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Information technology (IT) has been widely applied across many economic sectors in order to increase competitiveness and reduce costs. This paper identifies that uptake of IT within construction is low. It is argued that significant barriers preventing construction organizations from investing in IT include uncertainty concerning the identification and measurement of benefits associated with applications. In particular, it is argued that difficulties in quantifying benefits associated with improved information availability and decision making prevent effective IT cost/benefit analysis. Existing approaches to evaluating IT within construction are reviewed. A framework is presented which identifies metrics by which IT impacts both management and operational processes within construction in order to deliver value. An evaluation methodology tailored to one specific IT application, high‐density bar coding in maintenance management, is presented to illustrate the quantification of both the costs and benefits of applying IT.

Since the early 1960s, the construction industry has been continually criticized for its low productivity and poor quality. Throughout this period, it has been widely recognized that building design has a significant impact on construction performance. As a result, considerable research and industry efforts have been focused on improving information and activities in the building design process. This paper reports the findings of a study which investigated how design imperatives affect design information and design activities. First, design imperatives are defined. Then, an analysis of their determining influence on design information and design activities are provided. Next, it is explained how design imperatives, rather than information and activities, constrain productivity and quality by limiting production options. In conclusion, it is argued that design imperatives have a greater influence on productivity and quality than the industry in which design is carried out.

This paper presents the findings of a one‐year study concerned with the development and testing of an information storage tool designed to empower maintenance operatives on location by means of low cost 2D barcodes. A recurring problem for maintenance engineers is the inability to access reliable and in‐depth information about products or assemblies when on location. The scope of information which might be required is often difficult to foresee. Information about plant, distribution and cabling systems can be complex and involve sizeable amounts of data provided by the manufacturer. Added to this is the maintenance history which accrues to each and every item within a facility. The study sought to establish whether there was a low‐cost method for making both product information and maintenance history accessible on the job. Findings from the study suggest that 2D barcoding is one of several possible solutions which can provide practical benefits for a maintenance management programme bringing direct and indirect cost savings.

Discusses the implications of auto‐ID technology advances in the area of facilities management. Advocates the use of auto‐ID for the development of “building intelligence”, whereby information can be obtained locally without reliance on a networked information system. Barcoding, often thought of as a rather static technology, is in fact undergoing quite radical changes which enable the codes to store massive amounts of information. This low cost information storage system is one of a number of auto‐ID solutions which require further development, particularly in the area of standards, if information is to be genuinely exchangeable between manufacturers, contractors and building owners. Describes some of the work currently being undertaken at the University of Reading concerned with the introduction of auto‐ID standards in construction and facilities management.

This paper presents an updated summary of a meta-analysis of qualitative research on parenting children with disabilities published over the last 50 years. In this summary, we explore whether shifts in academic discourse and changes in professional training are reflected in research on parenting and/or the experiences of parents who are the subject of such research. The detailed findings of the original analysis were published in Volume 7 of Research in Social Science and Disability.

An extensive literature search was conducted, and 79 peer-reviewed qualitative studies on the experience of parenting a child with a disability were included in the sample. Themes were extracted from the reviewed literature and compared across decades.

The findings of the present review suggest that some aspects of the parenting experience have changed very little. In particular, parents continue to experience negative reactions such as stress and anomie, especially early in their children’s lives, and socially imposed barriers such as unhelpful professionals and a lack of needed services continue to create problems and inspire an entrepreneurial response. In addition, stigmatizing encounters with others continue to be a common occurrence. In contrast to earlier decades, studies conducted in more recent years have begun to use the social model of disability as an analytic frame and also increasingly report that parents are questioning and challenging the concept of “normal” itself.

Additional improvements are needed in professional education and services to reduce the negative reactions experienced by parents of children with disabilities. The findings of this meta-analysis can serve as a guide to future research on parenting children with disabilities.

This chapter reviews qualitative research on parenting children with disabilities published over the last 50 years to explore whether shifts in academic discourse and changes in professional training have affected research on parenting and/or the experiences of parents who are the subject of such research.

An extensive literature search was conducted, and 78 peer-reviewed, qualitative studies on the experience of parenting a child with a disability were included in the sample. Themes were extracted from the reviewed literature and compared across decades.

The findings of the present review suggest that some aspects of the parenting experience have changed very little. In particular, parents continue to experience negative reactions such as stress and anomie, especially early in their children’s lives, and socially imposed barriers such as unhelpful professionals, and a lack of needed services continue to create problems and inspire an entrepreneurial response. In addition, stigmatizing encounters with others continue to be a common occurrence. In contrast to earlier decades, studies conducted in more recent years have begun to use the social model of disability as an analytic frame and also increasingly report that parents are questioning and challenging the concept of “normal” itself.

Additional improvements are needed in professional education and services to reduce the negative reactions experienced by parents of children with disabilities.

The findings of this meta-analysis can serve as a guide to future research on parenting children with disabilities.

The chapter tries to understand how nuclear tests and the radiation fallouts in their aftermath can lead to cancer. It seeks to explore how our diseased ecological systems have resulted in silencing the birdsong and the spreading of cancer in the Anthropocene with reference to Terry Tempest Williams' (An environmentalist and Utah naturalist) two memoirs – “‘Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place” and “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice.” It would also try to factor in connections between climate change, pandemics like the COVID-19, and the onslaught of other terminal illnesses like cancer, all a result of mankind's anthropocentric hubris and domination of nature.

Mine would be a qualitative approach wherein I will refer to the original two texts mentioned for primary material and other sources for secondary references and analyze them from an ecofeminist perspective.

We need to establish the health of the Environment through reduced usage of nuclear weapons and by developing a language and an environmental praxis that doesn't separate the subject and the object and only then we can usher in biological egalitarianism, and restore the song of the whistling thrush again. We also need to revere our Mother Earth and see to it that she maintains her ecological balance through homeostasis.

The paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of the ban on short trading of stocks on the London Stock Exchange, introduced in September 2008 in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In particular, the paper investigates how far the ban succeeded in achieving the objectives set out by the regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The approach involves comparing the returns on a portfolio of stocks covered by the short-sales ban with a portfolio of financial stocks exempt from the ban as a control group.

The paper presents evidence to show the effects to the ban to have been mostly confined to a large first-day return. Beyond that, there is some evidence that volatility was diverted from stocks covered by the ban to those for which short-sales were still permitted. Investors seem to have been wary of buying banned stocks when good news arrived, presumably out of fear that they may be overpriced.

All event studies are subject to the curse of the counterfactual: what would have happened if the event had not occurred? The problem is especially acute here, however, because the background was the most turbulent in modern economic and financial history.

The paper shows the limited value of short-sales bans over anything beyond the very short-term.

This paper helps to inform regulatory decision-making in financial crises.

Concepts equip the mind with thought, provide our theories with ideas, and assign variables for testing our hypotheses. Much of contemporary research deals with narrowly circumscribed concepts, termed simple concepts herein, which are the grist for much empirical inquiry in the field. In contrast to simple concepts, which exhibit a kind of unity, complex concepts are structures of simple concepts, and in certain instances unveil meaning going beyond simple concepts or their aggregation. When expressed in hylomorphic structures, complex concepts achieve unique ontological status and serve particular explanatory capabilities. We develop the philosophical foundation for hylomorphic structures and show how they are rooted in dispositions, dispositional causality, and various mind–body trade-offs. Examples are provided for this emerging perspective on “Big concepts” or “Big Ideas.”