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Timely removal of formwork is one of the crucial aspects of construction management that directly influences the safety and quality of the structure as well as the economy of the project. Code recommendations in this regard are not widely practiced because of the difficulties in their implementations. Also, such code recommendations are not robust for all the possible construction conditions. The present paper proposes an IoT-enabled system that notifies the minimum striking time of vertical formwork based on a specified target compressive strength.

An IoT device is proposed for the timely removal of vertical formwork by monitoring of early age concrete compressive strength in real-time. The maturity method is utilized for this purpose. The implementation of the proposed system is demonstrated on three concrete columns. The proposed system is found to be suitable for any construction condition.

The proposed system is a novel, cost-effective, IoT-enabled real-time monitoring system which includes features like cloud connectivity and remote monitoring. This system can be easily implemented at the site without any human intervention.

The study explores the development of an IoT device for the timely removal of vertical formwork which will ensure quality, safety and productivity in concrete construction.

This paper is the first attempt to determine the minimum striking time of vertical formwork using IoT-based technology.

The objectives of the current interim report are to measure the extent of the access to care problem, identify and compare the types of patient- and system-based barriers experienced by Vietnam veterans at risk for suicide when seeking care for physical, psychiatric, and substance abuse conditions, analyze patient-perceived quality of care for individuals who obtained access to care, and identify how the care-seeking experience effected future care seeking. This study is based on a longitudinal sample of 494 Vietnam veterans discharged from military service in September 1971 and subsequently identified as at risk for suicide (306 low risk; 188 high risk). Seventy-one percent (350) of 494 participants completed an extensive qualitative and quantitative interview covering, among other topics, physical conditions, psychiatric conditions, substance use, barriers to care, facilitators of care, and quality of care. Barriers, satisfaction, and effect of the experience were compared by type of condition and suicidal risk category using χ2 analysis and Fisher's as appropriate. The analysis is based on 257 interviews (73 percent) with qualitative data transcribed thus far. Results: Of the 195 patients with self-reported health conditions, 76 (39.0 percent) and 45 (23.1 percent) expressed system-based barriers to care, respectively. The group at higher risk of suicide was significantly more likely (p<0.01) to report patient-based barriers to care and system-based barriers to care (p<0.05), and more likely (p<0.05) to experience negative effects of the care-seeking experience. Both self-perceived and system-based barriers to care pose obstacles for patients at high risk of suicide. Targeted interventions are required to reach out to these patients to address needs for care currently unmet by the health care system and to reduce negative effects of the health care experience.

The word “librarian” sums up brilliantly the notion that librarians work in libraries, but is in other respects most uninformative: it tells the world nothing about the myriad activities with which librarians are associated. One of the latest specialised activities is conservation, which means much more than being the “keeper” of our collections. Conservation as currently understood implies taking active steps to prevent the physical deterioration of the collections in our care, and involves bringing in to play the knowledge and skills of the paper and leather chemists. As conservation becomes established as an essential part of librarianship, white‐coated laboratory scientists become part of the library team and management makes contingency plans in case of disasters such as fire or flood. Stirling University Library has responsibility for a number of special collections whose quality and diversity may surprise those who think of the university as one of the smallest in the country. We also have a link with the Leighton Library, Dunblane, whose Trustees look to us for advice on the care and maintenance of the books and manuscripts in their ownership, and it was through this partnership that practical conservation first took hold at Stirling about five years ago. At that time it was the conservation of items produced in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries that was of most concern to us, and we were fortunate in finding to hand Jan Michaels, a Canadian conservation scientist living locally, and more than happy to act as consultant. The British Library was happy too, and provided financial support for the project. The main conservation effort in recent years has however been concentrated on two modern archives held in the university library, the Howietoun Fish Farm Archive and the Grierson (film documentary) Archive, and it is this work, under the title “Conservation of Scottish library materials of national importance” that has attracted most external interest and attention.

Purpose – In this chapter, we expand the definition of disaster through combining the tenets of disaster studies with the literature on risks and consequences of war and conflict-related displacement and dislocation, with a focus on the challenges that drug misuse and changing drug markets present in these contexts. We conclude with policy recommendations for successful community rebuilding with relation to drugs and drug markets following various forms of disaster, gleaned from the combination of these areas of inquiry.

Design/methodology/approach – We discuss the concepts of risk, social vulnerability, and consequences as related to traditional conceptualizations of disaster, and highlight how they can also be applied to the study of veterans returning from war. We focus the on the similarities related to drugs and drug markets.

Findings – Overall, the similar vulnerabilities, potential for trauma, and drug-related consequences experienced by both disaster survivors and veterans suggest that the experience of war and return from such an event could be considered a disaster and analyzed as such.

Originality/value of power – Few scholars have examined how to expand the definition of a disaster and what is examined in the field of disaster studies. This chapter does this by examining how war could be analyzed as a disaster. It demonstrates the parallels between war and traditional disaster.

The history of an early Scottish library, founded on the collection of Bishop Robert Leighton, is outlined. Its decline and the subsequent efforts to restore it are explained; the cataloguing of the stock, conservation of books and restoration of the building are discussed and the work of the Appeal Fund described.

Uses qualitative data to explore how contemporary religious beliefs mark conceptions of work, particularly with regards to the beliefs of conservative protestant women. Compares liberal protestant women and men as well as conservative men against this group. States that conservative women consider motherhood as their most important work yet they are also most likely to feel “called” to their paid work. Cites that this has important implications for the sociological literature on gender and work. Builds on the original work of Max Weber.

The Workshop, promoted by the Aslib Computer Applications Group and held within the overall framework of SCOLCAP (Scottish Libraries Cooperative Automation Project), gave invited Scottish librarians an opportunity to discuss the exploitation of computer‐based cataloguing services. Descriptions of the services available from the British Library, Birmingham Libraries Cooperative Mechanisation Project, Oriel Computer Services, Blackwell Bibliographical Services, ICL DILS, and Telecomputing's TeleMARC, were followed by general open discussion and then the discussion of specific topics (input techniques; output techniques; integrated systems; problems of local classification schemes when using MARC records; pre‐publication cataloguing). The report concludes that automation is accepted as beneficial; collaboration can help to cut costs; automation provides an opportunity to define requirements afresh, but new systems should be as flexible as possible.

New Communications Systems will Affect Computer Jobs? One of the constant worries about the new high‐tech developments that are announced with such frequency is their effect on the employment market. Throughout the ages each new discovery has affected the working patterns of society but more than ever before the rapid growth in new technology has quickly altered not only the way in which we work but the number of people who can work. It does not require a social scientist or a cybernetician working in this field to inform society of the effects that will accrue from the apparently never ending technological advances that are being announced, and subsequently implemented. Each one produces a scare of enormous proportions. In the 1950s the computer was to put most people out of work, the microcomputer “revolution” was later expected to make sure that those who kept their jobs would soon be redundant. Fortunately, these predictions were not true and although the world's workforces have changed in so many instances to accommodate the new technology the age of total leisure or of mass unemployment has yet to arrive.

The prevalence of cocaine use has been increasing since the mid-1990s in many European countries, Italy included. There is a large variety of patterns of cocaine use in natural settings, but on the whole, the existence of different patterns of cocaine use remains widely unknown to drug professionals, as well as to public opinion. The purpose of this paper is to investigate patterns and trajectories of use, the meaning of use within the context of users’ life styles, the perception of controlled/uncontrolled use, personal strategies to keep drug use “under control”.

This paper illustrates findings from a qualitative study among 115 cocaine users. Participants were recruited using the snow ball sampling (a minimum lifetime experience of 20 instances of cocaine use was required).

The findings confirm the variability of cocaine use trajectories and the prevalent tendency towards more moderate patterns of use. Such variability is in patent contrast to the disease model of addiction and its assumed predetermined linear trajectories. Set, and particularly setting and all the environmental factors, such as life events, appear to be the variables that can better explain the dynamic course of patterns of use.

The main limit concerns the non-randomisation in the selection of the nominees. Participants were recruited in the night entertainment scene of the main Tuscan cities through personal contacts of staff from risk reduction facilities: in spite of the personal and confidential approach, the number of “non institutionalized” users willing to collaborate was too low, therefore the authors decided to omit the randomisation.

The findings bear social implications as they can contribute to a change in the social representation of users so as to reduce the stigma. They can also prompt innovation in the operational models of drug services.

It is the first qualitative research from the “control” perspective ever led in Italy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between organizational characteristics and presence in a board-of-directors (BoD)-network, in the context of the biotechnology industry. Accessing and integrating external knowledge is key to an organization’s success within innovative industries. This can occur through inter-organizational networks such as the BoD-network.

The authors apply a network analysis method (Robins and Alexander, 2004) and a logistic regression to a proprietary database of Belgian biotechnology organizations.

The authors conclude that some organizational characteristics influence the presence of a biotechnology organization in the regional BoD-network. Academic spin-offs, start-ups and small companies are more likely to be part of the regional biotechnology BoD-network. The authors also observe that organizations involved in innovative activities are prominently present in the BoD-network. Interestingly, key actors like universities or academic hospitals are less present in the network.

The authors show that studying full networks and heterogeneous groups of organization leads to a better understanding of the causal mechanisms and dynamics of inter-organizational networks. To better understand the network dynamics in a context as complex as the biotechnology industry, multiple networks need to be studied simultaneously.

The findings in this study allow for the development of policies addressing knowledge transfer, diffusion of management and governance practices, and the initiation and management of collaborative projects through the BoD-network. The authors observe a self-reinforcing dependency between innovative activities and BoD-network membership. This implies that policies aimed at stimulating innovation should also aim at increasing the target organizations’ presence in the BoD-network. Analyzing an organization’s innovative activities and position in the BoD-network allows for identifying those organizations that contribute most to the region’s knowledge transfer network and innovative capacity.

The authors combine two different research streams and are the first to study the complete BoD-network of a biotechnology industry agglomeration.