Height and construction costs of residential high-rise buildings in Shanghai

A widely recognized theme of construction economics suggests that the cost of construction per square meter increases as building height rises. However, over a number of years, research conducted regarding the height and cost issue has established a classic relationship between the two factors which can be represented by a U-shaped curve. This paper describes the study of the height-cost relationship of high-rise residential buildings in Shanghai in terms of the total construction cost and elemental costs while considering the context and commonality of buildings. This research was developed as an extension of the previous work, which examined data for buildings in Hong Kong. Initial findings indicate that the curves illustrating the relationships between height and cost of residential buildings in Shanghai and Hong Kong exhibit different profiles. The dissimilarities indicate that different sets of criteria should be applied in the judgment of height that affects cost in different locations. In terms of elemental costs, the findings suggest that there are differences in the way these costs react to changes in the building height.

Case study of e-learning experts in Malaysia : impact of social capital and social networks

This paper examines the experiences of selected academics pioneering e-learning in Malaysian tertiary institutions. It begins with an overview of the broad factors shaping the Malaysian educational environment and then proceeds to examine the experience of individual teachers and e-learning programs. It takes an in-depth qualitative approach to engaging with this case study material drawing heavily on semi-structured interviews with key actors.
Conversations with several respondents suggested that the social networks of mentor relations found in the Malaysian case studies might be aptly described as ‘bamboo networks’. Bamboo, which happens to be plentiful in the Malaysian peninsula where these case studies are based, spreads from clump to clump through a series of underground connections involving a mature clump of bamboo sending out a subterranean runner, often over very long distances that then emerge into the open as a new bamboo clump.
All of those interviewed reported that they have found it difficult to find a support base in their first years of pioneering online developments. Consequently, they tended to fall back on their peer networks linked to the institutions at which they had studied. Prominent individuals championing e-learning in the institutions where they teach tend to form small groups for information sharing and networking. They do look to their management for tacit ‘permission’ rather than direct encouragement. Consequently, the active promotion of e-learning in Malaysia can be described as being ‘middle-down’ rather than ‘top-down’ in nature. That is to say, it is mid-level teachers that inspire those below them to join in the development of e-learning programs. They are internally driven and strongly motivated. In time, their activity should produce new generations of locally developed e-learning experts but this has yet to take place in a substantial fashion. This study shows that both men and women ‘academic guanxi’, or peer networks, play a key role in the adoption of online technologies. Key early adopters become change-agents by inspiring a small network of their peers and via their guanxi networks. It was also discovered that motivation is not simply an individual matter but is also about groups and peer networks or communities of exchange and encouragement. In the development of e-learning in Malaysia, there is very little activity that is not linked to small clusters of developers who are tied into wider networks through personal contacts.
Like clumping bamboo, whilst the local clusters tend to be easily seen, the longer-range ‘subterranean’ personal connections are generally not nearly so immediately obvious. These connections are often the product of previous mentoring relationships, including the relationships between influential teachers and their former postgraduate students. These relationships tend to work like bamboo runners: they run off in multiple directions, subterranean and unseen and then throw up new clumps that then send out fresh runners of their own.

Health system costs of diseases and injury in Australia 1993-94 : an analysis of costs, service use and mortality for major disease and injury groups

Provides a systematic analysis of the health system use and costs associated with specific disease and injury groups in Australia in 1993-94. The estimates are presented in a consistent format and are derived using a methodology that ensures the results add across disease, age and sex groups to total Australian health expenditures for 1993-94.

Judicial valuation of the social costs of crime

The true economic functions of the criminal courts are, first, to deter potential prospective offenders from committing offences, and in so doing reduce the total social costs of crime in the future; and secondly, to force the convicted offender to bear some of the costs, which the crime has externalised onto the victim(s) and wider society through retributive justice. These objectives are achieved through the sentencing function. Critics have lamented that too many extraneous factors are taken into account when setting penalties but the authors argue in this article that nevertheless these sentences are optimal because of the judges' comparative advantage. What is of great interest, and the focus of this article, are the implicit valuations of the social costs of crime that these sentences imply. Using the South Australia higher criminal courts as a case study, the authors estimate and utilise these judicial valuations to suggest a methodology for measuring the true economic value of the criminal courts. The analysis helps put into perspective the courts' very valuable contribution to social welfare.

The energetic and survival costs of growth in free-ranging chipmunks

The growth/survival trade-off is a fundamental aspect of life-history evolution that is often explained by the direct energetic requirement for growth that cannot be allocated into maintenance. However, there is currently no empirical consensus on whether fast-growing individuals have higher resting metabolic rates at thermoneutrality (RMRt) than slow growers. Moreover, the link between growth rate and daily energy expenditure (DEE) has never been tested in a wild endotherm. We assessed the energetic and survival costs of growth in juvenile eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) during a year of low food abundance by quantifying post-emergent growth rate (n = 88), RMRt (n = 66), DEE (n = 20), and overwinter survival. Both RMRt and DEE were significantly and positively related to growth rate. The effect size was stronger for DEE than RMRt, suggesting that the energy cost of growth in wild animals is more likely to be related to the maintenance of a higher foraging rate (included in DEE) than to tissue accretion (included in RMRt). Fast growers were significantly less likely to survive the following winter compared to slow growers. Juveniles with high or low RMRt were less likely to survive winter than juveniles with intermediate RMRt. In contrast, DEE was unrelated to survival. In addition, botfly parasitism simultaneously decreased growth rate and survival, suggesting that the energetic budget of juveniles was restricted by the simultaneous costs of growth and parasitism. Although the biology of the species (seed-storing hibernator) and the context of our study (constraining environmental conditions) were ideally combined to reveal a direct relationship between current use of energy and future availability, it remains unclear whether the energetic cost of growth was directly responsible for reduced survival.

The energetic and oxidative costs of reproduction in a free-ranging rodent

1. As understanding of the energetic costs of reproduction in birds and mammals continues to improve, oxidative stress is an increasingly cited example of a non-energetic cost of reproduction that may serve as a proximal physiological link underlying life-history trade-offs.

2. Here, we provide the first study to measure daily energy expenditure (DEE) and oxidative damage in a wild population. We measured both traits on eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) and assessed their relationships with age, reproductive status, litter size and environmental conditions.

3. We found that both physiological traits were correlated with environmental characteristics (e.g. temperature, seasons). DEE tended to increase with decreasing temperature, while oxidative damage was lower in spring, after a winter of torpor expression, than in autumn. We also found that DEE decreased with age, while oxidative damage was elevated in young individuals, reduced in animals of intermediate age and tended to increase at older age.

4. After controlling for age and environmental variables, we found that both female DEE and oxidative damage increased with litter size, although the latter increased weakly.

5. Our results corroborate findings from laboratory studies but highlight the importance of considering environmental conditions, age and reproductive status in broader analyses of the causes and consequences of physiological costs of reproduction in wild animals.