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The design of exoskeletons is a popular and promising area of research both for restoring lost function and rehabilitation, and for augmentation in military and industrial applications. A major practical challenge to the comfort and usability for exoskeletons is the need to avoid misalignment of the exoskeletal joint with the underlying human joint. Alignment mismatches are difficult to prevent due to large inter-user variability, and can create large stresses on the attachment system and underlying human anatomy. Previous self-aligning systems have been proposed in literature, which can compensate for muscle forces, but leave large residual forces passed directly to the skeletal system. In this paper we propose a new mechanism to reduce misalignment complications. A decoupling approach is proposed which allows large forces to be carried by the exoskeletal system while allowing both the muscle and skeletal joint force presented to the user to be compensated to any desired degree. ; Biomechanical Engineering ; Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

In the conditions of the contemporary risk society the alternate nature and the variety of risks issue a serious challenge to the world community, which requires an urgent solution.Today the principle of sustainable development takes an increasing significance in the policies of all countries. The concept of sustainable development is based upon the balance between financial, social and ecological resources of our planet. Successful management of all these resources would ensure the sustainability.Achievement of the goals of sustainable development, in its turn, requires conjoint actions of governments, local authorities, businesses and each individual.This article is aimed at the analysis of actions taken by world-wide organisations, governments, and local authorities to provide sustainable development, including legislative, institutional, regulatory and public efforts exerted at all levels in the sphere of identification, assessment and management of environmental risks under the conditions of risk society. The volume of the article unfortunately dose not allow covering of all aspects related to this issue, as well as setting up a thorough discourse in this matter. Therefore, the article provides a brief analysis of theoretical base of the concept of the risk society and the idea of sustainable development and reviews legal, institutional, and regulatory instruments applied for identification, assessment and management of environmental risks applied both globally and in Latvia. It also stresses the significance of rising environmental risk awareness and promotion of readiness for ecological conduct, as it would facilitate meeting the goals of sustainable development by more active participation of population in the activities targeted at the environment protection in general, and preservation and restoration of the natural resources. The article also describes the current level of public awareness of environmental problems in Latvia, as well as the problems the Latvian residents consider to be of highest priority ...

The article analyses the issues involved in the privatization of public hospitals inthe U. S. Faced with increasing costs, many public hospitals are bleeding red ink andthus encounter difficulties when making investments necessary to cut costs and increaseperformance. Hospital expenditures accounted for almost a third of the $1.6trillion the United States spent on health care in 2000. According to the U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services, over the ten-year period from 1990 to 2000the average cost of an inpatient stay at a public hospital increased by nearly 50 percent,compared to only 20 per cent at private for-profit hospitals. By 2001 the $7,400cost of a stay at a public hospital was 24 per cent greater than at a private for-profit($5,972). In the case of public hospitals, a conflicting mix of social, political, andbusiness objectives results in weak incentives to control costs. Cost burdens comefrom inefficient accounting, restrictive government personnel and procurement regulations,a tangled web of bureaucracy, and a general lack of accountability. Mostpublic hospitals lack the strategic advantages enjoyed by private hospitals including:a marketing orientation, volume purchasing systems, state-of-the-art information systems,standardization of supplies, outcome management systems, computerized casemanagement systems with cost-per-procedure variables among physicians performingthe same procedures, physician practice management, and technologically advancedpatient care.

This article analyses the assumption for establishing senior civil service in Lithuania in the course ofreforms of civil service system directing much attention to the conceptualizations of senior civil service incontemporary strategic human resource management theory and research where the need for establishingsenior civil service is grounded by stressing the differentiated approach to human resources. A specialattention is paid to highly valued and unique human resources, capable of leading the institutions and thesector as a whole. The data of the empirical research indicate that the idea of establishment of the seniorcivil service in Lithuanian is accepted ambiguously within the system of civil service. The authors, notinghighly contextual nature of the issue, conclude that the decisions on the concrete design of senior civil servicein Lithuania should be based on consideration of noticeable tendencies of developments of senior civilservices in the democracies of the world.

This paper aims to answer the question "What does a concept of the e-Citizen consists of in Kaunas region and why?" Generally the concept of the e-Citizen is directly related to the vision of eEurope, i.e. with all to the development of eEurope directed actions, which are highly attended of European Union in recent years. Analyzing the e-Citizen's subject, it is essential to examine the issue of e-service, because the e-Citizen's vision is shaped by using e-service concept, which aims to involve every citizen, family, school, enterprise and administration in the digital era. The research problem includes e-Citizen's concept and the initiatives in Kaunas region, thus highlighting the interaction between dimensions of e-Services and e-Citizen, also both why those initiatives are required and what is an outlook in this range for Kaunas region.The main task is to answer the question concerning e-Citizen's concept by analyzing the e-Initiatives in Lithuania and Kaunas region. These e-Initiatives are underlying goals of eEurope and i2010. The aim of the research is to module the picture of Kaunas e-Citizen and show a value of mentioned initiatives for the inhabitants of Kaunas region by analyzing the implemented and continuing e-Region's projects.

One of the main characteristics of modern day economic activity is the increasing number of companies withemployees, producible goods and services provided that are constantly crossing national borders. The internationalizationof activity of organizations over the past 15 years is concurrent with the globalization of managementprocesses. Companies with fewer than 20 employees are becoming increasingly active in this process and theirinfluence on the economic and social results of nations are at a constant growth. In this respect, it can justifiably besaid that an organization's successful practice is mostly predicated by their managers' preparation to get involvedin the processes of the times, when one of the main aspects of their activity becomes the ability to involve humanresources in the changes that time has wrought and to effectively organize the activity of their employees. This is ofprime significance to Lithuanian organizations, because studies conducted in the field of human resources illustratethat most organization leaders have insufficient competence to involve their personnel in change while alsoactively integrating in the processes of current times themselves. Remarks made by European Union (EU) expertsthat Lithuania should pay more attention to investment to immaterial assets, remain relevant to this day.The first section of the article outlines the viewpoint of Lithuanian and foreign management professionals onmanagement theories and characteristics of practice in an environment of new challenges, and the portrait of amanager in the world of the present. K Adams (1996) notes that managers operating in an international environmenthave little to do with manager activity solely based on the national characteristics of their country. It isacknowledged in the article that globalization of management necessitates pursuit of reconciliation of internal andexternal environments and demands for constant changes within its organizations. Accordingly, managers have toinitiate change and pursue managing the ...

The impact of the European Union on Social Security is quite complex and enigmatic. At the starting point, there is a genuine paradox: whereas the construction of a large and unique market supposes, among many others prerequisites, the harmonization of social security systems, this harmonization is left to the good will of the member States since Social security is not truly within the competence of the Union. In these conditions, it is quite obvious that a thought and organized harmonization is absolutely unreachable. Beyond the threat of systems of social protection in the European Union contracting, the issue arises of their restructuring and alignment. Given the common challenges they all face (ageing populations, family instability, unemployment, social exclusion and job insecurity), the priority for the reform debate is the redefi nition of fundamental rights and the need to draw a distinction between conditional and universal rights.Through a brief review of EU social policy development and role in European integration theory, this article will argue that, despite its expansion, EU social policy lacks vital fi nancial and political muscle to signifi cantly affect national welfare regimes and create a European welfare state. Moreover, its broad guidelines and fl exible implementation may even encourage national social policy diversifi cation rather than harmonization.

The aim of the EU regional policy is to increase the level of social and economic cohesion of the Community. The effectiveness of this policy is not unanimously agreed upon. There are regions in Europe which took maximum advantage of the Structural Funds and considerably decreased the gap between them and the average EU level (Lisboa e Vale Do Tejo), or even went beyond it (Ireland). However, there are also regions that, despite huge transfers from the EU budget, are stagnant (southern Italy) The negative examples are exploited by the opponents of the current policy. According to them, the policy's achievement in its current shape is too expensive for the entire Union (too high opportunity cost). The same transfers used to support innovativeness in the well-developed regions would lead to an increased innovativeness and modernization of the Member States' economies in general. The article's aim is an attempt to answer the question about the policy's future shape. It will depend on many factors (social and economic situation in the entire Europe, catch-up processes, political situation, etc). A different shape of regional policy could, however, mean a return to the idea of two-speed Europe, which would not be advantageous to the new Member States.

This paper seeks to conceptualise ethics leadership in English local government. It will demonstratethat there are a number of stakeholders within the ethical framework for English local government, all ofwhom have a potential leadership role to play. It will further argue that traditional models of ethical leadershipdo not fully encompass this diversity of leadership sources, which can be better addressed througha framework of collective decision making and collaborative action. In so doing, the paper will draw togetherethical leadership with other strands of public management leadership theory. After defining theconcept of ethical leadership, the paper will map out the ethics network in local government and will categorisestakeholders into different groups. The ethics map will then be discussed in terms of relational leadershipand communities of practice. It concludes by offering strategies for future research

The concept of state capture, which is widely used when speaking about corruption in transitional democracies,defines illegitimate and non-transparent influence on state policy development. Though widely-spread inLithuania, this phenomenon still has not been studied thoroughly by Lithuanian scholars. The phenomenon ofstate capture in Lithuania is analyzed in this article emphasizing three main aspects: its' prevalence, forms andreasons. After the short introduction on state capture the authors analyze this phenomenon using the Lithuaniancase study, which is based on the analyses of legal acts, other surveys, scientific papers, and the interview withrepresentatives of the Transparency International Lithuanian Chapter. The analysis showed that level of statecapture in Lithuania decreased during the period of 1999 – 2002 but increased in 2005; however, there are notenough data to confirm the latter conclusion. Institutions mostly affected by state capture are legislative (Seimas),executive (Government), judicial and political parties. Business enterprises, separate individuals and foreigncountries (especially Russia) sought to influence the formation of public policy in corrupt ways in Lithuania.

Article methodically analyses external and internal obstacles for further development of civil service inLithuania.Most important challenges are identified as the need for change of existing governance paradigm from administrativeto management, and this need is coming from dynamic changes in XXI century and society' s growingdemand for democratic governance. Second challenge is identified as narrowing professional specialisation ofpoliticians that raises the need for specific competency in political decision making.Second half of article identifies and analyses following essential internal challenges for civil service in Lithuania:value system that doesnot match management practice; mismatch between raised strategic goals and existinghuman capital; too strong juridical regulation of civil service; lack of leadership and management skills; poorlyorganized system for competency development and retention; poorly specialised employment system; limitedmaterial and immaterial opportunities to motivate employees.

Describing contemporary problems of coordinationbetween monetary and fiscal policy inthe European Union (the EU) as a whole and ineach particular member state it is easy to noticethat the monetary policy mechanisms are muchbetter protected from biases created by the politicalcycle. The implementation of the conceptof the central bank independence in various nationalmutations and the European Central Bankversion introduced more stability into the Europeanmonetary policy though it did not solvethe problem of transparency of that policy.

The behaviour of woven fabrics for military clothing was evaluated using punch loading investigations under theconditions similar to those during real garment wear; i.e. in which plane material sustains biaxial deformation. Duringthe experiment specially prepared specimens were loaded with the punch up to tearing. They were loaded also with thesame punch for sustained creep process. Creep tests were carried out with dry and wet specimens. Mechanical stabilityof textile materials was evaluated by relative values of creep test parameters. For the evaluation of these parameters thespecial test unit created at Kaunas University of Technology was used. The objects of the investigation were wovenfabrics from cotton – PES blended yarns, with camouflage printing typical for military clothing. Two samples of testedmaterials were water repellent. The water repellent treatment improved mechanical stability of textile material, so waterrepellent fabrics are in preference to outdoor training clothing.

Beyond any doubt, the division of tax charges should be just and, thus, the tax legislation, similarly asthe tax system, should be established so as to meet the standard of justice. However, the ethic standard ofjustice causes significant complications in the legislative practice. These mainly result from the fact thatthere is no confidence in the idea of just taxation. The reasons why the principle of just taxation cannot betrusted are different for the legislator and different for the taxpayer. The legislator's distrust stems, above all,from fear that it might not be possible to connect the just taxation with effectiveness in fulfilling the incomefunction. In the legislative practice a strong wrong belief continues to be shared that the just taxationamounts to the reducing of tax proceeds. Whereas the fear of the taxpayers that the system of tax chargesapplies to results from their awareness which has been developed and enhanced long enough to show thatthe legislator, while referring to the concept of justice, too often carries out reforms that contradict it. The taxjustice – as an argument underlying the structure of the tax system – is employed much too frequently tomask the fiscal interest of the State, that is the effective fulfillment of the income function. What is importantjust as well is the fact that the ethical postulate of just taxation can provide the legislator with groundsto formulate various courses of action and, as a result, various tax law solutions.There is a variety of tax rules that can be deemed to incorporate the postulate of justice [1]. However, amore complicated question arises whether the legislator can put the just taxation into practice by referring tothe idea of justice. This has always raised doubts [2].

The article analyses main features of processes of political/administrative decision initiation and evaluationin Lithuanian municipalities.Demand of development of decision-making process in municipalities was inspired by: a) decentralization;b) changes in the institutional structure of municipalities; c) economic/social partner and municipalitiescooperation in making important to communities municipal decisions. The most relevant areas of decision-making improvement are analyzed using methods of sociological survey and organizational structureanalyses. Results of the research shows that a great number of Lithuanian municipalities strives to ensurehigh quality of decision making and suggestion discussing. Nevertheless, it is very common for municipalitieswhile reacting to the problems to thrust decisions, to form the policy and make decisions instead ofarriving at consensus and decision planning.