Survey of in-house tax departments in United Kingdom corporates

School of Managemen

A Survey of Bridge Practitioners to Relate Damage to Closure

The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center's second-generation performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) methodology is intended in part to model highway bridge performance in terms of collapse, closure, repair duration, speed or load limitations, and possibly other performance measures. Some of these are difficult to model, particularly closure decisions where the engineering evidence of safety is inconclusive and must be supplemented by the inspector's judgment. This paper presents results of a limited, initial survey of department of transportation (DOT) engineers' beliefs about the relationship between physical damage and closure. The initial survey addresses a common class of reinforced-concrete bridges. The author and others developed and administered to a select, nationwide group of DOT engineers a one-page, multiple-choice survey form with expert self-rating, asking the engineers to relate ten damage measures (DM) to four closure levels. The DMs include approach settlement, offsets at abutments and expansion joints, flexural and shear cracks in beams, columns, shear keys, and backwalls. The performance levels considered are: leave open, close briefly for quick repairs, close for an extended period, and reduce speed. The survey results are analyzed to produce a number of preliminary relationships between damage and post-earthquake decisions by inspectors, relationships that can be used in probabilistic seismic performance evaluation in PEER's developing PBEE methodology. This preliminary test of a survey form also yielded insight into a number of desirable improvements for a second round of survey, possibly to be administered via the Internet early in 2004

Planning the cultural quarter in Birmingham's Eastside

Cultural planning and the development of cultural quarters has become a new orthodoxy in the revitalization of inner city industrial districts, yet this orthodoxy is now widely questioned as to whether it delivers on its promises. In Birmingham UK, the aim to create a new cultural quarter in the industrial inner city area of Eastside represents a unique opportunity for the city to examine and learn from past lessons of the "cultural turn" in urban policy. The article examines these lessons and whether the Eastside scheme is set to repeat the mistakes of the past

Avoided level crossings in the quantization of a mixed regular-chaotic system

The study of avoided level crossings in the spectra of quantum Hamiltonians whose classical counterparts exhibit mixed regular-chaotic dynamics reveals important information about the quantum signatures of such dynamics. Among other topics, one can study delocalization phenomena and exchange of structure in Husimi distributions and compare the quantum dynamics one observes to the dynamics of corresponding classical systems at the same parameter values

Applications of Microwaves to Remote Sensing of Terrain

A survey and study was conducted to define the role that microwaves may play in the measurement of a variety of terrain-related parameters. The survey consisted of discussions with many users and researchers in the field of remote sensing. In addition, a survey questionnaire was prepared and replies were solicited from these and other users and researchers. The results of the survey, and associated bibliography, were studied and conclusions were drawn as to the usefulness of radiometric systems for remote sensing of terrain