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Article
Publication date: 13 November 2007

Bousmaha Baiche, Chris Kendrick and Ray Ogden

The purpose of this paper is based on recent research at Oxford Brookes University which explored how metal building envelopes can provide high levels of air‐tightness.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is based on recent research at Oxford Brookes University which explored how metal building envelopes can provide high levels of air‐tightness.

Design/methodology/approach

An intensive research programme tested many of the foremost cladding systems used in the UK. Over 500 individual tests have produced reliable data on the performance of different joint types. This paper summarises that data and identifies key design issues and solutions.

Findings

The research has demonstrated that metal building envelopes can provide very high levels of air‐tightness providing that they are properly engineered and assembled. It also presents compelling evidence, based on whole building thermal dynamic simulations using the test data, that further increases in air‐tightness are achievable; far more energy can be saved by doing this than by increasing thermal insulation even further.

Research limitations/implications

The testing programme concentrated on steel cladding systems, both built‐up and composite panels, with technical assessment of different joints assemblies using a dedicated purpose‐built air‐tightness test rig.

Practical implications

As this research and other studies have shown that far more energy can be saved by achieving high levels of air‐tightness than by increasing thermal insulation even further, it suggests that a major change in regulatory strategy is now due.

Originality/value

The value of the paper lies in the originality of the testing programme and method. Although BSRIA has been testing whole completed buildings for air‐tightness using large mobile fan units pressurising the building to 50 Pa, it is the first time that a variety of cladding systems have been tested for air‐tightness on a large scale and in a laboratory environment; BRE carried out air‐tightness testing on few steel cladding systems on a smaller scale.

Details

Structural Survey, vol. 25 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-080X

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Article
Publication date: 1 December 2004

Diane Crone, Linda Heaney, Rhiannon Herbert, Jennifer Morgan, Lynne Johnston and Rob Macpherson

People with long‐term mental health problems have a considerably higher risk of physical illness and premature mortality than the general population. This paper describes a survey…

96

Abstract

People with long‐term mental health problems have a considerably higher risk of physical illness and premature mortality than the general population. This paper describes a survey of lifestyle behaviours and health perceptions of people with severe mental illness (SMI) living in Gloucester. Findings were compared with data from the general population of Gloucestershire to reveal significant health differences that are currently being addressed through a multi‐agency health alliance established to initiate targeted health promoting opportunities for people with severe mental illness in the community.

Details

Journal of Public Mental Health, vol. 3 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5729

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Publication date: 24 October 2023

Gary Spraakman and Winifred O'Grady

The purpose of this explanatory research was to understand how firms align strategic planning and budgeting both ex ante and ex post. After the literature review indicated that…

Abstract

The purpose of this explanatory research was to understand how firms align strategic planning and budgeting both ex ante and ex post. After the literature review indicated that there was a shortcoming in explaining how the alignment was done, we interviewed management accountants at 20 large, profitable, stock-market listed firms with head offices in the Toronto area of Canada. To understand practice through interviews, we used qualitative, multi-case field research to address our research question, how do firms achieve alignment between their strategic plans and budgets, both ex ante and ex post? Our findings and contribution were that, rather than multiple processes (strategy, strategic planning, budgeting, and forecasting), strategic planning and budgeting are part of a single process. Alignment of strategic planning and budgeting is undertaken prior to the beginning of the fiscal year (ex ante) and during the fiscal year (ex post). Both provide opportunities to change ineffective strategies, strategic plans, and actions to minimize financial harm. Ex ante and ex post alignments enable the accomplishment of firms’ financial objectives through explicit and verifiable decisions. With forecasting heretofore being an unclear and ambiguous subprocess, this chapter has made it transparent and manageable in assisting with accomplishing the strategy, strategic plan, and budget.

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Advances in Management Accounting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-917-8

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Article
Publication date: 1 May 1986

Tony Woodward

Ladies and gentlemen. Unlike our previous speaker I believe that the subject we are discussing this morning is so important that I intend to be perfectly serious and not attempt…

25

Abstract

Ladies and gentlemen. Unlike our previous speaker I believe that the subject we are discussing this morning is so important that I intend to be perfectly serious and not attempt to entertain you with spurious humour.

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The Electronic Library, vol. 4 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

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Article
Publication date: 1 September 1909

In the days of our childhood we were told that the process of picking tea in China involved a preliminary purificatory ritual on the part of the picker. Thus, he ate no fish…

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Abstract

In the days of our childhood we were told that the process of picking tea in China involved a preliminary purificatory ritual on the part of the picker. Thus, he ate no fish, indulged in baths, and dressed himself in clean clothes as essential preliminaries before pursuing his occupation. This may have been true so far as the tea that was to be consumed by the Chinese went. So far as this country was concerned, it is on record that somewhere about the year of grace 1850 the ingenious Celestial was sending us consignments alleged to contain silkworm‐dung faced with tea‐dust and a little Prussian blue, sand, and gum, and so forth, a decoction of this being drunk by certain inhabitants of this happy land under the firm belief that they were partaking of the “cup that cheers but not inebriates.” Such frauds were possible, as at that time but little attention had been paid to the subject of food chemistry, and no attention at all to the kind of food that was being eaten by the people of London and elsewhere. The subject of food was chiefly dealt with from the point of view of the requirements of the inland revenue, and so long as the Government obtained the duty that was demanded, but little heed was paid to the quality of the product taxed. Very recently we have had arriving at the docks a carge of foods from Hankow, China, consisting largely of frozen pigs. We are assured that these redoubtable porkers have been fed on rice, and while alive have been carefully tended. It is not stated that they were fed from golden troughs, or that they were slaughtered by, say, members of the Chinese aristocracy, but it is stated and assumed that they are all that any self‐respecting Englishman can possibly desire. A point in their favour is also made of the cheapness of the pork yielded by them. At the present time our food is nothing if not cheap, and “cheap food” has become a party cry whose success depends on the obsession of the minds of a large number of ill‐informed persons with the idea that the only attribute of a food which is worthy of consideration is its cheapness. The fact that we are receiving foodstuffs of the nature of meat from China is one that demands special and more serious consideration from the authorities in view of its possible prejudicial influence on public health, and the important changes that may take place in the nature and origin of our meat supplies. The consignment in question consists of game of various kinds, eggs, ducks, and pork. About 4,600 frozen pig carcases were unloaded. It is asserted that the pigs were fed on rice, or at all events on clean food, and there seem no grounds for disbelieving the truth of this statement; but the increase in this trade which is looked for from those financially interested in it does not necessarily mean that the goodness of future consignments is assured. The fact that the trade may greatly develop makes it difficult to see how a proper supervision can be maintained over the Chinese farmers who will presumably furnish the material of future consignments. Inspection in China is, however, imperatively demanded in the interests of public health on this side. Only a small proportion of the consignment we refer to has been put on the market up to the present, and this was subjected to a very careful and thorough inspection at this end before it was put on the market. The process of inspecting every carcase that may be landed is one that from the mere amount of time and labour involved presents serious difficulties, and the thawing process necessarily leads to a certain amount of deterioration. But if the trade in Chinese pork increases, and the resources of China to supply pigs to the world's markets are practically illimitable, we do not see how it will be possible to adequately inspect every consignment that comes across, while on the other hand no country requires more careful looking after than China in this respect. Inspection on the other side must apparently be left in the hands of the exporters, a most undesirable course to adopt, and one that should therefore not be encouraged. It need hardly be pointed out that the Chinese authorities can or will do nothing in the matter. For a system of inspection to be thorough and adequate, and such inspection is absolutely necessary in this case, it is needful to have inspectors who are experts at their work, capable of exercising independent judgment, and who are above suspicion. It is hopeless to expect to find such people among the ranks of the ordinary Chinese. The farmers whose stock and premises are to be inspected must also be people with some elementary notions of what is required of them. It need hardly he pointed out that no such state of affairs exists in China, and indeed, under present circumstances, is unthinkable, nor is it right that we in this country should run risks while a system of adequate inspection is worked out; in other words, that we should educate the Chinese farmer for his own benefit while running risks ourselves. It is stated that the stockyards and plant are well adapted for the work they have to do, and this we readily believe, but in an Oriental country in which there are no such things as health laws in existence, and where each man in this respect may do very much as seems right in his own eyes, the fact that we are obtaining from it an important article of food wherewith to feed large numbers of our poorer population is not one that can be viewed without serious apprehension as to the possible consequences. Stress has been laid on the fact that the pork is cheap, and that when an adequate system of inspection has been devised, the complete thawing out of the consignment will be no longer necessary and that Chinese pork will rank with the meat supplies that we obtain from the colonies. We have heard of the Greek Kalends, and it is possible that by the time they arrive the Chinese pig breeder and coolie will be a sufficiently cleanly person to be trusted with matters of this sort, but until that time does arrive we most strongly dissent from any line of action that would tend to shift any responsibility on to his shoulders. The pig is a dirty feeder, and the Chinese variety of the genus sus has the fullest opportunity for indulging his propensities for filth. He is also an animal peculiarly liable to various forms of disease of which swine fever is not the least objectionable. The care that is taken by the local authorities in this country regarding swine is sufficient evidence of this. But to make the British farmer conform to certain regulations while permitting pigs to be imported from China where no such regulations, or indeed, any at all, are enforced, seems to us to be the limit of hardship and absurdity. Sir PATRICK MANSON in the year 1881, at the request of the Chinese Government, made a careful examination of the bazaar pigs in Amoy. As a result of this examination he came to the conclusion that the flesh of such pigs was not sufficiently healthy to allow of its being safely eaten by Europeans at least. Though the proportion of pigs affected by Trichina spiralis was about 1 per cent., his conclusion was that with pork “cooked as the natives cook it, there can be little danger, but a roast leg of pork cooked in foreign style would certainly be a most dangerous dish.” The method adopted by natives was to cut the pork into small pieces and very thoroughly cook it. These were bazaar pigs, and of Amoy, which is far south of Hankow, but the bazaar pig in Hankow is probably not very different to his southern brother, and the conditions now in China are probably not much altered for the better since 1881. The pigs for the English market must be obtained from native breeders, and unless these breeders exercise unusual care in the feeding and housing of their stock, it is unlikely that any somewhat perfunctory system of inspection will do much towards‐mitigating the danger arising from The consumption of their pork It may be remarked that no people are more conservative than the Chinese, and to expect a Chinese peasant to radically alter his method of treating his stock, for reasons that he is entirely unable to appreciate, because there happens to be a market in England for the pork is really expecting too much. Nor does it seem that a consular invoice would be any real remedy. The time for insisting on consular invoices would probably be at the end of another series of “revelations,” and moreover, to attempt to make a consul professionally responsible for the soundness of large quantities of such pork, would be to impose a strange burden upon him.

Details

British Food Journal, vol. 11 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0007-070X

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Article
Publication date: 1 December 2003

Chris Hackley

In commercial applications the somewhat passive notion of marketing research is increasingly being superseded by the more active idea of consumer insight. In advertising this…

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Abstract

In commercial applications the somewhat passive notion of marketing research is increasingly being superseded by the more active idea of consumer insight. In advertising this subtle change of emphasis is captured in the evolution of the account planning role and the associated “philosophy” of creative advertising development. The account planner is ostensibly responsible not only for commissioning and/or conducting advertising and consumer research, she or he is also responsible for integrating the resulting consumer insights into the creative advertising development process. Account planners deploy their consumer insights to act as “midwives” to creativity in the sense that they are responsible for persuading creative staff to take research‐derived consumer insights on board. This paper draws on recent depth interviews with advertising professionals and previously published research to explore the process of integrating research‐based insights into creative advertising development. The overall aim is to further elaborate the tasks and effectiveness of the account planner.

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Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 21 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-4503

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 1984

Danielle Mihram

The third International Conference on Data Bases in the Humanities and Social Sciences was held on June 10–12, 1983, at Rutgers University, sponsored by the Rutgers University…

23

Abstract

The third International Conference on Data Bases in the Humanities and Social Sciences was held on June 10–12, 1983, at Rutgers University, sponsored by the Rutgers University Libraries, with financial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Rutgers University.

Details

Reference Services Review, vol. 12 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

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Article
Publication date: 31 December 2009

30

Abstract

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Journal of Children's Services, vol. 4 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-6660

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Article
Publication date: 27 March 2007

Patrick Hoverstadt, Ian Kendrick and Steve Morlidge

The paper sets out to apply the concepts of cybernetics and the control of probabilistic systems to the issue of performance measurement within organizations.

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper sets out to apply the concepts of cybernetics and the control of probabilistic systems to the issue of performance measurement within organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

Conventional approaches to Performance Measurement have been based on a mechanistic “target‐plan‐variance” model that was introduced into mainstream management practice in the 1950s. It has been subject to criticism from within both the academic and practitioners community over the last 50 years but has proved remarkably resistant to change. Systems ideas, particularly those emanating in the field of cybernetics, have not been successfully applied in this field because, it is argued, the concepts have been misunderstood and falsely blamed for the perceived failings of conventional practice.

Findings

The paper identifies the shortcomings in “tradition” approaches to performance measurement in organizations and demonstrates how the application of cybernetics concepts can address these shortcomings.

Originality/value

Contrary to received wisdom in parts of the academic community, cybernetics potentially provides the intellectual building‐blocks for a new paradigm, based on a fundamental appreciation of what is required to manage the interdependencies between an organization and its environment and between its constituent parts. It holds the promise of developing a set of practice that is not only more efficient and effective as a control philosophy, but also more sensitive to the human need for self‐determination in the workplace.

Details

Measuring Business Excellence, vol. 11 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1368-3047

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Article
Publication date: 23 July 2021

Romy Menghao Jia, Jia Tina Du and Yuxiang Chris Zhao

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals' health information seeking is an important topic across multiple disciplines and areas. The aim of…

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Abstract

Purpose

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals' health information seeking is an important topic across multiple disciplines and areas. The aim of this systematic review is to create a holistic view of sexual and gender minority individuals' health information seeking reported in multidisciplinary studies, with regard to the types of health information LGBTQ+ individuals sought and information sources they used, as well as the factors influencing their health information seeking behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

The review is based on the literature search in 10 major academic databases. A set of inclusion and exclusion criteria was applied to identify studies that provide evidence on LGBTQ+ individuals' health information seeking behavior. The studies were first screened by title and abstract to determine whether they met the inclusion criteria. The full texts of each relevant study were obtained to confirm whether the exclusion criteria were met. The reference lists of the included studies were manually scanned. The relevant information was then extracted from selected articles and analyzed using thematic content analysis.

Findings

A seed set of 3,122 articles published between 1997 and 2020 was evaluated, and 46 total articles were considered for further analysis. The review results show that two major categories of health information sought by LGBTQ+ individuals were sexual and nonsexual, which were further classified into 17 specific types. In terms of health information sources, researchers have reported that online resources, interpersonal sources and traditional media were frequently used. Moreover, 25 factors affecting LGBTQ+ individuals' health information seeking were identified from the literature.

Originality/value

Through evidence-based understanding, this review preliminarily bridged the knowledge gap in understanding the status quo of studies on LGBTQ+ individuals' health information seeking and proposed the potential research directions that information science researchers could contribute to this important area.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 78 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

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