Search results for: civil liability

Authors: Kevin Krupski

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Private Military Security Companies have grown to become a major force contributor to nations in military operations. Scholars have debated the implications of this in relation to control and efficiency related to the privatization of violence, but there has been little discussion on how these companies affect the profession of arms. Specifically, this paper seeks to address how the privatization of violence influences the military’s stewardship, whether private military security companies are capable of stewardship of the military profession, and whether there are aspects of stewardship of the military profession that private military security companies are capable of emulating. This paper reviews literature on stewardship, the relationship of the military to the state, and private military security companies in order to identify overlap between uniformed military services and the private sector. Then, it offers a typology for determining under what conditions an organization would act as a steward. Ultimately, there are insufficient reasons for private military security companies to act as stewards of the profession of arms.

Keywords: stewardship, military profession, civil-military, security

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Authors: T. Ahilan, V. Aswin Adityan, S. Kailash

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UAV’s are small remote operated or automated aerial surveillance systems without a human pilot aboard. UAV’s generally finds its use in military and special operation application, a recent growing trend in UAV’s finds its application in several civil and non military works such as inspection of power or pipelines. The objective of this paper is the augmentation of a UAV in order to replace the existing expensive sonar (sound navigation and ranging) based equipment amongst small scale fisherman, for whom access to sonar equipment are restricted due to limited economic resources. The surveillance equipment’s present in the UAV will relay data and GPS location onto a receiver on the fishing boat using RF signals, using which the location of the schools of fishes can be found. In addition to this, an emergency beacon system is present for rescue operations and drone recovery.

Keywords: UAV, Surveillance, RF signals, fishing, sonar, GPS, video stream, school of fish

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Authors: Lee Kar Heng

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Activists are people who use strong actions such as public protests or social media accusations in support of or opposition to controversial issues. While activism is the act of using such vigorous campaigns and actions to achieve political or social changes by the activists, today, the pressure and stresses from activism do not only grow in terms of civil rights but also in racial justice, labour reforms, and environmental change, to name a few. Some activism acts are constructive, but many are destructive, and they affect businesses as activists direct their sights on corporations, business entities, and organizations to achieve their supporting objectives beyond reasonable means. The paper attempts to share experiences of businesses being attacked by activists and how the attacks are mitigated. In sharing, this paper will discuss the effectiveness of the activist action and ways to react to them. The positive and negative impacts caused by activists' support action against corporations are also discussed.

Keywords: activism, conflicts, business, social responsibility

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Authors: K. Khelil, H. Ammar, K. Saouchi

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Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) structure is an periodically modulated optical fiber. It acts as a selective filter of wavelength whose reflected peak is called Bragg wavelength and it depends on the period of the fiber and the refractive index. The simulation of FBG is based on solving the Coupled Mode Theory equation by using the Transfer Matrix Method which is carried out using MATLAB. It is found that spectral reflectivity is shifted when the change of temperature and strain is uniform. Under non-uniform temperature or strain perturbation, the spectrum is both shifted and destroyed. In case of transverse loading, reflectivity spectrum is split into two peaks, the first is specific to X axis, and the second belongs to Y axis. FBGs are used in civil engineering to detect perturbations applied to buildings.

Keywords: Bragg wavelength, coupled mode theory, optical fiber, temperature measurement

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Authors: Martina Kovalcikova, Adriana Estokova

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Today, concrete belongs to the most frequently used materials in the civil engineering industry for many years. Consuming energy in cement industry is very high and CO₂ emissions generated during the production of Portland cement has serious environmental threatens. Therefore, utilization of pozzolanic material as a supplementary cementitious material has a direct relationship with the sustainable development. The paper presents the results of the comparative study of the resistance of the Slovak origin zeolite based cement composites with addition of silica fume exposed to the sulfate environment. The various aggressive media were used for the experiment: sulfuric acid with pH 4, distilled water and magnesium sulfate solution with a concentration of 3 g/L of SO₄²−. The laboratory experiment proceeded during 180 days under model conditions. The changes in the elemental concentrations of calcium and silicon in liquid leachates were observed.

Keywords: concrete, leaching, silica fume, sulfuric acid, zeolite

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Authors: M. N. Akhtar, J. N. Akhtar

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The present study evaluates the properties of class F fly ash as a replacement of natural materials in civil engineering construction industry. The low-lime flash similar to class F is the prime variety generated in India, although it has significantly smaller volumes of high-lime fly ash as compared to class C. The chemical and physical characterization of the sample is carried out with the number of experimental approaches in order to investigate all relevant features present in the samples. For chemical analysis, elementary quantitative results from point analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)/dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) techniques were used to identify the element images of different fractions. The physical properties found very close to the range of common soils. Furthermore, the fly ash-based bricks were prepared by the same sample of class F fly ash and the results of compressive strength similar to that of Standard Clay Brick Grade 1 available in the local market of India.

Keywords: fly ash, class F, class C, chemical, physical, SEM, EDS

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Authors: Songul Miftakhov

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This study explores political representation and engagement of Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions, known to have dense Kurdish population and referred further to as Eastern region, in the Turkish parliament between 1946 and 1980. Traditional local notables had most of the privileges to be represented given their connectedness with political parties. Traditional local notables integrated into right-wing parties considering political and economic aspects. At the same time, they kept control over local political involvement channels. As a result, political representation and presence were monopolized at central, local and civil society levels. One part of Kurdish intellectuals was marginalized from the parliament after addressing issues in Eastern Anatolia and trying to develop solutions apart from the mainstream. Some of them took part in Kurdish oppositional left wing in the 1960s and jounced power of settled notables in 1970s in local administrations or as independent members of the parliament.

Keywords: Kurdish representation, parliament, local nobles, Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia

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Authors: Colin S. Chen, Chien-Jung Tien, Hsin-Jan Huang

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For weathering studies, the change of chemical constituents by biodegradation effect in diesel-contaminated soils are important factors to be considered, especially when there is a prolonged period of weathering processes. The objective was to evaluate biodegradation effects onto hydrocarbon fingerprinting and distribution patterns of diesel fuels, fuel source screening and differentiation, source-specific marker compounds, and diagnostic ratios of diesel fuel constituents by laboratory and field studies. Biodegradation processes of diesel contaminated soils were evaluated by experiments lasting for 15 and 12 months, respectively. The degradation of diesel fuel in top soils was affected by organic carbon content and biomass of microorganisms in soils. Higher depletion of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH), n-alkanes, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their alkyl homologues was observed in soils containing higher organic carbon content and biomass. Decreased ratio of selected isoprenoids (i.e., pristane (Pr) and phytane (Ph)) including n-C17/pristane and n-C18/phytane was observed. The ratio of pristane/phytane was remained consistent for a longer period of time. At the end of the experimental period, a decrease of pristane/phytane was observed. Biomarker compounds of bicyclic sesquiterpanes (BS) were less susceptible to the effects of biodegradation. The ratios of characteristic factors such as C15 sesquiterpane/ 8β(H)-drimane (BS3/BS5), C15 sesquiterpane/ 8β(H)-drimane (BS4/BS5), 8β(H)-drimane/8β(H)-homodrimane (BS5/BS10), and C15 sesquiterpane/8β(H)-homodrimane (BS3/BS10) could be adopted for source identification of diesel fuels in top soil. However, for biodegradation processes lasted for six months but shorter than nine months, only BS3/BS5 and BS3/BS10 could be distinguished in two diesel fuels. In subsoil experiments (contaminated soil located 50 cm below), the ratios of characteristic factors including BS3/BS5, BS4/BS5, and BS5/BS10 were valid for source identification of two diesel fuels for nine month biodegradation. At the early stage of contamination, biomass of soil decreased significantly. However, 6 and 7 dominant species were found in soils in top soil experiments, respectively. With less oxygen and nutrients in subsoil, less biomass of microorganisms was observed in subsoils. Only 2 and 4 diesel-degrading species of microorganisms were identified in two soils, respectively. Parameters of double ratio such as fluorene/C1-fluorene: C2-phenanthrene/C3-phenanthrene (C0F/C1F:C2P/C3P) in both top and subsoil, C2-naphthalene/C2-phenanthrene: C1-phenanthrene/C3-phenanthrene (C2N/C2P:C1P/C3P), and C1-phenanthrene/C1-fluorene: C3-naphthalene/C3-phenanthrene (C1P/C1F:C3N/C3P) in subsoil could serve as forensic indicators in diesel contaminated sites. BS3/BS10:BS4/BS5 could be used in 6 to 9 months of biodegradation processes. Results of principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that source identification of diesel fuels in top soil could only be perofrmed for weathering process less than 6 months. For subsoil, identification can be conducted for weathering process less than 9 months. Ratio of isoprenoids (pristane and phytane) and PAHs might be affected by biodegradation in spilled sites. The ratios of bicyclic sesquiterpanes could serve as forensic indicators in diesel-contaminated soils. Finally, source identification was attemped for samples collected from different fuel contaminated sites by using the unique pattern of sesquiterpanes. It was anticipated that the information generated from this study would be adopted by decision makers to evaluate the liability of cleanup in diesel contaminated sites.

Keywords: biodegradation, diagnostic ratio, diesel fuel, environmental forensics

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Authors: Josep Domenech Mingot, Francisco Javier Esclapes Jover

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The arrival of the age of information and new technologies allowed humanity to see what the future has in store, but occasionally it also brings the opportunity to look through a window to the past, an opportunity to relive history. This paper introduces a prototype of a digital system that lets us peek into our past making use of augmented reality technologies. A 3D scene will be modeled and animated based on an old image, depicting an event of historical significance. From this scene, a video will be rendered, recreating the events that were taking place at the time. Also, a smartphone app will be created. This app will detect the original image with the smartphone’s camera, overlay the rendered video so that it fully covers it and track the detected image, so that the overlaying video can keep covering the image. The recreation of Alicante’s Central Market bombing during the Spanish Civil War is presented as a case study.

Keywords: augmented reality, digital heritage, history, multimedia, smartphone

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Authors: Cory Cannon

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In the current era of shrinking budgets, increasing amounts of worldwide natural disasters, state and non-state initiated conflicts within the world. The response has involved multinational coalitions to conduct effective military operations. The need for a Knowledge Management strategy when developing these coalitions have been overlooked in the past and the need for developing these accords early on will save time and help shape the way information and knowledge are transferred from the staff and action officers of the coalition to the decision-makers in order to make timely decisions within an ever changing environment. The aim of this paper is to show how Knowledge Management has developed within the United States military and how the transformation of working within a Combined/ Joint environment in both the Middle East and the Far East has improved relations between members of the coalitions as well as being more effective as a military force. These same principles could be applied to multinational corporations when dealing with cultures and decision-making processes.

Keywords: civil-military, culture, joint environment, knowledge management

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Authors: Farah Lazzali, Yamina Ait Meziane

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Recent earthquakes in Algeria have demonstrated the need for seismic risk reduction. In fact, the latest major earthquake that affected the Algiers-Boumerdes region in 2003 caused excessive levels of loss of life and property. Economic, social and environmental damage were also experienced. During the three days following the event, a relatively weak coordination of public authority was noted. Many localities did not receive any relief due to lack of information from concerned authorities and delay in connecting damaged roads. Following this event, Algerian government and civil society has recognized the urgent need for an appropriate and immediate seismic risk mitigation strategy. This paper describes procedures for emergency response following past earthquakes in Algeria and provides a brief review of risk mitigation activities since 1980. The paper also aims to provide measures to reduce earthquake risk through general strategy and practical implementation of the mitigation actions.

Keywords: earthquake, hazard, prevention, strategy, risk reduction

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Authors: Veronika Antoniou, Rene Carraz, Yiorgos Hadjichristou

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The Green Urban Lab took the form of public installations that were placed at various locations in four cities in Cyprus. These installations - through which a series of events, activities, workshops and research took place - were the main tools in regenerating a series of urban public spaces in Cyprus. The purpose of this project was to identify issues and opportunities related to public space and to offer guidelines on how design and participatory democracy improvements could strengthen civil society, while raising the quality of the urban public scene. Giant inflatable structures were injected in important urban fragments in order to accommodate series of events. The design and playful installation generated a wide community engagement. The fluid presence of the installations acted as a catalyst for social interaction. They were accessed and viewed effortlessly and surprisingly, creating opportunities to rediscover public spaces.

Keywords: bottom-up initiatives, creativity, public space, social innovation, urban environments

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Authors: Olga Kokoulina

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Today, algorithms are assuming a leading role in various areas of decision-making. Prompted by a promise to provide increased economic efficiency and fuel solutions for pressing societal challenges, algorithmic decision-making is often celebrated as an impartial and constructive substitute for human adjudication. But in the face of this implied objectivity and efficiency, the application of algorithms is also marred with mounting concerns about embedded biases, discrimination, and exclusion. In Europe, vigorous debates on risks and adverse implications of algorithmic decision-making largely revolve around the potential of data protection laws to tackle some of the related issues. For example, one of the often-cited venues to mitigate the impact of potentially unfair decision-making practice is a so-called 'right to explanation'. In essence, the overall right is derived from the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) ensuring the right of data subjects to access and mandating the obligation of data controllers to provide the relevant information about the existence of automated decision-making and meaningful information about the logic involved. Taking corresponding rights and obligations in the context of the specific provision on automated decision-making in the GDPR, the debates mainly focus on efficacy and the exact scope of the 'right to explanation'. In essence, the underlying logic of the argued remedy lies in a transparency imperative. Allowing data subjects to acquire as much knowledge as possible about the decision-making process means empowering individuals to take control of their data and take action. In other words, forewarned is forearmed. The related discussions and debates are ongoing, comprehensive, and, often, heated. However, they are also frequently misguided and isolated: embracing the data protection law as ultimate and sole lenses are often not sufficient. Mandating the disclosure of technical specifications of employed algorithms in the name of transparency for and empowerment of data subjects potentially encroach on the interests and rights of IPR holders, i.e., business entities behind the algorithms. The study aims at pushing the boundaries of the transparency debate beyond the data protection regime. By systematically analysing legal requirements and current judicial practice, it assesses the limits of the transparency requirement and right to access posed by intellectual property law, namely by copyrights and trade secrets. It is asserted that trade secrets, in particular, present an often-insurmountable obstacle for realising the potential of the transparency requirement. In reaching that conclusion, the study explores the limits of protection afforded by the European Trade Secrets Directive and contrasts them with the scope of respective rights and obligations related to data access and portability enshrined in the GDPR. As shown, the far-reaching scope of the protection under trade secrecy is evidenced both through the assessment of its subject matter as well as through the exceptions from such protection. As a way forward, the study scrutinises several possible legislative solutions, such as flexible interpretation of the public interest exception in trade secrets as well as the introduction of the strict liability regime in case of non-transparent decision-making.

Keywords: algorithms, public interest, trade secrets, transparency

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Authors: Ahmed A. Elshami, Stephanie Bonnet, Abdelhafid Khelidj

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Corrosion inhibitors are widely used in concrete industry to reduce the corrosion rate of steel rebar which is present in contact with aggressive environments. The present work aims to using Zamzam water from well located within the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia 20 m (66 ft) east of the Kaaba, the holiest place in Islam as corrosion inhibitor for steel in rain water and simulated acid rain. The effect of Zamzam water was investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and Potentiodynamic polarization techniques in Department of Civil Engineering - IUT Saint-Nazaire, Nantes University, France. Zamzam water is considered to be one of the most important steel corrosion inhibitor which is frequently used in different industrial applications. Results showed that zamzam water gave a very good inhibition for steel corrosion in rain water and simulated acid rain.

Keywords: Zamzam water, corrosion inhibitor, rain water, simulated acid rain

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Authors: Nurullah Ekmekci, Ömer Akkaya, Kazım Karaboğa, Mahmut Tekin

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Job selection is one of the most important decisions that affect their lives in the name of being more useful to themselves and the society. There are many criteria to consider in the job selection. The amount of criteria in the job selection makes it a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. In this study; job selection has been discussed as multi-criteria decision-making problem and has been solved by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), one of the multi-criteria decision making methods. A survey, contains 5 different job selection criteria (finding a job friendliness, salary status, job , social security, work in the community deems reputation and business of the degree of difficulty) within many job selection criteria and 4 different job alternative (being academician, working at the civil service, working at the private sector and working at in their own business), has been conducted to the students of Selcuk University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. As a result of pairwise comparisons, the highest weighted criteria in the job selection and the most coveted job preferences were identified.

Keywords: analytical hierarchy process, job selection, multi-criteria, decision making

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Authors: Nan Tang, Bin Wu, Cunfu He

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The trapezoid rods are widely used in civil engineering as load –carrying members. Ultrasonic guided wave is one of the most popular techniques in analyzing the propagation of elastic guided wave. The goal of this paper is to investigate the propagation of elastic waves in the isotropic bar with trapezoid cross-section. Dispersion curves that describe the relationship between the frequency and velocity provide the fundamental information to describe the propagation of elastic waves through a structure. Based on the SAFE (semi-analytical finite element) a linear algebraic system of equations is obtained. By using numerical methods, dispersion curves solved for the rods with the trapezoid cross-section. These fundamental information plays an important role in applying ultrasonic guided waves to NTD for structures with trapezoid cross section.

Keywords: guided wave, dispersion, finite element method, trapezoid rod

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Authors: Tulasi Acharya

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The paper is a qualitative analysis of status of women and women in politics and administration in Nepal Himalaya. The paper reviews data of women in civil service and in administrative levels. Looking at the Nepali politics and administration from the social constructivist perspective, the paper highlights some social and cultural issues that have othered women as “second sex.” As the country is heading towards modernity, gender friendly approaches are being instituted. Although the data reflects on the progress on women’s status and on women’s political and administrative participation, the data is not enough to predict the democratic gender practices in political and administrative levels. The political and administrative culture of Nepal Himalaya should be changed by promoting gender practices and deconstructing gender images in administrative culture through representative bureaucracy and by introducing democratic policies.

Keywords: politics, policy, administration, culture, women, Nepal, democracy

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Authors: Serguei Cheloukhine

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This study examines corrupting and moonlighting enterprise among Russian law enforcement (Police) since the 2009 Police Reform (hereto forward referred to as Reform). This research is based on the survey of about two dozen police officers in Russia’s regions. In addition, we analyzed statistics on crime, policing and socio-economic situation in Russian regions. Congruently, some data on the police officer’s off-duty activities was collected from the Internet sites. These Reforms sought to curb corruption at all levels of the Russian civil service and among uniformed law enforcement (Police) personnel. Many thought that the rebranding of the Militsiya as ‘Politsiya’ (Police) would have a transformational effect, both within the organization as well as how others perceived it. Ultimately, the rebranding effort failed; the only actual changes were the organization’s name and its personnel's uniforms. In fact, the Reforms seems to have contributed to even more corruption and abuse of power, as well an expansion of Law Enforcement’s ties to Corrupt Networks.

Keywords: bribery, corruption, moonlighting, police reform, Russia

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Authors: Virgilio Angelo Gelera Gener

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This study investigates the role of short-term accommodations on the place brand and real estate development of urban areas. It aims to know the perceptions of the general public, real estate developers, as well as city and barangay-level local government units (LGUs) on how these lodgings affect the place brand and land value of a community. It likewise attempts to identify the personal and institutional variables having a great influence on said perceptions in order to provide a better understanding of these establishments and their relevance within urban localities. Using certain sources, Malate, Manila was identified to be the ideal study area of the thesis. This prompted the employment of mixed methods research as the study’s fundamental data gathering and analytical tool. Here, a survey with 350 locals was done, asking them questions that would answer the aforementioned queries. Thereafter, a Pearson Chi-square Test and Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) were utilized to determine the variables affecting their perceptions. There were also Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with the three (3) most populated Malate barangays, as well as Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with selected city officials and fifteen (15) real estate company representatives. With that, survey results showed that although a 1992 Department of Tourism (DOT) Circular regards short-term accommodations as lodgings mainly for travelers, most people actually use it for their private/intimate moments. Because of this, the survey further revealed that short-term accommodations exhibit a negative place brand among the respondents though they also believe that it’s still one of society’s most important economic players. Statistics from the Pearson Chi-square Test, on the other hand, indicate that there are fourteen (14) out of seventeen (17) variables exhibiting great influence on respondents’ perceptions. Whereas MLR findings show that being born in Malate and being part of a family household was the most significant regardless of socio-economic level and monthly household income. For the city officials, it was revealed that said lodgings are actually the second-highest earners in the City’s lodging industry. It was further stated that their zoning ordinance treats short-term accommodations just like any other lodging enterprise. So it’s perfectly legal for these establishments to situate themselves near residential areas and/or institutional structures. A sit down with barangays, on the other hand, recognized the economic benefits of short-term accommodations but likewise admitted that it contributes a negative place brand to the community. Lastly, real estate developers are amenable to having their projects built near short-term accommodations, for they do not have any bad views against it. They explained that their projects sites have always been motivated by suitability, liability, and marketability factors only. Overall, these findings merit a recalibration of the zoning ordinance and DOT Circular, as well as the imposition of regulations on their sexually suggestive roadside advertisements. Then, once relevant measures are refined for proper implementation, it can also pave the way for spatial interventions (like visual buffer corridors) to better address the needs of the locals, private groups, and government.

Keywords: estate planning, place brand, real estate development, short-term accommodations

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Authors: J. Hroudova, J. Zach, L. Vodova

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When insulation and rehabilitation of structures is important to use quality building materials with high utility value. One potentially interesting and promising groups of construction materials in this area are advanced, thermally insulating plaster silicate based. With the present trend reduction of energy consumption of building structures and reducing CO2 emissions to be developed capillary-active materials that are characterized by their low density, low thermal conductivity while maintaining good mechanical properties. The paper describes the results of research activities aimed at the development of thermal insulating and rehabilitation material ongoing at the Technical University in Brno, Faculty of Civil Engineering. The achieved results of this development will be the basis for subsequent experimental analysis of the influence of thermal and moisture loads developed on these materials.

Keywords: insulation materials, rehabilitation materials, lightweight aggregate, fly ash, slag, hemp fibers, glass fibers, metakaolin

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Authors: Jasem Al-Safran

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Nowadays Oil and Gas industry considered as one of the biggest industries around the world although it caused a lot of pollution to the world and it caused many damages to the mankind and the other creatures around the globe it still one of the biggest industries, it create millions of careers around the globe which reduced the poorness level and make the mankind life’s much more comfortable you may compare the humans life before the exploration of the oil and after the oil industries development. Construction project’s consist of 3 major sections also we call them EPC projects the first section is the detailed engineering, the second section is the procurements section and finally is the Construction section, each section required a specialized work force with a different skills in order to handle the work load for example in the oil sector and depending on the nature of the project and the project size the Construction team required mechanical engineer, civil engineer, electrical engineer and instrumentation engineer, also a work site supervisor for each disciplines also a huge number of labors, technicians and many equipment’s.

Keywords: Construction, EPC, Project, Work force

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Authors: Miguel Maria, Tchilissila A. Simoes

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The end of a long period of civil wars in Angola (1975-2002) paved the way for growing scientific research in the field of psychology, allowing us to broaden our knowledge on the Angolan population throughout their individual and family development. In this study, we aimed to assess the index of self-concept and self-esteem of adolescents from private and public secondary schools in Lubango, Angola. One hundred adolescents, between 16 and 18 years old (M = 17.2 years, SD = 0.81), completed the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale 2 (Piers, 1984) and the Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC; Harter, 1985). Our results pointed out lower values of self-esteem and self-concept compared to international samples. Moreover, the level of education and the type of school attended did not seem to influence the level of participants' self-concept and self-esteem. These results contributed to enrich the literature on Angolan adolescents and propels intervention programs to enhance the self-concept and self-esteem of these individuals.

Keywords: African adolescents, post-war societies, self-esteem, self-concept

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Authors: El Metmati Abdelhaq

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Shear strength of sandy soils has been considered as the important parameter to study the stability of different civil engineering structures when subjected to monotonic, cyclic and earthquake loading conditions. The objective of this laboratory investigation is to study the influence of the fraction of low plastic fines and gradation on the mechanical behavior of sand-silt mixtures reconstituted in the laboratory. For this purpose, a series of Casagrande shear box tests were carried out on different reconstituted samples of sand-silt mixtures with various gradations at two initial relative densities (Dr = 20 and 91 %) with different fines content ranging from 0 to 40 %. The soil samples were tested under different normal stresses (100, 200 and 300 kPa). The evaluation of the data indicates that the fines content and the gradation have significant influence on the friction angle and the cohesion.

Keywords: mechanical behavior, silty sand, friction angle, cohesion, fines content

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Authors: Tomas Linas Šepetys

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In online content-sharing service platforms, the ability of creators to restrict illicit use of audiovisual creative works has effectively been abolished, largely due to specific infrastructure where a huge volume of copyrighted audiovisual content can be made available to the public. The European Union legislator has attempted to strengthen the positions of creators in the realm of online content-sharing services. Article 17 of the new Digital Single Market Directive considers online content-sharing service providers to carry out acts of communication to the public of any creative content uploaded to their platforms by users and posits requirements to obtain licensing agreements. While such regulation intends to assert authors‘ ability to effectively control the dissemination of their creative works, it also creates threats of parody content overblocking through automated content monitoring. Such potentially paradoxical outcome of the efforts of the EU legislator to deliver economic safeguards for the creators in the online content-sharing service platforms leads to presume lack of informity on legislator‘s part regarding creative works‘ economic exploitation opportunities provided to creators in the online content-sharing infrastructure. Analysis conducted in this scientific research discloses that the aforementioned irregularities of parody and other creative content dissemination are caused by EU legislators‘ lack of assessment of value extraction conditions for parody creators in the online content-sharing service platforms. Historical and modeling research method application reveals the existence of two creative content dissemination models and their unique mechanisms of commercial value creation. Obligations to obtain licenses and liability over creative content uploaded to their platforms by users set in Article 17 of the Digital Single Market Directive represent technological replication of the proprietary dissemination model where the creator is able to restrict access to creative content apart from licensed retail channels. The online content-sharing service platforms represent an open dissemination model where the economic potential of creative content is based on the infrastructure of unrestricted access by users and partnership with advertising services offered by the platform. Balanced modeling of proprietary dissemination models in such infrastructure requires not only automated content monitoring measures but also additional regulatory monitoring solutions to separate parody and other types of creative content. An example of the Digital Single Market Directive proves that regulation can dictate not only the technological establishment of a proprietary dissemination model but also a partial reduction of the open dissemination model and cause a disbalance between the economic interests of creators relying on such models. The results of this scientific research conclude an informative role of the creative works dissemination model in the EU copyright law modernization process. A thorough understanding of the commercial prospects of the open dissemination model intrinsic to the online content-sharing service platform structure requires and encourages EU legislators to regulate safeguards for parody content dissemination. Implementing such safeguards would result in a common application of proprietary and open dissemination models in the online content-sharing service platforms and balanced protection of creators‘ economic interests explicitly based on those creative content dissemination models.

Keywords: copyright law, creative works dissemination model, digital single market directive, online content-sharing services

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Authors: Ruth Gerritsen-McKane, Mimi Sodhi, Lisa Gray, Donette Considine, Henry Kronner, Tameca Harris-Jackson

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During these extraordinary times amid a global pandemic, political/civil unrest, and natural disasters, the need for appropriately trained professional social workers has never been stronger. Needs do not diminish but are heightened during such remarkable times. All too often, “developed” countries see the crisis in developing countries as uniquely theirs; 2020 has shown, there are no “others”; there is only us. Consequently, engaging in meaningful collaboration worldwide is essential! This presentation speaks to the fundamentals of global collaboration and, more importantly, how an in these trying times, the development of strong international partnerships can create opportunities for social work students across the planet to engage in meaningful field education opportunities. Accomplished by multiple modalities, a deeper understanding and response to social work students becoming formidable global citizens can be achieved.

Keywords: global citizens, global crisis, global collaboration, modalities

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Authors: Cut Maisyarah Karyati, Aries Muslim, Sulardi

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Digital image processing techniques to obtain detailed information from an image have been used in various fields, including in civil engineering, where the use of solid beam profiles in buildings and bridges has often been encountered since the early development of beams. Along with this development, the founded castellated beam profiles began to be more diverse in shape, such as the shape of a hexagon, triangle, pentagon, circle, ellipse and oval that could be a practical solution in optimizing a construction because of its characteristics. The purpose of this research is to create a computer application to edge detect the profile of various shapes of the castella beams hole. The digital image segmentation method has been used to obtain the grayscale images and represented in 2D and 3D formats. This application has been successfully made according to the desired function, which is to provide information on the type of castella beam hole.

Keywords: digital image, image processing, edge detection, grayscale, castella beams

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Authors: Ronaldo Seroa Da Motta, Gabriela Santiago

Abstract:

The main contribution of this study is the identification of the factors influencing the environmental licensing process of infrastructure projects in Brazil. These factors will be those that reflect the technical characteristics of the project, the corporate governance of the entrepreneur, and the institutional and regulatory governance of the environmental agency, including the number of interventions by non-licensing agencies. The model conditions these variables to the licensing processing time of 34 infrastructure projects. Our results indicated that the conditions would be more sensitive to the type of enterprise, complexity as in gas pipelines and hydroelectric plants in the most vulnerable biome with a greater value of the enterprise or the entrepreneur's assets, together with the number of employees of the licensing agency. The number of external interventions by other non-licensing institutions does not affect the licensing time. Such results challenge the current criticism that environmental licensing has been often pointed out as a barrier to speed up investments in infrastructure projects in Brazil due to the participation of civil society and other non-licensing institutions.

Keywords: environmental licensing, condionants, Brazil, timing process

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Authors: F. Waffo Tchuimmo, G. S. Kwandio Dongoua, C. U. Yves Mbono Samba, O. Dafounansou, L. Nana

Abstract:

The strength criterion is an important condition of great interest to guarantee the stability of the structural elements. The present work is based on the study of the free vibration of Euler’s Bernoulli column of equal strength in compression while considering its own weight and the axial load in compression and tension subjected to symmetrical boundary conditions. We use the differential quadrature method to investigate the first fifth naturals frequencies parameters of the column according to the different forms of geometrical sections. The results of this work give help in making a judicious choice of type of cross-section and a better boundary condition to guarantee good stability of this type of column in civil constructions.

Keywords: free vibration, equal strength, self-weight, tip force, differential quadrature method

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Authors: Brianna Z. Ross, Jonathan N. Livingston

Abstract:

Given that discussions of racism and racial tensions have become more salient, there is a need to evaluate the impacts of racialization among Black individuals. Racial discrimination has become one of the most common experiences within the Black American population. Likewise, Black individuals have indicated a need to address their racial identities at an earlier age than their non-Black peers. Further, Black individuals have been found at the forefront of multiple social and political movements, including but not limited to the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter, MeToo, and Say Her Name. Moreover, the present study sought to explore the predictive relationships that exist between racial discrimination, racial identity, and activism in the Black community. The results of standard and hierarchical regression analyses revealed that racial discrimination and racial identity significantly predict each other, but only racial discrimination is a significant predictor for the relationship to activism. Nonetheless, the results from this study will provide a basis for social scientists to better understand the impacts of racialization on the Black American population.

Keywords: activism, racialization, racial discrimination, racial identity

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Anju Vaidya

Abstract:

Sanitation is concerned with proper disposal of human excreta, waste water and promotion of hygiene. Lack of sanitation impacts our environment affecting our finance, schooling, health, and thus exacerbating poverty, discrimination and exclusion of the marginalized group. Sanitation can be a route and one of the most important factor to reach the goals of all Millennium Development goals. This study aims at exploring what are the rights to sanitation of the people, how it is enacted and what challenges are being faced while implementing the right to sanitation in South-Asian countries (India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka) at government, non-government and international level. This study also aims at finding how right sanitation is interlinked with children rights. The available reports submitted by government and civil society organizations working in South-Asian countries from the website of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights that were submitted under International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights and Convention on rights of the child have been selected and analyzed. The study uses Literature review to analyze these UN documents submitted from 2000 to 2015 in the context of South-Asian countries. Preliminary insight reveals that sanitation is recognized as one of the important factor to attain adequate standard of living. It has been found that inadequate sanitation has been a major factor that affects all aspects of life and one of its devastating impacts is increased child mortality. Many efforts have been made at national and international level in South-Asian countries to improve the state of sanitation and sanitation services. Various approaches such as Community led Total Sanitation, School led Total Sanitation, establishing Open Defecation free zone, water supply services and other sanitation and hygiene awareness programs are being launched. Despite different efforts and programs being implemented, sanitation and hygiene practices and behavior change remains to be a big challenge. Disparity in access and imbalance between urban and rural services and geographical regions, inadequate financing, clear policy framework and fragile functionality are some of the significant challenges faced while implementing these programs. Children are one of the most vulnerable group that are affected to a large extent. The study brings into light varied approaches that are being made and challenges that are being faced by government, non-government and civil society organizations while implementing the programs and strategies related to sanitation. It also highlights the relation of sanitation as a human right with child rights. This can help the stakeholders and policymakers better understand that improving sanitation situation is a process that requires learning, planning and behavior change and achieving sanitation coverage targets and motivating behavior change requires additional tools based on participation, non-discrimination and process approaches for planning and feedback.

Keywords: challenges, child rights, open defecation, sanitation as a human right

Procedia PDF Downloads 281