Social effects of economic crisis: risk of exclusion. An overview of the European context

Sustainability is a complex concept. It only can be achieved from a global perspective, where social, economic and environmental issues are all key factors for achieving the goal. This paper is focused on the importance of social sustainability and, as a consequence, the importance of avoiding each and everyone’s risk of poverty and exclusion as due to the recent crisis effects. Nevertheless, this crisis resulted in higher inequalities and put a lot of people at risk of poverty, even in “developed” countries. Through a statistical and econometric analysis, some of the key factors to which the European Union should aim to avoid unsustainable scenarios are analysed. A regression, factorial and cluster analysis is carried out and this leads to conclude that the labour market is key in promoting economic policies in order to achieve social sustainabilityResearch results presented in this paper are an element of research project implemented by the National Science Center Poland (Polskie Narodowe Centrum Nauki) under the grant OPUS13 no UMO-2017/25/B/HS4/0217

Wind-induced shear and torsion in low-rise and medium-rise buildings: Provisions of National Building Code of Canada 2015

This paper discusses the shear and torsion induced in low-rise and medium-rise buildings, according to wind load specifications provided in NBCC 2015. Results from experimental studies, carried out in wind tunnels were compared with corresponding NBCC 2015 provisions under different upstream roughness conditions. These comparisons demonstrated notable discrepancies for the case of torsion in low-rise buildings. Further, comparisons between the wind load specifications given in NBCC 2015 and ASCE/SEI 7-10 standard were carried out. Following both sets of provisions, wind-induced shear and torsion were computed and compared for five low-rise and medium-rise buildings with the same horizontal dimensions but different heights. Emphasis was directed towards the cases that create maximum shear forces and (or) maximum torsions to reflect critical design conditions. For low-rise buildings, the ASCE/SEI-7-10 and NBCC-2015 yield similar shear coefficients but quite different torsional coefficients; while for medium-rise buildings, clear agreement was found, for both shear and torsion. The diversity of the results is discussed and some suggestions for improvement of code provisions are made. A definition for medium-rise buildings was provided

Literary Activism in Anglowaiti Writing: Gender in Nada Faris's Literature

En el mundo occidental, las mujeres árabes musulmanas son generalmente estereotipadas como reprimidas y pasivas, además de carentes de voz y agencia en la sociedad, pero algunos textos de ficción muestran lo contrario. A lo largo de la historia, las mujeres árabes musulmanas de la región de Oriente Medio siempre han encontrado diferentes formas de luchar por sus derechos y promover el cambio social en sus comunidades. Una de las muchas formas en que muchos escritores árabes eligen emprender fue y sigue siendo la literatura. Para muchos, la literatura representó no solo un reflejo de las condiciones culturales, sociales y políticas, sino también una forma de cambiar mentalidades y crear nuevas alternativas. Las autoras kuwaitíes apelaron a la escritura como una forma de apoyar, promover el feminismo y crear conciencia sobre las hegemonías dominantes y reafirmar la agencia, un medio para expresar su condición. La escritora kuwaití y contemporánea Nada Faris expone magistralmente a lo largo de su obra literaria algunos de los problemas y luchas más importantes de las mujeres kuwaitíes en el siglo XXI. Esta investigación sostiene que las heroínas de Nada Faris son representadas como resistentes y subversivas al dominio patriarcal, representando figuras revolucionarias que es lo contrario de la creencia común. Esta categoría de mujeres encarna el cambio que Nada Faris prevé para la sociedad kuwaití. Al analizar la literatura de Nada Faris, este estudio intenta contribuir a la popularización de la literatura kuwaití, que ha recibido poca atención en la academia occidental, y más precisamente de los escritos de Nada Faris, una representante relevante dentro de las tradiciones literarias femeninas kuwaitíes contemporáneas. Los textos de Nada Faris constituyen un recurso invaluable del siglo XXI del escenario literario kuwaití debido al inmenso conocimiento social, cultural y político que estos textos literarios representan cuando se enfrentan a los lectores occidentales.In the Western world, Arab Muslim women are generally stereotyped as being suppressed and passive as well as lacking voice and agency in society, but some fictional texts depict the contrary. Throughout history Arab Muslim women in the Middle East region have always found different ways to fight for their rights and to promote social change in their communities. One of the many ways that many Arab Muslim women and men writers choose to undertake was and it is still writing. For many, writing represented not only a reflection of the cultural, social and political conditions but also a way to change mentalities and create new alternatives. Kuwaiti women authors appealed to writing as a way to support, promote feminism and raise consciousness about dominant hegemonies and reasserting agency, a means of voicing out their oppressed condition. The contemporary Kuwaiti writer Nada Faris masterfully exposes throughout her literary works some of the most important issues and struggle of Kuwaiti women in the twenty-first century. This research argues that Nada Faris’s heroines are portrayed as resistant and subversive of the patriarchal dominance, representing revolutionary figures which is the contrary of the common notion belief. This category of women embodies the change that Nada Faris envisions for the Kuwaiti society. By analyzing Nada Faris’s literature, this study attempts to contribute to the popularization of Kuwaiti literature, which has received little attention in the Western academia, and more precisely of the writings of Nada Faris, a relevant representative within contemporary Kuwaiti female literary traditions. Nada Faris’s texts constitute an invaluable resource of the twenty-first Kuwaiti literary scene due to the immensely social, cultural and political knowledge that these literary texts represent when confronted by Western readers

Influence of earthquake ground-motion duration on damage estimation - application to steel moment resisting frames

This paper presents an analytical study evaluating the influence of ground motion duration on structural damage of 3-story, 9-story, and 20-story SAC steel moment resisting frame buildings designed for downtown Seattle, WA, USA, using pre-Northridge codes. Two-dimensional nonlinear finite element models of the buildings are used to estimate the damage induced by the ground motions. A set of 44 ground motions is used to study the combined effect of spectral acceleration and ground motion significant duration on drift and damage measures. In addition, 10 spectrally equivalent short-duration shallow crustal ground motions and long-duration subduction zone records are selected to isolate duration effect and assess its effect on the response. For each ground motion pair, incremental dynamic analyses are performed at at least 20 intensity levels and response measures such as peak interstory drift ratio and energy dissipated are tracked. These response measures are combined into two damage metrics that account for the ductility and energy dissipation. Results indicate that the duration of the ground motion influences, above all, the combined damage measures, although some effect on drift-based response measures is also observed for larger levels of drift. These results indicate that because the current assessment methodologies do not capture the effects of ground motion duration, both performance-based and code-based assessment methodologies should be revised to consider damage measures that are sensitive to duration

Mladost u godinama rata

In five books, "We Survived: Yugoslav Jews on the Holocaust" (three of them translated into English), the testimonies of a small number of surviving members of the Jewish community about World War II were collected. The peculiarity of the circumstances in which the entire population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was found is reflected in the fact that at the beginning of the war, the country was occupied by five invaders: Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania and the fascist satellite formation, the so-called. The Independent State of Croatia. These circumstances also led to different ways of surviving and rescuing Jews from these areas. The Jewish Historical Museum of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia / Serbia published these books with help of donations and volunteer work of the editorial board in which seven of nine members survived the Holocaust. These books are an extraordinary collection of tragic and dramatic experiences about unique choices - the struggle for life, dignity, and freedom in partisans; about concentration camps, refugee life under constant threat, and about help and friendships. They are also a good basis for exploring the Holocaust and the history of Jews from the former Yugoslavia. Each testimony is enriched with a series of photographs and together with the text, they make unique documentation material. As the suffering of Jews on the territory of the former Yugoslavia is poorly known to the general public, these books have the task of filling that space. They thus become a memorial for all the victims whose many names are found only in memory. One of those memories is "Mladost u godinama rata" (Wartime adolescence) by Tirca Ginzberg.U seriji od pet knjiga "Mi smo preživeli: Jevreji o Holokaustu" od kojih su tri prevedene na engleski jezik, sakupljena su svedočenja malobrojnih preživelih članova jevrejske zajednice o vremenu Drugog svetskog rata. Osobenost prilika u kojima se zateklo celokupno stanovništvo Kraljevine Jugoslavije ogleda se u činjenici da je tu državu, početkom rata, okupiralo pet zavojevača: Nemačka, Italija, Bugarska, Mađarska, Albanija i fašistička satelitska tvorevina, tzv. Nezavisna država Hrvatska. Te okolnosti su uslovile i različite načine preživljavanja i spašavanja Jevreja sa ovih prostora. Jevrejski istorijski muzej Saveza jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije/Srbije objavio je ove knjige uz pomoć donacija i uz volonterski rad redakcije u kojoj je sedam od devet članova preživelo Holokaust. One čine izuzetnu kolekciju tragičnih i dramatičnih iskustava o jedinstvenom izboru – borbi za život, dostojanstvo i slobodu u partizanima; o koncentracionim logorima, o izbegličkom životu pod stalnom pretnjom, o pomoći i prijateljstvima. One su i dobra podloga za istraživanje Holokausta i istorije Jevreja sa tla bivše Jugoslavije. Svako svedočenje je obogaćeno nizom fotografija i zajedno sa tekstom čine jedinstveni dokumentacioni materijal. Kako je stradanje Jevreja na tlu bivše Jugoslavije slabo poznato široj publici, ove knjige imaju zadatak da ispune taj prostor. One tako postaju spomenik za sve stradale čija se mnogobrojna imena nalaze samo u sećanjima. Jedno od tih sećanja je "Mladost u godinama rata" Tirce Ginzberg

A szüzesség jelentései a mai egyetemisták körében kulturális antropológiai nézőpontból

Szakdolgozatomban a mai Budapesten élő egyetemi hallgatókból álló baráti közösségben vizsgálom azt a kérdéskört, hogy mit jelent számukra a szüzesség elvesztése, valamint egy átfogó képet kapunk az egyének társadalmi hátterei, cselekvési szokásai és nézetei közti összefüggésekkel kapcsolatban

Wartime adolescence

U seriji od pet knjiga "Mi smo preživeli: Jevreji o Holokaustu" od kojih su tri prevedene na engleski jezik, sakupljena su svedočenja malobrojnih preživelih članova jevrejske zajednice o vremenu Drugog svetskog rata. Osobenost prilika u kojima se zateklo celokupno stanovništvo Kraljevine Jugoslavije ogleda se u činjenici da je tu državu, početkom rata, okupiralo pet zavojevača: Nemačka, Italija, Bugarska, Mađarska, Albanija i fašistička satelitska tvorevina, tzv. Nezavisna država Hrvatska. Te okolnosti su uslovile i različite načine preživljavanja i spašavanja Jevreja sa ovih prostora. Jevrejski istorijski muzej Saveza jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije/Srbije objavio je ove knjige uz pomoć donacija i uz volonterski rad redakcije u kojoj je sedam od devet članova preživelo Holokaust. One čine izuzetnu kolekciju tragičnih i dramatičnih iskustava o jedinstvenom izboru – borbi za život, dostojanstvo i slobodu u partizanima; o koncentracionim logorima, o izbegličkom životu pod stalnom pretnjom, o pomoći i prijateljstvima. One su i dobra podloga za istraživanje Holokausta i istorije Jevreja sa tla bivše Jugoslavije. Svako svedočenje je obogaćeno nizom fotografija i zajedno sa tekstom čine jedinstveni dokumentacioni materijal. Kako je stradanje Jevreja na tlu bivše Jugoslavije slabo poznato široj publici, ove knjige imaju zadatak da ispune taj prostor. One tako postaju spomenik za sve stradale čija se mnogobrojna imena nalaze samo u sećanjima. Jedno od tih sećanja je "Mladost u godinama rata" Tirce Ginzberg.In five books, "We Survived: Yugoslav Jews on the Holocaust" (three of them translated into English), the testimonies of a small number of surviving members of the Jewish community about World War II were collected. The peculiarity of the circumstances in which the entire population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was found is reflected in the fact that at the beginning of the war, the country was occupied by five invaders: Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania and the fascist satellite formation, the so-called. The Independent State of Croatia. These circumstances also led to different ways of surviving and rescuing Jews from these areas. The Jewish Historical Museum of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia / Serbia published these books with help of donations and volunteer work of the editorial board in which seven of nine members survived the Holocaust. These books are an extraordinary collection of tragic and dramatic experiences about unique choices - the struggle for life, dignity, and freedom in partisans; about concentration camps, about refugee life under constant threat, about help and friendships. They are also a good basis for exploring the Holocaust and the history of Jews from the former Yugoslavia. Each testimony is enriched with a series of photographs and together with the text, they make unique documentation material. As the suffering of Jews on the territory of the former Yugoslavia is poorly known to the general public, these books have the task of filling that space. They thus become a memorial for all the victims whose many names are found only in memory. One of those memories is "Mladost u godinama rata" (Youth in the war years) by Tirca Ginzberg

Optimizarea exergoeconomica a sistemelor de trigenerare a energiei

In the actual energetic and economic context, energy polygeneration represents the answer regarding the efficient use of a fuel. This solution would diminish the losses associated to the classical methods of energy production and, as a result, would increase the installations' efficiency. The polygeneration systems (cogeneration/trigeneration of energy), consist of various technologies that offer alternatives to the global problems linked to energy, such as energy scarcity, energy supply security, emissions control from the production of energy, economy and energy conservation, etc.. This doctoral thesis examines two types of polygeneration of energy. The first part focuses on the analysis of a high power trigeneration system based on a gas turbine installation for production of electrical energy, the second part of the thesis is dealing with a system of micro-cogeneration of energy powered by a solar Stirling engine. Given the actuality and interest for the polygeneration field of energy production, there is a constant concern to simulate and optimize the operation of this kind of systems in order to achieve significant performance designed to satisfy the consumers' needsVoir résumé étendu en français en fin de thèse