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1 – 10 of over 20000Miles Keeping and David Shiers
Reviews current key areas of acknowledged best practice in “green” design and building management systems including the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment…
Abstract
Reviews current key areas of acknowledged best practice in “green” design and building management systems including the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method, Eco labelling and “green” building materials profiling systems. Identifies and discusses specific problems and “green” refurbishment techniques using examples drawn from recent case studies from commercial portfolios: energy and resource use; internal environmental services and systems; planned “green” maintenance programmes and techniques; “green” building management issues; and cost analysis of “green” refurbishment; cost effectiveness, viability and recovery of investment. The examples cited are from recent case studies undertaken by the Environmental Research Group at Oxford Brookes University as part of an ongoing collaboration with a number of major commercial property owners.
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David Oglethorpe and Graeme Heron
The increasing focus on environmental sustainability and social responsibility within business agendas often leads to expectations that solutions lie in the downscaling…
Abstract
Purpose
The increasing focus on environmental sustainability and social responsibility within business agendas often leads to expectations that solutions lie in the downscaling, decentralising and deconsolidating of supply chains and logistics systems. This is no more acute than within the climate change agenda, the single biggest environmental challenge to industry today. The purpose of this paper is to challenge these notions and suggest that environmental burden actually decreases across increasing logistical scale and supply chain sophistication.
Design/methodology/approach
Primary and secondary life cycle analysis and carbon auditing case evidence detailing and describing operations throughout the food supply chain is used to show what happens to resource efficiency when we chose possible “downscaling” routes.
Findings
The paper contends that the principle of economic efficiency leading to environmental efficiency (or “lean is green”) is more generally applicable against our previous expectations and that supply chain sophistication and logistical scale is more likely to lead to environmental benefit rather than cost.
Practical implications
From a commercial and industrial point of view, the paper provides evidence to promote conventional supply chain management good practice as a means of driving the demand needed for the technological change required to achieve climate change targets. This is good news for suppliers and distributors, particularly in the light of global economic conditions. From a consumer and policy perspective, the upshot of the paper is a call for more pragmatic thinking and a reminder that critical evidence‐based decision making should be used when judging how best to formulate supply strategies.
Originality/value
This paper represents a fresh way of thinking utilising more robust evidence amongst a set of issues that have become precariously muddled and confused.
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Kerry Jacobs and Stephen P. Walker
This paper explores the issue of accounting and accountability in the spirituality and practices of an ecumenical Christian group – the Iona Community. Fundamental to the…
Abstract
This paper explores the issue of accounting and accountability in the spirituality and practices of an ecumenical Christian group – the Iona Community. Fundamental to the existence and operation of the Iona Community is their Rule, which requires all full‐members to account to each other for their use of money and time. This paper explores the development of that Rule and how it is actualised. It examines the accounting practices of individuals in the Community and the distinction between individualising and socialising accountabilities. Findings reported challenge the assumption that accounting has no role in a religious or sacred setting. The study also serves to illustrate that the distinction between individualising and socialising accountability is not clear. In the Iona Community structures of individualising accountability were subject to resistance. Structures of socialising accountability, while perceived as positive and empowering, had the potential to function as forms of internalised surveillance and domination.
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A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential…
Abstract
Purpose
A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential tax base, and undervalue what they do measure. The purpose of this paper is to present more comprehensive and accurate measures of land rents and values, and several modes of raising revenues from them besides the conventional property tax.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper identifies 16 elements of land's taxable capacity that received authorities either trivialize or omit. These 16 elements come in four groups.
Findings
In Group A, Elements 1‐4 correct for the downward bias in standard sources. In Group B, Elements 5‐10 broaden the concepts of land and rent beyond the conventional narrow perception, while Elements 11‐12 estimate rents to be gained by abating other kinds of taxes. In Group C, Elements 13‐14 explain how using the land tax, since it has no excess burden, uncaps feasible tax rates. In Group D, Elements 15‐16 define some moot possibilities that may warrant further exploration.
Originality/value
This paper shows how previous estimates of rent and land values have been narrowly limited to a fraction of the whole, thus giving a false impression that the tax capacity is low. The paper adds 14 elements to the traditional narrow “single tax” base, plus two moot elements advanced for future consideration. Any one of these 16 elements indicates a much higher land tax base than economists commonly recognize today. Taken together they are overwhelming, and cast an entirely new light on this subject.
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Anthony S. Humphrey, G. Don Taylor, John S. Usher and Gary L. Whicker
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not driver life, carrier performance, and customer service can be improved as a result of the use of a technique called…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not driver life, carrier performance, and customer service can be improved as a result of the use of a technique called yard‐stacking in the truckload trucking industry. The technique seeks to find ways to provide level freight availability during normal weekly cycles in an effort to seek improvement relative to all constituencies.
Design/methodology/approach
Simulation is used to examine the use of yard‐stacking on Fridays to provide additional freight on weekends, which is generally much less available than on weekdays. In this technique, before being dispatched on Friday for a long‐haul, a driver initially picks up a load to make a short “dray” move from the customer site to the carrier's closest terminal yard. During the weekend, another driver picks up the drayed load. In this research, we evaluate the potential of weekend yard‐stacking under a variety of scenarios.
Findings
The paper shows that a carrier's adaptation of weekend freight leveling can be beneficial to both trucking companies and their customers, while remaining relatively neutral to drivers.
Research limitations/implications
Carriers may be able to utilize Friday yard‐stacking to improve their cost efficiency, driver satisfaction and customer performance.
Originality/value
This research extends the knowledge base of truckload freight imbalance problems. It was industrially motivated by J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc., one of the world's largest truckload carriers, who provided freight data and conceptual guidance.
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Miles Madison Harvey and Lucretia E. Penny Pence
In this five-week study, two teacher educators and one preservice teacher brought console and virtual reality games into an elective middle school language arts course in order to…
Abstract
In this five-week study, two teacher educators and one preservice teacher brought console and virtual reality games into an elective middle school language arts course in order to explore aspects of literacy as a social practice. To the extent possible in a public school, researchers sought to construct the classroom as an affinity space, treat the games as literature worthy of thoughtful response, and position students as co-investigators. Small groups of students played games and reflected on their experiences in writing, class discussion, and a culminating interview. The evolving discourse was framed with questions designed to evoke student explanations of their thinking related to their play experiences. Thematic analysis of student writing, researcher field notes, artifacts from large group meetings, and final interviews revealed the importance of community to the gamers' progress in the game and to their well-being in the classroom.
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THE airborne Eros II Collision Avoidance System (CAS) designed and produced by McDonnell Douglas Corporation is actuated when the computer calculates the aircraft is within 25 sec…
Abstract
THE airborne Eros II Collision Avoidance System (CAS) designed and produced by McDonnell Douglas Corporation is actuated when the computer calculates the aircraft is within 25 sec of or ½ mile of another aircraft whichever event occurs first. At the same time, the pilot of one of the aircraft gets a command to climb while the pilot of the other aircraft is instructed to descend, thus avoiding a potential mid‐air collision.
Pierluigi Milone and Flaminia Ventura
This chapter gives several explanations as to why peasant agriculture results in sturdy and sustainable growth – it also identifies the factors that undermine this capacity…
Abstract
This chapter gives several explanations as to why peasant agriculture results in sturdy and sustainable growth – it also identifies the factors that undermine this capacity. Peasant agriculture entails a constructive capacity: it includes mechanisms that are used to make agriculture grow and to face adverse conditions. And when the ‘normal’ level of resilience does not suffice, the constructive capacity is employed to redesign and materially rebuild agriculture through the development of new products, services and markets. This capacity leads to a new farmer’s empowerment that have in the multifunctionality the key to go beyond the classical agricultural system where the farming capacity is completely expressed out of the farm leaving farmers to do only mechanical operation. The chapter illustrates several examples of how farmers are reclaiming control over their own resources by defining a new level of farm autonomy and by oriented their farm towards multifunctional activities and the concept of peasants agriculture. The ‘new peasantry’ is consolidating itself and becoming a highly effective alternative: a viable way of addressing the multifaceted crisis that beleaguers farmers, the increasing strictures they face and the ongoing challenges of sustainability.
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There has been much discussion of the subject of contaminated land in the academic and professional press, particularly since the proposal to register sites subject to…
Abstract
There has been much discussion of the subject of contaminated land in the academic and professional press, particularly since the proposal to register sites subject to contaminants prior to the enactment of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Much of this work has focused on aspects of the regulatory regime such as liability for pollution and its remediation and on the consequences of owning a contaminated site in terms of the site’s value. There has been relatively little discussion, other than in engineering journals, on site investigations and how these can assist potential purchasers of land in avoiding acquiring liabilities with a contaminated site. Similarly, there have been few articles concerning the liability of professional advisers in this respect. Seeks to explore both of these issues by examining the role of conveyancing professionals in England and Wales. It contains discussion of how liabilities for pollution may be acquired and reports primary research which indicates that conveyancers may not, in general, be exercising their professional duties to protect clients’ interests adequately.
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