The Electrification of Colonial Calcutta: Role of the Innovators, Bureaucrats and Foreign Business Organization, 1880–1940

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-76
Author(s):  
Suvobrata Sarkar

From as early as the 1880s until today, electrical power has served as a useful medium for ushering an urban industrial era throughout the world. This article examines the process of electrification in a colonial setting—Calcutta, the capital of British India till 1911. Access to electricity depended upon economics and technological advances, as well as a combination of local community and regional characteristics such as location, landscape, demographics, politics and culture. Western techno-scientific discourse occupied an extremely important place in the colonization of India. It is known that Western technology and ideas manipulated various technological projects in the colony, including electrification. Was there something unique about Calcutta and its plan that led to the electrification of a colonial metropolis almost simultaneously with other Western industrial nations? By the middle of the twentieth century, electricity, with its elaborate infrastructure of wires, generation stations and poles, emerged as the industrial era’s most prominent symbol of progress in Calcutta. The Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation Ltd (CESC), with its head office in London, played the most vital role, debating and resolving various technical questions, such as load factor, fuel sources, operating generation stations and electricity supply to industry, traction and population centres. This article, based on extensive archival research, shows how, despite colonial derivatives, the resulting electrical systems were locally initiated and customized to the needs and characteristics of the region.

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Vivienne Dunstan

McIntyre, in his seminal work on Scottish franchise courts, argues that these courts were in decline in this period, and of little relevance to their local population. 1 But was that really the case? This paper explores that question, using a particularly rich set of local court records. By analysing the functions and significance of one particular court it assesses the role of this one court within its local area, and considers whether it really was in decline at this time, or if it continued to perform a vital role in its local community. The period studied is the mid to late seventeenth century, a period of considerable upheaval in Scottish life, that has attracted considerable attention from scholars, though often less on the experiences of local communities and people.


Author(s):  
Sebastian Stoermer ◽  
Jan Selmer ◽  
Jakob Lauring

Despite the vital role that trailing partners play for successful expatriation, we still know very little about what actually causes partners to thrive and integrate effectively into the new cultural context. However, as indications have emerged that the personality of partners could be key to a favorable acculturation trajectory, we set out to explore this further. More specifically, we assess the role of expatriate partners’ dispositional affectivity, that is, positive and negative affectivity. We examine this in relation to internal acculturation (in the form of interaction and general adjustment) and external acculturation (in the form of local community embeddedness and intentions to stay or to return home). Drawing on the data of 123 trailing partners, full support was found for three out of four hypotheses regarding the effects of positive affectivity. Further, a marginally significant negative association was identified for the relationship between positive affectivity and repatriation intentions. For negative affectivity, two hypotheses were met. Interestingly, no significant influence of negative affectivity on community embeddedness was found. The association between negative affectivity and interaction adjustment was marginally significant indicating some tentative support. In sum, this study corroborates that dispositional affectivity is an overall important concept to explain trailing partners’ acculturation. However, the role of positive and negative affectivity seems to vary along the different proxies of internal and external acculturation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 120-129
Author(s):  
M. Omar Chohan ◽  
Martina Stippler ◽  
Susy Salvo Wendt ◽  
Howard Yonas

Teleneurosurgery can play a vital role in the care of patients in hospitals and community health settings where neurosurgical expertise is not available. The combination of audiovisual interaction of a neurosurgeon with the emergency physician, the patient and the patient’s family, combined with an intense education program delivered to the originating site care team, has greatly enhanced the appropriate triage of patients in community hospitals. The result is better patient care, improved patient and family satisfaction, cost savings, and the retention of patients within the local community care system, as well as the improved sustainability of the wider health delivery system. To succeed, start-up financial support is often needed to provide the required technical elements and 24/7 neurosurgical availability.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6326
Author(s):  
Vladimír Krepl ◽  
Husam I. Shaheen ◽  
Ghaeth Fandi ◽  
Luboš Smutka ◽  
Zdenek Muller ◽  
...  

The electric power sector in countries suffering from crises and wars such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, etc., is among the most affected infrastructures. Since this sector plays a vital role in the economic growth and in improving people’s quality of life, the post-crisis reconstruction of this sector must take into account the requirements and concepts of sustainable development (SD) in addition to technical and economic considerations. This article discusses the role that renewable energy sources (RES) can play in achieving SD in the post-crisis reconstruction phase of the Syrian Electric Power Sector (SEPS) as a case study. Based on the available data, the study period was chosen from 2005 to 2017 and divided into two periods. In the first period (2005–2010), which is the pre-crisis period, the structure of the SEPS and its main characteristics were described while the adoption of RES solutions and SD concepts were investigated. In the second period (2011–2017), the crisis period, the satiation of the SEPS and impact of the crisis were evaluated. The challenges that faced the adoption of SD concepts and RES solution were also addressed at this stage. Based on analysis and comparison of the available data, several scenarios were discussed to evaluate the role of RES in achieving SD in the post-crisis reconstruction phase of the SEPS. EnergyPLAN software was used for the techno and socio-economic evaluation of these scenarios. Our results emphasize the importance of the adoption of RES solutions in the reconstruction phase, as these can help promote SD concepts (reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting the environment, increasing energy efficiency, creating jobs, etc.) and securing the electric supply of the SEPS while enhancing its stability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-250
Author(s):  
Mohamad Iwan Fitriani ◽  
Nazar Naamy

Although Lombok of West Nusa Tenggara has gained an excellent international reputation for its halal tourism (2015-2018), tourism in the region is not without obstacles. Several elements of the Sasak-Lombok community, for instance, still refuse the concept of halal tourism because it is likely to cause harm to conventional tourism. This article will examine potentials, challenges, and the role of Islamic education in halal tourism in Lombok. It employs a descriptive-qualitative approach, where data collection is obtained from focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, document analysis, and media reporting. Meanwhile, data validity testing is carried out with the triangulation technique. After a profound analysis, this research found that: (1) the potentials for halal tourism in Lombok are made of its natural beauty, cultural distinctiveness, and tradition of the local community predominated by Muslims; (2) the challenges of halal tourism in Lombok include two things: a) conceptual challenges that deal with the absence of terms representing the desires of all parties, and b) practical problems that deal with economic, environmental, social, and cultural matters; (3) Islamic education—as a value, activity, or institution—plays a vital role in disseminating representative concepts for halal tourism acceptable to all parties, i.e. the local community, tourism actors, and government. This acceptance is one of the keys to the successful development of halal tourism in Lombok.


1984 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Kirker

The Monterey Style of architecture spread within a brief period to almost every occupied part of the Mexican province of California through a network of Hispanic family kinships. Beginning with the prototype-the house the American consul Thomas Larkin constructed in Monterey between 1835-1837 from the memory of buildings he knew in Massachusetts and the Carolinas-these houses played a significant role in the "Americanization" of Alta California. It was a rare instance in which American architecture, penetrating to the core of the ruling native families, shared fully with economic and military superiority in the process of United States annexation of a foreign territory. The study of Hispanic kinships in promoting the Monterey Style prior to annexation in 1846 shows the important place of architecture in the correlation of economy, family, politics, and culture in a crucial period of American westward expansion.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Chow ◽  
Stephen Yortsos ◽  
Najmedin Meshkati

This article focuses on a major human factors–related issue that includes the undeniable role of cultural factors and cockpit automation and their serious impact on flight crew performance, communication, and aviation safety. The report concentrates on the flight crew performance of the Boeing 777–Asiana Airlines Flight 214 accident, by exploring issues concerning mode confusion and autothrottle systems. It also further reviews the vital role of cultural factors in aviation safety and provides a brief overview of past, related accidents. Automation progressions have been created in an attempt to design an error-free flight deck. However, to do that, the pilot must still thoroughly understand every component of the flight deck – most importantly, the automation. Otherwise, if pilots are not completely competent in terms of their automation, the slightest errors can lead to fatal accidents. As seen in the case of Asiana Flight 214, even though engineering designs and pilot training have greatly evolved over the years, there are many cultural, design, and communication factors that affect pilot performance. It is concluded that aviation systems designers, in cooperation with pilots and regulatory bodies, should lead the strategic effort of systematically addressing the serious issues of cockpit automation, human factors, and cultural issues, including their interactions, which will certainly lead to better solutions for safer flights.


Author(s):  
Palky Mehta ◽  
H. L. Sharma

In the current scenario of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), power consumption is the major issue associated with nodes in WSN. LEACH technique plays a vital role of clustering in WSN and reduces the energy usage effectively. But LEACH has its own limitation in order to search cluster head nodes which are randomly distributed over the network. In this paper, ERA-NFL- BA algorithm is being proposed for selects the cluster heads in WSN. This algorithm help in selection of cluster heads can freely transform from global search to local search. At the end, a comparison has been done with earlier researcher using protocol ERA-NFL, which clearly shown that proposed Algorithm is best suited and from comparison results that ERA-NFL-BA has given better performance.


Accurate pronunciation has a vital role in English language learning as it can help learners to avoid misunderstanding in communication. However, EFL learners in many contexts, especially at the University of Phan Thiet, still encounter many difficulties in pronouncing English correctly. Therefore, this study endeavors to explore English-majored students’ perceptions towards the role of pronunciation in English language learning and examine their pronunciation practicing strategies (PPS). It involved 155 English-majored students at the University of Phan Thiet who answered closed-ended questionnaires and 18 English-majored students who participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that students strongly believed in the important role of pronunciation in English language learning; however, they sometimes employed PPS for their pronunciation improvement. Furthermore, the results showed that participants tended to use naturalistic practicing strategies and formal practicing strategies with sounds, but they overlooked strategies such as asking for help and cooperating with peers. Such findings could contribute further to the understanding of how students perceive the role of pronunciation and their PPS use in the research’s context and other similar ones. Received 10th June 2019; Revised 12th March 2020; Accepted 12th April 2020


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