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Experiments with political liberation and democratisation took place during the 1980s in the Middle East. However, the movement towards significant democratic change was not completed and authoritarian rule continued throughout the region. Now we are witnessing overt dissatisfaction with several authoritarian regimes across the Middle East. Prompted by Tunisia's successful revolution in January 2011, Cairo's citizens began an occupation of Tahrir Square on Tuesday 25 January 2011, the Day of Revolt, to protest against President Mubarak's rule. Protestors placed themselves at a frontier where democratic rights and space were to be fought for. Prior to the protests, Tahrir Square had been closed off by the government for many years, arguably to prevent precisely such public assemblies and to hold the public at the edge of democracy. I will present an argument that the 2011 Revolt in Egypt created a moment of enlightenment, tanwir , despite the Egyptian Government's assertion in the 1990s that it was an enlightened government. The enlightenment of the 2011 revolt was not one based on Western cultural meta-narratives of universal and rational knowledge, but as Michel Foucault would suggest, enlightenment based on transforming critique into a form of transgression - a rupture. This rupture, a force formed by the will and actions of protestors to redistribute power, reconfigured boundaries according to new rules of knowledge and truth and presented a "kind of moral energy, wholly remarkable". This paper will also discuss how the rupturing allowed the public to reclaim Tahrir Square and opened it up as an agora - a democratic public outdoor room where bodies gather, debate, and collectively share opinions, how the boundary of exclusion was removed, and the occupation of Tahrir Square saw a new internal borderland established.

There is growing recognition of the cumulative impact that converging environmental, political, social and economic risks have on the ability of cities to function in times of shocks and stresses. While many frameworks and assessment tools have been developed to assess the technical resilience of the infrastructure of cities, there have been fewer attempts to holistically understand and map all the factors that interact to potentially produce functioning urban systems, including the role of institutions (both formal and informal). Applied integrated research is needed to understand the daily functioning, vulnerability and resilience of these rapidly growing cities amid chronic and acute stresses and shocks; to also understand why and how multiple risks and protective factors converge and interact to constrain or enable cities to fulfil their core functions in times of stability and crisis; and finally to produce operationally relevant recommendations that could inform interventions.

Fly ash generation, its utilization and safe disposal is a major problem faced by thermal power plants (TPP) in India. Despite several efforts of the government, the utilization of fly ash is reached to only 55% of the total fly ash generated and remaining 45% fly ash is still being dumped into poorly designed and maintained ash ponds. At present, fly ash is mainly being utilized for making cement, bricks, concrete, roads and small quantity in mine void filling. The consumption of fly ash in construction activity has reached to almost saturation level and there is not much potential to consume more fly ash in these segments. Mine void filling is the only potential area where bulk quantity of fly ash can be utilized and 100% utilization target can be achieved. This paper investigates the suitability of fly ash to be disposed off by mixing it with overburden (OB) dumps in coal mines. Characterization of both the OB dump material and fly ash were carried out in the laboratory. The compaction and shear tests were performed on OB dump material and the same mixed with 25% fly ash by volume as per the guidelines issued by Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change, Govt. of India. The stability condition of both OB dump and fly ash mixed OB dump at varying slope angles were analyzed using FLAC 3D slope stability software and dump angle were optimized for safe disposal of the fly ash. Article DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.20319/mijst.2017.32.105121 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

To establish the prevalence, risk factors and implications of suspected or confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection among healthcare workers in the United Kingdom (UK). Cross-sectional observational study. UK-based primary and secondary care. Healthcare workers aged ≥18 years working between 1 February and 25 May 2020. A composite endpoint of laboratory-confirmed diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, or self-isolation or hospitalisation due to suspected or confirmed COVID-19. Of 6,152 eligible responses, the composite endpoint was present in 1,806 (29.4%) healthcare workers, of whom 49 (0.8%) were hospitalised, 459 (7.5%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and 1,776 (28.9%) reported self-isolation. Overall, between 11,870 and 21,158 days of self-isolation were required by the cohort, equalling approximately 71 to 127 working days lost per 1,000 working days. The strongest risk factor associated with the presence of the primary composite endpoint was increasing frequency of contact with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE): 'Never' (reference), 'Rarely' (adjusted odds ratio 1.06, (95% confidence interval: [0.87-1.29])), 'Sometimes' (1.7 [1.37-2.10]), 'Often' (1.84 [1.28-2.63]), 'Always' (2.93, [1.75-5.06]). Additionally, several comorbidities (cancer, respiratory disease, and obesity); working in a 'doctors' role; using public transportation for work; regular contact with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients; and lack of PPE were also associated with the presence of the primary endpoint. A total of 1,382 (22.5%) healthcare workers reported lacking access to PPE items while having clinical contact with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases. Suspected or confirmed COVID-19 was more common in healthcare workers than in the general population and is associated with significant workforce implications. Risk factors included inadequate PPE, which was reported by nearly a quarter of healthcare workers. Governments and policymakers must ensure adequate PPE is available as well as developing strategies to mitigate risk for high-risk healthcare workers during future COVID-19 waves. [Abstract copyright: © 2021 Kua et al.]