20 research outputs found

    Built by Fire: Wildfire Management and Policy in Canada

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    abstract: Wildfire is an inescapable feature of Canadian landscapes, burning an average of over two million hectares annually and causing significant repercussions for communities, infrastructure, and resources. Because fire is managed provincially, each jurisdiction has developed a distinctive approach to preparing for, responding to, and recovering from fire on its landscapes. Using a comparative study between seven provinces and four national agencies, this dissertation examines differences in institutional design and policy with respect to the knowledge management systems required to respond to wildfire: How do policies and procedures vary between jurisdictions, how do they affect the practices of each fire management agency, and how can they be improved through a critical analysis of the knowledge management systems in use? And, what is the role of and limits on expertise within these fire management institutions that manage high-risk, highly uncertain socio- environmental challenges? I begin by introducing the 2016 Fort McMurray/Horse River fire as a lens for exploring these questions. I then use the past one hundred years of fire history in Canada to illustrate the continual presence of fire, its human and social dimensions, and the evolution of differing fire management regimes. Drawing on extended ethnographic observation and interviewing of fire managers across Canada, I examine the varied provincial systems of response through following an active fire day in Alberta. I analyze the decision support and geospatial information systems used to guide fire agency decision-making, as well as the factors that limit their effectiveness in both response and hazard reduction modes. I begin Part Two with a discussion of mutual aid arrangements between the provinces, and critically examine the core strategy – interagency fungibility – used to allow this exchange. I analyze forecasting and predictive models used in firefighting, with an emphasis on comparing advantages and disadvantages of attempts at predicting future firefighter capacity requirements. I review organizational learning approaches, considering both fire research strategies and after action reviews. Finally, I consider the implication of changes in climates, politics, and public behaviours and their impacts on fire management.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology 201

    Fuelling the zero-emissions road freight of the future: routing of mobile fuellers

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    The future of zero-emissions road freight is closely tied to the sufficient availability of new and clean fuel options such as electricity and Hydrogen. In goods distribution using Electric Commercial Vehicles (ECVs) and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles (HFCVs) a major challenge in the transition period would pertain to their limited autonomy and scarce and unevenly distributed refuelling stations. One viable solution to facilitate and speed up the adoption of ECVs/HFCVs by logistics, however, is to get the fuel to the point where it is needed (instead of diverting the route of delivery vehicles to refuelling stations) using "Mobile Fuellers (MFs)". These are mobile battery swapping/recharging vans or mobile Hydrogen fuellers that can travel to a running ECV/HFCV to provide the fuel they require to complete their delivery routes at a rendezvous time and space. In this presentation, new vehicle routing models will be presented for a third party company that provides MF services. In the proposed problem variant, the MF provider company receives routing plans of multiple customer companies and has to design routes for a fleet of capacitated MFs that have to synchronise their routes with the running vehicles to deliver the required amount of fuel on-the-fly. This presentation will discuss and compare several mathematical models based on different business models and collaborative logistics scenarios

    Abstracts on Radio Direction Finding (1899 - 1995)

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    The files on this record represent the various databases that originally composed the CD-ROM issue of "Abstracts on Radio Direction Finding" database, which is now part of the Dudley Knox Library's Abstracts and Selected Full Text Documents on Radio Direction Finding (1899 - 1995) Collection. (See Calhoun record https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/57364 for further information on this collection and the bibliography). Due to issues of technological obsolescence preventing current and future audiences from accessing the bibliography, DKL exported and converted into the three files on this record the various databases contained in the CD-ROM. The contents of these files are: 1) RDFA_CompleteBibliography_xls.zip [RDFA_CompleteBibliography.xls: Metadata for the complete bibliography, in Excel 97-2003 Workbook format; RDFA_Glossary.xls: Glossary of terms, in Excel 97-2003 Workbookformat; RDFA_Biographies.xls: Biographies of leading figures, in Excel 97-2003 Workbook format]; 2) RDFA_CompleteBibliography_csv.zip [RDFA_CompleteBibliography.TXT: Metadata for the complete bibliography, in CSV format; RDFA_Glossary.TXT: Glossary of terms, in CSV format; RDFA_Biographies.TXT: Biographies of leading figures, in CSV format]; 3) RDFA_CompleteBibliography.pdf: A human readable display of the bibliographic data, as a means of double-checking any possible deviations due to conversion

    Full Volume 82: The Law of War in the 21st Century: Weaponry and the Use of Force

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    Community and Family-Focused Public Health and Sustainable Development

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    The book “Community and Family-Focused Public Health and Sustainable Development” was originally published in the renowned International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. This Special Issue encompassed novel aspects of applications that are connected with sustainability issues in community and family-focused public health studies. Contributions have a significant impact on solving public health problems at the family and community levels. The Special Issue originally published scientific papers, including review articles, that fell under this Special Issue’s remit and that were relevant to audiences worldwide. Currently, the term “family health” is most commonly to describe mother and child health and reproductive health. It is rare for family health to include the family as an important context for health development and that includes all family members and the family’s social environment. Authors of scientific research covering issues related to the impact of the family and the environment in which the family lives and functions on its members’ health in the present and in the future were encouraged to contribute their work. In addition, we were especially interested in scientific reports on social, economic, and health inequalities in the context of achieving the sustainable development goals
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