Sustainable mobility and beauty of public space

The quality of built environment is linked to the space in-between buildings and considers its formal, environmental and use values, due to specific needs for care and project re-appropriation. Sustainable mobility, a strategic objective of the European Union, cannot ignore the quality of the public space. The New European Bauhaus draw a new strategical attention to the critical role the quality of spaces plays in building a better world. The definition of space for active mobility as environmental islands, sidewalks, pedestrian areas, cycle paths or green ways, must follow morphological, functional and organizational needs. The beauty of the space starts from a new language of the street, through qualifying the places and avoiding a passive crossing for the transport logic, but satisfying a need that goes beyond our material dimension and is inspired by creativity and culture. This qualification is represented here in the case study of an Italian Biciplan as a sector plan able to build inclusive and accessible physical spaces for the community. The lack of attention of technicians in the execution of public works leads to reconsider the importance of these issues also in education and training. The fragmentation of technological knowledge must be recalibrated to provide useful tools without forgetting the quality and the overall beauty of the places when street language improve, also for cultural reason.

A Shaky “Wedge”: An Analysis of India’s Strategic Behavior under the US “Indo-Pacific” Strategy

America’s Indo-Pacific strategy is essentially a combination of its Asia-Pacific and Indian strategies: through the consolidation of its strategic alliances, it can deepen its relations with Asia-Pacific allies, and through its “wedging strategy” it can pull India into its orbit to become a strategic “fulcrum” bridging the region. India was both a key member and leader of the non-aligned movement, while also previously forming a “quasi-alliance” with the Soviet Union. At present, it has responded to the US Indo-Pacific strategy with cautious initiative. From the vantage point of a state targeted vis-à-vis a wedging strategy, India’s strategic behavior is shaped by the strategic environment, its primary strategic objectives, and the relations between allies within the context of a unique strategic environment. This paper identifies two types of strategic environments: the general strategic environment and the specialized strategic environment; it further identifies primary strategic objectives as economic development, sovereign integrity and independence, national security and great state status (especially with respect to that of regional or global major powers); meanwhile, the alliance relationship is defined according to the extent to which there are divisions across state interests and the capacity of states to act autonomously vis-à-vis the alliance. Through an analysis of India’s diplomatic experiences, this paper argues that against the backdrop of America’s “Indo-Pacific” strategy and a lose general strategic environment, the primary strategic objective of achieving major state status and a “large divide over interests and a major space for autonomous action” shape India’s cautious initiative with respect to its alliance relationships.

Collaborative Working Environment CWE Strategy: An Enterprise Approach to Operational Excellence

Collaborative Working Environments (CWE) are a business solution that improve the quality and speed of decision making by enriching the collaboration between teams and individuals, which results in tangible business benefits. The advantages of working in a collaborative environment are well understood in the organization and the concept is widely embraced throughout the petroleum industry. CWEs provide seamless communication between disciplines and between teams in different locations. Traditionally, they have been used to connect staff in remote locations to teams in the headquarters, allowing real time monitoring of the health of the field, and fast decision making on operational issues and short to medium term optimization opportunities. The main goal is to be quickly alerted to events and make smarter, faster decisions using key capabilities available to the company with access to all relevant knowledge, data and analytical tools required to reach a decision. But this drive to make smarter, faster decisions is applicable to all levels of a company. In fact, it becomes increasingly important as more complex decisions are required at higher levels, which can be influenced by interpreted data, personal opinions and perceptions. In line with strategic objective of digital transformation, a national oil company (NOC) has extensive plans to develop asset specific CWEs and enterprise level CWEs. These will be centralized collaboration facilities to provide more rigorous, effective, and consistent surveillance & optimization to help reduce deferment costs and inefficiencies and accelerate decision-making with a measurable business value to enhance HSE, Reservoir, Drilling, Well and Production system performance through emerging digital innovation. All these centers shall be equipped to receive real time and episodic data and perform exception-based surveillance through trending, analysis, and condition diagnosis. All these CWE Centers shall enable decision making with efficient multi-disciplinary collaboration to address business challenges and increase the efficiency of day-to-day operations. They will have clear roles and responsibilities serving as an integral element of the value realization across the assets. The paper will describe the enterprise CWE strategy, key technical considerations, methodology and standards that have been set up to achieve the ultimate objective of the organization to maximize oil field recovery, eliminating non-productive time, enhancing HSE aspects and increasing profitability through the deployment of these various centers.

Política europea de seguridad y defensa y sus efectos en la industria de defensa

Defence has traditionally not been a priority within Community policies. However, in recent years it had become aware of the need to promote it, with special attention to the development of the industrial base. The most significant milestone for change comes in December 2013 when the Council discusses the future of security and defence. Until then, the Council took precedence over national optics and the Commission acted in the face of industry as a regulator to promote the implementation of single market rules in the defence market. The Libyan crisis of 2011 highlighted the need for strategic autonomy. This abstract concept implies the capability to act. It highlights the need for greater autonomy in industrial matters to support military capabilities without external dependencies. The crisis also occurs at a time of widespread decline in defence budgets that makes it difficult for nations to tackle large programs individually. The need for a competitive industrial base to support autonomous operations is of value. It is in this context that the EU Global Strategy in 2016 is enacted, resulting in the implementation in defence of the CFSP initiative aimed at streamlining demand, and the European Defence Plan, which includes the creation of a specific fund, the EDF, aimed at incentivising industrial cooperation to act on the supply side. The initiatives launched over the past four years to promote security and defence cooperation, with particular attention to the industrial component, are underway and will be difficult to go back even if European countries are in the dilemma between protectionism and cooperation. The COVID 19 crisis has diverted that attention. The future presents a scenario of greater strategic instability, which is faced with different national perspectives, greater competition between great powers in which Europe does not present a single voice, and a European society that seems far from its defence. Under these conditions, Europe faces the need to decide between having military and industrial capabilities appropriate to its political objectives or maintaining formulas for cooperation with third parties following current models. If the strategic objective is to have sufficient autonomy to address actions independently, the development of an industrial defence policy will be a basic element and will be conditioned by member states' visions, budgetary effort, and level of coordination of operational demand and industrial supply.

A Framework to Strengthen Learning Culture and Safeguards

Strengthening the learning culture and the safeguards in organizations can enhance safety and performance in preventing incidents. The effective implementation of human performance improvement and operational learning can support the organization in achieving these goals. However, there is no streamlined implementation framework that considers the alignment of strategic and tactical actions in the management system cycle to implement human performance improvement and operational learning. This paper presents an implementation framework that fills the above gaps. It consists of four steps: (1) establish/validate a strategic objective, (2) conduct an assessment, (3) develop a plan, and (4) execute the plan. The proposed framework also includes a site tour phase during operational learning as an alternative to storytelling, which has an inherent bias. This framework was tested in the land transportation system of one of Indonesia’s biggest oil producers.

La calidad universitaria que debemos tener en el bicentenario

Cercano al cumplimiento del bicentenario, es necesario reflexionar sobre esta frase: "La educación que queremos para el Perú" que subtitula el Proyecto Educativo Nacional al 2021, y que se relaciona con el título de este ensayo, tiene un relación directa con el quinto objetivo estratégico que indica que “la educación superior de calidad se convierte en un factor favorable para el desarrollo y la competitividad nacional (CNE, 2007) Y es que la calidad de la educación superior constituye una herramienta estratégica muy valiosa para el desarrollo, por ello el gobierno debe implementar políticas públicas para hacer cambios trascendentales con mayor inversión, fortalecer las capacidades de gerentes y docentes, e implementar un sistema de gestión de la calidad, promover una cultura de mejora continua. La calidad que se necesita para todos los sectores es una demanda nacional que no se puede postergar más, y estando cerca de un proceso electoral, es válido exigirlo a los candidatos de hoy, que si son electos implementen políticas públicas de promoción, promoción y desarrollo de una cultura de calidad a favor de nuestro país, para esta y las próximas generaciones. Nearing the bicentennial, it is necessary to reflect on this phrase: "The education we want for Peru" that subtitles the National Education Project to 2021, and which is related to the title of this essay, has a direct relationship with the fifth strategic objective that indicates that "quality higher education becomes a favorable factor for development and national competitiveness (CNE, 2007). The quality of higher education is a very valuable strategic tool for development, which is why the government must implement public policies to make transcendental changes with greater investment, strengthen the capacities of managers and teachers, implement a quality management system, and promote a culture of continuous improvement. The quality that is needed for all sectors is a national demand that cannot be postponed any longer, and being close to an electoral process, it is valid to demand that today's candidates, if elected, implement public policies to promote, foster and develop a culture of quality in favor of our country, for this and the next generations.

Bill Gertz: Deceiving The Sky: Inside Communist Chinaʼs Drive for Global Supremacy.

The United States' approach to China since the Communist regime in Beijing began the period of reform and opening in the 1980s was based on a promise that trade and engagement with China would result in a peaceful, democratic state. Forty years later the hope of producing a benign People's Republic of China utterly failed. The Communist Party of China deceived the West into believing that the its system and the Party-ruled People's Liberation Army were peaceful and posed no threat. In fact, these misguided policies produced the emergence of a 21st Century Evil Empire even more dangerous than a Cold War version in the Soviet Union. Successive American presidential administrations were fooled by ill-advised pro-China policymakers, intelligence analysts and business leaders who facilitated the rise not of a peaceful China but a threatening and expansionist nuclear-armed communist dictatorship not focused on a single overriding strategic objective: Weakening and destroying the United States of America. Defeating the United States is the first step for China's current rulers in achieving global supremacy under a new world order based an ideology of Communism with Chinese characteristics. The process included technology theft of American companies that took place on a massive scale through cyber theft and unfair trade practices. The losses directly supported in the largest and most significant buildup of the Chinese military that now directly threatens American and allied interests around the world. The military threat is only half the danger as China aggressively pursues regional and international control using a variety of non-military forces, including economic, cyber and space warfare and large-scale influence operations.

The hidden hierarchy of far-right digital guerrilla warfare

The polarizing tendency of politically leaned social media is usually claimed to be spontaneous, or a by-product of underlying platform algorithms. This contribution revisits both claims by articulating the digital world of social media and rules derived from capitalist accumulation in the post-Fordist age, from a transdisciplinary perspective articulating the human and exact sciences. Behind claims of individual freedom, there is a rigid pyramidal hierarchy of power heavily using military techniques developed in the late years of the cold war, namely Russia Reflexive Control and the Boyd’s decision cycle in the USA. This hierarchy is not the old-style “command-and-control” from Fordist times, but an “emergent” one, whereby individual agents respond to informational stimuli, coordinated to move as a swarm. Such a post-Fordist organizational structure resembles guerrilla warfare. In this new world, it is the far right who plays the revolutionaries by deploying avant-garde guerrilla methods, while the so-called left paradoxically appears as conservatives defending the existing structure of exploitation. Although the tactical goal is unclear, the strategic objective of far-right guerrillas is to hold on to power and benefit particular groups to accumulate more capital. We draw examples from the Brazilian far right to support our claims.

Using the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard to Promote Organizational Change

Purpose: To measure the impact of tying adoption of evidence-based worksite health promotion (WHP) interventions to annual organizational strategic objectives, as measured by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Worksite Health ScoreCard (ScoreCard). Design: A prospective cohort study following Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) affiliates against industry-specific and large employer benchmarks from 2016-2020. Settings: JHM, the largest private employer in Maryland with facilities in Florida and the District of Columbia. Subjects: Twelve JHM affiliates representing over 40,000 employees. Intervention: A strategic objective was established annually based on the ScoreCard and organizational priorities. Measures: JHM affiliates measured their WHP efforts annually using the ScoreCard. CDC industry-specific and large employer benchmarks were collected for comparison. Analysis: ScoreCard data was assessed annually to measure deviations from CDC benchmarks, determine whether strategic objectives were met, and inform additional annual objectives. Results: JHM demonstrated improvement from 8.9 percentage points above industry-specific and 3.4 percentage points below large employer benchmarks in 2016, to 26.4 percentage points above industry-specific and 21.8 percentage points above large employer benchmarks in 2020. Conclusion: Large employers face unique challenges in implementing WHP programs. Our study suggests embedding health promotion in annual strategic objectives may alleviate these challenges by prioritizing the goal and ensuring adequate resources to be successful. There are however, some limitations on using benchmarking data for comparison.