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Der 4. Sachstandsbericht des IPCC im Jahre 2007 enthielt die deutliche Warnung an die globale Weltgemeinschaft, dass der Klimawandel bereits im Gange ist und umfassende Maßnahmen notwendig sein werden, um seine Folgen für Mensch und Umwelt im erträglichen Maß zu halten. Nicht zuletzt ist dies auch ein deutliches Signal an die Weltwirtschaft, sich intensiv mit dem Thema Klimawandel auseinander zu setzen und daraus geeignete Maßnahmen insbesondere zur Anpassung an den Klimawandel abzuleiten. Der Sachstandbericht des IPCC richtet seinen Appell aber auch an die Regionen, sich mit der Thematik auseinanderzusetzen, um Anpassungsstrategien an die besonderen klimatischen lokalen Besonderheiten zu entwickeln. Im Rahmen des Projektes REGKLAM, dem Regionalen Klimaanpassungsprogramm, werden in der Modellregion Sachsen eben diese Forderungen umgesetzt. Als ein für diese Region bedeutsamer Wirtschaftszweig ist unter anderem die Baubranche identifiziert worden. Zur Verschaffung eines ersten Überblicks über die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels und mögliche Anpassungsstrategien der Baubranche in der Modellregion Dresden sind Experteninterviews mit Vertretern von Bauunternehmen durchgeführt worden. Deren Aussagen werden mit Hilfe der Inhaltsanalyse untersucht, um neben den Erkenntnissen für die Region einen Abgleich mit der gegenwärtig existierenden Literatur zu diesem Thema vorzunehmen. In der wissenschaftlichen Literatur wird die Baubranche als Gewinner des Klimawandels angesehen. Die Ursache liegt in dem enormen Schadenspotential, das durch den Klimawandel verursacht wird und daher sich daher positiv auf den Absatz der Baubranche niederschlagen soll. Dass diese Aussage kritisch zu betrachten ist, zeigt die vorliegende wissenschaftliche Abhandlung, die die einzelnen Wertschöpfungsstufen, Stakeholder und unternehmerischen Rahmenbedingungen näher betrachtet, um daraus die von der Baubranche selber wahrgenommen Chancen und Risiken zu identifizieren.

<p>The local politicians in Sweden are responsible for a great deal of the welfare system why one would assume that there are a lot of demands put on them - demands for certain skills or a certain level of competence. I have in this study tried to find out how the demands on the local representatives concerning the demands for competence and the actual level of competence among the politicians are affecting the local politics. This was done through investigating how the local politicians are perceiving their level of competence and the demands put on them, but also how the employees are perceiving the demands and the level of competence put on the politicians. The study was made in the municipality of Gislaved in Southern Sweden. I was using both quantitative method (an opinion poll among the politicians and employees in the municipality) and qualitative method (interviews with three politicians and three employees and literature studies).</p><p>In order to investigate the demands for competence I split the concept into “soft” competence (socially and emotionally based skills), and “hard” competence (skills based on knowledge, education and experience). The demands for competence mentioned in the opinion-poll are both “soft” and “hard”: 62 % of the employees put demands of “hard” competence skills on the politicians. 61 % of the politicians put demands of “soft” competence skills on themselves. The interviewed respondents say that certain skills are needed for a certain political mission. I consider the demands for competence as rather high according to the result.</p><p>The local politicians are not, according to the opinion-poll, having the appropriate competence skills, though many of the respondents (56) answered that they have the competence to a certain degree. It is also noticeable that 33 out of 81 persons say that the employees are only having the competence needed to a certain degree. I consider the level of competence among the local politicians rather low according to the result.</p><p>The results from the investigations of the demands for competence and the level of competence were put into a model with different outcomes depending on if the level of competence and the demands for competence are high or low. The result from high demands for competence and a level of competence not answering fully to those demands is that these high demands of political skills may put a pressure on the politicians, which may lead to a higher level of competence, an increased quality on the local politics, create a higher degree of confidence in the politicians from the society and an increased interest in political participation, but the high demands could also lead to a feeling of incompetence among the politicians, and that less people will take interest in participating in politics as they wont consider themselves having the demanded skills. So increased demands of competence may lead to both quality and elitism. The non-existing demands of competence of today supports increased amateurism among the local decision makers, and an increase in the rule of experts. If a number of demands would be formalized they could on the other hand create barriers for marginalized groups participation in politics.</p>

Ce travail est une étude exploratoire sur la relation d’autorité en salle de classe dans une école primaire publique du Cameroun. Je voulais comprendre comment les enseignants et les élèves d’une école publique en milieu périurbain vivent la relation d’autorité en salle de classe. Pour rendre compte de cette expérience, j’ai choisi l’approche de terrain prônée par l’interactionnisme symbolique. J’ai alors eu recours à l’observation de deux classes (106 h 43 min), à 12 entretiens semi-structurés avec les élèves des deux classes et 3 autres avec la directrice d’école et les deux titulaires des deux classes. Analysée dans un premier temps au moyen de deux catégories : l’épistémique et le déontique, la relation d’autorité apparaît comme une relation verticale basée sur la coercition. Ensuite, pour mieux comprendre la complexité des interactions qui favorisent un tel type de relation, j’ai convoqué la théorie de la structuration sociale de Giddens. Cela m’a permis de placer le vécu de la salle de classe dans le contexte méso-social de la politique éducative, puis dans le contexte macro social des politiques d’ajustement structurel qui régentent le Cameroun et d’autres pays dits en développement pour découvrir que la domination du macro social sur le méso social crée une anomie au niveau des orientations scolaires. Ce qui permet aux enseignantes d’instituer et d’appliquer leurs propres normes à l’école. C’est cet acte d’invention et d’application des normes qui fait d’elles des « entrepreneures de morale ».

The purpose of the paper is to present work patterns from two perspectives, the art expert´s and art forger´s, as the patterns can be retrieved from two Swedish criminal cases of fraud, the case "T" and the case "M". A minor purpose is to create a knowledge base extracted from literature regarding more general work patterns used by art experts when they work with attribution.   The method used can best be named descriptive. Forged artwork from nine artists are described and comments on the fake procedures are provided from buyers, forgers/sellers, middlemen (auction houses), police, prosecutors, experts, lawyers and the Stockholm District Court. The result in the paper can be summarized as follows: 1/ General work patterns with attribution: The track-paradigm is governing the expert´s work. As a start we have a time-setting, by identifying general style patterns in the artwork. Then there is a search for a possible geographical area where the work could have been created, and also a search for art schools and artist groups in that area. If a possible attribution of the work to an artist can be done, a search starts for that artist´s characteristics when it comes to motive, color selection, composition, figures, brush movements etc. Different types of physical measurements and tests can provide a complement to the qualitative analysis. The signature, if there is one, is examined and the provenance for the work is searched for. Information about the work in different archives can strengthen the results. 2/ “T” &amp; “M” - the art expert´s patterns: All experts go directly to the alleged artist for a critical analysis of the specific work. First an overall evaluation is done, and that is often sufficient to reject the work. If necessary, details in the work are examined. If a signature is present, it is examined and compared with genuine ones. In some cases, technical studies are used to reach a definitive verdict. The police focus is to identify inaccuracies and fakes in the sales information, and to show efforts to hide information.    3/ “T” &amp; “M” - the forger’s patterns: Art works from recent years are used as models for the creation of pastiches. Craftsmanship is toned down. Pitfalls are being circumvented by selection of genuine material ingredients and selection of secure image content related to the chosen artist. There is a thorough work with information creation to ensure the prospective buyer's desire for proof of authenticity. In parallel there is a work with cover up, and to secure information gaps.

There have been many studies on media (mis)representations of the Middle East and Iran. However, the experts and analysts who serve as major sources for those representations (and for government policy making) have not been systematically studied. This project studies discourses and networks of widely published Iran experts during the first year of the presidency of Iran’s Hassan Rouhani (2013-2014), the period during which unprecedented direct U.S.-Iran diplomacy paved the way for the historic nuclear agreement with Iran. Norman Fairclough’s three dimensional critical discourse analysis method and Peter Haas’s Epistemic Community approach are employed to study discursive as well as non-discursive (networked) characteristics of the most widely published U.S. Iran experts during this time period. Results identify five major epistemic communities that, altogether, represent the spectrum of U.S. Iran experts: neoconservatism, liberal interventionism, containment (tactical engagement), strategic engagement, and rapprochement. These five epistemic communities are described in detail throughout the five results chapters. Findings show that these experts influence the terms of media representations as well as the foreign policy making process. Findings also show that experts operate in a web of discursive as well as networked affiliations (i.e., epistemic communities) in order to be able to develop and circulate their discourses. It is however important to recognize that epistemic communities are not uniform in terms of formation stage, cohesion and level.

After the American Civil War, and the collapse of the market in slave-produced cotton in the South, cotton merchants in New Orleans faced challenges in re-establishing the city as a central port for Southern cotton. As commodities exchanges emerged as centralized spaces for business in the 1870s, a new class of experts emerged, upon whose reports traders bought and sold newly developed securities derivatives. Henry G. Hester (1846- 1934), Secretary of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, was an integral player in the development of the methods that governed sophisticated commodities trading around the world. His career at the New Orleans Cotton Exchange tells the story of the arrival of these methods and subsequent downfall of Euro-American centrality in the global cotton empire and contradicts previous histories that deemphasize Southern businesspersons’ contributions to modernization.

La vulnérabilité est la composante du risque d’incendie de forêt la moins connue. Elle est généralement évaluée à dires d’experts. Plus objectivement elle peut être évaluée a posteriori en mesurant les dommages causés par un sinistre, si le détail des caractères de ce sinistre est connu. Nous proposons un modèle d’évaluation de la vulnérabilité formulé par une analyse multicritères des dires d’experts. Ce modèle est validé en utilisant un modèle physique d’exposition. Ses entrées sont fournies par un modèle de propagation. La calibration se fonde sur une analyse des dommages engendrés par un sinistre réel. Les résultats valident l’approche de modélisation de la vulnérabilité par des variables spatiales. / Vulnerability is not a well-known component of forest fire risk. It is usually assessed through experts’ opinions. It can be assessed more objectively after a disaster par measuring damages, if the attributes of the disaster are known. We propose a model for vulnerability assessment formulated with a multi-criteria analysis of experts’ opinions. This one is validated by using a physical model for exposure assessment. Its inputs are provided by a fire propagation model. The system is calibrated based on the analysis of damages induced by a real wildfire. Results demonstrate the consistency of a vulnerability model based on spatial variables.

The aim of our study was to further investigate how power dynamics affect knowledge sharing through the perspective of consultants and within their relationships with clients. More specifically, we are hoping to better understand how consultants’ perceived power dynamics affect their collaboration with their clients and how they share their expertise. We have chosen to conduct a qualitative study with and have semi-structured interviews with consultants. According to our findings, the two concepts are highly connected since power and knowledge seem to be inseparable. Looking through the different consultants’ and clients’ relationships, this study reveals the existence of mutual dependencies and imbalances which affect the movement of knowledge as an outcome of the working process. The presence of collaboration is evident in our results and the existing resistance that clients show appears to facilitate knowledge sharing. Providing different examples of collaboration by the consultants, we argue that power dynamics evolve differently in different relations between the two main actors of the study and either work as an obstacle or facilitate the exchange of information, expertise, skills and know-how.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T17:40:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo720_1.pdf: 2087569 bytes, checksum: 4e440439e51674690e086dbc501c7a58 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / A modelagem de deterioracão tem estado na vanguarda das analises Bayesianas de confiabilidade. As abordagens mais conhecidas encontradas na literatura para este proposito avaliam o comportamento da medida de confiabilidade ao longo do tempo a luz dos dados empiricos, apenas. No contexto de engenharia de confiabilidade, essas abordagens têm aplicabilidade limitada uma vez que frequentemente lida-se com situacões caracterizadas pela escassez de dados empiricos. Inspirado em estrategias Bayesianas que agregam dados empiricos e opiniões de especialistas na modelagem de medidas de confiabilidade não-dependentes do tempo, este trabalho propõe uma metodologia para lidar com confiabilidade dependente do tempo. A metodologia proposta encapsula conhecidas abordagens Bayesianas, como metodos Bayesianos para combinar dados empiricos e opiniões de especialistas e modelos Bayesianos indexados no tempo, promovendo melhorias sobre eles a fim de encontrar um modelo mais realista para descrever o processo de deterioracão de um determinado componente ou sistema. Os casos a serem discutidos são os tipicamente encontrados na pratica de confiabilidade (por meio de simulacão): avaliacão dos dados sobre tempo de execucão para taxas de falha e a quantidade de deterioracão, dados com base na demanda para probabilidade de falha; e opiniões de especialistas para analise da taxa de falha, quantidade de deterioracão e probabilidade de falha. Estes estudos de caso mostram que o uso de informacões especializadas pode levar a uma reducão da incerteza sobre distribuicões de medidas de confiabilidade, especialmente em situacões em que poucas ou nenhuma falha e observada.