Wage policy in Indian industries

India is on the threshold of industrial and economic development. The growth would be retarded if harmonious employer-employee relations are not maintained. 'Wages' plays a fundamental role in establishing this relationship. However, much controversy in the industrial sphere revolves round the question of wages. Though formerly the laissez faire doctrine prevailed, with the emergence of the welfare state ideology, notions of national economy and social justice gained prominence. The problem of wages has became one with social, political, economic, psychological and legal dimensions. Formulation of a proper wage policy is thus a riddle. Realities of the present have to be fused with perspectives about the future. With due recognition of all significant factors, a proper balance has to be struck, which should be the hard core of any wage policy. This study emphasises the need for a wage policy which may meet the requirements of rapid economic growth and stable industrial relations. The study also indicates the proper bases for the promotien of such a policy.

”Public Health Protection through Air Quality Controls”

Health is an important aspect of everybody’s life. Today, there is an increasing recognition and commitment to the pursuit of health both within government and beyond. Any attempt on the part of the " State to protect and promote people’s health, in turn, must be accompanied by effective controls on air quality, as air constitutes ‘ one of the important elements of man’s life and the consequences of air pollution covers a very wide spectrum ranging from material ---damage to personal discomfort and illness. The broad social and economic objectives adumbrated in the Directive Principles of State Policy including the commitment to improve public health underlying in Article 47 and the obligation to preserve and protect-the natural environment cast under Article 48A of the Constitution are being used as versatile weapons by the State to regulate the public health scenario. Preservation and maintenance of air quality is a significant area within the sphere of public health, where the regulatory arm of the law is not adequately touched and in this arena urgent State intervention through legislative and administrative action is called for in the well-being of the society. Judiciary also plays a pivotal role in this arena in the larger interest of the society and for the benefit of the present and future generations. The research study is an attempt to analyze how far the existing legal system, for maintaining air quality and in controlling air pollution, is effective in protecting public health. The study also analyzes the limitations of the control mechanisms. The study focuses on industrial air pollution, indoor and personal air pollution, vehicular pollution and noise pollution which are today appearing as the major public health hazards affecting the air quality. However, this is not to overlook the importance of controls required under other areas of public health.

Land Use Controls with Special Reference to Wetlands

This is a study of land use law in India. Land use Controls has been a subject of controversy since the human settlement. Gamut of control increased with human development. Now the controls are for many purposes.Nuisance created through various land use was tried to be avoidedthrough the common law controls7. Whether the utility of the activity outweighs the environmental consideration was the consideration before the court. A standard definition8 of nuisance could meet most of the problems relating to land use. Later on, planning and zoning laws brought in major changes. Health, safety and facilities of others attracted land use controls9. After the Stockholm the sphere of government interference increased. Several legislations were enacted. Existing legislations were modified. These come in conflict with the interests of different sections of society. Coastal Regulations10 and high range protection11 are manifestations of such unrest. A systematic study on these issues is of current interest. Exploring of some areas in this respect is also relevant in this respect.

Künstliche Randbedingungen und Algebraische Äquivalenzen in der Elastizitätstheorie

In dieser Arbeit werden zwei Aspekte bei Randwertproblemen der linearen Elastizitätstheorie untersucht: die Approximation von Lösungen auf unbeschränkten Gebieten und die Änderung von Symmetrieklassen unter speziellen Transformationen. Ausgangspunkt der Dissertation ist das von Specovius-Neugebauer und Nazarov in "Artificial boundary conditions for Petrovsky systems of second order in exterior domains and in other domains of conical type"(Math. Meth. Appl. Sci, 2004; 27) eingeführte Verfahren zur Untersuchung von Petrovsky-Systemen zweiter Ordnung in Außenraumgebieten und Gebieten mit konischen Ausgängen mit Hilfe der Methode der künstlichen Randbedingungen. Dabei werden für die Ermittlung von Lösungen der Randwertprobleme die unbeschränkten Gebiete durch das Abschneiden mit einer Kugel beschränkt, und es wird eine künstliche Randbedingung konstruiert, um die Lösung des Problems möglichst gut zu approximieren. Das Verfahren wird dahingehend verändert, dass das abschneidende Gebiet ein Polyeder ist, da es für die Lösung des Approximationsproblems mit üblichen Finite-Element-Diskretisierungen von Vorteil sei, wenn das zu triangulierende Gebiet einen polygonalen Rand besitzt. Zu Beginn der Arbeit werden die wichtigsten funktionalanalytischen Begriffe und Ergebnisse der Theorie elliptischer Differentialoperatoren vorgestellt. Danach folgt der Hauptteil der Arbeit, der sich in drei Bereiche untergliedert. Als erstes wird für abschneidende Polyedergebiete eine formale Konstruktion der künstlichen Randbedingungen angegeben. Danach folgt der Nachweis der Existenz und Eindeutigkeit der Lösung des approximativen Randwertproblems auf dem abgeschnittenen Gebiet und im Anschluss wird eine Abschätzung für den resultierenden Abschneidefehler geliefert. An die theoretischen Ausführungen schließt sich die Betrachtung von Anwendungsbereiche an. Hier werden ebene Rissprobleme und Polarisationsmatrizen dreidimensionaler Außenraumprobleme der Elastizitätstheorie erläutert. Der letzte Abschnitt behandelt den zweiten Aspekt der Arbeit, den Bereich der Algebraischen Äquivalenzen. Hier geht es um die Transformation von Symmetrieklassen, um die Kenntnis der Fundamentallösung der Elastizitätsprobleme für transversalisotrope Medien auch für Medien zu nutzen, die nicht von transversalisotroper Struktur sind. Eine allgemeine Darstellung aller Klassen konnte hier nicht geliefert werden. Als Beispiel für das Vorgehen wird eine Klasse von orthotropen Medien im dreidimensionalen Fall angegeben, die sich auf den Fall der Transversalisotropie reduzieren lässt.

On Vessiot's Theory of Partial Differential Equations

The object of research presented here is Vessiot's theory of partial differential equations: for a given differential equation one constructs a distribution both tangential to the differential equation and contained within the contact distribution of the jet bundle. Then within it, one seeks n-dimensional subdistributions which are transversal to the base manifold, the integral distributions. These consist of integral elements, and these again shall be adapted so that they make a subdistribution which closes under the Lie-bracket. This then is called a flat Vessiot connection. Solutions to the differential equation may be regarded as integral manifolds of these distributions. In the first part of the thesis, I give a survey of the present state of the formal theory of partial differential equations: one regards differential equations as fibred submanifolds in a suitable jet bundle and considers formal integrability and the stronger notion of involutivity of differential equations for analyzing their solvability. An arbitrary system may (locally) be represented in reduced Cartan normal form. This leads to a natural description of its geometric symbol. The Vessiot distribution now can be split into the direct sum of the symbol and a horizontal complement (which is not unique). The n-dimensional subdistributions which close under the Lie bracket and are transversal to the base manifold are the sought tangential approximations for the solutions of the differential equation. It is now possible to show their existence by analyzing the structure equations. Vessiot's theory is now based on a rigorous foundation. Furthermore, the relation between Vessiot's approach and the crucial notions of the formal theory (like formal integrability and involutivity of differential equations) is clarified. The possible obstructions to involution of a differential equation are deduced explicitly. In the second part of the thesis it is shown that Vessiot's approach for the construction of the wanted distributions step by step succeeds if, and only if, the given system is involutive. Firstly, an existence theorem for integral distributions is proven. Then an existence theorem for flat Vessiot connections is shown. The differential-geometric structure of the basic systems is analyzed and simplified, as compared to those of other approaches, in particular the structure equations which are considered for the proofs of the existence theorems: here, they are a set of linear equations and an involutive system of differential equations. The definition of integral elements given here links Vessiot theory and the dual Cartan-Kähler theory of exterior systems. The analysis of the structure equations not only yields theoretical insight but also produces an algorithm which can be used to derive the coefficients of the vector fields, which span the integral distributions, explicitly. Therefore implementing the algorithm in the computer algebra system MuPAD now is possible.

An Inquiry of Changes in Environmental Governance by Community-driven Process

Urban environmental depletion has been a critical problem among industrialized-transformed societies, especially at the local level where administrative authorities’ capacity lags behind changes. Derived from governance concept, the idea of civil society inclusion is highlighted. Focusing on an agglomerated case study, Bang Plee Community in Thailand, this research investigates on a non-state sector, 201-Community organization, as an agent for changes to improve urban environments on solid waste collection. Two roles are contested: as an agent for neighborhood internal change and as an intermediary toward governance changes in state-civil society interaction. By employing longitudinal analysis via a project intervention as research experiment, the outcomes of both roles are detected portrayed in three spheres: state, state-civil society interaction, and civil society sphere. It discovers in the research regarding agglomerated context that as an internal changes for environmental betterment, 201-Community organization operation brings on waste reduction at the minimal level. Community-based organization as an agent for changes – despite capacity input it still limited in efficiency and effectiveness – can mobilize fruitfully only at the individual and network level of civil society sectors, while fails managing at the organizational level. The positive outcomes result by economic waste incentive associated with a limited-bonded group rather than the rise of awareness at large. As an intermediary agent for shared governance, the community-based organization cannot bring on mutual dialogue with state as much as cannot change the state’s operation arena of solid waste management. The findings confine the shared governance concept that it does not applicable in agglomerated locality as an effective outcome, both in terms of being instrumental toward civil society inclusion and being provocative of internal change. Shared environmental governance as summarized in this research can last merely a community development action. It distances significantly from civil society inclusion and empowerment. However, the research proposes that community-based environmental management and shared governance toward civil society inclusion in urban environmental improvement are still an expectable option and reachable if their factors and conditions of key success and failure are intersected with a particular context. Further studies demand more precise on scale, scope, and theses factors of environmental management operation operated by civil society sectors.

Ursprung, Entwicklung und Funktion von NGOs im zeitgenössischen Liberalismus - am Beispiel der BRD und Brasilien

NGOs werden von einem idealtypischen, perfektionistischen, Homogenität vermittelnden Schleier umgeben, der es schwer macht, die eigentlichen definitorischen Strukturen des NGO-Begriffs zu erfassen. In meiner Dissertation konnte ich dieses in der allgemeinen Öffentlichkeit vorherrschende Image beiseite schieben und erlangte somit einen Blick auf die eigentlichen Strukturen der NGOs. Im weiteren Verlauf versuchte ich die Verortung der NGOs in der Gesellschaft zu lokalisieren. Dies stellte sich sowohl im theoretischen als auch im empirischen Teil, in dem ich Interviews ausgewertet habe, die ich zuvor mit Experten verschiedenster deutscher und brasilianischer NGOs durchführte, als äußerst schwieriges Unterfangen dar. Dies lag zum einem daran, dass abseits der von der UN 1996 aufgestellten NGO-Kriterien keine allgemeingültigen, obligatorisch normativen NGO Definitionen existieren und zum anderen, dass die NGOs und deren Arbeitsfelder so heterogen sind, dass es nahezu unmöglich ist, Definitionskriterien aufzustellen, die allen NGOs gerecht werden könnten. NGOs erbringen einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Interessenvertretung sowie zum Zusammenschluss von Benachteiligten, damit diese ihre (Bürger-) Rechte wahrnehmen und gemeinsam Veränderungen bewirken können. Anhand von Kompetenzaufbau, Ermittlung der Ursachen der Ausgrenzung und deren Beseitigung wird versucht, die Veränderungen aktiv zu gestalten. NGOs fördern somit die Selbstorganisation und bündeln die Belange der Betroffenen. Festzuhalten ist, dass die NGOs ein immens wichtiges Element in der Zivilgesellschaft darstellen. Sie sind Ausdruck des politischen, sozialen und solidarischen Wollens von Menschen, die an der Gemeinschaft teilhaben, ihre Rechte geltend machen und den Istzustand des Systems nicht mehr einfach ohne Gegenwehr hinnehmen wollen. Das zivilgesellschaftliche Engagement ist, so zeigt die wachsende Bedeutung von NGOs, ungebrochen stark. Aber es ist aufgrund seiner großen Vielfalt weder begrifflich noch organisatorisch auf einen einzigen Nenner zu bringen. Das ist offenbar die Stärke eines zivilgesellschaftlichen Engagements, das die Schwächen eines gesellschaftlichen Systems aufnimmt: Staat und Markt sind nicht die einzigen Akteure, von denen gesellschaftlicher Wandel und sozialer Friede zugleich begünstigt werden können.

Generating Communications Systems Through Shared Context

In a distributed model of intelligence, peer components need to communicate with one another. I present a system which enables two agents connected by a thick twisted bundle of wires to bootstrap a simple communication system from observations of a shared environment. The agents learn a large vocabulary of symbols, as well as inflections on those symbols which allow thematic role-frames to be transmitted. Language acquisition time is rapid and linear in the number of symbols and inflections. The final communication system is robust and performance degrades gradually in the face of problems.

Surface Reflectance Recognition and Real-World Illumination Statistics

Humans distinguish materials such as metal, plastic, and paper effortlessly at a glance. Traditional computer vision systems cannot solve this problem at all. Recognizing surface reflectance properties from a single photograph is difficult because the observed image depends heavily on the amount of light incident from every direction. A mirrored sphere, for example, produces a different image in every environment. To make matters worse, two surfaces with different reflectance properties could produce identical images. The mirrored sphere simply reflects its surroundings, so in the right artificial setting, it could mimic the appearance of a matte ping-pong ball. Yet, humans possess an intuitive sense of what materials typically "look like" in the real world. This thesis develops computational algorithms with a similar ability to recognize reflectance properties from photographs under unknown, real-world illumination conditions. Real-world illumination is complex, with light typically incident on a surface from every direction. We find, however, that real-world illumination patterns are not arbitrary. They exhibit highly predictable spatial structure, which we describe largely in the wavelet domain. Although they differ in several respects from the typical photographs, illumination patterns share much of the regularity described in the natural image statistics literature. These properties of real-world illumination lead to predictable image statistics for a surface with given reflectance properties. We construct a system that classifies a surface according to its reflectance from a single photograph under unknown illuminination. Our algorithm learns relationships between surface reflectance and certain statistics computed from the observed image. Like the human visual system, we solve the otherwise underconstrained inverse problem of reflectance estimation by taking advantage of the statistical regularity of illumination. For surfaces with homogeneous reflectance properties and known geometry, our system rivals human performance.

Recovering Euclidean deformable models from stereo-motion

In this paper we present a novel structure from motion (SfM) approach able to infer 3D deformable models from uncalibrated stereo images. Using a stereo setup dramatically improves the 3D model estimation when the observed 3D shape is mostly deforming without undergoing strong rigid motion. Our approach first calibrates the stereo system automatically and then computes a single metric rigid structure for each frame. Afterwards, these 3D shapes are aligned to a reference view using a RANSAC method in order to compute the mean shape of the object and to select the subset of points on the object which have remained rigid throughout the sequence without deforming. The selected rigid points are then used to compute frame-wise shape registration and to extract the motion parameters robustly from frame to frame. Finally, all this information is used in a global optimization stage with bundle adjustment which allows to refine the frame-wise initial solution and also to recover the non-rigid 3D model. We show results on synthetic and real data that prove the performance of the proposed method even when there is no rigid motion in the original sequence

Monocular-based 3-D seafloor reconstruction and ortho-mosaicing by piecewise planar representation

Photo-mosaicing techniques have become popular for seafloor mapping in various marine science applications. However, the common methods cannot accurately map regions with high relief and topographical variations. Ortho-mosaicing borrowed from photogrammetry is an alternative technique that enables taking into account the 3-D shape of the terrain. A serious bottleneck is the volume of elevation information that needs to be estimated from the video data, fused, and processed for the generation of a composite ortho-photo that covers a relatively large seafloor area. We present a framework that combines the advantages of dense depth-map and 3-D feature estimation techniques based on visual motion cues. The main goal is to identify and reconstruct certain key terrain feature points that adequately represent the surface with minimal complexity in the form of piecewise planar patches. The proposed implementation utilizes local depth maps for feature selection, while tracking over several views enables 3-D reconstruction by bundle adjustment. Experimental results with synthetic and real data validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Análisis de la influencia política y económica de las negociaciones sobre gas, en las relaciones bilaterales de la Unión Europea y Rusia del 2003 al 2008

Esta monografía tiene como propósito analizar la manera en que el gas influenció las relaciones bilaterales entre Rusia y la Unión Europea en el periodo del 2003 al 2008. La deficiencia de Fuentes energéticas propias en la Unión Europea, sobre todo de hidrocarburos, contribuyó a que en este periodo, la Federación Rusa alcanzara algunas de las metas que se había propuesto a nivel político y económico desde la llegada del presidente Vladimir Putin al poder, con el fin de hacer un reposicionamiento de Rusia a nivel regional, basado en la “reciprocity” (reciprocidad), donde Rusia brinda gas a la UE pero a su vez, la UE debe brindar seguridad en otros sectores. A través de la teoría de Barry Buzan “Regional Security Complex” se muestra la influencia del sector energético (energetic) en el campo político y económico en las relaciones bilaterales de estas dos unidades del sistema internacional.

Análisis de la importancia estratégica de Colombia en la política exterior de Brasil entre 2003 y 2009

El objetivo de este trabajo fue identificar en qué forma la política regional de Brasil entre 2003 y 2009 ha enfrentado la importancia estratégica de Colombia. Esta investigación cualitativa de carácter descriptivo, se abordo desde una visión de la Estabilidad Hegemónica y Cambio Sistémico, dándole un carácter multidimensional al poder de los Estados, con el uso de las categorías Soft Power (Nye) y el Hard Power económico y sus implicaciones en la Economía Política Internacional (Gilpin). Se abordó, como el proyecto que desarrolló el gobierno Lula, para transformar a Brasil de media a gran potencia o jugador global, enfrenta uno de sus mayores obstáculos en la región y particularmente en Colombia, dándole a este, una posición estratégica con respecto a la aspiración de envergadura global. Frente a esto, durante el 2003 – 2009 desde la relaciona binacional, se han buscado mecanismo de acercamiento en los ejes comercial, seguridad y diálogo.

Retos del periodismo ¿en jaque?

Actualmente estamos siendo testigos de una segunda revolución tecnológica, en la que se hace evidente el surgimiento de dos nuevos paradigmas en relación con la entronización del mercado y la tecnología. Estos paradigmas han modificado sustancialmente la esfera de la comunicación y en particular, el ámbito de la información. Estos cambios, rastreables al fenómeno de la globalización, plantean nuevos dilemas que cuestionan la labor y el ejercicio periodístico, lo que forzosamente nos lleva a preguntarnos ¿cuáles son los principales retos del periodista en el contexto actual de la globalización?

El impacto local de las políticas internacionales de agua y su relación con los organismos multilaterales: el caso de Puebla, México

El tema central de este documento es la incorporación de una aproximación teórica de análisis sobre la relación existente entre la realización y entramado de políticas públicas desde el ámbito de la agenda internacional sostenida por las organizaciones multilaterales a nivel mundial y sus influencias en los países miembros, en el ámbito de lo local.