Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Communications Policy Perspective On Ctc Sustainability In Regional Australia: Normative Assumptions, Commercial Viability And Social Good, William Tibben

Dr William Tibben

This paper investigates the influence of the normative assumptions that can be associated with the Community Technology Centers (CTCs) scheme in New South Wales, Australia during the period 2000-2005 (CTC@NSW). It does this by developing an analytical framework based on Australian communications policy to assess case study accounts of selected CTCs. In drawing conclusions about the normative assumptions that guided the implementation of the CTC@NSW scheme, the sufficiency of market based development strategies are questioned when challenging economic circumstances suggest the need for ongoing strategic assistance from government.

Socio-Environmental Considerations At The Usuma Reservoir In Abuja, Nigeria, Fanan Ujoh Mr, James Ikyernum Mr, Olarewaju O. Ifatimehin Dr

Dr. Fanan Ujoh

Reservoirs are Man’s attempt towards water re-distribution from regions/seasons of abundance/surplus to regions/seasons of scarcity. This study focuses on socio-environmental impacts of the Lower Usuma dam in Abuja, on its four surrounding communities. Stratified random sampling technique was employed in the administration of a questionnaire to 200 respondents. Using descriptive statistics and the student t-test for the analysis, the study discovered that: (i) there has been no significant improvement in infrastructure provision by Government; (ii) cases of water-borne diseases are high; (iii) the communities have lost land for cultivation; and, (iv) the communities believe that the resettlement scheme is not …

Living Together But Apart: Material Geographies Of Everyday Sustainability In Extended Family Households, Natascha Klocker, Chris Gibson, Erin Borger

Chris Gibson

In the Industrialized West, ageing populations and cultural diversity-combined with rising property prices and extensive years spent in education-have been recognized as diverse factors driving increases in extended family living. At the same time, there is growing awareness that household size is inversely related to per capita resource consumption patterns, and that urgent problems of environmental sustainability are negotiated, on a day-to-day basis (and often unconsciously), at the household level. This paper explores the sustainability implications of everyday decisions to fashion, consume, and share resources around the home, through the lens of extended family households. Through interviews with extended family …

The Effects Of Replacing Dispersed Trash And Recycling Bins With Integrated Waste Receptacles On The Accuracy Of Waste Sorting In An Academic Building, Katherine J. Binder

Masters Theses

Numerous researchers and theorists have attempted to explain the existence of the gap between the possession of environmental knowledge and awareness and the display of pro-environmental behavior (Glasser, 2007; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002). Behavior analysis is uniquely aligned to contribute to this discussion through its emphasis on the role of controlling variables in behavior change. A growing number of behavioral research studies address the challenges of group-contingencies in an effort to solve real-world gaps (Lehman & Geller, 2004). This study was designed as a continuation of the line of behavioral research designed to increase recycling rates and also as an …

The Impact Of Advanced Wastewater Treatment Technologies And Wastewater Strength On The Energy Consumption Of Large Wastewater Treatment Plants, Timothy Stephen Newell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Wastewater treatment is an energy intensive process often requiring the use of advanced treatment technologies. Stricter effluent standards have resulted in an increase in the number of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with advanced treatment over time. Accordingly, associated energy consumption has also increased. Concerns about lowering operating costs for WWTPs and reducing associated greenhouse gas generation present an incentive to investigate energy use in WWTPs. This research investigated the impact of wastewater strength and the introduction of advanced treatment technologies, to replace traditional technologies on energy use to treat wastewater in WWTPs. Major unit processes were designed for a 100 …

Slides: Routes To Sustainability: Natural Gas Development And Air And Water Resources In The Rocky Mountain Region, Mark Williams

Monitoring and Protecting Groundwater During Oil and Gas Development (November 26)

Presenter: Mark Williams, University of Colorado Boulder

14 slides

Appropriate Climate Change Solutions: Towards Sustainable Bioenergy Agro-Production In Africa For Energy Equality And Poverty Alleviation, Ian Duvenage, Ros Taplin, Lindsay C. Stringer

Roslyn Taplin

Limited energy access within developing nations particularly in Africa is a primary reason for poverty. Biofuel production has been advocated by many experts as a solution to meeting the energy needs of African countries while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Others argue that biofuel production will compete with land needed for food production. However it appears many African countries have available land beyond food needs, hence biofuel production may be an option for poor farmers to gain skills, create economic diversification and provide affordable energy without environmental degradation. This paper reviews the situation in Africa with regard to biofuels and …

A Sustainability Component For A First-Year Course For Information Technology Students, Stefan Robila

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The concept of green computing has become a popular label employed by all major IT corporations when promoting either their hardware as energy efficient or asserting that their software solutions improve work performance and reduce the carbon footprint. Yet, how one addresses sustainability in computing is still a developing area and without clear guidelines or standards. Preparing students on topics of computing sustainability is thus essential for ensuring the future professionals have the skills to tackle such an important challenge. In this paper we propose a sustainability module we developed for an introductory computing course. We start by providing a …

Improving Donation Management At Finger Lakes Reuse, Shelbi V. Dubord

MPA Capstone Projects 2006 - 2015

Finger Lakes ReUse (FLR) has been steadily growing since opening the doors to its ReUse Center in 2008. Part of this growth has been an increase in material donations that are resold in The ReUse Center, a secondhand store of building materials, household goods, furniture, and electronics. Managing the daily flow of donations is challenging due to limited space and other constraints. yet, FLR must address its donation management processes as the sales from donations cover organizational expenses and allow the organization to maintain financial stability. This project seeks to identify how FLR can increase its revenues and sustainability by …

Sustainability Program For Rio Secco Golf Club And Cascata, Jay Chiders

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Caesars Entertainment is focused on building loyalty and value with its guests through a unique combination of great service, excellent products, operational excellence, and technology leadership. Caesars is committed to environmental sustainability and energy conservation and recognizes the importance of being a responsible steward to the environment. Sustainability at Caesars Entertainment integrates strategic direction with the energy, innovation, and passion of its 70,000 employees. These employees are what drive Caesars Entertainment’s comprehensive sustainability strategy, CodeGreen (CodeGreen factsheet, 2012).

Caesars Entertainment Corporation owns two golf courses in Nevada. Rio Secco Golf Club opened in 1997 in Henderson and Cascata opened in …

It Takes A Global Sustainability Movement, John C. Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Slides: Sources Of Electrical Energy For Those Who Are Remote And Poor, Frank Barnes

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Dr. Frank Barnes, Distinguished Professor, Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado

24 slides

Empowering The Citizen-Consumer: Re-Regulating Consumer Information To Support The Transition To Sustainable And Health Promoting Food Systems In Canada, Rod Macrae, Michelle Szabo, Kalli Anderson, Fiona Louden, Sandi Trillo

Publications and Scholarship

Both health and sustainability are stated public policy objectives in Canada, but food information rules and practices may not be optimal to support their achievement. In the absence of a stated consensus on the purposes of public information about food, the information provided is frequently determined by the marketers of product. No institution or agency has responsibility for determining the overall coherence of consumer food messages relative to these broader social goals of health and sustainability. Individual firms provide information that shows their products to best advantage, which may contradict what is provided about the product by another firm or …

Communicating Sustainable Design Through Visual Dynamics, Phillip Walter Zawarus

Masters Theses

My thesis is the exploration of dynamic methods to eff ectively visualize and communicate sustainable designpractices. Every site consists of temporal conditions (climate, vegetation growth, hydrology, comfort, aesthetics)that require dynamic representation of it’s progressive state. By understanding both the quantitative and qualitivemeasures of a site’s content, designers can begin to create guidelines and adaptive responses to the changingconditions. Th is can be achieved by fi rst understanding the intergrated relationship of those conditions, as oneelement has a direct or indirect impact on another. Th e design, in turn, cannot be a static implimentation butrather an evolutionary application.

A Quality Metric For Sustainable Innovations, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu

Arcot Desai NARASIMHALU

Sustainability has become a major concern for nations and firms especially since the Kyoto Protocol was defined in 1997. While there have been several studies on benchmarks for national innovation systems and effectiveness of innovation management within firms there is as yet no reasonable metric for determining the quality of an innovation much less its quality relating to sustainability? Similarly, there have been several studies on sustainability but that such research groups have also not focused on developing a metric for denoting the quality of sustainable innovations. This paper offers a metric that defines the quality of an innovation, especially …

Quantitative Reasoning And Sustainability, Corrine H. Taylor

Numeracy

Quantitative Reasoning and Sustainability have much in common. Both are complex, nuanced concepts with rather long definitions that have evolved over time. Both subjects are “everybody’s business” on college campuses, and must be approached in courses across the curriculum, not merely in one course on QR or in one course on Sustainability. The growing, wider presence of both QR and Sustainability on college campuses is due to their applicability in individuals’ personal, professional, and public lives. Moreover, QR and Sustainability support and enhance each other in and out of the classroom. Sustainability is an important, authentic, relevant context for lessons …

Ecosystem Services: The Economics Debate, Joshua Farley

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

The goal of this paper is to illuminate the debate concerning the economics of ecosystem services. The sustainability debate focuses on whether or not ecosystem services are essential for human welfare and the existence of ecological thresholds. If ecosystem services are essential, then marginal analysis and monetary valuation are inappropriate tools in the vicinity of thresholds. The justice debate focuses on who is entitled to ecosystem services and the ecosystem structure that generates them. Answers to these questions have profound implications for the choice of suitable economic institutions. The efficiency debate concerns both the goals of economic activity and the …

Greening Rural Festivals: Ecology, Sustainability And Human-Nature Relations, Christopher R. Gibson, C Wong

Chris Gibson

No abstract provided.

Transcendental Thermodynamics, Richard E. Morel, George Fleck

Kahn Institute Projects

Thermodynamics is often viewed as a narrow, introspective discipline, trapped by its origins in the 18th and 19th centuries. By dramatic contrast, we show that the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics provides explanations and interpretations of all natural events, extending across artificial boundaries of tradition- al academic disciplines. The Fourth Law of Thermodynamics states that far-from-equilibrium systems increase entropy at the maximum rate available to them. This broadly inclusive paradigm applies to systems from molecules, to organisms, to the biosphere. The Fourth Law is the Law of Evolution. All systems that communicate with their environment exhibit self-organization and self-optimization, enabling the …

A Survey Of Seafood Traceability And Sustainability In The United States— Processes, Regulations, And Current Initiatives, Nancy A. Olsen

Working Papers

The global seafood industry currently lacks a standardized, widespread method to easily trace the chain of custody of products that they purchase. With global overfishing leading to declining fish stocks around the world, it is vital for seafood providers to have the ability to identify and buy products from sustainable fisheries that are well managed, target abundant species, and fish in environmentally responsible ways. This paper analyzes public and private initiatives that seek to provide product traceability. In summarizing the current status of seafood traceability, stakeholders agree that are a number of challenges with trying to piece together so many …

Sustainable Cities As The Gateway To The Future: A Case Study Of New Rochelle, Andrea B. Grenadier

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the characteristics of sustainable cities and uses New Rochelle, New York as a case study to further describe initiatives synonymous with green communities. Five prominent topics of sustainable cities and urban planning are discussed within the literature review and later mirrored throughout the case study of New Rochelle. These topics include, smart growth, energy efficiency, green buildings, transportation, and recycling. The mayor of New Rochelle and Sustainability Coordinator completed questionnaires and their responses contributed to an assessment of the contemporary issues facing sustainable cities.

System Dynamics Implementation Of A Model Of Population And Resource Dynamics With Adaptation, Takuro Uehara, Yoko Nagase, Wayne Wakeland

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We build and analyze a dynamic ecological economic model that incorporates endogenous innovation on input substitutability. The use of the system dynamics method allows us to depart from conventional equilibrium thinking and conduct an out-of-equilibrium (adaptation) analysis. Simulation results show that while improvement in input substitutability will expand an economy, this change alone may not improve sustainability measured by indicators such as utility-per-capita and natural resource stock. It could, however, be possible that in combination with other technological progress, improvement in input substitutability will contribute to sustainable development. Sensitivity analysis also indicates a possible complication with the use of exogenous …

Combating Suburban Sprawl In The Capital District: An Outline For Regional Sustainable Development, Andrew J. Cahill

Honors Theses

Urban centers in America have commonly been plagued by high rates of pollution, decaying infrastructure, and the overall image of being undesirable places to live. Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, masses of people vacated the cities that they called home, for literally greener pastures, settling in outlying, low-density living areas that became known as the suburbs. Suburbanization has particularly impacted the land use pattern in the Capital District of New York State, as countless suburbs developed away from the region’s urban centers of Albany, Schenectady and Troy. Recently people have moved back into the Capital District’s …

Designing For Future Buildings: Adaptive Resuse As A Strategy For Carbon Neutral Cities, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Craig Langston

Adapting existing buildings is a viable alternative to demolition and replacement in order to mitigate climate change and global warming. Australian cities with inherent cultural heritage fabric, like Melbourne and Sydney, are actively promoting building adaptive reuse as a strategy that supports their programme for developing carbon-neutral cities. Thus, designing for future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. Building adaptive reuse entails less energy and waste, protects the buildings’ heritage values- its socio-cultural and historic meanings; while giving them a new lease of life. This paper looks into urban conservation-- an interdisciplinary field that …

Designing For Future Buildings: Adaptive Resuse As A Strategy For Carbon Neutral Cities, Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith

Sheila Conejos

Adapting existing buildings is a viable alternative to demolition and replacement in order to mitigate climate change and global warming. Australian cities with inherent cultural heritage fabric, like Melbourne and Sydney, are actively promoting building adaptive reuse as a strategy that supports their programme for developing carbon-neutral cities. Thus, designing for future buildings with embedded adaptive reuse potential is a useful criterion for sustainability. Building adaptive reuse entails less energy and waste, protects the buildings’ heritage values- its socio-cultural and historic meanings; while giving them a new lease of life. This paper looks into urban conservation-- an interdisciplinary field that …

Agricultural Efficiency And The End Of The Oil Age; Building A Future Of Longevity, Keith Mchugh

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis uses an efficiency analysis of agricultural systems to assert that, in lieu of rising prices of fossil fuel, people need to come into more direct contact with their food systems. With a switch to smaller, more efficient farms that rely less on fossil fuel and are connected with the communities they supply for, we can avoid an energy crisis turning into a famine. These smaller-scale systems can help create self-contained, carbon-neutral communities.

The “Green Eating” Project: A Pilot Intervention To Promote Sustainable And Healthy Eating In College Students, Kelleigh E. Eastman

Senior Honors Projects

The “Green Eating” Project: A Pilot Intervention to Promote Sustainable and Healthy Eating in College Students

Kelleigh Eastman

Sponsor: Geoffrey Greene, Nutrition and Dietetics

A topic of interest that is growing in the general population is the idea of being sustainable, or “green”, and there is a rising awareness in sustainable practices involving food and the environment. Some of the “green” eating behaviors identified through my research included eating a plant-based (i.e. vegetarian or semi-vegetarian) diet, eating locally grown foods, eating organically grown foods, and eating foods that are labeled fair-trade. Frequently, these “green” eating behaviors are healthful eating behaviors …

Public Housing In The United States: Using Sustainable Urbanism To Combat Social Exclusion, Jasmine L. Edo

Scripps Senior Theses

The United States government has taken steps to assure underprivileged citizens housing in the form of public housing through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as various humanitarian programs in the form of homeless shelters. Yet, all housing is not equal. Our freedom to choose where we live and what type of house we live in is one revered aspect of life as a United States citizen. We can express our individuality, creativity, and personality through the architectural style of our homes. In this sense it is hard to ask for equal housing. I am suggesting that …

Roger Williams Park Edible Forest Garden, Mark S. Scialla

Senior Honors Projects

An edible forest garden is a low-maintenance system that uses edible native and regionally-adapted plants arranged in beneficial relationships to meet human, wildlife and ecosystem needs. The forest garden in Roger Williams Park will transform underutilized urban land into a highly productive parcel producing market-viable fruits, nuts, vegetables, medicine and fiber. Forest gardens mimic natural forest systems in architecture and complexity. The design follows ecological principles to create a system that promotes biodiversity and enhances the surrounding ecosystem. This project also demonstrates the potential to grow food and create land-based livelihoods in the city.

Located on the edge of a …

Legal Issues In Green Construction, Namrata Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The most recent "green construction movement", made a significant impact on the design and construction industry in the United States. Organizations such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) have lobbied governmental entities to provide financial incentives to promote green construction. The green construction community also promotes the notion that a healthier working and living environment is achieved. Due to finical incentives coupled with projected long-term energy cost savings, many owners of new construction are considering green construction as an option. Accompanying the "green construction movement", new kinds of legal issues, particularly relating to green aspects such as certification, energy …