Search results for "defence"

Strategies of Identification of a Base-Isolated Hospital Building by Coupled Quasi-Static and Snap-Back Tests

2020

In this paper, the description of a series of quasi-static pushing tests and dynamic snap-back tests is proposed, involving the base-isolated emergency building of the Palermo university hospital. The base isolation system is characterized by a set of double-curved friction pendulum isolators placed on the top of the columns of the underground level, characteristics that cannot be found in the experimental studies available in the literature. The aim of the work was to investigate the static and dynamic properties of the building in question and comparing the in-situ results with the characteristics assigned during the design process and to assess the level of agreement. Static lateral push…

A Mechanical Approach for Evaluating the Distribution of Confinement Pressure in FRP-Wrapped Rectangular Columns

2019

In recent decades, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) wrapping has become a common technique to retrofit reinforced concrete (RC) columns. Numerous research works have sought to verify analytically and experimentally its effectiveness in terms of enhancement of axial load bearing capacity and ductility. These studies highlighted that in the case of sharp-cornered sections, the maximum allowable confinement pressure is limited by premature failure at corners and, consequently, stress in the FRP, as well as the distribution of the confinement pressure, is not uniform. The prediction of this phenomenon is not straightforward, and existing theoretical studies propose complex numerical simulations, …

State effects and the effects of state building: institution building and the formation of state-centred societies

2016

AbstractThis article discusses the assumptions underlying state-building efforts and the effects of these efforts. It addresses two main questions: why has state building not led to the establishment of effective states? And what are the effects of statebuilding? It is argued that these efforts have been based on an institutionalist model of the state derived from a Weberian framework, and that the basic reason why state building has failed is that the creation of effective states requires the creation of state-centred societies, where both material and symbolic resources are concentrated in the state. This is very difficult to achieve for external actors. But, although state building has n…

The Impact of Regionalism on Democracy Building: An Examination of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

2017

Since the early 1990s, the world has witnessed a new wave of regionalism and a mushrooming of regional integration organizations, particularly in the global South. Focusing on Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ranks among the most promising examples of regionalism on the continent. The SADC explicitly aims at building and advancing democracy in the region and its member states as part of its broader agenda on regional development. From a political science perspective, there is general agreement that regional integration and parallel institution building can be useful measures to promote and strengthen democratic rule, since an appropriate institutional “lock-in” impl…

2020

A soldier’s occupational physical task requirements are diverse and varied. However, the type of physical training that most effectively improves soldiers’ occupational task requirements has not been studied previously. The purpose of this study was to determine the important strength characteristics for soldiers during a repeated simulated military task course, and the type of training that may be effective to improve these abilities during a specialized military training period. Forty-two (n = 42) soldiers participated in the study. They were divided into three training groups; a soldier task-specific training group (TSG, n = 17), a strength training group (STG, n = 15), and a control gro…

Two novel subjective logic-based in-network data processing schemes in wireless sensor networks

2016

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of connected low-cost and small-size sensor nodes. The sensor nodes are characterized by various limitations, such as energy availability, processing power, and storage capacity. Typically, nodes collect data from an environment and transmit the raw or processed data to a sink. However, the collected data contains often redundant information. An in-network processing scheme attempts to eliminate or reduce such redundancy in sensed data. In this paper, we propose two in-network data processing schemes for WSNs, which are built based on a lightweight algebra for data processing. The schemes bring also benefits like decreased network traffic load and inc…

Cognitive biases in humanitarian sensemaking and decision-making lessons from field research

2016

Time and again, humanitarian decision-makers are confronted with stress and pressure, distorted, lacking and uncertain information, and thus they are working in conditions that are known to introduce or enforce biases. Decision analysis has been designed to overcome such biases, and a network of “digital responders” organized over the Internet has set out to improve judgments by providing better information. However, without any structured support to determine objectives, goals and preferences and detached from the context of operational decision-makers, remote analysts may face the very biases they are trying to help overcome. This article sets out to identify biases that matter for humani…

Young People and Political Activism in Moldova

2020

The election of a Socialist and pro-Russian candidate in December 2016 as president of Moldova marks a new turn in Moldovan politics. This is in contrast with the pro-Western attitudes of the previous government. Political instability and changing international orientations, as emphasized by this article, are partly due to political alternative victories of parties supported by different social groups. Focusing on young people's activism, the article underlines the differentiation between the political success made possible by street protests in April 2009 and the political failure in December 2016. The findings may add a new explanation to Moldova's permanent instability.

Analyzing Cascading Effects in Interdependent Critical Infrastructures

2018

International audience; Critical Infrastructures (CIs) are resources that are essential for the performance of society, including its economy and its security. Large-scale disasters, whether natural or man-made, can have devastating primary (direct) effects on some CI and significant indirect effects (cascading effects) on other CIs, because CIs are interconnected and depend on each other’s services. Recent work by Laugé et al. expressed the dependency values among CIs as dependency matrices for various durations of the primary CI failure. For better preparedness and mitigation of CI failures knowledge of the weak points in CI interdependencies is crucial. To this effect, we have developed …

Connecting theories of cascading disasters and disaster diplomacy

2018

Abstract Disaster diplomacy examines how and why disaster-related activities (disaster risk reduction and post-disaster actions) do and do not influence peace and conflict processes, especially whether or not a causal chain can be established between dealing with disaster risk or a disaster and outcomes in peace or conflict. Cascading disasters might provide a useful theoretical framing for mapping out causal pathways for disaster diplomacy. In conceptually exploring the intersection between disaster diplomacy and cascading disasters, this paper concludes that both disaster diplomacy and cascading disasters have limitations because they try to develop focused causal chains which, when exami…