Since the survival and growth of small firms depend largely on their ability to acquire legitimacy within the institutional environment, social responsibility plays an important role in their lives. The aim of this study was to investigate how a disruption in the normal course of business can lead to an evolution and change in the social responsibility activities of small and medium-sized enterprises. Such disruptions, called critical incidents, interrupt the normal functioning of the business. The case-based exploratory study found that such critical events can have a positive impact. In particular, they can initiate the integration of socially responsible business practices. This is a journey from philanthropic donations to fully integrated socially responsible practices, often driven by internal triggering events such as organisational growth, unanticipated changes in management, or generational change, which allow new values to be brought on board. When such an internal event is followed by a highly critical but external event, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the transformation gains momentum. The findings also suggest that social responsibility can be a new source of competitive advantage.

The constantly evolving customer demands in the automotive industry necessitates vehicle manufacturers to perform ever more accurate acoustic simulations. Acoustic simulations especially in the mid-frequency range (400 Hz - 1000 Hz) pose particular challenges: statistical methods lack the necessary modal density for accuracy, while Finite Element Methods (FEM) have difficulty accounting for statistical effects. In order to resolve the conflict that FEM solvers face, an academic case is investigated. A flat plate of 650x 750 mm in free-free condition is examined as a low-complexity platform to investigate the sensitivity of FEM simulation results to parameters, such as the value of structural damping, the frequency dependency of structural damping as well as the variations in the plate thickness due to manufacturing tolerances. FEM simulations were performed using ESI VPS and compared to measurements. Results show that slight variations in plate thickness and Young`s modulus can have significant impact on the frequency response. Results have shown that a 0.5% variation in the thickness already has a pronounced effect on frequency response peak locations, especially between 600 and 1000 Hz. Beside this, the paper provides novel results on evaluating the effects of frequency dependency of structural damping on the results.

Since 2018, I have been a philosophical consultant for the Compagnie Pál Frenák, and, more recently a dramaturg (Cage³, Spid_er⁴, Fig_Ht⁵, Secret_ Off Man, Crazy Runners – Parad_IS_e⁶). Simultaneously with my research on somaesthetics, I became familiar with Frenák's unique organic movement system, which developed from the sign system of the deaf and hard of hearing and, over decades, evolved into a completely individual means of expression. Because Frenák, the best-known choreographer of Hungarian contemporary dance, considers Deleuze's philosophy a point of alignment, Deleuze's Abécédaire and Shusterman's aesthetics both played a role in my 2022 book about him (Horváth 2022). However, Frenák is an autonomous creator who never uses the books he reads as a concrete reference, rather, he extracts the essence of what he reads and takes inspiration from them by placing them in a totally different context. Anyone familiar with Frenák's works knows that his central theme is the libidinal energy that controls people. He researches how to express erotic radiance, repressed desire or the resonance that exists or never develops between people. Frenák opens something up to audiences, who are either drawn in or pushed away. Frenák's native language is sign language, due to his deaf mother. In the world of the deaf and hard of hearing, only continuous and intense attention is natural. His perfect knowledge of this medium and communication system adds a unique dimension to Frenák's somatic style. Frenák's work is special because since childhood, he has been experimenting with a unique language of movement, with which generations of dancers have been able to identify in joint productions over the decades. But his art is much more than that. He has been able to do what very few people do: he constantly builds and enriches the unique world in which certain themes, motifs, and emotions regularly appear. Only the harmony between the body and the soul is capable of representing the homogeneous artistic style that has characterized Frenák’s style for decades. Perhaps this is partly why we perceive that his pieces are the various manifestations of a homogeneous whole and rather than isolated choreographies, despite their fragmented nature. In my study, I examine how Frenák delves into the depths of human nature. How does his work address the myth of marriage or love triangles? How can such a feeling be realized on stage when two figures are not even touching, yet we know, we feel in our guts, that they belong together. Frenák is not satisfied with portraying superficial relationships, and he disregards patterns and norms. He is a diver delving into the depths of the soul frightened of itself, a soul that must grapple with itself to overcome its fears and its own shadows. During this investigation, the question arises: is it is possible to put into words the erotic experience that art can only partially convey? “The philosopher can speak of everything he feels. Erotic experience will commit us to silence” says Bataille in Eroticism (Bataille, 1962, p. 252.). That is the advantage that art possesses and that is why the feeling that the protracted utterance of the word “Silence” in Frenák’s pieces (e.g., in The Hidden Men) may convey. Philosophy is unable to free itself of language and, what Bataille considers the most important, “it uses language in such a way that silence never follows”, the silence of that last moment where consciousness forsakes you (Ibid, p. 274.). The atmosphere of Frenák's plays can reproduce exactly those states of mind in which awareness fails, where nothing remains but silence or madness. The question, therefore, is: how to grasp passion rendered with artistic corporality from the perspective of somaesthetics.

In this study the detailed One-at-a-Time sensitivity analysis of nonlinear massspring- damper systems is carried out with numerical simulation. The degree of sensitivity was measured with a sensitivity index and based on its sensitivity Fuzzy-sets were established. The sensitivity of a parameter then can be expressed by the membership to the Fuzzy-sets. In this study the root mean square of acceleration, the maximum amplitude of acceleration and the peak frequency were chosen as output variables to measure sensitivity. With this research it was proven, that the root mean square of acceleration and the peak frequency can be used for sensitivity study of nonlinear vibration systems effectively.

A 4-dimensional polytope composed of space filling three-dimensional polyhedra (cells) can be considered as a finite cellular system. It is verified that the fundamental equations of the cell statistics, (i.e. the Weaire identity and the Aboav-Weaire law) can be extended to 4-dimensional finite cellular systems represented by 4-polytopes. © 2005 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

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Modification of asphalt binder with crumb rubber or SBS type polymer can further enhance the viscoelastic properties of asphalt mixtures in terms of reduced permanent deformation and increased operational temperature range. In this research, the effect of different variations of crumb rubber (CR) and styrenebutadiene-styrene (SBS) consisting of Base asphalt, 4% SBS, 7% SBS, 7% CR, 15% CR and 20% have been analyzed in terms of rutting accumulation. This research is significant in terms of performance characteristics of CR and SBS modified mixtures, where based on availability and price of these modifiers, agencies can perform selection of either variations of these modifiers based on their requirement and standards in order to optimize the performance of asphalt pavements. Finite element analysis has been performed using ABAQUS, where a dual wheel having an axle load of 100 kN has been simulated with a total of 50,000 passes on a 2D model. Validated creep parameters using the Burger's model have been utilized for simulation of material decay under creep loading for each variation. Visco step loading has been used to measure rutting progression. Results show increased rutting accumulation of base asphalt among other scenarios. Furthermore, CR-20 outperforms other variations in terms of rutting accumulation. Both CR-20 and SBS7 yield the minimum rutting magnitude of 3.2 m and 3.3 mm respectively. SBS-7 leads to 39% less rutting magnitude when compared to that of base asphalt.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly transforming public administration, yet empirical evidence from developing countries remains limited. This study explores the current use, key challenges, and enabling conditions of AI adoption in Kazakhstan’s public administration system. The study employs an exploratory qualitative design based on semi-structured interviews with 20 experts from government, academia, and related professional domains. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis in ATLAS.ti to identify key themes. The findings show that AI adoption is in a transitional stage, supported by strong government initiatives and shifting from digitalization to its use in decision support and predictive analytics for more proactive public services. While a number of pilot projects and practical applications are already in place, broader adoption remains constrained by interrelated barriers, including data limitations, skills gaps, infrastructural constraints, and regulatory uncertainty. The results also identify a corresponding set of enabling conditions, such as institutional support, human capital development, data governance improvements, and cross-sector collaboration, which can facilitate further progress. By linking systemic barriers with corresponding enabling conditions, the study clarifies how AI adoption unfolds in practice and identifies actionable directions for policy and implementation.

In order to overcome the shortcomings of crash data a number of surrogate measures of safety have been developed and proposed by various researchers. One of the most widely used temporal indicators is time-to-collision (TTC) which requires the road users to be on a collision course. Road users that are strictly speaking not on a collision course actually might behave and take evasive actions as if they were, thus indicating that such near-miss situations might also be relevant for safety analysis. Taking that into account, a more flexible indicator T2, which does not require the two vehicles to be on a collision course, describes the expected time for the second road user to arrive at the conflict point. Recently extreme value theory (EVT) offering two approaches, block maxima (BM) and Peak over Threshold (POT), has been applied in combination with surrogate indicators to estimate crash probabilities. Most of this research has focused on testing BM and POT as well as validating various surrogate safety indicators by comparing model estimates to actual crash frequencies. The comparison of collision course indicators with indicators including crossing course interactions and their performance using EVT has not been investigated yet. In this study we are seeking answers to under what conditions these indicators perform better and whether they are transferable. Using data gathered at a signalized intersection focusing on left-turning and straight moving vehicle interactions our analysis concluded that the two indicators are transferable with stricter threshold values for T2 and that POT gives more reasonable results.