City of Challis v. Consent of Governed Caucus Clerk\u27s Record v. 1 Dckt. 41956

https://digitalcommons.law.uidaho.edu/idaho_supreme_court_record_briefs/6321/thumbnail.jp

Pro-poor intervention strategies in irrigated agriculture in Asia: poverty in irrigated agriculture: issues and options: Bangladesh

Irrigated farming / Poverty / Irrigation management / Water resource management / Policy / Planning / Institutions / Organizations / Local government / Non-governmental organizations / Legislation / Water users / Participatory management / Public sector / Water allocation / Cost recovery / Households / Income / Expenditure / Irrigation canals / Bangladesh

Reinforcement Learning

Brains rule the world, and brain-like computation is increasingly used in computers and electronic devices. Brain-like computation is about processing and interpreting data or directly putting forward and performing actions. Learning is a very important aspect. This book is on reinforcement learning which involves performing actions to achieve a goal. The first 11 chapters of this book describe and extend the scope of reinforcement learning. The remaining 11 chapters show that there is already wide usage in numerous fields. Reinforcement learning can tackle control tasks that are too complex for traditional, hand-designed, non-learning controllers. As learning computers can deal with technical complexities, the tasks of human operators remain to specify goals on increasingly higher levels. This book shows that reinforcement learning is a very dynamic area in terms of theory and applications and it shall stimulate and encourage new research in this field

Uncertainties in the outlook for oil and gas

Oil and gas will play a central role in the global energy system for the foreseeable future. However, uncertainty surrounds both the availability of and demand for these fuels, and as a result, there are quite disparate viewpoints on the magnitude of this role. The aim of this thesis is to identify, understand, quantify and, where possible, minimise the sources of this uncertainty, and to investigate the implications that such uncertainties have on the future of oil and gas. There are two areas of original contribution to knowledge. First, while numerous studies have examined the availability of various subsets of oil and gas, often in a deterministic manner, this work provides a full description of the uncertainty in the resource potential of all individual categories of oil and gas. This includes estimating the uncertainty in resource availability at different costs of production, and also examining the resource potential of categories that have been previously overlooked. Second, the implications of this and other major sources of uncertainty have never been investigated using models that incorporate both supply and demand-side dynamics. Two models are used for this purpose. The first is an existing energy systems model, TIAM-UCL, which has been substantially modified to allow a more accurate characterisation of long-term oil and gas production and consumption. The second is an oil-sector specific model that has been developed named the 'Bottom-Up Geological and Economic Oil field production model' (BUEGO). This is capable of examining oil production potential to 2035 and is used to examine shorter-term and more sector specific uncertainties

Timber Buildings and Sustainability

The construction sector alone accounts for 40 percent of resource consumption and environmental pollution. In line with the current considerations on environmental sustainability, particular attention is paid to eco-sustainable building materials such as timber. Timber is able to perform both load-bearing and comfort constructive functions. It is also a natural, renewable and recyclable material. However, its use as an engineering material calls for constant development and research. This book provides insight into the spread of the use of timber in the construction industry, presenting some thoughts on important aspects related to production, design and responsible use

Energy Resilience in Nepal: Response and Future Directions after the 2015 Earthquake and 2015-2016 Blockade

The resilience of energy systems is not well considered in existing literature. This study seeks to inform this issue by investigating the response to the shocks which the energy systems of Nepal have recently faced. In April and May of 2015, major earthquakes devastated parts of central Nepal, and from September of the same year until February 2016, a trade blockade greatly restricted the import of goods from India, including petroleum fuels. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork amongst a range of stakeholders in Kathmandu, Nepal, this thesis analyses the experiences of different actors in the sector during and after these two key events. This thesis builds the concept of energy resilience using existing literature. This draws on energy security theory, resilience theory, and cultural theory. Using the concept, this thesis specifically looks at how different actors withstood, adapted and changed energy systems and the energy services they supply while experiencing realised risks to their system vulnerabilities. This approach allows energy resilience to be analysed in the response of Nepal’s electricity sector to the 2015 earthquake and the response of Nepal’s petroleum sector to the 2015-2016 blockade. To demonstrate the importance of performing this analysis using the energy resilience concept, this thesis brings forward thinking from energy security, energy poverty and energy justice literature to use as analytical tools when assessing the sector responses. This thesis argues that the impact of the earthquake was most severe for rural users, with the government operated grid users experiencing less persistent damage and a faster recovery process compared to rural uses. This inequality in the electricity sector therefore worsened energy justice issues, while the loss of electricity access for an estimated 600,000 households likely worsened energy poverty issues (NPC, 2015b). In the petroleum sector, the blockade demonstrated the vulnerability to Nepal’s energy security associated with relying on India as the sole supplier of petroleum fuels. However, this thesis also argues that the blockade was managed in a way which minimised adverse impacts to energy poverty and energy justice. Using the results of the sector response analyses alongside further stakeholder interviews, policy documents and existing literature, this thesis then concludes that Nepal’s energy future will be formed along three distinct axes of possibilities. In doing so, it is argued that Nepal’s energy future could have a distributed electricity sector, which would provide the greatest energy poverty and energy justice benefits. However, this future would be vulnerable to shocks like that which were experienced in the 2015 earthquake. Nepal may also have a regionally integrated energy sector that would provide access to an important electricity market and ensure electricity and petroleum demands will be met, but in doing so a reliance on India would remain. Lastly, Nepal could also reduce its reliance on fossil fuels by generating enough renewable electricity to meet domestic demand and minimising petroleum consumption growth. In this future, Nepal’s electricity generation would be vulnerable to climate and seismic related risks, but would provide the greatest benefits for sustainability related principles of energy justice