Zugl.: Wien, Univ., Diplomarbeit, 2003

The aim of this study is to identify the opportunities that currently exist in the Egyptian market in order for Franke to make a decision on the expansion of their business into this market. In order for the Board of Directors to make a quality decision they require good and accurate information. In line with the Franke growth strategy Franke South Africa was given the clear directive to grow the market share on the African continent. With this continent being as diverse as it is and suffering from many years of poverty, a focused strategy is required. With this in hand a study of the African continent was undergone and a couple of markets were identified as targets for either a take-over or new formation. With the information gathered on Egypt it became clear that this would be the ideal market to establish another Franke operation. Egypt has many positive issues that attract a decision like this of which the local market size, geographical position, COMESA membership and the fact that the market is well structured form the backbone. Based on this Business Plan, which researches all the relevant issues required to make a quality decision, an investment could be qualified and supported. It focuses on the possible target as well as elaborates on the medium term forecasted performance of the new setup. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

Zugl.: Potsdam, Univ., Diss., 2008

Alors qu’un nombre grandissant de théologiens évangéliques anglo-saxons se définissent comme postmodernes, ce mémoire vise, dans un premier temps, à définir ce que cela veut dire, à travers l’étude d’un ouvrage phare de ce mouvement théologique. Nous avançons que cela signifie que ces théologiens développent une théologie qui est en opposition à une théologie fondationnaliste, qu’ils confrontent les absolus du monde moderne au relativisme du monde postmoderne, et qu’ils plaident en faveur d’un relativisme modéré. Cela a des implications dans une pratique ecclésiologique qui se définit comme émergente. Cependant, ces nouveaux courants de pensées et de pratiques suscitent de nombreuses critiques d’autres théologiens évangéliques qui tiennent beaucoup à préserver les absolus que leur a apportés le cartésianisme, ainsi qu’une tradition ecclésiastique bien implantée. Ce mémoire examinera et résumera, dans un deuxième temps, les critiques qui viennent de ces théologiens. Puisque nous sommes en contexte québécois, nous avons également, dans un troisième temps, répertorié les écrits de théologiens évangéliques québécois sur le postmodernisme. De cette littérature nous avons choisi de résumer un article écrit en perspective d’une conférence donnée par l’auteur à un colloque qui a eu lieu à Montréal en 2007 au sujet des Églises émergentes. Nous avons aussi fait des entrevues semi- dirigées afin de comprendre la pratique ecclésiologique émergente dans le contexte québécois. La première entrevue a été réalisée avec un théologien évangélique québécois postmoderne et la deuxième avec un groupe composé de quelques personnes membres d’une Église émergente. Finalement, en conclusion, nous faisons une analyse des différents points de vue discutés dans ce mémoire et nous ouvrons des pistes prospectives concernant l’avenir d’une théologie et d’une ecclésiologie évangélique québécoise postmoderne. / While a growing number of Anglo-Saxons evangelicals theologians define themselves as postmodernists, this Master thesis`s first aim is to understand what this means concretely. We will achieve this through the study one of the main reference books on the matter. We put forward that these postmodern theologians are developing a theology in opposition to the fondationalist theology. They also tend to oppose modernity’s absolute assumptions with postmodernism’s relativism. Yet, they argue in favor of a moderate relativism. This theological turn has concrete implication in regards to ecclesial practice, especially within emergent churches. However, these new trends of thoughts and practices are highly criticized by other evangelical theologians, bent on preserving the absolutes inherited from Cartesians, as well as consolidated ecclesial tradition. This Master’s thesis second aim is thus to study and to resume criticism emanating from these other theologians. Since this research is developed within Quebec’s context, we have also delved into Quebec’s evangelical theologians take on postmodernism. This constitutes the third element of this Master’s thesis. From this literature we chose to resume one article that stemmed from a conference presented at a 2007 Montreal convention on emergent churches. We also conducted interviews to understand the ecclesial practices related to emergent churches in the Quebec context. The first interview has been conducted with a Quebec evangelical theologian who has adopted postmodernism. The second interview has been conducted with a small group of members of an emergent church. To conclude, we make a final analysis of the literature brought to bear in this Master’s thesis, and we make our own contribution in favor of a postmodern evangelical theology and postmodern ecclesial practices in Quebec’s context.

Alors qu’un nombre grandissant de théologiens évangéliques anglo-saxons se définissent comme postmodernes, ce mémoire vise, dans un premier temps, à définir ce que cela veut dire, à travers l’étude d’un ouvrage phare de ce mouvement théologique. Nous avançons que cela signifie que ces théologiens développent une théologie qui est en opposition à une théologie fondationnaliste, qu’ils confrontent les absolus du monde moderne au relativisme du monde postmoderne, et qu’ils plaident en faveur d’un relativisme modéré. Cela a des implications dans une pratique ecclésiologique qui se définit comme émergente. Cependant, ces nouveaux courants de pensées et de pratiques suscitent de nombreuses critiques d’autres théologiens évangéliques qui tiennent beaucoup à préserver les absolus que leur a apportés le cartésianisme, ainsi qu’une tradition ecclésiastique bien implantée. Ce mémoire examinera et résumera, dans un deuxième temps, les critiques qui viennent de ces théologiens. Puisque nous sommes en contexte québécois, nous avons également, dans un troisième temps, répertorié les écrits de théologiens évangéliques québécois sur le postmodernisme. De cette littérature nous avons choisi de résumer un article écrit en perspective d’une conférence donnée par l’auteur à un colloque qui a eu lieu à Montréal en 2007 au sujet des Églises émergentes. Nous avons aussi fait des entrevues semi- dirigées afin de comprendre la pratique ecclésiologique émergente dans le contexte québécois. La première entrevue a été réalisée avec un théologien évangélique québécois postmoderne et la deuxième avec un groupe composé de quelques personnes membres d’une Église émergente. Finalement, en conclusion, nous faisons une analyse des différents points de vue discutés dans ce mémoire et nous ouvrons des pistes prospectives concernant l’avenir d’une théologie et d’une ecclésiologie évangélique québécoise postmoderne. / While a growing number of Anglo-Saxons evangelicals theologians define themselves as postmodernists, this Master thesis`s first aim is to understand what this means concretely. We will achieve this through the study one of the main reference books on the matter. We put forward that these postmodern theologians are developing a theology in opposition to the fondationalist theology. They also tend to oppose modernity’s absolute assumptions with postmodernism’s relativism. Yet, they argue in favor of a moderate relativism. This theological turn has concrete implication in regards to ecclesial practice, especially within emergent churches. However, these new trends of thoughts and practices are highly criticized by other evangelical theologians, bent on preserving the absolutes inherited from Cartesians, as well as consolidated ecclesial tradition. This Master’s thesis second aim is thus to study and to resume criticism emanating from these other theologians. Since this research is developed within Quebec’s context, we have also delved into Quebec’s evangelical theologians take on postmodernism. This constitutes the third element of this Master’s thesis. From this literature we chose to resume one article that stemmed from a conference presented at a 2007 Montreal convention on emergent churches. We also conducted interviews to understand the ecclesial practices related to emergent churches in the Quebec context. The first interview has been conducted with a Quebec evangelical theologian who has adopted postmodernism. The second interview has been conducted with a small group of members of an emergent church. To conclude, we make a final analysis of the literature brought to bear in this Master’s thesis, and we make our own contribution in favor of a postmodern evangelical theology and postmodern ecclesial practices in Quebec’s context.

Characterization of the seismic hazard and ground-failure hazard of a site using traditional empirical lateral spread displacement models requires consideration of uncertainties in seismic loading, site conditions, and model prediction. Researchers have developed performance-based design methods to simultaneously account for these sources of uncertainty through the incorporation of a probabilistic analytical framework. While these methods can effectively handle the various sources of uncertainty associated with empirical lateral spread displacement prediction, they can be difficult for engineers to perform in a practical manner without the use of specialized numerical tools. To make the benefits of a performance-based approach accessible to a broader audience of geotechnical engineers, a simplified performance-based procedure is introduced in this paper. This map-based procedure utilizes a reference soil profile to provide hazard-targeted reference displacements across a geographic area. Equations are provided for engineers to correct those reference displacements for site-specific soil conditions and surface geometry to produce site-specific, hazard-targeted estimates of lateral spread displacement. The simplified performance-based procedure is validated through a comparative study assessing probabilistic lateral spread displacements across several cities in the United States. Results show that the simplified procedure closely approximates the results from the full performance-based model for all sites. Comparison with deterministic analyses are presented, and the place for both in engineering practice are discussed.

Lateral spread is a seismic hazard associated with soil liquefaction in which permanent deformations are developed within the soil profile due to cyclic mobility. Lateral spread has historically been one of the largest causes of earthquake-related damage to infrastructure. One of the infrastructure components most at risk from lateral spread is that of deep foundations. Because performance-based engineering is increasingly becoming adopted in earthquake engineering practice, it would be beneficial for engineers and researchers to have a performance-based methodology for computing pile performance during a lateral spread event. This study utilizes the probabilistic performance-based framework developed by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center to develop a methodology for computing probabilistic estimates of kinematic pile response. The methodology combines procedures familiar to most practicing engineers such as probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, empirical compution of lateral spread displacement, and kinematic pile response using p-y soil spring models (i.e. LPILE). The performance-based kinematic pile response model is applied to a series of lateral spread case histories from the earthquake that struck the Limon province of Costa Rica on April 22, 1991. The M7.6 earthquake killed 53 people, injured another 193 people, and disrupted an estimated 30-percent of the highway pavement and railways in the region due to fissures, scarps, and soil settlements resulting from liquefaction. Significant lateral spread was observed at bridge sites throughout the eastern part of Costa Rica near Limon, and the observed structural damage ranged from moderate to severe. This study identified five such bridges where damage due to lateral spread was observed following the earthquake. A geotechnical investigation is performed at each of these five bridges in an attempt to back-analyze the soil conditions leading to the liquefaction and lateral spread observed during the 1991 earthquake, and each of the five resulting case histories is developed and summarized. The results of this study should make a valuable contribution to the field of earthquake hazard reduction because they will introduce a procedure which will allow engineers and owners to objectively evaluate the performance of their deep foundation systems exposed to kinematic lateral spread loads corresponding to a given level of risk.

For the most recent and correct article, please click here: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/9780784412787.086 This study examines the use of performance-based approaches in liquefaction hazard analysis. Two new methods of performance-based liquefaction initiation analysis are proposed which use the works of Juang et al. (2012) and Boulanger and Idriss (2012). Further advances are made by incorporating the performance-based magnitude scaling factors as proposed by Cetin et al. (2012). Using these new equations a comparative study is made between the three methods. Further comparisons are made between the performance-based approaches and the more widely used deterministic approaches. The comparisons reveal that on average for the 11 sites used in this study, the performance-based approaches tend to be slightly less conservative than deterministic approaches overall, with large differences possible for some locations in the country. They also reveal that the newer performance-based approaches are generally less conservative than the approach proposed by Kramer and Mayfield (2007). Some cases where this relationship does not hold true and the new relationships are more conservative are outlined.