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The importance of business performance measurement across industries has elevated in the last decade in what has been described as a revolution. Meanwhile, the construction industry has been criticised for its underperformance and the Latham and Egan reports emphasized the need for performance improvement and measurement. Companies have had to face the dilemma of choosing among different performance measurement frameworks. Hence, a need has been identified for a comprehensive framework. The aim of this research is to fulfil this need by building a conceptual framework for measuring the business performance of construction organizations. The framework had been formulated in previous research upon the principles of the Balanced Scorecard and Business Excellence Models. The research attempts to empirically evaluate and revise the framework through a series of expert interviews and case studies. In addition, empirical feedback has been used to: express the revised framework in a more communicative form, illustrate how business performance can be measured; and highlight the differences between the proposed framework and contemporary performance frameworks.Balanced scorecard, construction, empirical evaluation, excellence model, performance measurement,

Confining the development of the project brief to a certain stage hinders the interaction between the client and the designer. In addition, it inhibits the incorporation of the influential internal and external factors that may affect the project. In spite of the frequently adverse impact of change orders on project cost, time and quality, literature review and case studies showed that client organisations continue to use change orders to achieve their expectations and enhance their projects' performance principally because current construction management process instills an expectation that, change after a specified point is somehow outside the project brief rather than part of the ongoing development of that brief. This paper introduces the concept of dynamic brief development (DBD), a process that facilitates client satisfaction, meets the need to adapt to the brief developing factors for the benefit of the project and fulfils the desire to manage project change orders. In this paper, the need, aims and principles of the concept of DBD are explained and the factors driving brief development are identified. In addition, the rationale behind each factor is given and the case study sampling method is described.

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A fully programmable second-order universal filter with independently controllable characteristics is presented in this paper. The proposed filter is based on a new ± 0.75 V second-generation current conveyor with digitally programmable current gain. The input stage of the current conveyor is realized using two complementary MOS differential pairs to ensure rail-to-rail operation. The output stage consists of a Class-AB CMOS push-pull network, which guarantees high current driving capability with a 47.2 µA standby current. The digital programmability of the current conveyor, based on transistor arrays and MOS switches, provides variable current gain using a digital code-word. Two approaches for implementing current conveyors with programmable current gain either greater or less than one are described. The fully programmable universal filter and the proposed digitally programmable current conveyor circuits are simulated using PSPICE with 0.25 µm CMOS technology from MOSIS.