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Modular construction is widely used for residential buildings of 4 to 8 storeys. In the context of open building systems, modular construction provides a systemised approach to design in which the benefits of prefabrication are maximised. There is demand to extend this form of construction to more than 12 storeys for residential buildings. This paper presents a review of modular technologies, and describes load tests and analysis on light steel modular walls that are used to justify the use of light steel technology to support higher loads.

For taller modular buildings, the effect of installation and geometric inaccuracies must be taken into account and it is proposed that maximum out of verticality of a vertical group of modules is 50mm relative to ground datum. Using these geometric tolerances, the notional horizontal force used to evaluate stability of a group of modules should be taken as a minimum of 1% of the applied vertical load on the modules. Robustness to accidental load effects is important in all high-rise buildings and it is proposed that the tie force in the connections between modules should be taken as not less than 30% of the total vertical load applied to the module in both horizontal directions.

In many security domains, the ‘human in the system’ is often a critical line of defence in identifying, preventing and responding to any threats (Saikayasit, Stedmon, & Lawson, 2015). Traditionally, such security domains are often focussed on mainstream public safety within crowded spaces and border controls, through to identifying suspicious behaviours, hostile reconnaissance and implementing counter-terrorism initiatives. More recently, with growing insecurity around the world, organisations have looked to improve their security risk management frameworks, developing concepts which originated in the health and safety field to deal with more pressing risks such as terrorist acts, abduction and piracy (Paul, 2018). In these instances, security is usually the specific responsibility of frontline personnel with defined roles and responsibilities operating in accordance with organisational protocols (Saikayasit, Stedmon, Lawson, & Fussey, 2012; Stedmon, Saikayasit, Lawson, & Fussey, 2013). However, understanding the knowledge that frontline security workers might possess and use requires sensitive investigation in equally sensitive security domains.

This chapter considers how to investigate knowledge elicitation in these sensitive security domains and underlying ethics in research design that supports and protects the nature of investigation and end-users alike. This chapter also discusses the criteria used for ensuring trustworthiness as well as assessing the relative merits of the range of methods adopted.

The literature has documented evidence that economic freedom is positively associated with economic growth, investment spending, income equality, employment, gender equality, etc. Economic freedom is also found to be associated with a country’s rule of law and legal regime. There is, however, little studies examining how economic freedom affects a firm’s performance such as firm valuation and profitability. The evidence presented in this study shows that economic freedom strengthens a firm’s valuation and profitability. Additionally, firms headquartered in emerging markets or younger firms from countries with higher levels of economic freedom experience higher valuation and profitability. That is, economic freedom is more beneficial for firms from emerging markets and is crucial to the success of early-stage firms.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

There is ample evidence that financial market development leads to economic growth. If improving labor rights can be shown to positively influence equity markets, then that, in turn, will lead to economic growth. The finance literature has examined the impact of a broader metric, namely, the Economic Freedom Index, on equity returns worldwide, and the evidence is mixed. This study focuses on one dimension of economic freedom: labor rights. Specifically, the study analyzes the impact of labor rights on national equity market indexes using the Labor Rights Index developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Fraser Institute (FI). Using panel regression analysis for 49 countries (for the OECD Index) and 76 countries (for the FI Index) over the period 1985–2014, the study finds that changes in labor rights have a statistically significant positive impact on equity returns, after controlling for business-cycle effects and time-fixed effects. The study also finds significant differences in the labor–rights–equity returns relationship between developed and less developed economies.

The effects of economic liberalization have been subject to academic and political discussion for many decades. The trade war between the United States and China brought new perspectives to this debate and raised the question: do fewer trade barriers and more economic freedom lead to better functioning societies? Following the perspective of the transaction cost theory, we argue that more economic freedom reduces non-productive expenses and allows private companies to improve the allocation of resources. It also allows more competition among companies, which facilitates access to funding. In this research, we use data of 1,248 publicly traded companies in the seven largest Latin American countries to analyze the effect OF increasing economic freedom on administrative expenses and financial. Our results indicate that, on average, increasing economic freedom allows the reduction of transaction costs and facilitates financial leverage for companies.

The purpose of this study is to examine and identify the predominant themes in the literature on economic freedom. The paper also highlights the key journals, leading authors, top countries and organisations in the literature on economic freedom.

This paper uses the Scopus database to examine 1,512 articles covering the disciplines of economics, finance, business and social sciences from 1942 to 2022. Vosviewer software is used for creating bibliometric networks.

The findings suggest that significant growth in the economic freedom literature has occurred in the last ten years. Considerable attention has been devoted to examining the relationship between economic freedom and growth. The paper also finds that most of the research on economic freedom has been undertaken in the context of developed countries.

This study is one of the first attempts to undertake a bibliometric analysis of economic freedom. The article also highlights the less-researched areas in the literature and thus provides directions for future research.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2023-0690.

This chapter is one of five chapters dedicated to anti-racism, specifically focusing on its conceptual foundations. Drawing from critical scholarship on ideas that have inspired political debates and policies about racism, I address key questions pertaining to anti-racism as an idea, policy framework and as a catalyst for sociopolitical action. This chapter engages with the fundamental principles that underpin anti-racism endeavours, ranging from community engagement to political activism and civil rights movements. It critically examines the ongoing debates on whether the goals of anti-racism, such as racial justice and dismantling of institutional racism/privilege, align with existing sociopolitical order. In addition, this chapter contributes to anti-racism scholarship that has evolved over the past five decades, by synthesising how anti-racism relates to various societal goals. Furthermore, this discussion incorporates themes such as the promotion of tolerance, equality, social justice and recognition within the context of anti-racism.

A large empirical literature has found positive effects of economic freedom on economic outcomes, such as output and per capita growth. However, several variables in the index are very likely to decline in conjunction with recessions. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether, in the absence of these variable, whether the positive relationship between economic freedom and economic output remains.

This paper makes use of a dynamic panel to compare the performance of economic freedom with and without variables endogenous to business cycles, which pertain to levels of government spending, rates of inflation, government borrowing and interest rates.

Two specifications fall in their statistical significance from the 1 to the 10 per cent level when variables relating to inflation are omitted. The worst case considered finds one specification size of the effect is still 66.3 per cent of the effect size of the standard measure of economic freedom.

These findings are consistent with this kind of endogeneity being a minor problem with the data set when imperfect identification strategies are used, but the issue should be strongly considered when business cycles are pertinent to a research question that makes use of economic freedom data.

This paper contributes to the small literature focused on the robustness of the effect of economic freedom on output, while raising a specific concern that has not yet been explicitly addressed.

OUR various accounts of the Portsmouth Conference, and the official record of it which is now in the hands of readers shows that it may be regarded as a successful one. It was specially notable for the absence of those bickerings and differences which must inevitably come to the surface at times. There may be something in the suggestion of one of our writers that the weather was a main factor. However that may be, there was uniform good temper, and we came away with the belief that a good week's work for librarianship had been done.