86 research outputs found

    Summer/Fall 2023

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    Policy options for climate change loss and damage: A case study from Fijian agriculture

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    Anthropogenic climate change loss and damage (L&D) includes adverse consequences of climate change due to sudden and slow-onset events despite the implementation of adaptation and mitigation measures. Given this context, this thesis aims to identify institutional and policy gaps in the understanding of L&D and critically evaluate opportunities for policy, planning, and funding mechanisms for anthropogenic climate change L&D within the sugar industry of Fiji. Through a grounded theoretical lens, qualitative research was used to gain in-depth insights into climate change L&D from cyclones and droughts in the Fijian sugar industry. In-depth semi-structured interviews (n=68) were conducted with farmers from two Indo-Fijian sugarcane communities, Barotu and Toko settlements in Western Viti Levu, Fiji, and with key stakeholders from government ministries, academia, and climate change experts at the national level. Additionally, policies at the national strategic level and the Ministry of Sugar Industry were examined to understand the degree to which climate change information has been mainstreamed into policy and action in the sugar industry. Vulnerability analysis in both Barotu and Toko settlements revealed a high vulnerability to cyclones and droughts. Cyclone and drought adaptation measures were implemented in Barotu and Toko settlements and by the Ministry of Sugar Industry. Adaptation measures ranged from bearing the effects of cyclones and droughts, reactive coping measures, incremental measures, and systems adaptation. Despite implementing adaptation measures, Fiji’s sugar industry has faced severe L&D from droughts and cyclones. L&D included loss of property, crops, and income. Farmers classified loss of homes and livestock as both economic losses and non-economic L&D (NELD) due to economic and sentimental significance. Other NELD included loss of place of worship, heightening of uncertainty, fear, and trauma. Cascading and flow-on effects included food insecurity risks and impact on children’s education. The severity of L&D experiences suggests that the communities have approached social and ecological limits and are living with intolerable risks and irreversible L&D. The findings also indicate that L&D, including NELD, are highly context-specific and depend upon local value systems, how people experience L&D, and how they deal with L&D. The Fijian Ministry of Sugar Industry lacks the capacity to respond to and address L&D. The lack of capacity is primarily due to insufficient climate change policies, lack of human resource capacity, limited adaptation technologies, lack of L&D data and tools, and lack of access to sufficient climate finance. This research highlights that to facilitate adequate adaptation that moderates or avoids harm and implementation of mechanisms to address L&D, attention must be paid to broader social, economic, and political processes at the international, national, sectoral, and community levels. The systematic documentation of L&D within vulnerable communities should improve understanding of L&D, including NELD, and assist to facilitate the mobilisation of urgent support and action to address L&D in countries that lack the capacities to respond independently. Therefore, this research recommends critical policy interventions to avert and minimise L&D such as livelihood and product diversification with access to new markets, developing risk profiles, mainstreaming climate change and disaster risk reduction issues into existing policies, as well as addressing L&D through enhancing institutional capacity to access climate finance.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 202

    Exploring Social Hierarchy Computationally to Further Our Understanding of Social Organizations Within Their Environments

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    Hierarchy is ever-present across countless human societies, a seemingly inescapable reality of small organizations and national governments. However, there is a lot about hierarchy we don’t understand, and if we want to make better organizations and better society, it is crucial we learn more about it. This dissertation investigates three questions: 1) “What is hierarchy?” 2) “How is hierarchy useful?” 3) “How does hierarchy vary?” I find that social scientists do not all mean the same thing by hierarchy, even within the same fields; yet, they do consistently write of hierarchy as control (like boss-employee relations), hierarchy as rank (like social class relations), and hierarchy as nested structure (like cities in states), so future scholars can and should be clear in what they mean. Next, I use a computer simulation to show that control hierarchy can be useful in changing environments where workers see local views of change and managers see the big picture—a tension that is unavoidable in such environments. Hierarchy can make this tension useful if and only if the workers have autonomy to weigh the manager’s information about the environment in their decisions; if they must obey the manager no matter what, then they do very poorly in nearly all types of changing environments. Lastly, I use workforce data from US federal agencies to look at organizational structure and control hierarchy in agencies from 2004 to 2021. I find that hierarchy is similar across most agencies, suggesting that overall, hierarchy relates more to scale than function. However, agencies with offices spread across the nation are different from the others, with more and broader management at higher levels. I also find that agencies vary in their organizational structure in other ways, such as the number of distinct occupations they have, and the number of formal rules they must follow, in patterns that are predictable based on their mission statements and agency type; form does follow function. Overall, this dissertation shows that the use of computational techniques in the study of hierarchy can provide great insight, and help us understand organizations more generally

    A geo-informatics approach to sustainability assessments of floatovoltaic technology in South African agricultural applications

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    South African project engineers recently pioneered the first agricultural floating solar photovoltaic tech nology systems in the Western Cape wine region. This effort prepared our country for an imminent large scale diffusion of this exciting new climate solver technology. However, hydro-embedded photovoltaic sys tems interact with environmentally sensitive underlying aquatic ecosystems, causing multiple project as sessment uncertainties (energy, land, air, water) compared to ground-mounted photovoltaics. The dissimi lar behaviour of floatovoltaic technologies delivers a broader and more diversified range of technical advan tages, environmental offset benefits, and economic co-benefits, causing analytical modelling imperfections and tooling mismatches in conventional analytical project assessment techniques. As a universal interna tional real-world problem of significance, the literature review identified critical knowledge and methodology gaps as the primary causes of modelling deficiencies and assessment uncertainties. By following a design thinking methodology, the thesis views the sustainability assessment and modelling problem through a geo graphical information systems lens, thus seeing an academic research opportunity to fill critical knowledge gaps through new theory formulation and geographical knowledge creation. To this end, this philosophi cal investigation proposes a novel object-oriented systems-thinking and climate modelling methodology to study the real-world geospatial behaviour of functioning floatovoltaic systems from a dynamical system thinking perspective. As an empirical feedback-driven object-process methodology, it inspired the thesis to create new knowledge by postulating a new multi-disciplinary sustainability theory to holistically characterise agricultural floatovoltaic projects through ecosystems-based quantitative sustainability profiling criteria. The study breaks new ground at the frontiers of energy geo-informatics by conceptualising a holistic theoretical framework designed for the theoretical characterisation of floatovoltaic technology ecosystem operations in terms of the technical energy, environmental and economic (3E) domain responses. It campaigns for a fully coupled model in ensemble analysis that advances the state-of-the-art by appropriating the 3E theo retical framework as underpinning computer program logic blueprint to synthesise the posited theory in a digital twin simulation. Driven by real-world geo-sensor data, this geospatial digital twin can mimic the geo dynamical behaviour of floatovoltaics through discrete-time computer simulations in real-time and lifetime digital project enactment exercises. The results show that the theoretical 3E framing enables project due diligence and environmental impact assessment reporting as it uniquely incorporates balanced scorecard performance metrics, such as the water-energy-land-food resource impacts, environmental offset benefits and financial feasibility of floatovoltaics. Embedded in a geoinformatics decision-support platform, the 3E theory, framework and model enable numerical project decision-supporting through an analytical hierarchy process. The experimental results obtained with the digital twin model and decision support system show that the desktop-based parametric floatovoltaic synthesis toolset can uniquely characterise the broad and diverse spectrum of performance benefits of floatovoltaics in a 3E sustainability profile. The model uniquely predicts important impact aspects of the technology’s land, air and water preservation qualities, quantifying these impacts in terms of the water, energy, land and food nexus parameters. The proposed GIS model can quantitatively predict most FPV technology unknowns, thus solving a contemporary real-world prob lem that currently jeopardises floating PV project licensing and approvals. Overall, the posited theoretical framework, methodology model, and reported results provide an improved understanding of floating PV renewable energy systems and their real-world behaviour. Amidst a rapidly growing international interest in floatovoltaic solutions, the research advances fresh philosophical ideas with novel theoretical principles that may have far-reaching implications for developing electronic, photovoltaic performance models worldwide.GeographyPh. D. (Geography

    Understanding Quantum Technologies 2022

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    Understanding Quantum Technologies 2022 is a creative-commons ebook that provides a unique 360 degrees overview of quantum technologies from science and technology to geopolitical and societal issues. It covers quantum physics history, quantum physics 101, gate-based quantum computing, quantum computing engineering (including quantum error corrections and quantum computing energetics), quantum computing hardware (all qubit types, including quantum annealing and quantum simulation paradigms, history, science, research, implementation and vendors), quantum enabling technologies (cryogenics, control electronics, photonics, components fabs, raw materials), quantum computing algorithms, software development tools and use cases, unconventional computing (potential alternatives to quantum and classical computing), quantum telecommunications and cryptography, quantum sensing, quantum technologies around the world, quantum technologies societal impact and even quantum fake sciences. The main audience are computer science engineers, developers and IT specialists as well as quantum scientists and students who want to acquire a global view of how quantum technologies work, and particularly quantum computing. This version is an extensive update to the 2021 edition published in October 2021.Comment: 1132 pages, 920 figures, Letter forma

    Assuming Data Integrity and Empirical Evidence to The Contrary

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    Background: Not all respondents to surveys apply their minds or understand the posed questions, and as such provide answers which lack coherence, and this threatens the integrity of the research. Casual inspection and limited research of the 10-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), included in the dataset of the World Values Survey (WVS), suggested that random responses may be common. Objective: To specify the percentage of cases in the BRI-10 which include incoherent or contradictory responses and to test the extent to which the removal of these cases will improve the quality of the dataset. Method: The WVS data on the BFI-10, measuring the Big Five Personality (B5P), in South Africa (N=3 531), was used. Incoherent or contradictory responses were removed. Then the cases from the cleaned-up dataset were analysed for their theoretical validity. Results: Only 1 612 (45.7%) cases were identified as not including incoherent or contradictory responses. The cleaned-up data did not mirror the B5P- structure, as was envisaged. The test for common method bias was negative. Conclusion: In most cases the responses were incoherent. Cleaning up the data did not improve the psychometric properties of the BFI-10. This raises concerns about the quality of the WVS data, the BFI-10, and the universality of B5P-theory. Given these results, it would be unwise to use the BFI-10 in South Africa. Researchers are alerted to do a proper assessment of the psychometric properties of instruments before they use it, particularly in a cross-cultural setting

    Leading Towards Voice and Innovation: The Role of Psychological Contract

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    Background: Empirical evidence generally suggests that psychological contract breach (PCB) leads to negative outcomes. However, some literature argues that, occasionally, PCB leads to positive outcomes. Aim: To empirically determine when these positive outcomes occur, focusing on the role of psychological contract (PC) and leadership style (LS), and outcomes such as employ voice (EV) and innovative work behaviour (IWB). Method: A cross-sectional survey design was adopted, using reputable questionnaires on PC, PCB, EV, IWB, and leadership styles. Correlation analyses were used to test direct links within the model, while regression analyses were used to test for the moderation effects. Results: Data with acceptable psychometric properties were collected from 11 organisations (N=620). The results revealed that PCB does not lead to substantial changes in IWB. PCB correlated positively with prohibitive EV, but did not influence promotive EV, which was a significant driver of IWB. Leadership styles were weak predictors of EV and IWB, and LS only partially moderated the PCB-EV relationship. Conclusion: PCB did not lead to positive outcomes. Neither did LS influencing the relationships between PCB and EV or IWB. Further, LS only partially influenced the relationships between variables, and not in a manner which positively influence IWB

    32. Forum Bauinformatik 2021

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    Das Forum Bauinformatik ist eine jĂ€hrlich stattfindende Tagung und ein wichtiger Bestandteil der Bauinformatik im deutschsprachigen Raum. Insbesondere Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen und -wissenschaftlern bietet es die Möglichkeit, ihre Forschungsarbeiten zu prĂ€sentieren, Problemstellungen fachspezifisch zu diskutieren und sich ĂŒber den neuesten Stand der Forschung zu informieren. Es bietet sich ausgezeichnete Gelegenheit, in die wissenschaftliche Gemeinschaft im Bereich der Bauinformatik einzusteigen und Kontakte mit anderen Forschenden zu knĂŒpfen

    DEVELOPING A CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF COACHING FOR MANAGERIAL AND LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS IN THE MALTESE PUBLIC SERVICE

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    This professional doctorate project seeks to determine whether coaching can be used as a professional learning opportunity (amongst other active forms of professional development) to help reduce the significant skills gap within the Maltese Public Service (MPS). This study reveals a strong backdrop of weak leadership development and corruption issues in the MPS, which can be mitigated by coaching. This investigation is informed by a constructivist interpretive paradigm (people-centred approach) embedded in a pragmatic research paradigm (mixed-methods). Quantitative data was collected using a SurveyMonkey questionnaire from two-hundred and twenty-two (222) Senior Public Officers (SPOs) deployed in the healthcare, finance, ICT and digital media sectors within the MPS. Qualitative data was collected from twenty (20) individuals who offer coaching services in public and private entities; they participated in the study through semi-structured interviews. Political influence is a barrier to middle managers SPOs in developing the competencies to coach people. There are no coaching programmes for SPOs available within the MPS. Employees are more resistant to coaching than senior managers, and there are barriers to developing a coaching culture within middle-management levels. The only Ministry within the Office of the Prime Minister micro-manages the MPS’s day-to-day operations rather than providing clear policy guidance and giving the MPS the tools to do its job. This is embedded in and exacerbated by what seems to be a broader culture of nepotism, corruption, and the ‘political’ appointment of people to the MPS who are not qualified for their roles. Politicians often control programmes and activities, and most SPOs feel marginalised and less inclined to participate in their personal development. This is compounded by a transactional culture of telling and bullying/mismanagement, resulting in low morale and service effectiveness. While the study acknowledges deficits in leadership qualities in higher positions within the MPS, it could be inferred from the data that the barriers to developing a coaching culture within the service do not predominantly lie with senior management but in mid-management levels. The study suggests that employees are more resistant to coaching than senior managers. Paradoxically, despite the lack of coach training for SPOs in the Maltese Public Service, coaching practices have found a strong foothold in the professional development and management practices of some SPOs. The Central Government of Malta, however, may need to develop a clear vision of a future MPS and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of different forms of intervention through a comprehensive coach training programme for success in better talent management (TM), leadership development and succession planning (SP) more generally. As a contribution to practice, the author has developed a conceptual framework model, and a tentative GROW coaching model designed to understand the complex dynamics of the Maltese Public Service
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