Dutch peat dyke failure during the dry summer of 2003

in Proc. International symposium Drougt and Construction SEC 2008 (2008, September)

ABSTRACT - In August 2003, after a once in a twenty years dry summer, one of the dykes along a canal in The Netherlands failed at night. Because of this dyke breach, the water in the canal started to run ... [more ▼]

ABSTRACT - In August 2003, after a once in a twenty years dry summer, one of the dykes along a canal in The Netherlands failed at night. Because of this dyke breach, the water in the canal started to run into a housing quarter of the village Wilnis, which is about 30 km Southeast of Amsterdam. Like many other small dykes in The Netherlands, the complete dyke in Wilnis consists of peat. Since peat has a relatively low unit weight, a peat dyke has a higher risk of being pushed aside by water pressure than sand or clay dykes. Peat also has a much higher water content than clay and sand, which makes it more vulnerable to drought. When the stability of this dyke is checked, it becomes clear that failure of the dyke was a realistic threat. The dyke was far too light and the drought reduced this weight even a little bit more, which caused the failure. RÉSUMÉ – En août 2003, après une période de sècheresse bidécennale, une des digues le long d’un canal aux Pays-Bas a rompu durant une nuit. A cause de la rupture de cette digue, un quartier du village de Wilnis situé á 30 km au sud-est d’Amsterdam a été inondé. Comme beaucoup des petites digues aux Pays-Bas, cette digue est entièrement constituée de tourbe. Puisque la tourbe est très légère, une digue constituée de ce matériau a un risque plus important de glisser par rapport á une digue en sable ou en argile. De plus, la teneur en eau de la tourbe est beaucoup plus grande que pour un sable ou une argile ce qui la rend plus vulnérable au séchage. Si la stabilité de cette digue est contrôlée, il est clair que le risque de rupture de cette digue était très sérieux. Elle était beaucoup trop légère et la sècheresse a diminué un peu plus le poids ce qui a causé la rupture. [less ▲]

Numerical modelling of visco-plastic soft soils

in 11th Baltic Sea Geotechnical Conference on Geotechnics in Maritime Engineering (2008, September)

In many cases geotechnical calculations are made with linear or non-linear elastoplastic soil models. The most common case in which these types of soil models are not sophisticated enough is during the ... [more ▼]

In many cases geotechnical calculations are made with linear or non-linear elastoplastic soil models. The most common case in which these types of soil models are not sophisticated enough is during the modelling of creep of soft soils. Most constitutive soil models modelling creep are based on volumic strain reduction over time. In this paper the creep is modelled through shear stress reduction (the viscous behaviour). The key point of viscous modelling is that this type of stress reduction (Mohr-circle squeezing) also takes place below the Coulomb failure line. In other words, viscosity is a sort of slow and rate-depending plasticity without reaching the Coulomb criterion; therefore also the word visco-plasticity can be used. This paper shows that visco-plastic modelling of soft soils will produce more realistic results and shows how this visco-plastic modelling works. [less ▲]

Building a Map of Folksong Idioms with EsAC

Scientific Conference (2008, September)

A qualitative corpus-based study of lecture functions

Scientific Conference (2008, September)

Increasing student and lecturer mobility along with the spread of English as an academic lingua franca (Mauranen, 2006) means a growing number of university lecturers in Europe are delivering at least ... [more ▼]

Increasing student and lecturer mobility along with the spread of English as an academic lingua franca (Mauranen, 2006) means a growing number of university lecturers in Europe are delivering at least some lectures in English. Well-designed English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses can help lecturers whose first language is not English in meeting this challenge and findings from corpus linguistic research on authentic lectures are invaluable in informing decisions about the development of such courses. However, a comprehensive corpus-based account of language use in English language lectures does not exist, although recent publications by Biber (2006) and Crawford Camiciottoli (2007) constitute significant contributions to such a description. This paper presents the results of a qualitative corpus-based study of common language functions in lectures (e.g. predicting, describing, reporting, interpreting, evaluating) as related to the overall purposes of lectures such as knowledge transfer and the socialization of students into disciplinary communities. The investigation is based on a manual analysis of lectures selected from the British Academic Spoken English (BASE) Corpus. In contrast to most existing studies, this study is motivated by the spoken language needs of lecturers rather than by student (listening comprehension) needs and is not restricted by a focus on pre-determined linguistic features that can be searched and quantified. The current non-quantified language description thus hopes to demonstrate the value of insights that can only come from reading and studying a corpus from a more global perspective using qualitative methods. Biber, D. (2006). University language: a corpus-based study of spoken and written registers. Studies in Corpus Linguistics 23. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Crawford Camiciottoli, B. (2007). The language of business studies lectures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [less ▲]

Absolute gravity measurements at the Conrad Observatorium in Austria in June 2008

Report (2008)

Unemployment and mental health in Luxembourg

Poster (2008, September)

Schwierigkeit in Problemlöseszenarien. Was ist das und was macht es aus?

Poster (2008, August 26)

Femmes entrepreneures et formation à distance: Quel impact sur leur sentiment d’efficacité personnelle? Etude du cas ELFE

in AIPTLF (Ed.) Actes du 15e Congrès de l'AIPTLF. Entre tradition et innovation, comment transformons-nous l'univers du travail? (2008, August 20)

Cette communication s’inscrit dans le cadre du projet Elfe et vise à évaluer l’impact d’une formation à distance pour femmes créatrices et chefs d’entreprise sur leur sentiment d’efficacité personnelle ... [more ▼]

Cette communication s’inscrit dans le cadre du projet Elfe et vise à évaluer l’impact d’une formation à distance pour femmes créatrices et chefs d’entreprise sur leur sentiment d’efficacité personnelle, tel que défini par Bandura (1997). Nous situons notre intervention par rapport aux premier et deuxième niveaux d’évaluation d’une formation selon Kirkpatrick (1983), se rapportant respectivement à la satisfaction des apprenants et à leurs acquis, avec une attention particulière au sentiment d’efficacité personnelle. Notre méthodologie de recherche qualitative est basée sur dix études de cas approfondies auprès de femmes futures créatrices et chefs d’entreprise. Les résultats en termes de satisfaction des apprenantes sont nuancés et mettent en évidence différents éléments de contexte. Par contre, l’étude révèle qu’au terme de la formation à distance, les femmes entrepreneures de notre échantillon ont vu leur sentiment d’efficacité personnelle augmenter. Nous identifions différents facteurs explicatifs. Enfin, l’analyse met en évidence certains éléments relatifs au troisième niveau de Kirkpatrick, le transfert sur le terrain, ouvrant ainsi la route à de nouvelles pistes de recherche. Les implications managériales sont importantes. En effet, il nous semble crucial que notre formation s’inscrive dans une vision à long terme et, au-delà de développer les connaissances et compétences, contribue aussi et surtout à renforcer le sentiment d’efficacité personnelle des apprenantes par rapport à leurs capacités entrepreneuriales, facteur déterminant pour la performance présente et future de leurs entreprises. [less ▲]

Der schöne und der neue Klang. Zur Oper 'Zaide-Adama' von Chaya Czernowin

in Kühnel, Jürgen; Mueller, Ulrich; Panagl, Oswald (Eds.) et al Musiktheater der Gegenwart. Text und Komposition, Rezeption und Kanonbildung. Mit einem Schwerpunkt: Die Salzburger Ur- und Erstaufführungen in Theater und Musiktheater; Vorträge des Salzburger Symposions 2006 (2008)

Organismal and functional partitioning within natural microbial communities

Scientific Conference (2008, August)