Engineering geological and geophysical investigations of a slope failure at Edinburgh Castle, Scotland

Edinburgh Castle is one of Scotlands most important heritage sites. It was built on a classic crag and tail structure where the crag consists of columnar jointed basalt and the tail of sediments protected from glacial erosion by the crag.In 1997 apparent instability was observed on the southern side of the tail. A shallow slope failure was proved to have taken place within saturated, layered, cohesive to non-cohesive, loose to dense heterogeneous fill on a slope of 44°. The date of the initial failure is not known, but is likely to have taken place over a period of many years, since at least the 1950s.Remediation works were subsequently undertaken to stabilise the slope, consisting mainly of the installation of soil nails, a bi-axial geo-grid and minor filling to mitigate the effects of the ground movements and to facilitate repair of the retaining wall.     

Running hot and cold in the urban home-ownership market: The experience of Japan’s major cities

Urban home-ownership in Japan was destabilised when the bubble economy collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s. This paper looks beyond the social and economic changes in Japanese housing in the post-bubble recession to focus on the ups and downs in current home-ownership markets in Japans major cities. Since the mid-1990s, social fragmentation has created a novel environment for urban home-ownership. The combination of a prolonged recession and a policy to promote housing construction and urban redevelopment has split urban space into hot spots, where the housing market is increasingly active, and cold spots, where the market is persistently inactive.     

Social housing in Latin America: Opportunities for affordability in a region of housing need

In advanced capitalistcountries, the term social housing normallyrefers to social rented housing, and itsprovision can be examined within the context ofthe type of housing welfare regime that hasevolved within the country under consideration.However, in large parts of Latin America –because of minimal affordability and limitedinvestment – social housing is very much amarginalised tenure and – apart from a smallsocial-rented sector – comprises illegalshelter in shantytowns, assisted self-buildhousing, and low-cost owner-occupation. Itwould therefore be unproductive to examinesocial housing in Latin America within thecontext of any of the welfare regimes thatprevail in the developed world.Within the region, large-scale migration intothe major urban areas created a substantial andgrowing housing deficit among the poor in thelatter half of the twentieth century. At first,there was an attempt to satisfy housing needsby the provision of social rented housing, butit was soon recognised that such accommodationwas unaffordable to the majority of the poor,while municipal governments were constrained bybudgetary considerations from increasing oreven maintaining its supply. At the same time,it was realised that informal housing could beupgraded more cost-effectively, and that forits future development the legalisation oftenure was essential; while self-build formalhousing could be constructed through theprocess of community funding. By the 1990s,even the middle-income segment wasdisadvantaged in the housing market asunemployment and interest rates rose and realwages fell, and therefore – through theintroduction of means-tested demand-sidesubsidies – the term social housing wasextended to the conventional owner-occupiedsector.Clearly, welfare regimes in Latin America areat a rudimentary stage in their development,although there is a tendency for governments toembrace neo-liberal housing policies. But at atime of fiscal constraint, it is a cause forconcern that macroeconomic priorities mightmake it more difficult for a large proportionof the population of the region to satisfy itshousing needs.     

Impact of spatially separated work places on urban residential location,consumption and time allocation

This paper analyses the impact of informatics development on the urban residential-location, consumption and working-hour-allocation behaviour of the coming information-oriented society. The analysis focuses on the repercussions through the interaction of the land and labour markets. The labour market is spatially separated into the home work market in the city suburbs and the office work market in the CBD. But, these work places are tightly connected with each other by highly developed communication technology. The time-allocation as well as money-expenditure constraint is systematically built up on a traditional residential location model of the von Thunen-Alonso type. The wage rates and the bid rent function for the land are both solutions of the equilibrium model of land and labour markets. The impacts are examined using the comparative statics analyses which have been developed for the economic-agent equilibrium conditions of the firm and household.     

Skilled labour shortages and wage ‘roll-out’ effects in an energy-rich region

This paper analyses the wage roll out effect of a period of rapid resource based development in the Latrobe valley region in Australia. Wage level adjustments are seen to correlate closely to categories of skilled labour shortage on major construction sites. More significantly, these wage adjustments are seen to spill over into all blue collar occupational categories in the region, including industries off the construction sites. The wage roll out effect is related to the structure of the regional economy through the application of a survey-based input-output table and through the analysis of labour market recruitment and migration patterns.     

Strength of Clayey Soils Subject to Large Shear Strains

Results are presented for determination of the peak _p, residual _r, and standard _f,st strengths of clayey soils containing up to 35% of particle inclusions ranging in size from 1 to 10 mm. It is established that on transition from _p to _r, the parameter C of Coulomb's law becomes essentially equal to zero, while the angle remains constant. A method is examined for repeated torsional testing of soil samples under conditions where shear strain s and torsional moments M _tor are controlled to establish their strength.     

The relationship between output and unemployment: Evidence from Greek regions

This research note investigates the relationship between output and unemployment in Greece at a regional level through the implementation of Okunss law. Current practice is primarily restricted to the national level, and thus ignores the regional dimension of this relationship. To this end, we apply modern unit root test and cointegration techniques based on panel data settings. Using panel data is necessary because typical spans of economic time series are short, so the entire panel must be exploited in order to draw sharper inferences. The empirical results reveal that Okuns law can be confirmed for six out of the 13 regions we examine.Received: 20 November 2002, Accepted: 5 November 2003, JEL Classification: C23, E32, O18Dimitris K. Christopoulos: I would like to thank two anonymous referees and the European editor, whose comments greatly strengthened the notes content. Thanks are also extended to Dr. V. Arapoglou for helpful suggestions on an earlier version. The usual disclaimer applies     

Technological spillovers and the location of production in an asymmetric duopoly

We evaluate the impact of technological externalities on the location choices of duopolistic firms in a Weber triangle. Assuming technological spillover effects to be decreasing in the distance between firms, we show that each firms optimum location is independent of a demand shock when the firms distance to market is constant. When distance to market is variable, a firms optimum location will not be independent of a demand shock if one of the duopolistic firms has non-linear technology. The optimum location of an IRS (DRS) firm moves away from (closer to) the market place if the other firm is CRS and if demand is not strongly concave or convex.Received: 14 March 2002, Accepted: 5 August 2003, JEL Classification: D23, L13, R30Ping-yen Lai: I would like to thank Jacques Poot, Mike Sperr and two anonymous referees for insightful comments, which contributed to improvement of this article. All errors are my responsibility.     

How alcohol-related crashes of different severity interrelate and respond to local spatial characteristics:An evaluation of a common site sales ban on alcohol and gasoline

Highway safety is an important issue in both urban and rural areas. Based upon a unique panel of incorporated cities over a 96-month period from January 1982 to December 1989, this paper evaluates the effects of the State of Californias ban on common site sales of gasoline and alcohol to curb drunk driving. Geographic information systems (GIS) contribute spatial variables to an analysis of the impact of the ban on several categories of alcohol related crashes: fatalities, serious injuries, and property damage. By considering the types of alcohol-related crashes for the five-county Los Angeles area as interrelated, a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) model locates more precise impacts. Overall the ban appears to reduce fatalities, serious injuries, and property damage crashes; but in relatively less population dense cities, the ban increases property damage and may increase more serious crashes in some urban neighborhoods. This suggests that the ban discourages highly impaired drivers but may motivate less impaired drivers to travel to an alternate alcohol purchase site. Diverse experiences in adjacent municipalities warn large regional or nation-wide evaluations of highway safety to take care when adopting large region or state fixed effect adjusters in analyses that presume sub-region homogeneity.Received: October 2003/Accepted: February 2004All correspondence to: Clifford A. Lipscomb. The authors would like to express their appreciation to Subrahmanyam Muthukumar for his assistance in preparing the GIS spatial variables. The views expressed in this paper are solely the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of either the Bureau of Economic Analysis or the U.S. Department of Commerce.     

The use of compressed natural gas (CNG) in motor vehicles and its effect on employment and air quality

This study measures industrial output, employment and air pollution effects through the use of CNG in motor vehicles by utilizing the Pollution-Related Multiregional Household-Interactive Variable Input-Output (PHVIO) model. The impact analyses are conducted with three consecutive year scenarios of different level of CNG conversion of motor fleet vehicles for the target year, 1991, 1992, and 1993. The use of CNG in bus and truck vehicles of private businesses, consumers, and state and local governments produces the substitution effect and income effect. The use of CNG reduces the costs of transportation, and the output, employment and air pollution effects of the reduced transportation costs are referred as the substitution effect. The use of CNG increases natural gas consumption and requires CNG duel engine installation while it decrease gasoline consumption. The output, employment and air pollution effects of this final demand change are referred to the income effect. The industrial output and employment effects are measured in Oklahoma and the Rest of the U.S. Then Oklahoma State industrial and employment effects are divided into Oklahoma SMSA, Tulsa SMSA and the Rest of Oklakoma. Finally, the stationary source air pollution due to industrial effects and mobiles source air pollution due to CNG using motor vehicles are measured in Oklahoma SMSA and Tulsa SMSA.     

Sectors associations and similarities in input-output systems: An application of dual scaling and fuzzy logic to Canada and the United States

Various authors addressed interindustry linkages in the context of input-output systems, however many focused on the identification of key sectors in the economy. Sonis et al. (1996) offered as a field of influence theory an alternative approach focusing on the analytical importance of elements and combinations of elements. In an attempt to further the understanding of the linkages in an input-output system, the objective of this paper is to examine the cluster structure of sales and purchases profiles when the principle of excluded middle is violated by the use of fuzzy sets. The identification of fuzzy clusters is based on an analysis to derive an alternative decomposition ofinterindustry flows (Dridi and Hewings 2002), it is a complementary approach to the so-called Matrioshka principal (Sonis and Hewings 1990) and will be presented first; the approach looks into the hierarchy of the statistical dependence between supply and demand in input-output systems. The analysis on the cluster structure and the interindustry flows is conducted using the data analysis technique known as dual scaling (Nishisato 1980, 1994). Results of the analysis will be illustrated using input-output tables of the US and Canada. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Western Regional Science Association-Monterey, California (February 17–20, 2002), comments from conference participants, J. Le Gallo, and two anonymous referees are acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Quantitative impact assessment of a regionally-oriented labour market programme in Germany

In 1979 the German federal government introduced for the first time on a major scale a special employment programme that was limited to specific problem regions. Nearly 50,000 persons took part in the programme. The impact of the programme as a whole and the various programme parts on different regions and groups of unemployed were investigated. The programme's impact on unemployment was investigated by means of a time-series analysis and the impact on the employment level with different forecasting methods. In addition, cross-sectional analysis has been performed. The results of all models lead to the conclusion that the programme lowered the level of unemployment by about 0.3 percent.     

Convergence and transition auspice of Chinese regional growth

This paper reconsiders the question of regional convergence in China. Barros convergence model and Theils regional inequality index are applied in the study. Analytical results reject the absolute convergence hypothesis in the Chinese case, but suggest a conditional convergence pattern. As for China as one system, it is further discovered that there exists a complex phenomenon that the three regions, the east, the mid and the west, converge to different equilibria respectively. Therefore, the mid and the west break through the existing system structure to reach the high level like that of the east is a crucial task of Chinese economic development. A detailed inversed U-shape analysis leads to two important findings. First, it discovers that the regional disparities between the east region and the rest of China are widening, while the regional disparity between the mid and the west is shrinking. Second, the Chinese regional economy has reached the critical point of divergence-convergence transition in terms of stages of national economic development according to Williamsons theoretical model. This gives the state government some room for doing something to make the convergence happen at an early possible time.Received: July 2002/Accepted: January 2003     

Exclusion theorem in an efficiency wage model

This paper uses Shapiro and Stiglitzs (1984) efficiency wage model embodying the firms choice of location to show the existence of an optimal intermediate location without assuming a transport rate that increases with distance. Based on the viewpoint of Shapiro and Stiglitz, we demonstrate that the more time that the worker spends traveling to the plant, the higher will be the wage that the firm will need to pay to motivate the worker not to shirk. To avoid paying a higher wage, the firm may choose its optimal location at an intermediate rather than a polar location.We would like to thank two anonymous referees for very helpful comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors are entirely our responsibility.     

Travel and activity choices based on an individual accessibility model

An individuals travel and activity behaviour is influenced by temporal and spatial constraints, travel and activity characteristics and individual attributes. This article formulates an individual accessibility model to measure the accessibility benefits of daily activities undertaken through a trip, a trip chain or at home. The model is extended further to analyse individuals activity location choices, choices between activities at home and activities through travel, and activity timing and scheduling decisions, with the assumption that an individual chooses an activity/travel alternative with the maximum accessibility benefits. An individuals choice among different locations for participating in an activity is shown to depend on the time budget and the locations of activities scheduled before and after this decided activity. The substitution of an activity at home for an activity through travel is shown to depend on the relative magnitude of activity location attraction and activity duration between these two types of activities and preference parameters. Finally, the article illustrates how an individual schedules one or several continuous or discontinuous activities with time-dependent accessibility benefits so as to maximise benefits.Received: 12 June 2001, Accepted: 1 November 2002, JEL Classification: D11, R22, R40The authors would like to thank the National Science Council, R.O.C., for financially supporting this research under grant NSC 89-2211-E-009-077.     

Ways to increase the economical effectiveness of foundations for agricultural buildings with three-hinged bents

Conclusions 1. The failure of a sandy foundation bed under a rigid embedded reinforced-concrete foundation (h/b0.5) with a flat, rough lower surface is three-dimensional in nature when the loads are inclined at =20–40° to the vertical.2. Plane shear is not observed when the load is inclined at an angle = and the eccentricity e0 ( is the angle of the soil's internal friction as determined on a shear apparatus in accordance with GOST 12248–66).3. The settlements and lateral displacements of an embedded foundation (h/b>0.5) in the limiting state are 2–3 times larger than those of the nonembedded foundation; lateral displacements exceed the limiting values established for farm buildings [2], or approach them.4. For angles =20–40°, eccentricity of the inclined load in the direction opposite to the horizontal component, but not less than r_C (r_C is the core radius of the section) effects an increase in the ultimate load as compared to a central positioning of the resultant. Additional experiments and theoretical studies are required to investigate the role of positive and negative eccentricity on the bearing capacity of the foundation bed.5. For loads inclined at angles =35–40° and a relative foundation embedment 0.5h/b1, computation in accordance with SNiP II-15-74 yields considerably lower bearing capacity than computation from experimental data.6. The studies that we conducted are used to develop a more economical method of computing and designing foundations for farm buildings under an inclined loading, which is employed in practice [2].B. E. Vedeneev All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Hydraulic Engineering. Central Scientific-Research Institute of Experimental Design and Planning for Rural Construction. Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 4, pp. 3–6, July–August, 1979.     

Dependence of settling criteria of loess soils on genesis and geomorphology

Conclusions 1. Values of nomenclatural criteria of settling of loess soils within regions must be perfected by taking into account genesis and geomorphological position. Settling variants of high moisture (0.6 < G < 0.8) can be present among alluvial loess soils.2. In the case of a mottled lithological composition including heavy soils with a significant shift in the ₀–/1+₀ criterion toward negative values, it is advisable to set up limiting values of the criterion differentiated according to the plasticity number.Rostov-on-Don. Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 6, pp. 24–25, November–December, 1971.     

Static probing of soils using the “equilibrated probe”

Experience gained with the probing of soils using an equilibrated-probe mechanism, which makes it possible to measure the soils resistance to penetration of the probe at low rates of displacements comparable to the rate of displacement of a pile and plate during static tests is outlined. Results are presented for field investigations and design characteristics obtained from probing data and derived from plate and pile tests. Basic trends in continued research are noted for expansion of practical application of the method proposed.Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 6, pp. 12–15, November–December, 2004.