Increased renewable electricity generation is key to the reduction of carbon emissions and has the added benefit of reducing reliance on imported gas and coal while increasing diversity of the generation mix. To encourage development of renewable generation the Scottish Government has adopted an ambitious 100% renewable electricity generation target to be met by 2020. Although hydropower has generally been considered insignificant in a UK context, when forming part of a Scottish target the resource becomes much more significant as the majority of the UK’s existing capacity and potential for new capacity is located within Scotland. Scotland has a long history of hydropower development with the majority of current operational capacity installed during the mid 20th century. Recent studies have produced a range of estimates for the remaining resource from 286 to 1000 MW. The studies undertaken have tended to rely upon catchment analogue methods or the use of regression equations to produce estimates of flow at sites of interest, with simple assumptions of installation costs and energy yield. This work uses a novel method combining time series flow data produced from a distributed hydrological model with GIS techniques and a detailed parametric cost model to enable a state-of-the-art hydropower resource model to be developed. The use of time series flow data allowed investigation of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the resource to be made, both run-of-river and impoundment schemes to be investigated and a preliminary assessment of the impact of climate change to be performed. Three financial scenarios have been considered using 5%, 10% and 15% discount rates as this is the most sensitive variable when assessing the feasibility of hydropower projects, reflecting the cost of finance available and investors’ attitude to risk. The spread of discount rates will account for changes in available subsidies, electricity prices and ongoing costs. Clearly availability of low cost finance and a low risk subsidy environment will have the largest impact on hydropower development. A major limiting factor was found to be the cost of grid connection; if this were reduced the potential figure could be higher. The results of this work show that at a 10% discount rate, 440 MW of new run-of river hydropower potential capable of producing 1.7 TWh per year is available. Exploitation of this would represent an additional 4% contribution towards the Scottish Government’s 100% renewable electricity target.

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Trots den påtagliga utsattheten för förskollärare och barnskötare återfinns en brist på studier och litteratur som behandlar yrkesgruppernas arbetsvillkor inom svensk kontext. Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur förskolepersonal upplever den sociala arbetsmiljön. Frågeställningarna var: “Hur upplever förskolepersonal arbetskrav i den sociala arbetsmiljön?” samt “Hur upplever förskolepersonal arbetsresurser i den sociala arbetsmiljön?”. Tio deltagare intervjuades genom semistrukturerade intervjuer som sedan transkriberades och tematiserades. Subteman som besvarade frågeställningen var: kvantitativa arbetskrav, kvalitativa arbetskrav, emotionella arbetskrav, rollkonflikter, otydliga mål, socialt stöd från rektor/chef, socialt stöd från kollegor, inflytande, belöning/lön samt återkoppling. Resultatet visade på höga arbetskrav, medan arbetsresurserna skiftade mellan arbetsplatser. Arbetskraven härstammade exempelvis från tidspress, otydlighet kring läroplanen samt emotionella hämningar, medan arbetsresurserna innefattade socialt stöd från chef och kollegor samt inflytande. Studiens resultat, baserade på Jobb-krav-resurs-modellen, indikerade en obalans mellan arbetsresurser och arbetskrav. Obalansen grundades i skiftande arbetsresurser samt organisatoriska utfall, som sjukskrivningar och intentioner till arbetsplatsbyte.

This thesis deals with information modelling within the scope of the manufacturing system life cycle, i.e. the development phase and the operation phase. Information modelling defines and structures information that needs to be managed, and is thereby an important step towards realising efficient information management throughout the manufacturing system life cycle. The research goal of this work was to find a modelling approach that simplifies management and integration of manufacturing system information, both within and between the development and operation phases. The starting point was an assumption that information integration requires a common information model for the manufacturing system life cycle. The approach was to evaluate the usefulness of the STEP standards AP214 and AP239 (PLCS) regarding how they meet the information requirements. Case studies within the automotive industry were carried out for gathering test data. Modelling experience showed that PLCS has the most suitable scope since it can represent the manufacturing system from a life cycle perspective. However, the generic character of PLCS introduced other issues, such as how to ensure consistent instantiation. Further guidance is needed regarding how to use PLCS for representing domain-specific objects such as machining centres. As a response to the inconsistency issue, a concept model of a machining centre was developed to guide the instantiation of PLCS. However, it was found that there are multiple ways to translate the concept model to PLCS depending on viewpoint. Moreover, the characteristics of information management within the operation phase were found to be notably different compared to characteristics of the development phase. For these reasons, it is discussed whether or not a common modelling format for the whole manufacturing system life cycle is appropriate or even realisable. From a practical viewpoint, it is concluded to be both inevitable and necessary to find appropriate delimitations and interfaces between complementary information models. A promising step towards information integration is to classify the information concepts of different models according to terms defined in concept models. / QC 20100921

Understanding the relationship between drought and population dynamics is increasingly important, particularly in areas where high population growth corresponds with increasing drought risk due to climate change. We examine the relationship between drought events and population dynamics using a stylized hydrology-demography model that has been calibrated to simulate plausible feedbacks for the population decline of the Ancient Maya of Central America. We employ a deterministic and a stochastic approach. We find that the impact of drought increases abruptly once a critical threshold of population density is exceeded. The critical threshold depends on the intensity and duration of the drought as well as on the level of technology adopted by society, the extent of markets and societal behavior. The simulations show that, for a society to be as food secure post-climate change as they are pre-climate change, strategies would have to be adopted to not only increase the region's capacity to provide sufficient resources for its growing population, but also to buffer the impact of a drier climate on productivity. This study provides suggestions on how technological, societal and economic development can modify the system to mitigate the impacts of climate change on the human population.

The purpose of this paper is to study if there is a causal relationship between socioeconomic resources and political participation. Are socioeconomic resources important for political participation? Are forms of participation important for the outcome of the political participation? These are some questions this study intends to answer. To answer these questions this study has studied the case of the municipality of Botkyrka in Sweden and therefore the case study method was used. The material was analyzed on the basis of the resource model by Sidney Verba and Nie and Robert Dahl's five criteria for democracy. The results of this study showed that in the case “Botkyrka” the socioeconomic resources largely determine how much politically involved you are. The “districts” with fewer resources were generally much less political active than those districts that had better resources. However, the study also shows that in the forms of participation that was less resource intensive, there was also less difference in the outcome of the political participation between the districts in the municipality of Botkyrka compared to the forms that required more resources. This shows that the choice of “forms of participation” is important in terms of achieving an increased political participation among those with less resources.

This study used the socio-eco efficiency framework as an application tool to resilience the green environment at Kombolecha industrial zone by balancing the water consumption growth and green environmental tradeoffs. In addition, it aimed to determine the significant indicators, which associated with the water consumption and recycling efficiency. The consumers (factories and households) socio-eco efficiency practices were limited and then caused groundwater degradation and green environmental depletion. Previous studies, for instance, BASF (2009), ESCAP (2011) eco-efficiency, and Sailing et al., (2013) SEE balance (socio-eco efficiency) analysis targeted the company’s product portfolio and quality improvement. This study, however, considered both factories and household’s consumption activities that were proven to manifest in a complex water consumption compared to the production process. The study integrated social, economic and environmental indicators and determined the socio-eco efficiency effects on theresource consumption growth and green environment tradeoffs; water consumption and recycling efficiency. Subsequently, the study then developed a socio-eco efficiency model that used to balance the gaps between water consumption and recycling intensity inefficiency. The socio- eco efficiency indicators could, thus, be an applied tool that could be measured by employing the binary logistic regression, instrumental variable model, simultaneous equation model and the propensity score matching estimation. Based on this, this study results indicated that the household’s awareness, perception and consumption behaviours concerning the green mind adoption, product, market, technology and jobs use were strongly associated and influenced by the water resource consumption growth and green environment tradeoffs at the 5 percent significance level. Particularly, the household’s social aspects, consumer’s culture, behaviour and poverty; economic (monthly income) and environmental aspects (waterquantity limit and waste recycle) were found to bestatistically significant and strongly altered the water resource consumption and recycling efficiency by 0.000 values at the 95 percent confidence level. This study implication was thesocio-eco efficiency framework, which was key the finding of the study that holds the three key indicators, did directly associate and significant determine the factories and household’s groundwater consumption and recycling intensity differently by 0.000 values at the 95 percent confidence level. The socio- eco efficiency model could thus be an analytical tool that could be applied into groundwater consumption and recycling process. The socio-eco efficiency resource model, which is a key tool to resilient the green environment, optimized the water consumption and recycling efficiency and could be incorporated into the groundwater and green environment protection policy of Ethiopia. This study, in a circular fashion, proved socio-eco efficiency application and resolved some of the consumption paradox in the factories and household’s groundwater consumption and recycling processes. Thenon-integrated indicators and inapplicability of the socio-eco efficiency framework, nonetheless, made the green environment cautiously. So that a tactical integrative socio-eco efficiency resource model, particularly, green finances, such as green water tax, lease, paymenhave to be incorporated during the groundwater consumption that recovers the green environment attainments in Kombolecha and at large in Ethiopia. / Environmental Sciences / Ph. D. (Environment Management)

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The plantation forestry is economically a very important industry in South Africa because it promotes the upliftment of many rural South African communities. However, afforestation has significant impacts on water use and biodiversity in a catchment. Thus, understanding the effects of afforestation on water resources at the catchment level is fundamental for optimal water resource allocation, long-term sustainable use, development and conservation. Much of the Limpopo Province is climatically and physiographically suitable for plantation forestry but it only contains approximately 4.7 % of the total existing plantation area in South Africa. For example, the size of the Letaba Catchment of the Limpopo Province is 13 669 km² but only approximately 484 km² of it is currently afforested. This study aims to identify potential areas for further afforestation in the Letaba Catchment using the Water Resources Modelling Platform (WReMP) model to determine if afforestation can be expanded here to promote development in South Africa‟s poorest Province. / Geography / M. Sc. (Geography)

The plantation forestry is economically a very important industry in South Africa because it promotes the upliftment of many rural South African communities. However, afforestation has significant impacts on water use and biodiversity in a catchment. Thus, understanding the effects of afforestation on water resources at the catchment level is fundamental for optimal water resource allocation, long-term sustainable use, development and conservation. Much of the Limpopo Province is climatically and physiographically suitable for plantation forestry but it only contains approximately 4.7 % of the total existing plantation area in South Africa. For example, the size of the Letaba Catchment of the Limpopo Province is 13 669 km² but only approximately 484 km² of it is currently afforested. This study aims to identify potential areas for further afforestation in the Letaba Catchment using the Water Resources Modelling Platform (WReMP) model to determine if afforestation can be expanded here to promote development in South Africa‟s poorest Province. / Geography / M. Sc. (Geography)