The world turned upside-down : architects as subcontractors in design-and-build contracts

The traditional role of the Architect on UK building projects is well-known and has been the subject of much study and comment. However, recent surveys indicate that design-and-build arrangements now exceed traditional procurement in terms of their share of total UK construction. On such projects, architects and other designers are engaged, not by the employer, but under sub-contract to the main contractor. The question arises as to the effect this has had. This has been approached by considering architects and other design consultants as professional contractors, as opposed to trade contractors - a term adopted to describe the more traditional type of subcontractor. Within these distinctions there are contractual, managerial and cultural implications for the relationships between the parties. To explore this further, representatives of five main contractors were questioned on their relationships with the two types. Clear differences emerged in matters such as contract formation, price-setting, payment and claims; the treatment of selection, work scheduling, and defects / omissions was more complicated. Within trade contractors there is a strong argument for recognising a further category of specialist contractors, who include a design service in their work package. Within the professional contractor category, architects were clearly differentiated from other design team members. The findings are analysed to suggest a theoretical framework with four dimensions that relate to process/product, attitude/motivation, working culture and relative power. The concern is not to be definitive at this stage, but to suggest an agenda for future research into the issues that have emerged

Tightly Coupled GNSS and Vision Navigation for Unmanned Air Vehicle Applications

This paper explores the unique benefits that can be obtained from a tight integration of a GNSS sensor and a forward-looking vision sensor. The motivation of this research is the belief that both GNSS and vision will be integral features of future UAV avionics architectures, GNSS for basic aircraft navigation and vision for obstacle-aircraft collision avoidance. The paper will show that utilising basic single-antenna GNSS measurements and observables, along with aircraft information derived from optical flow techniques creates unique synergies. Results of the accuracy of attitude estimates will be presented, based a comprehensive Matlab® Simulink® model which re-creates an optical flow stream based on the flight of an aircraft. This paper establishes the viability of this novel integrated GNSS/Vision approach for use as the complete UAV sensor package, or as a backup sensor for an inertial navigation system

The Economic and Demographic Determinants of Oregon Lottery Sales

Understanding the determinants of Oregon lottery sales is important, as lottery revenues fund a variety of government programs. Our research uses Oregon county-level per capita income data collected from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and county-level demographic data collected from GeoFred, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Portland State Population Demographics to estimate how economic and demographic factors impact lottery sales in Oregon. The results indicate that the income elasticity of demand for the Oregon lottery is 1, implying that lottery sales represent a constant share of Oregonians’ incomes. Additionally, we find that lottery sales vary as a function of gender, age, and education levels

Retailing under resale price maintenance: economies of scale and scope, and firm strategic response, in the inter-war British retail pharmacy sector

The article examines the impact of resale price maintenance (RPM) on market structure, productivity, and competitive advantage in British retail pharmacy. In contrast to influential studies, but consistent with contemporary and recent work, it is shown that the major multiples were able to ameliorate the negative growth impacts of RPM. Higher profit margins ‒ principally from larger manufacturer discounts and backward integration – were used to fund initiatives aimed at boosting aggregate sales and economies of scale and scope. These relationships are explored using a recently discovered national establishment-level survey of retail pharmacists’ costs and margins, together with internal data for Boots Ltd

Sales and Advertising Rivalry in Interwar US Department Stores

Department stores represented one of the most advertising-intensive sectors of American inter-war retailing. Yet it has been argued that a competitive spiral of high advertising spending, to match the challenge of other local department stores, contributed to a damaging inflation of costs that eroded long-term competitiveness. We test these claims, using both qualitative archival data and establishment-level national data sets. Returns to stores’ advertising are shown to have fallen over the period, while own advertising led to retaliatory advertising by rival department stores, which substantially lowered returns on advertising dollars in the 1930s (but not the 1920s).Department stores, Interwar U.S. economic history, Advertising, Marketing

Advertising, promotion, and the competitive advantage of interwar UK department stores

Promotional activity proved key to the success of department stores in fending off competition from the expanding chain stores by drawing in customers to their large, central, premises. This paper uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative archival data to examine the promotional methods of interwar British department stores, variations in the promotional mix between types of store, and returns to promotional activities. A number of distinct regional promotional strategies are identified, shaped by variations in the types of consumer markets served. Meanwhile there was considerable policy convergence among stores towards using promotional activity primarily as a means of imprinting a strong institutionalrand image in the minds of the consuming public.advertising, promotion, mail order, retailing, department stores

Educating the global citizen in sustainable development: the influence of accreditation bodies on professional programmes

It is estimated that over 50% of UK CO2 emissions arise from the buildings and industry sector. Globally construction is estimated to be the world’s largest employer with 111 million employees. The Built Environment sector is therefore a major economic player with significant environmental, social and economic influence across the globe. Pressure on Built Environment degree curriculum partly comes from the professional bodies, with whom a large proportion of the School of the Built and Natural Environment’s programmes are accredited. Accreditation is in many cases a requirement in order for graduates to practice their profession while in others it is not a requirement but an expectation. As a result, accreditation is vital to the marketability of School degree programmes. This paper discusses the key competencies within professional accreditation requirements for three case study subject areas within the School. Through this case study analysis it was found that all three accreditation requirements analysed referred to the accepted three pillar model of sustainability (see for example Kates et al (2005); van Zeijl-Rozema et al (2008); Mackelworth and Carić (2010)). Guidance in all three disciplines referred further to ethics and social responsibility. However, the three professional body accreditation guidelines differ in the prescribed quantity, and the detail of guidance, on sustainability criteria. In ensuring compliance with accreditation guidelines, the three subject areas have taken differing approaches across a continuum. The authors consider that the approaches taken, and the extent to which sustainability criteria are explicit or implicit within the curriculum, are in part influenced by the pedagogic approaches typical of the subject discipline

Cross-sensory mapping of feature values in the size-brightness correspondence can be more relative than absolute

A role for conceptual representations in cross-sensory correspondences has been linked to the relative (context-sensitive) mapping of feature values, whereas a role for sensory-perceptual representations has been linked to their absolute (context-insensitive) mapping. Demonstrating the relative nature of the automatic mapping underlying a cross-sensory correspondence therefore offers one way of confirming its conceptual basis. After identifying several prerequisites for relative and absolute mappings, we provide the first compelling demonstration that an automatically induced congruity effect based on a cross-sensory correspondence (i.e., that between haptic size and visual brightness) can be largely contingent on the relative mapping of the two features, thereby implying a conceptual basis for the correspondence. Participants in a speeded classification task were faster to classify a visual stimulus as brighter or darker when this required them to press a hidden response key that, incidentally, was relatively small or big, respectively. Importantly, the same levels of brightness (Experiment 1) and key size (Experiment 2) at different times corresponded to contrasting levels of the other feature depending on the context provided by the alternative stimuli with which they appeared. For example, the same medium key was congruent with a brighter stimulus when paired with a bigger key, but was congruent with a darker stimulus when paired with a smaller key. Reflecting on the broader implications of this finding, it is noted that the involvement of cross-sensory correspondences in some forms of sound symbolism in language also requires the relative coding of stimulus features

"I should have watched the live-stream": found graffiti within lecture theatres

This article thematically analyzes graffiti found in the lecture theatres of the Education, Humanities and Law Faculty at Flinders University, South Australia. Through close examination, it is concluded that lecture theatre graffiti presents a previously unrecognized but valuable discourse concerning students’ perceptions of their educational experiences. This paper interpreted these left messages and considered how they might inform the practice of lecturers