Thermal performance of thermoactive continuous flight auger piles

Foundation piles are being increasingly equipped with heat exchangers to efficiently harvest shallow geothermal energy. For buildings in urban areas, continuous flight auger (CFA) piles are common owing to their speed, cost-efficiency and low noise levels. To construct a thermoactive CFA pile usually requires separate central installation of the heat exchanger. However, the energy performance of this type of pile has not been investigated systematically, with most studies focused on rotary piles where the heat exchanger is attached to the reinforcing cage. In this work, insights are provided about the main influences on the energy efficiency of thermoactive CFA piles, with a focus on the implications of using CFA construction techniques rather than rotary boring. An innovative three-dimensional numerical model, able to capture the different aspects of transient heat transfer, is employed together with analytical methods to evaluate the transient and steady-state behaviour of energy piles in a number of design situations. Attention is given to understanding the role of possible pipe-to-pipe interaction, which cannot be systematically investigated with standard methods. Finally, practical guidelines on the optimal choice of design parameters to maximise the energy efficiency of CFA piles, without altering the geotechnical arrangements, are provided

Altered images: the 2001 state of corporate responsibility in India poll. Understanding and encouraging corporate responsibility in South Asia: update one

TERI-Europe and the New Academy of Business are currently working with various partners on a new initiative to understand and encourage corporate responsibility across South Asia. The initiative seeks to raise awareness and stimulate a proactive corporate responsibility agenda in three South Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. The partners are the Centre for Policy Dialogue (Bangladesh), TERI (India), and LGA Consultants (Sri Lanka). The project is funded by the Asia Division of the UK Department for International Development. Additional support has been obtained from the Commonwealth Science Council, UK. Our vision is to contribute to a positive change towards business practices and attitudes that support sustainable development and poverty eradication in the region. The focus is on expanding the knowledge base of corporate practices in South Asia relating to working conditions within factories; living conditions in surrounding communities; environmental protection; and corporate accountability and transparency. In this way, we aim to provide useful information and tools (such as training materials) for South Asian companies and civil society groups, especially the more vulnerable income groups, in the three countries. We hope that this will assist in eventually elaborating a home-grown agenda of corporate responsibility sensitive to the social, cultural, and economic situation in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh

Values of sexual behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe

Despite the profusion of social cognitive models for the prediction of sexual behaviour, we have only limited knowledge as to the role of individual values in predicting risky sexual activity. This study assessed the relationship between a recently developed value structure and sexual behaviour in the context of rising HIV infection in central and eastern Europe. Five hundred and three respondents (business people, doctors and nurses) from Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland and Russia completed Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire and reported their condom use, partnership history and record of sexual disease. Results indicated that values had a moderate but consistent relationship with sexual behaviour, with riskier sexual activity reported by those high on Openness to Change, Hedonism and Self-Enhancement. These findings are discussed in the context of the need for culturally sensitive interventions in order to tackle the growing HIV epidemic in this region.This project was supported by a research grant from the Research Support Scheme operated by the Soros Foundation, Prague

Altered images: the 2003 state of corporate responsibility. Understanding and encouraging corporate responsibility in South Asia update two: Sri Lanka

TERI-Europe and the New Academy of Business have been working with various partners on an initiative to understand and encourage corporate responsibility across South Asia. The initiative seeks to raise awareness and stimulate a proactive corporate responsibility agenda in three South Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. The partners are the Centre for Policy Dialogue (Bangladesh), TERI (India), and LGA Consultants (Sri Lanka). The project is funded by the Asia Division of the Department for International Development, UK. Our vision is to contribute to a positive change towards business practices and attitudes that support sustainable development and poverty eradication in the region. The focus is on expanding the knowledge base of corporate practices in South Asia relating to working conditions within factories; living conditions in surrounding communities; environmental protection; and corporate accountability and transparency. In this way, we aim to provide useful information and tools (such as training materials) for South Asian companies and civil society groups, especially the more vulnerable income groups, in the three countries. We hope that this will assist in eventually elaborating a home-grown agenda of corporate responsibility sensitive to the social, cultural, and economic situation in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. This report presents the results of the initiative’s second activity - an agenda-setting survey on corporate responsibility in Sri Lanka. The survey explored the views and expectations of workers, company executives, and civil society groups towards the social, economic, and environmental responsibilities of companies operating in Sri Lanka. It was the first to include workers in a survey on corporate responsibility. The survey was carried out in 2003 through a partnership between TERI-Europe, LGA Consultants, and the Sri Lanka Business Development Centre in Colombo. The results presented in this report are intended to provide a better understanding of attitudes and practices and develop targeted training materials for company executives, workers, and community representatives

Altered images: the 2003 state of corporate responsibility. Understanding and encouraging corporate responsibility in South Asia update three: Bangladesh

TERI-Europe and the New Academy of Business have been working with various partners on an initiative to understand and encourage corporate responsibility across South Asia. The initiative seeks to raise awareness and stimulate a proactive corporate responsibility agenda in three South Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. The partners are the Centre for Policy Dialogue (Bangladesh), TERI (India), and LGA Consultants (Sri Lanka). The project is funded by the Asia Division of the Department for International Development, UK. Our vision is to contribute to a positive change towards business practices and attitudes that support sustainable development and poverty eradication in the region. The focus is on expanding the knowledge base of corporate practices in South Asia relating to working conditions within factories; living conditions in surrounding communities; environmental protection; and corporate accountability and transparency. In this way, we aim to provide useful information and tools (such as training materials) for South Asian companies and civil society groups, especially the more vulnerable income groups, in the three countries. We hope that this will assist in eventually elaborating a home-grown agenda of corporate responsibility sensitive to the social, cultural, and economic situation in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. This report presents the results of the initiative’s third activity - an agenda-setting survey on corporate responsibility in Bangladesh. The survey explored the views and expectations of workers, company executives, and civil society groups towards the social, economic, and environmental responsibilities of companies operating in Bangladesh. It was the first to include workers in a survey on corporate responsibility. The survey was carried out in 2003 through a partnership between TERI-Europe, LGA Consultants, and the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka. The results presented in this report are intended to provide a better understanding of attitudes and practices and develop targeted training materials for company executives, workers, and community representatives

The politics of in/visibility: carving out queer space in Ul'yanovsk

<p>In spite of a growing interest within sexualities studies in the concept of queer space (Oswin 2008), existing literature focuses almost exclusively on its most visible and territorialised forms, such as the gay scene, thus privileging Western metropolitan areas as hubs of queer consumer culture (Binnie 2004). While the literature has emphasised the political significance of queer space as a site of resistance to hegemonic gender and sexual norms, it has again predominantly focused on overt claims to public space embodied in Pride events, neglecting other less open forms of resistance.</p><p> This article contributes new insights to current debates about the construction and meaning of queer space by considering how city space is appropriated by an informal queer network in Ul’ianovsk. The group routinely occupied very public locations meeting and socialising on the street or in mainstream cafés in central Ul’ianovsk, although claims to these spaces as queer were mostly contingent, precarious or invisible to outsiders. The article considers how provincial location affects tactics used to carve out communal space, foregrounding the importance of local context and collective agency in shaping specific forms of resistance, and questioning ethnocentric assumptions about the empowering potential of visibility.</p&gt

The potential impact of reforms to the essential parameters of the council tax

Council Tax was introduced in Britain in 1993 and represents a unique international property tax. There is a growing belief that it is time to reform the number and structure of council tax bands but such views have a minimal empirical base. This paper sets out to assess the impact on personal and local government finances, and extends the analysis to the role of the tax multipliers linked to each band. The research is based on the experience of a representative sample of local authorities in Scotland. A statistical revaluation for 2000 is estimated for the existing eight band system, and from this base a ten band system is calculated. Financial implications are then simulated for each local authority taking account of central resource equalisation mechanisms. The results indicate that increases in bands will have little impact on the burden of the council tax compared with regular revaluations. Changing the tax multiplier range has the greatest impact on local authority finances and council tax payments

What counts as ‘responding’? Contingency on previous speaker contribution as a feature of interactional competence

The ability to interact with others has gained recognition as part of the L2 speaking construct in the assessment literature and in high- and low-stakes speaking assessments. This paper first presents a review of the literature on interactional competence (IC) in L2 learning and assessment. It then discusses a particular feature – producing responses contingent on previous speaker contribution – that emerged as a de facto construct feature of IC oriented to by both candidates and examiners within the school-based group speaking assessment in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) English Language Examination. Previous studies have, similarly, argued for the importance of ‘responding to’ or linking one’s own talk to previous speakers’ contributions as a way of demonstrating comprehension of co-participants’ talk. However, what counts as such a response has yet to be explored systematically. This paper presents a conversation analytic study of the candidate discourse in the assessed group interactions, identifying three conversational actions through which student-candidates construct contingent responses to co-participants. The thick description about the nature of contingent responses lays the groundwork for further empirical investigations on the relevance of this IC feature and its proficiency implications

Linking tests of English for academic purposes to the CEFR: the score user’s perspective

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is widely used in setting language proficiency requirements, including for international students seeking access to university courses taught in English. When different language examinations have been related to the CEFR, the process is claimed to help score users, such as university admissions staff, to compare and evaluate these examinations as tools for selecting qualified applicants. This study analyses the linking claims made for four internationally recognised tests of English widely used in university admissions. It uses the Council of Europe’s (2009) suggested stages of specification, standard setting, and empirical validation to frame an evaluation of the extent to which, in this context, the CEFR has fulfilled its potential to “facilitate comparisons between different systems of qualifications.” Findings show that testing agencies make little use of CEFR categories to explain test content; represent the relationships between their tests and the framework in different terms; and arrive at conflicting conclusions about the correspondences between test scores and CEFR levels. This raises questions about the capacity of the CEFR to communicate competing views of a test construct within a coherent overarching structure