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The purpose of this paper is to provide an up‐to‐date overview of Tajikistan's health system, focusing on the main factors affecting health systems development. The wider contextual environment is to be explored, focusing on political, social and economic issues. Different elements of the health system including health policy, governance, service delivery, human resources and health financing are reviewed in the light of their development over the past decade.

The paper shows that the Republic of Tajikistan is in transition. Formerly one of the most neglected republics within the USSR, the country became independent in 1990 and faced the civil conflict shortly thereafter. In the last few years there have been major public sector reforms with health reforms formally launched in the late 1990s. Little information about current Tajikistan is widely available.

The paper finds that the progress of health reforms in Tajikistan has been relatively slow compared with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. This is largely due to the effects of civil war in the mid‐1990s and significant out‐migration of qualified experts, but it can also be attributed to an inability of central government to adequately adapt to the requirements of transition.

The paper shows that many problems are still to be overcome by the health system, ranging from operational issues related to service delivery to strategic issues such as formulating an explicit privatisation policy, reducing fragmentation of, and aligning, external aid. However, some recent developments, such as adoption of a country health reform conception, a health financing strategy, and willingness of central government to improve coordination, suggest that improvements are possible.

A business organization should consistently meet the needs of its stakeholders. Any sub‐optimal position suggests that enhancement of business performance is possible in at least two areas: the effectiveness of the routes to achieving those stakeholder needs, and the efficiency of those routes. The support activities constitute an environment created by the integration and co‐ordination of people, processes and places. The challenge is to create the support environment that consistently meets the needs of the business, and then to manage it through the optimum use of resources. An organization that has created, sustained and managed a business‐aligned support environment is likely to have a competitive advantage over those that have not done so. If the author is able to confirm this assertion through his research, then the desired outcome would be a framework for achieving such alignment. This paper briefly describes the concept of Business Support Optimisation as an approach to improving such alignment at a moment in time, and suggests how it can be operationalised using value mapping to realise stakeholder expectations.

The purpose of this study is to explore the causal link between procurement route and ongoing buyer‐supplier relationship.

The research draws on literature in the areas of: facilities management (FM) outsourcing; purchasing and supply chain strategy; and collaborative business relationship management. The research methodology is qualitative, and comprised semi‐structured interviews with buyers and suppliers of FM services.

Findings suggest that in general clients are seeking more collaborative relationships and this may determine a more relational procurement process. Some organisations appear more practiced than others in defining the level of collaboration and business benefits sought. Results support the view that a relational procurement process provides greater clarity of service requirements and facilitates cultural alignment between the buyer and supplier. However, additional time, effort, and cost are incurred, and concerns arise regarding the maturity of the supplier‐market and the sincerity of client intentions to collaborate.

A major practical implication is that facilities managers should recognise the importance of determining relationship objectives and the benefits sought within the context of FM procurement activity and select a purchasing route which supports the achievement of those objectives.

Originality exists in the qualitative approach used to inquire into the causality between relationships and procurement routes. The study offers potential value to both buyers and suppliers of FM services through describing the attributes of a successful collaborative relationship and how they link to a given procurement process, and identifying the potential risks and rewards involved.

State and national standards compel teachers to introduce historical topics through multiple diverse texts, emphasizing the use of informational texts. Trade books allow teachers to meet these standards while also meeting the needs of diverse students. Primary sources serve as an additional curricular resource filling the gaps in information not covered by textbooks and trade books and allowing students to gain a more complete and accurate understanding of historical figures and events. Standards leave the selection and implementation of appropriate trade books, primary sources, and other curricular resources to the classroom teacher. In this research, I qualify and quantify how President Andrew Jackson, a very controversial historical figure, is portrayed in trade books. Misrepresentations within trade books concerning Jackson are reported and analyzed. Suggestions and a rationale for trade book and primary source selection and implementation in elementary, middle, and secondary school are addressed.

The purpose of this study is to mirror the late guitarist Peter Green’s life experiences through insights from Andrew Voyce, who recovered from mental illness, and expertise from Peter Bryngelsson, a Swedish professional musician and author.

The authors used a mixed method of collaborative autoethnography, psychobiography and digital team ethnography.

Despite having not previously attracted academic interest, Peter Green’s experiences of mental health problems and his return to recording and performance provide a rich data source when mirrored and compared to the lives and experiences of Andrew Voyce and Peter Bryngelsson.

The main limitation of this piece of work is that Peter Green died in 2020. During the process of writing, the authors have had to follow different, mostly unacademic, sources that have described various parts of Peter Green’s life. The authors have given examples and drawn conclusions from their own lives as well as from academic sources, which they have found appropriate.

Both Andrew Voyce and Peter Bryngelsson’s stories would be helpful when it comes to a deeper understanding as to why Peter Green “took a left turn”, i.e., turned his back on an accepted lifestyle.

Acid casualty is a problem connected to both mental distress and to the music industry. Peter Bryngelsson’s story tells us that one can remain sane and drug free and still be an influential and creative musician.

The analysis has brought together two stories of mental distress in combination with insights.

This study examines a general education, hands-on and 100 per cent online laboratory course to better understand the prospects for fostering green building literacy through experiential online education.

The mixed-methods research design included pre- and post-course surveys (n = 42) together with semi-structured interviews mid-semester (n = 10) and four to six months post-course (n = 5). Data were collected for two semesters.

Students experienced significant increases in green building knowledge and skills, environmental sensitivity and pro-environmental behaviors from the beginning to the end of the course. Qualitative results indicate that the hands-on laboratory assignments were the primary pedagogical interventions affecting change. Interviews four to six months after the course revealed that motivation, convenience and supportiveness of the context were key factors impacting the pro-environmental behaviors that were maintained versus those that were discontinued by students when the course was over.

This paper shares effective approaches used to deliver an online course with hands-on laboratories that lead to positive increases in sustainability knowledge and behaviors stretching beyond the semester.

While online and experiential learning are both well-studied themes in higher education, very little empirical work examines experiential online learning, and this is particularly the case for online laboratory courses. The work here contributes to the understanding of general education online laboratories that are designed to increase knowledge and behavior change through hands-on experiential learning techniques.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

This paper aims to assess agri-environment (AE) scheme options on cultivated agricultural land in England for their impact on agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It considers both absolute emissions reduction and reduction incorporating yield decrease and potential production displacement. Similarities with Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) introduced in 2015 as part of the post-2014 Common Agricultural Policy reform, and their potential impact, are considered.

A life-cycle analysis approach derives GHG emissions for 18 key representative options. Meta-modelling is used to account for spatial environmental variables (annual precipitation, soil type and erosion risk), supplementing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change methodology.

Most options achieve an absolute reduction in GHG emissions compared to an existing arable crop baseline but at the expense of removing land from production, risking production displacement. Soil and water protection options designed to reduce soil erosion and nitrate leaching decrease GHG emissions without loss of crop yield. Undersown spring cereals support decreased inputs and emissions per unit of crop yield. The most valuable AE options identified are included in the proposed EFAs, although lower priority is afforded to some.

Recommendations are made where applicable to modify option management prescriptions and to further reduce GHG emissions.

This research is relevant and of value to land managers and policy makers. A dichotomous key summarises AE option prioritisation and supports GHG mitigation on cultivated land in England. The results are also applicable to other European countries.

The idea of implementing supply chain management (SCM) principles for the construction industry was embraced by construction stakeholders to enhance the sector's performance. The analysis from the literature revealed that the implementation of SCM in the construction industry enhances the industry's value in terms of cost-saving, time savings, material management, risk management and others. The construction supply chain (CSC) can be managed using the pull or push system. This chapter also discusses the origin and proliferation of SCM into the construction industry. The chapter revealed that the concept of SCM has passed through five different eras: the creation era, the use of ERP, globalisation stage, specialisation stage and electronic stage. The findings from the literature revealed that we are presently in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) era. At this stage, the SCM witnesses the adoption of technologies and principles driven by the 4IR. This chapter also revealed that the practice of SCM in the construction industry is centred around integration, collaboration, communication and the structure of the supply chain (SC). The forms and challenges hindering the adoption of these practices were also discussed extensively in this chapter.

Scholars have begun calling for broader conceptualisations of moral disengagement processes that reflect the interaction of dispositional and situational antecedents to a predilection to morally disengage. The authors argue that collective leadership may be one such contingent antecedent. While researching leaders from the Gilded Age of American business history, the authors encountered a compelling historical case that facilitates theory elaboration within these intersecting domains. Interpreting evidence from the embittered leader dyad of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, the authors show how leader egoism can permeate moral identity to promote symbolic moral self-regard and moral licensing, which augment a propensity to morally disengage. The authors use insights developed from our analysis to illustrate a process conceptualisation that reflects a dispositional and situational interaction as a precursor to moral disengagement and explains how collective leadership can function as a moral disengagement trigger/tool to reduce cognitive dissonance and support the cognitive, behavioural, and rhetorical processes utilised to justify unethical behaviour.