bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Early participation in the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment
Authors: Swearingen White Stacey 
Published: July 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze those US campuses that became signatories of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) during the charter membership period of December 2006 through September 15, 2007.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on literature in organizational change, organizational learning, and innovation diffusion to develop a tentative idea as to what types of campuses might be most likely to be climate change innovators. It then characterizes signatory campuses with respect to such variables as their size, location, and type.FindingsThe paper shows that there is no typical signatory among the 379 ACUPCC charter members. Many types of institutions, public and private, small and large, and located throughout the USA, have pledged to become climate neutral through this commitment.Practical implicationsUnderstanding more about how USA higher education is responding to global climate change is an important component of the larger discussions surrounding this critical issue.Originality/valueHigher education has a vital role to play in global climate change mitigation and adaptation, but there has been little prior scholarly attention to this topic. This paper contributes to the understanding of this issue through its analysis of the most innovative and comprehensive climate initiative in US higher education.
Using a class to conduct a carbon inventory
Authors: Wells Christopher W. , Savanick Suzanne , Manning Christie 
Published: July 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the practical realities of using a college seminar to fulfill the carbon audit requirement for signatories to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) and presents evidence of this approach's advantages as an educational and practical tool.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the course structure and presents research findings, based on student questionnaires on student learning outcomes.FindingsStructuring a course around a campus carbon audit has unique educational advantages for students and practical advantages for ACUPCC signatory campuses.Originality/valueThis paper enumerates the concrete advantages to using a college class to conduct a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and provides evidence of valuable learning outcomes for students in such a class.
University leadership in island climate change mitigation
Authors: Coffman Makena 
Published: July 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the University of Hawaii at Manoa's (UHM's) initiatives in achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions on campus and at the state level.Design/methodology/approachUHM has taken a “lead by example” approach to climate change mitigation in terms of working to meet the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, becoming a founding member of The Climate Registry, and providing university leadership in crafting the policy to meet Hawaii's Climate Change Solutions Act of 2007.FindingsUniversities are uniquely poised to play a role in not only climate change research, education, and community outreach, but also in the regional and national policy‐making arena. In the absence of federal legislation, states are paving the way to create binding US GHG reduction commitments – making crafting innovative and appropriate policy all the more important and meaningful at the state and regional levels.Practical implicationsThe paper discusses the multi‐prong approach UHM is taking in addressing the threats of climate change: from on‐campus GHG measurements and reductions to helping guide overarching state policy.Originality/valueIslands are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. UHM has taken a comprehensive approach to addressing climate change, from forming strategic partnerships with the electric utility, to developing campus and state GHG reduction strategies, to helping mobilize planning for impacts like sea‐level rise. This paper presents the efforts of UHM, including faculty, student and administration‐led projects, specifically illustrating the role of Universities in meeting GHG reduction commitments through a “lead by example” approach at both the university and state levels.
Climate action planning at the University of New Hampshire
Authors: Cleaves Sara M. , Pasinella Brett , Andrews Jennifer , Wake Cameron 
Published: July 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the recent history of climate action planning at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), a public university with a long history of sustainability action and commitment. Items discussed include a partnership with Clean Air‐Cool Planet (CA‐CP) to produce a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory tool that adapted national and international inventory methodologies to the unique scale and character of a university community; involvement of administrators, faculty, staff and students in climate action planning, including to meet the requirements of the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC); and the role of climate action planning within a broader institutional goal of integrating sustainability across curricula, operations, research and engagement efforts.Design/methodology/approachBackground and historical information is shared in terms of best practices and lessons learned.FindingsSuccessful climate action planning includes campus‐wide stakeholder involvement, an institution‐wide commitment to sustainability, and careful planning and partnerships that tie into a higher education institution's educational mission and identity and that take into account the culture and sense of place of each institution.Practical implicationsThe paper contains lessons learned and best practices from which other institutions of higher education might learn.Originality/valueUNH, a recognized national leader in sustainability and climate protection, and CA‐CP developed one of the first emissions inventory tools for higher education in the USA. The tool has been adopted by more than 1,000 campuses and was adopted by the ACUPCC as the recommended tool for campuses not already participating in another GHG inventorying program. Instead of recreating the wheel, campuses may be able to learn from UNH and CA‐CP's climate planning experience and history.
Towards carbon neutrality and environmental sustainability at CCSU
Authors: Button Charles E. 
Published: July 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide information about past and present efforts undertaken at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) to reduce its carbon footprint and to institute a campus culture centered on the principles of environmental sustainability. Provide some recommendations to other institutions of higher education interested in reducing their own carbon footprint.Design/methodology/approachThis manuscript will first discuss past attempts at implementing ecologically sustainable practices at CCSU. Then, it will speak about current successes and close with a discussion about future goals for the university.FindingsInstituting carbon neutrality and sustainability programs at institutes of higher education requires support from the faculty, administration, students, and facilities management staff.Practical implicationsThe information in this paper will provide useful information to other institutions of higher education that are seeking to institute carbon reduction and sustainability programs.Originality/valueThis paper is original in that it provides details about CCSU's carbon neutrality efforts and recently initiated sustainability program that only someone intimately involved would know. Its value lies in helping others know of methods that have been successful in reducing a campus' carbon footprint.
Student‐led campus climate change initiatives in Canada
Authors: Helferty Anjali , Clarke Amelia 
Published: July 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive list of student‐led, campus‐based climate change initiatives, and offers details on many specific cases. The paper also documents the roles students have played and considers the larger youth engagement implications. Many of these initiatives can be replicated elsewhere, thereby providing a starting point for students wanting to begin an initiative or providing ideas for other campus stakeholders wanting to engage students in initiatives.Design/methodology/approachCampus reports were collected by the Sierra Youth Coalition from 65 Canadian Universities and Colleges. This qualitative information was coded for student‐led climate‐related initiatives, and for the roles students played in those initiatives. The patterns were identified and clustered, and are presented in this paper.FindingsStudents were found to be successfully leading eight different types of campus climate change‐related initiatives, both with the support of other campus stakeholders and without this support. Students were also found to be able to successfully take on a variety of types of leadership roles in these initiatives. Youth engagement ranged from socialization to influence to power, depending on the type of initiative.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation of this research is that only 65 of the approximately 227 colleges and universities in Canada participated. Also, it is possible that some schools may not have reported all student‐led initiatives, or all the student roles. In addition, the data were limited to the 2007/2008 academic year, so is limited to the initiatives which occurred in that year.Originality/valueThis paper presents different types of student‐led climate change initiatives, the roles students have played in these initiatives, and the implications for youth engagement in creating climate change solutions. It contributes to the climate change, the campus sustainability, and the social movements literatures.
Findings from a research study of construction safety in Hong Kong
Authors: Wong Francis K.W. , Chan Albert P.C. , Yam Michael C.H. , Wong Edmond Y.S. , Tse Kenny T.C. , Yip Kendra K.C. , Cheung Esther 
Published: July 2009

PurposeFalls continue to be the major cause of fatalities in the Hong Kong construction industry, as well as in other countries. Published statistics of the Labour Department, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) showed that from 2000 to 2004 approximately half of the fatal construction accidents were a result of fall of person from height. In view of this phenomenon, the purpose of this paper is to present the findings and recommendations of a research paper which investigates the problems associated with fall of person from height in the construction industry.Design/methodology/approachAccident data obtained from the Architectural Services Department, HKSAR, was analysed according to the 14 available factors collectively to derive explanations for common situations and reasons leading to fall accidents.FindingsThe findings of this rigorous analysis are presented to practitioners whose feedback on the findings are recorded by means of a questionnaire survey. The responses from the survey show that “re‐enforced safety training” and “equipments for working at height” are the adoptable methods to enhance the workers' safety performance. The paper shows that “poor safety attitude and behaviour of workers” is the main problem in obstructing the implementation of safety procedures and guidelines for construction sites. In addition, over half the respondents agree that “closer monitoring and supervision” and “higher standard of projects” is observed by public projects when compared to private projects.Originality/valueThe statistics analysed in this paper are limited to public sector projects only. However, the findings are still believed to be valuable for safety practitioners so that they can adopt the necessary measures to prevent fall from height accidents occurring in future projects.
Agility through the interfacing of CAD and CAM
Authors: Vinodh S. , Sundararaj G. , Devadasan S.R. , Kuttalingam D. , Jayaprakasam J. , Rajanayagam D. 
Published: July 2009

PurposeAgile manufacturing (AM) refers to the capability of an organisation to quickly respond to the customers' dynamic demands. The purpose of this paper is to report a research which is carried out to explore the interfacing of computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) in a traditional manufacturing company with the purpose of acquiring AM characteristics.Design/methodology/approachThe CAD model of an existing electronics switch is developed using Pro/E package. Then, the mold adviser package is used to design the existing mold of this component. On studying this mold, ten new models of it are designed using the mold adviser package.FindingsThe new models developed through CAD/CAM interfacing are found to possess more agile characteristics than those possess by the existing mold.Research limitations/implicationsThe explorative study is conducted in only one traditional manufacturing company. In this company several world class manufacturing strategies like kaizen and total productive maintenance are implemented. This endeavour mimics those pursue in majority of the companies situated in different parts of the world. This implies that the contributions of this research would be useful to majority of those companies as well.Practical implicationsA roadmap is developed which will be useful for practically applying CAD/CAM interfacing with the objective of implementing AM.Originality/valueIt appears that no researcher has examined the interfacing of CAD/CAM for achieving agility in manufacturing organisations. This paper reports a research, which is conducted to fill this research and practice gap. Hence, this research is original and valuable to both researchers and practitioners.
Geographic diversification, performance, and the risk profile of UK construction firms
Authors: Makarfi Ibrahim Yahaya , Makarfi Ibrahim Aliyu , Kabir Bala 
Published: July 2009

PurposeExecutives are often faced with the challenge of making sound decisions regarding the product and geographic markets into which the company should diversify. This situation is even more glaring with respect to construction companies, owing to the volatile nature of the construction market. The purpose of this paper is to present empirical results on the impact of geographic diversification on the performance and risk profiles of construction firms in the UK.Design/methodology/approachPublished financial data of construction firms covering the period 1995‐2004 are employed in the paper. From this data, extent of geographic diversification, performance, and risk are computed. Firms are grouped based on the extent of diversification into undiversified, moderately diversified, and highly diversified. Performance of these groups is then compared using thet‐statistic based on return on equity (ROE), return on total asset (ROTA), return on capital employed (ROCE), and profit margin (PM).FindingsThe results show that firms that remain focused within the UK market outperform those that expand into international markets on PM only. There is no significant difference in performance based on ROE, ROTA, and ROCE. However, as expected, highly diversified firms are found to exhibit the best risk profile.Originality/valueThese results are invaluable to managers in strategic decision making. They also provide a first step to understanding the nature of the relationship between geographic spread and performance of UK construction firms.
Construction plant and equipment management research: thematic review
Authors: Edwards David J. , Holt Gary D. 
Published: July 2009

PurposeA literature review is presented in the subject of construction plant and equipment management (CPeM) to: delineate the subject; consider its development over recent years; and identify principal themes within it. The paper aims to close the gap in knowledge, by using these objectives as a mechanism to observe how research themes relate to primary CPeM functions, and to suggest future research direction.Design/methodology/approachA thematic review of CPeM academic literature (in the main, refereed journal papers published in English‐speaking countries over the last decade) is undertaken; the nature of identified themes is discussed, for instance, regarding why they might have evolved as they have; and based on the foregone, themes for future research in the field are proffered.FindingsCPeM is found well established within the broader subject of construction management. Eight principal themes are identified, namely plant maintenance; downtime and productivity; optimisation; robotics and automation; health and safety; operators and competence; machine control; and “miscellaneous”.Research limitations/implicationsIt is proffered that based on informational/technological advancements coupled with growing environmental/financial pressures, future CPeM research will strive to facilitate even greater plant reliability and safer modes of working. It is suggested that “optimum production methods” and “minimal resource consumption” will become inherent theme goals.Originality/valueThis is the first time that CPeM research has been consolidated and reviewed for publication in this manner.
Wire rope selection for manual winch application
Authors: Oduori Moses , Mbuya Thomas 
Published: July 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the application of analytical decision making during the selection of engineering entities in an engineering design setting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper develops a quantitative method for wire rope selection and uses handbook data to demonstrate the use of the method in selecting a suitable type and size of wire rope for the hoisting/hauling mechanism of a hypothetical manual winch.FindingsWire rope data can be processed into forms that are more readily useable in a quantitative selection method. Moreover, computer software such as Microsoft Excel may be used in the selection process, so long as the data are in suitable form.Originality/valueThe selection of engineering entities often occurs in engineering design processes. An information processing approach to wire rope selection has been developed and demonstrated. The method demonstrated in this paper should be applicable in other situations in which a need for the selection of engineering entities arises.
Application development environment for event‐driven ubiquitous devices
Authors: Sagara Ryohei , Kishino Yasue , Terada Tsutomu , Nishio Shojiro 
Published: July 2009

PurposeIn ubiquitous computing environments, not only programmers but also general users come to develop/customize applications. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a new application development environment for ubiquitous computing environments.Design/methodology/approachThe paper clarifies the requirements for application development environments of ubiquitous computing environments. It then designs and implements a prototype of a development environment that fulfills these requirements.FindingsIt is found that the requirements for application development in ubiquitous computing environments are: easy programming, detection of current status, programming awareness of network connections between multiple ubiquitous devices, and debugging with cooperation among real/virtual environments.Research limitations/implicationsThis prototype of application development environment is designed for event‐driven ubiquitous devices.Practical implicationsA prototype development environment has been implemented to show the effectiveness of this approach, and is presented an example of an application development to show the effectiveness of the approach.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a new style of application development for ubiquitous computing environments
Baton: a service manager for better sustaining agent coordination in smart spaces
Authors: Suo Yue , Li Jingyu , Shi Yuanchun , Xiang Peifeng 
Published: July 2009

PurposeSmart spaces are open complex computing systems, consisting of a large variety of cooperative smart things. Central to building smart spaces is the support for sophisticated coordination among diverse smart things collaborating to accomplish specified tasks. Multi‐agent systems are often used as the software infrastructures to address the coordination issue in smart spaces. However, since agents in smart spaces are dynamic, resource‐bounded and have complicated service dependencies, current approaches to coordination in multi‐agent systems encounter new challenges when applied in smart spaces. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents Baton, a service management system to explicitly resolve the particular issues stemming from smart spaces when coordinating agents. Baton is designed as a complement to coordination approaches in multi‐agent systems with a focus on mechanisms for service discovery, composition, request arbitration and dependency maintenance. Baton is now deployed in our own smart spaces to achieve better agent coordination.FindingsThe effectiveness and efficiency of Baton is validated by its practical use in the designed scenario and some evaluation experiments.Research limitations/implicationsAn attempt at performing dynamic service composition in Baton is made by using semantic information in future work.Originality/valueBaton, a service management system to explicitly resolve the particular issues stemming from smart spaces when coordinating agents is presented.
ENME
Authors: Østhus Egil C. , Osland Per‐Oddvar , Kristiansen Lill 
Published: July 2009

PurposeIn many settings, the users are mobile (e.g. away from their desks) while high quality multimedia telephony equipment has fixed locations. This may result in unsuccessful multimedia calls and motivates a context aware system which supports session mobility. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is to utilize state‐of‐the‐art in‐context awareness and integrate this into a real time telecom system based on SIP. System requirements are formulated and the system is designed, implemented and (technically) tested.FindingsThe paper contains a thorough analysis of why baseline SIP and SIP REFER alone cannot solve our case and why a new SIP extension is introduced. The solution is evaluated and compared to solutions such as “virtual terminals”.Research limitations/implicationsIt is pointed out that the context model does not directly support roaming between two different business domains. This issue is however of limited impact in an enterprise setting. The current prototype is thoroughly tested from a technical viewpoint, but user studies in real organizations are recommended as further work.Practical implicationsThe paper shows that human issues and issues relating to computer mediated communication (CMC) are strongly linked to technical details in SIP. In practice this means that researchers in CMC and CSCW should look more into building prototypes where real time conversational features are supported together with dynamic change of media types.Originality/valueThe main value of the paper is a thorough described technical realization of the context aware multimedia application ENriched MEdia (ENME). The background material and the appendix should be of value to anyone interested in convergence between computing and communication.