslaget tjänst. Vad som blir centralt för beskattningen av incitamentsprogram är när beskattningstidpunkten för rättigheten infaller, vilket avgörs av hur rättigheten skatterättsligt klassificeras. Möjliga klassificeringar är: värdepapper, personaloption eller inget av dessa. I regel strävar både utfärdare och deltagare av incitamentsprogram efter en så tidig beskattningstidpunkt som möjligt. Ju tidigare förmånsbeskattning, desto mindre andel av rättighetens framtida värdeuppgång kommer beskattas i inkomstslaget tjänst och vara föremål för sociala avgifter. Införs programmet i ett fåmansföretag måste emellertid också det s.k. 3:12-regelverket beaktas. Om programdeltagaren är verksam i betydande omfattning kommer denne träffas av klyvningsreglerna i 3:12-regelverket och i stort sett all värdeuppgång kommer då beskattas i inkomstslaget tjänst – oavsett när den ovan nämnda beskattningstiden infaller. Framställningen pekar på att merparten av de som erbjuds att delta i incitaments-program i ett fåmansföretag kommer att träffas av klyvningsreglerna i 3:12-regelverket. Effekten blir då, oavsett skatterättslig kvalificering av incitamentsprogrammet, att beskattningen av programdeltagare i fåmansföretag förfelas på grund av 3:12-reglerna. Dagens rättsläge innebär att fåmansföretagens incitamentsverktygslåda är kraftigt begränsad. För att säkerställa konkurrenskraften för innovativa och entreprenöriella bolag med begränsad tillgång till kapital för löner till nyckelkompetens, måste dessa företag ges tillgång till hela arsenalen i incitamentsverktygslådan.

Share-based incentive programs have become increasingly common in Sweden. At the same time, there is criticism of whether these have a positive effect on companies or not. The programs are intended to solve the so-called principal-agent problem, which arises when the ownership and control in a company are separated. Share-based incentive programs are intended to solve this dilemma by making the employees who participate in the program’s shareholders of the company. This study has examined whether share-based incentive programs benefit the companies’ shareholders. The study investigates this by using a first-difference method, based on the publicly traded companies at Nasdaq Stockholm. The study takes support from the principal-agent theory, the managerial power theory, and other studies within the field. The result from the study shows that there is no significant difference between the companies that use the share-based incentive programs and the companies that do not. Based on this result, it is concluded that share-related incentive programs do not benefit shareholders. / Aktierelaterade incitamentsprogram blir allt vanligare i Sverige. Samtidigt finns det kritik mot huruvida dessa har en positiv effekt för företag eller inte. Programmen är tänkta att lösa det så kallad agentproblemet, som uppstår när ägandet och kontrollen i företag är separerade. Aktierelaterade incitamentsprogram är tänkta att lösa detta dilemma genom att göra de anställda som deltar i programmen till aktieägare i företaget. Denna studie har därför valt att undersöka huruvida aktierelaterade incitamentsprogram gynnar bolagets aktieägare. Studien undersöker detta genom att använda sig av en first-difference metod som baseras på bolagen på Stockholmsbörsen. Studien tar stöd från agentteorin, managerial power teorin samt tidigare forskning inom området. Resultatet från studien visar att det inte finns någon signifikant skillnad mellan bolagen som använder sig av de aktierelaterade incitamentsprogrammen och bolagen som inte använder sig av programmen. Utifrån detta resultat dras slutsatsen att aktierelaterade incitamentsprogram inte gynnar aktieägare.

The field of Landscape Architecture can further develop a niche for the design of sustainable productive landscapes. This study attempts to understand a major stakeholders’ perceptions and use of riparian buffers and other conservation practices for water quality in an agricultural watershed of Mississippi. A survey was distributed to agricultural producers in the Big Sunflower Watershed of the MS Delta. The survey informs the interested parties of producers’ perceptions and uses of riparian forested buffers, perceptions and uses of conservation practices that restore water quality, perceptions of their environment, perceptions of surface water quality, enrollment of governmental incentive programs, and utilization of digital technology. Analysis of this data could lead to a better understanding of the knowledge and attitudes farmers have of the riparian systems and watershed processes at work within the region and factors that influence the farmers’ decisions of implementing conservation plans.

The increasing scope and speed of biological invasions around the world is a major concern of the modern environmental conservation movement. Although many ecological impacts of biological invasions are still not well understood, there is a general consensus that exotic, invasive species are a primary driver of extinctions globally. By altering ecosystem structure and function, invasive species also affect human quality of life; however, not all impacts lead to negative outcomes. Given that invasive species have diverse impacts on society, their management in human-dominated landscapes is a wicked problem wherein the resolution is as much an issue of social value as technical capacity. The purpose of my research was to understand the propensity for engaging private landowners in an effort to eradicate an invasive species on an inhabited island. Specifically, I investigated private landowner perspectives on eradicating the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) from the Tierra del Fuego (TDF) island archipelago in Argentina and Chile. The beaver was introduced in 1946 and has since become a central conservation issue due to its long-lasting changes to local hydrology, nutrient cycling, riparian vegetation, food webs, and aquatic and terrestrial species assemblages. Because eradication requires near complete cooperation from stakeholders and no research had been conducted to understand the perspectives or willingness of private landowners to cooperate, my objectives were to: 1) characterize the links private landowners make between the presence of beavers and impacts to the ecosystem services in their riparian areas, and 2) explore the role of a market-based incentive program to increase landowner cooperation in eradication efforts. Through semi-structured interviews, I elicited landowner mental models of how beavers impact the ecosystem services they receive from their riparian lands. I found that TDF ranchers prioritized provisioning ecosystem services, and held diverse and idiosyncratic beliefs about how beavers influence these outcomes. TDF ranchers may not recognize the beaver as a highly salient problem because they do not connect them to reductions in ecosystem services that are important to them. Among those who do perceive beavers affecting important ecosystem services, there is no clear, unified understanding of how the beavers disturb the ecosystem and key ecosystem services. Additionally, in a broadly administered survey, I used a factorial vignettes to examine the role of program structure and other program-related factors on landowners' willingness to participate in a voluntary eradication program. Overall, landowners were willing to cooperate in an incentive program to eradicate beavers. They were positively motivated by greater financial compensation, an increased expectation that the program would be successful, and the program assuming full responsibility for its implementation. Other factors returned mixed results indicating that further research may be required. In diverse, human-inhabited, and privately-owned landscapes, conservation requires collective action—i.e., the high threshold of participation needed for eradication to be achieved. Understanding the knowledge systems that cause landowners to perceive value or risk serves as a first step in understanding behaviors, and can also serve as a framework for crafting more effective outreach, as current communication about the beaver and the proposed eradication may not resonate with private landowners. Further, barriers to inaction can be overcome by understanding landowner needs and how program-related factors influence the potential for cooperation. In sum, by putting human needs at the forefront of program design, conservation planners can better understand stakeholder perspectives, reduce barriers to participation, and ultimately increase cooperation and improve conservation outcomes. / Master of Science