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Little is known about how assistive technology standards have been implemented in preservice teacher preparation. This chapter provides a review of the literature concerning the importance of evidence-based practice and the research base supporting assistive technology in order to set the context for reporting the results of a comprehensive national study of the status of assistive technology state standards for teachers in all of the 50 states (plus Washington, DC). This chapter includes the findings of the study, the research that the study was based upon, and a review of relevant research in the fields of assistive technology, educational technology, and evidence-based practice. Only six states reported having AT standards and six states reported having AT competencies. Three states reported having both standards and competencies, yielding nine unique states (out of 51) with AT standards and/or AT competencies. Regression analyses to determine the relationship between the study variables and national reading and math performance of students with disabilities were inconclusive. The implications of the study findings and recommendations for future research are presented.

Information on the risk of dementia in aging persons with intellectual and/or developmental disability (IDD) in Manitoba, Canada is lacking. The purpose of this paper is to estimate dementia prevalence in adults with IDD.

Anonymized population-level health and non-health administrative data (1979-2012) contained in the Population Health Research Data Repository of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) were linked to identify adults with IDD, and estimate the prevalence of dementia based on the presence of ICD codes. Prevalence of dementia was estimated for persons aged 18-55 years and 55+ years, and was reported by sex, type of residence, region of residence, neighbourhood income quintiles, and IDD diagnostic category.

Of the 8,655 adults with IDD identified, 8.1 per cent had an indication of dementia in their medical records; an estimate three times greater than that found for those without IDD (2.6 per cent). More than 17 per cent of Manitobans with IDD aged 55+ years had an indication of dementia, which was nearly twice the rate reported previously. Of those with IDD and dementia, 34.7 per cent lived in long-term care facilities.

Health and social support services are typically available to individuals with dementia aged 65+ years; thus, younger adults with IDD and dementia may not be eligible for those supports. To promote equity in health and access to care, dementia screening and increased supports for aging individuals with IDD are recommended.

On 2 September 2015, it was announced that Tom Ford would again be ‘dressing James Bond’, Daniel Craig, in Spectre (Mendes, 2015) after tailoring his suits for Quantum of Solace (Forster, 2008) and Skyfall (Mendes, 2012). Ford noted that ‘James Bond epitomises the Tom Ford man in his elegance, style and love of luxury. It is an honour to move forward with this iconic character’.

  With the press launch of ‘Bond 25’(and now titled No Time to Die) on 25 April 2019, it is reasonable to speculate that Ford will once again be employed as James Bond’s tailor of choice, given that it is likely to be Craig’s last outing as 007. Previous actors playing the role of James Bond have all had different tailors. Sean Connery was tailored by Anthony Sinclair and George Lazenby by Dimitro ‘Dimi’ Major. Roger Moore recommended his own personal tailors Cyril Castle, Angelo Vitucci and Douglas Hayward. For Timothy Dalton, Stefano Ricci provided the suits, and Pierce Brosnan was dressed by Brioni. Therefore, this chapter will analyse the role of tailoring within the James Bond films, and how this in turn contributes to the look and character of this film franchise more generally. It aims to understand how different tailors have contributed to the masculinity of Bond: an agent dressed to thrill as well as to kill.

About 20 years ago I was employed as a consultant by an educational publishing company. One of my chief duties was to spend a few days at least once each year in a number of pilot schools in which the company's textbooks were being used experimentally to determine just how much this particular publisher's books and educational programs raised reading scores, with the ultimate aim, of course, of using the results to sell more books and perhaps even pick up a statewide adoption or two. The 60 or so pilot schools were located all over the country, in both urban areas (Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Manhattan's Lower East Side, for example) and in such rural, “blue highway” towns as Minden, Louisiana, and Flensburg, Minnesota.

The enduring popular image of James Bond is (in the words of the theatrical trailer for Dr No) ‘the gentleman agent with the licence to kill’. Yet the screen Bond is hardly a hero in the manner of gentlemanly archetypes such as Cary Grant and David Niven (reputedly Ian Fleming’s preferred choice for the role). This chapter will explore how the image of Bond in the films has changed over time both in response to wider social and cultural archetypes of masculinity and due to the different performance styles of the various actors to play the role: Sean Connery, whose rough-hewn Scottishness can be seen as a means of representing the ‘otherness’ of Fleming’s character (‘Bond always knew there was something alien and un-English about himself’); George Lazenby, whose one-off appearance as an emotionally damaged Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service anticipated later portrayals of the character; the parodic variant of Roger Moore; the brooding Byronic hero of Timothy Dalton; the ‘Milk Tray Man’ charm of Pierce Brosnan; and Daniel Craig, whose combination of bull-in-a-china-shop physicality and vulnerable masculinity (literally so in Casino Royale) has by common consent successfully transformed Bond from a cartoon superman into a twenty-first century action hero.

One of the factors that make the divination of public opinion compelling is the decline of party systems and the rise of “individuated politics” (Dalton, 2002a, 2002b, 2006). If individuals are now the major actors in politics and have volatile opinions, then finding out what opinions sectors of the public have, and attempting to shape them, becomes crucial. This circumstance makes the inspection and analysis of mass opinion compelling and significant (see Ginsberg, 1986; Ginsberg & Shefter, 1990; Herbst, 1993). It also makes “public opinion” a compelling abstraction and political force. Finding it and divining its meaning has spawned its own organizational structures and constituencies.

This paper aims to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate bankruptcy. Specifically, the authors ask the following research questions: Does CSR play a role in determining the likelihood of bankruptcy? Does CSR explain the difference in the probability of that firm eventually reorganizing and emerging from bankruptcy?

The authors address these questions by testing three CSR theories using a sample of 78 firms that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy during the period 2007 to 2014 along with a matched sample of firms that did not.

Overall, the findings indicate that stronger CSR firms are less likely to become bankrupt relative to weaker CSR firms, all else being equal. This result is in line with the stakeholder theory of CSR. However, results do not support the conjecture that CSR matters when it comes to bankruptcy emergence. While CSR seems to influence whether a company experiences bankruptcy in the first place, having strong CSR does not seem to help a firm once it has filed for Chapter 11.

This paper extends the existing CSR literature but looks at CSR not from the angel of financial “success” but rather from financial “failure”.

The results could potentially help academics and practitioners alike in seeking understanding and reason behind CSR involvement and bankruptcy avoidance and success.

This is the first paper to test whether CSR plays a role in bankruptcy. The authors use a recent sample of firms with CSR scores that experienced a bankruptcy and a matched sample of CSR-scored firms that did not experience bankruptcy.