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Development and demonstration of an autonomous, mobile welding robot capable of fabricating large‐scale customised structures.

An autonomous welding robot has been developed under the EC Framework V Growth program. The system comprises a global vision system for part location and orientation, and a robot transport vehicle (RTV) which carries a 6‐axis robot, robot controller, welding equipment, and local sensors at the welding torch. The RTV path, robot arm motion and weld process programming are performed automatically using sensors and specially customised simulation software.

The technology developed within the project was demonstrated, in November 2004, to be capable of identifying and welding large scale customised structures as found in the earth moving equipment and bridge fabrication industries.

The project demonstrated that current sensor technology is capable of being applied successfully to autonomous robots, but further developments in sensor technology are required to improve accuracy and joint access.

The NOMAD concept of autonomous mobile robots provides an alternative solution to welding mass customised structures.

This project demonstrated, for the first time, the capability of autonomous robots to weld large scale customised structures.

Automating the welding of custom‐built large structures becomes increasingly necessary due to the growing shortage of manual welders and competition from low‐wage countries. A consortium funded by the European Community is developing the technology necessary to make this possible.

C. Herman Pritchett saw politics in law without losing the sense that law was not simply politics. This synthesis from the 1940s was lost in the last half of the 20th century and it deserves to be brought back. While denial that politics matters is a staple of Supreme Court confirmation hearings, this position is no longer credible. In constitutional law in particular, politics has pushed law aside in the minds of scholars, journalists, and many Americans. This makes it hard to find a place for law in the study of the Supreme Court. This chapter advocates a return to the balance that was in place over 50 years ago when we were first taught that Supreme Court decisions were political.

In this chapter, a teacher educator, counselor educator, and educational psychologist look at written and pictorial representations of teaching created by a sixth grade class in West Texas. The school is predominantly African American and low income and, at the time of this project, was rated “recognized,” the second highest rating in the Texas system. The students’ representations are analyzed and discussed with reference to the literatures in curriculum and instruction, counseling, and educational psychology.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Purpose – Hospitals need to determine if an international patient department is a necessity to communicate with and manage international patients.

Design/Methodology/Approach – A benchmarking instrument was created to assess the level of professionalism in managing international patients, including reviewing and validating processes by two university hospitals, professionals, and an expert panel.

Findings – First, the differences between the hospitals depended on the will of the hospital to engage in such activities. Second, the differences depended on the embedding national context in which the hospital was situated. Further validation revealed the importance of other supportive services, such as cultural sensitivity and language. Finally, the microlevel phenomenon of international patient departments is placed within a macrolevel transnational health region development scheme.

Originality/Value – This study focused on the supply of services with respect to international patient departments, which could be related to efficiency and sustainability on a public health and health systems level.

This paper has two purposes. First, I offer a reading of interpretive biography (Denzin, 1989a) as an alternative method for understanding how individual lives are rendered meaningful in postmodern communication processes. Second, given the importance of many rock performers as cultural heroes, I present an interpretive biography of Pete Townshend, chief songwriter and most visible member of the classic rock band the Who. This method of inquiry is grounded in the more general tradition of interpretive interactionism (Denzin, 1989b, 1990a) and has its roots in C. Wright Mills's (1959) concept of the sociological imagination. Its guiding question is this: How is the postmodern self (or stated more accurately, selves) created within and sustained by the mass media? I argue that as postmodern cultural symbols, Townshend and the band (however ambiguously) mirror a collective search for identity on the part of audiences and society-at-large.

This research systematically analyzed the effect of leadership (coaches and owners) on organizational performance in the National Football League (NFL) during the 1970 through 1992 seasons. In addition, it examined the relation of stable individual differences in personality of NFL leaders with performance outcomes for both coaches and owners. Results revealed that leadership added substantially to the prediction of performance in the NFL, even after controlling for non-leadership variables such as quality of competition and year. Furthermore, one facet of Conscientiousness – Deliberateness – showed strong linear relations with all performance measures. The results of both studies also revealed that hierarchical level of leadership was an important moderator, with coaches having greater impact than owners. The desirability of studying leadership in the context of the NFL was recognized and suggestions were provided on the direction that research might take.

This paper aims to introduce and describe the concept of the facility management (FM) value network which takes a subjective perspective and reflects upon the relationships amongst key FM stakeholders. The FM value network focuses on demand by considering client, customer and end-user perceptions of value, providing a conceptual foundation for considering a demand driven, service-oriented and user focused approach to FM. It introduces concepts drawn from related fields such as services marketing, business economics and management and identifies an agenda for future research.

This paper is based on results of an extensive literature review, research workshops and a pilot case study, to explore stakeholder's perceptions of value within FM relationships.

This paper proposes an alternative view of FM stakeholders and the outcomes they value in comparison to a conventional built environment perspective. It provides examples of value dimensions relevant to the demand-side of organisations, collated from different sectors of the economy.

Due to a conceptual approach including a pilot case study that still has to be explored in a qualitative/quantitative empirical setting within the field of FM, this paper has limitations.

The FM value network described and the research agenda proposed provide valuable insight into issues that have to be addressed in future work and sheds light on this under-researched field of value of FM. Further work could build on these conceptual foundations in order to contribute to evidence-based FM.

This paper makes an original contribution to research into the value of FM by focussing on the demand side. It raises issues about the nature of the discipline and its practice and it offers an understanding of the further research necessary to support evidence-based decision making.