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Refugee camps can be severely struck by pandemics, like potential COVID-19 outbreaks, due to high population densities and often only base-level medical infrastructure. Fast responding medical systems can help to avoid spikes in infections and death rates as they allow the prompt isolation and treatment of patients. At the same time, the normal demand for emergency medical services has to be dealt with as well. The overall goal of this study is the design of an emergency service system that is appropriate for both types of demand.

A spatial hypercube queuing model (HQM) is developed that uses queuing-theory methods to determine locations for emergency medical vehicles (also called servers). Therefore, a general optimization approach is applied, and subsequently, virus outbreaks at various locations of the study areas are simulated to analyze and evaluate the solution proposed. The derived performance metrics offer insights into the behavior of the proposed emergency service system during pandemic outbreaks. The Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan is used as a case study.

The derived locations of the emergency medical system (EMS) can handle all non-virus-related emergency demands. If additional demand due to virus outbreaks is considered, the system becomes largely congested. The HQM shows that the actual congestion is highly dependent on the overall amount of outbreaks and the corresponding case numbers per outbreak. Multiple outbreaks are much harder to handle even if their cumulative average case number is lower than for one singular outbreak. Additional servers can mitigate the described effects and lead to enhanced resilience in the case of virus outbreaks and better values in all considered performance metrics.

Some parameters that were assumed for simplification purposes as well as the overall model should be verified in future studies with the relevant designers of EMSs in refugee camps. Moreover, from a practitioners perspective, the application of the model requires, at least some, training and knowledge in the overall field of optimization and queuing theory.

The model can be applied to different data sets, e.g. refugee camps or temporary shelters. The optimization model, as well as the subsequent simulation, can be used collectively or independently. It can support decision-makers in the general location decision as well as for the simulation of stress-tests, like virus outbreaks in the camp area.

The study addresses the research gap in an optimization-based design of emergency service systems for refugee camps. The queuing theory-based approach allows the calculation of precise (expected) performance metrics for both the optimization process and the subsequent analysis of the system. Applied to pandemic outbreaks, it allows for the simulation of the behavior of the system during stress-tests and adds a further tool for designing resilient emergency service systems.

Using the job demands-resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical foundation, this study aims to explore the potential of organizational leisure benefit programs in the interplay of job demands and perceived work-life balance.

This article is based on qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with 24 hospitality industry employees in Austria.

Thematic analysis revealed that organizational leisure benefits can play different roles in the context of job demands depending on the individual’s perceptions of work-life balance. Three major themes were identified, showing that organizational leisure benefits can be a multifaceted organizational resource (1) to facilitate employees’ leisure participation, (2) to boost employees’ recovery or (3) to meet the employees’ need for workplace fun. The results also demonstrated the limitations of organizational leisure benefits, showing that in case employees are constantly experiencing private duties that interfere with recovery during leisure time, leisure benefits do not play any role regarding their perception of work-life balance.

This study contributes to the scare literature on organizational leisure benefits and clarifies their potential, and limitations, as an emerging organizational resource. In particular, findings broaden existing research in the context of the JD-R model by showing that the notion of job resources can stretch beyond workplace resources and can also encompass organizational leisure support.

In an aircraft, a revoluble thrust‐producing system including a hub, a generally radially disposed airfoil blade pivotally secured to and carried by said hub by a corresponding single pitch‐varying blade‐root pivot whose axial line of pivotation is fixed in relation to the longitudinal axis of the blade‐root and passes outwardly from said hub on the back or pressure side of the airfoil blade in a generally radial direction and diverges from the airfoil blade as it goes outwardly from said hub, and passes through the stable region of the resultant air‐load vectors of the airfoil.

The method of making a series of similarly shaped structural elements adapted to occupy spaced positions in a constructional assembly, comprising the steps of forming the individual elements of said series as a structural member having a plurality of angularly related faces similar to each other in shape but differing in size so that the outer contour of a smaller element is substantially congruent to the inner contour of a larger element, by corrugating a piece of sheet metal so as to include the angularly related faces of all said elements connected with each other along their congruent contours respectively, and each part of each element being spaced from the corresponding part of the adjacent element by a distance which is proportional to the spacing which such portions will have in the finished assembly, and separating the similarly shaped elements of said blank by cutting the blank along spaced parallel lines which are located in corresponding positions in adjacent portions.

AN EXPERIMENT now proceeding in Britain and the USA may well have lessons for management—or, maybe, for those who would teach management its business. It is the People Express Airline.

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), careful plotter of the fictional region of “Wessex,” is a novelist both acutely aware of the role of space in his works and remarkably fascinated by violence. Bringing these two significant elements of his fictional method together, this chapter examines the numerous violent spaces created by Hardy throughout his fiction. It focuses in particular on the ways in which different spaces, at first presumed to be safe, become invaded by extreme acts of violence. In the course of the chapter, I ask: How does this perversion of space by violence contribute to Hardy's literary aims? How do spatial relationships and boundaries intersect with his characterization? And does Hardy leave his readers with any hope for future spaces?

I suggest that Hardy's situation of acts of violence in a range of spaces, natural and domestic alike, is purposefully disorientating. It allows him to interrogate defined social ideas of “moral” indoor spaces and “wild” outdoor landscapes during the late Victorian period. There is, in fact, no such thing as a safe space in Hardy – spaces are ambiguous, changing and shaped by their inhabitants. The effect of violent spaces in Hardy, therefore, provides a challenge both to the conventional settings of nineteenth-century realist writing and any presumed knowledge of these environments. It might be tempting to see such spatial aesthetics as rather pessimistic, yet I argue that by dispelling the illusory link between space and safety, Hardy promotes a more sensitive awareness of everyday environments and our interactions with/within them.

The south of Chad has seen an influx of many tens of thousands of refugees within the last three years. After the president of the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR), Felix Patasse, was overthrown in a coup d'etat in March 2003 more than 50.000 people fled to Chad, across the northern border. From the beginning of the refugee crisis, UNHCR has been present in the area to house and protect the refugees.

Following a renewed influx of large numbers of refugees in autumn 2005, UNHCR adopted a new strategy of ‘integration’ for their newest camp ‘Gondje’. ‘Integration’ aims for a joint use of camp facilities, such as schools and clinics, by the refugee population as well as by the local Chadian population. It is meant to bring benefits to the underdeveloped region of southern Chad. On the other hand, this strategy can also lead to a permanent resettlement of the refugees from CAR in Chad. Based on recent fieldwork in the area and in the camp of ‘Gondje’, this paper traces the strategy of ‘integration’ through a number of narratives as well as spatial analyses, puts it into a context of the planning strategies of refugee camps followed by UNHCR, and speculates on the effects and repercussions of this strategy. As emergency situations and the field of developmental work are becoming the areas within which architects are increasingly practicing, the article also sheds light on the responsibilities and the dilemmas the profession faces when operating in these humanitarian contexts.

The auditor′s responsibility for detecting management fraud of a material nature is affirmed. Auditors are vulnerable to failure when they perform substantive procedures concerned with matters such as asset valuation. Some auditors have tended to “audit to” management representations, a phenomenon known as anchoring to statisticians. Yet, the technology has become available for an independent approach to audit verification of management judgements and estimates; public on‐line databases will play an important role in helping the auditor to understand the client, and to validate individual accounts.

The eventual adaptation of archives to new technological possibilities could begin with the creation of digital versions of archival finding aids, which would allow the international diffusion of descriptive information. The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), document type definition (DTD) for archival description known as encoded archival description (EAD) is an appropriate tool for this purpose. Presents a methodological strategy that begins with an analysis of EAD and the informational object to be marked up, allowing the semiautomatic creation of a digital version.