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With the advent of new materials and technologies that enable passive components to be embedded within electronic substrates, one key question that arises is: under what circumstances (and for what type of applications) is it economically viable to consider using embedded passives? The economic issues that must be considered consist of a combination of manufacturing costs and throughputs, and non‐manufacturing life cycle costs. This paper discusses the assessment of manufacturing costs associated with embedding resistors and capacitors in printed circuit boards and provides cost modeling results for an avionics board. The discussion is extended to include optimizing the specific embedded passive content in a board and design for production modeling when embedded passives are present. Life cycle cost issues are also qualitatively discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to address the need for further development of tools that could be used to mitigate obsolescence within the built environment. Literature reviewed within this paper indicates a distinct gap in research, allowing for rising obsolescence-driven investments within asset systems. In addition to further conceptual development, case study testing is required to validate the use of certain existing methods.

This paper has developed a Boolean obsolescence assessment tool, which was then tested within a case study environment. This year-long case study provided real world data across three asset systems within an operational building.

The findings from this preliminary case study indicate that a Boolean tool of this type has the potential to provide significant insight into obsolescence mitigation. Such a tool, implemented in accordance with onsite asset management processes, has the ability to mitigate and avoid obsolescence-driven investments.

This case study is limited because of its length and size. To mitigate the effects that may have been captured, this research project has been developed and continued.

The model featured within this paper originated from an untested obsolescence indexing technique. This model was adapted and extended to improve its accuracy and functionality, which also involved adding weighting mechanisms, resulting in not only an original model but a novel set of results because of the current lack of explicit testing of similar models.

This paper aims to highlight the expanding link between facility management (FM) and building automation and control systems (BACS) through a review of literature. It examines the opportunities and challenges of BACS for facility managers and proposes solutions for mitigating the risks associated with BACS implementation.

This paper reviews various research papers to explore the positive influences of BACS on FM, such as support with strategic decision-making, predictive maintenance, energy efficiency and comfort improvement. It also discusses the challenges of BACS, including obsolescence, interoperability, vendor lock-in, reliability and security risks and suggests potential solutions based on existing literature.

BACS offers numerous opportunities for facility managers, such as improved decision-making, energy efficiency and comfort levels in office buildings. However, there are also risks associated with BACS implementation, including obsolescence, interoperability, vendor lock-in, reliability and security risks. These risks can be mitigated through measures such as hardware and software obsolescence management plans, functional requirement lists, wireless communication protocols, advanced feedback systems and increased awareness about BACS security.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior academic research has been conducted on the expanding link between FM and BACS. Although some papers have touched upon the opportunities and challenges of BACS for FM, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of these findings by consolidating existing literature.

This paper aims to offer a marketing perspective to the multidisciplinary debate on whether religion is expanding, declining or resurging in contemporary and allegedly secular society. Specifically, it examines the “secularization hypothesis”, which predicts that religion tends to lose its central role in people’s lives as secular reasoning spreads and scientific knowledge accumulates.

Borrowing from psychology literature, the authors identify the psychological and social needs satisfied by religion and in doing so uncover its functions. They then discussed whether religion can be claimed to be functionally obsolete.

The authors identified four functions of religion: explanatory, relieving, membership and moral. The content of religious doctrines offers consumers of religion unambiguous knowledge, absolute morality and promises of immortality, immanent justice and centrality in the universe. Religion also provides a social identity, through which people can build meaningful connections with others in the community and with their own history.

A change in the role of religion would be highly relevant for consumer research because religious ideologies shape consumption practices, social relations, products and brands. The authors observe that the content of religious answers is so well-crafted around human psychology that the explaining, relieving and moral functions of religion have not lost reliability. However, cultural change has weakened religion’s ability to gratify human psychology through social identity and meaningful socialization, which led to the marketization of religion, the rise of spirituality and the intensification of socialization around consumption.