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A Crown Court hearing of a charge of applying a false A description under S.2, Trade Descriptions Act, 1968, is given in some detail under Legal Proceedings in this issue of BFJ. It concerns using the word “ham”, ie., the natural leg of a single pig, to various pieces from several pigs, deboned, defatted, “tumbled, massaged and cooked” in a mould shaped to a leg of ham, from which the average purchaser would find it impossible to distinguish. As the defence rightly claimed, this process has been used for at least a couple of decades, and the product forms a sizeable section of the bacon trade. Evidence by prosecution witnesses, experienced shop managers, believed the product to be the genuine “ham”. There is nothing detrimental about the meat, save that it tends to contain an excess of added water, but this applies to many meat products today; or that the manufacturers are setting out to cheat the consumer. What offends is the description given to the product. Manufacture was described in detail—a county trading standards officer inspected the process at the defendant company's Wiltshire factory, witness to the extent of their co‐operation—and was questioned at great length by defending counsel. Specimens of the product were exhibited and the jury were treated to a tasting test—presumably designed to refute prosecution's claim that the meat was of “poor value”. The trial judge said the jury had no doubt been enlightened as to the methods of manufacturing ham. The marketing of the product was also a subject of examination.

This paper aims to suggest ways to complete the enhancement of the policy responses to systemic banking crises that followed the Great Financial Crisis.

An integrated macrofinancial analytical framework was designed to overcome the segregation between macro work, based on national accounting concepts, and prudential oversight of financial institutions, based on business accounting and concepts.

The design and implementation of the integrated macrofinancial framework are within reach, supported by extensive ongoing research work around the world, and correspond to rising expectations by the international community. It will lead to improvements in the way systemic banking crises are managed. Even more importantly, it offers a promising avenue to make further progress in the prevention of future crises.

The main limitations are the need to overcome the well-known constraints of national accounting, and to overcome the enduring silo separating macro-economists from financial sector experts. The implications are the need for extensive additional interaction between these two groups of experts.

The practical, operational implications are extensive, and could yield a major impact on the global financial stability work agenda. The design of policy responses to systemic banking crises could be profoundly affected, in particular with regard to the target of these responses (corporates vs banks in particular).

The direct and indirect costs of systemic banking crises could be reduced, with widespread benefits for society at large.

This is a fully original new proposed approach with extensive operational value for practitioners.

Previous articles in this series have mentioned some TV cameras costing £200 and others costing £2000 plus. The reader may well wonder at the difference in price.

Wheelchairs and mobility devices are important to enable mobility for students who are unable to functionally walk by themselves to fully participate in daily life. However, they can be enablers or barriers to inclusion and participation for students. Children and adolescents, like other wheelchair users, have a varying number of reasons to use chairs, but what type of chair, how it is used and what type of participation it encourages or discourages is as individual as the child themselves. This is an area of practice that has little evidence on which to base decisions, leading to inconsistencies of provision practice and inclusion in mainstream environments. This chapter will discuss why children use wheelchairs in the first place, then outline some of the typical types of wheelchair available and discuss matching the child to their wheelchair. Barriers to appropriate use of wheelchairs include policy, funding, attitudes and perceived skill set. Children who use wheelchairs often do not gain the motor experiences that their peers do yet are expected to perform skilled wheeled mobility, often without training. Finally, inclusion in school is about inclusion not only in the classroom but also in all activities to do with their school-based communities.

The choice of what type of mobility a child needs is down to their self-defined goals in the context of their school environment, family and general ecosystem. Other forms of wheeled mobility included adaptive bicycles for children who are unable to utilise nonadapted bikes. The basis for assessment for wheeled mobility is the student. The most important part of adaptive seating is to match the student, their self-defined goals and their developmental needs. Barriers to inclusion are discussed. The final section of this chapter includes a discussion of where wheeled mobility is going into the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge negative impact on the world’s hotel industry from the beginning of 2020. As a result of the pandemic, the majority of hotels around the world have decided to close temporarily. It examines the challenges faced by hotel managers and the strategies used to survive.

This research can motivate hotel companies around the world to better understand pandemic situations and develop effective anti-pandemic policies. Based on online in-depth interviews with 25 hotel managers, the findings shed light on the various challenges to hotels.

Findings have shown that the hotel industry has been able to adapt their business for the short term with post-COVID-19 strategies still having limitations. To survive the duration of the pandemic hotels have adopted strategies: reducing employees, promotions and discounts and changing the market segment, as well as levels of maintenance of hygiene and cleanliness. The hotel industry can implement opportunities toward change through government support, crisis management, cooperation with travel agencies and technology.

The current research is to determine the impact of COVID-19 and the adaptive strategies on the hotel sector in the Siem Reap province by the following objectives: (1) To analyse the impacts of COVID-19 in the hotel sector, (2) To identify adaptive strategies in dealing with COVID-19 in the hotel sector and (3) To explore post-COVID-19 strategies of the hotel sector after the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative method was employed in the research online and in-depth interviews were conducted with the owner and general manager.

The study suggests that hotels focus more on survival strategies for the short term, so the topic for future research could be to investigate details of strategies after the COVID-19 pandemic in order to research what the hotels' strategic solutions will be and how they will manage the operation after the COVID-19 pandemic for long-term strategies.

This paper aims to use the solvent–casting–evaporation method to prepare new bio-composites with thermoplastic poly(ether urethane) (TPU-polyether) as the polymer matrix and reinforced with natural chicken feather fibre (CFF).

To produce the bio-composites, 0 to 60 per cent·w/w of fibres in steps of 30 per cent·w/w were added to the polymer matrix. The uniformity of distribution of the keratin fibres in the polymer matrix was investigated via scanning electron microscopy, and the results suggested compatibility of the TPU-polyether matrix with the CFFs, thereby implying effective fibre–polymer interactions.

Addition of natural fibres to the polymer was found to decrease the mass loss of the composites at higher temperatures and decrease the glass transition temperature, as well as the storage and loss modulus, at lower temperatures, while increasing the remaining char ratio, storage modulus and loss modulus at higher temperatures.

The investigation confirmed that waste keratin CFF can improve the thermo-mechanical properties of composites, simply and cheaply, with potentially large environmental and economic benefits.

While COVID-19 mitigation measures (CMMs) aided in steady recovery during the pandemic, they also impeded movement across economies/borders, affecting quality assurance (QA) of Cross-border Construction Logistics and Supply Chain (Cb-CLSC). However, prior studies on the pandemic in the construction project industry have not revealed how CMMs have impacted QA. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the impact of the CMMs on the QA of Cb-CLSC.

This is achieved by adopting an embedded mixed-method approach involving a desk literature review and engaging 150 experts from different economies across the globe using expert surveys, and results verified via semi-structured expert interviews. Structural equation modelling-based multiple regression analysis (SEM-MRA) was integrated to examine the impact of the CMMs on the QA, along with descriptive and content analysis.

The study confirmed that CMMs have not only impacted the QA negatively but also influenced the positioning of the QA for the post-pandemic era and probably to survive the risks of future pandemics. Among all the identified CMMs, the top three critical measures include “lockdown (CMM2)”, “use of personal protective equipment, such as nose masks, disinfects, etc. (CMM5)”, and “electronic/virtual meetings (CMM7)”. However, CMM5 possesses the highest contributory power to form CMM in impacting the QA, and this can be regarded as largely positive by strengthening health and safety management systems. Its negative impact lies with the project cost increment and the inconveniences of using nose and face masks.

This study provides a better understanding to construction practitioners and policy makers on how the pandemic policies, i.e. CMMs, have impacted QA and can aid in formulating planning and operational decisions to adequately position the QA for the post-pandemic era and to endure the risks of future pandemics.

The study contributes to knowledge in that it provides a better understanding of how the pandemic policies, such as CMMs, have impacted QA and can aid in formulating planning and operational decisions to adequately position the QA for the post-pandemic era and to endure the risks of future pandemics. This area of study has been given limited attention among prior studies during the pandemic.

Each stage in disaster management faces different challenges concerning information gathering, sharing, interpretation and dissemination. However, a comprehensive understanding of different information and communication technology (ICT) systems utilised for humanitarian disaster management is limited. Therefore, the paper follows a systems thinking approach to examine ten major man-made and/or natural disasters to comprehend the influence of ICT systems on humanitarian relief operations.

A longitudinal, multi-case study captures the use of ICT tools, stakeholders involvement, disaster stages and zones of operations for relief operations over the past two decades. A systems thinking approach is utilised to draw several inferences and develop frameworks.

Multiple ICT tools such as geographic information systems, online webpages/search engines, social media, unmanned aerial vehicles/robots and artificial intelligence are used for rapid disaster response and mitigation. Speed and coordination of relief operations have significantly increased in recent years due to the increased use of ICT systems.

Secondary data on the past ten disasters is utilised to draw inferences. The developed ICT-driven model must be validated during upcoming humanitarian relief operations.

A holistic understanding of a complex inter-relationship between influential variables (stakeholders, disaster stages, zones of operation, ICT systems) is beneficial for effectively managing humanitarian disasters.

Broadly classifying the ICT systems into surveillance, decision support and broadcasting systems, a novel ICT-enabled model for humanitarian relief operations is developed.

Adopting digital technology could facilitate the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some analysts argue that countries that adopted digital technology in their health sector have managed to control the virus better (Whitelaw et al., 2020). For instance, countries with more comprehensive contact tracing have significantly lower fatality rates (Yalaman et al., 2021). Moreover, World Health Organization (WHO) believes this technology is a crucial enabler for countries to meet the current challenge (WHO. Regional Office for the Western Pacific & University of Melbourne, 2021). In this regard, this study aims to quantitatively find the relationship between the technological advancement of countries and COVID-19 health outcomes, using seven technological indices that measure technological advancement.

The authors used the multiple linear regression method to answer the research questions. The first analysis focuses on a cross section of all countries worldwide, and the second focuses on European countries for which weekly death statistics exist after the pandemic.

The findings support those countries with more technological abilities managed to control the virus’s mortality better, as evidenced by the negative link between the mortality rate of COVID-19 and the technological factors at the national level. Results also reveal that technology adoption decreases the death risk due to COVID-19 in countries with more elderly people. The authors may argue that technological advancement positively correlates with the number of deaths and diagnosed cases because the authors can better collect data or because the virus spreads due to higher economic and business activities. However, such technological advancement significantly decreases the death risk (lower mortality rate in the first analysis and lower mortality rate for elderly people in the second analysis).

Three important conclusions could be made from the results: a lower mortality rate is generally expected for countries adopting advanced technology; technological advancement significantly decreases the death risk for elderly people; and a higher technology adoption level does not necessarily result in fewer diagnosed cases of/death due to COVID-19.

Although some studies have focused on e-health applications in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, no studies, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, have tried to quantify its efficacy, most especially on the global level.

The deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in travel and tourism has received much attention in the wake of the pandemic. While societal adoption of AI has accelerated, it also raises some trust challenges. Literature on trust in AI is scant, especially regarding the vulnerabilities faced by different stakeholders to inform policy and practice. This work proposes a framework to understand the use of AI technologies from the perspectives of institutional and the self to understand the formation of trust in the mandated use of AI-based technologies in travelers.

An empirical investigation using partial least squares-structural equation modeling was employed on responses from 209 users. This paper considered factors related to the self (perceptions of self-threat, privacy empowerment, trust propensity) and institution (regulatory protection, corporate privacy responsibility) to understand the formation of trust in AI use for travelers.

Results showed that self-threat, trust propensity and regulatory protection influence trust in users on AI use. Privacy empowerment and corporate responsibility do not.

Insights from the past studies on AI in travel and tourism are limited. This study advances current literature on affordance and reactance theories to provide a better understanding of what makes travelers trust the mandated use of AI technologies. This work also demonstrates the paradoxical effects of self and institution on technologies and their relationship to trust. For practice, this study offers insights for enhancing adoption via developing trust.