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This paper aims to provide a detailed discussion of a large-scale library reference evaluation study conducted at the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) in Ghana. The study seeks to evaluate the reference service from the user perspective, focusing on how users use and perceive the service.

Self-administered survey was used as the data collection instrument. One thousand questionnaires were distributed to library users in a three-week period, and the response rate was 63.7 per cent.

The reference service had a high non-use rate of 42.6 per cent, which was primarily attributed to library users’ self-sufficiency and lack of awareness of the service. The top three motivations for library users to use the reference service were class assignments, personal interests and using library facilities. Although their overall altitude was positive, users felt that reference librarians were more successful at exhibiting customer service qualities than performing tasks related to identifying users’ information needs and searching/locating relevant information to fulfill the needs.

The knowledge gained from this study will deepen the understanding of how the reference service is utilised and perceived by library users and offer insights on how to enhance the services to optimise the user experience.

This study yields an enriched view of reference service provision in the African context. Its findings will help other academic libraries in Africa successfully plan and implement their own reference evaluation efforts and ultimately encourage more evidence-based library practices in the developing world.

This study was designed to determine if health care provider utilization of cardiac medications has been influenced by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) ischemic heart disease (IHD) guidelines dissemination. Retrospective chart reviews were conducted on a random sample of 1,397 IHD patients at six VA hospitals. Use of IHD medications was high even in the pre‐IHD guideline period, which may explain the lack of observed differences between the pre‐ and post‐guideline dissemination eras.

The paper aims to measure the nature and extent of international diversification followed by Indian companies over the period 2009–10 to 2017–18. The study also aims to assess the pattern of transition of companies to various strategies of international diversification.

Jacquemin and Berry’s (1979) entropy approach has been applied to measure the extent and assess the nature of international diversification. Further, the study deploys two-dimensional categorical framework advocated by Vachani (1991) and categorizes the firms into four international diversification strategies.

Larger proportion of companies in internationally low diversification (ILD) strategy reveals low extent of international diversification of Indian companies. The pattern of diversification depicts that the trend of moving forward is speeding up sequentially toward higher strategies of growth. Both the extent and pattern depict that the nature of diversification is shifting from relatedness to un-relatedness with transitions from intra-regions to inter-regions. The study confirms the applicability of eclectic theory and psychic distance Uppsala model in determining the preference of international diversification strategies and process of internationalization respectively in Indian firms.

The paper is first of its kind on account of several reasons. First, such a comprehensive evaluation of preferences for international diversification strategies has never been taken up with reference to emerging economies, especially India. Second, the paper is not static and does not limit itself only to the identification of favored strategies of Indian companies but also gauges the transitional behavior of Indian companies across different strategies at different points of time. In fact it is the first study to statistically research the applicability of psychic distance model in firms in emerging economy. Third, the results not only measure the quantum of international diversification but also assess the extent of relatedness and un-relatedness followed by Indian companies.

The origins of ischaemic heart disease are obscure. The article discusses the influence of environment, heredity and diet (especially for consumption). It is then proposed that dietary deficiencies of copper may be a factor that enhances risk of the disease. The evidence for this is discussed.

It is 16 years since the Robbins Report ushered in a vast expansion of university places on the assumption that all who qualified by their A‐level grades should have the opportunity of higher education. Industry, in all that time, has never fully come to terms with the implications of this social change. The folk‐memory is of a “graduate intake” consisting of one or two gentlemen from Oxbridge who undertook prolonged and not very productive “management training”, and left, bored stiff, to join some other organisation. Nowadays, a company which does not have a comprehensive and well‐thought out plan for graduate recruitment and training is rejecting the major source of talent. Exceptions there always will be; some bright and well‐motivated people will turn their backs on higher education but they are, by definition, exceptional. So the first problem is how to attract the increasing number of potential recruits who have experienced higher education at a university or polytechnic.

The purpose of this paper is to test a new methodology for simulating shared electricity generation among small groups of neighbours with Ostrom’s (1994) principles of common pool resource (CPR) (human behaviour-based) efficiencies. The approach does not anticipate exclusive off-grid communities but instead, diverse energy users taking advantage of the averaging effects of aggregation, the social benefits of a CPR and direct action on emissions.

The study tested three groups of five adjacent − or same-building − neighbours for three months to measure how electricity demand (import) is affected by an in-home display issuing nudges and sanctions by the group around a simulated (limited capacity) shared solar and battery system. A control group of six homes’ energy data was obtained for the same period.

Two groups reduced their energy demand with weak but significant correlation between stimulus and reduced energy demand and one group increased demand. There were no significant effects in time-of-use behaviours.

The study shows that the interaction between consumers and energy systems can in this instance be simulated with inexpensive equipment. Studying dynamic interactions between people and systems provides new data where supply simulations have been one-sided. There is support in this work that the energy supply can be presented as a rivalrous commons system.

Urban adjacent neighbours (and apartment occupants in the same building or campus) exhibit emergent group behaviours around electricity use conservation and time-of-use. Managing energy demand is very difficult but very important for making consumer behaviour “fit” the future supply of energy which may be unreliable and limited.

There are likely social benefits and other overflow benefits when neighbours can share a critical resource. There are other critical services that may be managed according to the Ostrom commons principles. The sharing group will be more resilient in terms of electricity but also in terms of social capital.

The work builds on the work of Rachel Coxcoon and others who have identified that groups perform better at certain challenges than individuals do. This aligns with scale and operational efficiencies in shared renewable energy infrastructure. Shaping behaviour and the generation systems together for optimal outcomes is new work.

Education is a fundamental factor of development, preparing the educated for a better tomorrow. Education serves to improve quality of life, is a means of enhancing the economic growth for individuals and nations and provides a way for marginalized children and adults to exchange lives of desperation, poverty and injustice for those illuminated with liberty, justice and self-determination. Education is declared by the United Nations as a human right. This chapter presents one model to teach for human rights through experiential learning. It shares a unique experience of education and business students in their immersion trip to Zambia. The model used to develop the partnership is integral human development (IHD). This chapter provides description of the model, how it was implemented and shares direct citations from students’ reflection journals highlighting three themes: communication, reciprocity and self-exploration.

This chapter deals with an important but neglected aspect of female labor force participation (FLFP) in urban India. Contemporary literature typically focuses on the entire urban sector and ignores one important aspect of urban living – the slums and its dwellers. This study fills that critical gap by examining two different household surveys side-by-side: a primary survey of households living in slums and slum-rehabilitated colonies, and the nationally representative Indian Human Development survey-II. This study brings outs a comparative picture of nature/type of FLFP and its various correlates from both slum and non-slum areas of three metro cities of India, viz. Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. It further explores the similarities and the differences of the correlates for FLFP among the slum clusters of these cities. It is found that despite being poorer and marginalized, the slum dwelling women’s LFP rate is not extra-ordinarily high vis-á-vis their non-slum urban counterparts. In slums, a higher proportion of women are engaged in self-employment (including family business) and casual employments (includes domestic helps), whereas in non-slum areas relatively more women are engaged in regular salaried jobs. Regression analysis identifies correlates that have similar effects, but with different intensity, across-the-board – relationship between education and FLFP reflects a flat-bottom J-shaped pattern; being married, higher child dependency ratio and household heads with higher education significantly constrain women’s work choice; strong income effect of other household members earning on FLFP, but asset holding has no bearing. However, there are other factors that affect FLFP differently in slums and non-slum areas. Policy prescriptions are drawn.

In October 1968, a scheme was launched at the University of Aston in Birmingham called the Interdisciplinary Higher Degrees Scheme (IHD). It pioneered a new concept of postgraduate training in industry, commerce and public service. The basic idea was to recruit students with a good first degree and marry them to various companies or organisations with a problem to solve. With Science Research Council support at (in some cases) nominal cost to the firm, projects evolved whereby the student could spend three years mainly with the company (who would take him on as a temporary employee), solving the problem and submitting the written‐up result as a thesis for a degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Internal migration has grown intensively in India in the present decades, far greater than international migration, though the latter has received far more attention in literature and public policy. Among internal migrants, seasonal movement is another growing phenomenon in India which has received the least attention till now. The purpose of the study is to show the intensities of short-term morbidity and major morbidity among the rural and urban internal migrants and how such disease burdens have affected the health of regular/permanent and temporary/seasonal migrants.

This present paper has been developed on the basis of data of India Human Development Survey-II (IHDS-II), 2011–2012, has been availed to find out the intensities of short-term morbidity and major morbidity among the rural and urban migrants as well as the health condition of the seasonal migrants. For the analysis of regular or permanent migrants, a total of 3,288 migrants (of which 1,136 rural migrants and 2,152 urban migrants) were surveyed in IHDS-II, 2011–2012, regarding the persistence of different types of short-term morbidity among the migrant class. Two-sample (rural migrants and urban migrants) “t” test for mean difference with unequal variances with null hypothesis – H0: diff = 0, and alternate hypothesis – Ha: diff < 0; Ha: diff > 0 where diff = mean (rural) – mean (urban) has been executed. For the seasonal migrants a sample of 41,424 migrants of which 2,691 seasonal migrant workers and 38,733 non-seasonal migrant workers were surveyed in IHDS-II, 2011–2012, to find out their health condition. OLS regression on the number of medical treatments undertaken in a month on the nature of migrant workers has been conducted. Socio-economic factors (like adult literacy) and basic amenities required for a healthy living (like indoor piped drinking water, separate kitchen in the household, household having a flush toilet, household having electricity and intake of meals everyday) are taken as control variables in the regression analysis.

The results of morbidity analysis in this paper show that the morbidity patterns among the migrants vary with the geographical differences. The short-term morbidity and that of the major morbidity show different proneness to ill health for rural and urban migrants. However, seasonal migrants are more susceptible to ill health than the regular migrants and are also potential for generating health risks. Also lack of provision of basic services creates negative health impact on seasonal migrants.

The paper is based on secondary data and hence lacks numerous relevant health issues of migrants in rural and urban sectors which could have been possible through primary data survey.

Migration and migrants are a relevant issue both internationally and nationally. Economic development of a country like India depends to a greater extent on the contributions of migrant labourers as majority of the labourers in India belong to informal sector of which most of the workers are from migrant class.

Migrants contribution to economic development depend on their productive capacity and hence health of these section of people is a relevant issue. This study is based on the morbidity pattern of migrants both regular and seasonal migrants and their susceptibility in various geographical locations and provision of basic amenities.

This work is original research study by the author.