The Significance of Purchasing Behavioural Characterisation on Sustainable Design Education of Students

More and more businesses appear to be adopting the societal (or sustainable) marketing concept as their business philosophy. This is an attempt to increase their competitiveness and promote their attitude of considering consumers' wants at the same time as meeting society's long term interests. Organisations are engaging with the sustainable agenda and many communicate this to publicly demonstrate their commitment to saving the worlds finite resources. Directives such as WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive) have also forced organisations to consider the recovery of their products at the end of service life. In line with the industry environment, and in providing creative solutions to design problems, product design students are encouraged to take account of the market, technical, functional, visual, and humanistic aspects of design as well as exploring the possibility of making their designs sustainable. Consideration of factors including waste reduction, how the product could be manufactured more efficiently and hence more cheaply by using fewer parts, less material, reducing assembly time and non-conformance are very important and can give the edge, in terms of competitive advantage. This paper assesses the product related purchase behavioural characteristics, and associated decision making process, by which purchases are made. It endeavours to identify the difference between the considerations that students take as designers and the choices they make as consumers. Following critical analysis of the primary research undertaken the outcomes are discussed

Developing enterprise opportunities from placements to graduate consultancy in lean sustainable design

This paper reports on the adaption of a model for consultancy of using graduates working on a contract basis for Bournemouth University (BU) but within a client organisation, and managed by a member of academic staff. The model is based on BU Design graduates undertaking a 6 month consultancy under the direction of an academic. The adapted model, discussed in this paper, offers consultancy in the area of lean sustainable design, a research specialism of the Sustainable Design Research Centre. The paper discusses the industrial relevance of design education and how design education and design research are strengthening each other with industrial relevance and investigates how to exploit existing relationships with companies who employ undergraduates on placement. It is envisaged that in order for graduates to work effectively as consultants, they will need additional development in the area of sustainable design and lean design. To address this possible shortfall a short continuing professional development (CPD) course is being developed, which will be offered to perspective consultant graduates to provide training to them in appropriate areas. In order to manage the risk associated with using inexperienced graduates to conduct the consultancy work, the projects will be managed by academics as well as providing support, by way of mentoring, to the graduates during the consultancy periods. The paper reports on research undertaken with final year design students to determine the content of this short cours

Identifying and measuring management deficiency in non-profit associations.

The need to measure the performance of non-profit committees has been recognised for over 30 years primarily because of the direct relationship between committee performance and association performance but also because identifying management strengths and weaknesses across a range of performance factors forms the basis for an effective management development programme. The results of past studies are generally inconclusive leading to a lack of consensus as to which is the best approach. The objective for this study was to demonstrate that a heuristic methodology does produce an acceptable, approximate solution to the measurement of individual management performance in a non-profit committee. Testing established that the heuristic model produced a satisfactory solution and was able to provide a detailed assessment of management strengths and weaknesses across a wide range of factors. The solution produced by the model was validated by demonstrating that there was an alignment of the results produced by the heuristic model and those obtained by an alternate method. Analysis of the results obtained from a sample of non-profit committee members provided clear evidence that management skills, management experience, relevant knowledge and commitment are key competencies for non-profit committee members. The level of deficiency in these factors will directly affect the level of individual and committee management deficiency. A direct, positive relationship between age and management performance was also identified. The findings suggest that, in general, the competencies required to manage the affairs of smaller non-profit associations are concentrated in one or two individuals. Within these individuals, a high level of experience gained from years of serving on the committee, combined with the accumulated knowledge of the association’s culture, norms and management processes, forms the means by which the association is managed. This research provides a platform from which the scope of the model can be extended to make it applicable to larger associations and provide global access to the model through the development of an on-line application. The heuristic methodology employed in this study could be used to find a solution to another important problem in the non-profit field: measuring the performance of a non-profit association in achieving its objectives

Localisation and detection of a polymorphism in the human skeletal Beta-Tropomyosin gene (TPM2)

Tropomyosin is one of the components of the thin filaments of muscle, binding to actin, and, together with troponin, regulating contraction in a calcium-dependent manner (Cho et al.,1990). There are at least four distinct tropomyosin genes in vertebrates and each may encode at least six different isoforms of tropomyosin by alternate splicing (Novy et al, 1993; MacLeod et al., 1988). The alpha-tropomyosin gene TPM1 has recently been localised to 15q22 (Eyre et al, 1994) and has been shown to be mutated in some cases of familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (Thierfelder et al., 1994). The alpha-tropomyosin gene TPM3 has been recently localised to 1q22-q23 (Wilton et al, 1994) and has been shown to be mutated in a family with autosomal dominant nemaline myopathy (Laing, 1994, unpublished observations). Each muscle-specific gene is possibly associated with an inherited muscle disease, if there is a disease causing mutation in the gene. Precise mapping of muscle genes therefore becomes important in relation to mapping muscle diseases (Eyre et al., 1993). A sequence tagged site (STS) (Olson et al., 1989) was developed for the human beta tropomyosin gene (TPM2). The STS was used to amplify DNA from somatic cell hybrids to localise TPM2 to human chromosome 9. Genomic clones isolated with the STS product were in tum used in fluorescent in situ hybridisation (Callen et al., 1992) to metaphase chromosome spreads to further localise TPM2 to 9pl3.1 (Hunt et al., 1995). This project should assist those laboratories searching for candidate genes of inherited muscular diseases that are linked within the region of the TPM2 gene and may assist in the precise diagnosis of people with these diseases (Akkari, 1994). Localising TPM2 also lays a foundation for a better understanding of the role of tropornyosins in muscle and nonmuscle cells. A polymorphism was also discovered in the 3\u27UTR of TPM2, using single stranded conformation analysis (SSCA). The primers used were 5\u27-AAGTCTATGCCAGAAGATG-3\u27 and the complementary strand 5\u27-CCGTGACCGAAGTAGGAAAT-3\u27 creating a 259 bp sequence tagged site (STS). Sequencing of the STS revealed that there were two variations of the 11th base in the 3\u27UTR: a guanine and an adenine. Genomic DNA from 97 unrelated individuals was screened by SSCA and the allelic frequency was determined to be for the common allele (guanine) 0.91 and the rare allele (adenine) 0.09. The heterozygosity was 0.16. There is a Bgl I restriction site at the common allele polymorphic location. A Bgl I restriction digest of the 259 bp STS produces two fragments (88 & 171 bp) for homozygous individuals with the common allele, three fragments (88, 171 and 259 bp) for heterozygous individuals and a single fragment (259 bp) for homozygous individual with the rare allele. The discovery of this polymorphism will be entered on the CEPH map and is useful for researchers as a linkage and physical marker in the human genome project, especially since the TPM2 gene has now been localised to 9p13.1

Development of air pollution monitoring system / Clive Allen Williams-Hunt

Air Pollution Monitoring System (APMS) is a system that analyzes data to determine the concentration of air pollution at workplace whether it is within safe working environment. The objectives of the study are to determine the design parameter of the air pollution monitoring system in the welding industry using the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and to evaluate the effectiveness of the air pollution monitoring system. In this study, the data of air pollution were collected at one of the manufacturing factory located at Shah Alam. The data collected will be use as a database for the system to analyze and the data collected during the air pollution monitoring process are toxic gas parameters (i.e. carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and ozone). Other information associated with the development of APMS is also collected by using face to face interview to determine the customer requirements on the system parameters. The average values of the air pollution concentration level are used as the database for the system to analyze. The system is being created by using Microsoft Visual Basic while the average values of the air pollution concentration are used for the database by using Microsoft Access. The overall value of the air pollution concentration at the location of interest are calculated to determine the average values and the result indicates that the concentration of air pollution are not exceed the maximum value of concentration level referred to standard by NIOSH and OSHA. There are several characteristics can be improved to enhance the performance of the system

An investigation into what feedback students recognise as feedback

The paper reports on a study conducted with final year undergraduates on a product design course, in the UK, to attempt to better understand how they both interpret and respond to feedback on their academic work. The starting point for this study was the relatively poor scores attained for the elements of assessment and feedback in the National Student Survey (NSS) results for this course. The paper draws upon an existing body of literature around assessment and feedback related to the NSS results nationally. Based upon the literature an intervention relating to an element of assessment was made with these students and data collected on the students’ response to this intervention. The results of analyzing this data suggest that while students’ responded positively to some aspects of the intervention it is apparent that students’ still struggle to understand how to deploy the feedback to improve their work. This study is part of a longitudinal study, the next part of which involves a second intervention with the same student cohort that will attempt to ascertain what they would like to receive in terms of feedback

An exploration of progression rates of widening participation students on to an Integrated Master of Engineering

This paper reports on an investigation into the potential to widen participation to Higher Education provided by a flexible learning MEng Engineering. The MEng is part of an integrated programme that provides progression routes from a traditional day release Apprenticeship, through HNC, FdEng at a Further Education College to a flexible learning BEng/MEng at a Higher Education Institution. The programme was originally developed to answer a demand from local industry to upskill the engineering workforce, however, the nature of the provision means that it meets much of the best practice for widening participation. The investigation concludes that while the programme provides an opportunity for mature learners to undertake higher education, it largely provides an alternative pathway through vocational education to higher education qualifications for a white male middle class cohort. It also highlights that entry to apprenticeships that lead to progression opportunities is controlled not by educational institutions but by industry

Engineering Design, Apprenticeships & Diversity

This paper reports on a study that set out to understand the backgrounds of apprentices studying Engineering pathways at one FE College in the UK where an integrated programme of qualifications from level 2 to level 7 exists. The research presented here follows on from a previous study that suggested diversity was very low across the programme and that progression opportunities to level 4 and above, that is, Higher Education are not evenly distributed across the socio-economic groupings. The findings are presented in the light of relevant literature indicating concerns nationally and across sectors about Apprenticeship opportunities not being fairly distributed across socio-economic groupings. The report concludes that there is a relationship between those from lower socio-economic groups being more likely to engage with craft type qualifications which do not offer progression possibilities to Higher Education than those from higher socio-economic groups who are more likely to engage with technical qualifications. The report makes suggestions for further investigation related to careers advice and suggests some interventions that might increase the diversity of the engineering Apprentice population

Temporal patterning of competitive emotions : a critical review

An interactional model of stress that integrates current research on competitive affects and emphasizes the temporal dimensions of the stress process is forwarded. The literature reveals that the study of athletes\u27 affective responses to competition has been narrowly focused on pre-competitive anxiety. Equivocal findings on temporal patterning of competitive anxiety suggest that a fundamental change in the empirical approach is needed because the current conceptualization of anxiety and other complex emotions is imprecise. The analysis of secondary emotions as patterns of discrete basic emotions, as suggested by differential emotions theorists, is proposed for consideration in future research. In this view, competitive anxiety is considered as a set of patterns of emotions rather than a unitary affect. The adoption of this approach could result in better operationalization of competitive anxiety as well as other secondary performance-related emotions. We propose that research on competitive affects should follow two parallel lines. The first should focus on the description of complex emotional states that reflect the idiosyncratic emotional experience and vocabulary of the athlete. The second should examine the sets of basic emotions experienced throughout competition, and focus on individual differences and factors determining those differences. The integration of the two approaches could lead to a better understanding of whether, how and why individuals differ in the interpretation of specific secondary emotions and their effect on performance. Moreover, it would permit the analysis of intra-individual variations in labelling secondary emotions with respect to different competitive contexts and temporal aspects