Search results

Actual developments in numerical simulations of the structural behaviour in fire situation are focussed on taking into consideration the interaction of all structural members in a global approach. Therefore it is necessary to simulate the load bearing behaviour of connections. With this motivation, the authors conducted experiments and thermal FE-simulations on two different connection types. In this paper, the accompanying mechanical FE-simulations of both investigated connection types will be described. The joints are defined as an end plate connection in a steel structure and a fin plate connection in a composite structure. Besides the validation of the numerical models, the results of the described investigations show that it is possible to activate a significant moment resistance within fin plate connections of composite structures. The main requirement for this activation is sufficient reinforcement strength.

Actual developments in numerical simulations of the structural behaviour in fire situation are focussed on taking into consideration the interaction of all structural members in a global numerical approach. Therefore it is necessary to model the load bearing behaviour of connections in detail. In this paper a detailed 3D numerical model of a bolted steel endplate connection taking into account nonlinearities, e.g. temperature dependent material, is presented. The simulation is validated by experimental tests conducted at the University of Sheffield in 2008. During some of the experimental tests, large deformations and fractures occurred. These phenomena are simulated with the numerical model as well.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize and investigate relationships between disaster preparedness, impacts, and humanitarian response among Eastern Uganda populations affected by the 2010 landslides and floods.

A stratified cluster survey of the disaster-affected populations was conducted five months after the onset of the disasters. Probability proportional to size sampling was used to sample 800 households, including 400 affected by floods in Butaleja District and 400 affected by landslides in Bududa District.

Mortality was significantly higher in the landslide-affected populations as compared to flood-affected populations (deaths reported: 4.5 vs 1.6 percent, p<0.01) whereas injuries were more common in the flood-affected areas (injuries reported: 3.1 vs 1.1 percent, p<0.01). Livelihoods impacts were widespread and reported in more than 95 percent of households. Respondents indicated that the community and government were unprepared to respond in both flood (90.5 and 77.8 percent, respectively) and landslide (95.3 and 74.9 percent) affected areas.

The majority of households felt that both their communities and the government were unprepared to respond to disasters. Given the likelihood for recurrence of natural disasters in these communities, expansion of both community-based disaster preparedness (CBDP) programs and their evidence base should be prioritized.

There is a paucity of evidence on community perceptions of disaster preparedness and on CBDP programs. The paper highlights these issues in the context of two disasters in Uganda and calls for expansion of the evidence based to inform risk reduction strategies in low-income settings.

This chapter uses ideas from the ritual economy approach to discuss the political ecology of ritual feasting among Lisu highlanders and Shan lowlanders of northern Southeast Asia and medieval Icelanders. The audience for Lisu feasts is fellow villagers all of whom are engaged in limited competition for prestige to insure equality among households. These reciprocal feasts use a considerable portion of the annual value of each household's production. Among Shan the audience is non-reciprocating Buddhist monks and non-reciprocating fellow villagers to validate positions in the social-political hierarchy in terms of Buddhist merit. The feasts use a relatively small portion of any household's annual production. Among Icelandic chieftains, the audience was followers and potential followers to validate claims to chieftaincy and could initially use only a fraction of the annual production of a chiefly household, though as the source of revenue changed from household slaves to renters, and wage workers and competition for land developed, the ritual dimension of chieftaincy became exaggerated and used an increasing portion of revenues as there were fewer and fewer increasingly powerful and combative chieftains.

The present paper takes a look at the particularities of German strategy research over the last three decades. In contrast to much of the Anglo-Saxon research, which has focused on competition as a guiding concept in theorizing about strategy, German research has typically been concerned with more fundamental questions about the general relationship between organizations and their environments and, as a result, tended to be more conceptual than empirical. Researchers have been particularly influenced by the German sociological and philosophical traditions, specifically by the critical theory of Jürgen Habermas and by the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. Also, there are authors who draw on the economic tradition of the Austrian School in order to develop a competence-based theory of the firm. Another branch builds on Anthony Giddens's structuration theory and Jacques Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction. As we will demonstrate, much of the research has been concerned with fundamental theoretical tensions: evolution vs. planning, selection vs. compensation, cognitive–instrumental rationality vs. moral–practical rationality, etc. We note that, as a consequence, much of German strategy research shows a particular interest in paradoxa and oxymora (such as ‘planned evolution’, ‘productive misunderstandings’ or ‘unfocused monitoring’). This paper will identify and explore important strands of German strategy research and discuss its particularities compared to mainstream strategy research in the United States.

This paper aims to contribute a qualitative analysis of practitioners' accounts to illuminate alternative approaches to social enterprise that tend to be neglected by predominant academic representations.

By analysing qualitative interviews, the paper examines the ways social entrepreneurs in Germany coproduce and reproduce the prevailing theoretical notions of social enterprise. The main themes of the interviews are elaborated upon to accentuate certain critical aspects that until now have not been the focus of attention in research. Alternative perspectives of the empirical data are developed which indicate patterns that are currently excluded from narrative practices of academia.

There are several insightful perspectives represented in the interview data: the (conspicuous) absence of managerialism as a dominant motivational feature; the complexity of the local political and social realm in which social entrepreneurs think and act in spontaneous, often “non‐rational” ways; and personal and biographical accounts of social entrepreneurs as an important self‐defining feature. The findings demonstrate the explanatory power of qualitative empirical accounts as a starting point to veer away from reductionist drawing‐board concepts of social enterprise.

These articulations of social entrepreneurs' own realities are important as they are sometimes at odds ideologically with managerial approaches to social enterprise which emphasize cost‐efficiency reasoning and financial independence.

The major part of studies in the field of strategic cognition focussed on strategy content, while process studies are comparatively rare. Those of the studies that are dedicated to explain strategy occurrence are dominantly restricted to formal decision making. In contrast to this, the purpose of this paper is to draw on a framework that helps to get a differentiated picture on contingent processes, strategies may pass through in organizations. Furthermore, an own elicitation procedure is introduced that enables to measure strategic cognition on different levels.

The paper provides an empirical approach by applying collective causal mapping techniques, both on an individual as well as collective level. The conceptual framework of the study rests on the “genesis” concept of strategy formation introduced by Kirsch and colleagues.

The main contribution of the paper is the presentation of a methodical approach to study the formation of shared strategic orientations in small companies. An operationalization to study these cognitive processes, based on collective causal mapping techniques is provided.

Applying the methodical approach presented in the paper is expected to make a contribution to the understanding of the shared knowledge of organizational members about major strengths and weaknesses of a new strategic reorientation and to contribute to practical concerns of organizational members in specific problematic situations, especially in small companies.

The study empirically approaches the complex phenomenon on strategy formation in small companies and therefore expands the understanding of shared cognition in organizations.

Evidence‐based medicine (EBM) is a technical and scientific paradigm in clinical practice that has delivered major improvements in the outcome of care in medicine and surgery. However, its value in psychiatry is much less clear. The purpose of the paper is thus to examine its value by subjecting empirical evidence from EBM to a conceptual analysis using the philosophy of Thomas Kuhn.

The authors examine evidence drawn from meta‐analyses of RCTs investigating the efficacy of specific treatments for depression in the form of antidepressant drugs and CBT. This shows that the non‐specific aspects of treatment, the placebo effect and the quality of the therapeutic alliance as seen by the patient, are more important in determining outcome than the specific elements (active drug, specific therapeutic elements of CBT).

Using the philosophy of Thomas Kuhn, it is shown that these non‐specific and non‐technical elements are anomalies that indicate that the technological paradigm in the treatment of depression is fundamentally flawed.

Non‐specific elements of mental health care are essential in fostering hope, trust and meaning. They constitute non‐technical factors that are central to the concept of caring, and vital for recovery, and which resonate strongly with the growth of survivor and user‐led systems of support for people who experience distress and madness. As such they pose a major challenge to scientific psychiatry and mental health services based in this. The analysis has major implications for the primacy of the natural sciences in the education and training of those involved in mental health work, and demonstrates the importance of an open debate about the value of the scientific imagination in mental health work.

This paper is important because it supports user‐led self‐defined notions and understandings of recovery, and does so using a philosophical conceptual analysis.

This conceptual analysis is highly original. To the authors' knowledge no one has subjected EBM to a detailed conceptual analysis using the ideas of Thomas Kuhn.

Why do some ventures grow to become dominant market players while most new ventures that do not fail limp along more modest trajectories? In comparison with our knowledge regarding determinants of venture creation or survival, the phenomenon of venture growth has been relatively neglected, both theoretically and empirically. Venture growth is a multi-level phenomenon co-occurring at different analytical and temporal levels. In this chapter we develop a theoretical model that accounts for venture growth as a process, drawing upon the mechanism-based theorizing approach. We offer nine social mechanisms that lead to venture growth, providing a foundation for empirical exploration and further theory building.