Baltic labour in the crucible of capitalist exploitation: reassessing 'post-communist' transformation

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this article re-assesses ‘post-communist’ transformation in the Baltic countries from the perspective of labour. The argument is based on a historical materialist approach focusing on the social relations of production as a starting point. It is contended that the uneven and combined unfolding of ‘post-communist’ transformation has subjected Baltic labour to doubly constituted exploitation processes. First, workers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have suffered from extreme neoliberal restructuring of economic and employment relations at home. Second, migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe in general, trying to escape exploitation at home, have faced another set of exploitative dynamics in host countries in Western Europe such as the UK. Nevertheless, workers have continued to challenge exploitation in Central and Eastern Europe and also in Western Europe, and have been active in extending networks of transnational solidarity across the continent

The Potential for Biomass District Energy Production in Port Graham, Alaska

This project was a collaboration between The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) and Chugachmiut – A Tribal organization Serving the Chugach Native People of Alaska and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Tribal Energy Program. It was conducted to determine the economic and technical feasibility for implementing a biomass energy system to service the Chugachmiut community of Port Graham, Alaska. The Port Graham tribe has been investigating opportunities to reduce energy costs and reliance on energy imports and support subsistence. The dramatic rise in the prices of petroleum fuels have been a hardship to the village of Port Graham, located on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska. The Port Graham Village Council views the forest timber surrounding the village and the established salmon industry as potential resources for providing biomass energy power to the facilities in their community. Benefits of implementing a biomass fuel include reduced energy costs, energy independence, economic development, and environmental improvement. Fish oil–diesel blended fuel and indoor wood boilers are the most economical and technically viable options for biomass energy in the village of Port Graham. Sufficient regional biomass resources allow up to 50% in annual heating savings to the user, displacing up to 70% current diesel imports, with a simple payback of less than 3 years for an estimated capital investment under $300,000. Distributive energy options are also economically viable and would displace all imported diesel, albeit offering less savings potential and requiring greater capital. These include a large-scale wood combustion system to provide heat to the entire village, a wood gasification system for cogeneration of heat and power, and moderate outdoor wood furnaces providing heat to 3–4 homes or community buildings per furnace. Coordination of biomass procurement and delivery, ensuring resource reliability and technology acceptance, and arbitrating equipment maintenance mitigation for the remote village are challenges to a biomass energy system in Port Graham that can be addressed through comprehensive planning prior to implementation

DEGAS: An innovative earthquake-proof AAC wall system

The in‐plane response of infill walls independent of the material used has been investigated thoroughly in the literature and the common observation on the response was the formation of both compression struts and tension struts. These struts in the diagonals of the infill walls are the main reason for the cracking and crushing of the infill wall material. Researchers have proposed some techniques that enhance the performance of infill walls. Most of the proposed methods include a special device or connection detailing to isolate the infill wall from the RC frame even during excessive lateral displacement demands

Seismic Performance Assessment of Unreinforced Masonry Buildings with a Hybrid Modeling Approach

This study proposes a hybrid modeling approach for the seismic performance assessment of unreinforced masonry buildings. The method combines finite-element and equivalent-frame approaches such that more powerful features of each approach are utilized. The finite-element approach is used to model the masonry components of different geometrical and material characteristics with a high level of accuracy. Then this numerically simulated database is used in the analytical modeling of masonry buildings with equivalent beams and columns instead of spandrels and piers. Thus it becomes possible to model a masonry building as a frame structure that can simply be analyzed in order to capture the global behavior. The method has been verified by comparing the analytical results with the previous experimental findings. The last part of the study is devoted to the implementation of the method to an existing masonry building that was damaged during a severe earthquake. [DOT: 10.1193/1.4000102