Specialist Trade Research Articles

The development of craft in Australian National Rugby League referees

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to explore the manner in which Australian National Rugby League (NRL) referees developed their craft. Craftmanship represents an enduring, basic human impulse, related to the desire to do a job well for its own sake (Sennett, R. (2008). Prologue: Man as his own maker. In R. Sennett (Ed.), The craftsman (pp. 1–15). Yale University Press). Specifically, in this study craftsmanship related to the specialist trade knowledge, work ethics and attributes, motor skills, cognitive processes, pre-match routines, workplace affordances, attention to detail, and dispositional qualities contributing to elite rugby league refereeing performance. Data generation included semi-structured interviews with current NRL referees (n = 8), NRL referee coaches (n = 2), NRL referee advisor/administrator (n = 1), and an immediately retired NRL referee (n = 1); game observations; direct involvement from the lead author in work meetings and game review processes, as well as casual workplace conversations over the immersion period. In addition, each participant completed a survey related to ranking sources of learning they believed contributed to the development of their craft. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically along with the field notes generated through game observations and the immersion period. Findings highlighted how referees used combinations of specialist trade knowledge such as game management, game understanding, context, trusted peer support, and knowledge of rules, in conjunction with their own experiences and desire to learn, to shape and develop their work. Overall, this reinforces the idea that workplace affordances, an individual’s personal agency, and the interrelationships between them, are crucial components for understanding how referees develop their craft. Findings from this research might be generative for sport referees and those responsible for the recruitment, professional learning, and development of these key sport actors.

Test of Surface Roughness for Bipolar plates for Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries and Biological Fuel cells

Modern energy systems such as redox flow batteries (RFB) or biological fuel cells (BFC) are becoming increasingly popular in the specialist trade [1-5]. Despite a number of demonstrative tests and the increasing number of media representations [4-7], up to now the systems are cost-intensive and for some components like bipolar plates are only a few materials are usable like original carbon materials. So, the development and knowledge in processing of the components are essential for the economic efficiency of the systems. However, it is necessary to look at the surface structure of the materials as one of the parameters defined by different production methods and after-treatment. There are some measurement methods commercially available, which are tested on different samples and generate different values. It can be concluded that optical methods are more suitable than mechanical ones.

Recycling Graphite for Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries: Options for Usage and Critical Integredients

Modern energy systems, such as redox flow batteries (RFB), recently are becoming increasingly popular in the special isttrade [1-5]. Despite a numberof demonstrative tests on redox flow batteries [4-7], upto now there does only orginal Carbon material exist. However, it is necessary to look at Recycling mateirals. There are a certain number how to get recycled graphite. However, when deciding to use these materials, it is necessary to have a close look of the characteristics of these materials.

Rebuilding Britain

Women's marginalization in the British feature film industry is well documented: gender discrimination, and sometimes overt segregation, shut most women out of senior creative roles after the introduction of sound. What has received less critical attention is their participation in nonfiction filmmaking, which offered women greater employment opportunities, especially in the decades after World War II as Britain rebuilt its economy. This article provides the first historical mapping of women's involvement in sponsored nonfiction filmmaking in Britain in the period between 1945 and 1970, using newly available statistical data from Britain's film trade union, the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians (ACTT). It also draws on oral histories, extant films, and specialist trade publications to outline two case studies, one featuring three editors, and the other a director (Sarah Erulkar) who between them produced, directed and edited more than two hundred shorts on topics ranging from mineshaft sinking to French cookery. It argues that evidence of women's creative agency in this sector offers new ways of thinking about film history.

Temporary domesticities: The Southeast Asian hotel as (re)presentation of modernity, 1968–1973

This essay examines the building of the Southeast Asian luxury hotel during the 1960s and 1970s as instrumental to the reshaping and consolidation of the global image of modernity for the region. While the war against slums and homelessness was being fought in the new towns, with public and private housing estates and blocks of flats for the working and middle classes, the branding of the modern Asian city was taking place at the waterfront and in the main thoroughfares of these cities. Not only did the luxury hotel present a stark contrast to the crowded, slum-filled imagery of these developing industrialising cities, its proponents— governments, developers and architects—sought to use it to replace ‘Third World’ impressions with ‘First World’ experiences. Driven by economic pragmatism, the proliferation of the slab-tower and podium building, and its interchangeable use as hotel and residential flats in the Southeast Asian city, witnessed a period of regional networking, investments, brand building, knowledge expertise transfers and the rise of a mobile class of international travellers. This essay argues that in response to Cold War political and economic contingencies, these temporary spaces of domesticity and consumption were part of an incipient complex of regional cultural identification in which architecture was paramount. It challenges the reading of the hotel interior as simply an orientalised space of consumption for foreign tourists and, instead, posits that it was complicit in the production of the citizenry as participants in these new public spaces of the emerging economies of Hong Kong and Singapore. Focussing on how such hotels were presented and described in newspapers and specialist trade journals, the essay seeks an alternative way to understand modern domesticity in these cities beyond the centre-periphery schema of one-way transfers of knowledge and expertise.

Twentieth-Century British Periodicals: Words and Art on the Printed Page, 1900–1999, 4 July 2017, University of Reading, UK

Twentieth-Century British Periodicals: Words and Art on the Printed Page, 1900–1999, 4 July 2017, University of Reading, UK

Mechanical contractors: the key for supply chain integration in lifecycle BIM

The research presented here investigates the requirements for specialist trades in the construction industry to increase productivity across their sector when using building information modelling (BIM). Drivers for innovation among specialist trades, and in particular mechanical contractors, get examined in conjunction with the implementation of bespoke policies, documentation standards, and BIM object libraries that enable a whole-of-life approach to project delivery. In order to approach this topic, the authors analysed available literature about BIM dissemination across the supply chain and they studied existing approaches in practice based on the example of the BIM-MEPAUS initiative of the Australian Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors' Association (AMCA). Accounts from BIM-MEPAUS highlight the opportunities and challenges of BIM-use among specialist trades and they illustrate the raise of the BIM-enabled mechanical contractors. The paper acts as a reference for other specialist trade industry groups who may wish to follow their example.

Mechanical contractors: the key for supply chain integration in lifecycle BIM

The research presented here investigates the requirements for specialist trades in the construction industry to increase productivity across their sector when using building information modelling (BIM). Drivers for innovation among specialist trades, and in particular mechanical contractors, get examined in conjunction with the implementation of bespoke policies, documentation standards, and BIM object libraries that enable a whole-of-life approach to project delivery. In order to approach this topic, the authors analysed available literature about BIM dissemination across the supply chain and they studied existing approaches in practice based on the example of the BIM-MEPAUS initiative of the Australian Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors' Association (AMCA). Accounts from BIM-MEPAUS highlight the opportunities and challenges of BIM-use among specialist trades and they illustrate the raise of the BIM-enabled mechanical contractors. The paper acts as a reference for other specialist trade industry groups who may wish to follow their example.

GFT - Food security and international trade: Risk, trust and rules

The multilateral trade system today shapes the economy of almost every country of the world. The World Trade Organization (WTO) now has 160 members, and even the non-members must deal with the rules the WTO has established when they trade. The system is ubiquitous yet faces serious challenges. One of these is a challenge that in various guises and for different reasons has been present since it was instituted in 1995: food security. The most recent iteration of the challenge is a fight primarily between the U.S. and India over whether WTO rules should be reformed to accommodate the programmes the Indian government has introduced with its 2013 National Food Security Act (Kripke, this issue). The Indian government is buying food at administered prices from farmers to store and then later distribute through a public distribution system. This fight is important, as a simple scan of the specialist trade press shows. It has implications for all member states seeking to curb domestic food insecurity.

Invaluable for trade mark owners, in-house, specialist, and non-specialist trade mark lawyers

Invaluable for trade mark owners, in-house, specialist, and non-specialist trade mark lawyers

Ansprüche an den Rollstuhlkomfort und -anpassungsprozess

BACKGROUND: Within the scope of an optimal device supply the right choice and adjustment of a wheelchair play a vital role in order to provide the user with long-lasting driving comfort and best possible mobility. In this context technical development, range of variety and adjustment as well as the wide range of offered wheelchairs are on the one hand appreciated but on the other hand adjustment deficiencies are pointed out and appropriate and justified improvements are demanded. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this survey was to determine the specific unfulfilled requests and requirements of the people concerned in regards to driving comfort and wheelchair adaptation. METHOD: A quantitative questionnaire analysis was employed. The sample comprised wheelchair users (n = 86), primary supporters (n = 35), carers/nurses (n = 24), therapists (n = 12), specialist trade (n = 21) and wheelchair manufacturers (n = 14). RESULTS: The survey showed that wheelchair users demand high ergonomic and flexibility standards of the system wheelchair and wheelchair comfort. The demands of the other occupational groups in regards to product profile did not differ much from those of wheelchair users. The analysis revealed remarkable results of specialist trade who assessed the user’s adaptation phase during wheelchair supply process as less important compared to the other groups. CONCLUSIONS: The specialist trade’s attitude towards customer focus is not congruent to the wheelchair user’s requests and requirements. There is need for appropriate intervention to improve the specialist trade’s customer focus.

Issues in measuring innovation

Innovation research builds on the analysis of micro level data describing innovative behaviour of individual firms. One increasingly popular type of data are Literature-based Innovation Output (LBIO) data. These are compiled by screening specialist trade journals for new-product announcements. Notwithstanding the substantial advantages, the eligibility of LBIO data for innovation research remains controversial. In this paper the merits of LBIO data are examined by means of comparative analysis. A newly built LBIO database is systematically compared with the widely used Community Innovation Survey. It shows that both databases identify similar innovators in terms of firm size, distribution across industries and degree of innovativeness: LBIO data can be considered a fully fledged alternative to traditional innovation data, highly eligible for innovation research.

Modelling Trade Contractor Information Production

Design management research usually deals with the processes within the professional design team and yet, in the UK, the volume of the total project information produced by the specialist trade contractors equals or exceeds that produced by the design team. There is a need to understand the scale of this production task and to plan and manage it accordingly. The model of the process on which the plan is to be based, while generic, must be sufficiently robust to cover the majority of instances. An approach using design elements, in sufficient depth to possibly develop tools for a predictive model of the process, is described. The starting point is that each construction element and its components have a generic sequence of design activities. Specific requirements tailor the element's application to the building. Then there are the constraints produced due to the interaction with other elements. Therefore, the selection of a component within the element may impose a set of constraints that will affect the choice of other design elements. Thus, a design decision can be seen as an interrelated element—constraint—element (ECE) sub-net. To illustrate this approach, an example of the process within precast concrete cladding has been used.

Textile Digital Printing Technologies

Textile digital printing emerged in the 1990s as a prototyping tool and a vehicle for printing small batches of fabric for niche market products. Developments over the past 5 years have been dramatic, with major practitioner conferences in the U.S. and in Europe, and a specialist trade press journal. We are now at the stage where all the ingredients are present for producing commercial print runs, but there are still many hurdles to jump for digital printing technologies to make an impact in world markets. This monograph reviews the technological issues and sets these in a wider commercial context. It explains how new markets are being successfully created and how digital printing technologies have provided a springboard for product innovation.

INDIVIDUAL, INSTITUTIONAL, AND SPECIALIST TRADE PATTERNS BEFORE AND AFTER DISCLOSURE

AbstractWe examine the trade response of individuals, institutional traders, and specialists to disclosures. We investigate reactions to good versus bad news and mandatory versus discretionary announcements. We find that individuals and institutions both have heightened trade activity before disclosures. Institutional trade runs counter to the price reaction to upcoming discretionary disclosures. Institutions' post‐announcement trade is consistent with the direction of the price reaction to the announcement, whereas individuals' post‐announcement trade runs counter to the price reaction. Although specialists face increased trade pressure both before and after announcements, strong directional imbalances in specialist trade are not observed.JEL classification: G14

Correlates of the length of the relationship between main and specialist trade contractors in the construction industry

Although there is a growing literature on the factors associated with the length of interorganizational relationships, there seem to be few empirical studies related to the subject in project-based industries such as construction. In this study we looked for correlations among the length of the relationship between main and specialist trade contractors, control methods and the number of rival speciality contractors in the Turkish construction industry, drawing on the data provided by a study of 27 specialist trade contractors. Correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship. The results demonstrate that the length of the relationship between main and speciality contractors is inversely related to the number of rival specialist trade contractors, but directly related to the flexibility of control exercised by the main contractor.

Commercial Arbitration Institutions (An International Directory and Guide) compiled by Ludwik Kos-Rabcewicz-Zubkowski and Paul J Davidson

This international directory and guide represents the first act of the Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions which was constituted in 1985 with the general aims of advancing the understanding of the arbitration institution and improving the dissemination of information relating to commercial arbitration. The Directory sets out the essential details of international and regional institutions and also commercial arbitration institutions found in individual countries. To date 47 countries ranging from Argentina to Yugoslavia are included. Both general and specialist trade institutions are covered by the Directory and with the vital statistics of each listing following a standard pattern – languages of correspondence, types of disputes handled, description, rules, arbitrators and such further information that may be relevant. The Directory is a very useful practical text of reference and probably fills a vacuum in the contemporary literation. It is proposed to keep the Directory up-to-date by producing further editions and to extend upon the volume of information communicated under each listing. The present listings are not exhaustive and any institution wishing to be included in the Directory should get in touch with the Federation of Commercial Arbitration Institutions which is based in Ottawa, Canada.

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Any one specialist trade is dependent upon the success or failure of another in the food industry.