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Examines how to determine the costs and value of property information in an IT environment, and considers the criteria for assessing information needs, storage and processing methods, and uses for particular property management applications. Concludes that the changing IT environment requires a rethink of information management techniques, and the use of appropriate feedback mechanisms to review the relevance of the techniques and information.

Despite today’s accelerating rate and extent of change, the needed improvements within many areas of performance and quality of life have not taken place. Posits that productivity is remaining the same or even going down in many areas. Infers that learning and change have not been effective. Change involves a subject or self, who is acting, and an object which is acted on. Until now there has been an imbalanced focus on the object. In order to achieve more effective learning ‐ through a synergy of objective and subjective approaches to change ‐ suggests a comprehensive model of change where the emphasis is shifted from the object to the subject. In higher stages of human development, the subject increasingly experiences an enhanced capacity for accomplishment. Argues that this transformation of the actor provides the stable premiss for overcoming many of the shortcomings of contemporary learning and change strategies. In order to implement in practice the expanded change conception, introduces a mental technique ‐ transcendental meditation ‐ which systematically fosters human growth to higher stages of development, as shown by scientific research.

This paper presents a review of the literature pertinent to the management of the maintenance of historic buildings. First, literature on the philosophy and principles of conservation is considered, followed by a review of the more recent subject of the management of conservation and its processes. Throughout the review the maintenance management requirements of heritage and non‐heritage buildings are compared and contrasted. Key themes are identified for best practice (including those for condition surveys) and the paper concludes with the identification of perceived gaps in knowledge.

This paper aims to provide a critical interpretative analysis of an innovative model of assessment in subject English in New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical and practical dimensions of assessment in the English Extension 2 course. This course forms part of suite of senior secondary English courses within the Higher School Certificate program that includes high-stakes external examination.

The paper draws on methods of documentary analysis. It sits within the tradition of curriculum research that critiques pre-active curriculum documents as a primary source for interpreting the theoretical and pedagogical principles and assumptions encoded in such documents. A social constructionist approach informs the analysis.

The model of assessment in the New South Wales (NSW) English Extension 2 course provides students with the opportunity to engage in sustained research and the production of a major piece of work. In its emphasis on student creativity, reflective practice, metacognition and independent research, the course exemplifies the ways in which the principle of assessing both process and product as organic is achievable in a context of high-stakes external examinations.

In an era of high-stakes, external and standardised testing regimes, this paper challenges the normative definitions of assessment prevalent in secondary schools, particularly at the senior secondary level. The assessment model underpinning the NSW English Extension 2 course offers a robust alternative to the increasingly prescriptive models evident in current education policy and practice. The paper calls for renewed attention to the potential for such a model of authentic assessment to be considered in the assessment programs of other subjects constituting the curriculum.

This chapter explores the role of postmodern intertextuality in Neil Jordan’s 2012 vampire film Byzantium. This intertextuality serves to place the film in dialogue with earlier vampire fiction, in particular the 1970s cycle of British and European erotic vampire films such as Daughters of Darkness and The Vampire Lovers from Hammer Films. Byzantium recalls these earlier texts structurally and thematically, both through direct reference and more oblique allusions.

While Fredric Jameson characterizes postmodern intertextuality as mere nostalgia and the imitation of ‘dead styles’, feminist postmodern theorists such as Linda Hutcheon contend argue for the political potential of postmodernism. This chapter proposes that the postmodern intertextuality of Byzantium is a critical intertextuality, and that the foregrounding of storytelling, writing, and rewriting in the film draws attention to the ways in which the intertextuality of Byzantium is not merely a return to past forms but also a reworking of them.

Taking up the work of Linda Hutcheon and Catherine Constable, this chapter demonstrates the ways in which Byzantium critically reworks aspects of earlier vampire fiction in order to critique and expand the representation of the female vampire and through this explore issues relating to female subjectivity and community.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key aspects of performance measurement for maintenance management of office buildings, in order to enhance maintenance service delivery.

A mixed method was adopted with the selection of five buildings as the case studies. In total, 1,230 questionnaires were distributed to the end‐users of the buildings.

This paper proposes a performance measurement system that is proved to be practical and suitable to measure the effectiveness of maintenance service delivery of office buildings.

Future research could focus on developing a performance measurement system from a strategic approach.

The proposed performance measurement system is anticipated to facilitate the evaluation process for maintenance providers, as it has taken into account the key elements of a maintenance management system.

The outcomes of this research are significant in their own right but also serve as a platform for future research in this area.

It has been found that the cost for housing maintenance is relatively high due to poor maintenance practices. This paper aims to determine and identify the factors contributing to rising maintenance costs.

A quantitative approach was adopted that sought to gather factual data using the approach taken by El‐Haram and Horner. The research first identified the critical factors through a literature review. A total of Eighty questionnaires were then distributed to relevant respondents such as building managers or supervisors, maintenance management staff and others. In total, 31 completed questionnaires formed a database for descriptive and ranking analysis.

The research concluded that five of the most dominant factors were expectation of tenants, building materials, building services, building age and failure to execute maintenance at the right time. Meanwhile, it was found that two of the most influential impacts were outstanding maintenance charges and over‐budget.

Measures to minimise the housing maintenance cost were obtained, such as participation of tenants and residents in housing management works and allows their acceptance of a lower standard expectation.

To elucidate issues involved in the problem of scale, in particular the relations, analytical and dialectical, among first-person experiences of theorist and theorist’s object-complex of individual actor, group, society, motives and causes, intended and unintended effects, and so forth, as these experiences are manifest in an aesthetics of the judicial moment of perception, and enunciated as first-person accounts directly or indirectly, of third-person accounts, sometimes via explicit but usually via virtual or even vicarious second-person accounting practices.

Discussion begins with some classical formulations by neo-Kantian theorists (Simmel, Durkheim, Weber) regarding relations of “individual and society.” Brief citations of various twentieth century responses to the problem of scale follow. Attention then becomes more intensively focused on the basic problem of first-person experience and accounts with respect to the problem of scale, using Coleman’s “foundations” work as guidepost for navigating issues of effects of cognition, consciousness, and action in still mostly obscure processes of aggregation. This leads to explication of the thesis of “impossible individuality,” in present-day theoretical contexts and in the context of post-Kantian romanticism, with special attention to Hölderlin and the feeling/knowing dialectic, Benjamin’s treatment of temporality with respect to metrics of history, and the question what it means to “theorize with intent.”

The discussion ends with some tentative resolutions and several lacunae and aporia which are integral to the current face of the problem of scale (i.e., processes of aggregation, etc.).

The discussion builds upon the work of many others, with first-person illustrations.

This paper aims to present a generic lifecycle framework model for guiding architects, engineers, contractors and facilities managers (AEC/FM) practitioners on the effective implementation of adaptive reuse projects.

A mixed approach of qualitative and quantitative techniques was followed in the development of the framework model. A literature review was conducted to comprehend the processes involved in adaptive reuse projects. In total, 90 AEC/FM practitioners were surveyed to identify the current practices in these projects. A generic framework model was then developed to standardize the processes involved, using integration definition for function modeling process modeling methodology. Face-to-face interviews with a targeted group of 30 AEC/FM practitioners were conducted, to validate the developed framework model, by assessing the importance and the frequency of implementing each function in the developed framework model.

The framework model consisted of four sequential processes, namely, assess the feasibility of the adaptive reuse project, design the adaptive reuse project, construct the adaptive reuse project and operate and maintain the adaptive reuse project. The validation confirmed the importance of all the framework functions and the frequency of their implementation.

This research contributes to the literature and the AEC/FM professions, through developing a lifecycle and knowledge-oriented framework model for building adaptive reuse. The framework presents clear documentation of adaptive reuse processes. Thus, it holds the potential of endeavoring on adaptive reuse projects to be more efficient.

The purpose of this work is to controllably synthesize a carbon aerogel with programmable functionally graded performance via a simple and effective strategy.

This work uses polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) via the controllable sol-gel, lyophilization, and carbonization approach to achieve a programmable carbon aerogel. This design has the advantages of low raw material and preparation cost, simple and controllable synthetic process and low carbonization temperature.

The thermal stability and microstructure of PVA aerogel can be controlled by the crosslinking agent content within a certain range. The crosslinking agent content and the carbonization temperature are the key factors for functionally graded programming of carbon aerogels, including microstructure, oxygen-containing functional groups and adsorption performance. The adsorption ratio and adsorption rate of uranium can be controlled by adjusting initial concentration and pH value of the uranium solution. The 2.5%25 carbon aerogel with carbonization temperature of 350 °C has excellent adsorption performance when the initial concentration of uranium solution is 32 ppm at pH 7.5.

As a new type of lightweight nano-porous amorphous carbon material, this carbon aerogel has many excellent properties.

This work presents a simple, low cost and controllable strategy for functionally graded programming of novel carbon aerogel. This carbon aerogel has great potential for application in various fields such as uranium recovery, wastewater treatment, sound absorption and shock absorption.