This paper describes the development and application of a new unique tool to support designers to optimise the sustainability of urban neighbourhoods (SUNtool). In this the paper introduces (i) the software architecture, (ii) the integrated solver and related innovations in the modelling of radiation exchange, reduced thermal modelling, stochastic modelling of occupant presence and behaviour, and urban plant modelling, (iii) interface design and innovations in building attribution, (iv) results analysis methods. Finally the software is applied to demonstrate its application to the development of urban planning guidelines and also to the design of a masterplan.

No abstract

This commentary describes and critiques criteria that, according to results from an Association for Business Communication (ABC) member survey, are having an impact on quality judgments about our journals. ABC members rank the Journal of Business Communication and Business Communication Quarterly as top research and pedagogical journals in business/management communication, a finding corroborated by a larger study of academics in business and technical communication. However, the growing importance of citation counts and journal rankings currently disadvantages our journals, presenting us with professional obligations and personal dilemmas in relation to them. The authors' purpose is to raise awareness of the various determinants of perceptions of journal quality, to explore Special thanks to Marie Flatley and Bruce Reinig of San Diego State University for assisting us with survey administration and analysis.

International students' adjustment to living in an unfamiliar cultural environment and studying in a different educational system and language has been a topic of much research. Literature has shown that support from the host community could be the difference between a smooth transition and one fraught with problems and difficulties. This article describes a "buddy project" used in an intercultural communication class in which each student was a buddy for a newly arrived international student for a semester. The purpose of the project was to give social support to international students in the crucial first few months of their sojourn while at the same time complementing host students' class-based theoretical learning with practical, meaningful experience with peers from another culture. The article discusses the outcomes, challenges, and students' evaluations of the experiential learning exercise. Recommendations for future projects are outlined.

The reasons for this reluctance are many. Some students are naturally quiet or shy; others, however, do not feel confident enough in their English proficiency to volunteer their opinions for fear of making mistakes and thus losing face. They may also feel that they would waste class time if they take too long to formulate their thoughts and express them in English.Another reason Asian ESL students tend to be uncomfortable in a discussion is that this mode of communication is a rather alien concept for them (Holmes, 2000;Warden, Chen, & Caskey, 2005). Although this "debate" type of communication "has been a central tenet of Western society since ancient Greek times . . . Asian culture has no real history of debate" (Warden et al., 2005, p. 228). Disagreeing with others, especially face to face, and arguing one's points are seen as confrontational and undesirable in many Asian cultures, in which harmony is highly valued (Samovar & Porter, 2001). Consequently, ESL students are often seen as passive, uninterested, uncooperative, or ignorant about topics. Studies have shown, however, that this is often not the case (Holmes, 2000;Tani, 2005). Tani (2005), for example, found that Asian students are very talkative outside class and during

In recent years New Zealand has seen an increasing awareness of the need for and the benefits of providing readily understandable business and government documents. In this paper I report a psycholinguistic study testing the level of consumer comprehension of bank contracts and the effect of using plain English to rewrite them. The plain versions encouraged subjects to read the documents more carefully than they read the original versions, and the subjects understood the content and implications better when the contracts were written in plain English. The most effective means of enhancing comprehension was that which included both lexical and syntactic manipulation of text. Subjects said that they preferred the plain English versions of the contracts to the traditional versions.&dquo; ew experiences are as refreshing as finding a contract we can read,&dquo;Fsays Crow (1988, p. 86) in his article discussing consumer contracts, readability, and comprehension. Crow's statement will, in turn, be refreshing for many, who will find that they are not alone in feeling annoyed, confused, frustrated, and even intimidated or stupid when confronted with a document that they feel is beyond their comprehension.As citizens and consumers we encounter every day and in almost every sphere of activity documents that are less than readable, be they law and regulations, instructions, manuals, insurance policies, and so on. Criticism of writing that is difficult to understand is not new, and over the centuries there have been attempts to change the way official and other public documents are written so that they are understandable to those who must read them. As early as the sixteenth century, for example, an English judge ordered a hole cut through the centre of a particularly lengthy document filed in his court. He then ordered the writer, who puffed up the document from 16 pages to 120, to be led around, with the head stuffed through the hole, in front of all those attending court (Asprey, 1991;Wydick, 1985).More recent calls for readable documents can be seen in writings since the middle of this century by writers such as Rudolf Flesch (1949/1974), Sir Ernest Gowers (1954/1986), and Stuart Chase (1954/1971. Many law professors and practitioners have also advocated simpler legal language, including language used in contracts (e.g., Conard

MOTIVATING BUSINESS or management students in a writing class is often difficult. In my experience, language is usually low on any list of favorite subjects for these students, if in fact it is on the list at all, and so the students are not very excised about taking a course that puts a lot of emphasis on it. Many students do not even think writing is that important-at least not in the way &dquo;real&dquo; or &dquo;content&dquo; courses such as economics and accounting are-or do not see clearly how it relates to their degree or future carecr. But even if some students do recognize the importance of writing and genuinely want to improve their skills, they often come to a writing class with an expectation that it will be boring. In general, thcrcfore, it is not uncommon to find a class of business or management students who show little enthusiasm about writing.Mention the word and thcir eyes start to glaze over! Articles in The Journal of Business Communication and Business Communication Quarterly provide evidence that my students are not uniquc in lacking motivation to improve their professional writing. Skarzenski and Stinc (1979), for example, state, &dquo;The business communication instructor faces some serious motivational problems early each term. Students often are a little fearful of English or writing courses in general, but, worse, sometimes feel any such course is generally abstract, 'artsy,' and worthless&dquo; (p. 27). Campbell (1981), who is &dquo;continually faced with the task of motivating students to want to learn about business communi

This article describes a series of modern developments carried out by the inkjet community in its quest to improve material compatibility, printing quality, and reliability. Recent progresses in rheology have advanced our understanding of liquids at the time scales that are characteristic of inkjet printing processes. As a result, microsecond rheology now permits the formulation of inks with tailored viscosities that vary according to the time-scale of their dynamics, i.e. low effective viscosity during jetting but high at break up and landing. These advances have permitted the community to assess, and often predict, the ink jetting behaviour, at a given printing frequency, based on the linear or non-linear viscoelasticity and other fluid characteristics. Advances in fluidic systems and in waveform design have now enabled the printing of high viscous inks that were previously impossible to jet on demand. This capability is opening up new markets and opportunities for inkjet, from the printing of glues to the use of heavily loaded ceramic inks. Advances in printhead design, and the assessment of printing patterns using common standards, now allow the verifiable and reliable operation of industrial-scale digital inkjet printing in a wide range of environments. Recent improvements on printhead cleaning protocols, have contributed to an increase in printing speed and operating time by reducing the production of mist and satellite droplets neighbouring the printhead region. Thanks to these improvements, inkjet is displacing traditional technologies, such as offset and screen printing, in large markets including graphics, packaging and labelling.