The Canterbury Earthquakes of 2010-2011, in particular the 4th September 2010 Darfield earthquake and the 22nd February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, produced severe and widespread liquefaction in Christchurch and surrounding areas. The scale of the liquefaction was unprecedented, and caused extensive damage to a variety of man-made structures, including residential houses. Around 20,000 residential houses suffered serious damage as a direct result of the effects of liquefaction, and this resulted in approximately 7000 houses in the worst-hit areas being abandoned. Despite the good performance of light timber-framed houses under the inertial loads of the earthquake, these structures could not withstand the large loads and deformations associated with liquefaction, resulting in significant damage. The key structural component of houses subjected to liquefaction effects was found to be their foundations, as these are in direct contact with the ground. The performance of house foundations directly influenced the performance of the structure as a whole. Because of this, and due to the lack of research in this area, it was decided to investigate the performance of houses and in particular their foundations when subjected to the effects of liquefaction. The data from the inspections of approximately 500 houses conducted by a University of Canterbury summer research team following the 4th September 2010 earthquake in the worst-hit areas of Christchurch were analysed to determine the general performance of residential houses when subjected to high liquefaction loads. This was followed by the detailed inspection of around 170 houses with four different foundation types common to Christchurch and New Zealand: Concrete perimeter with short piers constructed to NZS3604, concrete slab-on-grade also to NZS3604, RibRaft slabs designed by Firth Industries and driven pile foundations. With a focus on foundations, floor levels and slopes were measured, and the damage to all areas of the house and property were recorded. Seven invasive inspections were also conducted on houses being demolished, to examine in more detail the deformation modes and the causes of damage in severely affected houses. The simplified modelling of concrete perimeter sections subjected to a variety of liquefaction-related scenarios was also performed, to examine the comparative performance of foundations built in different periods, and the loads generated under various bearing loss and lateral spreading cases. It was found that the level of foundation damage is directly related to the level of liquefaction experienced, and that foundation damage and liquefaction severity in turn influence the performance of the superstructure. Concrete perimeter foundations were found to have performed most poorly, suffering high local floor slopes and being likely to require foundation repairs even when liquefaction was low enough that no surface ejecta was seen. This was due to their weak, flexible foundation structure, which cannot withstand liquefaction loads without deforming. The vulnerability of concrete perimeter foundations was confirmed through modelling. Slab-on-grade foundations performed better, and were unlikely to require repairs at low levels of liquefaction. Ribraft and piled foundations performed the best, with repairs unlikely up to moderate levels of liquefaction. However, all foundation types were susceptible to significant damage at higher levels of liquefaction, with maximum differential settlements of 474mm, 202mm, 182mm and 250mm found for concrete perimeter, slab-on-grade, ribraft and piled foundations respectively when subjected to significant lateral spreading, the most severe loading scenario caused by liquefaction. It was found through the analysis of the data that the type of exterior wall cladding, either heavy or light, and the number of storeys, did not affect the performance of foundations. This was also shown through modelling for concrete perimeter foundations, and is due to the increased foundation strengths provided for heavily cladded and two-storey houses. Heavy roof claddings were found to increase the demands on foundations, worsening their performance. Pre-1930 concrete perimeter foundations were also found to be very vulnerable to damage under liquefaction loads, due to their weak and brittle construction.

The master’s thesis deals with the solution of selected parts of the the construction technology project of the Cultural center in Žamberk. The thesis primarily focuses on the light external cladding which is designed as a hanging light curtain wall with ventilated air gap. Several other topics are also covered, namely the building site, construction equipment and the technological process schedule.

The presented dissertation is concerned with the ethic features of the quality of the social services inspectors professional behaviour in the residental facilities. This dissertation is divided into two main parts. The first part comprises theoretical bases related to given problems with the analysis of the relevant professional literature. The other part comprises with the actual research, the aim of which was finding ethical contexts of the inspection performance, inspector's education in the ethics, ethic code of the inspectors, the inspector profession and the value preferences of the inspectors. The main target is to analyze the ethical connections during the ispection performance in chosen residential facilities of the social services. In the research the quantitative and qualitative methods, the questionnaire survey and structural interviews were used. Based on the synthesis of the acquired knowledge the dissertation presents a view of the ethics application in professional activities of the inspectors. Key words: social services, quailty standards, quality inspections, values, ethics, the ethic code, career of the inspector, residential social services.

Architectural and technological project to construct a new multipurpose facility. The work includes: a technical report explaining the construction technology of the project, a construction site plan, time and financial plan of the construction, an implementation study of the major technological stages of the building, a project of site equipment, a design of main construction machines and mechanisms, a work schedule of the main building structure, a technological specification and a plan of control and quality assurance.

The presented dissertation is concerned with the ethic features of the quality of the social services inspectors professional behaviour in the residental facilities. This dissertation is divided into two main parts. The first part comprises theoretical bases related to given problems with the analysis of the relevant professional literature. The other part comprises with the actual research, the aim of which was finding ethical contexts of the inspection performance, inspector's education in the ethics, ethic code of the inspectors, the inspector profession and the value preferences of the inspectors. The main target is to analyze the ethical connections during the ispection performance in chosen residential facilities of the social services. In the research the quantitative and qualitative methods, the questionnaire survey and structural interviews were used. Based on the synthesis of the acquired knowledge the dissertation presents a view of the ethics application in professional activities of the inspectors. Key words: social services, quailty standards, quality inspections, values, ethics, the ethic code, career of the inspector, residential social services.

[pt] O segmento offshore de produção de petróleo é o principal produtor nacional desse insumo. Nesse contexto, inspeções submarinas são cruciais para a manutenção preventiva dos equipamentos, que permanecem toda a vida útil em ambiente oceânico. A partir dos dados de imagem e sensor coletados nessas inspeções, especialistas são capazes de prevenir e reparar eventuais danos. Tal processo é profundamente complexo, demorado e custoso, já que profissionais especializados têm que assistir a horas de vídeos atentos a detalhes. Neste cenário, o presente trabalho explora o uso de modelos de classificação de imagens projetados para auxiliar os especialistas a encontrarem o(s) evento(s) de interesse nos vídeos de inspeções submarinas. Esses modelos podem ser embarcados no ROV ou na plataforma para realizar inferência em tempo real, o que pode acelerar o ROV, diminuindo o tempo de inspeção e gerando uma grande redução nos custos de inspeção. No entanto, existem alguns desafios inerentes ao problema de classificação de imagens de inspeção submarina, tais como: dados rotulados balanceados são caros e escassos; presença de ruído entre os dados; alta variância intraclasse; e características físicas da água que geram certas especificidades nas imagens capturadas. Portanto, modelos supervisionados tradicionais podem não ser capazes de cumprir a tarefa. Motivado por esses desafios, busca-se solucionar o problema de classificação de imagens submarinas a partir da utilização de modelos que requerem menos supervisão durante o seu treinamento. Neste trabalho, são explorados os métodos DINO (Self-DIstillation with NO labels, auto-supervisionado) e uma nova versão multi-label proposta para o PAWS (Predicting View Assignments With Support Samples, semi-supervisionado), que chamamos de mPAWS (multi-label PAWS). Os modelos são avaliados com base em sua performance como extratores de features para o treinamento de um classificador simples, formado por uma camada densa. Nos experimentos realizados, para uma mesma arquitetura, se obteve uma performance que supera em 2.7 por cento o f1-score do equivalente supervisionado. / [en] The offshore oil production segment is the main national producer of this input. In this context, underwater inspections are crucial for the preventive maintenance of equipment, which remains in the ocean environment for its entire useful life. From the image and sensor data collected in these inspections,experts are able to prevent and repair damage. Such a process is deeply complex, time-consuming and costly, as specialized professionals have to watch hours of videos attentive to details. In this scenario, the present work explores the use of image classification models designed to help experts to find the event(s) of interest in under water inspection videos. These models can be embedded in the ROV or on the platform to perform real-time inference,which can speed up the ROV, monitor notification time, and greatly reduce verification costs. However, there are some challenges inherent to the problem of classification of images of armored submarines, such as: balanced labeled data are expensive and scarce; the presence of noise among the data; high intraclass variance; and some physical characteristics of the water that achieved certain specificities in the captured images. Therefore, traditional supervised models may not be able to fulfill the task. Motivated by these challenges, we seek to solve the underwater image classification problem using models that require less supervision during their training. In this work, they are explorers of the DINO methods (Self-Distillation with NO labels, self-supervised) anda new multi-label version proposed for PAWS (Predicting View AssignmentsWith Support Samples, semi-supervised), which we propose as mPAWS (multi-label PAWS). The models are evaluated based on their performance as features extractors for training a simple classifier, formed by a dense layer. In the experiments carried out, for the same architecture, a performance was obtained that exceeds by 2.7 percent the f1-score of the supervised equivalent.

Corrosion damage reduces the load-carrying capacity of bridges which poses a threat to passenger safety. The objective of this research was to reduce the resources involved in conventional bridge inspections which are an important tool in the condition assessment of bridges and to help in determining if live load testing is necessary. This research proposes a framework to link semi-automated damage detection on prestressed concrete bridge girders with the estimation of their residual flexural capacity. The framework was implemented on four full-scale corrosion damaged girders from decommissioned bridges in Virginia. 3D point clouds of the girders reconstructed from images using Structure from Motion (SfM) approach were textured with images containing cracks detected at pixel level using a U-Net (Fully Convolutional Network). Spalls were detected by identifying the locations where normals associated with the points in the 3D point cloud deviated from being perpendicular to the reference directions chosen, by an amount greater than a threshold angle. 3D textured mesh models, overlaid with the detected cracks and spalls were used as 3D damage maps to determine reduced cross-sectional areas of prestressing strands to account for the corrosion damage as per the recommendations of Naito, Jones, and Hodgson (2011). Scaling them to real-world dimensions enabled the measurement of any required dimension, eliminating the need for physical contact. The flexural capacities of a box beam and an I-beam estimated using strain compatibility analysis were validated with the actual capacities at failure sections determined from four destructive tests conducted by Al Rufaydah (2020). Along with the reduction in the cross-sectional areas of strands, limiting the ultimate strain that heavily corroded strands can develop was explored as a possible way to improve the results of the analysis. Strain compatibility analysis was used to estimate the ultimate rupture strain, in the heavily corroded bottommost layer prestressing strands exposed before the box beam was tested. More research is required to associate each level of strand corrosion with an average ultimate strain at which the corroded strands rupture. This framework was found to give satisfactory estimates of the residual strength. Reduction in resources involved in current visual inspection practices and eliminating the need for physical access, make this approach worthwhile to be explored further to improve the output of each step in the proposed framework. / Master of Science / Corrosion damage is a major concern for bridges as it reduces their load carrying capacity. Bridge failures in the past have been attributed to corrosion damage. The risk associated with corrosion damage caused failures increases as the infrastructure ages. Many bridges across the world built forty to fifty years ago are now in a deteriorated condition and need to be repaired and retrofitted. Visual inspections to identify damage or deterioration on a bridge are very important to assess the condition of the bridge and determine the need for repairing or for posting weight restrictions for the vehicles that use the bridge. These inspections require close physical access to the hard-to-reach areas of the bridge for physically measuring the damage which involves many resources in the form of experienced engineers, skilled labor, equipment, time, and money. The safety of the personnel involved in the inspections is also a major concern. Nowadays, a lot of research is being done in using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) like drones for bridge inspections and in using artificial intelligence for the detection of cracks on the images of concrete and steel members. Girders or beams in a bridge are the primary longitudinal load carrying members. Concrete inherently is weak in tension. To address this problem, High Strength steel reinforcement (called prestressing steel or prestressing strands) in prestressed concrete beams is pre-loaded with a tensile force before the application of any loads so that the regions which will experience tension under the service loads would be subjected to a pre-compression to improve the performance of the beam and delay cracking. Spalls are a type of corrosion damage on concrete members where portions of concrete fall off (section loss) due to corrosion in the steel reinforcement, exposing the reinforcement to the environment which leads to accelerated corrosion causing a loss of cross-sectional area and ultimately, a rupture in the steel. If the process of detecting the damage (cracks, spalls, exposed or severed reinforcement, etc.) is automated, the next logical step that would add great value would be, to quantify the effect of the damage detected on the load carrying capacity of the bridges. Using a quantified estimate of the remaining capacity of a bridge, determined after accounting for the corrosion damage, informed decisions can be made about the measures to be taken. This research proposes a stepwise framework to forge a link between a semi-automated visual inspection and residual capacity evaluation of actual prestressed concrete bridge girders obtained from two bridges that have been removed from service in Virginia due to extensive deterioration. 3D point clouds represent an object as a set of points on its surface in three dimensional space. These point clouds can be constructed either using laser scanning or using Photogrammetry from images of the girders captured with a digital camera. In this research, 3D point clouds are reconstructed from sequences of overlapping images of the girders using an approach called Structure from Motion (SfM) which locates matched pixels present between consecutive images in the 3D space. Crack-like features were automatically detected and highlighted on the images of the girders that were used to build the 3D point clouds using artificial intelligence (Neural Network). The images with cracks highlighted were applied as texture to the surface mesh on the point cloud to transfer the detail, color, and realism present in the images to the 3D model. Spalls were detected on 3D point clouds based on the orientation of the normals associated with the points with respect to the reference directions. Point clouds and textured meshes of the girders were scaled to real-world dimensions facilitating the measurement of any required dimension on the point clouds, eliminating the need for physical contact in condition assessment. Any cracks or spalls that went unidentified in the damage detection were visible on the textured meshes of the girders improving the performance of the approach. 3D textured mesh models of the girders overlaid with the detected cracks and spalls were used as 3D damage maps in residual strength estimation. Cross-sectional slices were extracted from the dense point clouds at various sections along the length of each girder. The slices were overlaid on the cross-section drawings of the girders, and the prestressing strands affected due to the corrosion damage were identified. They were reduced in cross-sectional area to account for the corrosion damage as per the recommendations of Naito, Jones, and Hodgson (2011) and were used in the calculation of the ultimate moment capacity of the girders using an approach called strain compatibility analysis. Estimated residual capacities were compared to the actual capacities of the girders found from destructive tests conducted by Al Rufaydah (2020). Comparisons are presented for the failure sections in these tests and the results were analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of this framework. More research is to be done to determine the factors causing rupture in prestressing strands with different degrees of corrosion. This framework was found to give satisfactory estimates of the residual strength. Reduction in resources involved in current visual inspection practices and eliminating the need for physical access, make this approach worthwhile to be explored further to improve the output of each step in the proposed framework.

The main aim of this study was to investigate the implementation of the performance management system in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation of the Botswana public service and to identify the factors that facilitated and hindered the successful implementation of the programme. This study used a mixed methods research design which combines both qualitative and quantitative research design. The study used the model of social programmes, which is a holistic and comprehensive analytical framework that is used to study the implementation of social intervention programmes. Research data was obtained using a triangulation of research methods (case study, evaluation research and survey method) and data sources (literature review, document analysis, self-administered questionnaires and follow-up personal interviews). A sample of 90 respondents was selected using the purposive sampling strategy. The study found that the implementation of the performance management system in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation was problematic because of unclear and ambiguous foreign policy goals and objectives; lack of broad-based support and critical mass of champions of the performance management system; use of command-and-control management model rather than empowerment and the adaptation model; inadequate human and institutional capacities; ineffective supporting systems of the performance management system; weak accountability and responsibility mechanisms; weak intra-ministerial and inter-ministerial communication, co-operation, collaboration and co-ordination; inadequate information and communications technology infrastructure and unfavourable international environment. This study contributed to the existing literature by investigating the implementation of the performance management system in the global environment from a public service perspective rather than a private sector perspective, which relies on the experiences of multinational companies. The study findings provide some invaluable insights that may improve the implementation of the performance management system in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation of the Botswana public service by proposing recommendations to the identified problems. The recommendations include: setting clear and specific foreign policy objectives; creating a critical mass of champions of the performance management system; strengthening human and institutional capacities; promoting effective implementation and use of supporting systems of the performance management system; strengthening accountability and responsibility mechanisms; strengthening intra-ministerial and inter-ministerial communication, co-operation, collaboration, and co-ordination; strengthening decentralisation and empowerment principles and upgrading information and communications technology infrastructure. / Public Administration and Management / DPA

The Master's thesis describes and analyses the legislation of the on-site inspections conducted by the Czech Office for the Protection of Competition and the European Commission. The competition authorities may investigate business and other premises in order to find evidence proving the violation of competition rules. The on- site inspection or so called dawn raid is a main investigative and the most effective tool of the competition authorities in proceedings concerning the possible breach of competition law. The main aim of this thesis is to provide a detailed description of the relevant legislation and case law, to highlight any legal issues connected with on-site inspections and offer solutions of these issues, and finally to examine guarantees of the fundamental rights of the undertakings during the inspection. The thesis consists of eight chapters. Chapter One and Two are introductory and describe basic terms connected with the competition law. In Chapter Three the thesis deals with the scope of relevant Czech and EU legislation. Chapter Four is concerned with the guarantees of fundamental rights within on-site inspections. This chapter comprehensively describes and analyses relevant decisional practice of the European Court of Human Rights, Czech and EU courts, in which those courts...

The purpose of this research is to examine the following research question: how has enforcement of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) adapted to the Big Box business system innovation? Additionally, the study explored the possible nature of regulatory choke points that may emerge from the enforcement of RCRA in the Big Box retail system. This study used contingency theory to establish a foundation for analysis of the Big Box business system innovation through identification of structural elements, external influences, and their subsequent interactions associated with the Big Box retail system in terms of environmental compliance with the RCRA enforced by the United States (US) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This research employed an embedded comparative case study design using the comparison of two Big Box firms, Walmart Stores, Inc. and Target Corporation, nationally and for the following states with opposing enforcement strategies: Arizona, Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas. The data used was obtained from third-party federal or firm-maintained sources. Findings indicate Walmart adheres to the structural models developed using contingency theory principles and incurs more impacts from regulatory agencies due to the enforcement of RCRA. Furthermore, it was observed that inspections of the firms are not distributed throughout the organizational structural elements by all states. Additionally, the use of different enforcement strategies resulted in the emergence of regulatory choke points by Arizona, Kentucky, and Texas; however, Missouri appears to balance enforcement without causing a regulatory choke point. This research has identified that the enforcement of RCRA has not universally adapted to the demands of the Big Box business system innovation. Agency implications, firm implications, directions for further research, and continued development of a regulatory choke point theory are discussed.