Thesis (Ph. D.)--Northern Illinois University, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [177]-188).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-84).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-150). Also available in electronic version.

Energy demand attributable to the operation of supermarkets on-site is thought to be responsible for 1% of UK greenhouse gas emissions. In use data show a performance gap approaching a factor of three for overall energy use, with a gap of a factor of six in energy demand for heating. This performance gap indicates significant faults in the conventional modelling route. Current building regulations in the UK require the "building related" energy use of new commercial buildings to comply with particular requirements. Supermarket buildings are therefore modelled according to these protocols to establish their predicted energy demand. The impact on this predicted energy demand of the exclusion of process energy (eg for refrigeration) from these protocols is explored by modelling a supermarket retail floor with heat transfers related to refrigerated cabinets, and comparing the sensitivities of such models with those of models compliant with regulatory protocols. Whereas models compliant with regulatory protocols indicate an advantage of limiting the level of insulation and airtightness, and allowing stratification, to facilitate heat loss through the store envelope; models that include heat transfers around the refrigerated cabinets are found to show that energy demand may be decreased by up to 40% by doubling both insulation and airtightness, and by destratification. This will, however, only apply if rates of air change in buildings in use match those modelled. This shows the importance of including heat transfers around refrigerated cabinets in design modelling, so that appropriate decisions may be taken with respect to building envelope parameters. Compliance modelling protocols should be changed to reflect this. In order to facilitate this change and enable modelling of refrigerated cabinets within a compliance model through a few simple inputs, a set of data and associated algorithms is derived and offered for inclusion in compliance modelling tools.

In this article, we study the school bus routing and scheduling problem with transfers arising in the field of nonperiodic public transportation systems. It deals with the transportation of pupils from home to their school in the morning taking the possibility that pupils may change buses into account. Allowing transfers has several consequences. On the one hand, it allows more flexibility in the bus network structure and can, therefore, help to reduce operating costs. On the other hand, transfers have an impact on the service level: the perceived service quality is lower due to the existence of transfers; however, at the same time, user ride times may be reduced and, thus, transfers may also have a positive impact on service quality. The main objective is the minimization of the total operating costs. We develop a heuristic solution framework to solve this problem and compare it with two solution concepts that do not consider transfers. The impact of transfers on the service level in terms of time loss (or user ride time) and the number of transfers is analyzed. Our results show that allowing transfers reduces total operating costs significantly while average and maximum user ride times are comparable to solutions without transfers. (authors' abstract)

SMEs are slow adopters of new technologies and understandably so because they are entangled in a vicious cycle of poverty. It is even more so for SMEs located in developing markets such as the sub-Saharan Africa. SMEs in these areas are faced with several difficult institutional and cultural bottlenecks which often impede their access to and use of new technologies. In Nigeria, the recently introduced cashless policy is one of many strategies intended to enhance SMEs' chances in the global e-commerce market as much as the general Nigerian economy. Studies reveal that Nigerian SMEs are slow to adopt and use this new technological innovation called the e-payment system (EPS) even when it can improve their chances to participate successfully in e-commerce. However, there is little in the literature to understand why and what is needed to be done to encourage and facilitate their participation in adopting and using this technology. This area of study has not been sufficiently explored. Thus, this thesis fills the void and explores the factors influencing EPS adoption and extent of use by SMEs in Nigeria. The study develops an integrated model drawing from the Technology-Organisation- Environment (TOE) framework and Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) model. We employed the mixed methods. 239 respondents were served the questionnaire. Also, 4 SMEs and two stakeholders were interviewed as a follow-up to the statistical analysis. We employed the Logistic regression analysis in addition to the personal interviews analysis. The results revealed that technological, environmental and owner/manager's factors majorly influenced the adoption of EPS among SMEs in Nigeria. The study finds that perceived benefit is the single major factor positively influencing the decision to adopt and use EPS in Nigeria. Others are owner/manager's educational level and knowledge in IT. The study also finds that perceived complexity, perceived insecurity and lack of government policy are major barriers to the adoption of EPS. Age, perceived benefits, and perceived trust facilitated frequent EPS usage while age, perceived complexity and competitive pressure positively influenced the number and type of EPS channels used by SMEs in Nigeria.

This study presents results from a quantitative impact evaluation of the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, Juntos, in Peru. Using instrumental variable techniques, it estimates the overall impact of Juntos five years after its initial rollout and explores the differential impacts among beneficiaries according to the length of time they spent in the program. In so doing, the analysis explores whether it takes time for the program to make significant and sizable impacts; and whether some impacts change in magnitude the longer the beneficiaries spend in the program. The results seem to confirm both hypotheses: almost all indicators of interest are significantly higher among beneficiaries with longer treatment spells. However, in many cases these improvements are too small to be picked up in the analysis of overall effects, when beneficiaries are compared to non-beneficiaries. These findings suggest that while the program has a non negligible impact on welfare, there is room for improvement. / Cinco años del programa Juntos: Nuevas evidencias sobre sus impactos de corto y largo plazoEste estudio presenta resultados de la evaluación de impacto cuantitativo del programa de transferencias de dinero condicionales Juntos, aplicado en el Perú. Usando técnicas de variables instrumentales, se estima el impacto promedio del programa cinco años, desde su inicio, y explora los impactos diferenciados entre los beneficiarios, dependiendo de su tiempo de permanencia en el programa. Al hacer esto, el análisis explora si se necesita de tiempo para que el programa tenga impacto significativo, y si la magnitud del impacto depende de la estancia de los beneficiarios en el programa. Los resultados parecen confirmar ambas hipótesis: casi todos los indicadores de interés son significativamente más altos entre los beneficiarios con mayor tiempo en el programa.Sin embargo, en muchos casos estas mejoras son muy pequeñas como para ser tomadas en cuenta en el análisis de los efectos promedio, cuando los beneficiarios son comparados con los no beneficiarios. Estos descubrimientos sugieren que mientras el programa tenga un impacto poco significativo en el bienestar, hay espacio para mejorar.

Apparent increases in sales and price of rural land, recent changes in land taxing procedure and proposed land-use legislation have brought forth a number of land questions among legislators, public officials and the general citizenry of Utah. This study is directed at questions pertaining to land purchases and land buyers in rural Utah counties. A random sample was taken of the land transfer cards on file at the Utah State Tax Commission. Land buyers whose names appeared on the transfer cards and the returned questionnaires were used in the analysis and are the sole basis of the conclusions of the study. General conclusions from the study were: Land-use at the time of the transaction was most frequently agricultural or vacant or idle for acreages and was most frequently nonagricultural for lots. Following the transaction there was a tendency on the part of buyers to change agricultural and vacant or idle land to a different land use. Buyer characteristics such as annual income, buyer age and residence varied among the regions of the state and were important factors in land transfers. About 50 percent of the total dollars spent for land parcels included in the sample went for residential land. Land located near city limits, improved or unimproved, averaged the highest price per acre or lot. The study's conclusions apply only to recorded land transfers on file at the Utah State Tax Commission for the years 1969 through 1971.

Low streamflows and warm stream temperatures, caused mainly from agricultural diversions, currently limit available habitat and productivity of trout, including native Lahontan cutthroat trout in Nevada’s Walker River Basin. Environmental water purchases, which transfer water from willing sellers to instream uses (i.e for fish), are being evaluated to improve instream habitat. To determine which environmental water purchases to prioritize, this study was undertaken to build a computer model in order to simulate stream temperatures under differing environmental water transfer scenarios. Model runs simulate a range of environmental water transfers at major diversions and reservoirs throughout the Walker River Basin. Results indicate that low flows generally coincide with critically warm stream temperatures, cooler stream temperatures exist in the East Walker River, a tributary of the Walker River, during warm seasons which provide good habitat for fish, environmental transfers can improve stream temperatures for some highly impacted reaches by up to 3°C in dry years, and environmental water transfers have a greater effect in dry years than wet years.

Putin's military forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, sparking a renewed academic interest in Russia's current regime. Several scholars suggested that a critical period in the construction of the current regime occurred between 1999-2013 during Putin's first two presidencies followed by the Medvedev presidency. This is when the basic institutions of the current Russian political system were changed to recentralize state authority and prevent Russian Federation from looming disintegration. One such institution was the budgetary process. Signed into law in 1998, Russian Budget Code established how funds were disbursed from the "center" to the federal "subjects" and other entities. Many scholars have pointed out that one specific mechanism, namely "Intergovernmental Transfers", can be used to achieve the political goals of a regime by rewarding supporters, swinging the competitive electoral districts, or appeasing the opposition or separatist regions. The goal of this dissertation to investigate under what conditions a non-democratic regime, like Russia, uses these strategies for political effect? Do those strategies change over time? In this work, I develop a basic theoretical framework outlining such conditions and test it using the municipal-level data gathered from the Russian Federal State Statistics Service and Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.