Old Lesbians in the UK: Community and Friendship

Drawing on data from the first large-scale comprehensive study of older lesbian life in the United Kingdom, this article explores the nature of friendship and community among old lesbians. Strong friendship bonds and social networking emerge as key features of old lesbian culture. In particular the article focuses on “chosen families,” including relationships with ex-lovers, and on the extensive network of both organized and informal social groups that continue to structure and support a sense of community among old lesbians. It shows the lasting importance of friendships and social structures formed earlier in life against a background of stigmatization, homophobia, and heterosexism, and argues for the recognition of these communities of identity by those who care for older people.     

Business and Management Studies in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework

The Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF 2014) was the 7th formal assessment of research in UK universities and other institutions of higher education. Participation in these assessments is voluntary, and institutions can decide which staff to include and under which discipline to include them. A hundred and one institutions chose to submit research in Business and Management Studies, and this work was assessed by a panel of academic researchers and research users nominated by a wide range of academic constituencies. The previous assessment exercise was conducted in 2008, and REF 2014 shows that the quality of UK research in Business and Management Studies, already high in 2008, has improved since then. The operation of the Business and Management Studies sub‐panel is described, the results are summarized, and a few caveats are discussed so as to aid the Business and Management Studies community in its endeavours to understand and evaluate the process and the results.     

Catholic Civics Education in the Early Cold War: Zeal for Democracy,Zeal for Christ

In the late 1940s and 1950s American Catholic educators faced the dilemma of how to transmit Catholic faith and culture to the next generation while also reassuring their non-Catholic neighbors that they were fully American in lifestyle and loyalties. This article examines one response to that dilemma: the convergence of public and Catholic school civics curricula through the widespread use of experiential pedagogy in Catholic civics education. Using a content analysis of civics textbooks and teacher's guides from both school systems, this article demonstrates how both kinds of schools converged on an experiential style of civics education, despite vocal opposition to “progressive” pedagogy at elite levels of Catholic educational discourse. The article then presents a partial explanation for this dissonance, demonstrating the moral certainty exhibited in the same Catholic-school textbooks, and suggesting that Catholic educationists understood American Catholics to be morally privileged in a way that gave them special insight into American democracy and protected them from the negative influences of secular educational philosophy. This case study speaks to larger questions of how organizations manage conflicts between abstract principles and practical action, and suggests the value of including religious schools in the sociological study of “loose coupling” in educational organizations.     

The Role of Industry Studies and Public Policies in Production and Operations Management

The research domain Industry Studies and Public Policy (IS&PP) seeks to further our understanding of industrial practices and managerial challenges by explicitly considering contextual details in the design and interpretation of research studies. These details can be vital considerations when shaping public policies. This article reviews a sample of IS&PP publications and analyzes the content of 180 selected papers—85 papers published in the Production and Operations Management (POM) journal and 95 papers published in related journals between 1992 and 2014. Our analysis of the sample dataset and examination of exemplar papers provide four findings. First, studies in different industries emphasize different themes of operational decisions. This difference in emphasis reveals potential research opportunities, especially for conducting inter‐industry studies. Second, our analysis reveals a shift in focus over time. Earlier studies contain a mix of benchmarks and inter‐industry comparisons, while later studies tend to be context‐specific, intra‐industry studies. Third, we report on empirics → analytics → empirics cycles that reveal gaps for building novel theories. Finally, we observe that the relationship between POM decisions and public policy is bi‐directional. This highlights the need to jointly examine operational decisions with policy considerations, especially in information goods, healthcare, sustainable operations and high‐tech manufacturing industries.     

Disabled people in Britain and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper reports on in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with 69 disabled people in England and Scotland, and with 28 key informants from infrastructure organisations in the voluntary and statutory sectors, about the impact of COVID-19, and measures taken to control it. Participants were recruited through voluntary organisations. As with everyone, the Pandemic has had a huge impact: we discuss the dislocations it has caused in everyday life; the failures of social care; the use of new technologies; and participants' view on leadership and communication. We conclude with suggestions for urgent short term and medium term responses, so that the United Kingdom and other countries can respond better to this and other pandemics, and build a more inclusive world.     

Improving OpenURL Menus: User Testing of Revisions to SFX® Menus

Abstract

Twenty-one volunteers tested the usability of revisions to the Texas A&M University Libraries' SFX® OpenURL link resolver menus, including the addition of Ex Libris' new bXâ?¢ recommendation service and a plug-in which pulls additional information about the journal into the menu. The volunteers also evaluated the quality and desirability of the bX recommendations and discussed their preferences for help options and full-text format. Results of the usability testing are reported along with the resultant menu changes. This study will be of interest to librarians implementing or redesigning OpenURL menus as well as those interested in the user experience.     

A novel in statistics

Jane Yardley spends her days organising clinical trials. By night she writes successful novels. Her latest involves mystery, wartime crime and Sibelius; and its heroine is a biostatistician. Why? Chocolate teddybears, a father who worked with toxic chemicals and a bookmaker's clerk made her do it …     

Comparison of Chemical Screening and Ranking Approaches: The Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool versus Toxic Equivalency Potentials

Chemical screening in the United States is often conducted using scoring and ranking methodologies. Linked models accounting for chemical fate, exposure, and toxicological effects are generally preferred in Europe and in product Life Cycle Assessment. For the first time, a comparison is presented in this article of two of the prominent, but structurally different methodologies adopted to help screen and rank chemicals and chemical emissions data. Results for 250 chemicals are presented, with a focus on 12 chemicals of interest in the United Nations Environment Programme's Persistent Organic Pollutants global treaty negotiations. These results help to illustrate the significance of described structural differences and to assess the correlation between the methodologies. The scope of the comparison was restricted here to human health, although the insights would be equally useful in the context of the health of ecosystems. Illustrating the current types of chemical screening and emissions comparison approaches, the relative significance of the scenario and structural differences of the Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool (WMPT) and the Toxic Equivalency Potential (TEP) methodologies are analyzed. The WMPT facilitates comparison in terms of key physical-chemical properties. Measures for Persistence, Bioaccumulation, and Toxicity (PBT) are calculated. Each PBT measure is scored and then these scores are added to provide a single measure of relative concern. TEPs account for chemical fate, multipathway exposure, and toxicity using a model-based approach. This model structure is sometimes considered to provide a less subjective representation of environmental mechanisms, and, hence, an improved basis for screening. Nevertheless, a strong relationship exists between the two approaches and both have their limitations.     

An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Decision Aids on Problem-Solving Processes*

Despite the growing number of investigations examining decision support systems (DSS), relatively few empirical studies have evaluated the effects of DSS on problem-solving processes. This study uses protocol analysis to investigate the impact of a specific decision aid on problem-solving processes in a semi-structured problem. Results indicate that decision aids influence the problem-solving processes of decision makers. The effect of a decision aid is found to be contingent on familiarity with the decision aid, task familiarity, and the interaction of these two factors. Suggestions for incorporating interaction effects and problem-solving processes into future examinations are proposed.