Search results

This paper aims to highlight the pertinent design issues that could impact upon satisfaction with apartment living. Till date, the literature review identifies “design inadequacies”, along with a range of other factors, in embracing apartments as a permanent housing option.

This paper presents findings from a face-to-face household survey undertaken in a medium-density apartment housing in Fairfield, Sydney, using a mixed method.

First, the paper states the four predictors of overall living satisfaction derived through a logistic regression analysis. Second, the top five variables that commanded high dissatisfaction and the two most negative aspects of apartment living for the open-response question are identified. Further, it discusses the possible influence of dwelling floor on residential satisfaction. The coherent narratives of the residents substantiate the design inadequacies from the aforementioned empirical analysis.

The paper reflects upon ideal design suggestions from a face-to-face household survey, the first of its kind in more than 30 years in Sydney.

Most residential building owners often report problems associated with the plumbing systems. If identified at the early stages, plumbing-related defects can be easily repaired. However, if unnoticed for a long period of time, they could lead to major damages and incur a significant cost to repair. Despite the problems, studies investigating plumbing anomalies and their root causes in residential buildings are limited. This study aims to explore plumbing defects and their potential causes, diagnosis methods and repair techniques in residential buildings.

This research used data collected through an extensive survey of both academic and grey literature. Through the content analysis, plumbing defects and the associated causes have been identified and presented in tabular format.

The study investigated the anomalies and causes in the residential plumbing system under five key sub-systems: water supply system; sanitary plumbing system; roof drainage system; heating, ventilation, air conditioning and gas system; and swimming pool. Accordingly, some of the identified plumbing defects include leakages, corrosion, water penetration, slow drainage and cracks. Damaged pipes, faulty equipment and installations are some of the common causes of the anomalies. Visual inspection, hydrostatic pressure test, thermography, high-tech pipe cameras, infrared cameras, leak noise correlators and leak loggers are techniques used for diagnosing anomalies. Reactive, preventive, predictive and reliability-centred maintenance strategies are identified to control or prevent anomalies.

The findings of this research can be used as a useful tool or guideline for contractors, plumbers, facilities managers and building surveyors to identify and rectify plumbing system-related defects in residential buildings.

The purpose of this paper is to inform on results of the study based on the dissertation project – the study of newcoming university students and their information literacy experience. It describes the three categories of information literacy experience as perceived by these students.

The document is based on a qualitative phenomenographic study of 40 first-year undergraduate students of teacher education programs from five faculties of Comenius University in Bratislava. Data were collected from each participant in two stages by three methods: written statements, drawings and interviews.

The phenomenographic analysis results in three categories of information literacy: (1) the conception of digital technologies, (2) the conception of knowledge and (3) the conception of truth. The outcome space presented by two alternative models points to a strong interrelation of all three categories. The resulting conceptions point to the diversity of the concept of information literacy in relation to other types of literacies, especially digital, reading and media literacy, as well as to intersections with other scientific disciplines such as psychology, cognitive science or philosophy.

The most important limits of this qualitative research are the low numbers of participants and the high degree of subjectivity in data evaluation. For this reason, a verification study was carried out one-year later.

Although phenomenographic studies of information literacy in the educational context are quite common, the third category of this study brings a new contribution to the information literacy theory – the dimension of truth or truthfulness of information.

In recent years, school districts have faced numerous questions surrounding accommodations of transgender students. Strong objections to accommodations have been voiced in public argument and litigation, primarily in the areas of athletics, bathrooms, and dress codes. As younger transgender students express their gender identity at school, however, the existing objections are weakened by considering the context of elementary rather than high school students. Greater numbers of young transgender students will likely encourage accommodation of trans students of all ages, as well as challenge the gender binary unconsciously taught in school.

This paper aims to adopt a comparative method using case law, statutes and secondary literature across both jurisdictions. This paper also draws on various theories of property ownership.

This paper conceptualises the legal relations embedded within condominium housing and the various theories of property ownership to ascertain how children’s interest fit within this framework. The laws of two jurisdictions, New South Wales and Singapore, are examined to determine how their strata law responds when children’s safety is at stake.

Drawing on pluralist moral theories of property law, the thesis advanced is that children’s issues within condominiums should not be subject to majoritarian rule especially when their safety is at stake. The paramount guiding value should be ensuring their safety within multi-owned housing communities. Using the law of two jurisdictions, New South Wales and Singapore, the central argument of this paper is that the law in these jurisdictions has rightfully adopted a protective approach towards children in multi-owned properties where their safety is at stake.

The literature on the law of multi-owned housing has largely focused on governance issues such as mediating between the majority owners’ interest with that of the minority owners’ interest. Children in multi-owned developments remain an under investigated area as children’s interests do not fit within the paradigm of majority versus minority interests. The paper advances the argument that children’s interest should be viewed through either a rights-based theory or pluralists’ theories of property law. Lessons from the New South Wales and Singapore experience are also drawn which might prove useful to other jurisdictions.

The entrepreneur is often conceptualised as an individualistic hero (Essers & Benschop, 2007; Gill, 2017). Although this portrayal has been criticised as highly romanticised (Acs & Audretsch, 2003) it is still influential in the contemporary entrepreneurship literature (Down, 2010). Consequently, prevailing social discourses around entrepreneurship may restrict and even prevent an individual to develop their own entrepreneurial identity (Down & Giazitzoglu, 2014; Gill, 2017). In order to explore this issue, this chapter presents insights into the entrepreneurial experience of student entrepreneurs by exploring the role of entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial identities in new venture creation. In-depth interviews were carried out with 11 student entrepreneurs who had, individually or in partnership with others, started a venture whilst they were enrolled in higher education courses.

These findings challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions entrenched in the characterisation of the homogenous entrepreneur (Jones, 2014) and suggest that individuals can arrive at entrepreneurship in different ways. In order to demonstrate the diversity of entrepreneurial identities, the chapter highlights those that fit the orthodox depiction of entrepreneurs through vignettes from Nicole and Georgie. This is then contrasted with alternative depictions through vignettes from Joanna, Christa, Darcie and Paige. The experience of the latter demonstrates how entrepreneurial identities are formed through role enactment and socialisation into entrepreneurial communities. The findings propose universities can support student entrepreneurship through both formal and informal activities. The broader conceptions of entrepreneurial identities with respect to the role of universities and enterprise education are considered.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the heritage value of modern public spaces designed by landscape architects in Canada.

The two-pronged research first aimed to verify if evaluation criteria currently used by heritage practitioners could apply to those public spaces. The second research area developed deals with social value. Here, the publicness of public spaces was used to broaden the scope of potential heritage values so as to include one that relates to the appreciation communicated by those who use them. Field enquiries were conducted to capture this social value.

The results of the enquiries demonstrate that identifying a social value can be a delicate process. Not only is it a lengthy endeavour, but opinions about the reasons why a place is important can differ amongst users. Public spaces provide us with a valuable reminder about the need to strike a balance between the evolution according to the needs and the desire of users and the conservation of traditional heritage values understood through historical associations and aesthetics.

This exploratory research was the opportunity to deepen the understanding of what is entailed when referring to social value in heritage conservation processes. It also helped to demonstrate the importance for landscape architects to integrate the field of heritage conservation. Landscape architects are natural allies with the field of heritage conservation’s new paradigm discussed in this paper by which human values are increasingly the focus of conservation instead of the fabric.

There is a growing need for school-based nutritional educational programs that promote healthy eating attitudes without increasing an unhealthy focus on restrictive eating or promoting a poor body image. Research suggests that intuitive eating (IE) approaches, which encourage individuals to focus on internal body signals as a guide for eating, have had a positive impact on eating-related psychological outcomes in adults. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects an IE education program on the eating attitudes of high school students.

In a quasi-experimental study, 48 high school students (30 females) in a Midwest town in the USA received instruction on IE or a comparison program over seven days during health classes. Repeated measures analyses of covariance were conducted to examine changes in eating attitudes in sexes across conditions.

Students who received the IE program made significantly greater gains in overall positive eating attitudes on the Intuitive Eating Scale than students in the comparison program (p=0.045), as well as on the Unconditional Permission to Eat subscale (p=0.02). There were no significant effects of sex on any of the analyses.

Because of the relatively small sample size and short duration of the program, the results should be generalized with caution.

The results suggest that IE instruction may encourage the development of healthy eating attitudes in high school students, and health teachers may wish to consider including IE instruction in the health curriculum.

This is the first study to examine the effectiveness of an IE program in a K-12 population, with instruction provided in the context of the school. The results are promising and suggest that this may be a fruitful area for future research in nutrition education.

Gender, race, and class-based meanings inform longstanding divisions and status hierarchies within the culinary profession, such as those between public and private and amateur and professional cooking. Private and personal chefs’ work in homes disrupts these divisions and hierarchies. Given their precarious position, how do these chefs negotiate their standing within the profession?

This chapter draws on interviews with 41 private/personal chefs. Eight were primarily private household employees, while all others were primarily self-employed.

The chefs negotiated their status by making distinctions between themselves and commercial chefs, along with other private/personal chefs. The chefs both challenge and reinforce the dichotomies and criteria shaping status evaluations within the culinary profession. Similarly, they both contest and reinforce gender, race, and class hierarchies.

The chefs’ conceptual distinctions can potentially (re)produce or challenge material inequalities. Moreover, while the fields of private/personal cheffing create opportunities for more adults to cook for a living, the traditional status hierarchies remain largely the same. It is likely that as long as those hierarchies persist, the chefs’ conceptual distinctions will continue to challenge and reinforce them.

Research on private/personal chefs has been minimal, so this chapter fills this gap. It also adds to scholarship connecting workers’ status struggles and gender, race, and class inequalities. The case of private and personal chefs sheds new light on how gender, race, and class intersect to inform status evaluations within the culinary profession.