The world in which we work is changing. Information and communication technologies transform the work environment, providing the flexibility of when and where to work. The New Way of Working (NWOW) is a relatively new phenomenon that provides the context for these developments. It consists of three distinct pillars that are referred to as Bricks, Bytes and Behaviour. These pillars formed the ba...

In the Refractories world three decades ago, very few people were acquainted to silica fume and its usage. After a few years, it was used as an additive to brick. When added to high Alumina brick, mullite was formed in the matrix of the brick on firing, giving the brick good volume stability, strength and chemical resistance. When used in basic brick, high hot strengths resulted, at least at 27...

An r-graph is an r-regular graph where every odd set of vertices is connected by at least r edges to the rest of the graph. Seymour conjectured that any r-graph is r + 1edge-colorable, and also that any r-graph contains 2r perfect matchings such that each edge belongs to two of them. We show that the minimum counter-example to either of these conjectures is a brick. Furthermore we disprove a va...

The effect of brickworks emissions on heavy metal content of soil and plants around the brick kiln chimneys was studied in the year 2006. Two brick kilns (A and B) about 600 m away from Ring Road at SufaidDheri on southerrn side of Peshawar, Pakistan were selected for this study. The two bricks kilns were North-South to each other with 300 m distance in between, such that South direction from b...

Six sigma is new to construction sector and this philosophy is to reduce the defects in the construction. The aim of this study is to evaluate Six Sigma as a process improvement method within construction sector. In order to improve the process in construction it is important to understand the factors affecting the construction process and analyze the factors for the construction improvement. I...