G.E. Holback and S.C. Burridge
AIRCRAFT structural engineers have long been intrigued by the possibility of eliminating the thousands of assembly operations involved in a typical airframe structure—one composed…
Abstract
AIRCRAFT structural engineers have long been intrigued by the possibility of eliminating the thousands of assembly operations involved in a typical airframe structure—one composed of many formed pieces joined by rivets and bolts—and of replacing these multiple operations with a double, or even a single, automatic operation employing simply temperature and pressure.
Hao Zhou and Ehsan Rezazadeh Azar
Steel and reinforced concrete are among the most common structural materials used in the construction industry. Cost and the speed of construction have been usually the main…
Abstract
Purpose
Steel and reinforced concrete are among the most common structural materials used in the construction industry. Cost and the speed of construction have been usually the main criteria when selecting a building’s structural system, whereby the environmental impact of the structural material is sometimes ignored. Availability of an easy-to-use tool for environmental assessment of the structural alternatives could encourage this evaluation in the decision making. The purpose of this paper is to introduce an automated tool for the environmental assessment of the on-site construction processes of a building structural system, which calculates the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the structural system as a parameter for comparison.
Design/methodology/approach
This assessment tool is implemented using a building information modeling (BIM) platform to extract structural elements and their key attributes, such as type, geometrical and locational data. These data are processed together with a productivity database to calculate machine hours, and then predefined energy and carbon inventories are used to assess the energy consumption of the structural system in the erection/installation stage.
Findings
This assessment tool provides an automated and easy-to-use approach to estimate energy consumption and carbon emissions of different structural systems that are modeled in a BIM platform. The results of this tool were within the ranges reported by the available studies.
Originality/value
This research project presents a novel approach to use BIM-based attributes of the structural elements to calculate the required efforts, i.e. machine hours, and assess their energy consumption and carbon emissions during construction processes.
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The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the impact of zoning and pooling on brands, something not covered in depth in the historical literature. Also, the paper is intended to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the impact of zoning and pooling on brands, something not covered in depth in the historical literature. Also, the paper is intended to present research into how brands in the food, drink and confectionery industries during the Second World War used advertising in response to the government control of the market.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a close reading and interpretation of food, drink and confectionery brands advertisements from the Daily Express and Daily Mirror newspapers across the Second World War. Building on the work by Burridge (2008), it explores different message strategies used by brands in response to shortages, zoning and pooling.
Findings
While rationing has been discussed at length in the historical literature, zoning and pooling have not been. While brands provided information to their customers about rationing, shortages, zoning and pooling, the latter three also caused brands to apologise, look to the future and urge patience.
Research limitations/implications
This study is based on the Daily Express and Daily Mirror from August 1939 to September 1945. Further research could explore other publications or the period after the war as control continued. Exploration of brand and agency archives could also provide more background into brands’ objectives and decision-making.
Originality/value
This is the first research to explore the impact of forms of control other than rationing on advertising during the Second World War.
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Samantha Dorney-Smith, Emma Thomson, Nigel Hewett, Stan Burridge and Zana Khan
The purpose of this paper is to review the history and current state of provision of homeless medical respite services in the UK, drawing first on the international context. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the history and current state of provision of homeless medical respite services in the UK, drawing first on the international context. The paper then articulates the need for medical respite services in the UK, and profiles some success stories. The paper then outlines the considerable challenges that currently exist in the UK, considers why some other services have failed and proffers some solutions.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is primarily a literature review, but also offers original analysis of data and interviews, and presents new ideas from the authors. All authors have considerable experience of assessing the need for and delivering homeless medical respite services.
Findings
The paper builds on previous published information regarding need, and articulates the human rights argument for commissioning care. The paper also discusses the current complex commissioning arena, and suggests solutions.
Research limitations/implications
The literature review was not a systematic review, but was conducted by authors with considerable experience in the field. Patient data quoted are on two limited cohorts of patients, but broadly relevant. Interviews with stakeholders regarding medical respite challenges have been fairly extensive, but may not be comprehensive.
Practical implications
This paper will support those who are thinking of undertaking a needs assessment for medical respite, or commissioning a new medical respite service, to understand the key issues involved.
Social implications
This paper challenges the existing status quo regarding the need for a “cost-saving” rationale to set up these services.
Originality/value
This paper aims to be the definitive paper for anyone wishing to get an overview of this topic.
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Those who move among the people with their eyes open will not doubt that the number of non‐smokers is increasing, but mostly among older adults. Sales of cigarettes, despite the…
Abstract
Those who move among the people with their eyes open will not doubt that the number of non‐smokers is increasing, but mostly among older adults. Sales of cigarettes, despite the ban on advertising and the grim warning printed on packets, do not reflect this however, which can only mean that those who still smoke are the heavy smokers. This is a bad sign; as is the fact that youngsters, including a high percentage of those at school, openly flaunt the habit. The offence of using tobacco or any other smoking mixture or snuff while handling food or in any food room in which there is open food (Reg. 10(e)), remains one of the common causes of prosecutions under the Food Hygiene Regulations; it has not diminished over the years. The commonest offenders are men and especially those in the butchery trade, fishmongers and stall‐holders, but, here again, to those who move around, the habit seems fairely widespread. Parts of cigarettes continue to be a common finding especially in bread and flour confectionery, but also in fresh meat, indicating that an offence has been committed, and only a few of the offenders end up in court. Our purpose in returning to the subject of smoking, however, is not to relate it to food hygiene but to discuss measures of control being suggested by the Government now that advertising bans and printed health warnings have patently failed to achieve their object.
Natural selection—survival of the fittest—is as old as life itself. Applied genetics which is purposeful in contrast to natural selection also has a long history, particularly in…
Abstract
Natural selection—survival of the fittest—is as old as life itself. Applied genetics which is purposeful in contrast to natural selection also has a long history, particularly in agriculture; it has received impetus from the more exacting demands of the food industry for animal breeds with higher lean : fat and meat : bone ratios, for crops resistant to the teeming world of parasites. Capturing the exquisite scent, the colours and form beautiful of a rose is in effect applied genetics and it has even been applied to man. For example, Frederick the Great, Emperor of Prussia, to maintain a supply of very tall men for his guards—his Prussian Guards averaged seven feet in height—ordered them to marry very tall women to produce offspring carrying the genes of great height. In recent times, however, research and experiment in genetic control, more in the nature of active interference with genetic composition, has developed sufficiently to begin yielding results. It is self‐evident that in the field of micro‐organisms, active interference or manipulations will produce greater knowledge and understanding of the gene actions than in any other field or by any other techniques. The phenomenon of “transferred drug resistance”, the multi‐factorial resistance, of a chemical nature, transferred from one species of micro‐organisms to another, from animal to human pathogens, its role in mainly intestinal pathology and the serious hazards which have arisen from it; all this has led to an intensive study of plasmids and their mode of transmission. The work of the Agricultural Research Council's biologists (reported elsewhere in this issue) in relation to nitrogen‐fixing genes and transfer from one organism able to fix nitrogen to another not previously having this ability, illustrates the extreme importance of this new field. Disease susceptibility, the inhibition of invasiveness which can be acquired by relatively “silent” micro‐organisms, a better understanding of virulence and the possible “disarming” of organisms, particularly those of particular virulence to vulnerable groups. Perhaps this is looking for too much too soon, but Escherichia coli would seem to offer more scope for genetic experiments than most; it has serotypes of much variability and viability; and its life and labours in the human intestine have assumed considerable importance in recent years. The virulence of a few of its serotypes constitute an important field in food epidemiology. Their capacity to transfer plasmids—anent transfer of drug resistance— to strains of other organisms resident in the intestines, emphasizes the need for close study, with safeguards.
Michael Clark, Michelle Cornes, Michela Tinelli, Jo Coombes, Stan Burridge, Raphael Wittenberg, Jess Carlisle and Jess Harris
People experiencing homelessness often have multiple health and other support needs, requiring complex, coordinated support. Admission to hospital is potentially an opportunity to…
Abstract
Purpose
People experiencing homelessness often have multiple health and other support needs, requiring complex, coordinated support. Admission to hospital is potentially an opportunity to address these needs and begin integrating care, but so often it is a missed one. Our purpose in this research was to evaluate an ongoing, roll-out programme that offered government funding to 17 “test sites” across England to develop integrated care as part of post-discharge “step-down” support. In this paper, we examine senior stakeholder experiences of seeking to implement integrated care as part of specialist step-down care.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, we focus on data collected in interviews with key stakeholders (N = 10) who managed the mobilisation of local out of hospital care models for people experiencing homelessness. Interviews were conducted and analysed from a relational perspective, that is focusing on relationships between interactants, through which, for example, identities, understanding and integrating practice emerge.
Findings
A relational perspective on the data provides insights to better understand the complexity of integrating care at the point of hospital discharge for people experiencing homelessness.
Research limitations/implications
Although in depth, the data were limited to certain perspectives on the issues. Other perspectives and data collection from in-depth study of case sites would be invaluable in developing the empirical evidence base for a relational understanding of integrating care.
Practical implications
A relational perspective highlights the emergent and ongoing nature of integrating care in this context of support for people experiencing homelessness. The need for different system agents to work to be constantly enacting the desired support is crucial to understanding future system changes for integrating care.
Originality/value
This is the first paper developing a relational analysis of integrating care. It highlights a different theoretical perspective on the issues and important insights.
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Fernando Barreiro-Pereira and Touria Abdelkader-Benmesaud-Conde
This chapter tests theoretically and empirically the existence of a stable relationship between energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Based on microeconomics and physics, a model…
Abstract
This chapter tests theoretically and empirically the existence of a stable relationship between energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Based on microeconomics and physics, a model has been specified and applied to annual data for twenty countries, which representing 61 percent of the world’s population in 2018, over the period 1995–2015. The data are from the International Energy Agency (2019) and econometric techniques including panel data and causality tests have been used. The results indicate that there is a causal relationship between energy consumption and CO2 emissions. In general, consumers cannot directly change emissions caused by production processes, but they can act on emissions caused by their own domestic energy consumption. Approximately three quarters of domestic energy consumption is due to heating and domestic hot water consumption. Taking into account the lower emissions and the lower economic cost of the initial investment, four potential energy systems have been selected for use in heating and domestic hot water. Their social returns have been assessed across nine of the twenty countries in the sample over a lifecycle of 25 years from 2018: France, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Iceland, Germany, United Kingdom, Morocco and the United States. Cost-benefit analysis techniques have been used for this purpose and the results indicate that the use of thermal water, where applicable, is the most socially profitable system among the proposed systems, followed by natural gas. The least socially profitable systems are those using electricity.
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Peter Boxall, Meng-Long Huo, Keith Macky and Jonathan Winterton
High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual…
Abstract
High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual job tasks or a high level of involvement at team or workplace level in designing work procedures. When implementations of HIWPs are accompanied by companion investments in human capital – for example, in better information and training, higher pay and stronger employee voice – it is appropriate to talk not only of HIWPs but of “high-involvement work systems” (HIWSs). This chapter reviews the theory and practice of HIWPs and HIWSs. Across a range of academic perspectives and societies, it has regularly been argued that steps to enhance employee involvement in decision-making create better opportunities to perform, better utilization of skill and human potential, and better employee motivation, leading, in turn, to various improvements in organizational and employee outcomes.
However, there are also costs to increased employee involvement and the authors review the important economic and sociopolitical contingencies that help to explain the incidence or distribution of HIWPs and HIWSs. The authors also review the research on the outcomes of higher employee involvement for firms and workers, discuss the quality of the research methods used, and consider the tensions with which the model is associated. This chapter concludes with an outline of the research agenda, envisaging an ongoing role for both quantitative and qualitative studies. Without ignoring the difficulties involved, the authors argue, from the societal perspective, that the high-involvement pathway should be considered one of the most important vectors available to improve the quality of work and employee well-being.