Search results for "Defence"
showing 10 items of 472 documents
Rethinking the Finance of Post-Compulsory Education
2010
Throughout the world, the finance of education is in serious crisis. The crisis of educational finance is not limited to the problem of meeting the obligations of societies to provide some minimum amount of compulsory education for their students. This minimum does not assure the preparation of an appropriately trained labour force in a world that is increasingly technicological and in which a competitive economy requires the remplacement of traditional production processes with others based on sophisticated labour and capital. The rapid growth of post-compulsory systems of education is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for industrialization and economic development.
After the Millennium Development Goals. Remarks on the ethical assessment of global poverty reduction success
2018
The Millennium Development Goals were effective from 2000 to 2015. Statistics show that most of the goals were met, and particularly success in the goal of reducing extreme poverty (MDG1) gained wide recognition. Despite the strong ethical language related to poverty reduction, there has been little analysis of the ethical significance of the MDG achievements. Since statistical and ethical definitions and representations of poverty never completely overlap, conclusions concerning ethical progress are not directly available from the statistics. This article shows how this ethical significance can be analysed and what kinds of controversies and uncertainties relate to the issue. As part of th…
Local social services in disaster management: Is there a Nordic model?
2017
Abstract The Nordic states have extensive welfare systems in which the local social services are an important component. Despite a growing research on disaster resilience, we lack research examining in systematic way whether and how local social services in the Nordic countries contribute to resilience. Aiming to fill this gap, this article asks whether we can identify a common Nordic model of the role of local social services in disasters, or whether the countries have taken different paths. We use policy documents and legislation to examine the extent to which roles for local social services are embedded in the disaster management systems of the five Nordic countries. We analyze the insti…
The Theory of the Flying Geese Pattern of Development and Its Interpretations
1994
An interpretation is made of Akamatsu Kaname's theory of the flying geese pattern of development, launched in Japan during the 1930s. This theory explains how an undeveloped country can become developed relatively quickly. The undeveloped country adopts suitable labour-intensive industries from more developed countries. It produces first for the home market, but starts to export as soon as the industries have grown strong enough. Initially, products are simple, crude and cheap, but gradually the level of quality is elevated. The procedure is repeated over and over again, leading to a rapid process of national economic development. In Japanese postwar industrial policy, certain industries w…
Privatisation, decentralisation and production adjustment in the Russian defence industry
1998
PRIVATISATION IN THE DEFENCE INDUSTRY was until 1993 characterised by two features. Firstly, it affected a small number of organisations considered not too important within the sector. Nevertheless, one must point out that, at the end of 1992, some outstanding companies from the defence sector started to be privatised, which marked the first extension of the phenomenon to this sector of the economy. Secondly, the privatisation in this early period lacked organisation and control. Legislation was passed in 1993 with the aim of establishing some order in the privatisation process in the defence industry. From that time (until 1996) the idea was to foster a broad privatisation process with a v…
Arms exports and restructuring in the Russian defence industry
2004
The defence industry has been one of the industries most seriously affected by the Russian economic crisis since 1992. The main restructuring policy applied in the industry during the first years of transition was conversion, that is, trying to re-use military resources for productive civil ends. By the mid-1990s, however, such a policy was already considered a failure, and since 1997 the Ministry of Economy has taken over the running of the defence industry and changed the direction of reform. In the summer of 1999 the responsibility for the running of the defence industry was transferred to five independent agencies, and this remains the situation. From 1997 the aim was still to restructu…
Fundamental period of infilled reinforced concrete frame structures
2016
AbstractThe fundamental period of vibration appears to be one of the most critical parameters for the seismic design and assessment of structures. In the present paper, the results of a large-scale analytical investigation on the parameters that affect the fundamental period of reinforced concrete structures are presented. The influence of the number of storeys, the number of spans, the span length, the infill wall panel stiffness and the percentage of openings within the infill panel on the fundamental period of infilled RC frames was investigated. Based on these results, a regression analysis is applied in order to propose a new empirical equation for the estimation of the fundamental per…
Designing for Networked Community Resilience
2016
Abstract Communities have been described to be at the heart of the preparedness for and the response to disasters. The increasing connectedness has made communities more vulnerable for their dependence on a complex network of critical infrastructures. At the same time, this very connectedness has the potential to enable communities to self-organise, engage, and connect with other communities to improve their resilience. While the pathway to more resilience is promising and has many advocates, the response to crises and disasters, time and again reveals the challenges related to (i) ad-hoc switching from preparedness to response; (ii) ad-hoc connecting professional responders, communities, v…
Risk Assessment of a compound feed process based on HAZOP analysis and linguistic terms
2016
[EN] The size and complexity of industrial plants, along with the characteristics of the products used, require a study, analysis and control of the existing risks in every industrial process. In this paper, a methodology for risk assessment in industrial plants, based on the combination of risks identification through the Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) analysis and the risks evaluation through linguistic variables and fuzzy numbers is applied to a case study consisting on a compound feed plant located in the town of Silla (Valencia, Spain). The results from this study show that the main risk in the compound feed production process is the formation of explosive atmospheres (ATEX). Therefore…
Incremental dynamic based fragility assessment of reinforced concrete structures: Stationary vs. non-stationary artificial ground motions
2017
Abstract Artificial and natural records are commonly employed by researches and practitioners to perform refined seismic assessments of structures. The techniques for the generation of artificial records and their effectiveness in producing signals which are significantly representative of real earthquakes are still debated as well as results of the consequent seismic assessment to expect from their application. The paper presents an in-depth comparative study highlighting the effect of employing different typologies of artificial ground motion records on seismic assessment results, especially addressing seismic fragility curves. Three sets of 50 stationary, nonstationary evenly modulated a…