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The purpose of this study resolved to evidence worldwide studies addressing the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on higher education (HE) academic staff. Particularly in relation to wellbeing and pedagogical role, as part of a parallel study exploring the impact of COVID-19 on academics’ pastoral role.

The systematized review identified eight relevant studies that shed light on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on university academics’ well-being.

The review highlights the paucity of research in this area, with no studies, at the time of the review, considering how academics responded to a broadening of their pastoral role amidst an evolving academic landscape, and how are universities supporting them.

Firstly, only eight relevant studies were included, affecting generalisability of results owing to uneven distribution between geographic regions. Secondly, participants across the eight studies accounted for less than 0.05% of a population of 6 million university academics worldwide (Price, 2011). Thirdly, most of the studies used cross-sectional design, limiting assessment of the longer-term impact of an evolving HE landscape.

The findings of this systematized review can be placed in the context of illuminating research deficits within a shifting HE landscape. Specifically, no studies that the authors are aware of have investigated how academics are responding to a broadening of their pastoral role amidst an evolving academic landscape, and how are universities supporting them.

In providing pastoral support to students, the mental well-being of academics is frequently ignored (Urbina-Garcia, 2020). The provision of well-being support by university management for academics appears to be “limited to non-existent” (Hughes et al., 2018, p. 49). Critically, the Coronavirus pandemic appears to have both accelerated and precipitated a step-change to pastoral care within the HE teaching ecosystem. The impact of a broadening pastoral role on academics' well-being has yet to be fully realized and understood. The authors have subsequently conducted an empirical study to address this embryonic area of research.

Through observing the use of iPhone and iPad by a child between the ages of two and four years and a half, this study presents accounts on the child’s use of and interaction with these devices, as well as her interaction with the physical environment.

Unstructured, naturalistic observation was employed in this study. The study is grounded in theories of user engagement with digital and physical objects.

A child’s interaction with touch-based devices does not deter the child from engaging effectively with the physical environment or from activities centered on creativity and interpersonal engagement. A child is able to move back and forth seamlessly between the physical and digital environments.

Findings from this study could help parents, educators, and system designers understand why and how toddlers and preschoolers use and engage with touch-based devices, as well as the kind of tasks they perform.

Studies of toddlers’ or preschoolers’ information behavior and interaction with touch-based devices are scarce. Children born toward the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century are growing up with a propensity to using touch-based devices. This study provides a framework for effective usage of such devices while ensuring all-round cognitive and physical development of the child.

Organizational change is a key mechanism to ensure the sustainability of healthcare systems. However, healthcare organizations are persistently difficult to change, and literature is riddled with examples of failed change endeavors. In this chapter, we attempt to unravel the underlying causes for failed organizational change. We distinguish three types of change with different levels of depth that require different change approaches. Transformations are the deepest forms of change where beliefs and principles need to be modified to successfully influence routines. Renewals are deep forms of change where principles need to be modified to successfully influence routines. Improvements are shallow forms of change where only modifications at the level of routines are needed. Using deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as our metaphor, we propose a theory of “organizational DNA” to understand organizations and these three types of organizational changes. We posit that organizations are made up of a double helix consisting of a so-called “social string,” which contains the “soft” interaction or communication among the organization's members, and a so-called “technical string,” which contains “hard” organizational aspects such as structure and technology. Ladders of organizational nucleotides (i.e., Routines, Principles, and Beliefs) connect this double helix in various combinations. Together, the double helix and accompanying nucleotides make up the DNA of an organization. Without knowledge of the architecture of organizational DNA and whether a change addresses beliefs, principles, and/or routines, we believe that organizational change is constrained and based on luck rather than change management expertise. Following this metaphor, we show that organizational change fails when it attempts to change one part of the DNA (e.g., routines) in a way that renders it incompatible with the connecting components (e.g., principles and beliefs). We discuss how the theory can be applied in practice using an exemplar case.

Chapter 5 opens with a fictional scenario of a Professor of Digital Marketing on the US East Coast, who is making a cup of coffee in the morning and reflecting on the climate impact of the coffee journey at the same time as considering how she could incorporate this knowledge into her lectures in an impactful way. The Professor is considering designing an authentic piece of assessment which leads to behaviour change and has positive impact on society. The mentoring conversation she engages in is with a former colleague who has extensive experience of education-focused initiatives in universities and is an active mentor in great demand in the scholarly community. The conversation builds on Molthan-Hill and Blaj-Ward (2022), a point-of-departure paper about assessing climate solutions in a personally and societally meaningful way.

The synthesis of scholarly literature which follows the scenario and conversation has two points of focus. One is assessment. Relevant literature is referenced to further contextualize themes such as alignment, authenticity, well-being, sustainability, inclusivity and meaningful use of digital tools in assessment to develop identities and spark action. The other is the overlap between mentoring and coaching; a combination of the two is likely to support richer professional development for academics and, consequently, for their students. Climate-focused approaches in coaching have more recently been developed and are being used to facilitate resourceful responses to climate change. Two volumes on climate coaching are reviewed, to offer insights into the process of linking professional knowledge and life experience.

This paper addresses important technical problems related with methodological limitations of welding project methods currently adopted, mostly regarding numerical modelling procedure of welding processes. The progress in high nano‐technologies give rise to the same approaches to be applied in traditional mechanics and material science, really concerning welding processes using various methods and techniques. Recent investigations of welded joints have shown the benefits related to the employment of neutron techniques, to obtain substantial information advancing quality and durability that cannot be found by using other means. Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) and Neutron Diffraction (ND), in particular, consent materials characterization at atomic and nanoscale level, offering to the existing technologies the essential contribution of precise structural methods. The basic theoretical aspects are described, and some SANS investigations of weldments are reported. An experimental programme has been recently projected to develop welding processes, with quality assurance improvement, safety enhancement, life‐time management and cost effectiveness of the considered joints.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how faculty staff on health and social care programmes support students with mental health issues.

The study used a qualitative survey design to gain in-depth information on faculty staff experiences. Seventy-one faculty staff at two universities in the South East of England out of an eligible population of 115 staff responded to an anonymous online questionnaire which were thematically analysed.

The findings indicated that faculty staff faced uncertainties in providing support to students with mental health needs. They reported tensions between their academic, professional and pastoral roles. There was a wide recognition that supporting students was physically and emotionally demanding for faculty staff and especially challenging when their roles and expectations were unclear. This was compounded by lack of explicit guidelines and an apparent severed connection between faculty staff and student support services.

A need for clearly defined roles and responsibilities for faculty staff in supporting students with mental health needs including a review of their pastoral role were identified. The study reinforces the need for effective collaborative arrangements and collective decision making and clearer procedures in the planning and implementation of students' personal support plans. A concerted effort into adopting a transpersonal approach which incorporates mental health staff awareness training, restorative spaces for reflection and supportive pathways for faculty staff are recommended.

This paper provides rare empirical evidence of faculty staff views on their role in supporting students with mental health needs on health and social care programmes.

Continuous process improvement is a hard problem, especially in high variety/low volume environments due to the complex interrelationships between processes. The purpose of this paper is to address the process improvement issues by simultaneously investigating the job sequencing and buffer size optimization problems.

This paper proposes a continuous process improvement implementation framework using a modified genetic algorithm (GA) and discrete event simulation to achieve multi-objective optimization. The proposed combinatorial optimization module combines the problem of job sequencing and buffer size optimization under a generic process improvement framework, where lead time and total inventory holding cost are used as two combinatorial optimization objectives. The proposed approach uses the discrete event simulation to mimic the manufacturing environment, the constraints imposed by the real environment and the different levels of variability associated with the resources.

Compared to existing evolutionary algorithm-based methods, the proposed framework considers the interrelationship between succeeding and preceding processes and the variability induced by both job sequence and buffer size problems on each other. A computational analysis shows significant improvement by applying the proposed framework.

Significant body of work exists in the area of continuous process improvement, discrete event simulation and GAs, a little work has been found where GAs and discrete event simulation are used together to implement continuous process improvement as an iterative approach. Also, a modified GA simultaneously addresses the job sequencing and buffer size optimization problems by considering the interrelationships and the effect of variability due to both on each other.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the issue of sex trafficking – internationally, in the United States, and particularly in Florida – and the needed services for victims to promote recovery and increase the likelihood of success in redefining themselves and creating a new life. The vast majority of victims are women and children, especially those from vulnerable popu­lations. While much attention has been given to addressing the needs of minors, few programs and services focus specifically on the needs of adult women. This chapter will feature the work of Selah Freedom, a national anti-sex trafficking organization headquartered in southwest Florida dedicated to serving women 18 and over. In particular, the emphasis will be on their long-term services, which offer a comprehensive approach to the treatment of trauma and rehabilitation and have proven successful in removing women from “the life.”