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The purpose of this paper is to address a problem that is commonly faced by manufacturing companies in the plastics industry, where large and different batches of freshly produced units need to be unloaded from the injection‐moulding machines and relocated, using automation.

The new solution is reached through a formal design approach, including a function analysis, a product design specification, a quality function deployment exercise, the generation of a number of conceptual solutions, and concept evaluation using morphological charts, failure mode and effect analysis and a decision matrix.

A single modular end effector that can be easily reconfigured for a large variety of moulds has been developed. The results are also extrapolated to more general applications where an end effector is required to carry out simultaneously several different but well‐defined functions in the presence of high variety.

The critical decision that often needs to be made in industry, between flexibility and reconfigurability, is discussed. It is shown that when batch sizes are large, the penalty incurred in reconfiguration time is well offset by gains in simplicity, reliability and lower cost.

The company involved in this case study will achieve significant savings in costs and in storage space, since it will no longer need dedicated gripping devices for its different products.

This paper demonstrates the application of a formal design and development approach to arrive at a novel reconfigurable solution to a common parts handling problem in industry.

Leadership is a concept that has always been a major component of Colleges of Agriculture. Undergraduate student have numerous opportunities to develop their leadership skills and abilities though formal coursework, collegiate organizations, and personal leadership activities. This ethnographic qualitative research study investigated the leadership characteristics of outstanding seniors in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) at The Ohio State University. The study utilized a semi-structured interview methodology. The objectives of the study were to 1) Determine the leadership development experiences of the outstanding seniors prior to their enrolling in college, 2) Identify the leadership development activities in which they participated during their undergraduate studies, 3) Identify their self-perceived strengths, weaknesses, and leadership influences, 4) Identify the personal and professional leadership goals. Results indicate that the outstanding seniors had significant leadership development experiences in FFA and 4-H while in high school. They continued to participate in leadership activities in dozens of different collegiate organizations, both within and outside of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. The outstanding seniors had a passionate belief in their own leadership ability, believed strongly in servant leadership, and used their leadership to the benefit of the organizations in which they were members.

This paper aims to report the findings of a systematized literature review focusing on participatory research and accessibly in the context of assistive technologies, developed for use within museums by people with sensory impairments or a learning disability. The extent and nature of participatory research that occurs within the creation of technologies to facilitate accessible museum experiences is uncertain, and this is therefore a focus of this paper.

This paper is a systematized literature review and subsequent thematic analysis.

A screening of 294 research papers produced 8 papers for analysis in detail. A thematic analysis identified that the concept of accessibly has nuanced meanings, underpinned by social values; the attractiveness of a technology is important in supporting real-life usability; and that the conceptualization of participation should extend beyond the end users.

The argument is made that increasing the participation of people with sensory impairments and learning disabilities in the research process will benefit the design of technologies that facilitate accessibility for these groups.

An original notion of participation has emerged from this review. It includes the participation and goals of disabled people but has expanded the concept to encompass museum personnel and indeed the physical and social spaces of the museums and heritage sites themselves. This constructs a broad of participation, with different aspects being reflected across the review’s research papers.

Presents the Mohonk Criteria for Humanitarian Assistance in Complex Emergencies, produced by the Task Force on Ethical and Legal Issues in Humanitarian Assistance, convened by the Program on Humanitarian Assistance at the World Conference on Religion and Peace, as guidelines for co‐operative relationships between political, humanitarian and military actors in complex humanitarian emergencies created by armed conflict.

The debate about the future of the death penalty often focuses on whether its supporters are animated by instrumental or expressive values, and if the latter, what values the penalty does in fact express, where those values originated and how deeply entrenched they are. In this chapter, I argue that a more explicit recognition of the emotional sources of support for and opposition to the death penalty will contribute to the clarity of the debate. The focus on emotional variables reveals that the boundary between instrumental and expressive values is porous; both types of values are informed (or uninformed) by fear, outrage, compassion, selective empathy and other emotional attitudes. More fundamentally, though history, culture and politics are essential aspects of the discussion, the resilience of the death penalty cannot be adequately understood when the affect is stripped from explanations for its support. Ultimately, the death penalty will not die without a societal change of heart.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the professional dilemmas of historians of education in the USA.

This paper uses historiographical analysis.

While some aspects of both “prophet” and “fool” cultural archetypes fit some historians of education, neither archetype is a useful model for discussing the possible professional positions and roles of new scholars. Instead, “border-crossing” is an appropriate metaphor for new scholars in the history of education.

This manuscript addresses a topic of concern to many historians of education in multiple countries. It moves beyond material concerns of intellectuals to discuss the cultural archetypes that may be at play.

This study challenges the conventional theoretical approach of the ‘Three Lines of Defence’ Model adopted by most of the Maltese credit institutions. The authors propose a paradigm shifting conceptualised framework that would alter the corporate governance structures of banks. The objective is to test the feasibility and willingness of credit institutions to adopt such an approach.

This study challenges the current practices of the internal auditing profession and organisations and invites them to evaluate their structures whilst recognising the benefits of adopting a combined assurance function.

In order to test this hypothesis, the authors sought out semi-structured interviews with controllers (Internal Auditors, Risk Managers and Compliance Officers) within Maltese Credit Institutions, varying in size from significant, medium-sized and small institutions; personal from the Malta Financial Services Authority – The regulator, the Big four audit firms and members of the Malta Forum of Internal Auditors, and practitioners working both within and outside the financial industry.

There were two contrasting opinions regarding the suggested proposition. On the one hand, those operating within the credit institutions, as well as the regulator and the external auditors, do not believe that the proposition of integrating risk, compliance and internal audit functions (IAF) in one team would be possible; the reason being that independence, which is the cornerstone of every IAF, would be severely impacted. On the other hand, there were those practitioners working outside the banking industry but with sufficient experience and knowledge in the field, who challenged the traditional concept of independence. They argue that the functions should not be separate from each other because they have much in common.

Four themes emerged from the study: (1) challenges as a concept, (2) benefits, (3) risks and (4) condition for successful implementation. All interviewees, from risk departments, boards, external auditors and regulators agree that a strong, knowledgeable and independent IAF is fundamental to every organisation but more so within the financial industry. Nevertheless, this study revealed two schools of thought that emerged from the findings in relation to the IAF and its regulation, and specifically, when the authors presented the proposition of an integrated function.

Education as a weapon in the fight against conflict and violence remains widely debated in policy and academic circles. Against the background of growing political instability in Africa and the central role of the knowledge economy in twenty-first century development, this paper provides three contributions to existing literature. The purpose of this paper is to assess how political stability/non-violence is linked to the incremental, synergy and lifelong learning effects of education.

The authors define lifelong learning as the combined knowledge acquired during primary, secondary and tertiary education. Principal component analysis is used to reduce the dimensions of educational and political indicators. An endogeneity robust dynamic system Generalized Methods of Moments is used for the estimations.

The authors establish three main findings. First, education is a useful weapon in the fight against political instability. Second, there is an incremental effect of education in the transition from secondary to tertiary schools. Third, lifelong learning also has positive and synergy effects. This means that the impact of lifelong learning is higher than the combined independent effects of various educational levels. The empirical evidence is based on 53 African countries for the period 1996-2010.

A plethora of policy implications are discussed, inter alia: how the drive towards increasing the knowledge economy through lifelong learning can be an effective tool in the fight against violence and political insurgency in Africa.

As the continent is nursing knowledge economy ambitions, the paper is original in investigating the determinants of political stability/non-violence from three dimensions of education attainment: the incremental, the lifelong learning and a synergy effect.