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Many companies in the UK have been forced to export to survive. A large number of such companies have failed due to their lack of understanding about the customer service requirements of overseas customers. Understanding the relative influence of each of the components of customer service, a manufacturer will be better able to develop a service package which will maximise customer satisfaction, thus giving as near as possible optimum use of limited resources. The procedures detailed here will enable marketers to benefit from understanding the needs of individual market segments.

I hope that no one here thinks that I have come along today to offer an alternative to the translation pools we heard about earlier this morning. On the contrary, I think that we need more pools and bigger ones. Nevertheless, although existing translation pools can be improved the point will eventually be reached when any further increase in the size and scope of a particular pooling system will result in it becoming so unwieldy that, from the user's point of view, it will be uneconomical either in terms of the cost of maintaining and using it, or in terms of the time taken to get an answer out of the system. To delay that time as long as possible I think we shall have to try to limit the rate of growth of these translation pools. One way of doing this would be to encourage the more extensive simultaneous publication of scientific texts in several languages. There is nothing new about this type of publication. For example, foreign authors may, if they wish, submit their manuscripts for publication in the regular English‐language journals. It is also common practice to find the papers of international conferences published in several languages and most people are familiar with the multi‐language Unesco publications and journals like Progressus which have been published in several languages for many years. In general, however, this practice has tended to be haphazard, but there is a notable exception in the case of the cover‐to‐cover translations of important Russian scientific journals. Here there has been a deliberate systematic approach and now there are about seventy of these publications appearing regularly. The rate of growth of these Russian cover‐to‐cover translations has been spectacular but this, I think, is the only peculiar thing about them. In point of fact the speed with which they have been launched merely reflects the speed with which we have all become uncomfortably aware of the high status of present‐day Russian research and technical development. The Russian translation situation, therefore, should not be regarded as an isolated or unusual phenomenon, and we should be prepared to see and encourage the growth of similar translating developments with other languages. We all know how quickly yesterday's underdeveloped countries can set up important scientific and technological research establishments, and, bearing this in mind, the necessity for a massive translating programme anologous to the Russian programme in a variety of languages which, hitherto, have not been very important for the communication of scientific information, may not be too far in the future. A detailed examination of the Russian translating situation will therefore be useful and may help us to decide how best to tackle the general translating problem.

Traditionally distribution service has been viewed as an ancillary part of the product, “a necessary evil”. As a consequence service levels tended to emerge over time to meet corporate goals. In the past managers would point out the fact that they had shipped 90 per cent of cases ordered within 24 hours when answering the question “what level of customer service does your company give?” This isolation of one element of customer service as representative of the level of service offered was a very common practice.

OpenWHO is the World Health Organization's online learning platform that was launched in 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic led to massive growth in the number of courses, enrolments and reach of the platform. The platform is built on a stable and scalable basis that can host a large volume of learners. The authors aim to identify key factors that led to this growth.

In this research paper, the authors examined OpenWHO metadata, end-of-course surveys and internal processes using a quantitative approach.

OpenWHO metadata showed that the platform has hosted over 190 health courses in 65 languages and over seven million course enrolments. Since the onset of the pandemic, there have been more women, older people and people from middle income countries accessing courses than before. Following data analysis of the platform metadata and course production process, it was found that several key factors contributed to the growth of the platform. First, OpenWHO has a standardised course production pathway that ensures efficiency, consistency and quality. Further, providing courses in different languages increased its reach to a variety of populations throughout the world. For this, multi-language translation is achieved through a network of translators and an automated system to ensure the efficient translation of learning products. Lastly, it was found that access was promoted for learners with disabilities by optimising accessibility in course production. Data analysis of learner feedback surveys for selected courses showed that the courses were well received in that learners found it useful to complete courses that were self-paced and flexible. In addition, results indicated that preferred learning methods included videos, downloadable documents, slides, quizzes and learning exercises.

Lessons learnt from the WHO's learning response will help prepare researchers for the next health emergency to ensure timely, equitable access to quality health knowledge for everyone. Findings of this study will provide valuable insights for educators, policymakers and researchers in the field who intend to use online learning to optimise knowledge acquisition and performance.

As employees in the lower ranks of a Japanese company advance through the levels of management and seniority their role in day-to-day kaizen activities shifts from that of directly improving their own job, operations and surroundings to guiding, educating and facilitating understanding and practice. The emphasis of kaizen to the employee during career progression changes in an embedded, sequential and predictable manner. To a new employee, kaizen is a process to be implemented, something that is visible and largely provided through company training and job manuals, while not necessarily being fully understood. To the senior manager, however, one who has advanced up the corporate ladder, kaizen is tacit knowledge and accumulated experiences, and is seen as being more than just reducing costs, increasing productivity and decreasing lead times. At this point, kaizen becomes something invisible, something that can produce real influence on both the company’s profitability and the manager’s reputation. Consequently, what kaizen is actually changes from being a duty associated with employment to a matter of personal, group, collective, and organizational responsibility. The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanism underpinning the transfer of kaizen (acknowledgement and exercise) in the Japanese workplace that results in it being sustained across multiple.

Data were collected from research participants (n = 53) through a mixed-method multi-language field design comprising questionnaires and unstructured interviews conducted in genba, the workplaces of five domain-name multinational companies in Japan. Multi-level statistical analysis identified two largely mutually exclusive generational groups.

During their late 40s, employees were found to transfer their understanding of kaizen between the two forms. At this age, employees were identified to shift from being student to teacher; follower to leader; and disciple to sensei. This study identified how kaizen shifts from one generation to another; when kaizen shifts through the change in responsibility of employees; and changes in the understanding and practice that creates sustained business excellence.

Importantly, the study reveals how kaizen itself is a sustainable business activity in the workplace, one that Western business is struggling to emulate.

Among the most ballyhooed interactive uses of the Web, database access has, until recently, been a cross‐platform, multi‐language, multi‐interface endeavor not suited to the faint‐of‐heart. Fortunately, Microsoft’s ever‐increasing domination of the software industry has led to the consolidation of many tools in one application. Beginning with Internet Information Server 2 (IIS 2), Microsoft brought together in one service all the tools necessary to deliver an existing database over the Web. This paper will present a case study of converting a Web resource (News and Newspapers Online, a comprehensive directory of online newspapers from around the world that offer free access to current, full‐text content) from static HTML files to a database (using MS Access 97), mounting the database on a Web server (using IIS 4), building the user interface (using HTML), and dynamically delivering the requested information (using Active Server Pages and Active Data Objects).

This paper aims to serves two main purposes: First, it seeks to provide an overview of the location hierarchy from the highest divisions (continents) to the lowest divisions (wards, villages) in reality and in the Wikipedia pages. Secondly, it aims to introduce an approach to building a geographical ontology from Wikipedia.

The paper first reviews existing applications which extract information from Wikipedia and use it as a data resource to develop natural language processing tools. The paper also reviews the structure of Wikipedia pages which show the location's information. Based on the analysis, the paper then proposes an approach to extract location hierarchy as well as geographical characteristics for the geo‐ontology. The approach also rebuilds the relations between locations in the ontology.

Existing location name systems are mainly based on probabilistic locations, which are mined from the data and they lack the administrative relations between locations for full levels and all countries and territories. The literature review in geographical hierarchy and using Wikipedia for natural language processing tasks offers an approach to build a geographical ontology from Wikipedia pages. The proposed approach is believed to be the first which provides a full geo‐ontology for all countries.

The paper builds a geo‐ontology with full levels for all countries and territories. The administrative relations between locations are needed for real‐world applications.

The comprehensive overview on existing work on geo‐ontology provides a valuable reference for researchers and system developers in related research communities. The proposed approach to build a geographical ontology by using the Wikipedia offers a promising alternative to build a knowledge system from free online multi‐language encyclopedia.

This purpose of this paper is to present the current state and use of the web by university libraries in India and to examine the web‐based library services offered by some university libraries in different sections via their websites with the help of web‐based library automation software.

A survey was conducted through a structured questionnaire circulated personally among university librarians and the response rate was 100 percent. The responses received from the respondents to 22 questions are presented in the form of tables and figures and analyzed using a simple method of percentages.

The findings show that many of the surveyed university libraries are yet to exploit full potential of the web forms, and are lagging behind in effective use of library website. A few libraries offer innovative web‐based library services in different sections. This study identified specific ways in which the web helps university libraries to improve and develop innovative and creative web‐based library services. Some key improvements and developments are: there is an urgent need to develop dynamic library websites and incorporate relevant Web 2.0 based services including web forms in each web‐based library service; apply semantic technologies and ontologies; adopt next‐generation internet (IPv6); and provide multi‐language support content. This study also examined institutional characteristics and resources dedicated to web‐based services.

The geographical area of the study was restricted to 20 university libraries in India.