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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate various reliability measures like reliability, expected lifetime (mean time to failure), signature reliability and compare networks based on the different flows.

The reliability characteristics of complex bridge networks have been evaluated using different algorithms with the help of universal generating function (UGF). Further, the signature reliability of the considered networks has been determined using Owen’s method.

The present paper proposes an efficient algorithm to compute the reliability indices of complex bridge networks having i.i.d. lifetime components (nodes, edges) with the help of UGF and Owen’s method. This study reveals that a slight change in the complex bridge network affects the reliability significantly. Finally, by the reliability structure function, proposed algorithms are used to find the signature and MTTF. From signature, we have determined the different failure probabilities corresponding to edges of the network.

In this work, we have evaluated reliability characteristics and signature reliability of the complex bridge networks using UGF method and Owen’s method respectively unlike done in the past.

Transport infrastructure resilience is of paramount importance for societies, therefore its quantification is urgently needed. A resilience assessment framework based on well-informed resilience indices is presented and applied for assessing the resilience of representative bridges exposed to earthquakes.

The framework quantifies the robustness of bridges against different seismic hazard scenarios, by using realistic fragility functions and the rapidity of the recovery and/or retrofitting after the occurrence of a certain degree of damage, based on realistic restoration functions.

Two different approaches for the modeling of the restoration tasks are examined. Both direct losses due to structural damage and indirect losses due to traffic disruption are estimated.

A new cost-based resilience index is introduced and alternate approaches for expressing the restoration strategies are examined and assessed. The results facilitate owners to enhance cost-based resilience management toward more resilient infrastructure.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

This paper aims to present approaches towards improving some specific infrastructure maintenance principles, strategies, models and practices, based on a recent study of bridge management systems in Hong Kong. A specific goal is to develop better informed and more systematic approaches to condition assessment, deterioration forecasting, and maintenance decision making over the life‐cycle of the built asset.

Improved performance prediction and decision‐making approaches are developed and presented based on a research exercise to formulate a maintenance management framework for concrete bridge elements in Hong Kong. This includes for example, the presentation of decision‐making approaches for optimizing inspection intervals on bridge expansion joints.

The findings show that judicious integration is needed in incorporating valuable elements of, and lessons learned from, previous practice with proposed new strategies/ principles, models and practices for specific scenarios.

Based on the findings, practitioners' understandings can be deepened as regards the barriers to improving condition assessment, deterioration forecasting, and maintenance decision making over the life‐cycle of the built asset. Furthermore, the results also provide useful information for developing strategies and practices to improve currently used infrastructure management systems.

Major obstacles are overcome in developing better informed and more systematic approaches as above, and in extending current knowledge on condition assessment, performance prediction and decision‐making models by utilizing more pertinent data and addressing some barriers in practical implementation.

Limited funding to maintain and preserve short‐line railroad (SLRR) bridge infrastructure requires that important priority decisions be made on an annual basis. The compartmentalized, dispersed, and diverse nature of many SLRR owners and operators is such that there is a need for a coordinated and centralized effort to evaluate the state‐wide system as a whole, to ensure the most effective overall resource allocation and also identify assets that either outperform predictions or consume disproportionate levels of resources for maintenance and operation, allowing for review of design and construction practices. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of the art for railroad bridge population management and resource allocation decisions and to develop a state‐wide SLRR bridge prioritization methodology, to be used as a tool by a state agency to assist in allocating limited public funding for bridge maintenance, rehabilitation and replacement activities.

A literature review examining the state of the art of railroad bridge population management and resource allocation decisions was conducted, which provided the foundation for the development of a bridge prioritization algorithm. A state‐wide survey was conducted to develop a bridge database. A detailed evaluation of a statistically significant sample of bridges was conducted, to determine the structural and maintenance needs and preservation status of sub‐populations. The research team developed methodologies, applicable to the entire population, to develop a ranking of bridge preservation candidates.

A risk‐based prioritization algorithm is proposed to assign a relative risk score to each bridge in the population. The algorithm provides a management tool for making more effective maintenance and preservation decisions. Additionally, the bridge database allows managers to examine sub‐populations according to structural parameters to evaluate performance.

The revisable, modular framework of the prioritization algorithm provides a simple, effective and versatile tool for asset management and evaluation. The present proposal of this new prioritization methodology for SLRR bridges is a valuable tool for agencies faced with making rational decisions with limited information. Such a methodology does not currently exist in the literature and is of significant interest to short‐line owners/operators and state transportation agencies.

Mainstream pornography is popular, freely accessible, and infused with themes of male dominance, aggression, and female subservience. Through depicting sex in these ways, mainstream pornography has the potential to influence the further development of harmful sexual scripts that condone or endorse violence against women and girls. These concerns warrant the adoption of a harms-based perspective in critical examinations of pornography's influence on sexual experiences. This chapter reports on findings from interviews with 24 heterosexual emerging adults living in Aotearoa/New Zealand about how pornography has impacted their lives. Despite a shared awareness among participants of mainstream pornography's misogynistic tendencies, and the potential for harm from those displays, men's and women's experiences were profoundly gendered. Men's reported experiences were often associated with concerns about their own sexual behaviors, performances, and/or abilities. Conversely, women's experiences were often shaped by how pornography had affected the way that men related to them sexually. Their experiences included instances of sexual coercion and assault which were not reported by the men. These findings signal the need for a gendered lens, situated within a broader harms-based perspective, in examinations of pornography's influence.

Framed by the intersectionality perspective and results from prior research, we examined the effects of race/ethnicity, gender, probation violations, and type of violation on juvenile justice case outcomes in a Mid-Atlantic state.

Bivariate and multivariate analyses in the form of logistic regression were used to assess the extent race and ethnicity, gender, probation violations, and the type of violation, individually and in combination, impact case outcomes.

The findings indicate that the race/ethnicity of the youth, his or her gender, and whether involved in a probation violation and to some degree the type of violation, individually and in some cases, jointly, effect juvenile justice decision making. These relationships often involve receiving both harsh and lenient outcomes. We interpret the results as evidence that stereotyping plays out differently when race/ethnicity and gender intersect.

The study contributes to the general literature by (1) examining the neglected combination effects of race/ethnicity and gender with increased social control within juvenile justice proceedings; (2) including Hispanic youth; and (3) looking at the interrelationships among race/ethnicity and gender with the treatment of probation violators.

The Remember: The Journey to School Integration lesson introduces students to the ideas of segregation and school integration. The lesson is designed to be a combination of teacher-led ins-truction and student-centered learning. Students build and develop their background knowledge on the topics of segregation and the integration of public schools. Once a knowledge base has been established, students look at the pictures from Toni Morrison’s book, think critically about the message being conveyed in them, and then create their own comprehensive response to the material presented in the entire lesson.

Culture and cultural heritage are usually included in the general discussions on the construction of social capital and its impact on socio‐economic development. Despite that, it seems that there has not been enough in‐depth reflection on the typology and diversity of possible links between heritage and social capital. The purpose of this paper is to focus on an important aspect of heritage impact – its role in creating and enhancing social capital.

The aim of the article is to explain in what ways cultural heritage may constitute a tool, medium or space for enhancing and developing this type of capital. Though the text is mainly of theoretical character, conceptual statements are illustrated with selected cases from Great Britain and Poland, countries which differ significantly with respect to the level of social trust and involvement of residents in non‐governmental organisations, yet both reflect well the broad array of impacts of heritage on social capital.

The article indicates myriad impacts of tangible and intangible cultural heritage on social capital. It points to significant potential of heritage in terms of providing places of encounters and community hubs, sites of social integration and inclusion, functioning as a source of identity and local pride as well as being a reason for common actions, activities of NGOs and volunteers. Attention is paid also to the possible negative effects of heritage on social capital.

It seems necessary to include this aspect of heritage impact in policy making, not only in the field of culture and monument protection but also in other spheres, taking into account both positive and negative potential of cultural heritage with respect to social capital.

The article focuses on an important social aspect of heritage impact in the local and regional context, which should be taken into account by managers of heritage institutions and sites.

A new, coherent typology of impacts and links between heritage and social capital is proposed, which may be useful to different level public authorities and organizations and also helpful to practitioners in the field of heritage management, with respect to social implications of heritage projects and activities conducted by them.