Evaluation of the effects of electrical power outages on small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs)

This study evaluated the effects of electrical power outages on Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs). The study was guided by two specific objectives of determining the cost of alternative sources of power supply and its impact on the profitability of businesses of selected SMEs in Elelenwo community in Obio/Akpor Local Government of Rivers State and to suggest possible ways of reducing the power outages in Elelenwo Community. The costs of power supply using private power generation and that of public power generation from Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution (PHED) were collected from selected SMEs in the study area. Findings established the fact that electrical power outages have significant negative effects on the businesses of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) which in turns affect their profitability and sustainability. This was established by finding the correlations of the costs of running businesses with private power generation and that of using public power generation for selected SMEs and the results yielded negative correlation coefficients. The study also suggested possible ways of reducing the power outages.

‘International Shanghai’ (1863–1931): Imperialism and private authority in the Global City

At the intersection of imperial rule and private power, Shanghai rose to international prominence in the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. It did so by taking advantage of the extraterritorial status and the dynamic, cosmopolitan population of the International Settlement. In evaluating the fate of the Shanghai Municipal Council, we seek to ascertain how private authority could have been constituted on a transnational basis within the framework of a treaty port. The rise of Shanghai was linked to some of the ambiguities of overlapping imperial rule and the possibilities it created for legal and governance experimentation. This is particularly clear in realms most associated with sovereign power, namely the International Settlement’s attempts to claim some taxation power and maintain law and order. That power, however, was interstitial at best and the product of fragile balances, as shown by the Council’s ultimate failure to secure a full international legal status for Shanghai. Nonetheless, the rise and fall of the International Settlement at Shanghai are worth reflecting upon, not only in relation to the history of China, imperialism and international law, but also as a way of thinking how the authority of large metropolitan centres might be constituted.

From the Company Town to the Innovation Zone: Frontiers of Public Policy, the State Action Doctrine, and the First Amendment

This article draws on the state action doctrine and the case Marsh v. Alabama to evaluate a recent proposal to create an unprecedented public-private partnership in the state of Nevada. In Marsh, the Supreme Court of the United States held that a private citizen was protected under the U.S. Constitution's First and Fourteenth Amendments in distributing religious literature on the sidewalk of a “company-owned” town. We make the case that both the state policy under consideration and a number of political and economic trend lines indicate that the issue central to Marsh remains pressing at the start of our new millennium: what are the circumstances under which concentrated private power amounts to something akin to government authority, thereby implicating the protections of the national Constitution? Our goal in this piece is not to offer an exhaustive or thorough review of the particulars of the “Innovation Zone” bill under consideration, but to consider, in advance, constitutional problems that might arise from granting corporations broad powers traditionally wielded by governments.

Optimization of the Capacities of Private Generators Installed in a Hospital Building Under the Constraint of Demand Sufficiency During Power Outages

It is essential to secure energy sources by installing a private power generator for business continuity in a power outage. The authors have developed an optimization tool to estimate the optimal amount of distributed power supply equipment using economic efficiency and resilience as two evaluation indicators. However, it is questionable whether the private generator in a hospital building can generate sufficient electricity to meet demands in case of a power failure, because demand has short cycle fluctuations on the order of seconds, and the private generator must respond to these fluctuations from time to time in the case of stand-alone operation. The optimization tools we have developed in the past have not considered the balance between power output and load demand (demand sufficiency). Therefore, this paper proposes a new optimization method that considers balancing power supply and demand in private generators’ independent operation during power outages. We narrowed the optimization constraints as demand sufficiency conditions: standard AC frequency range between 49 and 51 Hz. More practical optimal solutions are obtained by applying the new constraints to the multi-optimization. We also compare the case study results by applying these constraints to the results of previous case studies.

Shadow Elites

Seismic transformational developments over the past several decades have reorganized governance, spawned new spaces of policy and governance, and weakened impartial government and accountability. Systemic, structural corruption, in which activities are mostly legal but violate an official institution’s public, impartial mission has arisen, along with a new breed of influencers. “Shadow elites” are the most insidious of these influencers. This chapter, grounded in social anthropology, examines the organization and modus operandi of shadow elites as compared with their “power elite” forebears and evaluates theories of institutional corruption in light of shadow elite practices and their merging of state and private power. International anticorruption regimes have emerged over the same time frame (the past quarter century) as shadow elites. Hence we ask why these regimes have largely failed to recognize the impact of the transformational developments and the forms of corruption they forge. A wide-ranging, multidisciplinary approach to studying shadow elite practices, ecosystems, and implications is urgently needed.

Defamiliarizing Technology, Habituation, and the Need for a Structuralist Approach

In response to my article “Earth, Technology, Language”, Christopher Müller asks whether use-oriented theory and Wittgensteinian language can capture the structural relations of power that shape habituation and argues that digital media do not provide opportunities for empowerment and democracy because there is no co-ownership. In my reply I argue that I have shown that this can be done with the broader conception of use I propose, that the grammar of technology should also be understood in terms of implicit knowledge, and that technology, like language, also has a public dimension: I claim that there is no such thing as a private technology or private power, and that some degree of co-ownership or resistance is possible. In the second part of the paper I reply to Bas de Boer’s questioning of my criticism of postsphenomenology. I insist that postphenomenology does not have the full instrumentarium to carry out an adequate and comprehensive analysis of the social dimension of technology use, and that it is important to attend to the structural dimension of technology, with or without use of the term ‘transcendental’. I clarify my use of the term as referring to conditions of possibility.

Protecting Cisnormative Private and Public Spheres: The Canadian Conservative Denunciation of Transgender Rights

The public sphere has been seen by conservatives as an arena for safeguarding private relations. Private power relations (in the family, religion, community and economy) could be threatened by newly recognized social groups that make claims on the state for justice and equality. Therefore, conservatives have been concerned about who can speak and exist in public and who can thereby make demands on the state. In the debates over transgender rights in Canada, social conservatives and neoliberal forces have merged in complex and impactful ways. Analyzing House of Commons and Senate debates and committee proceedings for Bill C-279 (2015) and Bill C-16 (2016–2017), I examine three conservative arguments that illustrate attempts to maintain private power relations and hierarchal gendered divisions by ensuring that transgender and gender nonconforming people are not allowed to exist, speak or make claims in public: first, the assertion that gender identity and gender expression are not definable identity categories for claims-making because transgender people are deceptive and can change their gender based on their feelings; second, the targeting of public facilities, and particularly public bathrooms, as sites of contention, danger and necessary gender segregation; and third, the attempt to delegitimize rights claims by criminalizing transgender people in relation to cisgender women and children.

OS GRANDES PROJETOS E OS ESPAÇOS DE RESISTÊNCIA NA AMAZÔNIA: as comunidades em áreas de influência direta das estações portuárias em Rurópolis-PA

DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND RESISTANCE SPACES IN THE AMAZON: communities in areas of direct influence of port seasons in Rurópolis, state of Pará, BrazilLOS GRANDES PROYECTOS Y LOS ESPACIOS DE RESISTENCIA EN LA AMAZONIA: las comunidades en áreas de influencia directa de las estaciones portuarias en Rurópolis, estado dePará, BrasilRESUMOO presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a produção do espaço de comunidades diretamente afetadas por projetos de transporte de cargas na Amazônia oriental, tendo como recorte empírico as quatro comunidades (Santarenzinho, Livramento, Nazaré e Lago do Roque) da área de influência direta de três projetos de Estações de Transbordo de Cargas (ETC), que são denominados de ETC Rurópolis, ETC Tapajós e ETC Santarenzinho, localizados no município de Rurópolis, oeste paraense. Para realização dessa pesquisa, utilizou-se levantamento bibliográfico e documental sobre temas relacionados a esse estudo, bem como trabalho de campo com levantamento fotográfico, realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas e observação sistemática da paisagem. Entende-se que em parte da orla fluvial do município de Rurópolis coexistem as novas tendências de dominação econômica com as vivências ribeirinhas e agroextrativistas. Tal coexistência, entretanto, é, em grande parte, negligenciada pelas ações do poder público que se voltam para o reordenamento da região em prol do avanço do capital nacional e internacional em detrimento da (sobre)vivência de comunidades tradicionais. Destaca-se que em virtude da implantação desses projetos e dos interesses econômicos, do desrespeito à identidade e cultura desses povos, pelo poder público e privado, e da falta de proteção aos seus conhecimentos e territórios, a sobrevivência das comunidades pesquisadas passou a ser ameaçada. Palavras-chave: Comunidades Ribeirinhas e Agroextrativistas; Espaço de Resistência; Amazônia; Grandes Projetos.ABSTRACTThis article aims to analyze the production of the space of communities directly affected by cargo transportation projects in the Eastern Amazon. This study was conducted in four communities located in the area of direct influence of three projects of Transhipment Stations of Cargo (ETC). These ETC’s are denominate ETC Rurópolis, ETC Tapajós and ETC Santarenzinho, and are located in Rurópolis, a municipality in the West of Pará. In this study were used: a) a bibliographic and documentary research; b) a fieldwork with photographic survey; c) semi-structured interviews; and d) a systematic observation of the landscape. It is understood that in part of the Rurópolis riverside, the new tendencies of economic domination coexist with the riverside and agro-extractive experiences. This coexistence is greatly neglected by the actions of the authorities. These actions goals are to reorder the region favoring the national and international capital advancement. However, it has been noticed some side effects in the traditional communities. It should be acknowledged that the survival of the researched communities is threatened due to the implementation of these projects and the economic interests in the region because there is a great disrespect to the identity and culture of these peoples by the public and private power. This directly affects the knowledge and territory of communities.Keywords: Riverine and Agroextractive Communities; Space of resistance; Amazônia; Big ProjectsRESUMENEste artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la producción del espacio de comunidades directamente afectadas por proyectos de transporte de carga en el este de la Amazonía. Nuestro estudio se realizó en cuatro comunidades ubicadas en el área de influencia directa de tres proyectos de Estaciones de Carga de Transbordo (ETC). Estos ETC se denominan ETC Rurópolis, ETC Tapajós y ETC Santarenzinho y están ubicados en el municipio de Ruropolis en el Paraense Oeste. En este estudio se utilizaron: a) investigación bibliográfica y documental; b) trabajo de campo con levantamiento fotográfico; c) entrevistas semiestructuradas; yd) observación sistemática del paisaje. Se entiende que en parte de la ribera del Rurópolis conviven las nuevas tendencias de dominación económica con las experiencias agro-extractivas y ribeira. Esta coexistencia se descuida en gran medida por las acciones de las autoridades. Estas están dirigidos al reordenamiento de la región a favor del avance del capital nacional e internacional en detrimento de las comunidades tradicionales. Cabe señalar que la supervivencia de las comunidades investigadas se vio amenazada debido a la implementación de estos proyectos y los intereses económicos en la región porque existe una gran falta de respeto a la identidad y la cultura de estos pueblos por parte del poder público y privado. Esto afecta directamente el conocimiento y el territorio de las comunidades.Palabras clave: Comunidades Ribeirinhas y Agroextrativistas; Espacio de Resistencia; Amazon; Grandes Proyectos.