Biomarker Geochemistry of Core Sediments in the Mangrove Ecosystems along Northern Kerala Coast

Mangroves are diverse group of trees, palms, shrubs, and ferns that share a common ability to live in waterlogged saline soils exposed to regular flooding, and are highly specialised plants which have developed unusual adaptations to the unique environmental conditions. They are sites of accumulation and preservation of both allochthonous and autochthonous organic matter owing to their strategic loction at the interface between land and sea and prevailing reducing environment. They are among the most productive ecosystems and are efficient carbon sinks with most of the carbon stored in sediments.Mangrove ecosystems play a significant role in global carbon cycle and hence the knowledge on the processes controlling the delivery of organic matter to coastal sediments, and how these signatures are preserved in the sediment is a prerequisite for the understanding of biogeochemical cycles. The evaluation of nature and sources of organic matter can be accomplished by the determination of biochemical constituents like carbohydrates, proteins and lipids. When characterised at molecular level, lipids provide valuable information about the sources of organic matter, even though they account only small fraction of organic matter. They are useful for the paleo-environmental reconstruction because of their low reactivity, high preservation potential and high source specificity relative to other organic class of compounds. The application of recent analytical techniques has produced a wealth of useful information but has also indicated the gaps in our knowledge on cycling of organic matter in the coastal ecosystems. The quantity and quality of organic matter preserved in sediments vary depending up on the nature of material delivered to the sediment and on the depositional environment. The input from both autochthonous and allochthonous sources sharpens the complexity of biogeochemistry of mangrove ecosystem and hence bulk sedimentary parameters are not completely successful in evaluating the sources of organic matter in mangrove sediments. An effective tool for the source characterisation of organic matter in coastal ecosystems is biomarker approach. Biomarkers are chemical "signatures" present in environmental samples whose structural information can be linked to its biological precursor. The usefulness of molecular biomarkers depends on high taxonomic specificity, potential for preservation, recalcitrant against geochemical changes, easily analysable in environmental samples and should have a limited number of well-defined sources.

Catch and effort from a recreational trolling fishery in a large lake

Over recent decades recreational fisheries have grown substantially throughout the world. Despite this increase, catches from recreational fisheries have often been ignored in fisheries management, although this is now being remedied. Monitoring recreational fisheries can be expensive, and the primary means used for monitoring is angler (creel) surveys, typically funded from sales of fishing licences. The studies presented in this thesis examine different approaches to monitoring recreational trolling fisheries’ catch and effort, where fishing licenses are not required and there are no reporting requirements. I present results from a complemented roving/mail-in survey undertaken during 2013-2014 to estimate recreational effort and catch of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and brown trout (S. trutta) in the largest lake in the European Union, Lake Vänern, Sweden. I also evaluate different angler catch reporting methods (mail-in, tournament reports and face-to-face interviews) and compare catch rates within and among spring and fall fishing periods. In addition, mail-in survey data are examined for recall bias.   I estimate that 28.7 tonnes of salmon and trout combined were harvested by the recreational trolling fishery in 2014, more than the commercial and subsistence fisheries combined. Seasonal differences in both recreational effort and catch were observed. Effort, in boat hours, was significantly higher in spring than in fall. Catch rates of trout were higher in fall than in spring, but there were no seasonal differences in catches of salmon. Harvest per boat day did not differ significantly among catch reporting methods, indicating that all three methods could be useful for managers interested in harvest rates. In contrast, total and released catch per boat day differed among reporting methods, with tournament anglers catching more fish in total. Finally, there was little evidence for recall bias in mail-in surveys, indicating that mail-in surveys are useful for collecting unbiased catch data. My study is the most comprehensive angler survey to date for Lake Vänern, and my results should be of immediate use to local fisheries managers and should also be of interest to researchers and managers interested in estimating catch and effort for fisheries at large spatial scales.

The International <IR> Framework’s impact on the social and relationship disclosures in the healthcare industry

Abstract Background and Problem: The altering business world and the growing requests from stakeholders have resulted in the establishment of new reports. These are among others Sustainability reports and Integrated Reporting. On the contrary, traditional financial reports do not consider the significance of intangible assets in modern entities. The social and relationship capital has further shown to be important for firms, especially healthcare companies and pharmaceuticals, but is not as developed as other capitals within the <IR> framework and therefore not always included in annual reports. However too few disclosures within this area could lead to high liabilities. The IIRC launched the <IR> framework year 2013 as a solution, as it gives a more comprehensive view of the reporting entity. Within this framework there are six capitals: manufactured, human, financial, natural, intellectual and social and relationship.   Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to find out how the International <IR> Framework has influenced the reporting of the social and relationship disclosures within the healthcare industry, to compare the reporting of the six medical firms chosen and to examine how the social concerns have been developed over time. Delimitations: This study is conducted over a period of three years, from year 2012 to year 2014. It only examines healthcare companies which use the International <IR> framework and it has solely focus on the social and relationship capital. All other capitals within the <IR> framework are excluded from the study. Method: This study has a qualitative research strategy and is based on information collected from published documents in form of annual reports. The annual reports from year 2010, 2011 and 2012 are used to find social and relationship disclosures and a disclosure scoreboard is used to find similarities, differences and patterns. Empirical Results and Conclusion: It has been found that the aggregated social and relationship disclosures have been reduced over time. The year followed by the release of the <IR> framework was seen to have the least disclosures and therefore conclusion was drawn that the <IR> framework had a negative influence on the social and relationship disclosures. There were also differences among the companies studied both in extent and content. The former could be linked to factors such as size and nationality and the latter could be linked to reputation preservation and legitimacy interests.

Integrated Reporting in OMXS30 companies - An Analysis of Human Capital Disclosures

Background and Problem: Sustainability reporting is a growing interest in today’s organizations and it is essential to report on non-financial matters. Many of the existing frameworks have been criticized for being used only of symbolical reasons which is why the concept of integrated reporting and the <IR> framework have been developed. One of the cornerstones in the <IR> framework is human capital which is one of the most valuable assets in an organization. Traditionally, employee costs have only been treated as an expense and there have been limited disclosures in corporate reports. In the current business world it is instead seen as an investment in human resources. Since previous studies have shown an increase of human capital disclosures when corporate reports become integrated, integrated reporting might be the solution to this problem. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine if there are differences in human capital disclosures between integrated reports and separate annual and sustainability reports in companies listed at OMXS30. Delimitations: This study’s empirical examination is limited to include the companies listed at Stockholm OMX30. Only corporate reports issued for the year 2014 are treated. Methodology: For this study a self-constructed disclosure scoreboard with human capital- related items has been used to collect data from the companies’ corporate reports. Also additional information beyond the pre-determined items has been collected to extend the data collection. Empirical Results and Conclusion: The results show that human capital seems to be a subject that is relatively little reported about. The integrated reporting companies do not disclose more information compared to non-integrated reporting companies. However, the results show that integrated reporting companies seem to have a more future-oriented focus and that the disclosures are more dispersed throughout the reports. It can be concluded that company sector and size do not affect the amount or type of information. 

Having a strategy for new service development : does it really matter?

Purpose – The aim of this study is to investigate the role of key strategic factors in new service development (NSD). In particular, the role of service development strategy, a formalised development process, integrated development teams and customer co-creation were investigated and the results were compared with managers' beliefs. Design/methodology/approach – The study used a sample of more than 500 service development projects to test a NSD conceptual model. Regression analysis was used to test the relative importance of the key strategic factors, and the results were compared with managers' beliefs. Findings – The results show that managers believe that customer co-creation is most important in order to succeed with NSD. However, contrary to management belief, a service development strategy is the “missing link” in improving NSD performance. In addition, the research highlighted an interaction effect between integrated development teams and customer co-creation, which means that project managers should focus on individual competencies on the development team and how they interact with customers throughout the NSD process. Originality/value – For a long time, NSD has failed to receive the attention it deserves, not just in practice but also in service research. This study shows that the number of new services put on the market and then withdrawn because of low sales remains as high as 43 per cent. This paper contributes knowledge on how to reduce the number of failures in NSD by pointing out the key strategic factors that influence NSD performance.

Prioritizing Purposes: Two American History Teachers' Choices Among Subject Matter and Classroom-Related Purposes

This study explores how two American history teachers - one novice and one experienced – make in-the-moment choices among their history subject matter and classroom-related purposes during the teaching of an American history unit. Using classroom observations, lesson artifacts, student work products, and deep, retrospective interviews with the teachers as they watched videos of their teaching, this study maps out in detail the teachers’ purposes, both within and across different lesson activity structures. This study finds that the novice and the experienced teacher navigated among their purposes differently from each other, and that the characteristics of each teacher’s purposes navigation aligned with student outcomes in that teacher’s class. The novice teacher acted more like a juggler, with visible, reactive navigation among each purpose operational throughout his teaching; student outcomes in his class were similarly fragmented and discrete. The experienced teacher presented more like an orchestra conductor, interweaving his purposes and anticipating the navigation decisions that would create a more seamless whole; student outcomes in his class were aligned with his holistic navigation of purposes. Findings from this study have important implications for education research and teacher practice, including the relationship between teachers’ navigation among purposes and desired student outcomes, the integral role of classroom-related purposes interwoven with history subject matter purposes in teachers’ decision-making, and the differences in purposes navigation between a novice and an experienced history teacher.

Fungal contamination in one hotel room: Does carpet coating in the floor enhance fungal contamination?

Study developed in order to know the carpet influence when used in the floor of a hotel room. Twelve air samples of 250L (six in a room with carpet and six more in a room with wood floor) were collected through an impaction method with a flow rate of 140 L/min onto malt extract agar (MEA) supplemented with chloramphenicol (0.05%), using the Millipore air Tester (Millipore), during cleaning activities. Outdoor sample was also performed to be used as a reference. Surface samples from floor and desks, taken at the same time, were collected by the swabbing method. to 7 days. Besides fungal contamination, we also assessed particulate matter contamination in both rooms during the same cleaning tasks. In the analyzed sur- faces, isolates belonging to Aspergillus fumigatus complex were the only fungi found in the carpeted room, whereas in the other room we found Penicllium sp. (63.6%) and Aspergillus sp. (13.6%) as the most frequent genera. In the case of particles the room with carpet obtained significant higher values for both metrics (PMC and PNC), showing that carpet may has influence on particles’ contamination of the room.

Variational ensemble Kalman filtering applied to data assimilation problems in computational fluid dynamics

One challenge on data assimilation (DA) methods is how the error covariance for the model state is computed. Ensemble methods have been proposed for producing error covariance estimates, as error is propagated in time using the non-linear model. Variational methods, on the other hand, use the concepts of control theory, whereby the state estimate is optimized from both the background and the measurements. Numerical optimization schemes are applied which solve the problem of memory storage and huge matrix inversion needed by classical Kalman filter methods. Variational Ensemble Kalman filter (VEnKF), as a method inspired the Variational Kalman Filter (VKF), enjoys the benefits from both ensemble methods and variational methods. It avoids filter inbreeding problems which emerge when the ensemble spread underestimates the true error covariance. In VEnKF this is tackled by resampling the ensemble every time measurements are available. One advantage of VEnKF over VKF is that it needs neither tangent linear code nor adjoint code. In this thesis, VEnKF has been applied to a two-dimensional shallow water model simulating a dam-break experiment. The model is a public code with water height measurements recorded in seven stations along the 21:2 m long 1:4 m wide flume’s mid-line. Because the data were too sparse to assimilate the 30 171 model state vector, we chose to interpolate the data both in time and in space. The results of the assimilation were compared with that of a pure simulation. We have found that the results revealed by the VEnKF were more realistic, without numerical artifacts present in the pure simulation. Creating a wrapper code for a model and DA scheme might be challenging, especially when the two were designed independently or are poorly documented. In this thesis we have presented a non-intrusive approach of coupling the model and a DA scheme. An external program is used to send and receive information between the model and DA procedure using files. The advantage of this method is that the model code changes needed are minimal, only a few lines which facilitate input and output. Apart from being simple to coupling, the approach can be employed even if the two were written in different programming languages, because the communication is not through code. The non-intrusive approach is made to accommodate parallel computing by just telling the control program to wait until all the processes have ended before the DA procedure is invoked. It is worth mentioning the overhead increase caused by the approach, as at every assimilation cycle both the model and the DA procedure have to be initialized. Nonetheless, the method can be an ideal approach for a benchmark platform in testing DA methods. The non-intrusive VEnKF has been applied to a multi-purpose hydrodynamic model COHERENS to assimilate Total Suspended Matter (TSM) in lake Säkylän Pyhäjärvi. The lake has an area of 154 km2 with an average depth of 5:4 m. Turbidity and chlorophyll-a concentrations from MERIS satellite images for 7 days between May 16 and July 6 2009 were available. The effect of the organic matter has been computationally eliminated to obtain TSM data. Because of computational demands from both COHERENS and VEnKF, we have chosen to use 1 km grid resolution. The results of the VEnKF have been compared with the measurements recorded at an automatic station located at the North-Western part of the lake. However, due to TSM data sparsity in both time and space, it could not be well matched. The use of multiple automatic stations with real time data is important to elude the time sparsity problem. With DA, this will help in better understanding the environmental hazard variables for instance. We have found that using a very high ensemble size does not necessarily improve the results, because there is a limit whereby additional ensemble members add very little to the performance. Successful implementation of the non-intrusive VEnKF and the ensemble size limit for performance leads to an emerging area of Reduced Order Modeling (ROM). To save computational resources, running full-blown model in ROM is avoided. When the ROM is applied with the non-intrusive DA approach, it might result in a cheaper algorithm that will relax computation challenges existing in the field of modelling and DA.

Utilising presence in places to support mobile interaction

Physical places are given contextual meaning by the objects and people that make up the space. Presence in physical places can be utilised to support mobile interaction by making access to media and notifications on a smartphone easier and more visible to other people. Smartphone interfaces can be extended into the physical world in a meaningful way by anchoring digital content to artefacts, and interactions situated around physical artefacts can provide contextual meaning to private manipulations with a mobile device. Additionally, places themselves are designed to support a set of tasks, and the logical structure of places can be used to organise content on the smartphone. Menus that adapt the functionality of a smartphone can support the user by presenting the tools most likely to be needed just-in-time, so that information needs can be satisfied quickly and with little cognitive effort. Furthermore, places are often shared with people whom the user knows, and the smartphone can facilitate social situations by providing access to content that stimulates conversation. However, the smartphone can disrupt a collaborative environment, by alerting the user with unimportant notifications, or sucking the user in to the digital world with attractive content that is only shown on a private screen. Sharing smartphone content on a situated display creates an inclusive and unobtrusive user experience, and can increase focus on a primary task by allowing content to be read at a glance. Mobile interaction situated around artefacts of personal places is investigated as a way to support users to access content from their smartphone while managing their physical presence. A menu that adapts to personal places is evaluated to reduce the time and effort of app navigation, and coordinating smartphone content on a situated display is found to support social engagement and the negotiation of notifications. Improving the sensing of smartphone users in places is a challenge that is out-with the scope of this thesis. Instead, interaction designers and developers should be provided with low-cost positioning tools that utilise presence in places, and enable quantitative and qualitative data to be collected in user evaluations. Two lightweight positioning tools are developed with the low-cost sensors that are currently available: The Microsoft Kinect depth sensor allows movements of a smartphone user to be tracked in a limited area of a place, and Bluetooth beacons enable the larger context of a place to be detected. Positioning experiments with each sensor are performed to highlight the capabilities and limitations of current sensing techniques for designing interactions with a smartphone. Both tools enable prototypes to be built with a rapid prototyping approach, and mobile interactions can be tested with more advanced sensing techniques as they become available. Sensing technologies are becoming pervasive, and it will soon be possible to perform reliable place detection in-the-wild. Novel interactions that utilise presence in places can support smartphone users by making access to useful functionality easy and more visible to the people who matter most in everyday life.

Quantification of air quality in space and time and its effects on health

The long-term adverse effects on health associated with air pollution exposure can be estimated using either cohort or spatio-temporal ecological designs. In a cohort study, the health status of a cohort of people are assessed periodically over a number of years, and then related to estimated ambient pollution concentrations in the cities in which they live. However, such cohort studies are expensive and time consuming to implement, due to the long-term follow up required for the cohort. Therefore, spatio-temporal ecological studies are also being used to estimate the long-term health effects of air pollution as they are easy to implement due to the routine availability of the required data. Spatio-temporal ecological studies estimate the health impact of air pollution by utilising geographical and temporal contrasts in air pollution and disease risk across $n$ contiguous small-areas, such as census tracts or electoral wards, for multiple time periods. The disease data are counts of the numbers of disease cases occurring in each areal unit and time period, and thus Poisson log-linear models are typically used for the analysis. The linear predictor includes pollutant concentrations and known confounders such as socio-economic deprivation. However, as the disease data typically contain residual spatial or spatio-temporal autocorrelation after the covariate effects have been accounted for, these known covariates are augmented by a set of random effects. One key problem in these studies is estimating spatially representative pollution concentrations in each areal which are typically estimated by applying Kriging to data from a sparse monitoring network, or by computing averages over modelled concentrations (grid level) from an atmospheric dispersion model. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the health effects of long-term exposure to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Particular matter (PM10) in mainland Scotland, UK. In order to have an initial impression about the air pollution health effects in mainland Scotland, chapter 3 presents a standard epidemiological study using a benchmark method. The remaining main chapters (4, 5, 6) cover the main methodological focus in this thesis which has been threefold: (i) how to better estimate pollution by developing a multivariate spatio-temporal fusion model that relates monitored and modelled pollution data over space, time and pollutant; (ii) how to simultaneously estimate the joint effects of multiple pollutants; and (iii) how to allow for the uncertainty in the estimated pollution concentrations when estimating their health effects. Specifically, chapters 4 and 5 are developed to achieve (i), while chapter 6 focuses on (ii) and (iii). In chapter 4, I propose an integrated model for estimating the long-term health effects of NO2, that fuses modelled and measured pollution data to provide improved predictions of areal level pollution concentrations and hence health effects. The air pollution fusion model proposed is a Bayesian space-time linear regression model for relating the measured concentrations to the modelled concentrations for a single pollutant, whilst allowing for additional covariate information such as site type (e.g. roadside, rural, etc) and temperature. However, it is known that some pollutants might be correlated because they may be generated by common processes or be driven by similar factors such as meteorology. The correlation between pollutants can help to predict one pollutant by borrowing strength from the others. Therefore, in chapter 5, I propose a multi-pollutant model which is a multivariate spatio-temporal fusion model that extends the single pollutant model in chapter 4, which relates monitored and modelled pollution data over space, time and pollutant to predict pollution across mainland Scotland. Considering that we are exposed to multiple pollutants simultaneously because the air we breathe contains a complex mixture of particle and gas phase pollutants, the health effects of exposure to multiple pollutants have been investigated in chapter 6. Therefore, this is a natural extension to the single pollutant health effects in chapter 4. Given NO2 and PM10 are highly correlated (multicollinearity issue) in my data, I first propose a temporally-varying linear model to regress one pollutant (e.g. NO2) against another (e.g. PM10) and then use the residuals in the disease model as well as PM10, thus investigating the health effects of exposure to both pollutants simultaneously. Another issue considered in chapter 6 is to allow for the uncertainty in the estimated pollution concentrations when estimating their health effects. There are in total four approaches being developed to adjust the exposure uncertainty. Finally, chapter 7 summarises the work contained within this thesis and discusses the implications for future research.

Are joint audits associated with higher audit fees?

In its October 2010 Green Paper on audit policy, the European Commission suggested that joint audits might be a way of improving the audit market in Europe. However, some parties consider that a joint audit system is not an efficient solution because the perceived improvements in audit quality, if any, are not commensurate with the significant increase in audit fees. We compare audit fees paid during the years 2007-2011 by listed companies in France, where joint audits are mandatory, with those paid by British and Italian companies. Theory suggests that audit fees in countries with high investor protection, such as the UK, are likely to be greater than those in countries with lower investor protection, such as France and Italy, ceteris paribus. However, we find significantly higher audit fees in France after controlling for well-documented auditor, client, and engagement attributes, which vary across countries. Furthermore, since we do not find statistically significant differences in the magnitude of abnormal accruals, the higher audit fees observed in France do not appear to be associated with higher audit quality.

Ecological distribution of the shrimp Nematopalaemon schmitti (Crustacea: Decapoda: Caridea) in three bays on the south-eastern coast of Brazil

The relationships between the spatial and temporal variations in the abundance of the shrimp Nematopalaemon schmitti and water temperature, salinity, and texture and organic-matter content of the sediment, were analysed in Ubatumirim, Ubatuba and Mar Virado bays on the northern coast of São Paulo, Brazil. Sampling was carried out monthly, from January 1998 through December 1999, from a shrimp boat equipped with double-rig nets, along six transects in each bay. In total, 2 116 specimens of N. schmitti were caught. Their distribution differed among bays, transects and seasons (ANOVA, p < 0.05). Highest total abundance was found in areas of high organic-matter content, in substrate composed mainly of very fine sand and silt and clay, and during winter and autumn. Although multiple regression analysis showed no significant relationship (p > 0.05), observations suggest that water temperature, sediment texture, organic-matter content, and the presence of biodetritus and plant fragments, provided favourable environmental conditions for the establishment of N. schmitti in the region.

ANNUAL REPORT OF LAWYER DISCIPLINE IN SOUTH CAROLINA 2010 - 2011

The Commission on Lawyer Conduct at the South Carolina Justice Department investigates complaints of lawyer misconduct and incapacity made against lawyers who are licensed to practice law in South Carolina. It annually publishes a report of activities. Included in the reports are status of complaints, disposition of concluded complaints and commission activities.

ANNUAL REPORT OF LAWYER DISCIPLINE IN SOUTH CAROLINA 2011 - 2012

The Commission on Lawyer Conduct at the South Carolina Justice Department investigates complaints of lawyer misconduct and incapacity made against lawyers who are licensed to practice law in South Carolina. It annually publishes a report of activities. Included in the reports are status of complaints, disposition of concluded complaints and commission activities.

2012- 2013 ANNUAL REPORT OF LAWYER DISCIPLINE IN SOUTH CAROLINA

The Commission on Lawyer Conduct at the South Carolina Justice Department investigates complaints of lawyer misconduct and incapacity made against lawyers who are licensed to practice law in South Carolina. It annually publishes a report of activities. Included in the reports are status of complaints, disposition of concluded complaints and commission activities.