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Quality Function Deployment (QFD) proposes to take into account the “voice of the customer,” through a list of customer needs, which are (qualitatively) mapped to technical requirements in House One. But customers do not perceive products in this space, nor do they not make purchase decisions in this space. Marketing specialists use statistical models to map between a simpler space of customer perceptions and the long and detailed list of needs. For automobiles, for example, the main axes in perceptual space might be categories such as luxury, performance, sport, and utility. A product’s position on these few axes determines the detailed customer requirements consistent with the automobiles’ position such as interior volume, gauges and accessories, seating type, fuel economy, door height, horsepower, interior noise level, seating capacity, paint colors, trim, and so forth. Statistical models such as factor analysis and principal components analysis are used to describe the mapping between these spaces, which we call House Zero.

This paper focus on House One. Two important steps of the product development process using House One are: (1) setting technical targets; (2) identifying the inherent tradeoffs in a design including a position of merit. Utility functions are used to determine feature preferences for a product. Conjoint analysis is used to capture the product preference and potential market share. Linear interpolation and the slope point formula are used to determine other points of customer needs. This research draws from the formal mapping concepts developed by Nam Suh and the qualitative maps of quality function deployment, to present unified information and mapping paradigm for concurrent product/process design. This approach is the virtual integrated design method that is tested upon data from a business design problem.

The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a range of material to improve the understanding of disengagement with everyday life, by some individuals who have learning disabilities and mental health difficulties. Illustrative incidents from historical clinical cases are utilised, to consider whether this reframing may enhance the interpretation of presenting behaviours.

Key recurring themes within transpersonal literature were reviewed, relevant to adults with behaviour indicating a degree of disengagement from everyday life. These were grouped into Physical Realm, Psychosocial Realm and Realm of Being. Illustrative examples of behaviour are reviewed and re-interpreted within this framework.

These examples generated plausible interpretations for the presenting behaviours within this framework of the Three Realms. These interpretations support a fresh understanding of the quality of the individual's inner experience. This paper suggests a potential framework to consider the way in which some individuals may experience a different quality of consciousness than the usual.

Use of the Three Realms for behaviour interpretation should result into a more empathetic and client-centred approach that could reduce the need for aversive approaches, lessening risk for the client and any employing organisation. The identification of behaviours that signal participation in the Realm of Being could be defined and evaluated with the potential to be used to inform the nature and content of the support provided.

This paper, rooted in clinical examples, offers an original synthesis with reasons to include the immaterial realm in the perspective of the human condition. This could benefit people with substantial episodes of disconnection from the Physical Realm and everyday culture and those who support them.

Reflecting on the forces that produced the first universities 800 years ago provokes consideration of today's universities at the start of the new millennium. The paper complements Snyder's critique by suggesting that higher education engage in an exacting review of its most cherished assumptions, from the categorical definitions of disciplines to the fundamental structure of its pedagogy.

Comparative historical research fuels a conceptual examination of the university today. It adopts Snyder's view that higher education is currently adrift in fulfilling its academic mission and sustaining itself in a competitive environment. This approach yields a much more dramatic range of future plausibilities for contemporary universities than do more conventional extrapolations.

Rearranging schools and departments will not solve its problems, nor will it make much of a contribution to the state of the world. But digging deep into the wellsprings of knowledge, learning, and wisdom, and engaging in the great work of harmonizing the university with the emerging needs of its era and the concomitant forces of social change, can only energize the culture of higher education.

The article has important implications for strategic planning in higher education. It argues that universities will become increasingly irrelevant if they fail to recapture the spirit of exuberance, intellectual discovery, and social relevance evidenced by the earliest universities. This can be achieved by reassessing the university's mission and social role, utilizing technology to accelerate the learning process, and rethinking disciplinary definitions to reflect the explosive growth of knowledge and changes in methodologies in virtually every academic field. The most enduring transformation will begin with a dramatic shift in program content and pedagogy rather than reliance upon organizational restructuring.

A historically‐grounded vision of the university's current creative potential establishes a reference frame that bestows the freedom to transcend linearly progressed trends. The university can then be re‐imagined as a vital transformative and healing institution uniquely suited to its mission in an era rife with anxiety, uncertainty, and risk.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of research evaluation policies and their interpretation on academics’ writing practices in three different higher education institutions and across three different disciplines. Specifically, the paper discusses how England’s national research excellence framework (REF) and institutional responses to it shape the decisions academics make about their writing.

In total, 49 academics at three English universities were interviewed. The academics were from one Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics discipline (mathematics), one humanities discipline (history) and one applied discipline (marketing). Repeated semi-structured interviews focussed on different aspects of academics’ writing practices. Heads of departments and administrative staff were also interviewed. Data were coded using the qualitative data analysis software, ATLAS.ti.

Academics’ ability to succeed in their career was closely tied to their ability to meet quantitative and qualitative targets driven by research evaluation systems, but these were predicated on an unrealistic understanding of knowledge creation. Research evaluation systems limited the epistemic choices available to academics, partly because they pushed academics’ writing towards genres and publication venues that conflicted with disciplinary traditions and partly because they were evenly distributed across institutions and age groups.

This work fills a gap in the literature by offering empirical and qualitative findings on the effects of research evaluation systems in context. It is also one of the only papers to focus on the ways in which individuals’ academic writing practices in particular are shaped by such systems.

In the past two decades there has been enormous growth and change in library services in Minnesota due primarily to the automation of major library functions: catalogs, circulation, and reference (see sidebar). In Minnesota, just over half of the population is concentrated into the seven‐county Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, and just under half of the population is spread over 80 counties with few other large or medium‐sized cities. Minnesota is unique, however, in that no areas of the state lack free access to public library services. Furthermore, because of a statewide reciprocal borrowing compact, 99.5 percent of the population has free access to the services and resources of any public library in the state.