130,362 research outputs found
9th International Conference on Business, Technology and Innovation 2020
No full textThe purpose of this study is to reveal how the phenomenon of redevelopment is
affecting the historical urban layers of the city of Tirana and expecially the transformation of
the city center. The National Theatre of Albania, builded under Albanian monarchy, by the
italian company Patter Milano, the project was designed by Gulio Berte, italian architect. is part
of this transformation, even though it faced a vibrant opposition, capable to have a repercursion
in all the city and to other social movements connected to the right for housing. The demolition
of the National Theatre opens many investigative questions, and on the future of the city,
seriously affecting the nearby neighborhoods - now-days under gentrification process. Through
a mixed design of the urban layers the research brings anexplanatory methodology based on
field observations and interviews. Results of the study shows that the process of the city center
transformation is causing social, economical and cultural effects. During this redevelopment
process, there have been losts important urban footprints by affecting the historical inhabitants
and conseguetly the rights under adequate housing definition, such is tenure right and cultural
adequacy
Reconstruction with the principle ‘where is was, as it was’ The case of National Theater, Albania
No full textIn terms of urban heritage monuments, those located inside the city core, in Albania, are often target to new development, disregarding the cultural heritage values,
and though destroying them partially or totally. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the importance of National Theater (Teatri Kombëtar) of Albania, from the point
of view of citizens architects and historians. The building was destroyed on 17 Maj 2020, after a protest in ita protection was on by 27 months. The research questions
is if historians, architects and the citizens, think that the National Theater carries enough cultural heritage values and to be built ‘Where it was! As it was’? case study
should be defined as Research strategy is chosen as case study the National Theater, in order to inquire and investigate the phenomenon within its real-life context. As
instruments are used interviews to citizens part of the target group. Desk research is conducted to also evaluate the three variables taken into consideration for purpose
of this research: the historical values of the building; the architectonic values; social and cultural values, from the point of view of the target group. Part of the interviews
the citizens part of the protest’s group in protection of the theater, called ‘Alliance for the protection of the theater’1 as a group of interest. As conclusion to the research,
on the point of view of the interviewrs, the National Theater, carries architectonic, historic and social values as a to be reconstructed with the principle ‘Where is was!
As it was!
Civic engagement in the protection of historical heritage and city landscape
No full textOver the last ten years, Tirana has entered a fast-paced urban (re)development phase. Many new skyscrapers are being built around the city center, leading to a rapid urban landscape transformation. In 2018 the municipality and the national government made a controversial decision to destroy the National Theater building and develop a new one through a public-private partnership (PPP) approach. This controversial decision was taken without any prior public consultation and amidst several legal contestations regarding the process. In an attempt to recover, the municipality started a process of public consultations with a limited group of stakeholders. Meanwhile, concerns started being raised by experts and various civic actors who voluntarily gathered and raised their voices regarding the demolition proposal. Soon, an alliance of excluded stakeholders was created to protect the theater and different people became part of the alliance. This chapter analyzes public participation (institutionally led by the municipality) versus citizen-led engagement. When the theater was demolished in 2020, major protests followed as civic actors used the space of the theater as a representative space during 2018-2020. This led to significant support from the citizens of Tirana but also the periphery. Consequently, the civic alliance for the protection of the theater took the case to the prosecution office and the courts. Some important lessons can be learned from this in terms of civic engagement and the different processes of institutionalizing citizen involvement in policy and decision-making
The diminishment of civil and political rights during the Covid-19 pandemic. A 'paved road' for speculative schemes on city public realm. Case study Tirana.
No full textThere is a direct discoverable linkage, between the diminishing of civic and political rights, and the dilatation destruction of the public realm by city rebuilding and redevelopment. On March 2020, with the Covid-19 outbreak aligned with the pandemic restrictions that entered in power, organized forms of protest and any civic actions were prohibited by law. During this period of time the city increased its density by developing hundreds of new construction sites, most of which at the outlay of public realm. Public space, in absence of citizen’s presence turned into a ‘facility’ for the construction industry, while the city resembles to a giant construction site. Decision-making on city planning by public institutions is accompanied with lack of transparency, by impinging also the right to information. This paper aims to expose the connection between arbitrary decision-making on the city and the violation of the right to information and the right to spaces of representations
Urban common values. The case of National Theater of Albania
No full textIl testo discute presupposti ed esiti della vicenda legata al processo di demolizione del Teatro Nazionale d'Albania a Tirana, progettato nel 1938 su iniziativa del governo albanese e del ministero degli Esteri italiano dall‘architetto italiano Giulio Bertè (1897-1967) come centro culturale, meglio conosciuto come Circolo Culturale Italo-Albanese “Skanderbeg“.
Il progetto del nuovo teatro sviluppato da BIG si limita a occupare solo un terzo del sito originale, per fare spazio a lussuose torri da costruire sul restante terreno pubblico dove prima sorgeva il Teatro preesistente, grazie a un procedura di partnership pubblico-privato che ha privato l'opinione pubblica di qualsiasi possibilità di partecipazione e coinvolgimento nelle scelte.
Il caso del Teatro Nazionale ha messo a nudo uno dei principali problemi della città di Tirana: il patrimonio urbano è abbandonato e alcuni monumenti sono lasciati andare in rovina senza protocolli chiari di intervento e salvaguardia
Grass-roots resistance for tangible heritage. The case of Tirana
No full textIn Tirana, the capital of Albania lives around 900.000 inhabitants in an urban area of 6000 ha. In early 1990, the ratio between inhabitants and the urban area was the same but three times less. This fast land consumption was driven by political and economical forces – such as the transition from a centralized state to a private oriented market, and remittances toward single families (Aliaj, Shutina, & Dhamo, Between energy and the vacuum, 2010).
Nowadays more than 150.000 settlements are called informal from the National Cadastral Office. These inhabitants are missing the housing tenure and this fact makes them more vulnerable to the urban transformations in the city. Several events describe the struggle of these inhabitants, such in the case of “Astiri” neighborhood, or Paskuqan where the city ring is cutting throw. Dozens of old villas from the late 19 century positioned in the historic center, are in eminent threat due to rapid development.
The city of Tirana transformative operation culminated the very first months after the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. During 2020 dozens of new high-rise buildings, were constructed in the city historical center, operation that resulted with the demolishement of several historical buildings, part of country tangible heritage.
This paper describes the process of transformation of the city, through the case study of the National Theater. The theater was demolished on May 17 of 2020, while the entire country was under the Pandemic lockdown. The building became a place of resistance, triggering several forms of collective ecologies of activism that were unfolded during the resistance, before and after the demolition of the building. At the lack of official responses by the authorities, informal associations and grassroots organizations have stepped up to provide for the communities through active participations
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
No full textBoth spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
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