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This chapter summarizes the knowledge on sleep and restitution. Sleep constitutes the recuperative process of the central nervous system. The use of the brain during wakefulness will lead to depletion of energy in the cortical areas locally responsible for activity. The level of depletion is monitored and sleep is initiated when critical levels are reached. The attempts to initiate sleep are perceived as sleepiness or fatigue. The ensuing sleep then actively restores brain physiology to normal levels. This also results in restored alertness, memory capacity, and mood. Also, peripheral anabolic processes (secretion of growth hormone and testosterone) are strongly enhanced and catabolic process (secretion of cortisol and catecholamines) are strongly suppressed. In the long run, reduced or impaired sleep leads to metabolic diseases, depression, burnout, and mortality. Stress and irregular hours are among the main causes of disturbed sleep.

Torbjörn Åkerstedt, Ph.D. in psychology, 1979, is professor of behavioral physiology at Stockholm University and director of the Stress Research Institute, affiliated to Karolinska institute. He has been President of the Scandinavian Research Society, the European Sleep Research Society, and Secretary General of the World Federation of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine Societies. He has published more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals. The focus of his work has been on sleep regulation, sleep quality, sleepiness and risk, effects of shift work, and stress on sleep and sleepiness.

Presents a review on implementing finite element methods on supercomputers, workstations and PCs and gives main trends in hardware and software developments. An appendix included at the end of the paper presents a bibliography on the subjects retrospectively to 1985 and approximately 1,100 references are listed.

A handful of models and measures currently exist for the purpose of assessing student capacity for leading social change. Ample research suggests that students of different racial and gender identity groups exhibit various understandings, motivations, and behaviors related to social engagement and transformation, yet few studies take into consideration the potential for diverse students to interpret social-change-related survey scale items differently. Using a critical quantitative approach, this study compares factor loading patterns of the Social Issues Advocacy Scale (SIAS; Nilsson, et al., 2011) across eight race/gender subgroups to test the extent to which the factor structure remains invariant. Findings suggest that intersections of race and gender do influence how scale items cluster together. This study lends support for critical quantitative research designs that examine social phenomena using a specific-group approach, and calls for scholars to consider the cultural validity of scales used to measure capacity for social justice leadership.

Acute and chronic pain affects more Americans than heart disease, diabetes, and cancer combined. Conservative estimates suggest the total economic cost of pain in the United States is $600 billion, and more than half of this cost is due to lost productivity, such as absenteeism, presenteeism, and turnover. In addition, an escalating opioid epidemic in the United States and abroad spurred by a lack of safe and effective pain management has magnified challenges to address pain in the workforce, particularly the military. Thus, it is imperative to investigate the organizational antecedents and consequences of pain and prescription opioid misuse (POM). This chapter provides a brief introduction to pain processing and the biopsychosocial model of pain, emphasizing the relationship between stress, emotional well-being, and pain in the military workforce. We review personal and organizational risk and protective factors for pain, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, optimism, perceived organizational support, and job strain. Further, we discuss the potential adverse impact of pain on organizational outcomes, the rise of POM in military personnel, and risk factors for POM in civilian and military populations. Lastly, we propose potential organizational interventions to mitigate pain and provide the future directions for work, stress, and pain research.

The purpose of this is to add both to the development of complex systems thinking in the subject area of operations and production management and to the limited number of applications of computational models and simulations from the science of complex systems. The latter potentially offer helpful decision‐support tools for operations and production managers.

A mechanical engineering firm was used as a case study where a combined qualitative and quantitative methodological approach was employed to extract the required data from four senior managers. Company performance measures as well as firm technologies, practices and policies, and their relation and interaction with one another, were elicited. The data were subjected to an evolutionary complex systems (ECS) model resulting in a series of simulations.

The findings highlighted the effects of the diversity in management decision making on the firm's evolutionary trajectory. The CEO appeared to have the most balanced view of the firm, closely followed by the marketing and research and development managers. The manufacturing manager's responses led to the most extreme evolutionary trajectory where the integrity of the entire firm came into question particularly when considering how employees were utilised.

By drawing directly from the opinions and views of managers, rather than from logical “if‐then” rules and averaged mathematical representations of agents that characterise agent‐based and other self‐organisational models, this work builds on previous applications by capturing a micro‐level description of diversity that has been problematical both in theory and application.

This approach can be used as a decision‐support tool for operations and other managers providing a forum with which to explore: the strengths, weaknesses and consequences of different decision‐making capacities within the firm; the introduction of new manufacturing technologies, practices and policies; and the different evolutionary trajectories that a firm can take.

With the inclusion of “micro‐diversity”, ECS modelling moves beyond the self‐organisational models that populate the literature but has not as yet produced a great many practical simulation results. This work is a step in that direction.

The overall goal of this chapter is to critique the purported business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, which persists as a major contentious force in convincing companies to become more sustainable. Extant literature on sustainability, CSR and Socially Responsible Investments (SRIs) generally tends to focus on company perspectives decision-making and approaches. This chapter considers an alternative and under-developed perspective and examines CSR from a consumer/public perspective situated in a German context.

This chapter builds a comprehensive literature review and employs a research philosophical point of view underpinned by a social constructionist stance. It examines indicators and attitudes towards sustainability and sustainable consumption together with socially responsible investments and considers whether the buying patterns of German consumers may serve as a rationalisation for a potential business case for CSR and sustainability.

While the awareness of consumers of CSR in Germany towards sustainability tends to be generally relatively prima facie high, it is nevertheless noticeable that German consumers are predominately reluctant to pay a price premium for product possessing a superior sustainability performance. From the alternative lens of SRIs, rather than being a replete and widespread phenomenon, they are still largely a niche market. For these reasons, the potential for the existence of a business case for sustainability, CSR and SRIs tends in reality to be low, in spite of some populist or survey reports and perceptions.

The chapter links a consumer perspective with the business case for CSR. Moreover, it focuses on the German context which tends to be underrepresented in international research.