• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.227-227
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• 2015

The Wairarapa Valley occupies a predominantly rural area in the lower North Island of New Zealand. It supports a mix of intensive farming (dairy), dry stock farming (sheep and beef cattle) and horticulture (including wine grapes). The valley floor is traversed by the Ruamahanga River, the largest river in the Wellington region with a total catchment area of 3,430 km2. Environmental, cultural and recreational values associated with this Ruamahanga River are very high. The alluvial gravel and sand aquifers of the Wairarapa Valley, support productive groundwater aquifers at depths of up to 100 metres below ground while the Ruamahanga River and its tributaries present a further source of water for users. Water is allocated to users via resource consents by Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC). With intensifying land use, demand from the surface and groundwater resources of the Wairarapa Valley has increased substantially in recent times and careful management is needed to ensure values are maintained. This paper describes the approach being taken to manage water resources in the Wairarapa Valley and redefine appropriate limits of sustainable water use. There are three key parts: Quantifying the groundwater resource. A FEFLOW numerical groundwater flow model was developed by GWRC. This modelling phase provided a much improved understanding of aquifer recharge and abstraction processes. It also began to reveal the extent of hydraulic connection between aquifer and river systems and the importance of moving towards an integrated (conjunctive) approach to allocating water. Development of a conjunctive management framework. The FEFLOW model was used to quantify the stream flow depletion impacts of a range of groundwater abstraction scenarios. From this, three abstraction categories (A, B and C) that describe diminishing degrees of hydraulic connection between ground and surface water resources were mapped in 3 dimensions across the Valley. Interim allocation limits have been defined for each of 17 discrete management units within the valley based on both local scale aquifer recharge and stream flow depletion criteria but also cumulative impacts at the valley-wide scale. These allocation limits are to be further refined into agreed final limits through a community-led decision making process. Community involvement in the limit setting process. Historically in New Zealand, limits for sustainable resource use have been established primarily on the basis of 'hard science' and the decision making process has been driven by regional councils. Community involvement in limit setting processes has been through consultation rather than active participation. Recent legislation in the form of a National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (2011) is reforming this approach. In particular, collaborative consensus-based decision making with active engagement from stakeholders is now expected. With this in mind, a committee of Wairarapa local people with a wide range of backgrounds was established in 2014. The role of this committee is to make final recommendations about resource use limits (including allocation of water) that reflect the aspirations of the communities they represent. To assist the committee in taking a holistic view it is intended that the existing numerical groundwater flow models will be coupled with with surface flow, contaminant transport, biological and economic models. This will provide the basis for assessing the likely outcomes of a range of future land use and resource limit scenarios.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.187-187
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• 2009

Opening of fractures induced by shear dilation or normal deformation can be a significant source of fracture permeability change in fractured rock, which is important for the performance assessment of geological repositories for spent nuclear fuel. As the repository generates heat and later cools the fluid-carrying ability of the rocks becomes a dynamic variable during the lifespan of the repository. Heating causes expansion of the rock close to the repository and, at the same time, contraction close to the surface. During the cooling phase of the repository, the opposite takes place. Heating and cooling together with the, virgin stress can induce shear dilation of fractures and deformation zones and change the flow field around the repository. The objectives of this work are to examine the contribution of thermal stress to the shear slip of fracture in mid- and far-field around a KBS-3 type of repository and to investigate the effect of evolution of stress on the rock mass permeability. In the first part of this study, zones of fracture shear slip were examined by conducting a three-dimensional, thermo-mechanical analysis of a spent fuel repository model in the size of 2 km $\times$ 2 km $\times$ 800 m. Stress evolutions of importance for fracture shear slip are: (1) comparatively high horizontal compressive thermal stress at the repository level, (2) generation of vertical tensile thermal stress right above the repository, (3) horizontal tensile stress near the surface, which can induce tensile failure, and generation of shear stresses at the comers of the repository. In the second part of the study, fracture data from Forsmark, Sweden is used to establish fracture network models (DFN). Stress paths obtained from the thermo-mechanical analysis were used as boundary conditions in DFN-DEM (Discrete Element Method) analysis of six DFN models at the repository level. Increases of permeability up to a factor of four were observed during thermal loading history and shear dilation of fractures was not recovered after cooling of the repository. An understanding of the stress path and potential areas of slip induced shear dilation and related permeability changes during the lifetime of a repository for spent nuclear fuel is of utmost importance for analysing long-term safety. The result of this study will assist in identifying critical areas around a repository where fracture shear slip is likely to develop. The presentation also includes a brief introduction to the ongoing site investigation on two candidate sites for geological repository in Sweden.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.115-132
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• 2008

Metal industry is one of the most representative heavy industries and the median sales volume of steel and nonferrous metal companies is over one billion dollars in the case America [Forbes 2006]. As seen in the recent business market situation, an increasing number of industrial manufacturers and suppliers are moving from adversarial to cooperative exchange attitudes that support the long-term relationships with their customers. This article presents the results of an empirical study of the antecedent factors of business relationships in metal industry of the United States. Commitment has been reviewed as a significant and critical variable in research on inter-organizational relationships (Hong et al. 2007, Kim et al. 2007). The future stability of any buyer-seller relationship depends upon the commitment made by the interactants to their relationship. Commitment, according to Dwyer et al. [1987], refers to "an implicit or explicit pledge of relational continuity between exchange partners" and they consider commitment to be the most advanced phase of buyer-seller exchange relationship. Bonds are made because the members need their partners in order to do something and this integration on a task basis can be either symbiotic or cooperative (Svensson 2008). To the extent that members seek the same or mutually supporting ends, there will be strong bonds among them. In other words, the principle that affects the strength of bonds is 'economy of decision making' [Turner 1970]. These bonds provide an important idea to study the causes of business long-term relationships in a sense that organizations can be mutually bonded by a common interest in the economic matters. Recently, the framework of structural bonding has been used to study the buyer-seller relationships in industrial marketing [Han and Sung 2008, Williams et al. 1998, Wilson 1995] in that this structural bonding is a crucial part of the theoretical justification for distinguishing discrete transactions from ongoing long-term relationships. The major antecedent factors of buyer commitment such as technology, CLalt, transaction-specific assets, and importance were identified and explored from the perspective of structural bonding. Research hypotheses were developed and tested by using survey data from the middle managers in the metal industry. H1: Level of technology of the relationship partner is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H2: Comparison level of alternatives is negatively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H3: Amount of the transaction-specific assets is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H4: Importance of the relationship partner is positively related to the level of structural bonding between the buyer and the seller. H5: Level of structural bonding is positively related to the level of commitment to the relationship. To examine the major antecedent factors of industrial buyer's structural bonding and long-term relationship, questionnaire was prepared, mailed out to the sample of 400 purchasing managers of the US metal industry (SIC codes 33 and 34). After a follow-up request, 139 informants returnedthe questionnaires, resulting in a response rate of 35 percent. 134 responses were used in the final analysis after dropping 5 incomplete questionnaires. All measures were analyzed for reliability and validity following the guidelines offered by Churchill [1979] and Anderson and Gerbing [1988]., the results of fitting the model to the data indicated that the hypothesized model provides a good fit to the data. Goodness-of-fit index (GFI = 0.94) and other indices ( chi-square = 78.02 with p-value = 0.13, Adjusted GFI = 0.90, Normed Fit Index = 0.92) indicated that a major proportion of variances and covariances in the data was accounted for by the model as a whole, and all the parameter estimates showed statistical significance as evidenced by large t-values. All the factor loadings were significantly different from zero. On these grounds we judged the hypothesized model to be a reasonable representation of the data. The results from the present study suggest several implications for buyer-seller relationships. Theoretically, we attempted to conceptualize the antecedent factors of buyer-seller long-term relationships from the perspective of structural bondingin metal industry. The four underlying determinants (i.e. technology, CLalt, transaction-specific assets, and importance) of structural bonding are very critical variables of buyer-seller long-term business relationships. Our model of structural bonding makes an attempt to systematically examine the relationship between the antecedent factors of structural bonding and long-term commitment. Managerially, this research provides industrial purchasing managers with a good framework to assess the interaction processes with their partners and, ability to position their business relationships from the perspective of structural bonding. In other words, based on those underlying variables, industrial purchasing managers can determine the strength of the company's relationships with the key suppliers and its state of preparation to be a successful partner with those suppliers. Both the supplying and customer companies can also benefit by using the concept of 'structural bonding' and evaluating their relationships with key business partners from the structural point of view. In general, the results indicate that structural bonding gives a critical impact on the level of relationship commitment. Managerial implications and limitations of the study are also discussed.