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This study aims to understand the perceived causes and consequences of weight gain within a secure psychiatric inpatient service in South Wales.

A purposive sample of 12 staff members were interviewed. These interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis.

Three themes were identified, these were increasing demand for integrated physical health care, unhealthy lifestyles and weight gain viewed as a symptom of poor mental health.

It is a unique insight into the factors that contribute to obesity in a Welsh secure unit and adds to current understanding of the challenges of improving weight management services within this sector.

Research shows that, in general, graduate applicants seeking their first career jobs do not possess the personal, transferable and employability skills which employers require, and Dearing has recommended that most HE students should undertake work experience to remedy this limitation. This article describes the Working for Skills project run by Leeds Metropolitan University and several major local employers. Some 20 “skills and attributes”, identified primarily from independent research projects, are presented to students in a workfile. The workfile addresses two principal areas: experiential learning, and the use of (principally) work experience to grow the identified skills and attributes. A simple model of experiential learning is presented to help students to analyse their work experiences and build awareness of the identified skills and attributes. The article also reports on pilot trials, student feedback and discusses some of the problems associated with this type of material.

The purpose of this paper is to use survey data to rank the relative importance of perceived factors that inhibit the transfer of knowledge across projects and examine the statistical relationship between various “higher order” dimensions of project management competencies and project efficiency among a sample of project-based firms (PBFs).

The research philosophical approach adopted was post-positivism, a half-way house between positivism and phenomenological approaches. The author used a largely structured survey questionnaire with an inclusion of few open-ended items. The survey data collected were largely based on the “perceptions” of mostly experienced project management practitioners, whose perspectives on project processes and performance are likely to be more dependable. Because of budget limitations, a total of 260 questionnaires were mailed to randomly selected PBFs (with an enclosed self-addressed and stamped return envelope). Of the 260 questionnaires sent to PBFs, 58 questionnaires were returned, representing a return rate of just over 22 percent.

Results indicate that “high time pressures towards the end of the project,” “too much focus on short-term project deliverables,” and “fear of negative sanctions when disclosing project mistakes” were three top-ranked factors that inhibited knowledge transfer across projects. Some “higher order” project management competencies like “dynamic competencies” have relatively a greater impact on predicting project efficiency. Dynamic competencies will only continue to increase in importance as today’s project environments are characterized as continuously evolving, turbulent, and complex and require the need to be effective in dealing with various uncertainties. Once included in the regression equation, the “ownership variable” dominates all other explanatory variables in predicting project efficiency among a sample of PBFs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), most likely driven by the project management competencies of multinational corporations (MNCs). However, the project efficiency of state-owned PBFs did not differ significantly from that of “international firms that were not MNCs.” Specific conditions may have led to such an outcome. The author shows that enhancing project efficiency requires the reinforcement of multiple but specific factors.

As the study was largely conducted on a limited budget and time frame, the author was not able to employ a multi-method approach. The inclusion of a few case studies would have facilitated triangulation of the current findings. In addition, the study captures “perceptions” and practical experiences of project management practitioners. Future studies could possibly develop what may be seen as “objective” measures of project learning and project management competencies. A larger survey supported by a larger budget would be one option in which some of the findings could be tested across PBFs located in different sectors and countries.

The author argues that the creation of a client-led “no-blame culture” within PBFs can ensure the development of a “safe” environment in which project team members can acknowledge project mistakes without the fear or danger(s) that may come with such admission. This may require changes in project organizational culture that reduces power distance, lowers sensitivity to hierarchal power relations, enhances team building efforts, and fosters a “learning climate” that tolerates “trial and error” experimentation. It may also require strengthening clients’ specific capabilities. Such change may require time and patience but could take advantage of “positive” aspects of participatory practices, personal relationships, and consensus decision-making approach that is prevalent in the UAE culture. One managerial implication points to the need to tailor scarce resources in building up multi-dimensional “higher order” competencies like “dynamic competencies” that have a relatively higher significant impact on enhancing project efficiency. Linking MNCs with local PBFs as collaborative mega project delivery partners may lead to enhancing project management competencies of the latter, conditional on their absorptive capacity.

The contribution of the paper is in providing survey-based empirical evidence that goes beyond case studies to highlight the importance of enhancing “higher order” project management competencies, such as “dynamic competencies,” that have a stronger predictive power of project efficiency in PBFs. The study also ranks the relative importance of various factors that inhibit the transfer of new knowledge across projects. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that has demonstrated the statistical relationship between “higher order” project management competencies and project efficiency. Project efficiency is a multi-faceted construct. Its strengthening is determined by a configuration of multiple but specific factors. A more “nuanced” understanding of the relationship between project management competencies and project efficiency in a particular context may be required.

The mental health experience of people from ethnic minorities differs from that of the majority, including differential access to services and treatments. The 2014 National Health Service (NHS) Community Mental Health survey gathered data from 13,787 individuals in 57 NHS trusts in England, providing one means of monitoring such experience. The purpose of this paper is to analyse survey variables describing treatments offered to respondents for evidence of differential access or treatment experiences associated with ethnicity.

Secondary analysis of survey data. Proportions for target variables were modelled using multilevel logit models. Ethnic background, age and gender were entered as independent variables.

Respondents in most minority groups were more likely to be on the care programme approach (CPA) to provision than white British respondents and less likely to report receiving psychological treatments. Unmet need for psychological treatment was relatively high in certain Asian groups. Medication use was consistently high across respondents, but differences by ethnic background were evident.

The study was dependent on existing survey data of a relatively limited nature, and potentially subject to non-response bias. The survey excludes users of certain types of service, giving an incomplete cross-section.

This represents a novel use of the data from the Community Mental Health survey, and complements evidence from a range of other sources. The findings mostly concur with other evidence but provide important new data in relation to medication, unmet needs in psychotherapy and use of the CPA. They remain suggestive of the complex nature of discrimination and/or unequal access and treatment in mental health services.

Explores the factors which contributed to the development of 14 senior managers in Yorkshire Water plc, who experienced temporary promotion for periods of about three months in 1992. These promotions, which were the result of planned absences of top managers, enabled each of the 14 to work in “new” jobs in a relatively controlled situation. The writer assisted the managers in various ways and at the end of the temporary promotion explored in in‐depth interviews the factors which contributed to their development. These were: the individual′s capacity to learn (which in turn was a function of his/her expectations and opportunities); the learning “gap” between the normal and the promoted post; the support received from a range of colleagues; the length of the promotion; and fortune in encountering “one‐off” events. Includes some suggestions for making the best use of this type of learning opportunity.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the structure, regulation, and performance of banks in the EU and G‐10 countries. This enables one to identify any significant differences in the structure of banking in the nineteen separate countries comprising these two groups. The regulatory, supervisory, and deposit‐insurance environment in which banks operate in each of these countries is also compared and contrasted. This enables one to identify any significant differences in the regulatory environment that may help explain the structure of banking in the various countries. Beyond this, the effect of the overall structural and regulatory environment on individual bank performance is investigated in order to evaluate the appropriateness of existing regulations in individual countries and any proposals for reforming them. Hence, an exploratory empirical analysis based upon a sample of banks in the different countries is conducted to assess the effect of the different “regulatory regimes” on the performance of individual banks, controlling for various bank‐specific and country‐specific factors that may also affect bank performance. In this way, the paper attempts to contribute to an assessment of the appropriate balance between market and regulatory discipline to ensure that banks have sufficient opportunities to compete prudently and profitability in a competitive and global financial marketplace. In the process of conducting such an assessment, the paper necessarily provides information as to whether the U.S. is “out‐of‐step” with banking developments in other industrial countries.

Describes the use of development centres over a four‐year period to assist nearly 100 senior managers in a recently privatized utility to match their career and development aspirations with the opportunities which were being created by a radical change in business strategy. Supported by their line managers, functional specialists and consultant business psychologists, participants obtained objective data about their personalities and performance, and used these inputs to create their own development plan which they shared with main board directors while taking action to develop their careers. In a concluding survey 73 per cent rated the process as having been a considerable or very great influence.

In a lecture of this type it is not necessary to discuss how the various nutrients in food are determined, but it may not be out of place to emphasise that it is misleading to use general terms, such as a broad statement that one food is more nutritious than another. The value of a food in a diet is dependent upon what actual nutrients it contains, and consideration should also be given to the nutrients supplied by the remainder of the diet normally consumed. A diet which provides all the required calories, ample fat, and good quality protein, mineral matter, etc., would be unsatisfactory if it still lacked other essential nutrients such as vitamins. Similarly, no one can live for long on a diet of high calorific value and rich in vitamins if it lacks protein which supplies the body with a wide range of essential amino acids. It is inadvisable to think only in terms of well‐known foodstuffs and simply to say, for example, that milk is very nutritious. Milk is only the excellent food that it is because in general it provides a wide range of essential nutrients such as fat, proteins which supply many amino acids, vitamins such as riboflavin, and useful minerals such as calcium, etc. It is advisable to think in terms of the actual nutrients rather than in terms of the foodstuff itself. Table 1 shows that bread provides a variety of important nutrients, i.e., substances which are essential to the diet if the body is to remain healthy and able to fulfil its normal functions.