Legal Interventions to Meaningfully Increase Housing Supply in New Zealand

This article considers legal interventions to facilitate an affordable housing market in New Zealand. In particular, it focuses on meaningfully increasing supply and facilitating intensification and options in growing cities. It analyses the measures currently proposed by central government, including deregulation and reforms to the Resource Management Act 1991 and assesses whether these measures can achieve density and increased options and housing choices. It proposes measures such as making full use of the RMA's effects-based model, releasing National Policy Statements and carefully drafting cohesive and strategic City Plans which focus on outcomes and quality. These measures should be supported by a range of incentives, disincentives, regulations and supplementary measures to ensure the implementation of transformative town plans.A plethora of interconnected issues have contributed to the current housing problem; economic issues like demand and social issues like immigration and NIMBY-ism (Not in my backyard). While this article focuses on meaningfully increasing supply, it acknowledges that legal interventions and supply increases are not a silver bullet solution. A smorgasbord of legal reforms as well as economic and social changes must occur to truly address affordability challenges

Proceedings of the 24th Project Integration Meeting

Progress made by the Flat-Plate Solar Array Project is described. Reports on silicon sheet growth and characterization, silicon material, process development, high-efficiency cells, environmental isolation, engineering sciences, and reliability physics are presented along with copies of visual presentations made at the 24th Project Integration Meeting

The availability and use of competitive and business intelligence in South African business organisations

Business intelligence (BI) plays a critical role in providing actionableintelligence to enable good business decision-making. Internationalresearch shows clear evidence of the benefi ts of implementing soundBI practices. However, within a South African business context, anunderstanding of the practice, impact and benefi ts of BI is only partlyaddressed by existing research. Consequently, this article presentsthe most salient fi ndings of a recent BI study, which was one of thefew such studies that have been conducted in South Africa in the21st century. Although the discussion refl ects fairly high generalsatisfaction levels with BI among South African businesses, someproblems related especially to external BI dimensions are highlighted.An equally important and major concern raised by the article is theapparent lack of companies capitalising on BI opportunities andcoordinating BI functions eff ectively. Of concern at the generalmanagement level, in particular, are the low satisfaction levels withBI quality, as well as various aspects of BI collection, analysis anddissemination. Despite the fact that businesses use BI functions andplanning support software, the survey fi ndings reveal insuffi cientinvestment in sophisticated BI analysis tools

Development of fire test methods for airplane interior materials

Fire tests were conducted in a 737 airplane fuselage at NASA-JSC to characterize jet fuel fires in open steel pans (simulating post-crash fire sources and a ruptured airplane fuselage) and to characterize fires in some common combustibles (simulating in-flight fire sources). Design post-crash and in-flight fire source selections were based on these data. Large panels of airplane interior materials were exposed to closely-controlled large scale heating simulations of the two design fire sources in a Boeing fire test facility utilizing a surplused 707 fuselage section. Small samples of the same airplane materials were tested by several laboratory fire test methods. Large scale and laboratory scale data were examined for correlative factors. Published data for dangerous hazard levels in a fire environment were used as the basis for developing a method to select the most desirable material where trade-offs in heat, smoke and gaseous toxicant evolution must be considered

Fire testing in the Boeing 707 cabin section

The goal of a FIREMEN funded contract is the definition of a laboratory test method ranking airplane interior materials by probable performance in post-crash and in-flight fires. A major task is the relation of laboratory results to full scale data. A large test facility for testing materials to the thermal threat of fuel fed and interior fires was developed with quartz lamps and a propane burner in a twenty foot fuselage section. A method was developed to analyze full scale data for the apparent heat, smoke and toxicant release rates of the material tested

To Live More and Die Less: Challenging Tennessee\u27s Anti-Trans Birth Certificate Policy

This note analyzes Gore, et al., v. Lee, et al., a case challenging Tennessee\u27s birth control policy which explicitly prohibits trans people born in Tennessee from correcting their gender marker to accurately reflect their gender identity. The note begins with a description of the issues the lawsuit hopes to address and continues with a description of the parties, history of anti-trans birth certificate jurisprudence, an analysis of lawyering strategies, and concludes with First Amendment strategies which may be used to fight state laws requiring trans citizens to complete gender confirming procedures in order to correct their birth certificate gender markers

Evaluation of Materials and Concepts for Aircraft Fire Protection

Woven fiberglass fluted-core simulated aircraft interior panels were flame tested and structurally evaluated against the Boeing 747 present baseline interior panels. The NASA-defined panels, though inferior on a strength-to-weight basis, showed better structural integrity after flame testing, due to the woven fiberglass structure

Development of aircraft lavatory compartments with improved fire resistance characteristics, phase 1: Fire containment test of a wide body aircraft lavatory module

A test was conducted to evaluate the fire containment characteristics of a Boeing 747 lavatory module. Results showed that the fire was contained within the lavatory during the 30-minute test period with the door closed. The resistance of the lavatory wall and ceiling panels and general lavatory construction to burn-through under the test conditions was demonstrated