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Unika is a prototype robot — the product of work by Unimation in the US and Kawasaki in Japan — which by means of vision can detect the deviation between a taught standard path and the actual welding seam. The robot system can then correct the path taken by the welding gun manipulator.

Reviews the current social policy and its application as it relates to the education of students with learning disabilities attending US institutes of higher education. Attempts to differentiate between the legal rights and these students in primary and secondary settings versus those in higher education. Reviews the definition of learning disabilities and eligibility criteria in colleges and universities and gives an overview of common services provided to college studetns with learning disabilities. Summarizes the results of several follow‐up studies on students with learning disabilities who attend post‐secondary institutes.

This article outlines a personal Journey Line Narrative exercise aimed at enhancing leader authenticity and effectiveness by asking students to “look back” and identify their core values, as well as the formative experiences that helped solidify those values. The Journey Line Narrative encourages reflection and self-awareness by asking students to answer the question “Who am I?”, to articulate this reflection to a mentor, and to distill this reflection into a coherent essay. This exercise can be useful in courses focused on leader development by helping aspiring leaders develop and communicate their authenticity, core values, and purpose

This chapter reflects on the process of conducting qualitative research as an indigenous researcher, drawing from two studies based in south Wales (the United Kingdom). The chapter not only explores the advantages of similarity in relation to trust, access, gender and understandings of locality, but it also complicates this position by examining the problem of familiarity.

The studies, one doctoral research and one an undergraduate dissertation project, both took a qualitative approach and introduced visual methods of data production including collages, maps, photographs and timelines. These activities were followed by individual elicitation interviews.

The chapter argues that the insider outsider binary is unable capture the complexity of research relationships; however, these distinctions remain central in challenging the researcher’s preconceptions and the propensity for their research to be clouded by their subjective assumptions of class, gender, locality and community.

The chapter presents strategies to fight familiarity in fieldwork and considers the ethical issues that arise when research is conducted from the competing perspectives of both insider and academic. The authors focus on uncertainties and reservations in the fieldwork process and move beyond notions of fighting familiarity to consider the unforeseen circumstances of acquaintance and novel positionings within established social networks.

In our present economy, producers by definition seek to maximise profit through minimising cost. If there is no explicit societal or regulatorily mandated value in ensuring that environmental and social welfare costs are evaluated and included in business-as-usual functioning, these attributes may be omitted and are typically referenced as ‘externalities’ or market failures. At the consumer level with an increased understanding of the impact of externalities on human and environmental welfare, there is an interest in both operational transparency in the production of goods and services and in evaluating the resource and justice footprint of consumption choices. As a result, companies that are publicly pursuing operationalised sustainability across all their functions have an opportunity to establish a brand premium; however, the marketing of sustainability may differ from the implementation of sustainability highlighting that a degree of transparency is required to provide credibility. This chapter analyses an emerging marketing channel, ‘social marketing’. Social marketing is a strategy that promotes the perception of an alignment between individual values and business objectives by encouraging positive behaviours, like caring for the environment. This chapter provides a case study of Levi Strauss and reviews portions of the company's sustainability marketing program to address how marketing is being used to engage, educate and empower customers, while simultaneously establishing a sustainability brand identity for the company.

Motherhood and mothering are conceived in relation to classed hierarchies through which those living in poverty become characterized by “otherhood” and “othering.” This positioning leaves them vulnerable to overt and indirect forms of criticism, surveillance, and policing from family, friends, professionals, and strangers; against a background of demonization of particular types of mothers and mothering practices in the wider mediascape. This chapter draws on 3 studies, involving 28 participants, which explored their journeys into the space of parenthood and their everyday experiences. The participants all resided in low-income locales. Many participants had resided in homeless hostels and mother and baby units before being placed in local authority housing or low-grade rented accommodation. The studies all employed forms of visual ethnography, including photoelicitation, timelines, emotion stickers, collage, and sandboxing. Participants discussed different forms of surveillance where other people were characterized as “watching what I’m doing, watching how I’m doing it.” These forms of watching ranged from the structured policing encountered in mother-and-baby units to more informal comments from passers-by or passengers on a bus journey; and an awareness of how mothers in state housing are depicted in the media. These interactions were sometimes met with resistance. At other times, they were simply another incident that participants negotiated in a growing tapestry of disrespect and devaluation. This chapter argues that these discourses demonize and alienate mothers living on the margins, making already difficult journeys a constant struggle in the moral maze of contemporary motherhood and its accompanying conceptualizations of “otherhood.”

This video case study exercise uses excerpts from the movie Patton and the HBO series Band of Brothers to juxtapose two military leaders (General George S. Patton and Lieutenant Dick Winters) as they face strikingly similar situations – each interacts with a subordinate experiencing “battle fatigue” (a.k.a. shell shock, PTSD) during the Second World War. Patton appears to lack emotional intelligence (EI) as he apparently loses control and strikes a soldier he believes is demonstrating cowardice. Winters, on the other hand, takes a much different approach when dealing with a subordinate in a similar situation. This case exercise is designed to augment assigned theoretical readings and increase student conceptual and practical insight into the construct of EI.

The analysis of film and biographies is based on historical figures.

The case is best used with undergraduates in management or leadership courses who may lack the contextual background to discuss certain aspects of leadership. Specifically, the case is designed to explore the elements that comprise EI as well as how EI may affect a leader’s effectiveness. The case study can also be used to challenge common conceptions of how EI may manifest and to discuss the potential “dark side” of EI.

This case study exercise centers on the concept of EI, with an emphasis on providing a robust understanding of the concept, including how context may come into play and how EI may have a “dark side.” The exercise could also be used to facilitate discussion of multiple topics normally covered in undergraduate management or leadership courses such as personality, perception and attribution, authentic leadership, toxic leadership, transformational leadership and motivation.

The Indian power sector is dominated by coal. Environmental awareness and advances in techno-economic front have led to a slow but steady shift towards greener alternatives. The distributions of both fossil fuel resources and renewable energy potential are not uniform across the states. Paper attempts to answer how the states are performing in the sector and how the renewable energy and conventional resources are affecting the dynamics.

The authors employ a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) to rank the performance of Indian states in the power sector. Multi-stage analysis opens up the DEA black-box through disaggregating power sector in two logical sub-sectors. The performance is evaluated from the point-of-view of policy formulating and implementing agencies. Further, an econometric analysis using seemingly unrelated regression equations (SURE) is conducted to estimate the determinants of total and industrial per-capita electricity consumption.

Efficiency scores obtained from the first phase of analysis happens to be a significant explanatory variable for power consumption. The growth in electricity consumption, which is necessary for economic wellbeing, is positively affected by both renewable and non-renewable sources; but conventional sources have a larger impact on per-capita consumption. Yet, the share of renewables in the energy mix has positive elasticity. Hence, the findings are encouraging, because development in storage technologies, falling costs and policy interventions are poised to give further impetus to renewable sources.

The study is one of the very few where entire spectrum of the Indian power sector is evaluated from efficiency perspective. Further, the second phase analysis gives additional relevant insights on the sector.