Beräkningar för släntstabilitet för finkorniga jordar baseras traditionellt sätt på den odräneradeskjuvhållfastheten bestämd genom vingförsök, fallkonförsök och CPT-sonderingar. Hållfasthetensom erhålls från dessa tre försök korrigeras med empirisk erfarenhet vid framtagning av denodränerade skjuvhållfastheten. De empiriska samband som används vid utvärderingen ärframtagna genom försök på leror vilket innebär att dessa samband är bäst lämpade för utvärderingav just leror.Längs norrlandskusten är en av de vanligt förekommande jordarterna sulfidjord. Denna jordinkluderas normalt sett i de utvärderingsmetoder för finkorniga jordar som korrigeras medempirisk erfarenhet.En plats där sulfidhaltig silt påträffats är på området Norra Ön i centrala Umeå, där CPTsonderingaroch direkta skjuvförsök är utförda av Tyréns AB. Eftersom sulfidhaltig siltklassificeras som sulfidjord som i sin tur utvärderas som lera, kan hållfastheten i verkligheten hosdenna jord skilja sig från vad resultatet efter utvärdering visar. Om hållfastheten underskattas blirde stabilitetshöjande åtgärderna större vilket leder till överdimensionering som i sin tur leder tillökad belastning på miljö och ekonomi.Syftet med denna undersökning är att med triaxialförsök på den sulfidhaltiga silten utvärdera desshållfasthet och jämföra resultatet med resultat från mer traditionella metoder som används främstidag. Detta för att ta reda på om den sulfidhaltiga silten vid Norra Ön utvärderats på ett rimligtsätt utefter de metoder som idag främst används eller om triaxialförsök bör användas i störreutsträckning för att få en mer korrekt utvärdering av just denna jord inom detta försöksområde.En litteraturstudie ligger till grund för avsnitten som behandlar sulfidjord, begreppenhållfasthetsparameter och släntstabilitet, samt beskrivning av de olika provnings- ochutvärderingsmetoderna. Datainsamling har skett genom kolvprovtagning från den undersöktaförsökslokalen, varpå laboratorieförsök och utvärdering genomförts. De geotekniskalaboratorieförsök som genomfördes var bland annat rutinundersökning ochkornstorleksfördelning med syfte att klassificera jorden närmare. Undersökningenkompletterades med fler tester för att vidare undersöka densitet och packningsgrad hosjordmaterialet. Triaxialförsök genomfördes parallellt på två triaxialceller kontinuerligt undertidsramen för undersökningen.Resultatet från de genomförda laboratorieförsöken visade att den undersökta jorden bestod av sålite som 1, 2 och 3 % lera samt hela 27, 20 och 3 % sand vid de olika nivåerna med silt somresterande material. Andelen organiskt material var mellan 2 och 6 % för de undersökta nivåernamed högre värde längre ned i jordprofilen. Den geotekniska klassificeringen av den undersöktajorden, även med hänsyn till andra bedömningsgrunder som packningsgrad, blev sulfidjordshaltigmellanfast sandig silt, sulfidjordshaltig mellanfast silt och sulfidjordshaltig lös silt för de undersöktanivåerna vid 6, 8 respektive 12 m.Resultatet från de odränerade triaxialförsöken visade på en odränerad skjuvhållfasthet på 76 kPapå 6 m djup, 63 kPa på 8 m djup och 63 kPa på 12 m djup. Dessa värden är i jämförelse medhållfasthetsvärden från de övriga försöksmetoderna fallkonförsök, CPT-sondering och direktaskjuvförsök betydligt högre, mer än dubbelt så höga på vissa nivåer, men för alla nivåer betydligthögre.ivFrån de dränerade triaxialförsöken påvisades en friktionsvinkel på 35,5° och ettkohesionsintercept på 7,5 kPa för jordmaterialet vid samtliga nivåer. I jämförelse medfriktionsvinkeln på 30° som antas för lera vid stabilitetsberäkningar är värdena fråntriaxialförsöken betydligt högre.Slutsatsen från denna undersökning är att utvärderingen av hållfastheten hos sulfidhaltig silt skiljersig mellan försöksmetoder där triaxialförsök påvisar en betydligt högre hållfasthet vad gäller bådeodränerad- och dränerad skjuvhållfasthet. Resultatet skiljer sig eftersom de övriga metodernaunderskattar jordens hållfasthet. Därför utvärderas inte sulfidhaltig silt på rätt sätt med dagens mervanliga metoder utan utvärderingen bör förändras i framtiden. Större vikt bör läggas vid dengeotekniska klassificeringen av jorden och därmed avgöra om triaxialförsök bör användas för enmer korrekt utvärdering.

Machine control for a roller is a tool that can be applied by contractors during compactionwork. The machine control includes a function that can sense how packed a surface the rollerpasses is, the degree of compaction is then reported in a dimensionless Compaction MeterValue (CMV) number. With the help of the compaction function, it is possible to reduce thenumber of static plate loads that must be carried out in accordance with the Swedish TransportAdministration's requirements. From a cost point of view, it is positive if the number of plateloads decreases as they are very resource demanding, the machine control can thereforecontribute to a cost saving. The roller's machine control also includes a function that can sensethe height coordinate of the compacted road surface, which can reduce an engineer’s time outon projects.NCC's road and construction department in Umeå city applied machine control on one of itsprojects carried out on behalf of the Swedish Transport Administration. The project is aEuropean road E09 which is 136,000 square meters. According to the Swedish TransportAdministration's requirements, for traditional statistical acceptance control, five to eight staticplate loads must be performed every 5000 m2 of road area. For an acceptance control withmachine control instead of performing the traditional acceptance control, the number ofmeasuring points is reduced to one or two measuring points per 5000 m2 of road.From identified literature, it becomes clear that the advantages of machine control outweighthe few disadvantages identified. Literature states that when applying machine control, it ispossible to reduce costs associated with packing work by 54 percent, it also leads to anincreased quality assurance where 100 percent of the road body can be controlled. Fortraditional statistical acceptance control, only 1 percent of the road's bearing capacity ischecked with random plate loads.In the study, the impact of machine control on quality and quality work has been explored.Statistical acceptance control is performed with a maximum of eight randomly selected pointcontrols on a surface that can be up to 5000 m2. If this is compared with the roller’s compactionwork where the entire control object is being validated with the compaction computer in theroller first, in addition the weakest point or points are also checked. Then it is possible to makea reasoning that about 1 percent of the control object is checked during statistical acceptancecontrol while 100 percent of the control object is inspected during acceptance control with themachine control system. This reasonably entails a higher quality of the control object. However,there are uncertainties with the measured value CMV, which does not hold any dimension andis completely dependent on how the roller is calibrated. This means that CMV cannot becompared between different rollers on different projects if they are not calibrated equally.Therefore, we suggest that contractors should always calibrate their rollers in the samemanners.vA profitability calculation has been performed where NCC's projects are evaluated and it iscalculated how the usage of machine control has affected the project, an estimated cost isestablished for the use of machine control and a cost if it had not been applied. The calculationis based on interviews with relevant people within construction companies as they haveexpertise in handling the equipment.The profitability calculation showed that the realistic outcome for the project meant a saving of35 percent regarding costs that can be attributed to compaction work. The literature statedthat savings could reach up to 54 percent, it seems to be in the upper range as the reasonableoutcome is lower by 19 percentage points. Machine control still contributes to improvedprofitability but not as strongly as research claims, it may also be due to the fact that theprofitability calculation is based on an individual project, to get more reliable data moreprojects would have had to be evaluated.

Infrastructure consists of facilities and services that are considered essential to the functioning and economic productivity of society (Preqin, 2022). The rapid economic growth over the past decades has led to an increase in the demand for fundamental functions such as energy, telecommunications, and transportation. Increases in infrastructure investments are required on a global scale, not only to support economic growth globally, but also to help fulfill the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite the large demand for infrastructure investments globally, planned governmental investments in infrastructure are not enough to bridge the gap. In order to bridge the infrastructure investment gap, there is a need for institutional investors to intervene, both in private and public markets. However, investors need to be able to assess how the market is performing as well as have accessible investment products that are linked to the infrastructure asset class. The quality of such investment products is dependent on the indices they are linked to, making it essential that infrastructure indices reflect the asset class in the way investors expect them to. Therefore, there is a need to assess the performance of existing infrastructure indices as well as to find a methodology for constructing a new index that more accurately fulfills investor expectations. This thesis compares three existing infrastructure indices in terms of three investment characteristics that investors look for in infrastructure investments: risk adjusted returns, inflation hedging properties, and stability during market downturns. These characteristics are evaluated by measuring the sharpe ratio, correlation with the consumer price index, and downmarket capture ratio. The thesis also proposes a methodology for finding an index that more accurately represents the infrastructure asset class in terms of the three aforementioned investment characteristics. The methodology is based on parameter optimization to find the set of inclusion criteria that maximizes performance. The thesis finds that the infrastructure indices are adequate in terms of risk adjusted returns and inflation hedging properties, but that they do not show consistent performance during down markets. It is concluded that existing indices are somewhat sufficient in what they set out to do, but that there is room for improvement in capturing the desired characteristics. The results of the thesis also indicate that a new index that more accurately represents the infrastructure asset class can be constructed by implementing inclusion criteria based on filters related to financial ratios associated with infrastructure companies, such as fixed asset turnover and dividend yield. In conclusion, an index with a minimum dividend yield criterion and a maximum fixed asset turnover ratio criterion can be constructed to more accurately capture the key characteristics of the infrastructure asset class. / Infrastruktur består av anläggningar och tjänster som anses väsentliga för samhället (Preqin, 2022). Den stora ekonomiska tillväxten under de senaste årtiondena har lett till ökad efterfrågan på grundläggande funktioner som energi, telekommunikation och transport. Ökade infrastrukturinvesteringar krävs globalt, inte bara för att stödja tillväxt utan också för att hjälpa till att uppfylla FN:s mål för hållbar utveckling (SDG). Trots den stora efterfrågan på infrastrukturinvesteringar globalt räcker inte planerade statliga investeringar i infrastruktur för att överbrygga klyftan. För att kunna möta behovet av infrastrukturinvesteringar behöver investerare ingripa, både på privata och publika marknader. Investerare behöver dock kunna bedöma hur marknaden presterar samt ha tillgängliga investeringsprodukter som är kopplade till infrastruktur som tillgångsklass. Kvaliteten på sådana investeringsprodukter är beroende av vilka index de är kopplade till, och därmed är det viktigt att infrastrukturindex speglar tillgångsklassen i enlighet med investerares förväntningar. Därmed finns det ett behov av att bedöma hur nuvarande infrastrukturindex presterar samt eventuellt att hitta en metod för att konstruera ett nytt index som bättre uppfyller investerarnas förväntningar. Denna avhandling jämför tre befintliga infrastrukturindex i termer av tre investeringsegenskaper som investerare söker i infrastrukturinvesteringar: riskjusterad avkastning, inflationsskyddande egenskaper och stabilitet under nedgångar på marknaden. Dessa egenskaper utvärderas genom att mäta sharpe ratio, korrelation med ett konsumentprisindex, samt down market capture ratio. Avhandlingen föreslår också en metodik för att hitta ett index som bättre representerarinfrastruktur som tillgångsklass i termer av de tre ovan nämnda investeringsegenskaperna. Metodiken är baserad på parameteroptimering för att hitta den uppsättning inklusionskriterier som maximerar indexets prestation.Avhandlingen konstaterar att infrastrukturindexen är tillräckliga i termer av riskjusterad avkastning och inflationssäkrande egenskaper, men att de inte uppvisar konsekvent prestation under marknadsnedgångar. Slutsatsen som dras är att de nuvarande indexen delvis är tillräckliga i det de avser uppfylla, men att det finns utrymme för förbättringar. Resultaten av avhandlingen indikerar också att ett nytt index som mer träffsäkert representerar infrastruktur som tillgångsklass kan konstrueras genom att implementera inklusionskriterier baserade på filter relaterade till finansiella nyckeltal förknippade med infrastrukturföretag, såsom omsättning av anläggningstillgångar och direktavkastning. Sammanfattningsvis kan ett index med ett minimimumkriterium för direktavkastning och maximumkriterium för omsättning av anläggningstillgångar konstrueras för att mer träffsäkert fånga viktiga egenskaper hos infrastruktur som tillgångsklass.

Kampala is Uganda's capital city and is one the fastest growing cities in the world. Over 60% of the city's urban population live and work informally. In 2002, the Ugandan Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development attended the World Urban Forum in Kenya, where he met with the international president of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI), Jockin Arputham. The Minister requested the support of SDI to mobilise the residents of Kampala for settlement upgrading. Following this invitation, the SDI president, with Federation members from South Africa and India, visited Kampala. This visit resulted in the signing of an agreement to enable community residents and the state to jointly improve the living conditions of people in informal settlements in Kampala. This marked the beginning of a new form of state-society relations, called co-production. These relations have grown, evolved and progressively matured over the years. This evolutionary case study asks how co-production engagements in the City of Kampala provide empirical support for an enhanced theoretical framework in planning which contributes to ideas of state-society engagement in the cities of the global South. Drawing on poststructuralist theory and cases of co-production, a conceptual framework provides the theoretical basis to examine how service delivery and city planning under co-production are shaped by power and rationalities that occur at the interface between state and society. This study draws on key proponents of the case study method. Primary data and information were collected, using semi-structured interviews. Document analysis and observations were used to supplement the interview processes and data. The findings were analysed and then used to engage with the theoretical materials in order to write back to theory and then generate theoretical prepositions on planning theory and co-production as an interventive planning framework. Key findings show that communities and civic groups used tools of enumerations, exchange visits and savings to assert their claims and demands, as well as to advance and secure their survival assets and systems. The study reveals complex multifaceted and dynamic power struggles and matrixes within and between structures of the state in the implementation of various co-production initiatives and relations. The state displays and relies on incoherent legal and policy positions, acts informally and operates between old and new ways of engaging with communities. The study further reveals tension points, reversals and the 'holding back' of state power during encounters of state, networked and multiple community power bases that have strong and influential claims to urban space, materialities such as land, trading spaces, informal livelihood systems, place and belonging. The narratives show that community is segmented and conflicted, with individuals and civic groups straddling the divide between state and societal spaces. The combination of organised community resistance and collaboration led to 'quiet encroachment' to shift state positions on development regulations and to disrupt and refine states' schemes of community intervention to become open and more inclusive. The conflicting rationalities and deep differences between state agents and communities extend beyond the binary of state and 'community'. The narratives reveal the fragmented nature of the state - formal and informal - and the divisions within and between society and civic groups characterised by the politics of control of space and territoriality, differentiation and belonging. The case study engages with theory to provide an important caution against the limitations of assuming that planning can adopt consensualist processes in the cities of the South. It suggests that co-production offers a more productive and realistic way of approaching state-society engagement in planning, but is also fraught with difficulties that are also present in the wider context within which engagement occurs. Therefore, this thesis also argues that planning in the South should be seen as both a collaborative and conflicted process. In addition, it postulates that there is nothing peaceful about urban life, and that power and conflict are ubiquitous elements that both produce and are a product of the interface between state and society.

Bioretention cells (also known as rain gardens) are a Low Impact Development (LID) method for sustainable stormwater management. An increasingly popular form of urban stormwater infrastructure, bioretention cells use an engineered, vegetated-soil-system to both reduce quantity and enhance quality of stormwater. The ability of bioretention systems to remove common pollutants from urban stormwater runoff, and reduce runoff volume through evapotranspiration, in a temperature climate during plant senescence were assessed in this full scale field-based study. Stormwater run-off simulations were conducted for 5-, 10-, and 25-year return period storm events at a field site in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Tests were run on both, a vegetated cell planted with a mix of Betula nigra, Betula nana, and Salix lutea, and a control cell with turfgrass. Influent and effluent field parameters were recorded for pH and dissolved oxygen (DO), in addition to lab analyses conducted to quantify COD, TN, TON, TP, ortho-phosphate, and TSS removal from the stormwater. Water quality and hydrologic performance were results were compared between the vegetated and control cell using a Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. In addition, hydrologic results were correlated with daily Evapotranspiration (ET) and meteorological station data using Spearman’s Rho Correlation. The vegetated cells were more effective (p value < 0.05) at retention of water volume, DO, COD, and orthophosphate, when compared to the control. Strong correlations (p value < 0.05) were found between the retention of water volume, and each of ET, maximum temperature, average temperature, minimum temperature, and average wind, for only the vegetated cells. / Graduate

Infrastructure is one of the main parameters of economic growth and a country‘s competitiveness depends on the provision and maintenance of efficient and productive infrastructure assets. However, Nigeria, like most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest quantity and poorest quality of stocks of infrastructure assets in the world and this phenomenally poor infrastructure has remained an impediment to development in the country. Decades of sub-optimal investment, poor maintenance culture and the fact that the required infrastructure investments could not be accommodated within the available fiscal space as a result of budgetary constraints have all contributed to the Nigeria‘s infrastructure deficit. The immediate outcome of this however is that the available infrastructure assets across the Nigerian landscape are in decrepit state and absurdly inadequate. Besides, the present demand for basic infrastructure services has grown astronomically out-stripping the supply capacity of the existing ones. Closing the infrastructure financing gap will however require increased investment by private investors through creative financing in an enabling legal and financial environment. Outside the budgetary constraints, the absence of efficient maintenance and management of infrastructure assets and quality service delivery by the public sector are some of the reasons why procurement of public infrastructure stocks by government through the traditional approach is no longer plausible and hence, the general appeal of the public-private partnership framework. However, despite all the potentials, the public private partnership technique in Nigeria has not made an appreciable impact in closing the infrastructure gaps due to lack of access to long-term financing. It is against this back-drop that this study has sought to investigate how reforms of the legal and financial infrastructure could widen access to financing through innovative financial resource mobilization in scaling-up infrastructure development and service delivery to the teeming Nigeria population. Therefore, the central thesis of this study is that the inadequacy of appropriate laws and inefficient financial system are partly responsible for the huge financing gaps in the Nigeria‘s infrastructure market and with the legal and financial reforms, an enabling legal and financial environment that would open up space for resource mobilization through innovative financing techniques and sources will be created thereby widening access to long-term financing and increasing the appetite for private investment in the nation‘s public infrastructure assets and services. So, the overarching objective of this thesis is to explore how legal and financial system reforms can facilitate the development of financial models and instruments that can help mobilize financial resources to fund infrastructure and bridge the huge infrastructure financing gaps in Nigeria in a sustainable fashion. Given the infrastructure poverty that constrains economic growth and development in Nigeria, the outcomes of this proposed study would help inform the need for the legal and financial system reforms to unlock resources in addressing the problems of financing gaps in infrastructure projects development in Nigeria. Besides, such outcomes based on the Nigerian experience in infrastructure financing and development may be turned into valuable knowledge for policy –making and further research in Nigeria. Copyright / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Mobile telecommunications networks provide the ability to access the internet and use telephony services, where the infrastructure exists. Because of its mobile nature a customer can always connect to the internet, even when not in the comfort of their home, unlike the case with fixed-line services. This paper studies the impact of mobile telecommunications investment on economic growth in South Africa. To test the impact of mobile telecommunications investment on economic growth, the dissertation examines the development of mobile telecommunications infrastructure in South Africa and the relationship between mobile communications infrastructure investment (MCII) on economic growth. It is hypothesised that MCII has a relationship with economic growth. The methodology employed by this study is the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) approach with secondary data sourced from the World Bank Group and Global System Mobile Association (GSMA) databases over the period 1994 to 2016. To model the relationship, the study used a neoclassical growth model with proxies for economic growth as gross domestic product (GDP); capital as mobile operator capital expenditure and gross capital formation; and labour as the labour force and the unemployment rate. Results of the study showed that there was a unidirectional Granger causality between GDP and MCII and therefore no bidirectional causal relationship between MCII and GDP. Furthermore, using the ARDL approach found no cointegration between the variables and consequently no long run relationship. Producing the short run model as a VAR (2) model using the Akaike information criteria (AIC) lag selection also resulted in no significant relationship between MCII and GDP. This result has very important implications for policy recommendations to government and for development. Firstly, government should investigate why there is no significant impact of MCII on GDP because this relationship does exist in other markets. From these findings, government can develop and adopt policies which could produce a positive effect of MCII on GDP.

Bristande säkerhet på byggarbetsplatser är ett omtalat ämne och byggbranschen är en av de branscher där det sker flest skador. Än idag sker det flera dödsfall varje år på byggarbetsplatser runtom i landet och dödsfallen har dessutom ökat de senaste åren. För att kunna uppnå en säker arbetsplats behöver rapporteringen av olyckor, tillbud och riskobservationer utföras i större utsträckning. I detta examensarbete har rapporteringen av olyckor, tillbud och riskobservationer undersökts.  Studien har genomförts i samarbete med en byggentreprenör i Stockholmsregionen. Studien syftade till att öka förståelsen för rapportering av olyckor, tillbud och riskobservationer på fallföretaget. Målet med arbetet var att ta fram rekommendationer på hur fallföretaget kunde förbättra rapporteringen. Data samlades in med hjälp av intervjuer och statistik från fallföretagets rapporteringssystem. Intervjuer genomfördes på tre av fallföretagets projekt där platschef, arbetsledare och yrkesarbetare intervjuades. I fallföretagets rapporteringssystem studerades statistik på rapporterade olyckor, tillbud och riskobservationer på byggsidan inom Stockholmsregionen åren 2018 och 2019.     Statistiken ifrån fallföretaget visade att fallolyckor, klämskador och elolyckor är några av olyckorna som förekommer på fallföretaget. Den insamlade datan visade att den vanligaste orsaken till att olyckor uppstår är den mänskliga faktorn. Andra orsaker till olyckor som hittades i litteraturstudien och intervjustudien var bristande planering, stress och ekonomi. Enligt resultat från intervjustudien fungerar rapporteringen av olyckorna och tillbuden generellt bra i projekten men det skiljer sig till viss del hur de studerade projekten arbetar med rapportering. Ett problem med rapporteringen som framkom i intervjustudien var att inte alla yrkesarbetare rapporterar riskobservationer. Ett annat problem som också upptäcktes i intervjustudien var att flera av de som arbetar på fallföretaget inte kan definitionerna på olyckor, tillbud och riskobservationer. På projektnivå antyder den kvantitativa studien att en ökad rapportering av riskobservationer kan leda till färre olyckor. Mer data behöver samlas in för att kunna svara på vilka effekter ökad rapportering har på tillbud. Det visade sig att de faktorer som främst påverkar rapporteringen är motivation och inställning hos den som rapporterar.   En av de främsta rekommendationerna till företaget är att kommunicera ut vad det är för riskobservationer som de vill att projekten ska rapportera. Andra rekommendationer till fallföretaget är att framställa en app som underlättar inrapporteringen, att ge ersättning till de som rapporterar, avsätta tid till att rapportera samt att ge återkoppling på det som rapporterats. / Lack of safety at construction sites is a well disputable subject and the construction industry is one of the industries which involves most injuries. Still today several casualties occur each year at the construction sites throughout the country and the number of casualties has tend to increase the last years. To achieve a safe workplace the reporting of accidents, incidents and risk observations needs to be performed in a greater extent. In this master thesis the reporting of accidents, incidents and risk observations have been examined. The study has been conducted in collaboration with a large-scale building company acting in the Stockholm region. The scope of the study has been to increase the understanding regarding reporting of accidents, incidents and risk observations at the company. Derivation of recommendations on how the company could improve the reporting was set as a final target. The used data was extracted from statistics provided by the company and by personal interviews with company employees. The interviews where performed at three of the regional construction sites. In each project the site manager, supervisors and construction workers were interviewed. The statistics on reported accidents, incidents and risk observation for the years of 2018 and 2019 within the company building sector were extracted from the accessed internal reporting system. The statistics from the company shows that injuries caused by falls, electricity and crushing are examples of some of the injuries at the company. The collected data showed that the most common cause for injuries was the human factor. Other underlying factors to injuries found in the literature study and in the interview study were lack of planning, stress and economy. According to the results from the interview study, the reporting of accidents and incidents in general worked well in the targeted projects but it differs to a certain extent in how the projects worked with reporting. A problem with the reporting that was found in the interview study was that not all construction workers used to report risk observations. Another problem also found in the interview study was that several of the employees at the company were not aware of the definitions of accidents, incidents and risk observations. At project level the data showed that an increased reporting could contribute to reduced numbers for accidents. More data needs to be collected to answer what effects an increased reporting would have on incidents. It turned outs that the factors that mainly affects the reporting are the motivation and attitude of the reporting person. One of the main recommendations to the company was to communicate what type of risk observations the company wants the projects to report. Other recommendations to the company was the idea of developing an app which facilitates the reporting, to give compensation to those who reports, to allot time for reporting and to provide feedback on what has already been reported.

Social constructions, or frames, often determine how and to whom benefits and burdens are delivered by public policy. Triggering events often open policy windows in which drastic policy changes can occur. In July of 2009, a wet, steep hillside failed in Logan, Utah, leveling a home below and destroying an irrigation canal that ran along the hill. The resulting policy changes illustrated how social constructions of agricultural producers in terms of deservedness and power shifted, both as a result of urbanization and as a result of the landslide. Policy processes are often path-dependent and decisions can become self-reinforcing. Analyzing the pathway that led up to the landslide provided insights into the importance of proactive management and long-term planning of water infrastructure, especially in urbanizing environments. By using policy and discourse analysis, this thesis highlights water management challenges involved in the urbanizing arid U.S. Intermountain West and how planners and policymakers can use this information to achieve democratic policy solutions.

It is essential to build, maintain, and use our transportation systems in a manner that meets our current needs while addressing the social and economic needs of future generations. In today’s world, transportation congestion causes serious negative impacts to our societies. To this end, researchers have been utilizing various statistical methods to better study the flow of traffic into the road networks. However, these valuable studies cannot realize their true potential without solid in-depth understanding of the connectivity between the various traffic intersections. This paper bridges the gap between the engineering and social science domains. To this end, the authors propose a dynamic social network analysis framework to study the centrality of the existing road networks. This approach utilizes the field of network analysis where: (1) visualization and modeling techniques allow capturing the relationships, interactions, and attributes of and between network constituents, and (2) mathematical measurements facilitate analyzing quantitative relationships within the network. Connectivity and the importance of each intersection within the network will be understood using this method. The author conducted social network analysis modeling using three studies in Louisiana and two studies in Mississippi. Four types of centrality analysis were performed to identify the most central and important intersections within each study area. Results indicate intersection social network analysis modeling aligns with current congestion studies and transportation planning decisions.