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In this article, we use the film Bridge of Spies – which depicts the case of U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers – and relevant primary sources, particularly Powers' letters from prison, to provide teachers with a case that can engage students with the complexity of the Cold War. Understanding USA–Russia relations is as important today as ever as we watch the tragedy unfold in Ukraine. Using primary sources to reflect on the Cold War can help secondary students understand the historical context of the war in Ukraine as well as how to evaluate and critique sources of information about the war.

The film and personal letters provide insights often not available or obvious when we focus on the political or military history of an event or time period. The Cold War is frequently defined by the rhetoric of the USA and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) governments – but everyday people and citizens had a wider range of views and experiences. The film and letters bring out the humanity of the Cold War.

This article supports secondary teachers in incorporating film and primary sources as teaching tools to study the Cold War while more broadly thinking about these sources as ways to understand the past. The letters used, including those from U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers, help us understand his time in a Soviet prison as well as the behind-the-scenes work to free him as part of a prisoner exchange.

The U-2 Incident and other events of the Cold War provide important context for understanding the Cold War-like tensions between the USA and Russia today. The distrust between these countries has a long history. However, documents like the film and letters discussed here show that there is much more to the bluster of political leaders and the military chess game. There is an important human element to these events and an impact on individuals who are much more than pawns in international diplomacy.

This purpose of this descriptive case study is to examine students’ experience engaging in stand-up meetings during the team project for the application development course in their Management Information Systems (MIS) program. Although the body of research on agile stand-up meetings is growing, there is little research on the experience of students who are engaging in stand-up meetings. The majority of research focuses on business professionals instead of students.

This study uses a mixed methods approach to collect data by anonymously surveying students. This exploratory study is a prelude to implementing a larger-scale investigation of student perceptions of stand-up meetings. The research was conducted using a mixed methods approach that used a survey instrument with both open-ended and closed-ended questions to gather students’ perceptions. The qualitative data was analyzed using a thematic coding approach.

The results of this study demonstrate that students’ experiences with stand-up meetings are overwhelmingly positive, with students describing how stand-up meetings helped them communicate and collaborate with their team and solve problems together as a team. The majority of students in this study reported that participating in stand-up meetings helped them overcome roadblocks.

The main limitation of this descriptive case study is the sample size, since only one section of the course was available during the spring semester for the survey. Consequently, the findings may not be broadly generalizable to other contexts. An additional limitation is that the sample was obtained from a school primarily serving nontraditional adult students from underserved groups. One other limitation of this study is that the course surveyed was a synchronous online section with a limited amount of time for class sessions.

This case study should serve as a starting point for faculty, particularly information systems faculty, who are seeking to incorporate stand-up meetings into their courses. The benefits that students cited were clear. As one student stated, stand-up “allows us to vet through our work, help build interpersonal relationships and strengthen our skills.” The larger impact and contribution of this research is that encourages faculty to adopt the practice of stand-up meetings to enhance students’ communication, collaboration and problem solving.

Incorporating stand-up meetings into coursework benefits students by fostering collaboration, communication and problem-solving. The results of this study demonstrate that students’ experiences with stand-up meetings are overwhelmingly positive, with students describing how stand-up meetings helped them communicate and collaborate with their team and solve problems together as a team. The majority of students in this study reported that participating in stand-up meetings helped them overcome roadblocks.

This descriptive case study examines students’ experience engaging in stand-up meetings during the team project for the application development course in their MIS program. Although the body of research on agile stand-up meetings is growing, there is little research on the experience of students who are engaging in stand-up meetings. The majority of research focuses on business professionals instead of students.

Employability skills training programmes are an effective means for reducing unemployment rates. Such programmes also have the potential to improve the general well-being (e.g. self-efficacy) of disadvantaged individuals, however, reliable longitudinal evaluations of the psychological benefits of such programmes are limited. The present study evaluated the impact of an employability programme offered to disadvantaged adults in North-West England on self-efficacy. Additionally, the study aimed to identify risk factors for programme disengagement to identify at-risk groups that require further support.

Secondary longitudinal data pertaining to the background characteristics, programme engagement and self-efficacy scores (repeatedly measured on a monthly basis) of 308 programme users were analysed.

Results demonstrated that employability programme engagement significantly increased self-efficacy scores. Additionally, the findings suggested that individuals with mental health and learning difficulties were more likely to disengage from the programme. The findings demonstrate that employability programmes can have a positive impact on the well-being of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, however, prolonged engagement is needed for which some individuals require further support with.

The present study analysed longitudinal data from a diverse sample of disadvantaged individuals to reliably evaluate psychological outcomes from employability training programmes.

We aim to ascertain whether and how an individual’s social comparison affects their self-gifting motivations (SGMs).

We survey a North American sample comprising 619 Canadian and US respondents. We apply partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine relationships between social comparison, attachment orientation, parenthood, and self-gifting motivations.

We find that social comparison positively impacts self-gifting motivations. Additionally, we find that attachment orientation and parenthood can moderate social comparison’s impact on positively valenced SGMs and negatively valenced SGMs, respectively.

We elevate and expand existing scholarship on consumers’ self-gifting. Through the current study, we contribute new, empirical evidence illuminating how individuals’ attachment orientation (i.e. secure v. insecure) and parenthood status (i.e. parent v. non-parent) serve as agency-oriented moderators to temper social comparison’s influences on SGMs.

Plastic pollution is a major issue that plagues modern society. Scholars are interested in comprehending consumers’ behavioural actions to address plastic pollution. This study aims to delve into the determinants of consumers’ engagement with social media as a medium to address plastic pollution.

A conceptual model is developed that extends the behavioural reasoning theory (BRT). Using a quantitative approach, 476 responses underwent structural equation modelling analysis.

Results indicate that “reasons for” positively correlate with attitude and intention towards socially responsible engagement. Contrarily, “Reasons against” demonstrated a positive association with socially responsible engagement intention. Attitudes favouring socially responsible engagement correlate positively with the underlying intention. The moderation analysis underscores the positive relation of social return on social media with consumers’ attitude and their “reasons for” leaning towards socially responsible engagement intention. Notably, a positive connection was established between socially responsible engagement intention and the trifecta of consumption, contribution and content creation behaviours.

By enhancing the BRT, this research sheds light on novel perspectives regarding consumers’ engagement on social media platforms. Distinctively, it is among the handful of studies probing the influence of behavioural intention across diverse behavioural outcomes. The insights gained from this study, grounded in empirical evidence from an emerging market, are poised to guide policymakers, governmental agencies and industry practitioners in formulating effective strategies to combat plastic pollution. Additionally, the study can assist in achieving the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs), specifically SGD 12, SGD 13, SDG 14 and SGD 17.

Predicting commodity futures trading volumes represents an important matter to policymakers and a wide spectrum of market participants. The purpose of this study is to concentrate on the energy sector and explore the trading volume prediction issue for the thermal coal futures traded in Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange in China with daily data spanning January 2016–December 2020.

The nonlinear autoregressive neural network is adopted for this purpose and prediction performance is examined based upon a variety of settings over algorithms for model estimations, numbers of hidden neurons and delays and ratios for splitting the trading volume series into training, validation and testing phases.

A relatively simple model setting is arrived at that leads to predictions of good accuracy and stabilities and maintains small prediction errors up to the 99.273th quantile of the observed trading volume.

The results could, on one hand, serve as standalone technical trading volume predictions. They could, on the other hand, be combined with different (fundamental) prediction results for forming perspectives of trading trends and carrying out policy analysis.

This study aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature pertaining to the governance of Islamic social finances (ISF). The primary aim is to identify and highlight global research patterns and deliver noteworthy insights that can be gleaned by ISF institutions worldwide.

This study uses a hybrid approach, incorporating both bibliometric and content analysis methodologies. The authors curated a data set comprising 73 scholarly documents (articles) obtained from the Scopus database, covering the period from 2010 to 2023. The data collection process was conducted in March 2023. VOSviewer and content analysis were used to analyze the collected data.

The authors unveiled six distinct categories derived from the available literature on governance in ISF. These categories encompassed accountability, governance practice, performance, efficiency, Islamic accounting and governance awareness. Extensive deliberations have taken place regarding these six categories to enhance their prominence among ISF institutions. Furthermore, the findings of this study provided valuable directions for future research in this domain.

The use of English articles obtained from the Scopus database in this study ensured that the selected papers were of a significant standard of excellence within the specific realm of knowledge under examination.

Enhancing governance practice within ISF institutions could enhance their overall performance, thereby playing a crucial role in optimizing their contributions to societal and economic contexts.

This endeavor served as a means to enlighten numerous stakeholders regarding social finance institutions, fostering an environment of informed decision-making and effective governance that aligns with the principles of Islamic economics.

This study represents a pioneering bibliometric publication on the governance of ISF, providing academics with a robust basis for comprehending the evolving landscape of literature within this specific area of research.

The sharing economy, supported by digital platforms, efficiently matches the demand and supply of underused resources. Expanding globally and impacting different industries is offering a new path to sustainable resource consumption. The United Nations endorsed the sustainable development goals (SDGs), responding to a global call to end poverty, protect the environment and ensure that by 2030, everyone lives in peace and prosperity. Researchers have linked the sharing economy with SGDs, and extensive efforts have been exerted to quantify its impact.

Due to its evolving nature, especially in developing countries, there is a need for research to assess its promises and challenges from the SDG perspective. This research fills in this gap and contributes to the sharing economy studies by exploring its evolution within the framework of sustainable development goals, followed by an assessment of various methodologies for measuring the sharing economy and highlighting the significance of the web mining technique.

The proper implementation of this decentralized business model within a country is encouraging optimal resource use, lowering energy consumption and increasing long-term economic development. The sharing economy is a disruptive force that addresses the pillars of sustainability.

The research holds importance in addressing the achievement of the SDGs through the sharing economy, necessitating focus from policymakers and scholarly discourse on its merits. The transformative impact of the sharing economy poses questions about its encouragement or regulation, with the potential to disrupt established monopolies and possibly create new ones. Its successful implementation underscores the significance of effective data sharing and governance.

This research highlights age-specific barriers to employment for older workers and the gap between activation policy design and implementation, focusing on difficulties in extending working life under employment support services.

This research employed a qualitative approach, utilizing semi-structured interviews to gather perspectives on extending the working lives of older adults. Eighteen experienced social workers who worked in employment support services for older workers who aged fifty-five and above participated in the study.

This study underscores the importance of comprehensively understanding the heterogeneity of individuals' circumstances and emphasizes the impact of intersectionality on the development of extending working life. It incorporates individual and familial difficulties, including considering caregiving responsibilities, health issues and housing challenges before exploring employment-related concerns. The study also highlights external factors influencing older workers' employment prospects, including employer perspectives, government support levels and public recognition of the necessity to extend working life.

This research sheds light on the impact of welfare-related stigma, which imposes obstacles and inflexibility on older workers seeking employment. It ultimately contributes to the sustainability and dynamism of the Asia–Pacific workforce while also informing regional discussions on social security and welfare services.

It uniquely employs the perspectives of social workers providing employment support services to highlight challenges and policy gaps in extending the working lives of older workers in Hong Kong. It also provides practical insights into strategies and mechanisms for extending working life across diverse social contexts.