Search results

Composite slabs are gaining wide acceptance in many countries as they lend themselves to faster, lighter and more economic in construction buildings. The strength of composite slabs system relies on the bonding action between the concrete and the steel deck, the shear connections and the cross-sectional resistance of steel beam. However, structural behaviour of composite slab is a complex phenomenon and therefore experimental study is often conducted to establish the actual strength of the structure under ultimate load capacity. The main objective of this study is to determine the structural behaviour of composite slab system until ultimate limit state. Total of two specimens are examined in order to obtain failure mechanism of the composite structure under full load capacity. A new design approach of composite slab for roofing system are proposed in this study to construct a composite slab system that can float in the water but not wash away by flood. The lightweight materials in this composite construction are cold-formed steel and foam concrete. The system focuses on the concept of Industrialised building system (IBS) to reduce the cost and construction time.

The consideration of alternative sources of material for construction is imperative to reduce the environmental impacts as two-fifths of the carbon footprint of materials is attributed to the construction industry. One alternative material with improved biodegradable attributes which can contribute to carbon offset is bamboo. The commercialisation of bamboo in modern infrastructures has significant potential to address few of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) itemised by the United Nations, namely SDG 9 about industry, innovation and infrastructure. Other SDGs covering sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production and climate action are also indirectly addressed when utilising sustainable construction materials. Being a natural material however, the full commercialisation of materials such as bamboo is constrained by a lack of durability. Besides fracture mechanisms arising from load-induced cracks and thermal modification, the durability of bamboo material is greatly impaired by biotic and abiotic factors, which equally affect its natural rate of degradation, hence fracture behaviour. In first instance, this chapter outlines the various factors leading to the durability limitations in bamboo material due to load-induced cracks and natural degradation based on recent findings in this field from the author's own work and from past literature. Secondly, part of this chapter is devoted to a new approach of processing the surge of information about the varied aspects of bamboo durability by considering the powerful technique of artificial intelligence (AI), specifically the artificial neural network (ANN) for prediction modelling. Further use of AI-enabled technologies could have an impactful outcome on the life cycle assessment of bamboo-based structures to address the growing challenges outlined by the United Nations.

This chapter reports findings from a qualitative case study of principals and assistant school principals in southern Thailand who work in areas targeted by Muslim separatist groups. Principals and assistant school principals discussed the pressures they experienced working in an area of conflict and the requirements placed upon them by the Thai Ministry of Education (MoE). This study emphasizes the importance of social context to school leadership and career development. Findings suggested that the MoE’s centralized practice of policy implementation has particular consequences on the development of principals in the three border provinces because it fails to take into account the unstable social context. Consequently, many teachers working to become principals and principals wanting to become senior principals find themselves unable to meet the requirements and resort to unethical practices to achieve promotion.

Appreciative inquiry is an approach to action research that intends to create knowledge for social innovation. Such knowledge has the generative capacity to interrupt habitual practice and to create an inspiring sense of possibility that energizes novel action. How can appreciative inquiry live up to this promise? The premise of this chapter is that we need to better understand the generative qualities of inquiry in the appreciative/inquiry equation. What is the nature of inquiry that has generativity at its core? The chapter describes five distinct, yet interrelated approaches that enhance the generative process of inquiry. They depict generativity as a dynamic interplay of open-endedness and connectedness. How can the five dimensions of generativity advance appreciative inquiry as a scholarship of transformation? The last section of the chapter gives some suggestions for such possible enrichment. We need audacious forms of scholarship for the creation of a more just and sustainable global society. Appreciative inquiry as a generative process is well positioned to take on that role.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

Past research on collectivist-democratic organizations has attributed their distinctiveness to their socio-political goals and democratic decision-making and largely ignored their work processes. This ethnographic study examines how such organizations resist alienating forms of work even in the face of direct competition with for-profit companies. It focuses on Scopix, a French cooperative sheet-metal factory where the first author spent one year as a shop-floor worker. Cooperators there developed various practices to retain an emancipatory dimension to their work, regularly putting forward “craft ethics” as a counterweight to the sheet-metal industry’s drive to rationalize work processes. Drawing on the sociology of worth, the authors analyze how these practices emerged from the arrangements that workers made between the industrial world on the one side and the domestic and inspired worlds on the other. This study contributes to the literature into two main ways. First, the authors refine the sociology-of-worth framework by conceptualizing the emancipatory dimension of work as the result of ad hoc arrangements between different worlds. Second, the authors highlight the need for the literature on collectivist-democratic organizations to increase its focus on work, introducing the concept of work degeneration as a step in that direction.

The railway track system is the platform by which loads from moving trains are transferred to the underlying soil or supporting infrastructure such as bridges. The most common type of railway track system is ballasted track, which has been in use for over a century. Ballasted track has proved versatile. It can be constructed using locally available materials and with modifications to the rails and sleepers, crossings transferring trains from one route to another can be created. The structure of a ballasted track system consists of two main parts. The upper portion, termed the superstructure, comprises the rails, fastenings and sleepers. It is formed of components whose shape, stiffness and strength are designed and closely controlled. Below the superstructure is the substructure, which comprises the ballast and sub-ballast. Although the materials used in the substructure may have been specified, their engineering properties and geometric placement are less well controlled. In this chapter, we will explore how a typical ballasted track system transfers load to the ground and the ways in which the track form deteriorates, requiring maintenance and eventually renewal.

Pragmatism in the sense of harmonizing rules and reality for the sake of appropriate problem solving and overall performance is a ubiquitous phenomenon in organizational life. As such it has been generalized as an everyday requirement of making organizations work and a virtue of human decision making under the condition of complexity, strategic dilemmas or “wicked problems.” This chapter addresses both the theoretical and the normative dimensions of pragmatism in organizations, public administration in particular. The main statement is that the necessary theoretical clarification concerns the distinction between pragmatism and what is referred to as a logic of appropriateness while the normative limits of pragmatism refer to the necessity of ranking logics of appropriateness and related values plus the ability to act on the basis of accurate judgment which is primarily, even if not exclusively, a matter of leadership.