The Rationale to Integrate Facilities Management Into the Development Process

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to justify the need to integrate Facilities Management (FM) into the development process (DP) and establish a framework that potentially serves as a guide to optimise the value of Facilities Management (FM) in the property development industry. Design/methodology/approach – This study looks at the relevant literature to identify the factors that are hindering FM to effectively integrate in the development process. Subsequently, the authors intend to carry out interviews with various professionals in the property development industry in the UK to identify the best practices. This research uses qualitative and quantitative methods in order to establish an FM-DP integration framework. Findings – The literature suggested that contribution of FM towards the property development industry is unquestionable. Surprisingly, in a real world FM has been given a low priority in the property development industry, resulting in Facilities Managers being inadequately integrated into the development process. There is currently no suitable generic mechanism that is practical in all stages of the development process to guide Facilities Managers and/or other professionals to integrate FM into the development process. Originality/value – This study is to provide evidence that the property development industry needs a framework that potentially serves as a guide to optimise the value of Facilities Management (FM) in the development process

Critical Strategic Issues For The Integration Of Facilities Management Into The Development Process

Purpose: This paper identifies the critical strategic issues for the integration of facilities management (FM) into the development process (DP). It explains the factors that limit the integration and recognises the best practices applied in the property development industry in the UK. Design/methodology/approach: The study employs a qualitative research approach through semi-structured interviews from the FM and property development industry in the UK. Findings: The study discovered that the recognition of FM in the property development industry is encouraging. However, FM has been given a low priority in the property development industry, resulting in Facilities Managers being inadequately integrated into the development process. Research limitations/implications: Practical implications: Social implications: Originality/value: The paper suggests that it is imperative to understand these strategic issues to promote best practice in the industry that improve the position of FM in the property development industry

Too Little pH: How Freshwater Acidification Impacts the Abundance of Macrophytes Consumed by Rusty Crayfish

Anthropogenic activities such as the burning of fossil fuels result in increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration. High levels of atmospheric CO2 cause chemical shifts in the carbon cycle. Changes in the carbon cycle due to increased CO2 levels lead to ocean and freshwater acidification. Freshwater acidification is problematic for species that synthesize their own shells as well as species that use olfaction for decision-making. Rusty crayfish (Faxonius rusticus) were subject to simulated freshwater acidification and fed two types of macrophyte, Chara (Chara braunii) and Myriopyllum (Myriophyllum sibiricum). A series of programming language of R (R Core Team, 2019) indicated that simulated freshwater acidification alters the abundance of macrophytes consumed by rusty crayfish. This study demonstrates that freshwater acidification due to atmospheric levels of CO2 leads to foraging changes in crayfish

Revisiting the Female Germline and Its Expanding Toolbox

The Arabidopsis thaliana ovule arises as a female reproductive organ composed solely of somatic diploid cells. Among them, one cell will acquire a unique identity and initiate female germline development. In this review we explore the complex network that facilitates differentiation of this single cell, and consider how it becomes committed to a distinct developmental program. We highlight recent progress towards understanding the role of intercellular communication, cell competency, and cell-cycle regulation in the ovule primordium, and we discuss the possibility that distinct pathways restrict germline development at different stages. Importantly, these recent findings suggest a renaissance in plant ovule research, restoring the female germline as an attractive model to study cell communication and cell fate establishment in multicellular organs

Evaluating the relevance of the 'Real Access' criteria as a framework for rural HCI research

Developing ICT software that is useful and usable in a rural context poses many problems. One of the major difficulties is understanding the real needs of the end users and the constraints imposed by the rural environment. Many techniques exist in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) that attempt to understand the needs of the end users but many are not useful in a rural context, or at least not when applied in a standard way. This paper presents some existing HCI research techniques that are applicable in a rural context and shows how they fit into the bridges.org ‘Real Access’ framework

Telemedicine in the Eastern Cape using VoIP combined with a Store and Forward Approach

Rural areas in South Africa have unique conditions such as remoteness and scarcity of reliable public facilities. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) introduced into these areas must be suitable for these conditions. Using a user-centred design approach based on Participatory Design and Action Research, we have developed a telemedicine application for a rural village in the Eastern Cape. This paper describes how we determined the requirements and design for the application and why we chose Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) combined with a store and forward approach to achieve our telemedicine goals. We present an overview of the methodology we are using, describe the software application we have developed and mention several challenges we have faced to date. Finally we conclude that VoIP and store and forward technologies are appropriate to the South African rural situation

Using Voice over IP to Bridge the Digital Divide - A Critical Action Research Approach

There is a great disparity between those who have access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and those that do not. This phenomenon forms part of the \emph{Digital Divide}. Many ICTs may be used to help overcome this divide if they are applied in a useful way, providing locally applicable content and services. Critical Action Research (CAR) is an approach used to develop such applications. CAR aims to empower people by involving them in the development process. Using CAR, this project investigates how Voice over IP (VoIP) may be applied in a productive way in an underserviced community. VoIP is an ICT used for sending voice over packet switched networks using Internet Protocol. It can be used to integrate data and voice to produce multimedia applications. In South Africa (SA), VoIP may only be provided by Telkom, the Second National Operator and the Under-Serviced Area Licensees. Using CAR and VoIP, an application is being developed to service a specific need of a particular rural community. The application will either provide a service to a small rural business or aid the provision of healthcare in rural areas. The project evaluates how well CAR integrates with a normal Software Development Lifecycle and makes policy recommendations for the use of VoIP in rural SA

Towards Intelligent Lower Limb Prostheses with Activity Recognition

User’s volitional control of lower limb prostheses is still challenging task despite technological advancements. There is still a need for amputees to impose their will upon the prosthesis to drive in an accurate and interactive fashion. This study represents a brief review on control strategies using different sensor modalities for the purpose of phases/events detection and activity recognition. The preliminary work that is associated with middle-level control shows a simple and reliable method for event detection in real-time using a single inertial measurement unit. The outcome shows promising results

Walking and the Social Life of Solar Charging in Rural Africa

We illustrate links between walking, sociality and using resources in a case-study of community-based, solar, cellphone charging in two villages in Eastern Cape, South Africa. Like 360 million rural Sub-saharan Africans, inhabitants are poor and, like 25% and 92%, of the world respectively, do not have domestic electricity or own motor vehicles. We show that the ways we move through the world affect the meanings we embody; that certain representations obscure continuities in the practices we seek to understand and influence; and, some of the motivations of the billions of people who are marginalized in discussing sustainable HCI. Locally, about 65% of inhabitants over 14 years old own cell- phones and, over a year, we recorded 500 names of people using the Charging Stations that, we deployed within several technology probing endeavours, many on a regular basis. The detail of our longitudinal study contributes considerably to sustainable design for ‘developing’ regions. Walking is a noticeable part of charging, and all other subsistence rou- tines, and shapes inhabitants’ motivations when they use, re-purpose, store and share resources. Inhabitants are moti- vated by cost and comfort and, importantly, by performing collectivity in their tight-knit community; but, not by being green. Further, different ways of walking relate to social roles and other aspects of sociality and, we propose, shaped inhabitants’ and researchers’ perspectives on charging and using phones. We suggest this is significant for the methods and designs that we use to explore and support sustainable practices in rural Africa and, indeed, more generally

Testing of a Model with Latino Patients That Explains the Links Among Patient-Perceived Provider Cultural Sensitivity, Language Preference, and Patient Treatment Adherence

Introduction Disparities in treatment adherence based on race and ethnicity are well documented but poorly understood. Specifically, the causes of treatment nonadherence among Latino patients living in the USA are complex and include cultural and language barriers. Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine whether patients’ perceptions in patient-provider interactions (i.e., trust in provider, patient satisfaction, and patient sense of interpersonal control in patient-provider interactions) mediate any found association between patient-perceived provider cultural sensitivity (PCS) and treatment adherence among English-preferred Latino (EPL) and Spanish-preferred Latino (SPL) patients. Methods Data from 194 EPL patients and 361 SPL patients were obtained using questionnaires. A series of language-specific structural equation models were conducted to test the relationship between patient-perceived PCS and patient treatment adherence and the examined mediators of this relationship among the Latino patients. Results No significant direct effects of patient-perceived PCS on general treatment adherence were found. However, as hypothesized, several significant indirect effects emerged. Preferred language appeared to have moderating effects on the relationships between patient-perceived PCS and general treatment adherence. Conclusion These results suggest that interventions to promote treatment adherence among Latino patients should likely include provider training to foster patient-defined PCS, trust in provider, and patient satisfaction with care. Furthermore, this training needs to be customized to be suitable for providing care to Latino patients who prefer speaking Spanish and Latino patients who prefer speaking English