Issues Negotiation™ – investing in stakeholders

Consumers are increasingly demanding and less tolerant of organisations that fail to live up to their expectations. Organisations are expected to change their approach to business, giving the same priority to all stakeholders, with integrity and commitment. This means that the traditional approach to issues management where organisations “decide” on their plans, “dictate” them to stakeholders, and prepare their “defence”, will no longer be adequate. Issues Negotiaion™ offers business leaders a powerful alternative that builds trusting relationships, turning potentially negative issues into competitive advantage. It is a process that supports the organisation in its long-term growth

Front-Loading the Building Design Process for Environmental Benefit

Front-loading is the notion of placing increased emphasis on making decisions at the earliest possible stages of the design process. In this case the emphasis is on those decisions regarding the building's relationship to the environment (Watson 2004). Investigations into the nature of the design process reveal that design moves forward through a process of problem solving. Popper's model of conjecture and refutation as the means by which scientific knowledge advances, has been applied to the process of design (Hillier et al, 1972). Hillier et al found that the role of problem setting, is as important as that of problem solving, when it comes to achieving environmentally responsible outcomes. If an environmental issue is not contained within a design problem, then it is unlikely that it will form part of the solution. A key task then, in the designers problem solving process, is that of pre-structuring of the design problem. It is at this stage of pre-structuring that environmental issues must enter the problem solving process to influence the design outcomes. One explicit influence on pre-structuring is the brief for a building design. It is the brief that lays out the specific requirements of the client, and it is in this document that environmental issues may be explicitly stated. Research in practice has involved a series of case studies that were conducted to examine the process of front-loading the design process. The front-loaded process was based around the development of an "Environmental Brief" (Watson et al, 2000). The conclusions are that a key path of events lead, not directly to improved implementation of environmental strategies in the final designs, but to improved achievement of goals set at the beginning of the design process, no matter what the level of sustainability of those goals. Hence, the key process becomes that of attempting to set environmental goals as high as possible

Human platelet activation by Escherichia coli: roles for FcγRIIA and integrin αIIbβ3

Gram-negative Escherichia coli cause diseases such as sepsis and hemolytic uremic syndrome in which thrombotic disorders can be found. Direct platelet–bacterium interactions might contribute to some of these conditions; however, mechanisms of human platelet activation by E. coli leading to thrombus formation are poorly understood. While the IgG receptor FcγRIIA has a key role in platelet response to various Gram-positive species, its role in activation to Gram-negative bacteria is poorly defined. This study aimed to investigate the molecular mechanisms of human platelet activation by E. coli, including the potential role of FcγRIIA. Using light-transmission aggregometry, measurements of ATP release and tyrosine-phosphorylation, we investigated the ability of two E. coli clinical isolates to activate platelets in plasma, in the presence or absence of specific receptors and signaling inhibitors. Aggregation assays with washed platelets supplemented with IgGs were performed to evaluate the requirement of this plasma component in activation. We found a critical role for the immune receptor FcγRIIA, αIIbβ3, and Src and Syk tyrosine kinases in platelet activation in response to E. coli. IgG and αIIbβ3 engagement was required for FcγRIIA activation. Moreover, feedback mediators adenosine 5’-diphosphate (ADP) and thromboxane A₂ (TxA₂) were essential for platelet aggregation. These findings suggest that human platelet responses to E. coli isolates are similar to those induced by Gram-positive organisms. Our observations support the existence of a central FcγRIIA-mediated pathway by which human platelets respond to both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria

Household Energy Rating: Questioning the Current Direction

Greenhouse gas emissions are only one of a plethora of environmental impacts that buildings have on the environment, however they are currently the focus of much attention as Australia attempts to achieve its Kyoto target. The process of Housing Energy Rating (HER), in which the envelope of the house is simulated to produce predictions of heating and cooling energy, is gaining momentum as a method for reducing residential greenhouse gas emissions. This paper questions the underlying aims of HER, concluding that current tools assist assessors/regulators but are of little use to building designers. It also questions the focus on heating and cooling energy and through a case study of warm climates, highlights alternative routes to achieving reductions in household greenhouse gas emissions. These routes are to broaden the scope of greenhouse gas assessment and to refocus on design-phase assessment rather than post design/compliance assessment

A Prototype E.S.D. Home: Towards a Model for Practice in Solar Sustainable Design

The design of an urban house located on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia has been completed as an exemplar of Ecologically Sustainable Design. The home is an essay in design synthesis: intended to integrate existing principles with state of the art environmental technologies and a comprehensive methodology for evaluating the performance of these technologies. The aim of this paper is to present selected results of the data gained from this evaluation to give feedback on the performance of the solar technologies used in the building. The paper argues that the project can form a Trojan horse for future practice concerning sustainability. The outcomes inform the debate on the design for wider use of solar design principles in building design in urban areas and how this confronts present approaches to provide some form of Energy Code compliance legislation

Development of a Holistic Environmental Brief For Use as a Design-phase Building Environmental Assessment Tool

The architectural brief is seen by architects as the most crucial part of the entire design process in terms of achieving high quality buildings. Environmental design strategies are considered as being of lesser importance[1]. It is proposed in this paper, that the use of an environmental brief to drive building design could be extremely effective in producing high environmental performance. Using the briefing stage to set out environmental criteria will allow the assessment of the building's performance throughout the various stages of the design process. This will be effective in ensuring that environmental design strategies are not compromised. The implementation of the environmental brief could be seen as more important in achieving a high level of environmental performance that the environmental design strategies themselves. Some case studies of house projects have been undertaken in which environmental briefs were developed. The paper examines the brief development process using these projects as examples. This brief development fits into a wider research framework of the development of design-phase environmental assessment tools

Death of the pedagogue: pluralism and non-didacticism

Contest and controversy; orthodoxy and heterodoxy; critique and reject: how can economics curricula be adjusted to illustrate the multiplicity of, frequently antagonistic, explanations for observed phenomena? This paper commences by addressing the meaning of pluralism within the rubric of Foucault and Barthes, proposing that the application of pluralism in economics is a more complex process than has previously been acknowledged. It posits that the emphasis falls too often on pedagogical issues that re-affirm hierarchical teacher-learner relationships which hinder learner autonomy and encourages the transmission of teacher bias. Arguing that the economics instructor should instead act as an enlightened navigator, it addresses the practical aspects of delivery by exploring two key modules in undergraduate degree provision: intermediate microeconomics and the dissertation