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This paper aims to provide a snapshot of student and staff attitudes towards e‐books, collected through a web‐based survey, as well as an analysis of use data for a specific universe of e‐books provided via a patron‐driven purchasing model and accessed during the survey timeframe.

This research analyzed survey responses collected from May 2010 to December 2010 and use data for the universe of e‐books made accessible via PDA, and used by library patrons, during this period.

E‐books are no longer a new phenomenon and the CSU Libraries have provided access to e‐books for many years, yet users' prior experience with e‐books, perspectives on desirable and undesirable e‐book characteristics, and preferences for print versus e‐books as provided by the libraries continue to vary. During the libraries' initial entry into PDA, e‐books made accessible to users via this model received more use through browsing than sustained use or download, but relatively little use overall. The study provides a starting point for the continued analysis of this library's PDA program, now the primary mechanism used to provide its academic user community with book access.

The authors present a review of the literature and research findings about academic users' interactions with, and preferences for, e‐books. They provide a point‐in‐time analysis of user interactions with e‐book titles made accessible via the libraries' PDA program and a subject‐level study of the use of these titles.

This paper presents point‐of‐use feedback regarding e‐books, from academic users, and detailed information about e‐book titles accessed via a PDA model.

In standard discussions (capitalistic economy), business firms and the income‐distribution property of production factors are dealt with in a manner in which they are independent from each other and there is no interaction as such between them. Furthermore, no role whatso‐ever is assumed for externalities. If we accept that there is interaction between production factors and these factors because of the existence of externalities affects each other, therefore it is only natural to come to this conclusion that both the definition of business firm and the share of production factors should be changed. The proposal developed in this paper is based on this very important consideration. The profit share of Mudareb (profit‐sharing agent) has been used in this paper to cover more general issues, such as labor's income share in an Islamic system. The Mudareb's relative share might be justified on the grounds that he has the appropriate expertise, profession, so to speak. This justification can be extended to “labor” in general, be it in industry, services, and other economic activities. It seems that, it is not only the degree of expertise and skill which determines the labor's share, but also its interaction with other expertises which makes one qualified to share part of the profit. This interaction provides better results than the same of individual skills. The application of the proposal not only increases output and hence the total revenue of a firm, but also helps keep the production cost at its lowest possible level. Furthermore, it leads one to look at a firm as an interacting body of different expertise. Increase in efficiency together with low production costs are to the mutual benefits of both the workers and the firm. Furthermore, there would not only be zero monitoring cost, but also eliminates shirking while increasing the effort of the workers to its maximum level.

The Internet has brought about change in the way that public relations is practised. Not only has it provided another channel of communication, but the communication dynamic itself has changed because of the Internet’s unique combination of characteristics. Much public relations practice is still posited on dated theories of the system of communication along the linear lines of sender, channel, receiver (with feedback). The public relations professional is there to transmit a message with the purpose of persuading publics to the point of view being promulgated. There have been suggestions that a new model of communication is required in order to explain the Internet medium. This paper re‐examines three of the older communication systems models to establish whether there are elements within them that can be helpful in explaining the dynamics of Internet‐based communication. The authors use the three models, in turn, to examine this medium by focusing on the message sender, the channel itself and the user of the Internet. The conclusion is that together they can throw valuable light on Internet‐based communication and that there are lessons to be drawn from these models that are useful for the contemporary public relations practitioner.

There is a widely held belief that sustainable development (SD) policies are essential for universities to successfully engage in matters related to sustainability, and are an indicator of the extent to which they are active in this field. This paper aims to examine the evidence which currently exists to support this assumption. It surveys a sample of universities in Brazil, Germany, Greece, Portugal, South Africa and the UK and the USA to ascertain the extent to which universities that are active in the field of sustainable development have formal policies on sustainable development, and whether such policies are a pre-condition for successful sustainability efforts.

The study involved 35 universities in seven countries (five universities respectively). A mixed-methods approach has been used, ranging from document analysis, website analysis, questionnaires and interviewing.

Although only 60 per cent of the sampled universities had a policy that specifically addressed SD, this cannot be regarded as an indicator that the remaining 40 per cent are not engaged with substantial actions that address SD. Indeed, all of the universities in the sample, regardless of the existence of a SD formal policy, demonstrated engagement with environmental sustainability policies or procedures in some form or another. This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities. Despite this, it is one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.

This research has been limited by the availability and ability to procure information from the sampled universities.

The findings provide some valuable insights into the connections between SD policies on the one hand and the practice of sustainable development in higher education institutions on the other.

Universities with SD policies can contribute to models of economic growth consistent with sustainable development.

The study is the one of the largest research efforts of this kind ever performed.

Personal Protective Equipment plays an inevitable part in the current scenario of pandemics in the world. A novel coronavirus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus-2 (SARS-Cov 2), began as an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019, and quickly spread worldwide. It quickly escalated into an international public health crisis. This opened up the high demand for the innovation and research of new materials in the Personal Protective Equipment industry.

PubMed, Embase and Google Scholar were searched for relevant literature regarding personal protective equipment and the information was organized in a systematic way.

There are no adequate number of studies taken up in the field of use of textiles in medical applications especially with PPEs.

This structured review will generate a sense of the significance of using PPE for controlling pandemics and also awaken need for additional research and innovations in this area.

The authorities of the management should take timely intervention in choosing the right material for their PPE in their hospitals. Hence health care professionals teams have an inevitable role in preventing the adverse environmental impact due to the inadvertent disposal of PPEs.

There is a lack of systematic way of disposing contaminated single-use face masks in a safe, environmentally acceptable manner. The dumping of single-use PPE in domestic garbage has had an adverse effect on the environment. Mismanaged plastic waste endangers the health of ecosystems by polluting marine and terrestrial environments, posing a significant risk of ingestion or injury to animals and contaminating habitats.

This review article provides an in-depth review of the use of different materials in PPE and challenges regarding its long-term use and implications on the environment.

The subject of part‐time work is one which has become increasingly important in industrialised economies where it accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total employment. It is estimated that in 1970, average annual hours worked per employee amounted to only 60% of those for 1870. Two major factors are attributed to explaining the underlying trend towards a reduction in working time: (a) the increase in the number of voluntary part‐time employees and (b) the decrease in average annual number of days worked per employee (Kok and de Neubourg, 1986). The authors noted that the growth rate of part‐time employment in many countries was greater than the corresponding rate of growth in full‐time employment.

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a model to evaluate the top management quality and its impact on the default probability/survival probability of companies operating in the Italian food and beverage industry. The focus is on SMEs and private companies (ie. companies with no external or public rating). The general aim of this paper is to initiate a new field of research enjoying the fast and growing number of information underlying the development of the private lending market (both banking channel and private debt channel) and the recent developments in assessing the managerial styles of leadership.

The methodology used in the research is a mixed method based on quantitative and qualitative analysis. The authors have followed the sequential mixed methods design (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007; Almalki, 2016) belonging to a practice perspective (Tashakkori and Creswell, 2007). The two components (quantitative and qualitative) are integrated in the combined approach: a final proposed evaluation model is explained and discussed.

According to the experience (and private market best practice) the leadership style has a material impact on the survival probability of a company (and, on the contrary, on the default probability of a company). In other words, the leadership style – other variables be equal – can provide significant information to investors about the future evolution of the financial performance and related credit risk. In the paper, the authors provide a useful model (and tool) in order to capture the above mentioned relationship to support investment decisions in food and beverage industry.

While a positive relationship between a participative style of leadership and the financial performance is widely accepted in the literature; there is no published research on the relationship between managerial styles of leadership and default probability/survival probability. There are several workstreams to be performed in future research in order (1) to provide more business evidence and (2) to extent the analysis to further industries (other than food and beverage). The first step is to collect more data and company information on managerial styles of leadership and to start to track, to measure and monitor the evolution of the credit risk over time in each of the four clusters identified in the combined model.

The practical implication is to provide a methodological contribution to develop an evaluation model of top management quality to be used for the certification of the quality system. The proposed evaluation model is intended to support both (1) the ISO quality management system certifiers and (2) financial analysts and auditors in order to assess the going concern and the business sustainability and (3) the credit risk assessment and evolution in investment decisions.

The authors believe that a more deep understanding on the effectiveness of managerial styles of leadership on credit risk can improve the credit and investment allocation and to enhance the borrowing capabilities of the food and beverage industry (with relevant implications on number of employees and size of new investments).

This is the first applied research on the link between the default probability/company survival probability and the quality of management in the Italian food and beverage industry.

Web‐based distance education is rapidly vying to become one of the preferred norms for teaching in many library and information science programs, especially in the USA. Within the distance education paradigm, courses taught utilizing the Web may be classified as either totally asynchronous, or synchronous when there are provisions, to a greater or lesser degree, for “real‐time” interaction, such as by means of Internet chat or a limited number of face‐to‐face classes. The results of this study show that, although library and information science students in Web‐based distance education course environments remain generally satisfied with the quality of the instruction and education that they are receiving through courses with significant Web‐based content, it is nevertheless clear that they have generally come to perceive that the quality of their educational experience is significantly improved when there is included within or as an integral part of the course offering some meaningful level of real‐time interaction.

Reproduces the main texts of hitherto unpublished reminiscences of the style and influence, as a teacher, of Allyn Abbott Young (1876‐1929) by 17 of his distinguished students. They include Bertil Ohlin, Nicholas Kaldor, James Angell, Lauchlin Currie, Colin Clark, Howard Ellis, Frank Fetter, Earl Hamilton, and Melvin Knight (brother of Frank Knight who, with Edward Chamberlin, was perhaps Young’s most famous PhD student). There has recently been a revival of interest in Young’s influence on US monetary thought and in his theory of economic growth based on endogenous increasing returns. These recollections of his students (addressed to Young’s biographer, Charles Blitch) shed light on why Young has, at least until recently, been renowned more for his massive erudition than for his published writings.