Routine maintenance and sustainability of existing social housing

Presently the UK social housing stock accounts for approximately 18% of the total UK housing with maintenance costs in the region of £1.25 billion per annum. In terms of its impact on the environment, housing is generally responsible for approximately 27% of the UK’s CO2 emissions. The extent to which routine maintenance (planned preventative and responsive) can be used as a vehicle to improve the overall sustainability (social, environmental and economic) of existing social housing is one focus of a 5 year EPSRC funded research programme. This paper reports on the findings of a series of in-depth interviews with social housing providers examining current social housing maintenance practices and attitudes towards sustainability. This paper will report the initial findings of interviews and outline a new performance based multi-criteria maintenance model from which an AHP hierarchy will be presented, integrating the principles of sustainability into maintenance strategies

A critical evaluation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software sourcing and provision using theoretical constructs

Deliberating on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software sourcing and provision, this paper contrasts the corporate environment with the small business environment. The paper is about Enterprise Resource Planning client (ERPc) expectations and Enterprise Resource Planning vendor (ERPv) value propositions as a mutually compatible process for achieving acceptable standards of ERP software performance. It is suggested that a less-than-equitable vendor–client relationship would not contribute to the implementation of the optimum solution. Adapting selected theoretical concepts and models, the researchers analyse ERPv to ERPc relationship. This analysis is designed to discover if the provision of the very large ERP vendors who market systems such as SAP, and the provision of the smaller ERP vendors (in this instance Eshbel Technologies Ltd who market an ERP software solution called Priority) when framed as a value proposition (Walters, D. (2002) Operations Strategy. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave), is at all comparable or distinctive.

Towards Data Management Planning Support for Research Data

Görzig, H., Engel, F., Brocks, H., Vogel, T. & Hemmje, M. (2015, August). Towards Data Management Planning Support for Research Data. Paper presented at the ASE International Conference on Data Science, Stanford, United States of America.

Going Global: planning the next 80 years of the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey

Going Global: planning the next 80 years of the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey. Operated by the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS), the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey is the world’s largest, sampling 4 ocean basins, and longest running (since 1931) plankton biodiversity monitoring programme. Having sampled enough miles to circumnavigate the globe over 200 times, the CPR database houses over 2.5 million entries, describing the distribution of 500 phytoplankton and zooplankton taxa. Routinely sampling in the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans, the survey analyses 4000 samples yearly. Data collected from these samples are made freely available for bona fide scientific purposes. The CPR survey data is used to generate a better understanding of changes in the plankton and to date some 1000 papers have been published on plankton biodiversity. This year sees the 80th anniversary of the CPR survey and to celebrate and build upon this unique monitoring programme, SAHFOS intends to further develop its global plankton perspective. Work will be extended into the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean and an international partnership with complementary surveys in Australia, Canada, America, Japan and South Africa will be implemented. The Digital Object will describe the CPR survey using compilations made by Plymouth Art College and BBC film footage.

Incorporating ecosystem services in marine planning: The role of valuation

This paper scrutinises the use of ecosystem service valuation for marine planning. Lessons are drawn from the development and use of environmental valuation and cost-benefit analysis for policy-making in the US and the UK. Current approaches to marine planning in both countries are presented and the role that ecosystem service valuation could play in this context is outlined. This includes highlighting the steps in the marine planning process where valuation can inform marine planning and policy-making as well as a discussion of methodological challenges to ecosystem service valuation techniques in the context of marine planning. Recommendations to overcome existing barriers are offered based on the synergies and the thinking in the two countries regarding the application of ecosystem service valuation to marine planning.

Maintenance of abyssal benthic foraminifera under high pressure and low temperature: some preliminary results

Abyssal benthic foraminifera have been maintained alive for periods of several weeks under laboratory simulated deep-sea conditions of high pressure and low temperature. In separate experiments, bacterial-sized fluorescent microspheres and three species of microalgae were supplied as food particles. Subsequent light and electron microscopy showed that the algae had been ingested by several foraminiferal species. Furthermore, the fine structure of the foraminiferal cytoplasm was well-preserved which indicates, along with the ingestion of algal food, that they had remained in a viable condition during the incubation. Other observations indicate that abyssal benthic foraminifera ingest naturally occurring photosynthetic cells carried to the deep-sea bed by rapidly sedimenting aggregates. The ability to keep foraminifera originating from depths exceeding 4000 m alive in the laboratory paves the way for the experimental investigation of some important issues in deep-sea biology and palaeoceanography.