EEFIT mission to Haiti following the 12th January 2010 earthquake

The Mw= 7.2 Haiti earthquake of 12th January 2010 caused extensive damage to buildings and other infrastructure in the epicentral region in and around Port-au-Prince. The Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT), which is based in the United Kingdom, organised a field mission to Haiti with the authors as the team members. The paper presents the geotechnical findings of the team including those relating to soil liquefaction and lateral spreading and discusses the performance of buildings, including historic buildings, and bridges. Unprecedented use was made of damage assessments made from remote images (i. e. images taken from satellites and aircraft) when planning the post-earthquake relief effort in Haiti and a principal objective of the team was to evaluate the accuracy of such assessments. Accordingly, 142 buildings in Port-au-Prince were inspected in the field by the EEFIT team; damage assessments had previously been made using remote images for all these buildings. On the basis of this survey, the tendency of remote assessments to underestimate damage was confirmed; it was found that the underestimate applied to assessments based on oblique images using the relatively new technique of Pictometry, as well as those based on vertical images, although to a lesser degree. The paper also discusses the distribution of damage in Port-au-Prince, which was found to be strongly clustered in ways that appear not to have been completely explained. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

The pursuit of academic excellence and business engagement: Is it irreconcilable?

Universities currently need to satisfy the demands of different audiences. In light of the increasing policy emphasis on "third mission" activities, universities are attempting to incorporate these into their traditional missions of teaching and research. University strategies to accomplishing its traditional missions are well-honed and routinized, but the incorporation of the third mission is posing important strategic and managerial challenges for universities. This study explores the relationship between university-business collaborations and academic excellence in order to examine the extent to which academic institutions can balance these objectives. Based on data from the UK Research Assessment Exercise 2001 at the level of the university department, we find no systematic positive or negative relationship between scientific excellence and engagement with industry. Across the disciplinary fields reported in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (i. e. engineering, hard sciences, biomedicine, social sciences and the humanities) the relationship between academic excellence and engagement with business is largely contingent on the institutional context of the university department. This paper adds to the growing body of literature on university engagement with business by examining this activity for the social sciences and the humanities. Our findings have important implications for the strategic management of university departments and for higher education policy related to measuring the performance of higher education research institutions. © 2013 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.

Traversing digital learning landscapes: an Institutional and faculty case study.

Within the UK, there is a growing awareness to better understand what online educational technologies can offer in relation to learning and teaching, and how social technologies are changing communication and collaboration out with formal education. The concept of the ‘digital university’ is being widely debated within the UK Higher education sector (McCluskey and Winter, 2012), becoming embedded in educational policy, and beginning to be explored within many institutions. This session will report on one such institutional initiative, undertaken at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. A Digital Futures Working Group was established to: benchmark best practice in key areas including digitally enhanced education and digital literacies development; identify areas for short term action; and to produce a robust ‘digital agenda’ to inform the future direction of the university. Pivotal to this was the recognition to evolve staff digital pedagogical practices and to harness emerging digital opportunities, meet learner expectations, and meet wider expectations for contemporary able citizens. This session will be delivered in two parts. Firstly we will provide an insight into the focus of the project and the rich picture methodology used to consult with staff and students. Secondly we will specify the outcomes produced, and provide a case study of how the Faculty of Health, Life and Social Sciences engaged with the process and the progression of their digitally enabled educational practices.

International Security in the Western Hemisphere: Legal and Institutional Developments

Odello, Marco, 'International Security in the Western Hemisphere: Legal and Institutional Developments', Anuario de Derecho Internacional, (2005) 21, pp.379-411 RAE2008