Search results for "relation"

Do terrorism, organized crime (drug production), and state weakness affect contemporary armed conflicts? An empirical analysis

2015

ABSTRACTIn 2014, the UN Security Council emphasized the dangers of terrorism, criminal activity (especially drug production and trafficking), and state weakness in conflict areas. However, neither policy debates nor scholarly analyses have focussed on the potential impact of these elements on conflict dynamics and characteristics, and the investigated partial relationships have led to inconclusive results. This article explores the presence in armed conflicts of terrorist groups among fighting parties, major drug production (indicating the presence of activities typical of criminal organizations), and state failure in the period 1990–2011. Focussing on intrastate conflicts, this article hig…

Me, My Bot and His Other (Robot) Woman? Keeping Your Robot Satisfied in the Age of Artificial Emotion

2018

With a backdrop of action and science fiction movie horrors of the dystopian relationship between humans and robots, surprisingly to date-with the exception of ethical discussions-the relationship aspect of humans and sex robots has seemed relatively unproblematic. The attraction to sex robots perhaps is the promise of unproblematic affectionate and sexual interactions, without the need to consider the other&rsquo

Onset of cohesion in cement paste

2004

It is generally agreed that the cohesion of cement paste occurs through the formation of a network of nanoparticles of a calcium-silicate-hydrate ("C-S-H"). However, the mechanism by which these particles develop this cohesion has not been established. Here we propose a dielectric continuum model which includes all ionic interactions within a dispersion of C-S-H particles. It takes into account all co-ions and counterions explicitly (with pure Coulomb interactions between ions and between ions and the surfaces) and makes no further assumptions concerning their hydration or their interactions with the surface sites. At high surface charge densities, the model shows that the surface charge of…

Creating a questionnaire for a scientific study

2016

Using questionnaires has become a permanent part of collecting data in scientific studies within the sphere of human sciences as well as other disciplines. It has been utilized already for nearly a century in collecting data. The first questionnaires were carried out on paper but nowadays there are e-questionnaires alongside it which can be carried out through e-mail or published on a social media platform (for example, Facebook). An often used method is also a survey which is carried out with a research project's own web page, association or company etc. A questionnaire has been considered as an actual scientific method of data collection since 1930s. However, it was already used a little …

Challenges influencing the safety of migrant workers in the construction industry: A qualitative study in Italy, Spain, and the UK

2021

Abstract The construction industry is notoriously high risk for accidents, injuries, and deaths, particularly for non-national or migrant workers, who comprise a significant proportion of the workforce. This paper presents an international, qualitative study focused on exploring the challenges which influence the safety of migrant construction workers in Italy, Spain, and the UK. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, we formulated two research questions about the challenges relating to safety that migrant workers face and the challenges to safety training effectively improving migrant workers’ safety behaviours. We present our template analysis of semi-structured interviews and…

2019

Final disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from nuclear power plants (NPPs) is an ethical issue with implications within and across generations. We address this issue from the perspective of nuclear communities that host nuclear waste disposal sites. These are primarily the communities that face injustice due to the potential radiological risks. A resident survey (n = 454) was conducted in two Finnish nuclear communities, i.e. Eurajoki and Pyhajoki, that are being considered as alternative sites for a second repository for SNF. The nuclear waste management (NWM) company Posiva is already building a repository in Eurajoki, the first in Finland. These communities are in different stages of th…

The ‘Open Garden of Politics’: The impact of open primaries for candidate selection in the British Conservative Party

2016

International audience; Since 2003, hundreds of open primaries for the selection of parliamentary candidates have been held by the British Conservative Party as a means of democratising party organisation and enhancing representativeness. In the run-up to the 2015 general election, only 26 primaries could be identified. This article will apply the analytical framework provided by Hazan and Rahat to demonstrate that the relative failure of the experiment in terms of intra-party competition, participation, representation and responsiveness is counterbalanced by the benefits brought by this procedure, both as a tool of party branding at the national level and as a strategy for raising the prof…

Miracles in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt and Refugees as ‘Vanguard’

2019

AbstractThe radical uncertainty that refugees face because of war, flight and exile often dramatically shapes their participation in society. Violent conflict and human rights abuses are not just disproportionately experienced by, but can also create, political subjects. Such life events can transform the motivations, sense of responsibility and political actions of individuals with refugee backgrounds. In this article, we explore the links between civil–political engagement and the life stories of such individuals, analysing our empirical data through themes in the work of Hannah Arendt. We make three central points. First, we highlight the possibility of refugees as ‘vanguard’, playing a …

The Challenge of Coexistence in Socially Vulnerable Schools

2017

Abstract Society in general and schools in particular continue to express their concerns with regard to the many challenges posed nowadays by living in a globalized world, where learning to coexist involves knowing oneself and those around us. Therefore, the professionals from the education sector and specially from the most vulnerable contexts demand the necessity to know strategies and initiatives which enable them to build a democratic school, where learning to coexist is the key to educate engaged citizens living in an increasingly intercultural, changing world. The study presented here has been conducted in two differentiated, but complementary, phases. During the first phase a documen…

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…