Achieving sustainable construction within private finance initiative (PFI) road projects in the UK

Achieving sustainable construction within private finance initiative (PFI) road projects in the UK

Author(s): Rifat Akbiyikli,David Eaton,Seyyit Umit Dikmen / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2012

Keywords: built environment, construction, economy, private finance initiative, sustainability, roads, O18, O52, R11, R42, R51

The construction industry is facing the challenge of increasing demands of its sustainability performance. The construction and maintenance of the built environment has substantial impact on the sustainability of the environment. Meanwhile, public sector clients are increasingly asking for a sustainable approach in their specification and procurement decisions, sustainability is still seen as a novel concept within the construction industry in many parts of the world without a settled definition. The premise of this study is that the interaction between road projects realized by the private finance initiative and their delivery in the UK improve sustainability. The paper, based on the case study research, explains the sustainability implementation in two PFI road projects and demonstrates that the PFI mechanism facilitates sustainable implementation to a far greater extent than is achievable using traditional procurement methods.

The Ukraine Crisis Timeline 2013 – 2016

The Ukraine Crisis Timeline 2013 – 2016

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/19/2016

Keywords: Ukraine; crisis; Maidan; war; Russia; Crimea; Viktor Yanukovych; politics

This e-book is a compilation of news items and analysis that cover the events and issues that have shaped Ukraine before, during, and after the 2014 uprising on Maidan, Kyiv’s Independence Square, which led pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country.

In search of sustainable business models for cognitive radio evolution

In search of sustainable business models for cognitive radio evolution

Author(s): Vladislav V. Fomin,Artūras Medeišis,Daiva Vitkutė-Adžgauskienė / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2012

Keywords: Cognitive Radio, Software Defined Radio, wireless communications, radio spectrum access, ICT development, L15, L16, L51, L53, L86, L96, O33

In this paper we examine the emerging industry of Cognitive Radio/Software Defined Radio (CR/SDR), a sector which in some ways seconds the industry structure of the cellular mobile communications, while bearing distinctive characteristics. Any radio telecommunications infrastructure depends on scarce resources – radio frequency spectrum – that require policy decisions for allocation to specific countries and services. CR/SDR may constitute a new paradigm in radio communications as it may completely or partially eliminate the role of the regulator in minutiae of spectrum access authorization.In this paper, we review scarce literature on CR/SDR to analyze the relationships between political, technological and economic factors in order to identify drivers and barriers to the emergence of new techno-economic paradigm of CR/SDR. Our discussion of business opportunities for CR/SDR includes analysis of applicable spectrum access policies and identification of those of them, which would be most fertile for the development of future CR/SDR business.

Technology stocks and economic performance of government-linked companies: the case of Malaysia

Technology stocks and economic performance of government-linked companies: the case of Malaysia

Author(s): Chan-Yuan Wong,V. G. R. Chandran Govindaraju / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2012

Keywords: technology stock, government-linked companies, economic performance, Malaysia, O32, C50, L16

On the basis of the case study of the selected government-linked companies (GLCs), this paper examines the technological stock progress and further assesses its implication for growth. A synthesized framework of analysis (using technological stock and logistic growth function) is proposed to highlight the virtuous cycle between R&D investment, technology stock and growth. The results suggest that two of the selected firms (Proton and Golden Hope), indeed, showed better technological progress. However, Proton seems to achieve the maturity stage of technology and further needs to enhance its technology capability to drive its performance in the future. In contrast, TNB is found to lack the technological development to promote performance. The results, on the one hand, suggest that technology development is mostly progressive with high returns in the areas where the country has definite comparative advantage (e.g. oil palm) and when better partnership exists. On the other hand, in a highly protective market, the technological progress is slow – the case of energy sector – and contribution of technology progress towards growth is in lack – as in the case of automotive sector. Case comparison suggests that attempts to develop technology require competitive market with less government protective measures.

Around the Bloc: Zhirinovsky Headed for the Scrap Heap?

Around the Bloc: Zhirinovsky Headed for the Scrap Heap?

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/19/2016

Keywords: Russia; Moscow; Zhirinovsky; Statue; LDPR; Leader; Dismantled

A statue of the controversial Russian nationalist may be dismantled for breaching federal law.

Around the Bloc: Protests Continue to Wrack Macedonia

Around the Bloc: Protests Continue to Wrack Macedonia

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/19/2016

Keywords: Macedonia; Ivanov; Gruevski; Zaev; Protests; Snap; Elections

Decision to hold snap elections does little to swell outrage over presidential pardon.

Around the Bloc: Ukrainian Prosecutor Wants 15 Years for Alleged Russian Soldiers

Around the Bloc: Ukrainian Prosecutor Wants 15 Years for Alleged Russian Soldiers

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/19/2016

Keywords: Ukraine; Russia; Nimchenko; Alexandrov; Yerofeyev; Pilots; Separatists

Kyiv says Russians participated in conflict in eastern Ukraine, as swap for jailed Ukrainian pilot might be moving closer to reality.

The 1943 Verdict of the German People’s Court Regarding the Katyn Massacre Lie

Wyrok niemieckiego Trybunału Ludowego z 1943 r. w sprawie kłamstwa katyńskiego

Author(s): Konrad Graczyk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 8/2015

The article concerns a singular criminal case which constitutes probably the only (!) case of a valid conviction for dissemination of false information which stated that it were the German forces who were responsible for the Katyn massacre, i.e. the Katyn lie. The perpetrator of the crime — sentenced to death in the court of law — was an Austrian man, demobilized after the September Campaign in 1939. The crime was committed on May 31st, 1943 in an Austrian inn, where the perpetrator imbibed alcohol in the company of German soldiers remaining on leave at the time. Referring to a newspaper article concerning the exhumation of Polish officers, the man claimed that the Polish officers were not murdered by the Russian forces, but rather by Waffen-SS. His claim had been classified as defeatism and high treason by means of a propagandist lie. The sentence was passed by the German People’s Court, which constitutes a subject of a brief description in the article. The aforementioned study has been based on the verdict and its justification, discovered in a German archive.

Overview of the Formation of the General Prosecutorial Oversight in the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR (May 1943—July 1944)

Kształtowanie się ogólnego nadzoru prokuratorskiego w Polskich Siłach Zbrojnych w ZSRR (maj 1943—lipiec 1944)

Author(s): Elżbieta Romanowska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 8/2015

In May 1943 the Polish 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division was established in the USSR. The Division constituted the first military unit in the Polish Armed Forces established in the territory of the USSR. The formation period for the Division was characterised by the lack of judicial authorities. The first articles of the military penal code were passed on July 7th, 1943. By virtue of resolution of the Directorate of the Union of Polish Patriots in the USSR, the Military Legal Code of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR was established, along with the court martial and military prosecutor’s office. The rules of operation for the prosecutor’s office were delineated in the Military Penal Code of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR. According to that legal act, the prosecutor’s office was given the task of upholding the law as well as military discipline and overseeing the rule of the law. In addition, the act established the institution of general prosecutorial oversight. The general oversight was a singular form of prosecutorial administrative oversight, and in the military, it consisted in oversight over the military command. Both the subjective as well as the objective scope of prosecutorial oversight had undergone significant changes while the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR remained active (1943—1944). The model of general prosecutorial oversight developed in that time served later as the basis for prosecutorial oversight in the Polish Army. In 1950, the general oversight was introduced in the common courts.

The Question of Criminal Liability of Soldiers for Following Orders in the Military Penal Code of the Polish Army of 1944

Kwestia odpowiedzialności karnej żołnierzy za działanie na rozkaz w Kodeksie karnym Wojska Polskiego z 1944 r.

Author(s): Michał Arndt / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 8/2015

Numerous trials of war criminals that followed the end of the Second World War, including the most notorious Nuremberg Trials, demonstrated that the line of defence which consists of justifying crimes with the imperative to follow orders does not absolve the defendant of criminal liability. International law as well as individual penal systems of the Western countries, on the basis of the experiences of the previous war, had been gradually abandoning the idea of absolute obedience with regard to orders perceived as one of the reasons for the committed crimes—crimes which the Allies were trying to prosecute. However, the penal code of the Polish People’s Republic evolved in a very different direction—the rules of the Military Penal Code of the Polish Army of 1944 were established in the spirit of the so-called blind bayonets theory, on the basis of a “revolutionary Soviet model.” The legislators had, therefore, divorced themselves from the legislative legacy of the Second Polish Republic, whose legal system assumed the rule of moderate obedience, instead adopting a solution which had been not only foreign to the domestic legal tradition, but also by all means regressive in the broader context. In the first years in which the Military Penal Code of the Polish Army remained in force, it became apparent that the rule of absolute obedience in the military chain of command—even if acting in accordance with the orders would lead to committing a crime—was to play an important role in the plan of the communist authorities to eradicate the post-HA (the Home Army) opposition as well as to pacify any civilian unrest with the help of the military. The concept of absolute obedience of the military personnel remained in force the in Polish military legal system for over twenty-five years. In practice, however, since mid-1950s, the importance of that concept diminished significantly. The case law of the time (particularly that of the Supreme Military Court) reflected those changes, and steps were undertaken to liberalise the rules regarding criminal liability for following orders, implemented by the Military Penal Code of the Polish Army of 1944. The legislators attempted to reflect the solutions functioning in Western legal systems, in which soldiers accused of a crime could not escape penal liability on the basis of following orders issued by their superiors which lead to committing the crime.

The Crime of Fascist Propaganda as well as Degrading, Insulting, and Deriding the State System (Art. 29 of the Little Penal Code of June 13th, 1946) in Light of the Case Law of the District Court in Cracow in the Years 1946—1950

Przestępstwo propagandy faszyzmu oraz poniżania, lżenia i wyszydzania ustroju państwa (art. 29 tzw. Małego kodeksu karnego z 13 czerwca 1946 r.) w świetle orzecznictwa Sądu Okręgowego w Krakowie w latach 1946—1950

Author(s): Karol Siemaszko / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 8/2015

The decree on particularly dangerous criminal activity in the time of state reconstruction dating June 13th, 1946, i.e. the so-called Little Penal Code, should be considered one of the communist legal acts designed to subdue the general populace to conform to the new regime. The article constitutes an analysis of the case law of the District Court in Cracow regarding the crime of fascist propaganda as well as degrading, insulting, and deriding the state system. The crime, described in art. 29 of the Little Penal Code, can be characterised as a political crime. It would seem, then, that the main reason for introducing this sort of criminal norm to the decree on particularly dangerous criminal activity in the time of state reconstruction was the desire to force the society to silently accept the new regime. Both the severity of the rulings as well as the relatively common instances of temporary arrest in the cases of people suspected of the aforementioned crime would suggest that the crime was regarded at the time as a serious offence characterised by a high degree of danger to society. It seems, then, that the analysed criminal offence constituted a sign of the desire to control all aspects of social life, characteristic of totalitarian systems.

On the Stages in the Development of Translations and Revisions of the Preslav School

За етапите в развитието на Преславската преводаческа и редакторска школа

Author(s): Elka Mircheva / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 4/2011

The article deals with the Codex Suprasliensis - a text created in Preslav in the middle of the 10th с and one of the best-studied OCS MSS. The study centres on the menaion (calendar) part of the MS. In her monograph Bibliotheca Hagiographica Balcano-Slavica Klimentina Ivanova showed that this part of the MS is unique in the South-Slavonic literary tradition. This makes it necessary to reconsider a number of publications that used the Codex Suprasliensis as proof that there were different stages in the development of the Preslav school translations and revisions. The article advances the hypothesis that the texts from the menaion part of the MS cannot be used in determining different stages in the development of the Preslav literary and linguistic norm. The problem of the stages of the development of the Preslav school cannot and must not be discussed on the basis of only one MS, although in practice the Codex Suprasliensis is the only extant Old Bulgarian MS from the mid-10th с created in the capital of the First Bulgarian State. Recently scholars have been speaking in an ever more convincing manner of “early” and “late” Preslav. The author believes that when trying to find the stages of this development this direction should be followed.

Military District Court in Katowice (1946—1955)

Wojskowy Sąd Rejonowy w Katowicach (1946—1955)

Author(s): Marta Paszek / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 8/2015

The article concerns the organisation and functioning of the Military District Court in Katowice between 1946 and 1955. The court constituted one of the fourteen military district courts in Poland which, due to their scope of activity, had been located outside of the military judicial system as delineated by the law on military courts system. The initial intention behind this division was to ensure that district courts would be able to serve as a tool for the communist government in their fight with political opposition, who questioned the political and economic system as well as the legitimacy of the communist rule. District courts were established primarily in order to rule in the cases of civilian persons falling under the jurisdiction of military courts on the basis of special provisions. The article discusses the structure of the Military District Court in Katowice as well as its subjective and local properties. A longer section of the article focuses on the members of staff as well as analysis of criminal cases presented before the court between 1946 and 1955, paying particular attention to those instances in which the ruling involved the capital punishment.

Around the Bloc: Russia’s Airstrikes in Syria Generate Lucrative Arms Sale Spin-Off

Around the Bloc: Russia’s Airstrikes in Syria Generate Lucrative Arms Sale Spin-Off

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/05/2016

Keywords: Russia; Syria; Asia; Africa; Putin; Weapons; Contract;

After withdrawing most of its forces out of Syria, Russia has made the most out of a chance to earn billions of dollars from weapons contracts, media reports say.

Around the Bloc: Montenegro Defense Ministry Tells Troops To Sharpen Up Image

Around the Bloc: Montenegro Defense Ministry Tells Troops To Sharpen Up Image

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/05/2016

Keywords: Montenegro; Soldier; Dress; Code; Change; Hair; Umbrella;

Soldiers under a strict new dress code will no longer be permitted to have long hair, visible tattoos, body piercings or smoke in public.

In memoriam Rumyana Pavlova (8.V.1933-29.VI.2011)

In memoriam Румяна Павлова (8.V.1933–9.VI.2011)

Author(s): Rostislav Stankov / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 4/2011

A New Look at the Category of Definiteness in the History of Bulgarian and Serbian

Нов поглед към категорията определеност в историята на българския и сръбския език

Author(s): Vanya Micheva / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 4/2011

On Another Study of Translations Technique in the Middle Ages

Още едно изследване върху преводаческата техника през Средновековието

Author(s): Tatyana Ilieva / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 4/2011

Around the Bloc: Stars Descend on Moscow to Play Wedding of Russian Billionaire’s Son

Around the Bloc: Stars Descend on Moscow to Play Wedding of Russian Billionaire’s Son

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/05/2016

Keywords: Russia; Moscow; Gutseriev; Lopez; Inglesia;, Sting; wedding; society;

No expense was spared on the wedding of Said Gutseriev to 20-year-old student Khadija Uzhakhova on 26 March.

International Congress on Medieval Studies (llth-14th July, 2011, Leeds, Great Britain)

Международен конгрес по медиевистика (11-14 юли 2011, Лийдс, Великобритания)

Author(s): Maya Ivanova / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 4/2011