The Material Family is a bold new reading of the family, focusing on “new” or “post-nuclear,” “flexible” family forms such as gay family, divorce-extended family, and transnational family. Reading across a range of texts from high theory to literature and popular films, the book crosses disciplinary boundaries to offer a highly innovative and dynamic approach to changes in gender and other family relations. Unlike most books in the fields of cultural and family studies, The Material Family provides an historical and materialist argument connecting the changes within family to underlying shifts in material, labor relations in global capitalism. The “post-nuclear” family is not only an affective space, Torrant argues, but one whose affects are themselves fundamentally shaped by class. The Material Family is a must-read for anyone who wants to venture beyond the surfaces of family life to the deeper-lying relations that have made the family and its new forms among the most important spaces of social life. Its readers will include not only students and researchers in the fields of education, cultural theory and cultural studies, women’s studies, sociology, and anthropology, but also general readers interested in understanding contemporary families and their struggles.

A photo-journey through the homes and lives of 30 families, revealing culture and economic levels around the world.

Manufacturers can be green and highly profitable at the same time Profits do not have to be sacrificed to environmental responsibility, or vice versa. Following this book's tested and proven approach, readers discover how to create and operate manufacturing facilities that are highly profitable while meeting or exceeding the environmental standards of their local community, state, and federal governments. The authors' approach is broad in scope, setting forth the roles and responsibilities of organizational functions such as marketing, product design, manufacturing technology, management, and human resources. The book begins with an overview explaining why profitability and green manufacturing must be viewed as a single objective. Next, the book becomes a "how to" guide to creating and maintaining an environmentally compliant and profitable manufacturing operation, with chapters covering: Manufacturing, waste, and regeneration Building a decision-making model Environmental regulation, standards, and profitability Case studies Tools used to improve manufacturing operations The facility Applying the profitable and compliant process chart The final chapter is dedicated to a step-by-step approach in the application and use of the profitable and compliant process chart, a core working tool discussed in the book. In this chapter, several actual manufacturing applications, along with their worksheets, are presented to illustrate how this approach can minimize resources and waste. Armed with this comprehensive systems approach, readers will no longer view profitability and green manufacturing as two opposing goals. Instead, they'll have the tools and knowledge needed to create and maintain a manufacturing operation that is both profitable and green.

"The intent of this book is to provide the interior design student a well-rounded knowledge of Autodesk Revit tools and techniques. These skills can then be applied to enhance professional development in both academia and industry. The overall premise of the book is to learn Revit Architecture while developing the interior of a two story law office. The reader is provided an architectural model with established columns, beams, exterior walls, minimal interior walls and roofs in which to work. This allows more emphasis to be placed on interior design rather than primary architectural elements. The chapters chronology generally follows the typical design process. Students will find this book helps them more accurately and efficiently develop their design ideas and skills. The first chapter introduces the reader to Revit, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and the basics of opening, saving and creating a new project. The second provides a quick introduction to modeling basic elements in Revit including walls, doors, windows and more. This chapter is designed to show students how powerful Revit is and hopefully make them more excited about learning it. The remainder of the book is spent developing the interior space of the law office with an established space program. A student will learn how to view and navigate within the provided 3D architectural model, managing and creating materials and develop spaces with walls, doors and windows. Once all the spaces are added to the model, several areas are explored and used as the basis to cover Revit commands and workflows. At the end of this tutorial, the reader will be able to model floor finishes, ceilings with soffits, casework, custom reception desk, restrooms, furniture and light fixtures. Additional features such as tags, schedules and photo-realistic rendering will be covered. " -- product description.

The purpose of the edited collection Families in Economically Hard Times: Experiences and Coping Strategies in Europe is to provide readers with unique sociological knowledge on European families' experiences and behavioural strategies a decade after economic crisis of the 21st century.

Composed of a series of essays, this book deals with the broad issues affecting the nature of architectural materials and provides a focused review of the state of the art materials. It also provides designers with the tools they need to evaluate and select from the thousands of different materials that are available to them. The book is organized into three sections; 'Time' looks at how the materials used in architectural design have changed over the years showing how we have come to use the materials we do in contemporary design. 'Materials' covers all five material families; metals, polymers, ceramics, composites and natural materials giving in depth information on their properties, behavior, origins and uses in design. It also introduces a review of the cutting edge research for each family. 'Systems' outlines the technical design-orientated research that uncovers how new architectural assemblies can be designed and engineered. All of this practical advice is given along with many real case examples illustrating how this knowledge and information has been, and can be, used in architectural design.