This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the downstream petroleum industry in Ghana focusing on trade, infrastructure, flow, politics and social relationships. In 2010, the West African Republic of Ghana started pumping crude oil from the offshore Jubilee-field. The rapid development from discovery to extraction, along with economic expectations generated by the development of the new upstream industry, led to exponential growth in the downstream industry. A liberalisation reform of the downstream industry was initiated in 2005 and the state started to redefine its role in the petroleum industry, allowing a range of private entrepreneurs to participate in the downstream sector. On the back of these key transformations of the industry, this thesis demonstrates the continuous politicisation of petroleum products on a national level and the significance of this politicisation on infrastructure, networks and social relationships throughout the industry. This thesis argues that the trade, distribution and price of petroleum products in Ghana facilitates and shapes political and economic reciprocity between the government, the publics and profitable economic networks. Even though there was adequate infrastructure such as refinery, pipelines and petroleum storage depots, petroleum products in Ghana were distributed in a way that allowed the most number of people to come into contact with petroleum, by having access to the actual product, but also through enabling job creation and profitable economic activities. The petroleum infrastructure would obstruct profitable networks and informal markets. I propose the term ‘Politics of Petrol’ to emphasise how the industry and the commodities were part and parcel of the political and social fabric in Ghana. Reflecting the negotiable nature of politics and reform alongside the changeable practices and networks in the industry - Politics of Petrol - demonstrates the productive purpose of petroleum in Ghana’s democracy.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Keith Harris / For an Evergreen Seed Agent, making the financial decision to invest in bulk infrastructure is a large capital investment and requires a great deal of considerations. This thesis determines the soybean sales volume required for an investment in bulk soybean infrastructure to become financially feasible. A total of 1,456 soybean sales data points were used to run a regression model. Based on the results of the regression model, a correlation was determined between those agents that have bulk soybeans and soybean sales growth in comparison to those agents that did not have bulk soybeans. A “Bulk Soybean Decision Tool” was constructed and demonstrates costs and earnings of an Evergreen Seed Agent over a five-year period. The financial feasibility analysis concluded that the soybean volume required to consider investing in bulk soybeans is 8,488 units. In addition to a break-even analysis, three other base year volume scenarios were demonstrated. At the 3,233 unit base soybean sales volume, it is not financially feasible to invest in bulk. At the 10,265 unit base soybean sales volume, it is finically feasible to invest in bulk soybeans. Lastly, at the 18,912 unit base soybean sales volume, it is finically feasible to invest in bulk soybean infrastructure. The capabilities of the “Bulk Soybean Decision Tool” are significant for any Evergreen Seed Agent considering investing in bulk soybean infrastructure. Ensuring that an Evergreen Seed Agent is making a sound financial investment in bulk soybean infrastructure will allow for an increased adoption in infrastructure, resulting in increased soybean sales volume across the distribution network.

Thesis (MTech (Town and Regional Planning))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, 2006 / The research focuses on urbanising communities in the peri-urban areas of the Tamale Metropolitan Area (TAMA) of Ghana and the inability of the urban authorities to provide adequate basic infrastructure services. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative research approaches, the author observed that the development planning paradigms practiced over the years placed urban planning and service delivery in a centralised paradigm which cannot respond adequately to the increasing pressures of urbanisation, nor offer opportunities for the involvement of communities due to this top-down planning approache. The research in fact identified that the communities, through their own initiatives have planned and executed service projects to improve their lives in some respects where the TAMA has failed. The communities have achieved this due to their spirit of social solidarity, self-help and communalism built around their traditional chiefs, which incorporates some of the principles of Local Agenda 21. The TAMA sees this development as an opportunity to henceforth forge collaboration and partnerships with the traditional authorities for improved service delivery in the urbanising communities. This represents innovative urban planning and management approaches, which in the context of low-income urban communities, includes participatory planning and service delivery. These innovative approaches have been initiated in the Habitat Agenda emanating from the UN Conference on Human Settlements in 1996. The study advocates the concept of sustainable development and Agenda 21, as a working model which presents a participatory and integrative process for local authorities and communities to work towards urban improvements. The Local Agenda 21 planning approach, it is argued, will integrate and strengthen the already existing local community initiatives and provide a basis for partnerships and improved service delivery. The case - studies examined are the Tamale Metropolitan Area and the peri-urban settlements Jusonayili and Gumah.

Com maior vigor nas últimas décadas do século XX, a eficiência das atividades estatais passou a ser contestada por múltiplos atores sociais, que tomam como paradigma de gestão os resultados alcançados pelo setor privado. Nesse novo cenário, emergiram movimentos globais de reforma do aparelho estatal, a fim de impor às atividades públicas a eficiência com que supostamente atua o mercado, uma vez que o debate acerca da eficiência do capital público é uma questão de grande relevância para o campo de estudo relativo às diversas áreas do conhecimento, às atividades macro e microeconômicas e à própria dinâmica social. Conseqüência dessa atenção crescente destinada à análise, e contestação, da eficiência do gasto público e das atividades a ele imbricadas, é a histórica institucionalização, pela legislação brasileira, da eficiência como um dos princípios fundamentais da administração pública, como propõem o decreto-lei n. 200/67 e a emenda constitucional n. 19/98. Nesse cenário, em que a eficiência das atividades públicas é crescentemente almejada e refutada, tomam projeção e relevância métodos e técnicas que tratam desse aspecto. Adquire importância, por conseqüência lógica, pesquisas destinadas a sistematizar as contribuições e experiências sobre a utilização de tais métodos. Entretanto, poucos trabalhos extrapolam o caráter meramente aplicativo das técnicas, explicitando-se a carência por bibliografia que sistematize, sob diversos aspectos, as aplicações já realizadas, nesse campo do conhecimento. Dessa forma, esta pesquisa objetiva identificar e sistematizar os métodos existentes para avaliar a eficiência dos investimentos públicos em infra-estrutura na literatura internacional e nacional. Contribui-se, portanto, com subsídios teóricos e analíticos para pesquisadores em gestão pública, administradores estatais e cidadãos que se ocupam com a análise da eficiência das atividades públicas, principalmente em infra-estrutura. / With larger energy in the last decades of the 20th century, the efficiency of the state activities passed to be answered by multiple social actors, that you/they take as administration paradigm the results reached by the private section. In this new scenery, global movements of the state\'s reform apparel emerged, in order to impose to the public activities the efficiency where supposedly the market acts, once the debate concerns the efficiency of the public capital is a subject of great relevance for the field of relative study to the several areas of knowledge, to activities macro and microeconomics and to the own social dynamics. The consequence of this growing attention destined to the analysis, and reply, the efficiency of the public expense and of those activities, that\'s the historical institutionalization, which for the brazilian legislation, of the efficiency as one of the fundamental beginnings in public administration, as they propose the law n. 200/67 and the constitutional amendment n.19/98. In this scenery, in what the efficiency of the public activities is increasingly longed for and refuted, they take projection and relevance methods and techniques that treat that aspect. It acquires importance, for logical consequence, researches destined to systematize the contributions and experiences about the use of such methods. However, few works extrapolate the character merely application of techniques, explicated if the lack for bibliography that systematizes, under several aspects, the applications already accomplished, in the field of knowledge. In that way, this objective research to identify and to systematize the existent methods to evaluate the efficiency of the public investments in infrastructure of the international and national literature. It is contributed, therefore, with theoretical and analytical subsidies for researchers in public administration, state administrators and citizens that are in charge with the analysis of the efficiency of the public activities, mainly in infrastructure.

M.Com. (Business Management) / As a result of the cost of new infrastructure and the effect it has on tariff structures in developing areas, the term "cost recovery" tends to have a negative connotation. The fact of the matter is that the capital cost of creating infrastructural services, as well as the cost of operating them, must be recovered. There is no easy way to cut back on existing services and programmes, to charge user fees, or to raise taxes. Yet failure to devise a rational and effective way of investing in public works, as well as appropriate cost recovery mechanisms, will surely prevent any significant improvement in the standard of living, as well as in the local and national economy ...

Den här undersökningen strävar efter att ge en bild av möjligheterna för att minska materialmängden i samverkansbroar med hänsyn till kostnadsbesparing och miljöpåverkan. Kan mindre stål användas i balktvärsnittet med bibehållen kapacitet?   Objektet för undersökningen är en samverkansbro i Gallsbo, Borlänge som projekterats av konsultföretaget Tyréns i Uppsala. Tyréns valde att dimensionera en 1100 mm hög balk som senare kort efter dimensionerades om till 1300 mm, på förfrågan från Trafikverket för att minska materialkostnaden och miljöpåverkan. Men är det den mest optimala balkdimensionen? Går det att optimera balken ännu mera. Det förklarar intresset av att göra balken än högre, vilket även är anledning till det här examensarbetet. Genom att använda företagets beräkningsmetoder har ett nytt tvärsnitt med höjden 1500 mm dimensionerats med tillräcklig bärförmåga.   Resultatet visar att det är möjligt att optimera balken ytterligare och minska mängden stål i balken med tillräcklig bärförmåga i alla dimensioneringsavseenden. I vissa dimensioneringsaspekter ökar bärförmågan samtidigt som den minskar i andra i enlighet med Eurokod. Alla kontroller visar dock att bärförmågan är fullt tillräcklig. Kostnadsbesparingen som uppkommer vid minskat tvärsnitt bör dock jämföras med kostnaden för optimeringsarbetet av balken.

No description available.

An increasing concern for biodiversity loss transformed politics and society in Ecuador beginning in the late 1980s. Amidst a proliferation of expert work to gain new knowledge of what biodiversity existed where in order to curb species extinctions, both the state of biological science and the way that Ecuador was governed were remade. To examine the institution of biodiversity and its contemporary consequences in Ecuador, this dissertation draws on ethnography with and archival research on a community of botanists connected with Ecuador's National Herbarium. It begins by examining the specialized work that formed the foundation for NGO-led biodiversity conservation. It then looks at the rise of environmental impact assessment used to anticipate and mitigate the impacts of development projects. Finally, the dissertation examines the contemporary dilemmas of Ecuadorian field biologists in the context of the recent dismantling of much of this institutional infrastructure from the last 30 years. The dissertation's central argument is that biodiversity is an intrinsically modern (and relatively recent) relationship to biological resources, and that it comes with many of the dilemmas and problems that characterize modern institutions. Its emergence as a recognizable domain, either of expert management or more general social commitment, is inextricably bound up with the production of certain forms of specialized knowledge, and the use of that knowledge in authorizing certain kinds of institutional interventions. A mis-recognition of this aspect of biodiversity (for example, by conflating 'biodiversity' with 'biological things themselves') risks misunderstanding what kind of an object it is, to the detriment of anthropological critiques of environmental politics.

In this thesis, a theoretical model of the mechanical behaviour of jointed rock masses is developed. An equivalent material approach is used to formulate the constitutive equations, where the structural components, intact rock and joints are assigned continuous material properties. The elastic and inelastic properties of the joints are modelled by an elasto-viscoplastic formulation. The model can be used to study general stress and strain paths for both two- and three-dimensional structures based on constitutive equations, i.e. stress-strain relations or in finite element codes. The rock mass model using the equivalent material approach can be applied to hard rock masses with several sets of intersecting continuous joints. The theoretical model developed for a single joint can also be used for discrete formulation of joint elements in finite element codes, cf. chapter 3. The intact rock is treated as a linearly elastic material. The elastic behaviour of the joint is modelled with a constant stiffness matrix. The onset of plastic flow is initiated when the normal stress exceeds the normal compressive strength of the joint asperities or the tensile normal strength of the joint. the shear stress exceeds the cohesive strength and frictional resistance of the joint surface. The normal tensile strength and the cohesion of the joints are assumed to be constant material properties. The frictional parameters the dilation rate, and the shear asperity angle, and the compressive normal strength are functions of the the compressive normal strength are functions of the applied stress field and joint displacement. Simple relations based on Barton's constants joint roughness coefficient, JRC, joint compressive strength, JCS, and the residual friction angle, 0r, simple relations are fitted to these parameters. This implies that input data to the model can be extracted from the Rock Mechanics literature for a wide variety of joints. Results from laboratory shear box test and numerical calculations has been made for a number of different joints. Good agreement was obtained. It shows, that peak shear strength behaviour of joint in principal is a function of dilation rate. Further, the calculations indicated that the elastic off-diagonal behaviour of joints, reported in the rock mechanics literature, is related to the dilation angle at the asperities in contact. By means of finite element technique the model is applied to a circular opening in a jointed rock mass. It is concluded that the model offers several advantages over a discrete formulation. / Godkänd; 1985; 20070502 (ysko)

A finite difference method is presented for progressive slides in long natural slopes. The method is based on a strain softening material model. A detailed worked out example is given as well as examples using a spread sheet PC program and a PC program for Windows. Several Scandinavian slides are analysed and discussed as case studies e g Tuve (1977), Surte (1951), Bekkelaget (1953), Rollsbo (1967), Rävekärr (1971), Tre-styckevattnet (1990) and Svärtaån (1938). The nature of down-slope progressive failures in natural slopes is described and the applicability of ideal-plastic failure analysis is questioned. Principles and procedures for investigation potential landslides are presented. A short historical background to the landslide problem is given in an introductory chapter. / <p>Godkänd; 2000; 20070318 (ysko)</p>