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SEVERAL libraries lately have published reports. They are almost unanimous in recording a circulation of books that increases with every month. When we consider the conditions under which the work is being done this result is more than remarkable. We do not endeavour, as so many writers do, to explain: there are no unemployed with vacant hours to fill, no lack of theatres, cinemas and there is the tremendous distraction of the war itself—now rising to its gigantic climax. These are factors alleged to be inimical to libraries but never proven to be so. The cardinal fact stands out that in the most critical and obsessing hours in human history the use of the public library was greater than at any other time.

This chapter reviews the existing empirical evidence on how social insurance affects health. Social insurance encompasses programs primarily designed to insure against health risks, such as health insurance, sick leave insurance, accident insurance, long-term care insurance, and disability insurance as well as other programs, such as unemployment insurance, pension insurance, and country-specific social insurance programs. These insurance systems exist in almost all developed countries around the world. This chapter discusses the state-of-the art evidence on each of these social insurance systems, briefly reviews the empirical methods for identifying causal effects, and examines possible limitations to these methods. The findings reveal robust and rich evidence on first-stage behavioral responses (“moral hazard”) to changes in insurance coverage. Surprisingly, evidence on how changes in coverage impact beneficiaries’ health is scant and inconclusive. This lack of identified causal health effects is directly related to limitations on how human health is typically measured, limitations on the empirical approaches, and a paucity of administrative panel data spanning long-time horizons. Future research must be conducted to fill these gaps. Of particular importance is evidence on how these social insurance systems interact and affect human health over the life cycle.

There is a paucity of recent literature on the influence of project strategic, site related and design related variables on the cost of construction. This paper seeks to redress this omission by presenting the results of an investigation into the influence of 41 independent variables on both construction cost and client cost. Data were collected from 286 construction projects in the United Kingdom and correlation and test for differences were used to determine the relationships that exist between the dependent and independent variables. The analysis both confirms the strong relationship between construction cost and client cost and between those two measures of cost and GIFA, and establishes other relationships which exist within the data, confirming many of the relationships that had been anticipated from the literature. It also established the ordinal sequence of several nominal variables. These data, therefore, can be confidently used to develop models of the total cost of construction.

The simulated scenarios can be used to compute risk premiums per risk class in the portfolio. These can then be used to adjust the policy premiums by accounting for storm risk.

A complete model to analyse and characterise future losses of the property portfolio of an insurance company due to hurricanes is proposed. The model is calibrated by using the loss data of the Fidelidade insurance company property portfolio resulting from Hurricane Leslie, which hit the centre of continental Portugal in October, 2018.

Several scenarios are simulated and risk maps are constructed. The risk map of the company depends on its portfolio, especially its exposure, and provides a Hurricane risk management tool for the insurance company.

A statistical model is considered, in which weather data is not required. The authors reconstruct the behaviour of storms through the registered claims and respective losses.

This paper reviews evidence about the relationships between NHS services and nursing and residential homes in England and Wales. Since the transfer in 1993 of responsibility for funding nursing and residential home care for less affluent older people to local authority social services departments, nursing and residential care has been widely assumed to constitute part of ‘social care’ services. This obscures the fact that residents of nursing and residential care homes frequently have substantial and complex healthcare needs. While some of these healthcare needs may be met through the care provided within homes themselves, most will require substantial contributions from NHS medical, nursing, pharmaceutical and other services. The National Service Framework for Older People (Department of Health, 2001) prioritises reinvestment in intermediate care services, building on the expectation in The NHS Plan (Department of Health, 2000a) that residential and nursing homes will play a major role in the development of these services. This expectation has been further reinforced by the Concordat with the private and voluntary healthcare provider sector (Department of Health, 2000b). However there is little evidence about the NHS services which are currently provided to nursing and residential homes, nor about the capacity of mainstream NHS services to meet the projected development of intermediate care services within the independent institutional sector. This paper reviews the evidence which is available and highlights some of the priorities which primary care groups in England (local health groups in Wales) will need to consider if they are to develop integrated and good quality services for frail older people.

This paper investigates the impact of the development of capital markets on economic growth in Africa and reports a significant increase in real GDP per capita after stock exchanges are established. This paper also reveals that there are significant improvements in the level of private investments in the post stock market launch era. The results also indicate that stock markets play a complementary role to the banking sector by contributing to the availability of private credit. Although African capital markets are relatively less advanced when compared to capital markets on other continents (particularly in terms of technology, structure, and liquidity), we find that their establishment has been crucial in helping African countries catch up with the rest of the world.

The increasing global competition, worldwide economic and political uncertainities, and continuously changing dynamics in business environment require companies act differently and differentiate via smart strategies in order to have sustainable operations, growth, and profitability. Therefore, firms should be more agile, creative, and adaptive in planning and strategizing their mid- to long-term business objectives.

In that regard, for the last decade globally many firms across all industries seek opportunities to utilize benefits of digitalization. Lately, COVID-19 has also accelerated companies' efforts and investments in digital platforms.

Today, supply chain and procurement functions are expected to have a strategic role for organizations contributing to management decisions. The digital transformation in procurement is promising to enhance and lean the total workflow of operations. Data analytics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and other emerging digital technologies are all highly powerful tools supporting strategic supply and supplier management, providing predictability for demand planning as well as value-based negotiation power to buyers.

On the other hand, there are still challenges and conflicts throughout this transformation process. Level of technological maturity, infrastructure and investment decisions, expertise and competency of procurement professionals, cultural adaptation, and compliance of related stakeholders are some of the key barriers that are addressed with a unique model in this chapter.

Digital era offers a lot of advantages to firms to improve their procurement facilities and practices while it may still take time both for the technologies to fully evolve and also for companies to adapt and embrace digitalization on their benefit.

We have reprinted the powerful letter addressed to the Daily Mail by MR. H. W. WILSON, the author of “Ironclads in Action,” advocating the immediate adoption of a policy of reprisals for the Zeppelin murder raids. In our view it is the duty of every journal, whatever may be its raison d'être, to assist in keeping the attention of the public fixed upon this matter, to aid in preventing the general feeling of disgust and indignation from cooling down, and to support those who have the brains to understand the nature of the Hun in their efforts to compel the Government to adopt the most effective means at present available to put an end to the murderous excursions of the German vermin into this country. As MR. WILSON points out, the deliberate Hun policy of slaying women, children and non‐combatants is either permitted by the laws of war recognised by civilised nations or it is not permitted by those laws. If it is permitted, “then clearly the Power which refrains from making similar attacks on the enemy's towns, villages, and residential districts, loses greatly from the military standpoint.” If it is not permitted then the only course— “the force behind the laws of War”—is a policy of drastic reprisals. Moreover, it is the only course that the Hun can understand. The methods of “frightfulness” are definitely laid down in the German military system as methods to be ruthlessly followed whenever this can be done with impunity and the fear of reprisals is also definitely laid down as the only consideration which is to be allowed to operate as a check upn “frightfulness.” “The Power which fails to take reprisals when a great offence is committed is as the negligent judge or the faithless jury that acquits a murderer. It sins against humanity … it encourages the criminal in his crime.”

GUEST editor of this South African issue of THE LIBRARY WORLD is Hendrik M. Robinson, Director of Library Services, Transvaal Provincial Administration, Pretoria.