the main design criteria of ballasted railway tracks include rail deflections, rail bending stresses, rail wheel contact stresses, sleeper bending moments and ballast sleeper contact pressures. numerous criteria have been defined for the design of ballasted railway tracks owing to the various mechanical properties of track components and their complex interaction. therefore, railway track desig...

The pandemic has produced the global COVID-19 vaccine market with various stakeholders acting in their economic self-interest. At same time, some governments use vaccines for pursuing national interests and expanding international influence. Using scientific works on topic documents from WHO, GAVI, WTO, IMF, government think tank reports, author analyzes diplomacy as a branch of medical identif...

This paper addresses the global engagement of certain African intellectuals who strove for independence Lusophone Africa. It does so using geopolitical lenses based on new and multilingual archives. Extending current scholarship subaltern geopolitics, cultures decolonisation, critical development studies, I show performance diplomacies deployed by political leaders such as Amílcar Cabral, Mário...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015 and substantial eff ort is being put into the negotiation of a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDG agenda is broader and goes further than that of the MDGs, and critics claim that it is unmeasurable and unmanageable. On the positive side, the consultation process has been far more inclusive and credible than for the MDG...

The main design criteria of ballasted railway tracks include rail deflections, rail bending stresses, rail wheel contact stresses, sleeper bending moments and ballast sleeper contact pressures. Numerous criteria have been defined for the design of ballasted railway tracks owing to the various mechanical properties of track components and their complex interaction. Therefore, railway track desig...