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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the incremental impact of firefighter’s personal protective equipment (PPE) on lower body range of motion (ROM) while walking to suggest areas of design improvement for enhanced mobility and safety.

Eight male and four female firefighters participated in the study. Lower body ROM was assessed while they walked in four different configurations of PPE, including turnout ensemble, a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) and boots. The impact of each added PPE item, and gender differences were statistically analyzed.

Wearing firefighter turnout ensemble and SCBA reduced ROM in the lower body in the sagittal and transverse planes. A significant reduction in ROM for anterior-posterior movement at the ankle and the ball of the foot was found while wearing rubber boots with turnout ensemble and SCBA. This puts firefighters at higher risk of experiencing foot injuries and physical strains. A significant increase in medial-lateral movement of the foot while wearing rubber boots may increase risk of ankle sprains. A greater reduction in ROM at the ankle and the ball of the foot for female firefighters may imply greater risk for women compared to men, while wearing boots.

Reducing the inflexibility and bulkiness of boots is critical to improve firefighter’s lower body mobility and safety.

This study implemented 3-D motion capture technology to analyze how wearing firefighting gear impacted lower body motion. It provides quantitative evidence to recommend ergonomic boot re-design.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the parcel-level impacts of the zoning change.

Using hedonic regression and propensity score matching econometric techniques, this paper analyses single-family housing prices within Fulton County Georgia. This paper combines data on the parcel-level zoning changes with nearby housing sales transactions to study the potential externality effects because of rezoning induced by private parties.

The paper finds evidence of heterogeneous rezoning effects, depending upon the type of rezoning conducted. At a distance within 0.75 miles, housing prices appreciate by 8.31% when nearby privately initiated rezoning maintains the residential character of a neighbourhood. However, housing prices decline by 21.26% when residential housing zones are converted to non-residential housing zones. The negative influences of rezoning residential use to non-residential uses decline as distance increases.

The analysis provides quantitative information on the impact of rezoning on residential property prices. Planning officials and developers can use these results to assuage homeowner fears of potential negative housing price effects associated with rezoning.

Looks at how immigration in the USA has changed so that by the late 1980s almost three‐quarters of a million legal immigrants were entering the country ever year, and how by the 1980s this had increased to 9 million! Investigates the changing birthrate by which foreign born residents now account for one in five births in the USA. Posits that Islam is the fastest growing religion and that the USA has metamorphosed from being a “Christian” country to be the most religiously diverse nation in the world.

This study aims to critically evaluate the COVID-19 and future post-COVID-19 impacts on office design, location and functioning with respect to government and community occupational health and safety expectations. It aims to assess how office efficiency and cost control agendas intersect with corporate social accountability.

Theoretically informed by governmentality and social accountability through action, it thematically examines research literature and Web-based professional and business reports. It undertakes a timely analysis of historical office trends and emerging practice discourse during the COVID-19 global pandemic's early phase.

COVID-19 has induced a transition to teleworking, impending office design and configuration reversals and office working protocol re-engineering. Management strategies reflect prioritisation choices between occupational health and safety versus financial returns. Beyond formal accountability reports, office management strategy and rationales will become physically observable and accountable to office staff and other parties.

Future research must determine the balance of office change strategies employed and their evident focus on occupational health and safety or cost control and financial returns. Further investigation can reveal the relationship between formal reporting and observed activities.

Organisations face strategic decisions concerning both their balancing of employee and public health and safety against capital expenditure and operation cost commitments to COVID-19 transmission prevention. They also face strategic accountability decisions as to the visibility and correspondence between their observable actions and their formal social responsibility reporting.

Organisations have continued scientific management office cost reduction strategies under the guise of innovative office designs. This historic trend will be tested by a pandemic, which calls for control of its spread, including radical changes to the office at potentially significant cost.

This paper presents one of few office studies in the accounting research literature, recognising it as central to contemporary organisational functioning and revealing the office cost control tradition as a challenge for employee and community health and safety.