Private Society Research Articles

Evaluating the Performance of Urban Management in Community Sustainable: Case Study in Area of Narmak -Tehran

Uncontrolled urban development that was coincided with the Industrial Revolution, make living in a city faced with new problems that were completely antithetical to sustainable development. To solve this problem, administrators, planners, and urban management in general, have prepared plans for development. Because of their unresponsive to urban neighborhoods, development plans and because of their upward to downward processes, these development projects were incapable of solving problems, and many of them have failed. On the other hand, for better urban governance, participation of all actors in both public and private sector and civil society were essential. In addition, on this level of cooperation, leading to ready all actors for culture governance of democratic were realized. This study investigated the role of community-based management in achieving sustainable urban development deals and has analyzed social stability in four dimensions including cultural, economic, physical and environmental. Study area, was a neighborhood of Tehran, in the area of eight, Narmak. The research was a descriptive analytical study and collecting information and data were performed in the form of documents and survey. The results suggest that the effects of urban management on stabilizing neighborhoods, in physical and environmental aspects, are quite tangible. However, with regard to social and economic dimensions, this effect was more diminished. Certainly, the role and power of urban management in social and economic dimensions could be obtained more sustainability for Narmak neighborhood.

The National Federation of Town Planning and Housing, 1939–1954

The autarchy system established by the new dictatorship following the Spanish Civil War proposed the reconstruction of the country as a new Renaissance based on idiosyncratic Spanish values. One of the most unique experiences was the creation of the private society The National Federation of Town Planning and Housing (1939–1954). The aim was to create a social environment appropriate for dignity development in the habitability conditions. The project was very ambitious about town planning dissemination. A professional network concerning town planning and housing knowledge was required. Instruments applied for achieving the objective included publishing books and magazines, exhibitions, congresses, and centers of information within and outside Spain.

Der Theatermann Otto Brahm ein widerwilliger Jude

AbstractIn the history of modern theatre, Otto Brahm is canonized mainly as the founder of the Freie Bühne (1889), the first Naturalist stage in Germany, which – as a private society – produced censored plays by Ibsen and Hauptmann and opened the way for the general acceptance of socially-oriented contemporary plays on the German stage. Brahm began as an influential theatre critic who, throughout the 1880s, fought against the popular theatre which was dominated by the star-system and by French-influenced light comedies. Instead, he advocated those new plays – especially by Ibsen – that presented contemporary society in positivist detail and with a social-activist critique. Brahm maintained his faith and focus on such plays when he became director of the Berlin Deutsches Theater (1894–1904) and, later, of the Lessing-Theater (1904–1912). Throughout, he produced a quality of theatre that turned Berlin into a famous theatre capital. Brahm ’s Jewish identity has rarely been studied, mainly because Brahm himself left so little witness to it, despite the growing political and racial anti-Semitism that existed during his life. This identity, which at the time was always significant, played a considerable role both in his personal life and in his extraordinary career. This article traces this role, as well as Brahm’s complex relationship to his Judaism, with the goal of re-inscribing Brahm ’s history into a Jewish context.

Urban Policy and Spatial Planning in a Globalized City—A Stakeholder View of Santiago de Chile

Taking Santiago de Chile as an example, this practice review explores urban policy-making and spatial planning in a globalized city. Based on an empirical study, it presents insights into the experiences, observations and recommendations of urban development stakeholders from the public, private and civil society sectors. First of all, the article highlights the main characteristics of public policies and spatial planning in Santiago as well as their relevance in the process of urban development. Second, it examines the sociopolitical conditions that either facilitate or hamper policy and planning efforts. The contribution concludes that if the task of improving urban policy and planning is to be taken seriously, it must go hand in hand with addressing overall problems of urban governance.

Noirse-Made-Earsy:

It has been said that “anybody who takes ‘Finnegans Wake’ as an ur-text will probably have a low signal to noise ratio.”1 Doubtless any meaningful signal that the reader of the Wake receives must be separated from a much larger background of confusion and dissonance. Another way of looking at it, however, is that noise is inseparable from the process of sense making. In this study I use such theoreticians of noise as Jacques Attali, Michel Serres, and Avital Ronell to show how noise in the Wake does not merely destroy, distort, or obscure meaningful patterns and structures but collaborates in their creation. The article is divided into three sections. First, I take two test cases from Ulysses and the Wake respectively, to show how noise is coded into meaning by both the waking and dreaming mind. Second, I examine the political dimensions of the imposition of meaning on noise and the subversions of meaning by noise in terms of the battle between generations (father against sons) and within generations (brother against brother). Finally, I place these themes in the context of the postmodernist

Forensic Engineering in Italy: A Reality

Forensic Engineering in Italy: A Reality

The Johnson Club and Late Victorian Literary Culture

In 1902 both the Order of Merit and the British Academy came into being. As David Cannadine has noted, Gladstonian liberals including Lord Rosebery, John Morley and Sir G.O. Trevelyan occupied a key segment of the newly formed elite with several others who were admitted to one or both of the new groups, belonged to the Club, the private society founded by Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds in 1764. In fact several members took a leading part in the negotiations leading to the establishment of the Academy. The article seeks to demonstrate the significance of the Club in promoting what Cannadine terms ‘liberal and literary culture’ in the later nineteenth century. A detailed examination of the membership shows a broad array of high achievers in the arts and sciences, as well as many individuals who held important public office. In particular, the Club elected a remarkable group of distinguished Victorian historians, including Macaulay, Grote, Froude, Lecky, Acton, Maine, Stubbs and Creighton. At the end of ...

Learn-by-Doing Engineering Education Programs Driven by the Engineers of Private Companies and Societies

Learn-by-Doing Engineering Education Programs Driven by the Engineers of Private Companies and Societies

ICT Strategy4Development

In 2011, Egypt’s uprising was realized due to a large number of reasons, including the capitalization on information and communication technology (ICT) as an enabling platform. The experience in Egypt demonstrated the impact of ICT. However, its effect on societal transformation is not yet completed. A need exists to revisit the newly emerging role that ICT can play in the 21st century that goes beyond socioeconomic development and growth. ICT strategy development and implementation must cater to the different needs of the community while realizing universal access in terms of ICT literacy and its effective utilization for developmental purposes. Building the ICT infrastructure and infostructure in the development process must be coupled with concrete projects and initiatives that engage the society at large with its multiple stakeholders from public, private, government, and civil society organizations irrespective of their locations or background. This article describes the evolution of the ICT sector in Egypt with an emphasis on national ICT strategy development and deployment as an integral element of Egypt’s overall development process within the context of a an emerging economy and the various growing potentials ICT offers for its socioeconomic development.

De beginjaren 1923-1930 van De Letterkundige Kring, PEN-centrum voor Nederland

In 1923 a few leading Dutch writers took the initiative of founding a dining club, a private society of kindred spirits and their guests who regularly dine together and discuss their shared interests. The model for this Letterkundige Kring (Literary Circle) was the PEN Club in London, established two years previously, which was an association of Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors and Novelists that endeavoured to set up a branch in every country in the world. To this end, the leaders of the London establishment – the chairman John Galsworthy and the founder Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, helped by her daughter Marjorie Watts – had approached several well-known literary figures in the Netherlands. Anyone who became a member of one PEN centre was automatically welcome in all the others. As one of the national PEN centres – by 1930 there were already 46, with a total of about 3000 members – this new Literary Circle endorsed the internationalist and pacifist thinking of the international PEN club: by offering hospitality to writers from all countries and actively bringing them together, the peoples they represented would by degrees be reconciled and even ultimately bring world peace within reach. This signified that the PEN club had an idealistic and, involuntarily, also a political agenda, even though it considered itself to be emphatically a-political. This article describes how The Literary Circle fared in its early years as the PEN Centre and analyses the role it played in the literary and cultural life of the Netherlands in the 1920s. The archives covering the early years of this Dutch section have largely been lost, but it has turned out to be possible to get a picture of that period on the basis of scattered archive items and reports in the press of the time. Like its mother organisation, the Dutch PEN centre was a fairly informal enterprise that was able to steer an independent course. It was from the very beginning headed by the poet P.C. Boutens. He was also the chairman of the Vereeniging van Letterkundigen (Literary Association) (1905), which concentrated mainly on protecting the material interests of writers. There was nonetheless never any cooperation between the two organisations. They were also very different in nature. Whereas the Vereeniging van Letterkundigen relied on the largest possible membership, De Letterkundige Kring deliberately limited the number of members. All that can be established is that 94 authors, many of them living in Amsterdam or The Hague, were members for varying periods in the early years. It was quite a select company, usually of older male literary figures, which one could only join by invitation. It was however possible for outsiders to more or less follow the comings and goings of both the Dutch section and those abroad in the national daily and weekly press, with which several members of the Kring were associated. One of the most important activities of the Dutch centre was the members’ dinners, to which they invited guests, the most famous of whom were Thomas Mann (in 1924) and Georges Duhamel (in 1926), both of whom were touring several PEN centres. By the same token, three prominent and active PEN members from the Netherlands – P.C. Boutens, Herman Robbers and Jo van Ammers-Küller – were received as guests of honour at distinguished PEN gatherings abroad. From 1925, Dutch writers were also able to extend their international network at the annual PEN congress, even though at that time they were still not playing any conspicuous part, either in numbers or contributions. A large part of these congresses was in fact devoted to entertainment, though serious issues were also dealt with. A lot of attention was naturally paid to the writer’s pacifist and internationalist task, but also to the intellectual and material circumstances under which he was best able to fulfil this task, such as copyright, freedom of expression and the interests of the translator. In the first few years social intercourse was the main business of the Dutch branch too. Its exclusiveness made it a somewhat inward-looking company, where young talent remained in the minority. Partly as a result of this, the dynamism of the club could have been greater, and this was not good for its reputation. But paradoxically enough, its internationalism meant that it did at the same time look outwards, which is one of the major reasons why it must have been attractive to many Dutch writers. In this way De Letterkundige Kring made an essential contribution to the internationalisation of literary life in the Netherlands.

Phyt’Eaux Cités: Application and validation of a programme to reduce surface water contamination with urban pesticides

This paper presents first results of Phyt’Eaux Cités, a program put in place by the local water supply agency, the SEDIF (Syndicat des Eaux d’Ile-de-France), in collaboration with 73 local authorities, private societies and institutional offices (365 km 2). The challenges included: measurement of the previous surface water contamination, control of urban pesticide applications, prevention of pesticide hazard on users and finally a overall reduction of surface water contamination. An inquiry on urban total pesticide amount was coupled with a surface water bi-weekly monitoring to establish the impact of more than 200 molecules upon the Orge River. For 2007, at least 4400 kg and 92 type of pesticides (essentially herbicides) were quantified for all urban users in the Phyt’Eaux Cités perimeter. At the outlet of the Orge River (bi-weekly sampling in 2007), 11 molecules were always detected above 0.1 μg L −1. They displayed the mainly urban origin of pesticide surface water contamination. Amitrole, AMPA (Aminomethyl Phosphonic Acid), demethyldiuron, diuron, glyphosate and atrazine were quantified with a 100% of frequency in 2007 and 2008 at the Orge River outlet. During the year, peaks of contamination were also registered for MCCP, 2,4 MCPA, 2,4 D, triclopyr, dichlorprop, diflufènican, active substances used in large amount in the urban area. However, some other urban molecules, such as isoxaben or flazasulfuron, were detected with low frequency. During late spring and summer, contamination patterns and load were dominated by glyphosate, amitrole and diuron, essentially applied by cities and urban users. Both isoproturon and chlortoluron were quantified during autumn and winter months according to upstream agricultural practices. In conclusion, 3 years after the beginning of this programme, the cities reduced the use of 68% of the total pesticide amount. An improvement on surface water quality was found from 2008 and during 2009 for all pesticides. In particular, glyphosate showed a decrease of the load above 60% in 2008, partly related to the Phyt’Eaux Cités action.

Rekstur einkavæddra fyrirtækja á Íslandi

Reglulega kemur upp umræða um það hvort ríkið sé heppilegri eigandi fyrirtækja en einkaaðilar. Í kjölfar fjármálahrunsins haustið 2008 hefur slíka umræðu borið á góma. Spurningunni um hvort ríkið sé heppilegur eigandi verður ekki svarað nema með því að leggja mat á árangur fyrri einkavæðingar. Þessi rannsókn greinir breytingar á rekstri íslenskra ríkisfyrirtækja sem einkavædd voru á árunum 1992‒2005. Deildar meiningar eru um vinnubrögð í einkavæðingarferlinu sem viðhaft var á þessu tímabili og hefur einkavæðingu íslensku ríkisbankanna helst verið gerð skil. Sú rannsókn sem hér er birt greinir frá rekstri einkavæddu fyrirtækjanna, fyrir og eftir einkavæðingu, en ekki er gerð tilraun til þess að lýsa einkavæðingarferli þeirra. Helstu niðurstöður eru þær að ekki er marktækur munur á rekstri fyrirtækjanna fyrir og eftir einkavæðingu. Reksturinn er skilvirkur bæði fyrir og eftir einkavæðingu. Samanburðarhópur einkafyrirtækja sýnir hins vegar marktækan bata í rekstri einkafyrirtækja í kjölfar einkavæðingar ríkisfyrirtækjanna.

EurAfrica: Strengthening the Special Relationship

The increasing number of agreements between the EU and African states reveals a trend toward a ‘One Europe, One Africa’ policy. The EU has gained from the Lisbon Treaty new competencies for independent external action, and coordination on Africa policy has increased in the Council, mainly due to convergence between France, Germany and the United Kingdom. However, EU policy towards Africa still lacks coherence and direction and many EU Member States still privilege bilateral links with African countries. There is still an opportunity for the EU to increase its ‘actorness’ in Africa. First, the EU should take advantage of the economic crisis to create new institutional links between the EU and Africa. Second, the EU should focus on its visibility and act to strengthen private and civil society ties. Despite weaknesses, there are clear indications that the coherence of the EU's Africa policy is improving.

Changing Climates in North American Politics

Review: Changing Climates in North American Politics Henrik Selin and Stacy D. VanDeveer (Eds.) Reviewed by Byron Anderson Northern Illinois University, USA Selin, Henrik and VanDeveer, Stacy D. (Eds.). Changing Climates in North American Politics: Institutions, Policymaking, and Multilevel Governance. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009. xiv, 338pp. ISBN 9780262012997.US$52,cloth. ISBN 9780262512862.US$26,paper. Printed on recycled paper. Changing Climates “…examines causes and implications of climate change-related political action in North America, from continental to local governance levels, involving a wide range of public, private, and civil society actors” (pp. 3-4). The fifteen chapters, authored by academics in their respective areas of expertise, introduce new or emerging institutions, policies and practices in North American climate governance. The effectiveness of North American climate change governance is explored across multiple jurisdictions that include leadership measures taken by cities, states and provinces, the actions of corporations, college campuses and the media, and the impact of NAFTA and the Arctic. Climate change governance is unpopular, difficult to implement, and involves multiple jurisdictions. Climate change is global in origin and the effects may not be experienced for long periods of time. Benefits can be plagued by scientific uncertainties and costly to address. Solutions may involve major lifestyle changes. These realities make successful policymaking very difficult. There is a wide array of books on climatic change, but most focus on broader topics, for example, international climate policy, environmental justice, and political responsibility. Changing Climates is unique in its focus on North America and politics. The book provides a broad overview of the prevailing state of North American politics and climate change governance. Distinctions in carbon governance are made between the United States, Canada and Mexico. North American climate change governance is characterized as having a localized bottom-up approach, rather than a centralized top-down approach. The bottom-up approach is very different from the top-down approach used by the European Union and other large governing authorities. Many examples are provided of the bottom-up approach, for instance, the five U.S. states that have written green house gas (GHG) reduction goals into state law and the roles played by colleges and universities in the curriculum, operations, and research. Bottom-up leadership can also be found coming from corporations acting as major influences in carbon governance. While these bottom-up examples are significant and important they are also uncoordinated and diffuse making them less effective and falling short of what is needed. The volume is part of The MIT Press’s American and Comparative Environmental Policy series. Notes and references are with each chapter.The book should appeal to environmental academics, policymakers, activists, students, and others with a strong interest in the topic. Recommended for academic, research, and specialized environmental collections. Byron Anderson , Associate Dean/Public Services, Northern Illinois University Libraries, DeKalb, IL 60115 USA. TEL: 815-753-9804, FAX: 815-753-9803. Electronic Green Journal, Issue 30, Spring 2010, ISSN:1076-7975

Private Contingent Fee Lawyers and Public Power: Constitutional and Political Implications

A dangerous trend has developed in the litigation of state civil damage claims brought against private individuals and entities: the state’s use of private contingent fee lawyers, who are compensated based on a percentage of the amount recovered. As is the case when contingent fee lawyers represent private clients, if the state loses the litigation the lawyers recover nothing. While such an arrangement arguably has much to recommend it in the case of purely private litigation, when employed by the state it threatens core precepts of American political and constitutional theory. Because, unlike private litigants, the state wields potentially dominating power over private society, those exercising the state’s legal power are obligated by democratic and constitutional principles, as well as the dictates of legal ethics, to assess and pursue the public interest without direct concern for personal or private gain. When private contingent fee attorneys are vested with authority to vindicate the interests of the...

Unwritten Rome by T.P. Wiseman

366 BOOK REVIEWS F. examines how the introduction of anonymous (lector) and indistinct (matronae) readers creates a subtle dynamic of social stratification . He expands on, e.g., A.L. Spisak’s12 work on Martial and his reader in a compelling way, by highlighting a web of intersecting relationships apparent in the epigrams that goes beyond a more linear author-to-patron/reader dynamic. In that sense this Chapter echoes Chapter 2 in its attempt to recreate the nuances of the degrading social and literary boundaries under the early Empire. The relationship between Chapter 6, an engaging romp through reception history from Catullus and Ovid to Martial, and Martial to Burmeister, and the rest of the book is a bit of a puzzle. Still, F. presents a fascinating study of poets reading and misreading poets, and allows us a glimpse into the ways in which Catullus, Ovid, Martial and Burmeister all create a private society of the book and display a clever spectacle of their own. PETER J. ANDERSON Grand Valley State University, Michigan * * * Unwritten Rome. By T.P. WISEMAN. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2008. Pp. x + 366. Paper, $37.95. ISBN 978–0–85989–823–2. In his prolific career, T.P. Wiseman (W.) has produced erudite and original studies on an impressive variety of topics literary, historical and archaeological. Now comes this work, composed in the belief that with enough ingenuity, the right argumentation and a creative combination of evidence, one can recover reliable information about unwritten Rome. The title admits of two interpretations. It may refer either to the Rome that existed before written records (particularly a written history, ca. 200 BCE at Rome) or to those events and beliefs of Roman society for which we lack contemporaneous written accounts. W. claims (p. 23) to deal with the former, but in fact gives the latter abundant attention. The book thus shares much ideologically with his recent investigations into the less wellevidenced beliefs (The Myths of Rome (Exeter, 2004)) and culture (Remembering the Roman People (Oxford, 2009)) of the Roman people. Of the volume’s 18 papers, four and part of a fifth are new; the rest have appeared (mostly) in edited volumes since 2002 and are given only a very few addenda. Why these articles? The principle of selection is not stated, and one wonders why some relevant works have been omitted (e.g., the review of Cornell’s The Beginnings of Rome in JRA 9 (1996) 310–15). Moreover, the advantage of having these works inside one cover is, given the inadequate index locorum, only partially realized. None of the coins and only three of the 12 “Martial’s Special Relation with his Reader,” in C. Deroux, ed., Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History (Brussels, 1997). F.’s approach is also informed in part by Larash (n. 7, above). BOOK REVIEWS 367 numerous inscriptions discussed are recorded in the index (ILLRP 309 and 310, and the Fasti Praenestini, under the unusual entries “the epitaphs of the Scipios” and “Verrius Flaccus,” respectively), and many important passages go unlisted. This is unfortunate, for a proper and complete index would have facilitated scholarly use of the volume. The first essay (pp. 1–23, a new work) establishes the book’s methodology and sounds several discouraging notes: the Romans themselves knew little about early Rome; no oral tradition transmitted reliable information about that world; and because rituals change over time, the belief that archaic ones preserve evidence about earliest Rome is mistaken. How to recover unwritten Rome then? Not through comparative anthropology (which receives a strong rebuke), but by traditional “close reading of the sources” and “careful consideration of what they may or may not presuppose” (p. 22). The remaining 17 chapters employ this approach, ambitiously and often adventurously, to Roman cult, ludi, theater, historiography and regal Rome. If the topics of the contributions vary, so do their aims, with several attempting to solve clearly defined problems and correct recently advanced misconceptions, while others provide somewhat impressionistic accounts of their subject. But all are worth reading and pondering. Considerations of space preclude discussion of every paper; what follows are selective comments. W. treats cultus and religio with a keen...

Les comités médicaux des fonctionnaires

The French Civil Servants’ status grants them a different kind of illness insurance in comparison with the employees from private societies. The sick leaves fluctuate depending on the pathology; it could be for example the payment of the salary during five years, the entire one for sometimes and then half of it. We will study these modalities and recall this system's limits. Which can seem to be a significant advantage towards the employees from private societies can sometimes turn out to be double-edged, such as compulsory vacations ordered by the administration, often justified but sometimes used as an institutional regulator. Besides, the long-lasting sick leave can entail pernicious effects, the patient becoming a “chronic disease sufferer” after instant “secondary profits”. The pernicious trap closes up then on him with an inability to get back to work and thus an annuity for disability, which should have been, avoid. The “expert” MD pointed out by the Civil Servants’ Medical Committee, which regulates and controls those sick leaves, shall be vigilant in order to avoid those different pitfalls.

Music Societies in the 19th Century Oporto : Private Spaces of Amateur and Professional Music Making

A number of private societies and clubs flourished in Oporto in the 19th Century, whose aim was to encourage in their members "benevolence relationships and good society" offering them "an honest and civilized leisure times". Clearly elitist, these nineteenth century recreational clubs had strict membership admission policies, which generally belonged to the higher echelons of society, more specifically the bourgeois, since the titled aristocracy was scarce in Oporto. It is worth mentioning here in parenthesis that Oporto was an essentially bourgeois, commercial city, unlike the capital, Lisbon, where the court "drags with it the whole official and unofficial world which conceitedly flutters around it". Each association organised musical concerts, balls and soirées musicales – weekly, twice a week or once a month – which also offered members other amusements, like conversation, reading, playing cards or dancing. Events of a musical character were normally performed by the club members, usually amateurs – referred to as dilettanti – who would be joined by prestigious Portuguese or foreign professionals. The purpose of this article is to describe the musical activity of the five main venues for private socialising in Oporto in the 1800s, and their contribution to the development of the musical taste of the city's society, taking into account both amateur and professional practice and particularly the repertoire performed.

Zur institutionellen Vernetzung der Wiener Individualpsychologie in der Zwischenkriegszeit

In the so-called »Red Vienna« of the 1920s, Individual Psychology put its ideas into practice in various institutions, such as compulsory schools, educational services, private societies and health services. This paper takes a closer look at the work of Individual Psychology in some of these institutions. This more detailed look at the practice of Individual Psychology reveals that the goals of their work differed according to the different institutional environments.

Clean and green? A governance analysis of waste management in New Zealand

The moniker of ‘clean and green’ has been popularly applied to New Zealand since the 1980s. Following the 1991 Resource Management Act, New Zealand was also heralded as a progressive nation in terms of its environmental policy. While both the greenness and progressiveness have subsequently been questioned, the formation, implementation and impact of environmental management has rarely been analysed from an explicit governance perspective. Environmental governance analyses are useful because they permit attention to the multitude of actors operating at a range of scales. In response, this paper examines one significant sector of environmental management in New Zealand – waste. Initially key policies and programmes shaping the waste landscape are considered, then consideration is given to the roles that public, private and civil society sectors play in forming and reforming that landscape. Finally, the performance of governing actors and the practice of governance are brought together in a critical appraisal of waste governance outcomes.