This dissertation builds a socio-cultural biography of Paris's Gare du Nord, Europe's largest railway station, from its transnational aims to connect Europe in the nineteenth century, to early twentieth century strikes, to twenty-first century immigration and riots. It shows how the formation of subjects, boundaries, and the "dangerous classes" in France were linked to infrastructural development. Through this examination, I argue that official French rhetoric and policies around the so-called "dangerous classes" created ideologies of contact that played out in concrete public space and came to be challenged by subjects and groups represented as dangerously different. Through encounter, overlapping boundaries--beyond the foreigner/citizen divide--became significant in the Gare du Nord, as marginalized subjects created new ways of relating spaces and bodies in this heterogeneous arena. My dissertation examines the connection between four processes that govern the station’s socio-political trajectory: 1) the government’s elaboration of the "dangerous classes" paradigm that led to expanding technologies of policing and surveillance; 2) the development of transportation infrastructure that brought migrants and goods to the capital; 3) the emergence of a railroad labor economy that created a new class of workers; and 4) the arrival and settling of immigrant groups from former colonies. I show how "dangerous" social archetypes, from the nineteenth century provincial migrant, to the early twentieth century railway worker on strike, to the African-Muslim immigrant, were summoned and reconfigured in events at the Gare du Nord and shaped the future configuration of political subjects and their struggles. I focus ethnographically on the trajectories of African immigrants at the station, the contemporary "dangerous classes." I argue that through their trans-regional networks and practices, the Gare du Nord has become a unique site of political contestation as it transforms into a node that connects the station to immigration pathways through sub-Saharan and North Africa. By offering an ethnographic approach to multidisciplinary conversations on transnational cities and postcolonial history, my dissertation builds a framework and methodology to analyze proliferating "theaters of encounter:" sites suffused with conflicting idioms, grounded in structures of human and capital circulation, and traversed by histories of struggle.

Denna uppsats bidrar med förståelse för effektivitet vid kommunalaorganisationsförändringar utifrån kommunernas övergripande uppgifter. Utgångspunktenligger i en organisationsförändring inom Ludvika kommun som resulterade i en nySamhällsbyggnadsförvaltning. Offentlig sektor är intressant att studera då offentligaorganisationer agerar i en komplex omgivning med krav att ta hänsyn till motstridigaintressen. Effektivitet är komplext då det inte finns någon entydig definition av begreppet.Med hänsyn till motstridigheterna i offentliga organisationer adderas ytterligarekomplexitet i begreppet. Kommunernas övergripande uppgifter (samhällsutvecklande kommunen,myndighetsutövande kommunen, kommunen som lokalt samhälle samt kommunen somservicemarknad) består av att hantera både nationella restriktioner men även de lokalamedborgarnas krav och förväntningar. Centralt i studien är en modell som sammankopplardessa olika uppgifter i relation till företagsekonomiska värderingar ochsamhällsvetenskapliga dito. Modellen tar även hänsyn till lokalt respektive statligt styre.Utöver detta utgår studien ifrån teorier gällande effektivitet, vilka sätts i relation till dencentrala modellen. Studiens fallorganisation studerades via intervjuer och dokumentstudier. Den empiriskadatan visade på organisationens prioriteringar, vilka speglade vad som förändrades i ochmed de organisationsförändringar som skedde. Förändringarna visade på att organisationenfått ett större fokus på företagsekonomiska värderingar. Det framkom även attfallorganisationen avsåg förbättra dess måluppfyllelse mot kommunens medborgare, menatt detta varit problematiskt att uppnå då hänsyn inte tagits till långsiktiga konsekvenser.Konsekvenserna innebar att effektivitetsbegreppets motstridigheter blivit framträdande ochpåverkat varandra på oförutsedda sätt. Dessa insikter bidrar till ökad förståelse föreffektivitetsbegreppet i kommunal kontext.

This research addresses the infrastructure maintenance scheduling problems under budget uncertainty. Infrastructure agencies usually face budget uncertainties that will eventually lead to suboptimal planning if maintenance decisions are made without taking the uncertainty into consideration. It is important for decision makers to adopt maintenance scheduling policies that take future budget uncertainty into consideration. The author proposes a multistage, stochastic linear programming model to address this problem. The author also develops solution procedures using the augmented Lagrangian decomposition algorithm and scenario reduction method. A case study exploring the computational characteristics of the proposed methods is conducted and the benefit of using the stochastic programming approach is discussed. In the case study, the road network in Dallas District is used with data taken from the Texas Department of Transportation’s Pavement Management Information System. The case study results reveal that the stochastic programming solutions tend to allocate more resources to preventive maintenance than deterministic solutions that ignore the uncertainty information. The proposed methodology can help decision makers effectively obtain optimal maintenance plan under budget uncertainty. / text

published_or_final_version / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts in Transport Policy and Planning

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Computer Science and Information Systems / Master / Master of Philosophy

Most scholars believe that democracies guarantee the rule of law and provide superior institutions, which influence developing states' development trajectories, as well as firms' decisions on where to do business. However, I argue that these superior institutions are prior to the institutions of democracy and constitute the concept of governance infrastructure, and are therefore the key institutional determinants of state's economic outcomes. I find that the institutions that comprise a state's governance infrastructure (GI) are separate conceptually from the institutions that comprise democracy, and that the quality of developing states' GI 1) must reach a certain threshold before democracy positively affects economic development; 2) sends a signal to investors concerning potential transaction costs that investors may incur, ultimately determining the amount of FDI developing states' receive, while being the only domestic institutions that affect investors decision making; 3) determines the quality and provision of a state's intermediary public goods, which are an additional causal mechanism to signaling in determining a state's FDI inflows.

Infrastructure systems are critical to a country’s prosperity. It is extremely important to manage the infrastructure systems efficiently in order to avoid wastage and to maximize benefits. Deterioration of infrastructure systems is one of the primary issues in civil engineering today. This problem has been widely acknowledged by engineering community in numerous studies. We need to evolve efficient strategies to tackle the problem of infrastructure deterioration and to efficiently operate infrastructure. In this research, we propose stochastic models to predict the process of deterioration in engineering systems and to perform life-cycle analysis (LCA) of deteriorating engineering systems. LCA has been recognized, over the years, as a highly informative tool for helping the decision making process in infrastructure management. In this research, we propose a stochastic model, SSA, to accurately predict the effect of deterioration processes in engineering systems. The SSA model addresses some of the important and ignored areas in the existing models such as the effect of deterioration on both capacity and demands of systems and accounting for different types of failures in assessing the life-span of a deteriorating system. Furthermore, this research proposes RTLCA, a renewal theory based LCA model, to predict the life-cycle performance of deteriorating systems taking into account not only the life-time reliability but also the costs associated with operating a system. In addition, this research investigates the effect of seismic degradation on the reliability of reinforced concrete (RC) bridges. For this purpose, we model the seismic degradation process in the RC bridge columns which are the primary lateral load resisting system in a bridge. Thereafter, the RTLCA model along with SSA model is used to study the life-cycle of an example RC bridge located in seismic regions accounting for seismic degradation. It is expected that the models proposed in this research will be helpful in better managing our infrastructure systems.

The current model of suburban development in Canadian cities has serious consequences for the natural environment. The ubiquitous landscape of sprawl consumes excessive amounts of greenfield land and natural resources, while maintaining an artificial relationship with nature that is more concerned with the aesthetics of lawns and trees than with natural ecosystems. This thesis proposes a new planning paradigm that is derived from the ideals of the Garden City, but is steeped in the notion of green infrastructure as the foundation for ecological health. It makes use of greenbelts and greenways as circulation systems for people, plants, wildlife, water, and natural processes. The towns of Newmarket and Aurora, which are situated within a pocket of developable land amid the Greater Toronto Area Greenbelt, are selected as a case study area. An in-depth analysis of the cultural and natural ecosystems that function at various scales across the region provides the framework upon which the design is structure. The design is twofold. First, it is primarily a planning thesis with an ecological approach to design. It provides a working methodology for green infrastructure at the regional scale, and illustrates a schematic plan for a sustainable metropolitan village, “Leslie Village”, that is tied to Newmarket and Aurora’s existing suburban fabric. Secondly, it illustrates the schematic design response to the planning thesis, by providing nominal visualizations of key areas where the proposed greenway intersects public space. Leslie Village challenges the traditional model of development and provides a new planning system whose methods and principles can be transferred to other communities in the GTA, and across the country.

Darbo pavadinimas: Multimodalinė transporto infrastruktūra turizmo paslaugoje. Darbo tikslas: įvertinti multimodalinės transporto infrastruktūros turizmo paslaugoje situaciją. Darbo objektas: multimodalinė transporto infrastruktūra turizmo paslaugoje. Tyrimo uždaviniai: 1. Atskleisti multimodalinės transporto infrastruktūros turizmo paslaugoje esmę; 2. Pristatyti Lietuvos transporto infrastruktūros turizmo paslaugoje situaciją; 3. Ištirti multimodalinę infrastruktūrą geležinkelio transporto vartotojų požiūriu. Svarbiausi rezultatai, išvados, siūlymai Lietuvoje populiariausias pagal pervežtų keleivių kiekį – kelių transportas, mažiausiai populiarus vidaus vandenų transportas. Turistai tipiškai renkasi dviejų tipų keliones t.y. šalies viduje arba keliauja į užsienį. Transporto infrastruktūra abiem atvejais yra labai panaši. Labiausiai turistus domina grupinis, organizuotas ir užsienio turizmas. Respondentams priimtiniausios transporto priemonės turizmo paslaugoje yra automobilių ir oro keliai. Svarbiausi turistų poreikiai oro transportui: techninė būklė ir greitis. Anketine apklausa nustatyta, kad turizmo transporto tobulinimo sritys: technologijos, patogumas, techninė būklė, saugumas. Multimodalinė transporto infrastruktūra turizmo paslaugoje didelei daliai vartotojų reikalinga kokybiška, kad jie liktų patenkinti turizmo paslaugų visuma. Daugumai turistų labai svarbi yra automobilių ir oro transporto priemonių techninė būklė bei greitis multimodalinėje transporto... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The title : Multimodal transport infrastructure of tourism service. The aim of research: Evaluate the sitaucion in multimodal transport infrastructure for tourism. The object of research: multimodal transport infrastructure of tourism services. Objectives of the study: 1. Reveal the course for multimodal transport infrastructure of tourism services; 2. Present Lithuanian transport infastructure situacion of tuorism service; 3. Investigate the multimodal infrastructure by rail users perspective. The main results, conclusions and recommendations The most popular way used for transporting passengeres in Lithuania - road transport, the least popular inland waterway transport. Tourists typically prefer two types of trips, within the country and travel abroad. Transport infrastructure in both cases are very similar. Most tourists are interested in a sectional, organized and foreign tourism. Respondents preferred to give priority for car and air routes. Major tourist demand for air transport: technical status and speed. Questionnaire survey found tourism transport development areas: technology, convenience , technical condition of security. A large number by users of multimodal transport infrastructure in tourism service requires a quality that they would remain satisfied with a tourism service as a whole. For most of the tourists is very important cars and air vehicles condition and speed in multimodal transport infrastructure. In survey respondents for each vehicle... [to full text]

This research explores the changing role of the private sector in provincial prison infrastructure expansion in Ontario. After contracting out the operations of a new prison and facing much resistance, the provincial government began delivering prisons by maintaining public operations but financing them privately through public-private partnerships. To understand the political and economic impacts of these changes, I analyzed relevant government documents and interviews I conducted with 15 key informants from government agencies, firms and other organizations involved in creating, implementing and resisting prison expansion policies between 1995 and today. I show how changes in infrastructure governance were shaped by contestation between the state, international financial investors, private firms in Canada, labour and others involved in prison systems. Through public-private partnerships, the role of government shifted towards that of market facilitator, and as infrastructure was placed on global debt markets, international financial capital played a new part in prison development.