Chemical Biology Towards Precision Medicine

Organic chemistry is primed to fill a much-needed gap in our understanding of human biology and disease on the one hand and our ability to treat disease effectively on the other. The key challenge is to discover compounds having the novel mechanisms of action demanded by these new patient-derived insights.     

Managerial identity work in action: performative narratives and anecdotal stories of innovation

Innovation is invariably accepted as a central component of construction sector competitiveness. Yet, there remains a paucity of empirical research, which explores the gap between the way innovation is promoted in the policy discourse and how it is interpreted in practice. We follow the “narrative turn” in organization studies to explore the ways in which senior executives in the UK construction sector ascribe themselves with informal roles while advocating the cause of innovation. Empirical data is derived from narrative interviews with 32 senior executives who self-identify as “innovation champions”. When talking about innovation, the respondents were found to oscillate between performative narratives of innovation and more personalized stories derived from their own experience. The narratives were invariably pre-rehearsed often to the point of being monotonous. In contrast, the personalized stories tended to be engaging and emotionally laden. The tendency for senior executives to oscillate between narratives and stories is seen as an important means through which they search for meaning while at the same time legitimizing their self-identities as “innovation champions”. Of particular note is the way in which senior managers self-ascribe themselves with informal roles which are notably at odds with those described in more formalized narratives.     

A MODEL FOR SIMULATING RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT

This article is the outgrowth of a long period of experimentation with models of residential and other development which focus on the individual decision-maker—the householder in search of a home, and the builder attempting to cater to his desires. The first part of the paper describes the means by which this process is simulated in a computer. Later parts of the paper indicate how this view of consumer behavior has led naturally into a consideration of households' activity patterns and into research on these patterns. In conclusion the author indicates by implication that the integration of these two approaches may lead in the direction of measurements of accessibility and of taking account of the competition fm desirable sites, of consequent increases in the intensity of utilization, and of the rents of these sites. Thus this article, in conjunction with others, illustrates a remarkable convergence between research starting at the level of individual decision units and coming to consider the larger framework, and research starting from gross changes in the metropolitan configuration and coming to give increasing consideration to the actual decision process.     

Rethinking Federal Housing Policy

Problem: Federal housing policy is made up of disparate programs that a) promote homeownership; b) assist low-income renters’ access to good-quality, affordable housing; and c) enforce the Fair Housing Act by combating residential discrimination. Some of these programs are ineffective, others have drifted from their initial purpose, and none are well coordinated with each other.

Purpose: We examine the trends, summarize the research evaluating the performance of these programs, and suggest steps to make them more effective and connected to each other.

Methods: We review the history of housing policy and programs and empirical studies of program effectiveness to identify a set of best principles and practices.

Results and conclusions: In the area of homeownership, we recommend that the federal government help the nation's housing markets quickly find bottom, privatize aspects of the secondary mortgage market, and move to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction and replace it with a 10-year homeownership tax credit. In the area of subsidized rental housing, we recommend that the current system of vouchers be regionalized (or alternatively, converted into an entitlement program that works through the income tax system), sell public housing projects to nonprofit sponsors where appropriate, and eliminate some of the rigidities in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. In the area of fair housing, we recommend that communities receiving Community Development Block Grants be required to implement inclusionary zoning programs.

Takeaway for practice: In general, we recommend that federal policy build on proven programs; focus on providing affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families and provide the funding to meet that goal; avoid grandiose and ideological ambitions and programs; use fewer and more coordinated programs; offer tax credits, not tax deductions; and promote residential filtering.

Research support: Partial funding support was provided by the National Science Foundation.     

The commercial currency of construction framework agreements

A critique is presented of construction client–main contractor framework agreements. In the midst of an unpredictable and volatile construction environment, the commercial currency of collaborative working practice, and by extension framework agreements, is being put under increasing management scrutiny. Drawing on a literature review, the guiding principles of framework agreements are examined. A dramatic downturn in construction demand has created considerable surplus in supply. Under such conditions the buyer–supplier interdependencies become imbalanced and commercial relationships fraught. Reports by construction industry analysts demonstrate a number of private sector clients rejecting framework agreements in favour of traditional competitive procurement practices. Drawing upon a neoclassical lens, three guiding principles embedded within economic orthodoxy are employed to examine business-to-business tensions within construction framework agreements, namely, individualism, instrumentalism and equilibrium. This neoclassical interpretation of construction framework agreements reveals a potential relational management bias within mainstream rhetoric. Notably, providing a complementary account of framework agreements practice should not be construed as a rejection of collaborative working practices. An alternative account of framework agreements is presented that does not rely upon the mainstream behavioural model of contemporary contracting.     

Morality and Architecture

In the 1870s and 1880s, when the establishment of schools of architecture in the United States was in its infancy, one of the main methods of architectural education for builders, carpenters and others who wished to advance in the field was to study the many books on architecture being published after the Civil War. Even professional architects had frequent recourse to books (and also periodicals) for design ideas, theory and contemporary issues.     

Television as a Design Tool

Television is not only the most powerful medium of communication that our age has produced; it is also the most flexible. Yet its common role in education is that of a mere substitute, called in to mitigate the effects of the shortage of teachers or (to look at the matter historically) the excess of students. That it can be more than that is shown by two University of Nebraska faculty members, describing an experiment in the creative use of television as a tool in the development of that awareness of the characteristics of space which is among the architect's indispensable qualifications.