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With the purpose of creating a forum for discussion on the scope and nature of building performance evaluation. This paper provides a definition of performance measurement from an organisational perspective, and a review of three leading industry tools for post‐occupancy evaluation that examines the gap between evaluation and measurement. The paper concludes by asking what role facilities managers might play in building performance appraisal, what barriers cost imposes on measurement of the built infrastructure, and what are the limitations regarding the methods included in the review.

This paper discusses a pedagogical approach that incorporates multiple critical topics in the accounting curriculum using an integrated tax research case. Our approach is designed to develop students research, data management and analysis, critical thinking, decision-making, and professional communication skills. These goals are achieved through the use of an integrated assignment requiring students to conduct research, decide how to use an assortment of information sources, conduct analysis of data and business documents, and arrive at and communicate a conclusion. The key issue is reasonable compensation, a highly litigated tax issue which requires students to identify relevant authority found across many court cases. The use of a closely held business with multiple family members with different fact patterns exposes students to different outcomes with a varying degree of complexity. Students must analyze business documents and firm- and industry-level data to determine the appropriate tax treatment. Further, the case scenario exploits the fact that reasonable compensation is a tax issue in which circuit courts have ruled differently on the same issue, requiring in-depth research and interpretation of primary authority. Students are also exposed to differing outcomes based on entity type. We provide discussion of our multiple implementations and student questionnaire results to support the efficacy of our approach. We have prepared resources to help instructors implement this pedagogical approach, including a completed data analysis, supporting summary tables, and an in-depth discussion of the primary authority related to reasonable compensation.

Many organisations are responding to the diminishing stability of their operating environments by developing flexible methods of performing their core function. This creates demand for flexible supporting building space. While the architectural problems of providing such space have been solved for many years, its servicing remains problematic. This difficulty is manifested in the rising cost of services alterations necessitated when spaces are changed in use. The current inflexibility of services installation construction has prompted a study of reusable building services components. It is anticipated that this approach will increase services installation adaptability by reducing alteration costs. Focusing on the UK National Health Service, this paper presents a survey of trends in organisational function, their estate implications and the extent to which facilities managers can control or plan estate responses to frequent core function revision. Existing services component reuse practices are reviewed and component and process attributes conducive to disassembly and refurbishment are identified. It is concluded that, while reusable services components will achieve the required services installation adaptability, their technical feasibility and economic viability remain to be determined.

This paper proposes an uncertainty principle for information seeking. The principle is based on the results of a series of studies conducted by the author into the user's perspective of the information search process. A basic principle of uncertainty is elaborated by six corollaries. The principle is proposed to explain the constructive process of information seeking and use bringing affective considerations to what has usually been regarded as a cognitive process.

Introduction “Equality is, at the very least, freedom from adverse discrimination. But what constitutes adverse discrimination changes with time, with information, with experience, and with insight. What we tolerated as a society 100, 50, or even 10 years ago is no longer necessarily tolerable. Equality is thus a process ‐ a process of constant and flexible examination, of vigilant introspection, and of aggressive open mindedness.” (Excerpt from Equality in Employment, A Royal Commission Report, 1984)

The purpose of this paper is to offer a new approach for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Australia to engage in sustainable trade with China through the use of Sister City relationships. The reason for writing this paper is to address this research gap with the aim of influencing government policy at the national and the local level.

The main methods used is a historical literature review, a critical review of the effectiveness of the Sister City relationships and an examination of a special Sister City relationship between Latrobe City in Australia and the Chinese city of Taizhou.

Throughout the course of the paper it was established that Sister City relationships had been insufficiently utilized as commercial facilitators and especially SMEs in regional Australia. This was especially evident in terms of trade relations with China.

This conceptual paper will require further research at different levels. Future research should establish what Australian sister cities with China are actually doing and how a more focused relationship utilizing SMEs in their territory might be utilized. This is clearly a limitation with this conceptual paper, which it is hoped will be overcome with new research planned by the authors.

The practical implications emerging from this paper is that Sister City relationships can be refocused from their current role to becoming structurally integrated into trade facilitators for SMEs in pursuing trade with China. Most Sister City relationships do not have a trade focus in the first instance. As a result of this paper we are hoping that local government policy makers and state government trade facilitators will see Sister City relationships in a new light.

This paper brings to attention cases of Sister City relationships which have gravitated towards a trade focus (an exception like Latrobe City) in which results are already evident. A paper of this kind is directed at governments at all levels as well as SMEs who wish to work better with government.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.

The 2016 announcement of plans for a large new UK nuclear plant at Hinkley Point, just 250 miles from Ireland’s coast, was met with concern by many Irish people. Paradoxically, nuclear power was rejected in Ireland in 1979 with the development of the coal burning plant at Moneypoint in County Clare, and outlawed as an energy option in 1999, yet the country still utilises electricity from the UK’s power grid, which includes energy derived from nuclear power. Ireland’s interconnected energy grid includes Northern Ireland and the Republic. This chapter will examine the issues surrounding Ireland’s energy policy. In particular, it will focus on the debates that have occurred in Ireland in relation to the use of nuclear energy.