Institute for Structural Research

ABSTRACT We study the effect of automation technologies—industrial robots, software and databases—on the incidence of involuntary atypical employment in 13 EU countries between 2006 and 2018. Robots do not affect the total employment rate but significantly increase the involuntary atypical employment share, mainly through fixed‐term work. Software and databases increase total employment and are neutral for atypical employment. Higher trade union density mitigates the robots' impact on atypical employment, while employment protection legislation plays no role. Using historical decompositions, we attribute 1–2 percentage points of a 15% average atypical employment share in our sample to automation.

Cel pracyCelem artykułu jest prezentacja procesów oceny potencjału komercjalizacji prac dyplomowych w ramach tzw. komercjalizacji komponentowej.Materiał i metodyW celu przeprowadzenia pilotażowego badania wykorzystano kwestionariusz ankiety oraz kwestionariusz wywiadu standardowego. Pilotażowe badanie ankietowe przeprowadzono listopadzie i grudniu 2022 r. na grupie 45 studentów WSB w Gdańsku (obecnie Uniwersytet WSB Merito w Gdańsku) reprezentujących różne kierunki i poziomy studiów. Kwestionariusz ankiety był anonimowy, analiza dotyczyła znanego respondentom zagadnienia – ich własnych prac dyplomowych. Badania w formie wywiadów przeprowadzono 17 i 18 grudnia 2022 w formie rozmowy telefonicznej oraz wideokonferencji na platformie ZOOM. Każdy wywiad trwał ok. 20 minutWynikiNiniejszy artykuł pokazuje zmiany podejścia do komercjalizacji zakładając, że tworzone iteracyjnie produkty mogą przyczynić się do budowy modelu wspomagającego proces komercjalizacji. Wyniki badań wskazuję otwartość studentów, autorów prac dyplomowych z zakresu IT do uczestniczenia w komercjalizacji komponentowej. Forma ta może być skutecznym narzędziem do komercjalizacji wyników pac dyplomowych, zwłaszcza studentów kierunku IT.WnioskiPrzeprowadzone badania wskazują na konieczność dokonania pogłębionej oceny i analizy realizowanych przez uczelnie procesów komercjalizacji szeroko rozumianych wyników badań naukowych i prac wdrożeniowych, w szczególności w ramach komercjalizacji komponentowej wyników prac dyplomowych. Przeprowadzone badania wskazują na potrzebę opracowania prognostycznego modelu komercjalizacji, którego składową powinny być komponenty prac dyplomowych.

We study the effects of robot exposure on worker flows in 16 European countries between 2000 and 2017. Overall, we find small negative effects on job separations and no effects on job findings. We detect significant cross-country differences and find that labour costs are a major driver: the effects of robot exposure are generally larger in absolute terms in countries with relatively low or average levels of labour costs than in countries with high levels of labour costs. These effects are particularly pronounced for workers in occupations intensive in routine manual or routine cognitive tasks but are insignificant in occupations intensive in non-routine cognitive tasks. A counterfactual analysis suggests that robot adoption increased employment and reduced unemployment, especially in European countries with relatively low or average levels of labour costs, and that these effects were driven mainly by lower job separations.

Prestressed concrete cylinder pipe (PCCP) is a composite pipe that combines the compressive strength of concrete, the watertightness of the steel cylinder, and the tensile strength of pre-stressing wires. Because of their use in large-diameter transmission mains and corresponding consequence of failure, mitigating failure risk through proactive condition assessment and pipe rehabilitation have largely been adopted by the industry as a best management practice. PCCP failure can be multifaceted; while the most traditional approach to PCCP condition assessment has focused on quantifying broken wire wraps to model the state of pipes, Baltimore has observed multiple distressed pipes with no corresponding broken wire wraps. Forms of distress observed correspond to longitudinal failure due to uneven settling of bedding material due to poor installation, overlap of underground assets, and transition from encasements. Baltimore’s experience illustrates the importance of combining inspection methodologies for a more holistic condition assessment approach, where leak detection and visual and sounding inspections should be complemented with electromagnetic surveys to identify all pipes with an unacceptable high risk of failure. Best management practices for prevention of these failure modes as well as appropriate rehabilitation option are also discussed.

Energy poverty, i.e., inefficient heating and insufficient access to energy services, can turn a shelter into a health hazard. We find that substandard housing and ineffective heating is associated with a higher risk of poor health in an urban context. We surveyed people living in two middle-sized cities in a coal-dependent region of Poland and used objective and subjective indicators of energy poverty and self-assessed health status. We demonstrate that people who live in substandard housing are more likely to exhibit poor musculoskeletal and cardiovascular outcomes, by 10 and 6 pp, respectively than otherwise similar people living in suitable housing conditions. We show that energy-poor people who use coal or a wood stove have a 24 pp higher likelihood of respiratory disease than the energy-poor who live in flats connected to district heating. We also find that a significant amount of the explained variance in the probability of respiratory disease is attributable to energy poverty. To improve the housing conditions and reduce the risk of poor health outcomes, we recommend two policy instruments: 1) a full subsidy for thermal retrofits and connecting multi-family buildings to the district heating network and 2) a targeted energy voucher for clean heating.

The basis for the design of any concrete structural element is the concrete building code. Since the requirements for different used codes are dissimilar, a detailed comparative analysis needs to be conducted to compare multiple structural design aspects of various codes used worldwide and find out if there is any significant differences in the design procedures. The main objective of this study is to compare 4 building codes: ACI Standard: Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete; the European Standard: Eurocode 2: Design of concrete structures—Part 1-1: General Rules and Rules for Buildings; the Indian Standard: Plain and Reinforced Concrete—Code of Practice; and the Canadian Standard: CSA A23.3-19 Design of Concrete Structures to draw conclusions on the differences in the design requirements for general characteristics, flexure, and provisions for nonslender columns. The same column cross section was used to calculate axial capacities based on all four codes and the results were presented in a comparative table. All the codes have some differences in the provisions compared. In general, regarding column axial capacities, it was seen that estimates provided by the Indian code were more conservative compared to the remaining three codes.