Bosnia-Herzegovina and southern-coastal/hinterland-region of Dalmatia, Republic of Croatia are a part of the same seismo-tectonic province and share a considerable and real threat of high-magnitude earthquakes. Numerous Magnitude 6 (Richter) and above earthquakes have been recorded in the past 500 years and some of them have resulted in a considerable loss of life, material and even prestige or geopolitical significance (e.g. the demise of Ragusa in the earthquake of 1667). Given the propensity of the region for destructive earthquakes, complex geomorphological framework and challenging infrastructure, still recovering in parts from the Yugoslav civil wars of the 1990s., the region may yield a “perfect” crisis in the aftermath of a major earthquake event. Taking into consideration unchecked development of several metropolitan areas, lack of oversight and permitting, decaying infrastructure as well as unresolved political ambiguities and territorial disputes, a potential destructive earthquake may create several cascading crises, especially if it coincides with some other challenging events (e.g. winter storms). This study is taking into consideration several scenarios, their possible effects and resulting conditions upon which cascading crises may arise in the aftermath of a magnitude 7+ earthquake affecting several major urban areas in southern and central Bosnia-Herzegovina and the southern Dalmatian region of Croatia. These scenarios are intended to provide training aids and risk assessments in countering the destructive forces after the earthquake, expected to test the current crisis-management models.

Abstract We propose a novel method for enforcing AI fairness with respect to protected or sensitive factors. This method uses a dual strategy performing training and representation alteration (TARA) for the mitigation of prominent causes of AI bias. It includes the use of representation learning alteration via adversarial independence to suppress the bias-inducing dependence of the data representation from protected factors and training set alteration via intelligent augmentation to address bias-causing data imbalance by using generative models that allow the fine control of sensitive factors related to underrepresented populations via domain adaptation and latent space manipulation. When testing our methods on image analytics, experiments demonstrate that TARA significantly or fully debiases baseline models while outperforming competing debiasing methods that have the same amount of information—for example, with (% overall accuracy, % accuracy gap) = (78.8, 0.5) versus the baseline method's score of (71.8, 10.5) for Eye-PACS, and (73.7, 11.8) versus (69.1, 21.7) for CelebA. Furthermore, recognizing certain limitations in current metrics used for assessing debiasing performance, we propose novel conjunctive debiasing metrics. Our experiments also demonstrate the ability of these novel metrics in assessing the Pareto efficiency of the proposed methods.

This paper explores the use of the meshfree computational mechanics method, the Material Point Method (MPM), to model the composition and damage of typical renal calculi, or kidney stones. Kidney stones are difficult entities to model due to their complex structure and failure behavior. Better understanding of how these stones behave when they are broken apart is a vital piece of knowledge to medical professionals whose aim is to remove these stone by breaking them within a patient’s body. While the properties of individual stones are varied, the common elements and proportions are used to generate synthetic stones that are then placed in a digital experiment to observe their failure patterns. First a more traditional engineering model of a Brazil test is used to create a tensile fracture within the center of these stones to observe the effect of stone consistency on failure behavior. Next a novel application of MPM is applied which relies on an ultrasonic wave being carried by surrounding fluid to model the ultrasonic treatment of stones commonly used by medical practitioners. This numerical modeling of Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) reveals how these different stones failure in a more real-world situation and could be used to guide further research in this field for safer and more effective treatments.

Embora reconhecida como comportamento de extrema importância na saúde da população, a prática de atividade física regular ainda é um grande desafio. Objetivo: verificar o nível de atividade física no lazer e possíveis fatores correlatados em uma comunidade acadêmica do nordeste brasileiro. Metodologia: trata-se de um estudo transversal, constituído por discentes, docentes e técnicos administrativos, utilizou-se como instrumento “Mapa de Atividade Física e Saúde-MAFIS”, realizou-se estatística descritiva, teste de Qui quadrado, com posterior montagem do modelo de regressão logística. Resultados: 52,1% atingiram as recomendações de atividade física (AF), os homens apresentam 65,3% (OR: 1,65; IC95%: 1,29-2,11) mais chance de serem ativos, quem gosta de AF tem duas (OR: 2,02; IC95%: 0,82-4,96) a 4,8 (OR: 4,84; IC95%: 1,99-11,8) vezes mais chance de praticar AF, achar importante fazer AF (OR: 2,23; IC95%: 0,48-10,4) e menos dias sentado aumenta de 48,3% (OR: 1,48; IC95%: 1,032- 2,130) a 53,3% (OR: 1,53; IC95%: 1,09-2,13) a chance de fazer AF e quem pensa em fazer AF (OR: 0,362; IC: 0,203-0,645) tem menos chance de ser ativo. Conclusão: Gostar, considerar importante e menos dias sentados aumentam as chances de fazer atividade física, já pensar sempre em fazer, diminui a chance de ser ativo no lazer.

Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is the portion of the country's output not explained by the amount of inputs used in production. The main goal of the present paper is to estimate the Total Factor Productivity levels and then determine the long-term impact of Economic freedom on the TFP in ten former socialistic countries, which are full EU members since 2000. To estimate the TFP we have applied the fixed effect panel on standard Cobb-Douglas production function in per capita terms. In the second iteration we have used PMG ARDL model to estimate the long-term impact of economic freedom on the TFP. This research has proven that higher level of economic freedom, which is used as a proxy of the quality of the institutions and institutional framework, caused higher level of total factor productivity in the period 2000-2018 in the case of ten former socialistic countries which are full EU members since 2000. The obtained results enable us an insight in policies which are important for efficiency increase and economic performance. Our finding could be very useful for policymakers, stressing which policies are contributing to efficiency, and which are not. So that policymakers could intervene in the way to increase the quality of institutional framework and economic institutions. Many other studies investigate the TFP and growth, or growth and institutional framework for the countries of Central and East Europe. Our survey is among the first to investigate the long-term impact of the institutional framework and economic institutions on the countries efficiency for this countries. Our survey enables us an insight into the mechanism through which the institutions can positively impact the TFP through increasing the predictability and reducing the uncertainty for CE countries.

Project management frameworks describe the preferred approaches to project quality management, as well as applicable methods and tools. Despite this, quality problems in the construction project are still widespread. This study aimed to identify crucial quality-related factors in construction project management and find relations between them, to help researchers and project managers better respond to quality issues. A systematic literature review (SLR) was used to identify previous studies on quality-related factors. Literature review and further quantitative analysis revealed that quality-related factors are related to three categories: Quality of project process, quality of organisational processes, and quality of results (products), which together create the quality of the whole construction project. The results highlight quality-related factors (14 related to the quality of processes, 6 to quality of an organisation, and 13 to quality of products) that should be taken into account in further research, as well as planning and executing construction projects. Their inclusion at the planning stage should help project managers, sponsors, and steering committees avoid or minimise quality-related problems. Moreover, this study sheds an interesting light on quality. We found that the quality of processes and quality of an organisation has precedence over the final product quality. Based on the results of the study, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to create a null model that will be the starting point for further research in the construction enterprises.

Contemporary tendencies of sustainable and energy-efficient architecture imply an urgent reconsideration of society’s relationship to nature. Nowadays, building technology demands a responsible approach to construction that involves fostering of low-tech architecture, as an alternative to high-tech architecture. Those are current challenges that architects and the building technology face to improve the application of natural materials in architecture. The necessity for advancement and contemporary usage of building materials as wood, stone, soil, straw, natural insulation materials have also resulted in the increasingly present low-tech architecture. This research aims to delineate through several contemporary case studies how serious global problems related to the energy and environmental crisis are increasingly reflected in the intention towards the use of natural materials in the architectural design. These contemporary designs implement innovative solutions of natural materials in the case of building envelopes, construction details or structural elements. The comparative analytical method involves a critical reflection on the integration of natural materials between traditional vernacular application and its contemporary innovative solutions. These contemporary precedents represent diverse design approaches that reinforce the importance of environmental and ecologically responsible design. Current problems related to the energy and environmental crisis highly influence the underlying design concepts and final building design. The contemporary usage of natural materials as a building resource indicates the evolving advancement and re-evaluation of an ecologically responsible architecture. Whereas the contemporary ways of integrating natural materials carry universal values which originate from the principles of vernacular architecture.

The transitional process from a socialist into a capitalist societal system, started at the end of the twentieth century in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the related transformation of the public into private land ownership, with the neglect and lack of adequate development programs and public opinion, produce today the urban-architectural and, in general, identity crisis. Under the guise of overall well-being, but mostly in the service of short-term economic profit, attractive urban spaces are occupied, the existing physical structure is uncontrollably removed and new construction is carried out, almost as a rule, in disregard for the needs and interests of society/citizens. Transformations of urban space, generated by the vibrations of a transitional society, are most evident in the capital, Sarajevo. The building process is basically a multiplication of residential settlements, the construction of which is carried out on a case-by-case basis, with considerable pressure from investors, and with the decisions made within closed, narrow interest circles and (often) without consulting the profession/urban planners and the public/citizens. In such an environment, the public domain loses its primacy over the private, which is manifested in the alienation of people and the loss of their identification with the place. Such residential settlements are deprived of central functions in the field of social infrastructure and in the manner of “tried and tested” repetitive urban-architectural models, which together negatively affect the quality of individual and social life. In other words, residential settlements without an identity are created. Although they have formal names, these settlements are nameless. They are no places. Architecture and building are always deeply connected with the ideological framework of a particular society, which means that the understanding of the function of space and the place of man in it, we have opened a central question, as the main goal of this paper: Is it really true that the construction of Sarajevo’s new settlements cannot be adapted to anything other than current urban policy? Or else: Is their fate such that they will be permanently determined by the attribute of a settlement without a name? For the purpose of finding the answer, of possible ways of overcoming the crisis or at least mitigating its effects, we conducted a comparative analysis of housing planning in a socialist societal system with current transition planning. The results of this analysis have shown that the new urban policy is intrinsic and creates new articulations of urban space without spatial identity, essentially a name. We have concluded that a crucial moment has arisen in which it is necessary to stop anarchic decision-making on (sporadic) transformations of the city space and to establish a system of compliance with procedures in designing and adopting programs that allocate new necessary functions within the existing physical structures. As urban decisions are currently being made (mostly) outside the realm of the public/citizens, i.e. in closed circles and with the pressures of private investment, the need to change such practices is evident. This is only possible through dialogue, because when all those interested in the decision-making process are involved in the conversation, then change will happen. Only then will we be able to talk about urban politics dedicated to creating an environment in which a person, is placed in the centre of the building process, and where one is given the opportunity to personalize the space one inhabits, to identify with and name it – make it its own, personal and intimate.

Spatial typologies in urbanism and architecture within the City of Sarajevo are inherently complex and differentiated. Throughout the history of the city, the architectural and urban typologies have been evolving and adapting to new circumstances, but in several historical periods, the changes of typologies have been radical. From the fifteenth century, Sarajevo was organized by the oriental ottoman typological scheme that shaped the city for several centuries: organic forms, human and intimate scale, commercial and residential areas quite strictly separated. During the nineteenth century, a central-European urban and architectural typology dominated and morphed the city in a radical new way. Introduction of the larger scale buildings organized in blocks, with mixed functions. The usual typological transformation was taken over by a process of replacement with completely new forms, yet the city seemed to inherently adapt to these new conditions owning this new typology. Introduction of modernist typologies within the realm of the city was also a radical break from the past - functionalist dispersed buildings with open green areas again became a logical part of the city. The new transitional period has brought about new challenges and generated buildings (commercial and residential) with questionable typologies. Current tendencies are lacking in many parameters that define a certain typology - a coherent idea and spatial logic. Can one city inherently possess the ability to adapt and transform such different variations of typologies and claim authenticity? Is there a typology most suited to this place? Ever since the typological research was introduced to architectural theory by De Quincy in 1825, there was the notion of origins of typology, transformation and novelty/innovation. This paper will conduct a research of historical and current spatial typologies (architectural and urban schemes), in order to answer the question is the typology inherent, born out of a certain place or does the place affect, change the typology? The research would be about the correlation between a city (Sarajevo), the capacity of space and relevant parameters of typologies (scale, forms, functions, adaptation).

Old masonry towers, in all their variety – be it a bell tower, a city tower, clock tower, inhabited residential towers, and/or guard/watchtowers – can be found all around the world representing typical urban centre feature, and in some cases –they are the countryside panorama landmark. Statics analysis and calculation are the first steps towards engineering interventions on cultural and historical heritage buildings. In the structural analysis of clock towers, the typical critical points and places where crucial damages that could lead to the collapse, are expected are in the top sections of the building - where the oscillation amplitude reaches its maximal value. Effect on building structure is observed concerning the oscillation frequency and building’s own frequency and energy, which can explain why minaret towers and high slim towers, in some cases, can better withstand earthquakes than extremely rigid buildings; given that the resonance, low-quality materials and other factors can lead to the vulnerability of a building structure. This type of building is designed on a simple, regular shape ground plan, or, in other words, the towers have a symmetrical ground plan and uniformly distributed mass and height. The second statement provides that, depending on building materials used and the cross-section dimensions, towers can be very heavy, which can cause the appearance of significant inertia forces during earthquake oscillations. If there’s mass eccentricity, the horizontal loads could tip the building over. Gradačac clock tower’s load-bearing structural walls are built with masonry stone blocks. The vertical loads are, via slabs and wooden beams, conducted to the walls and down to the foundations. Foundation structure consists of a slab, 80cm thick, positioned at -8.25m which sits on a well-compacted layer of soil. Wooden staircases are used for vertical transportation between storeys. Structural analysis calculation is based on a 3D model of a building and is performed by using the finite elements method (FEM) in Tower calculation software. The requirements for the authenticity in preservation actions imply that the interpretation and the presentation must correlate with basic authenticity principles, in compliance to Nara document (ICOMOS, 1994), protecting cultural values, from both – the hazardous influences of intrusive infrastructure and load of visitors, and incorrect and inappropriate interpretations.