A sustainable tourism development in Alacati, Turkey : (Re)invention of public space with clean energy

Although there is an increasing recognition of the impacts of climate change on communities, residents often resist changing their lifestyle to reduce the effects of the problem. By using a landscape architectural design medium, this paper argues that public space, when designed as an ecological system, has the capacity to create social and environmental change and to increase the quality of the human environment. At the same time, this ecological system can engage residents, enrich the local economy, and increase the social network. Through methods of design, research and case study analysis, an alternative master plan is proposed for a sustainable tourism development in Alacati, Turkey. Our master plan uses local geographical, economic and social information within a sustainable landscape architectural design scheme that addresses the key issues of ecology, employment, public space and community cohesion. A preliminary community empowerment model (CEM) is proposed to manage the designs. The designs address: the coexistence of local agricultural and sustainable energy generation; state of the art water management; and the functional and sustainable social and economic interrelationship of inhabitants, NGOs, and local government

Constructing homologically trivial actions on products of spheres

We prove that if a finite group $G$ has a representation with fixity $f$, then it acts freely and homologically trivially on a finite CW-complex homotopy equivalent to a product of $f+1$ spheres. This shows, in particular, that every finite group acts freely and homologically trivially on some finite CW-complex homotopy equivalent to a product of spheres

Fusion systems and group actions with abelian isotropy subgroups

We prove that if a finite group $G$ acts smoothly on a manifold $M$ so that all the isotropy subgroups are abelian groups with rank $\leq k$, then $G$ acts freely and smoothly on M \times \bbS^{n_1} \times...\times \bbS^{n_k} for some positive integers $n_1,...n_k$. We construct these actions using a recursive method, introduced in an earlier paper, that involves abstract fusion systems on finite groups. As another application of this method, we prove that every finite solvable group acts freely and smoothly on some product of spheres with trivial action on homology.Comment: 13 pages. Last two sections of the previous version are removed for further study. To appear in Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Societ

Investor's increased shareholding due to entrepreneur-manager collusion

This study presents an investor/entrepreneur model in which the entrepreneur has opportunities to manipulate the workings of the project via hidden arrangements. We provide the optimal contracts in the presence and absence of such hidden arrangements. The contracts specify the shareholding arrangement between investor and entrepreneur. Moreover, we render an exact condition necessary for the credit market to form

Contact-Implicit Trajectory Optimization Based on a Variable Smooth Contact Model and Successive Convexification

In this paper, we propose a contact-implicit trajectory optimization (CITO) method based on a variable smooth contact model (VSCM) and successive convexification (SCvx). The VSCM facilitates the convergence of gradient-based optimization without compromising physical fidelity. On the other hand, the proposed SCvx-based approach combines the advantages of direct and shooting methods for CITO. For evaluations, we consider non-prehensile manipulation tasks. The proposed method is compared to a version based on iterative linear quadratic regulator (iLQR) on a planar example. The results demonstrate that both methods can find physically-consistent motions that complete the tasks without a meaningful initial guess owing to the VSCM. The proposed SCvx-based method outperforms the iLQR-based method in terms of convergence, computation time, and the quality of motions found. Finally, the proposed SCvx-based method is tested on a standard robot platform and shown to perform efficiently for a real-world application.Comment: Accepted for publication in ICRA 201

National Culture\u27s Impact on Effectiveness of Supply Chain Disruption Management

The purpose of this research is to understand the national cultural antecedents that may help explain differences in supply chain disruptions mitigation abilities of companies from different countries. An analysis of survey data on disruption planning and response collected from various organizations worldwide was performed using weighted least square regression and factor analysis. We find that culture influences disruption planning and response. Statistical findings suggest that differences in disruption planning and response abilities between companies from different countries could be partly attributed to national culture. All five Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture, i.e., Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Long-term Orientation were shown to have a significant positive effect on disruption planning and response. National cultural dimensions and economic status of a country could be effectively used to predict disruption planning and response abilities of companies in various countries. Managers could benefit from our research as it could help them assess disruptions mitigation abilities of their partners located in other countries. Increasing international trade and globalization of supply chains accentuate the importance of our research