Building typologies identification to support risk mitigation at the urban scale – Case study of the old city centre of Seixal,Portugal

The old urban centres are marks of an historical and architectural heritage that should be protected and safeguarded. For such, it is fundamental to have a complete understanding of the genesis, regarding both building and the urban mesh. This fact is essential to the support of qualified, conscientious and sustainable rehabilitation interventions on the old building stock. The research carried out addresses the issue of the old urban centres from the perspective of the analysis and inventory of buildings features. The cataloguing process of the building typologies is presented in this work as a synthesis of the principal construction forms, with the old city centre of Seixal being used as a case study. The identification of building typologies has supported a seismic and fire vulnerability assessment of the old building stock. The assessment methodologies developed and used are based on the detailed survey and building inspection, therefore the building typology cataloguing is essential in the analysis at such a large scale. Then we discussed the strategy for the conservation actions incorporated in a broader risk management policy.     

Key block theory application for rock slope stability analysis in the foundations of medieval castles in Slovakia

This research investigates the stability of rock slopes in the foundations of selected medieval castles in Slovakia. In the first phase, static analysis of the 45 selected medieval castle rock slopes was performed, where more than 12,000 potentially unstable blocks were analyzed and the factor of safety in static condition was calculated using the key block theory implemented in the Kbslope module of PTworkshop software. Based on results of the static stability analysis, a pseudo-static analysis was performed adopting the seismic acceleration in accordance with Slovak Technical Standards – Seismic actions on structures. This was implemented by calculating the vectors of horizontal force acting upon shear failure in the direction of the slope face with a zero vertical component. When non-finite and tapered blocks were ignored, the results proved that 14% of the 12,217 blocks investigated under static conditions could be considered unstable. This number increased to 23% under pseudo-static conditions, when seismic acceleration was implemented in the stability calculations. A detailed stability assessment of the Gymes Castle located in western Slovakia was carried out with delineation of blocks prone to rock sliding and proper stabilization methods, based on joint sets orientation measurements performed on the 3D point cloud generated by laser scanner.     

Network-based control of nonlinear large-scale systems composed of identical subsystems

This paper deals with a control of coupled nonlinear identical systems that admit full exact feedback input-output linearization. The subsystems are linearized using this nonlinear transformation. In the next step, an auxiliary low-dimensional system is derived whose stability implies stability of the original large-scale system. The control law is designed so that the control loops are only local, no information exchange between subsystems is required. Unknown time delay in the feedback are allowed. Two cases are studied: equal time delay for all subsystems or different delay in all subsystems. Results are illustrated by two examples.     

“All for One and One for All?” - Knowledge broker roles in managing tensions of internal coopetition: The Ubisoft case

Coopetition, i.e., cooperation between competing actors, has become a pervasive strategy for innovative firms. The primary focus of studies investigating coopetition centers on inter-firm relationships, highlighting the benefits, limits and configurational patterns of cooperative relationships between competing firms. Only a small, emerging group of studies seeks to extend the concept to the intra-firm level, stressing the existence and effects of competition and cooperation between units that are part of the same organization. This paper contributes to this latter group by investigating the effects of internal coopetition on knowledge and innovation sharing and highlighting the fundamental role of knowledge brokers in managing the resulting tensions. Based on a qualitative case study of the video game publisher Ubisoft, we stress how the tensions raised by internal coopetitive settings limit knowledge sharing between units, and we analyze the mechanisms through which the knowledge broker helps to overcome these limits. We identify three main functions of this knowledge broker that allow the promotion of knowledge and innovation transfer to occur between coopeting units: (1) protecting the unit’s competitive advantage by introducing a lagging principle in the transfer process, (2) reducing sharing costs by standardizing innovative solutions, and (3) enhancing awareness of and trust in innovative solutions by centralizing knowledge diffusion.     

Implications of domain‐general “psychological support skills” for transfer of skill and acquisition of expertise

The article proposes that individuals who acquire certain psychological support skills may experience accelerated learning and enhanced performance in many domains. In support of this proposal, we present evidence that these skills enhance learning and performance, that they are domain‐general in that they can be applied in a variety of domains, and that they can be taught and learned. We also discuss two implications of the skills for current theories of expertise. The first is that any observed transfer of expertise between domains might result as much from the support supplied by application of the skills during learning and performance as from any direct transfer achieved due to two domains sharing similar task elements. The second is that use of these skills might contribute to an understanding of how performers sustain the motivation necessary for the extended period of deliberate practice required to maximize skill acquisition.     

A Cross-cultural Study of the Development of Artistic Talent,Creativity and Giftedness

In this study, examining the relationships among age, culture, training in the fine arts, the technical and aesthetic properties of drawings, and realized artistic giftedness, the researchers intermixed the juvenile drawings executed by critically acclaimed artists with artworks executed by contemporary North American and Chinese North American children. When judges from the North American culture and from the Chinese North American culture, blind to this mix, assessed the drawings, assessments made by the representatives of both cultures were more alike than they were different. Only the North American judges' assessments, however, suggest that the art students' life drawings were more technically and aesthetically successful, and more creative, on the average, than the non-art students' drawings. These judges also gave the juvenilia the highest scores in technical skill and the lowest scores in creativity independent of technical skill and aesthetic success. Conclusions and implications stress the role of technical skill in the development of artistic potential.