‘Unionising’ the new spaces of the new economy? Alternative labour organising in India’s IT Enabled Services-Business Process Outsourcing industry

This paper explores the lived experiences and aspirational social constructions of call centre work and employment in India’s high profile IT Enabled Services-Business Process Outsourcing (ITES-BPO) industry; the ways in which they differ from those previously documented amongst call centre workers in the Global North (specifically the UK); and the consequences of that geographical reconfiguration of offshored call centre work for the replicability in India of workplace collective bargaining strategies successfully developed in some UK call centres. These issues are analysed using new empirical evidence from a regional survey of 511 non-unionised ITES-BPO workers and 42 in-depth interviews in India’s National Capital Region. Based on this analysis, the paper then discusses the operation, outcomes and ongoing challenges faced by the newly formed ‘Union for ITES Professionals’ (UNITES Pro) in developing an alternative occupational organising model better suited to the particular needs, motivations and preferences of India’s young, mobile, call centre workers. The empirical analysis presented in the paper is located, therefore, within wider debates on the role of geographical context in shaping possibilities for organising white-collar service workers at different ends of global service chains in the new economy.     

对目前我国高校非开挖技术教育的思考

非开挖技术是一项新兴技术,自非开挖技术引入我国以来,发展迅速。但我国高校的非开挖技术教育发展却显得相对缓慢。通过对我国高校非开挖技术教育现状的分析,初步探讨了我国高校非开挖技术教育水平提升的有关问题。     

Main progress and prospect for China's hydrogeological survey

This paper reviewed the main achievements of hydrogeological survey in China, summarized the significant progress of hydrogeological survey over the past decade, and forecasted the key responsibilities for hydrogeological survey in the p14th Five-year Planq. The significant progress includes: China established the 1: 50 000 standard hydrogeological survey system with Chinese characteristics and produced the new generation of high-quality hydrogeological maps; the national groundwater monitoring project was completed and accepted, which marks China taking the leading position in groundwater monitoring internationally; fruitful results were achieved in the national groundwater quality survey, and groundwater quality background values were basically identified and checked; hydrogeological and environmental geological survey was continuously promoted in karst areas and the ecological restoration of rocky desertification achieved remarkable results; China strengthened layer exploration techniques for groundwater, integrating the key and practical techniques of layer exploration and monitoring; the exploration of groundwater in the poverty-stricken regions and old revolutionary base areas were effectively promoted to strongly guarantee the poverty alleviation and drinking water safety; the mystery of desert groundwater was uncovered, making up for the shortage of 1: 250 000 hydrogeological survey in the Badain Jaran Desert; and more efforts were made to conduct survey on the water resources in the basin, and to finish the unified measurement of national-scale groundwater level.     

基坑支护组合钢支撑设计与施工技术

通过镇江市邮电通信指挥中心大楼深基坑工程的设计与施工,全面介绍了组合钢支撑在深基坑支护工程应用中的设计、施工方法及支撑效果.实践证明,组合钢支撑是一种施工方法简单、施工速度快、对周边环境影响小、安全可靠的支撑形式,具有较强的市场竞争能力及良好的推广应用前景.     

基于GPS技术的大型结构建筑物动态监测

在回顾传统的结构物震动和位移测量方法的基础上，详细阐述了采用GPS进行大型建筑物动态监测的原理、方法。介绍国内外典型的动态监测实例，提出了监测数据的管理与可视化方案，对未来大型结构建筑物动态监测的技术进行了展望。     

江苏国际图书中心原有基础桩清障工艺探讨

介绍了老城区改造其桩基础的处理方法。结合工程实际，介绍了场地基本情况、场地工程地质条件，探讨了原有桩基础清障工艺，分析了清障作业的难点及拟采取的解决措施。采用高压环喷工艺清障，获得了成功。     

节水灌溉理论与技术发展现状

水资源日益短缺是全球性的问题。农业节水潜力较大，从长远战略角度看，发展节水灌溉对缓解我国水资源的供需矛盾意义重大，本文通过节水灌溉理论研究进展情况的介绍，提出了西北地区发展节水灌溉应注意的问题。     

泥石流自动化监测预警技术的应用以贵州省望谟县望谟河泥石流为例

贵州省望谟县望谟河流域地质条件复杂,地形落差大,汇流作用强,富有大量松散物质,发育有3条主沟。在强降雨条件下,各沟渠发育的小规模泥石流同时爆发流入主沟,最终汇流于望谟河内,导致流量增大,泥沙含量增多,易产生特大洪涝沟谷型泥石流灾害,对沿岸居民和下游的望谟县城存在极大的安全隐患。2011年6月6日特大洪涝泥石流灾害的爆发给当地居民的生命财产造成了严重的损失。为减少泥石流危害,基于流域内泥石流的形成条件和发育特点的调研,以雨量、次声、水位和影像为监测内容,合理布置了雨量计、物位计、次声警报仪和视频系统,构成了针对该流域的泥石流监测网,拟定了预警阈值并划分了预警等级,形成了集采集、解译、传输、分析、决策、控制和预警为一体的自动化监测预警系统。通过对异常数据、缺失数据、波状数据和噪音的优化处理,取得了有效的监测成果,实现了对流域内雨量、次声、水位、影像信息的实时动态监控,为望谟河泥石流预警预报提供一定保证。     

Money for nothin’ and coal for free: ‘Technology neutrality’ and biomass development under the Flemish tradable green certificate scheme

Recent literature has highlighted the creation of multiple equivalences as an important factor underpinning the rise of market-based mechanisms for environmental regulation. Extending these insights into the field of renewable energy policy, this article focuses on one example of this trend – namely the principle of technology neutrality as applied under the Flemish tradable green certificate scheme – and analyzes the concrete ways in which it has shaped the evolution of the Flemish renewable energy landscape. Concretely, the article shows that technology neutrality played a key role in promoting the uptake of biomass combustion in old coal power plants in Flanders, which led to a number of undesirable outcomes and gave rise to significant opposition. Correcting these shortcomings required a number of policy interventions on the part of the Flemish government that fundamentally moved the scheme away from the principle of technology neutrality and towards a more hybrid RE support system, suggesting that the promotion of technology neutrality was fundamentally misguided. Together with similar experiences from related market-based instruments, this suggests that the promotion of technology neutrality has far-reaching implications for the environmental effectiveness of climate and energy policies. In light of the continued promotion of the principle, the article calls for full recognition of the inherent technological choices that are being made through the promotion of policies that purport to be technology-neutral.     

Discussion on establishing monitoring networks for temperature fields of shallow thermal energy in Shandong,China

In the recent decade, the construction projects related to shallow geothermal energy engineering have undergone rapid development in Shandong Province. The predominant type of these developments and applications was heat exchange through buried tubes and the main targets were residential and office buildings. However, an overwhelming majority of the completed geothermal heat pump projects lacked monitoring devices so that they were unable to comprehensively reflect the background values for the geothermal fields within the province and few researches were conducted on their influence on the geological environment. In this paper, locations for monitoring shallow geothermal energy and their validity of the monitoring point deployment were studied in view of the development and application status as well as geological background conditions of various projects located in multiple cities providing data support for analyzing the fluctuation trend and influence of large-scale shallow geothermal energy applications on the shallow geothermal and the feasibility and parameter designs of newly built systems in Shandong Province in the future.