The DART-Europe project: towards developing a European theses portal

This paper will report on the new European theses project DART-Europe. The purpose of this project is to align institutional and national e-theses developments across Europe with the wider open archives movement by the construction of a European portal for research theses, thus enabling a global view of European institutional research assets. This project is driven through an innovative partnership between an information provider and an international body of university libraries and open access consortia. The project’s goal is to explore the creation of a European model for the deposit, discovery, use and long-term care of research theses in an open access environment. The paper will outline the projected outcomes of DART-Europe, which is an active group of institutions in addition to a technical service. To this end, DART-Europe is engaged with disciplines and institutions that are widening the definition of research by redefining the formats of theses. For institutions and countries without a repository infrastructure, DART-Europe will enable the creation of a depository. Institutions and countries with a repository infrastructure can engage with DART-Europe to deliver their e-theses. DART-Europe acts as a technology bridge for researchers between those who have existing infrastructures and those who do not. The DART-Europe architecture assumes free at point of use access to full text theses, whether held on the DART-Europe server or by institutional repositories. This paper will provide session attendees with the current progress of this initiative, including a report on the 5 strands of the project, including: architecture; creation of a management tool kit; content acquisition; digital preservation and an investigation of business models

Cold Region Pedestrian Bridge Prototype Maintenance Plan

A Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE In CIVIL ENGINEERINGIn recent years there have been several failures of pedestrian bridges in the network of trails maintained by the Municipality of Anchorage (MOA), Parks and Recreation Department, causing the MOA to realize that they need to develop and maintain a bridge maintenance protocol. This project, the Cold Region Pedestrian Bridge Prototype Maintenance Plan, provides a prototype application and platform created to allow the MOA to obtain and utilize information collected by non-engineer workers to report on the condition of various pedestrian bridges (“Prototype Platform”). The Prototype Platform has three major components: the Bridge Inspection Application (BIA), a Bridge Risk Evaluation program (BRE), and the determination of Bridge Risk Categories (BRC). These three components will help the MOA to record bridge condition information, identify safety conditions that need to be addressed, classify the condition of the pedestrian bridges, group them into one of several broad risk categories, and provide the MOA with a way of accessing this information in a more organized manner. This project will provide information about the background of the MOA pedestrian bridges, their importance to the MOA, and prior work done relating to pedestrian bridge inspection approaches. It will also provide detailed information about components of the Prototype Platform, the testing of the components, and recommendations for the future. This project is an overall asset management tool that will help the MOA identify future potential risks on their pedestrian bridge system. The MOA intends to use this data in conjunction with more detailed reports to provide an overall condition assessment for the pedestrian bridges in Anchorage, Alaska. It is understood by all parties that the Prototype Platform is a first step in a broader effort to create a more robust pedestrian bridge maintenance management plan. The fact that the inspection data will be obtained by non-engineer field workers, and is somewhat simplistic and limited as to its content, makes the results from the field inspection data only a place to start. However, given the very real budget constraints and limited resources available to the MOA, the Prototype Platform gives the MOA a way to make meaningful progress in implementing a maintenance protocol. The BIA should be used annually as part of a routine review of pedestrian bridges. However, routine inspections conducted using the application should not replace full inspections and full structural analysis reports that can only be conducted by a professional structural engineer when needed

Roadway Alignments as Assets: Evaluating Alternatives for Valuing Major Highway Corridor Rights of Way Final Report December 2010 Sponsored

In most highway asset management exercises, real estate used in alignments is considered to be an asset class that does not depreciate. Although the treatment of right of way assets as non-depreciable real property may be appropriate as an accounting exercise, the fact is that the real estate contained in transportation corridors can in fact lose value from a traffic service point of view. Such facilities become functionally obsolete in that they no longer serve the purpose that was intended when they were planned, designed, and built. This report is intended to begin a discussion of the topic of how highway alignments ought be valued as assets as opposed to how they generally are valued, at either book value or replacement value, given it can be shown that some highway alignments do in fact depreciate in value

Review of impact of post-tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation of infrastructure facilities

On 26 December 2004, an earthquake in the West Coast of Northern Sumatra set off a series of other earthquakes lasting for several hours which resulted in a Tsunami in the Indian Ocean. This led to widespread disaster, particularly in Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, Indonesia and Thailand, with damage also in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Somalia, the Seychelles and Kenya. Sri Lanka, the ‘pearl of the Indian Ocean’, blessed with abundant natural resources, faced one of the worst natural disasters recorded in recent history. The Tsunami struck a relatively thin but long coastal area stretching over 1,000 kilometers - two thirds of the country's coastline. The destructive ocean waves killed more than 35,000 people, displaced nearly 2,500,000 people and destroyed thousands of houses. The overall damage to Sri Lanka is estimated at $1 billion, with a large proportion of losses concentrated in housing, tourism, fisheries and transportation. Development Partners range from private individuals both inside and outside Sri Lanka, to governments and NGOs. Coastal infrastructure, namely roads, railways, power, telecommunications, water supply and fishing ports were also significantly affected. Reactions ranged from immediate assistance to communities and local governments in restarting to function as speedily as possible, to short and long-term assistance in supporting communities to rebuild their infrastructure and housing so that they might again have normal lives and eventually recover from the trauma of the tsunami. As the infrastructure consists primarily of transportation, electric and telecommunications, and water and sewerage facilities that provide services to the public through a network of roads, rails, ports, airports, pipes and lines, the effectiveness of infrastructure systems impact on all economic activities. In this context, this paper aims to analyse the impact of the Tsunami on infrastructure facilities in Sri Lanka and how the postTsunami reconstruction process has affected the development of the same. A comprehensive literature review was carried out regarding the Tsunami and its impact on the nation. The infrastructure-related reconstruction and rehabilitation data were obtained from the RADA (Reconstruction And Development Agency, formerly TAFREN) through unstructured interviews conducted among personnel involved in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of infrastructure facilities. Results confirm that after almost one and a half years, the Tsunami rehabilitation process is slow as compared to its start

Seattle to begin using sweatfree uniform purchasing policy

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.ILRF_Seattle_to_Begin_Using_Sweatfree_Uniform_Purchasing_Policy.pdf: 44 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

MILO: Models of innovation in learning online at Key Stage 3 and 14-19: Final report appendices

This document contains the appendices to the main report, which presents case studies, which reflect a wide range of models of online learning, each of which has been developed for specific reasons, largely in relation to visions of how technology can transform learning, but also to solve practical problems such as re-engaging disaffected learners and coping with rising pupil numbers

Midwest Transportation Consortium Annual Program Report, October 2004

The MTC’s main focus is on education and human capital. This focus is in recognition of the fact that the transportation industry, both public and private, in the region served by the MTC faces a serious shortage of well-trained human capital. For this reason, the MTC is in volved in creating totally new transportation education programs at two of its member universities. The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) in Cedar Falls Iowa had no courses or students in transportation when the MTC grant began. During the first year of the grant, UNI’s Geography Department took the lead in developing courses, attracting students, an getting involved a a partner in transportation activities in its service region. A similar start-up effort is now underway at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. The MTC has also been able to strengthen and add quality to transportation education efforts at universities in the region that were already leaders in transportation