scholarly journals OPTIMAL PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE PROGRAMS BASED ON A HYBRID GREEDY RANDOMIZED ADAPTIVE SEARCH PROCEDURE ALGORITHM

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Víctor YEPES ◽  
Cristina TORRES-MACHI ◽  
Alondra CHAMORRO ◽  
Eugenio PELLICER
Keyword(s):  
Real Data ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Search Procedure ◽  
Adaptive Search ◽  
Pavement Maintenance ◽  
Optimal Maintenance ◽  
Reactive Strategy ◽  
The One

Insufficient investment in the public sector together with inefficient maintenance infrastructure programs lead to high economic costs in the long term. Thus, infrastructure managers need practical tools to maximize the Long-Term Effectiveness (LTE) of maintenance programs. This paper describes an optimization tool based on a hybrid Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) considering Threshold Accepting (TA) with relaxed constraints. This tool facilitates the design of optimal maintenance programs subject to budgetary and technical restrictions, exploring the effect of different budgetary scenarios on the overall network condition. The optimization tool is applied to a case study demonstrating its efficiency to ana­lyze real data. Optimized maintenance programs are shown to yield LTE 40% higher than the traditional programs based on a reactive strategy. To extend the results obtained in this case study, a set of simulated scenarios, based on the range of values found in the real example, are also optimized. This analysis concludes that this optimization algorithm enhances the allocation of maintenance funds over the one obtained under a traditional reactive strategy. The sensitivity analysis of a range of budgetary scenarios indicates that the funding level in the early years is a driving factor of the LTE of optimal maintenance programs.

Interrelationships between municipal spatial policy strategy and airport operation and development. Lodz Airport case study

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-79
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Nikorowicz-Zatorska
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Spatial Management ◽  
The One ◽  
Surrounding Areas

Abstract The present paper focuses on spatial management regulations in order to carry out investment in the field of airport facilities. The construction, upgrades, and maintenance of airports falls within the area of responsibility of local authorities. This task poses a great challenge in terms of organisation and finances. On the one hand, an active airport is a municipal landmark and drives local economic, social and cultural development, and on the other, the scale of investment often exceeds the capabilities of local authorities. The immediate environment of the airport determines its final use and prosperity. The objective of the paper is to review legislation that affects airports and the surrounding communities. The process of urban planning in Lodz and surrounding areas will be presented as a background to the problem of land use management in the vicinity of the airport. This paper seeks to address the following questions: if and how airports have affected urban planning in Lodz, does the land use around the airport prevent the development of Lodz Airport, and how has the situation changed over the time? It can be assumed that as a result of lack of experience, land resources and size of investments on one hand and legislative dissonance and peculiar practices on the other, aviation infrastructure in Lodz is designed to meet temporary needs and is characterised by achieving short-term goals. Cyclical problems are solved in an intermittent manner and involve all the municipal resources, so there’s little left to secure long-term investments.

scholarly journals Jealousy Incarnate: Quiet Ego, Competitive Desire, and the Fictional Intelligence of Long-Term Mating in a Romantic K-Drama

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Lorenza Lucchi Basili ◽  
Pier Luigi Sacco
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Male Partner ◽  
Quiet Ego ◽  
The One ◽  
Mating Interaction ◽  
Human Mating

In this paper, we analyze a K-drama aired by the Korean TV network SBS in 2016, Jealousy Incarnate, as a case study of the application of the Tie-Up Theory to a romantic narrative as a form of simulation of human mating processes with social cognition valence. We find that this case provides us with an example of a mating process where the choice of the male partner by the female lead character does not privilege the one that should be preferable on the basis of the standard prediction of the experimental research on human mating. This discrepancy is a signal of a basic limitation of experimental research, that highlights the subjects’ preferences for abstract potential partners but is not able to fully account for the mechanisms that lead to the choice of a specific partner in a specific mating interaction. We argue that the narrative simulation viewpoint provides insights that are complementary to those of experimental research, and that a more comprehensive theoretical approach, such as the one offered by the Tie-Up Theory, may be helpful to account for both perspectives.

scholarly journals Unexpected Disadvantages of a Simultaneous Quadrilingual Upbringing, a Case Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Jerome Dumetz ◽  
Jerome Dumetz ◽  
Jerome Dumetz ◽  
Jerome Dumetz
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Cognitive Difficulties ◽  
The Social ◽  
Positive Perspective

At the crossroad between linguistics and cross-cultural communication, multilingualism is frequently presented through its most positive perspective. However, if the long-term benefits outrun the disadvantages, frustration is often the dominant feeling among the speakers during their early years. Based upon meticulous observations and careful collection of examples in a multilingual family, this article is a case study of the difficulties encountered by polyglots growing up with four simultaneous languages: Russian, French, Czech, and English. Using the research framework usually developed for the study of bilingualism, the article reviews not only the psychological and cognitive difficulties encountered by tetraglots, but also the social and linguistic drawbacks they are confronted with. It also examines common multilingual strategies such as code-switching, words creation and language mixing. It concludes that the linguistic development of tetraglots does not differ much from bilingual ones, except for the elongated period before acquiring production speech. Quadrilingual children tend to speak later than not only monolingual children, but also bilingual ones.

scholarly journals Cultural Workers from the Paintbrush Factory. Between Institution-Building and Urban Development Challenges

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-106
Author(s):  
Marina Mironică
Keyword(s):  
Development Strategy ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Cultural Workers ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Art Scene ◽  
The One

Abstract The paper is an ethnography of cultural workers from the contemporary art centre from Cluj-Napoca, Romania – The Paintbrush Factory. The one-decade existence of the alternative space contributed to a range of changes in the local cultural scene and evolved from a physical space into a resource for the city’s culture-led development strategy. It also became affected and reshaped by wider changes in terms of applied cultural policies. Cultural workers’ perspective, their precarity and their involvement in the local art scene influenced the current commodification and entrepreneurialisation of the cultural offer. The Paintbrush Factory’s expansion and contraction are vividly presented through the reflexive lenses of the cultural workers and managers, whose case-study could easily be regarded as a signal and a symbol of the deficient cultural policies mostly oriented to profit and lacking any local and long term-vision.

scholarly journals Brand as an innovation—The case of Czech wine

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-124
Author(s):  
Jan Zavodny Pospisil
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Wine Production ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Wine Market ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The Czech Republic is not a typical wine-growing country, yet winemaking and viticulture are among the oldest Czech crafts. Although the situation is slightly improving today, domestic wine production is not very preferred by Czech consumers since more than two-thirds of the wine that Czechs drink each year is imported. In the long term, the worst situation prevailed with the sales of a young wine. The cause was twofold: On the one hand, the market was already penetrated by imported Beaujolais nouveau, which became a synonym for the young wine. On the other, a peculiar Czechs’ taste for young wine was also an obstacle. As a young wine, many Czechs drink partially fermented must from grapevine fruits called “Burčák”. The young wine market was therefore seemingly penetrated with a low possibility of new brands entering it. The proposed case study will describe an ongoing campaign in which a new brand, “Svatomartinské víno”, was created. With this brand, it was possible to change the Czech consumers’ view of immature wines fundamentally. Thanks to the innovative branding approach, the product, which Czech consumers had neglected for many years, became a superior and must-have product for broad consumers. Also, the relationship between the brand and consumers has been established. The new brand has become a potential for many other related events. Last but not least, the consumption of domestic wine increased, which led to the support of local wineries and related regions.

scholarly journals Temporary Uses of Urban Brownfields for Creative Activities in a Post-Socialist City. Case Study: Timișoara (Romania)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 8095
Author(s):  
Alexandra-Camelia Marian-Potra ◽  
Ramona Ișfănescu-Ivan ◽  
Sorin Pavel ◽  
Cătălina Ancuța
Keyword(s):  
Financial Instability ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Event Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Large Size ◽  
The One ◽  
Community Space ◽  
Urban Brownfields

The linking (in terms of functional use) of brownfield sites with creative spaces is a frequently encountered phenomenon in western European, post-communist, and industrialized countries in general and is viewed as a way of revitalizing, repurposing, or simply making temporary use of them. It may also be seen in the municipality of Timișoara in Romania, where 12 creative spaces, each involving one or more kinds of functionalities (coworking space, maker space, community space, event space, incubator), are operating on such sites. A content analysis of interviews with those in charge of these 12 creative spaces brought to light, on the one hand, the opportunities represented by the existence of derelict industrial spaces, as represented by their large size, low rents, and innate flexibility, but on the other the reality of a number of long-term constraints on the use of these spaces, given the financial instability of cultural operators, the limited numbers of the public who are interested in creative activities of this kind, and, most seriously, the development pressure exerted by some real-estate developers on derelict industrial spaces.

scholarly journals Contribution of pandemic covid-19 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in China

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hajar BADA ◽  
Mohamed LAHKIM ◽  
Ahmed BELMOUDEN ◽  
Nadia El Kadmiri
Keyword(s):  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
Annual Number ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

In order to respond to climate change, the Chinese government has committed to reduce the intensity of its national GHG emissions by 2020. In contrast to expectations, this year has seen an unexpected tragedy in the form of the corona virus epidemic. This virus, which belongs to the SARS-COV-2 family, has created a global turmoil and led to a record number of infections and deaths. In this situation, China took refuge as the first country to announce the appearance of the virus, resorted to quarantine in the absence of a vaccine against the virus, declared a state of emergency and then led to the shutdown of the Chinese economy. With the increase in the number of infections and deaths several study had analyzing the connection between economic growth and covid-19 or public health and covid-19, while this paper focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on air quality, specifically the concentration of GHGs in the air resulting from industrial activities by comparing GHGs emissions in 2020 and previous years on the one hand, on the other hand, by analyzing the difference between the annual number of deaths caused by pollution and those caused by the virus. This mini review highlights the effect of long-term exposure to pollutants and the high risk of infection by the virus, China is taken as a case study, which evaluates the impact of COVID-19 on the environment.

scholarly journals Multicriteria Anomaly Detection in Government Purchases

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia Maia ◽  
Wagner Meira Jr. ◽  
Breno Barbosa ◽  
Gustavo Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Anomaly Detection ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Government Purchases

Government purchases are the usual instrument for public acquisition of goods and services. Despite extensive legislation and several control and auditing mechanisms, frauds are still diverse and commonplace at all levels of public administration. This work proposes a methodology for detecting anomalies in government purchases. The methodology promotes several levels of filtering with respect to entities involved and purchases considered as fraudulent considering diverse criteria. The applicability and effectiveness of the methodology is demonstrated through a case study using real data where we were able to identify a long term provider collusion.

scholarly journals CSR in automotive sector - leaders or deceivers? The case of Audi AG

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-19
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Witkowski ◽  
Mateusz Kurowski ◽  
Dariusz Lesicki
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
External Effects ◽  
Car Industry ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Report Analysis ◽  
The One

Car production is a kind of activity that affects environment, society and global economy to a large degree. The most negative impact can be observed in the first of mentioned fields. Every day automotive companies consume big amount of energy and resources. What is more, their final products are considered as one of the main pollution sources. Nevertheless many car producers made effort to minimize negative external effects of their businesses. Year by year various CSR classifications and rankings showed that those efforts were resultful but Volkswagen emissions scandal and anti-diesel lobby shed new light on car industry in the terms of CSR. The aim of the article is to review CSR activities undertaken by Audi AG. Literature review and report analysis performed within the case study shows that the company is active in the field of ecology, society and corporate governance. In many terms Audi AG can be considered as the one of global CSR leaders. It is characterized by wide range of long term initiatives, high employee satisfaction and constant dialogue with stakeholders. On the other hand Audi AG can not be seen as a responsible company in the light of misleading customers to raise sales volume.

scholarly journals Negotiating and appropriating the 'one person, one language' policy within the complex reality of a multilingual crèche in Strasbourg

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eloise Caporal-Ebersold ◽  
Andrea Young
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Language Policy ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
The One ◽  
Children's Interests ◽  
The City

The aim of this article is to analyse the early childhood education and care (ECEC) language policy in the city of Strasbourg, focusing on an ethnographic case study of a newly established bilingual English–French crèche in the city. In France, establishing an early childhood education structure – more specifically, a day care centre catering to young children – involves close coordination with national, departmental, and local government entities. Associations that embark on this process go through a long administrative process. Taking this fact into consideration, we maintain that to understand the language policy in ECEC, it is imperative to examine the overlapping participation of different government entities and services from the national, regional, departmental, city, and local levels. Our data reveal that the conceptualization of the language policy at a newly created bilingual crèche structure was highly influenced by top-down language policies and pervading language ideologies. Yet, the crèche personnel needed to interpret, negotiate, and appropriate this policy in order to consider its feasibility and to take into account the children's interests and welfare within the normal functioning of this early years structure.

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