Analysis of management models of water utilities and water coverage

Academics, global leaders, and practitioners have debated, for decades, over the best management models (public, private, decentralized) of water utilities for increasing water access. Proponents of privatized water utilities argue profit motive incentivizes efficiency leading cost saving, infrastructure improvements, and increase usage. Proponents of publicly owned water utilities argue that efficiency is improved do to accountably to a constituency. Proponents of decentralized utilities argue locally owned water utilities maximize resource efficiency and eliminate waste because of accountability and local knowledge. This thesis investigated whether these debates over the best management model for increasing accessibility oversimplify a complex global development issue. To investigate the impact of management models of water utilities had on water coverage this thesis used statistical analysis coupled with three water utility case studies (Aguas Argentina (AASA) in Argentina, Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de São Paulo (SABESP) in Brazil, Cooperativa de Servicios Públicos Santa Cruz (SAGUAPAC) in Bolivia). Statistical analysis did not identify a satisfactory relationship between management models and water coverage. Additionally, case studies showed nuanced factors external to management models significantly impacted a utility’s water coverage

Identifiable Risk Factors of Child Maltreatment

Identifiable Risk factors of Child Maltreatmen

Primary production and carbon export rates across the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean basin based on triple oxygen isotope and dissolved O2 and Ar gas measurements

Gross photosynthetic O2 production (GOP) rates in the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean were estimated using the measured isotopic composition of dissolved oxygen in the surface layer on samples collected on nine transits of a container ship between Great Britain and Canada during March 2007 to June 2008. The mean basin-wide GOP rate of 226 ± 48 mmol O2 m−2 d−1 during summer was double the winter rate of 107 ± 41 mmol O2 m−2 d−1. Converting these GOP rates to equivalent 14C-based PP (14C-PPeqv) yielded rates of 1005 ± 216 and 476 ± 183 mg C m−2 d−1 in summer and winter, respectively, that generally agreed well with previous 14C-based PP estimates in the region. The 14C-PPeqv estimates were 1–1.6× concurrent satellite-based PP estimates along the cruise track. A net community production rate (NCP) of 87 ± 12 mmol O2 m−2 d−1 (62 ± 9 mmol C m−2 d−1) and NCP/GOP of 0.35 ± 0.06 in the mixed layer was estimated from O2/Ar and 17Δ measurements (61°N 26°W) during spring bloom conditions in May 2008. Contrastingly, a much lower long-term annual mean NCP or organic carbon export rate of 2.8 ± 2.7 mol C m−2 yr−1 (8 ± 7 mmol C m−2 d−1) and NCP/GOP of 0.07 ± 0.06 at the winter mixed layer depth was estimated from 15 years of surface O2 data in the subpolar N. Atlantic collected during the CARINA program

Price information channel preferences: A case study of composite feed companies

Master of AgribusinessDepartment of Agricultural EconomicsVincent R Amanor-BoaduThis research focused on composite feed companies’ price communication preferences. It sought to determine the extent to which the timeliness, accessibility, and relevancy of the channel influenced preferences. Also, it sought to assess if the type of business operated by feed companies also influenced their channel preference. The study used primary data collected from feed companies across the United States using an electronic survey instrument served on Qualtrics®. Of the 978 who were invited to anonymously participate, 646 or 66% opened the email and 156 clicked on the survey link. Of those who clicked on the survey link, 71.4% completed the survey. These 140 respondents were used in the analysis using STATA 17 S.E. A major contribution of the study was its definition of channel preference in a multichannel system. Channel preference was estimated as the product of the importance of a channel to companies and their current satisfaction with the channel. Two channels emerged as the most preferred among the 10 that were evaluated: the printed catalog and the digital catalog. Their average preference scores were, respectively, 23.82% (S.D. = 38.02%) and 22.81% (38.40%). The interquartile range (25th to 75th percentile) was 30.0 and 31.3 percent, respectively. The feed companies fell into the following categories: regional feed mill, local feed mill, feed store/retailer, manufacturer, and a combination of these. A channel’s timeliness was defined as the product of the importance of timeliness to the firm (scale 1 = unimportant to 5 = extremely important) and their assessment of how timely the price information was delivered information to them ( -1 = below average; 0 = average; and 1 = above average). Accessibility was characterized as a binary: accessible (1) or not accessible (0). Finally, relevance was a categorical variable that took on a value of zero (not relevant), 1 (relevant), and 3 (extremely relevant). The regression results show that a percentage point increase in timeliness increases preference for the printed catalog by about 0.24 percentage points (t = 2.11; p < 0.037). Choosing relevant and extremely relevant instead of not relevant increased preference for the printed catalog by 65.73 percentage points (t = 11.41; p < 0.000) and 56.15 percentage points (t = 9.35; p < 0.000). The effect of accessibility on the preference for the printed catalog was not statistically significant. For the digital version, the results show that the effect of timeliness on preferences was not statistically significant. This may be because its delivery was already considered timely. However, accessibility reduced preference for the digital catalog by about 12.32 percentage points compared to not accessible (p < 0.041). This might be attributed to the effect of those who receive both digital and print because when this group is excluded and only those who receive digital are analyzed, accessibility is not statistically significant. In both cases, business type did not influence preferences. Although printed and digital catalogs were the top two preferred available channels, responses were favorable for a new web-based platform over their current channel mix. About 84.21% of respondents indicated they would slightly prefer or much prefer a web-based delivery of their price information. A lower proportion of respondents (65.14%) indicated they would slightly prefer or much prefer an app-based delivery of their price information. It is obvious from the foregoing that feed companies are content with their current communication channels and prefer multiple channels almost equally. This is confirmed by the difference between the average preference score for printed and digital being about 1.26 percent, and it was not statistically significant. That means we are unable to reject the null hypothesis that the top two channels are equally preferred by those who prefer them. This is true for those receiving both forms of communication. Based on the results, it is recommended that a web-based channel be added to the options available. Given the proportion of companies who indicated a preference for it, it is projected that the multifunctionality of the web-based channel could reduce the preference for the print channel, and in so doing increase timeliness and accessibility without sacrificing company preferences. After a few years of presenting multichannel information delivery to the feed companies, this hypothesis may be tested

Apprehending Joule Thieves with Cinder

Energy is the critical limiting resource to mobile computing devices. Correspondingly, an operating system must track, provision, and ration how applications consume energy. The emergence of third-party application stores and marketplaces makes this concern even more pressing. A third-party application must not deny service through excessive, unforeseen energy expenditure, whether accidental or malicious. Previous research has shown promise in tracking energy usage and rationing it to meet device lifetime goals, but such mechanisms and policies are still nascent, especially regarding user interaction. We argue for a new operating system, called Cinder, which builds on top of the HiStar OS. Cinder's energy awareness is based on hierarchical capacitors and task profiles. We introduce and explore these abstractions, paying particular attention to the ways in which policies could be generated and enforced in a dynamic system

Delegating Network Security with More Information

Network security is gravitating towards more centralized control. Strong centralization places a heavy burden on the administrator who has to manage complex security policies and be able to adapt to users' requests. To be able to cope, the administrator needs to delegate some control back to end-hosts and users, a capability that is missing in today's networks. Delegation makes administrators less of a bottleneck when policy needs to be modified and allows network administration to follow organizational lines. To enable delegation, we propose ident++ - a simple protocol to request additional information from end-hosts and networks on the path of a flow. ident++ allows users and end-hosts to participate in network security enforcement by providing information that the administrator might not have or rules to be enforced on their behalf. In this paper we describe ident++ and how it provides delegation and enables flexible and powerful policies.United States. Dept. of Homeland Security (Scholarship and Fellowship Program)United States. Dept. of EnergyOak Ridge Institute for Science and Educatio

Energy management in mobile devices with the cinder operating system

We argue that controlling energy allocation is an increasingly useful and important feature for operating systems, especially on mobile devices. We present two new low-level abstractions in the Cinder operating system, reserves and taps, which store and distribute energy for application use. We identify three key properties of control -- isolation, delegation, and subdivision -- and show how using these abstractions can achieve them. We also show how the architecture of the HiStar information-flow control kernel lends itself well to energy control. We prototype and evaluate Cinder on a popular smartphone, the Android G1.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant #0831163)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant #0846014)Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)King Abdullah University of Science and TechnologyMicrosoft ResearchNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Cybertrust award CNS-0716806)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (POMI (Programmable Open Mobile Internet) 2020 Expedition Grant #0832820)T-Mobile US