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The purpose of this paper is to explore interprofessional and multidisciplinary working between health and social care practitioners providing services to older people through the prism of how risk is assessed and managed. It proposes that whilst interprofessional and multidisciplinary working is a broad and commonly researched topic, there is a relative paucity of evidence specifically regarding how health and social care practitioners work together across structural, cultural and ideological divides. The study aims to expand the domain of integrated health and social care by including perceptions, understanding and use of the concept of risk by professionals from different disciplines.

This paper is based upon an exploratory study using an interpretivist phenomenological perspective, including 23 semi-structured individual interviews with health and social care practitioners and 2 non-participant observations of multidisciplinary team meetings.

The paper provides empirical insights around the complex dynamics of interprofessional and multidisciplinary working between health and social care practitioners, in particular the saliency of the interconnectedness of individual practitioner Personalities with the Process of interprofessional and multidisciplinary working under the auspices of relevant Policy drivers.

The research was conducted in Wales and, due to the increasingly divergent policy context within the UK, the research results may lack generalisability from a wider UK or international perspective. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the propositions of this research further.

The paper includes implications for both interprofessional and multidisciplinary policy and practice with older people. With new models of integrated care being sought, the findings of this study may offer a timely and valuable contribution, particularly from the inclusion of a social care perspective and in better understanding the interconnectedness of practitioner personalities with process and policy.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the complex dynamics and interconnectedness between health and social care practitioners who work together to provide services to older people.

The purpose of this paper is to make an analytical comparison of two vertical tail models from a structural point of view.

The original vertical tail design of PZL-106BT aircraft was used for Computer aided design (CAD) modeling and for creating the finite element model.

The nodal displacements, Von-Mises stresses and Buckling factors for two vertical tail models have been found using the finite element method. The idea of a possible Multidisciplinary concept assessment and design (MDCAD) concept was presented.

The used software analogy introduces an idea of having an automated calculation procedure within the framework of MDCAD.

The aircraft used for calculation had undergone a modification in its vertical tail length, as there was an urgent need to calculate for the plane’s manufacturer, PZL Warszawa – Okecie.

Sustainability considerations are often treated as an add-on to building design, following ad-hoc processes for their implementation. The purpose of this study was to investigate, model and facilitate the early stages of building information modelling (BIM) enabled sustainable building design (SBD) by formalising the ad-hoc working relationships of the best practices in order to standardise the optimal collaboration workflows.

Four stages of data collection were conducted, including a total of 32 semi-structured interviews with industry experts from 17 organisations. Fourteen “best practice” case studies were identified, and roles and responsibilities, resources, information exchanges, interdependencies, timing and sequence of events and critical decisions were examined.

The research classified the critical components of SBD into a framework utilising content and thematic analyses. These components were coordinated explicitly into a systematic process, which followed concurrent engineering (CE) principles utilising Integrated DEFinition (IDEF) 3 structured diagramming technique. Then, Green BIM Box (GBB) workflow management prototype tool was developed to analyse communication and delivery of BIM-enabled SBD in a centralised system.

This study represents an improvement to previous attempts to systematically define the BIM-enabled SBD process for the early stages. The results support the idea that a transparent SBD process, which follows specified communication patterns, can assist in achieving sustainability efficiently in terms of time, cost and effort.

Delay in histologically confirming rectal cancer may lead to late treatment as histological confirmation is required prior to chemo-radiotherapy or surgical intervention. Multidisciplinary colorectal meetings indicate that there are patients who require multiple tissue biopsy episodes prior to histologically confirming rectal cancer. The purpose of this paper is to examine a quality improvement (QI) measure’s impact on tissue biopsy process diagnostic yield.

The authors performed the study in two phases (pre- and post-QI), between February 2012 and April 2014 in a district general hospital. The QI measures were derived from process mapping a rectal cancer diagnostic pathway. The primary outcome was to assess the tissue biopsy process diagnostic yield. The secondary outcome included total breaches for a 62-day target in the pre- and post-QI study phases.

There was no significant difference in demographics or referral mode in both study phases. There were 81 patients in the pre-QI phase compared to 38 in the post-QI phase, 68 per cent and 74 per cent were referred via the two-week wait urgent pathway, respectively. Diagnostic tissue biopsy process yield improved from 58.1 to 77.6 per cent after implementing the QI measure (p=0.02). The 62-day target breach was reduced from 14.8 to 3.5 per cent (p=0.42).

Simple QI measures can achieve significant improvements in rectal cancer diagnostic tissue biopsy process yields. A multidisciplinary approach, involving process mapping and cause and effect modelling, proved useful tools.

A process mapping exercise and QI measures resulted in significant improvements in diagnostic yield, reducing the episodes per patient before histological diagnosis was confirmed.

Details the introduction by Northallerton Health Services NHS Trust of critical paths and care profiles as tools within its Co‐ordinated Care Programme. Aims to use these tools as means to assess and improve on the care which patients receive, and to monitor clinical performance. Identifies the development of protocols of care as one vehicle through which care can be monitored. Discusses the progression of the programme and how its scope continues to extend with a view to incorporating primary care right down to general practitioner level.

Although an increasing number of PhD holders will continue their careers outside academia, we know little about their further career prospects. To develop a better understanding of how this group constructs and justifies a successful career outside academia, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 47 PhD graduates from different disciplines (humanities, social and beta sciences) who have obtained elaborate experience working outside academia.

Drawing on a multi-career perspective, we explored the motivations of the PhD holders when making such career transitions. The findings from the interviews demonstrated how PhD holders’ main motivations were associated with their perceived organizational, community and cognitive careers. Our data analysis revealed that these motivations related to PhD holders and can be grouped along four key tensions:

• distanced from real life (academia) versus appreciating the practical impact of their research (currently);

• competition and performance orientation (academia) versus enjoying their current multidisciplinary collaboration towards a common goal (current);

• Individualism and loneliness were typically experienced in academia versus autonomy and intellectual stimulation in their current work; and

• lack of stable career perspectives in academia versus current options for competence-based development and personal growth.

distanced from real life (academia) versus appreciating the practical impact of their research (currently);

competition and performance orientation (academia) versus enjoying their current multidisciplinary collaboration towards a common goal (current);

Individualism and loneliness were typically experienced in academia versus autonomy and intellectual stimulation in their current work; and

lack of stable career perspectives in academia versus current options for competence-based development and personal growth.

Thus, while discontinuation of an academic career may easily hold a pejorative connotation, the analysis of the PhD holders’ motivations revealed important and rewarding opportunities in pursuing a career in other sectors. Overall, from our study, we can conclude that while a major gap may exist between careers in academia and ‘the corporate world’, shifting careers between these worlds is not as ‘unthinkable’ as commonly believed.

As the engineering design process becomes increasingly complex, multidisciplinary teams need to work together, integrating diverse expertise across a range of disciplinary models. Where changes arise, these design teams often find it difficult to handle these design changes due to the complexity and interdependencies inherent in engineering systems. This paper aims to develop an innovative approach to clarifying system interdependencies and predicting the design change propagation at the asset level in complex engineering systems based on the digital-twin-driven design structure matrix (DSM).

The paper first defines the digital-twin-driven DSM in terms of elements and interdependencies, where the authors have defined three types of interdependency, namely, geospatial, physical and logical, at the asset level. The digital twin model was then used to generate the large-scale DSMs of complex engineering systems. The cluster analysis was further conducted based on the improved Idicula–Gutierrez–Thebeau algorithm (IGTA-Plus) to decompose such DSMs into modules for the convenience and efficiency of predicting design change propagation. Finally, a design change propagation prediction method based on the digital-twin-driven DSM has been developed by integrating the change prediction method (CPM), a load-capacity model and fuzzy linguistics. A section of an infrastructure mega-project in London was selected as a case study to illustrate and validate the developed approach.

The digital-twin-driven DSM has been formally defined by the spatial algebra and Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) schema. Based on the definitions, an innovative approach has been further developed to (1) automatically generate a digital-twin-driven DSM through the use of IFC files, (2) to decompose these large-scale DSMs into modules through the use of IGTA-Plus and (3) predict the design change propagation by integrating a digital-twin-driven DSM, CPM, a load-capacity model and fuzzy linguistics. From the case study, the results showed that the developed approach can help designers to predict and manage design changes quantitatively and conveniently.

This research contributes to a new perspective of the DSM and digital twin for design change management and can be beneficial to assist designers in making reasonable decisions when changing the designs of complex engineering systems.

Contends that, while the importance of time to product development processes has been underscored by many commentators, it is not until “time” is divided into component elements that the scope for improvement becomes manifest. Since time equals money, effective time management is of self‐evident importance. Outlines areas of management focus, through which time is a common thread. Analyses the constituents of time‐to‐market in terms of their capacity to measure temporal processes and reduce their costs. Proposes a structure to support the changes necessary for such reductions, and delineates the benefits accruing from reduced time‐to‐market.

The author aims to provide a macro (organization‐environment) view for knowledge creation (KC), a study traditionally considered to be a micro (individual‐organization) management issue.

Literature review and literature integration are the main approaches used in this paper. Instead of providing a critique, the author reviews recent KC process studies and integrates them into a “process heuristic,” in which different phases of KC activity are embedded. The author then discusses how each phase of KC interacts with the change of an organization's external environment (the integration of change theories and the KC process heuristic).

The author found that an organization needs the function and balance of three different momenta – imitation, rationality, and inertia – to proceed with KC when confronted with pressure from external environments. Knowledge feedback, prompted by the synergy of these momenta, ensures the fitness of an organization and its environment. However, knowledge feedback falls short if organizations fail to process ambiguous information in a turbulent environment.

The author provides five propositions based on the literature review. One may need more qualitative or quantitative evidence to test these propositions.

In addition to the traditional micro view, managers can diagnose their KC problems from a macro view.

This paper is the first one to address the importance of environment‐organization fitness in terms of KC studies.