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1 – 10 of over 2000This study aims to explore the calculations and valuations that unfold in everyday practices within social care settings. Specifically, the paper concerns the role of accounting…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the calculations and valuations that unfold in everyday practices within social care settings. Specifically, the paper concerns the role of accounting in dealing with multiple calculable and non-calculable spaces within the case management process. The study sheds light on the multiplicity produced in constructing the client as an object through the calculations and valuations embedded in the costing and caring practices in social work.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a qualitative case study in a Swedish social care organisation, with a specific focus on the calculations and valuations within the case management process. The data have been gathered from 20 interviews with social workers, team leaders, managers and a management accountant, along with more than 36 h of on-site observations and internal organisational documents, including policy documents, guidelines and procedural lists.
Findings
The case management process involves interconnected practices in constructing the client as an object. While monetary calculations and those associated with worth are embedded in costing and caring practices, they interact and proliferate in various ways. Three elements are found: transforming service units into centres of calculation, constructing the accounts of calculation and establishing the cost-value calculations. Calculations and valuations are actuated in these elements in describing the need, matching the case with the unit and caseworker and deciding on the measure. The objectification of the client entails the construction of accounts, for example, ongoing qualifications, categorisations and groupings of units, juridical frameworks, case types, needs and measures. As an object multiple, the client becomes different objects at different stages, challenging the establishment accounts, and thus producing a range of calculations and valuations. Such diversity in calculations concomitantly produces more calculations to represent the present and absent multiple facets of the client, resulting in a multiplicity of costing and caring.
Practical implications
The study might flag up for practitioners the possible risks and unintended consequences of depending too much on fixed guidelines and (performance) indicators since social work involves object multiples, which are always in diversity and changeable in situ. Considering the multiple dimensions within the specific contexts could thus be helpful to mitigate such risks in the evaluation of social care processes and the design of (performance) metrics.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on accountingisation by extending the concept as a part of ongoing organisational practices, materialised within the calculations of money and worth in everyday social care. Besides demonstrating their reconsolidation, this study shows a multiplicity of costing and caring practices depending on the way the client is constructed, resulting in the proliferation of accounting(s) and ultimately accountingisation of social work.
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Marcus Achenbach and Guido Morgenthal
The purpose of this paper is to develop a method suitable for the design of reinforced concrete columns subjected to a standard fire.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a method suitable for the design of reinforced concrete columns subjected to a standard fire.
Design/methodology/approach
The Zone Method – a ’simplified calculation method” included in Eurocode 2 – has been developed by Hertz as a manual calculation scheme for the check of fire resistance of concrete sections. The basic idea is to disregard the thermal strains and to calculate the resistance of a cross-section by reducing the concrete cross-section by a “damaged zone”. It is assumed that all fibers can reach their ultimate, temperature dependent strength. Therefore, it is a plastic concept; the information on the state of strain is lost. The calculation of curvatures and deflections is thus only possible by making further assumptions. Extensions of the zone method toward a general calculation method, suitable for the implementation in commercial design software and using the temperature dependent stress–strain curves of the Advanced Calculation Method, have been developed in Germany. The extension by Cyllok and Achenbach is presented in detail. The necessary assumptions of the Zone Method are reviewed, and an improved proposal for the consideration of the reinforcement in this extended Zone Method is presented.
Findings
The principles and assumptions of the Zone Method proposed by Hertz can be validated.
Originality/value
An extension of the Zone Method suitable for the implementation in design software is proposed.
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Lisa Hedvall, Helena Forslund and Stig-Arne Mattsson
The purposes of this study were (1) to explore empirical challenges in dimensioning safety buffers and their implications and (2) to organise those challenges into a framework.
Abstract
Purpose
The purposes of this study were (1) to explore empirical challenges in dimensioning safety buffers and their implications and (2) to organise those challenges into a framework.
Design/methodology/approach
In a multiple-case study following an exploratory, qualitative and empirical approach, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted in six cases. Representatives of all cases subsequently participated in an interactive workshop, after which a questionnaire was used to assess the impact and presence of each challenge. A cross-case analysis was performed to situate empirical findings within the literature.
Findings
Ten challenges were identified in four areas of dimensioning safety buffers: decision management, responsibilities, methods for dimensioning safety buffers and input data. All challenges had both direct and indirect negative implications for dimensioning safety buffers and were synthesised into a framework.
Research limitations/implications
This study complements the literature on dimensioning safety buffers with qualitative insights into challenges in dimensioning safety buffers and implications in practice.
Practical implications
Practitioners can use the framework to understand and overcome challenges in dimensioning safety buffers and their negative implications.
Originality/value
This study responds to the scarcity of qualitative and empirical studies on dimensioning safety buffers and the absence of any overview of the challenges therein.
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The purpose of this study is to shed light on the tools, processes and negotiations involved in the formation of acceptable current values in the context of goodwill impairment…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to shed light on the tools, processes and negotiations involved in the formation of acceptable current values in the context of goodwill impairment testing. The study raises the questions of how a current value for goodwill becomes a faithful representation and how one expectation about the future becomes more convincing than other expectations.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the study of associations, the analysis presents a case study of a large, internationally active organisation. By combining field notes, interview transcripts and a variety of documents, the qualitative analysis focusses on strategies and mechanisms of persuasion.
Findings
The findings reveal how epistemological objectivity of current values forms in three moments of relational becoming that codify, depersonalise and proceduralise the valuation task. Further, the study suggests that a convincing argument forms with the help of four enablers: a bricolage of inscriptions, methodological mystification, transformed professional identities and a practical need for closure.
Originality/value
The study contributes with an analysis and illustration of financial accounting as practice, elaborating on the meaning and construction of faithful representation in cases of measurement uncertainty.
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Maria Saridaki and Kim Haugbølle
The architecture, engineering and construction industry faces several challenges when performing life-cycle cost calculations. On the basis of activity theory, this study aims at…
Abstract
Purpose
The architecture, engineering and construction industry faces several challenges when performing life-cycle cost calculations. On the basis of activity theory, this study aims at improving our understanding of the current cost calculation in design practices as an activity system with a number of built-in contradictions.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Drawing on one of the authors’ practical experience from a design office, the research design comprises a paradigmatic case study of a Danish architecture firm, in which data are gathered through documents, observations, interviews and physical artefacts. Moreover, this paper applies a literature review on barriers for adopting life-cycle costing.
Findings
The paper identifies a number of primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary contradictions between practices of design, cost calculations and data management. Thus, hypotheses are formulated on how and to what extent these different contradictions shape cost calculations in design practices to obstruct or support the application of life cycle costing principles in design.
Research Limitations/Implications
This study is part of an ongoing research project. Thus, additional analysis is required before the authors may conclude on final results.
Practical Implications
This paper identifies a number of factors that obstruct or support the implementation of life cycle costing in current design practices.
Originality/Value
This paper provides new insights into the various contradictions that shape data management in architectural offices as a prerequisite for improving life cycle design practices.
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Junru Zhang, Yumeng Liu and Bo Yan
This study aims to research the large cross-section tunnel stability evaluation method corrected after considering the thickness-span ratio.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to research the large cross-section tunnel stability evaluation method corrected after considering the thickness-span ratio.
Design/methodology/approach
First, taking the Liuyuan Tunnel of Huanggang-Huangmei High-Speed Railway as an example and taking deflection of the third principal stress of the surrounding rock at a vault after tunnel excavation as the criterion, the critical buried depth of the large section tunnel was determined. Then, the strength reduction method was employed to calculate the tunnel safety factor under different rock classes and thickness-span ratios, and mathematical statistics was conducted to identify the relationships of the tunnel safety factor with the thickness-span ratio and the basic quality (BQ) index of the rock for different rock classes. Finally, the influences of thickness-span ratio, groundwater, initial stress of rock and structural attitude factors were considered to obtain the corrected BQ, based on which the stability of a large cross-section tunnel with a depth of more than 100 m during mechanized operation was analyzed. This evaluation method was then applied to Liuyuan Tunnel and Cimushan No. 2 Tunnel of Chongqing Urban Expressway for verification.
Findings
This study shows that under different rock classes, the tunnel safety factor is a strict power function of the thickness-span ratio, while a linear function of the BQ to some extent. It is more suitable to use the corrected BQ as a quantitative index to evaluate tunnel stability according to the actual conditions of the site.
Originality/value
The existing industry standards do not consider the influence of buried depth and span in the evaluation of tunnel stability. The stability evaluation method of large section tunnel considering the correction of overburden span ratio proposed in this paper achieves higher accuracy for the stability evaluation of surrounding rock in a full or large-section mechanized excavation of double line high-speed railway tunnels.
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The purpose of this paper is to describe how the voluntary living wage (LW) in the UK is set. It examines how this calculation relates to contemporary approaches to setting wage…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe how the voluntary living wage (LW) in the UK is set. It examines how this calculation relates to contemporary approaches to setting wage floors, both in relation to their goal of supporting adequate living standards and in relation to the place of wage floors in the labour mark.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines how compulsory and voluntary wage floors are being determined, in the UK and in particular the role of public consensus in contributing to the calculation and adoption of a LW. It then reflects on the future sustainability of a system of wage floors in which the concept of the LW plays a significant role.
Findings
The central finding is that widespread support for wages delivering socially acceptable minimum living standards has transformed the context in which low pay is being addressed in the UK. The LW idea has stimulated more decisive efforts to do so; however, if a compulsory version of a LW were to reach a level shown to be harming jobs, this could seriously undermine such efforts. Moreover, the extent to which adequate wages are compatible with high employment levels can also be influenced by state support for households, especially tax credits and Universal Credit.
Originality/value
The paper clarifies how the setting of the UK LW contributes to objectives related both to living standards and to labour markets, and critically addresses some key issues raised.
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Kim Haugbølle and Lau M. Raffnsøe
Sustainable building design suffers from a lack of reliable life cycle data. The purpose of this paper is to compare life cycle costs of sustainable building projects, examine the…
Abstract
Purpose
Sustainable building design suffers from a lack of reliable life cycle data. The purpose of this paper is to compare life cycle costs of sustainable building projects, examine the magnitude of various cost drivers and discuss the implications of an emerging shift in cost drivers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on data from 21 office buildings certified in Denmark according to the sustainable certification scheme DGNB.
Findings
The paper supports previous findings that construction costs and running costs each roughly make up half of the life cycle costs over a 50-year period. More surprising is the finding that the life cycle costs for cleaning are approximately twice as high as the supply costs for energy and water.
Research limitations/implications
The data set is based on actual construction costs of office buildings constructed in 2013-2017. Although all running costs are calculated rather than measured, they are based on a more detailed, specific and industry-supported set of calculation assumptions than is usual for life cycle costing studies because of extensive collaborative work in a number of concomitant national research and development projects.
Practical implications
Authorities, clients and building professionals heavily emphasise energy-saving measures in new Danish buildings. The paper suggests redirecting this effort towards other more prominent cost drivers like cleaning and technical installations.
Originality/value
This paper provides a notable contribution to the academic understanding of the significance of different cost drivers as well as the practical implementation of life cycle costing.
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Worapan Kusakunniran, Pairash Saiviroonporn, Thanongchai Siriapisith, Trongtum Tongdee, Amphai Uraiverotchanakorn, Suphawan Leesakul, Penpitcha Thongnarintr, Apichaya Kuama and Pakorn Yodprom
The cardiomegaly can be determined by the cardiothoracic ratio (CTR) which can be measured in a chest x-ray image. It is calculated based on a relationship between a size of heart…
Abstract
Purpose
The cardiomegaly can be determined by the cardiothoracic ratio (CTR) which can be measured in a chest x-ray image. It is calculated based on a relationship between a size of heart and a transverse dimension of chest. The cardiomegaly is identified when the ratio is larger than a cut-off threshold. This paper aims to propose a solution to calculate the ratio for classifying the cardiomegaly in chest x-ray images.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed method begins with constructing lung and heart segmentation models based on U-Net architecture using the publicly available datasets with the groundtruth of heart and lung masks. The ratio is then calculated using the sizes of segmented lung and heart areas. In addition, Progressive Growing of GANs (PGAN) is adopted here for constructing the new dataset containing chest x-ray images of three classes including male normal, female normal and cardiomegaly classes. This dataset is then used for evaluating the proposed solution. Also, the proposed solution is used to evaluate the quality of chest x-ray images generated from PGAN.
Findings
In the experiments, the trained models are applied to segment regions of heart and lung in chest x-ray images on the self-collected dataset. The calculated CTR values are compared with the values that are manually measured by human experts. The average error is 3.08%. Then, the models are also applied to segment regions of heart and lung for the CTR calculation, on the dataset computed by PGAN. Then, the cardiomegaly is determined using various attempts of different cut-off threshold values. With the standard cut-off at 0.50, the proposed method achieves 94.61% accuracy, 88.31% sensitivity and 94.20% specificity.
Originality/value
The proposed solution is demonstrated to be robust across unseen datasets for the segmentation, CTR calculation and cardiomegaly classification, including the dataset generated from PGAN. The cut-off value can be adjusted to be lower than 0.50 for increasing the sensitivity. For example, the sensitivity of 97.04% can be achieved at the cut-off of 0.45. However, the specificity is decreased from 94.20% to 79.78%.
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Zhou Shi, Jiachang Gu, Yongcong Zhou and Ying Zhang
This study aims to research the development trend, research status, research results and existing problems of the steel–concrete composite joint of railway long-span hybrid girder…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to research the development trend, research status, research results and existing problems of the steel–concrete composite joint of railway long-span hybrid girder cable-stayed bridge.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the investigation and analysis of the development history, structure form, structural parameters, stress characteristics, shear connector stress state, force transmission mechanism, and fatigue performance, aiming at the steel–concrete composite joint of railway long-span hybrid girder cable-stayed bridge, the development trend, research status, research results and existing problems are expounded.
Findings
The shear-compression composite joint has become the main form in practice, featuring shortened length and simplified structure. The length of composite joints between 1.5 and 3.0 m has no significant effect on the stress and force transmission laws of the main girder. The reasonable thickness of the bearing plate is 40–70 mm. The calculation theory and simplified calculation formula of the overall bearing capacity, the nonuniformity and distribution laws of the shear connector, the force transferring ratio of steel and concrete components, the fatigue failure mechanism and structural parameters effects are the focus of the research study.
Originality/value
This study puts forward some suggestions and prospects for the structural design and theoretical research of the steel–concrete composite joint of railway long-span hybrid girder cable-stayed bridge.
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