Managing the delivery of iconic football stadiums in England

The English football premier league has become the most popular sports league in the world; with ardent fans and audiences all over the world. The potential business opportunities that this growth holds have therefore attracted investors who are keen to buy shares in the clubs and sign up the best footballers that money can buy. Underpinning the growth in all of the premier league clubs is a desire to make a distinct statement of identity as part of a competitive strategy. One way to achieve this is through the design and construction of iconic football stadiums. This paper explores the specific project management challenges associated with delivery of iconic football stadiums in England and draws lessons for the management of similar iconic infrastructure projects. A study of project management best practice and some case studies shows that key issues which are common to these projects are centred on design management; choice of procurement route; client management; and stakeholder expectation management. These issues are not necessarily unique to the project management of iconic football stadiums but are amplified by the context of these projects. The emphasis on iconic status in a competitive market also means that stadium projects should be conceived and delivered in the context of other strategic projects which should be clearly understood by the project management team

Efficacy of Online Training for Improving Camp Staff Competency

Preparing competent staff is a critical issue within the camp community. This quasi-experimental study examined the effectiveness of an online course for improving staff competency in camp healthcare practices among college-aged camp staff and a comparison group (N = 55). We hypothesized that working in camp would increase competency test scores due to opportunities for staff to experientially apply knowledge learned online. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyse the cross-level effects of a between-individuals factor (assignment to experimental or comparison group) and within-individual effects of time (pre-test, post-test #1, and post-test #2) on online course test scores. At post-test #2, the difference in average test scores between groups was ~30 points, with the treatment group scoring lower on average than the comparison group. Factors that may have influenced these findings are explored, including fatigue and the limited durability of online learning. Recommendations for research and practice are discussed

UK Large-scale Wind Power Programme from 1970 to 1990: the Carmarthen Bay experiments and the Musgrove Vertical-Axis Turbines

This article describes the development of the Musgrove Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) concept, the UK ‘Carmarthen Bay’ wind turbine test programme, and UK government’s wind power programme to 1990. One of the most significant developments in the story of British wind power occurred during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, with the development of the Musgrove vertical axis wind turbine and its inclusion within the UK Government’s wind turbine test programme. Evolving from a supervisor’s idea for an undergraduate project at Reading University, the Musgrove VAWT was once seen as an able competitor to the horizontal axis wind systems that were also being encouraged at the time by both the UK government and the Central Electricity Generating Board, the then nationalised electricity utility for England and Wales. During the 1980s and 1990s the most developed Musgrove VAWT system, along with three other commercial turbine designs was tested at Carmarthen Bay, South Wales as part of a national wind power test programme. From these developmental tests, operational data was collected and lessons learnt, which were incorporated into subsequent wind power operations.http://dx.doi.org/10.1260/03095240677860621

'Dressage Is Full of Queens!' Masculinity, Sexuality and Equestrian Sport

Attitudes towards sexuality are changing and levels of cultural homophobia decreasing, yet there remain very few openly gay men within sport. As a proving ground for heteromasculinity, sport has traditionally been a hostile environment for gay men. This article is based on an ethnographic study within a sporting subworld in which gay men do appear to be accepted: equestrian sport. Drawing on inclusive masculinity theory, equestrian sport is shown to offer an unusually tolerant environment for gay men in which heterosexual men of all ages demonstrate low levels of homophobia. Inclusive masculinity theory is a useful framework for exploring the changing nature of masculinities and this study demonstrates that gay men are becoming increasingly visible and accepted within once unreceptive locales, such as sport and rural communities. However, this more tolerant attitude is purchased at the expense of a subordinated feminine Other, perpetuating the dominance of men within competitive sport. © The Author(s) 2012

Determinants of environmental management in the red sea hotels: Personal and organizational values and contextual variables

What motivates firms to adopt environmental management practices is one of the most significant aspects in the contemporary academic debate in which the review of the existing literature yields, with an obvious contextual bias toward developed world, contested theories and inconclusive findings. Providing a unique model that brings together the individual and organizational levels of analysis on firms' adoption of environmental management practices, this study aims to provide a new insight from the context of developing world. Data from 158 Red Sea hotels reveal two identifiable dimensions of environmental management-planning and organization, and operations-that can be explained as originating from different values. Whereas organizational altruism is a powerful predictor of both dimensions, managers' personal values and organizational competitive orientation are only relevant to environmental operations. The evidence also indicates that contextual variables such as chain affiliation, hotel star rating, and size are important to explain hotels' environmental management behaviors. © 2012 ICHRIE

Constellations of identity: place-ma(r)king beyond heritage

This paper will critically consider the different ways in which history and belonging have been treated in artworks situated in the Citadel development in Ayr on the West coast of Scotland. It will focus upon one artwork, Constellation by Stephen Hurrel, as an alternative to the more conventional landscapes of heritage which are adjacent, to examine the relationship between personal history and place history and argue the primacy of participatory process in the creation of place and any artwork therein. Through his artwork, Hurrel has attempted to adopt a material process through which place can be created performatively but, in part due to its non-representational form, proves problematic, aesthetically and longitudinally, in wholly engaging the community. The paper will suggest that through variants of ‘new genre public art’ such as this, personal and place histories can be actively re-created through the redevelopment of contemporary urban landscapes but also highlight the complexities and indeterminacies involved in the relationship between artwork, people and place

Molecular and morphometric variation in European populations of the articulate brachiopod <i>Terebeatulina retusa</i>

Molecular and morphometric variation within and between population samples of the articulate brachiopod &lt;i&gt;Terebratulina&lt;/i&gt; spp., collected in 1985-1987 from a Norwegian fjord, sea lochs and costal sites in western Scotland, the southern English Channel (Brittany) and the western Mediterranean, were measured by the analysis of variation in the lengths of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) fragments produced by digestion with nine restriction endonucleases and by multivariate statistical analysis of six selected morphometric parameters. Nucleotide difference within each population sample was high. Nucleotide difference between population samples from the Scottish sites, both those that are tidally contiguous and those that appear to be geographically isolated, were not significantly different from zero. Nucleotide differences between the populations samples from Norway, Brittany, Scotland and the western Mediterranean were also very low. Morphometric analysis confirmed the absence of substantial differentiation

Anaerobic digestion of whole-crop winter wheat silage for renewable energy production

With biogas production expanding across Europe in response to renewable energy incentives, a wider variety of crops need to be considered as feedstock. Maize, the most commonly used crop at present, is not ideal in cooler, wetter regions, where higher energy yields per hectare might be achieved with other cereals. Winter wheat is a possible candidate because, under these conditions, it has a good biomass yield, can be ensiled, and can be used as a whole crop material. The results showed that, when harvested at the medium milk stage, the specific methane yield was 0.32 m3 CH4 kg–1 volatile solids added, equal to 73% of the measured calorific value. Using crop yield values for the north of England, a net energy yield of 146–155 GJ ha–1 year–1 could be achieved after taking into account both direct and indirect energy consumption in cultivation, processing through anaerobic digestion, and spreading digestate back to the land. The process showed some limitations, however: the relatively low density of the substrate made it difficult to mix the digester, and there was a buildup of soluble chemical oxygen demand, which represented a loss in methane potential and may also have led to biofoaming. The high nitrogen content of the wheat initially caused problems, but these could be overcome by acclimatization. A combination of these factors is likely to limit the loading that can be applied to the digester when using winter wheat as a substrat