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The purpose of this study was to develop and apply new physical heart defect models (PHDMs) that are patient-specific and color-coded with an optimized map.

Heart defect anatomies were segmented from medical images and reconstructed to form virtual models, which were then color-coded and rapid prototyped. The resulting PHDMs were used in a medical educational study to evaluate their pedagogical efficacy and in clinical case studies to investigate their utility in surgical planning.

A growing library of 36 PHDMs (including the most common defects) was generated. Results from the educational study showed that the PHDMs enabled uniquely effective learning, and the clinical case studies indicated that the models added value as surgical planning aids.

The education study involved a limited number of students, so future work should consider a larger sample size. The clinical case studies favored use of the PHDMs in surgical planning, but provided only qualitative support.

Workflow optimization is critical for PHDMs to be used effectively in surgical planning because some operations must be performed in emergently.

Because PHDMs have potential to influence surgeons’ actions as surgical planning aids, their use in that context must be thoroughly vetted.

The proposed models represent the first PHDMs that are patient-specific and fully color-coded with a standardized map optimized for the human visual system. The models enhanced medical education and facilitated effective surgical planning in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to help the researchers sought to take a closer look at the technology challenges facing district superintendents in today’s leadership climate.

The authors chose semi-structured interviews as the data collection method. Through 45 min, one-on-one, semi-structured telephone interviews, the researchers were able to collect data about overcoming the challenges of being a modern technology-savvy superintendent.

Through the analysis, the authors identified four themes related to the challenges faced by these district leaders, including meeting the needs of stakeholders, supporting professional development, fostering mindset changes and addressing a fear of the unknown.

This study only relied on interviews and did not examine evidence from the field, such as site visits or artifact examination.

This study provides the field with insights into the role of the change-ready district leaders who foster lasting technology-infused transformation.

While challenges for any district leader wishing to make long-lasting change exist, there are district leaders today who embody second-order change leadership when overcoming the challenge of school technology leadership. These technology-savvy superintendents play an important role as whole-system change agents.

This study highlighted that there many district leaders today who embody second-order change leadership in helping move their districts forward.

Total quality management (TQM) calls for a change of culture that requires employee involvement at all levels and a spirit of teamwork among all the stakeholders in corporations. Employee involvement, participation, and empowerment form the cornerstones of TQM. Involvement implies interaction between individuals, groups, and teams. However, managers who are used to a paternalistic and dictatorial mode of management will have difficulty in making TQM work. Chinese management philosophy and systems are not in harmony with the modern concept that encourages employee involvement and participative management. This paper discusses various factors that may lead to the failure of TQM programmes in Chinese firms in Hong Kong based on the information collected by the author in a recent study.

This study aims to develop a model for coordination and communication overhead in distributed software development through case study analysis in the Indian outsourcing software industry. The model is based on business knowledge, which can be classified as domain, regulatory, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge as per existing literature.

Double case study method was used to verify an existing knowledge–management framework of software development from the literature. The stakeholders of both the cases were interviewed, and project documents were verified to reach conclusions.

The findings supported the business knowledge classification from the literature. The concept can be used to analyze the software project in a distributed environment.

The research work findings are based only on two case studies. The study findings cannot be generalized and should be used as a learning tool. There can be large variations of project characteristics with differences in business knowledge requirements. The research shows the importance of business knowledge transfer in global software development.

Projects managers in the distributed software development environment can use the findings in project planning and work allocation for better control over cost and schedule, etc.

There is little research works attempted to study the business knowledge classification in the global software industry making the research novel.

The purpose of this paper is to perform a brief examination of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the progress towards IFRS convergence in the accounting environments of China and the USA, providing useful information on the current status and future of IFRS convergence in these countries.

A range of IFRS-related literature from 1993 to 2013 was analyzed to provide the current status of IFRS and to determine the past, present and future of IFRS convergence in the country examinations.

IFRS convergence and adoption has occurred on a global scale due to the call for a single set of standards. China's most significant obstacles include training accounting professionals and becoming more involved in the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) standard setting process. The USA's most significant obstacle is completing the Securities and Exchange Commission roadmap milestones, which will progressively move the accounting industry towards IFRS convergence.

These findings have been limited to an overview of IFRS convergence and adoption within China and the USA. Additional research opportunities exist by examining how successful countries have been in protecting individual economic interests by working with the IASB in the standard setting process for the IFRS, as opposed to being passive in the process. One economic indicator that should be examined is foreign direct investment, which has major impacts on country development and can be influenced by financial standards such as IFRS.

China and the USA both have milestones identified in this paper that will need to be reached before benefits may be reaped from the converging to IFRS.

These findings show that IFRS standards are being implemented globally in many nations, providing a common set of reporting tools to businesses and investors. Through these standards, China and the USA are working to be even more competitive forces in financial markets.

Those who work to develop and manage community-based leadership programs have long been concerned with how to sustain them – to keep them healthy and useful. But focusing on how to sustain programs requires exploring what sustainability means. This paper reports on interviews with 41 community-based leadership education program coordinators. In contrast to their definitions of success, which emphasize impacting individuals and communities, interviewees defined program sustainability more as having enough participants, adequate funding, continuity, community support, and alumni involvement in program management. The paper explores the nuances of these definitions, including internal aspects of sustainability over which program managers had significant control, and external conditions over which they had less control. The paper also explores differences in perspectives between coordinators of programs sponsored by Chambers of Commerce and those sponsored by Cooperative Extension and universities or nonprofits.

Online learning in higher education has, until most recently, been delivered primarily through learning management systems (LMS) such as BlackBoard, Moodle, and others. However, responding to budgetary concerns and burgeoning enrollments, delivery of online learning via multiple open source (free) formats, is quickly becoming an attractive and inexpensive option for online distance and learning programs. Multi-user virtual environments, or MUVEs, are one such option that provides an interactive and socially rich learning experience for learners. In this chapter, the authors propose a dually fused pedagogical framework that has the potential to provide both asynchronous and synchronous online learning activities the elicit critical thinking skills and that further align with additional skills twenty-first century learners and instructors need to compete in today's global society.

This article aims to analyse the relationship between the environmental, social and governance (ESG) score and the cost of capital of 600 large, mid and small capitalization companies across 17 countries that are component of the EURO STOXX 600 Index. By examining whether ESG has an impact on the cost of capital, this article contributes to the solutions to improve the impact of organizations and societies on sustainable development. The article further examines whether the effect is because of the environmental, social and/or governance components. In addition, the article analyses which WACC component (i.e. the cost of equity, the cost of debt, the beta or the leverage ratio) is affected. Furthermore, this article analyses whether a high ESG score can substitute for a weaker legal environment.

The results were obtained by using ordinary least squares panel data modelling to analyse the relationship between the ESG score and the cost of capital. The sample consists of companies that are part of the STOXX Europe 600 Index over the period 2018–2021, which is composed of 600 companies, including large, mid and small capitalization firms listed across 17 countries. The sample finally includes 1,960 firm-year observations.

Companies with a higher ESG score tend to have a lower cost of capital, but this relationship holds only for firms domiciled in countries with a weaker legal environment. In addition, these firms should not only increase their ESG score to create a more sustainable environment but also to reduce their cost of debt. Environmental and social factors have a significantly negative impact on the cost of capital only in countries with a weaker legal environment, while the governance component positively impacts the cost of capital by allowing firms to borrow more.

There is not yet a standardized taxonomy to define ESG, making the study dependent on commercial data providers.

The new insights can be used by companies domiciled in countries with weaker legal environments to reduce their cost of capital. The results also allow us to know on which components of the ESG score to focus. It can also help policymakers, specifically those in countries with a weaker legal environment, to provide incentives to further stimulate ESG investments and disclosure, thereby contributing to a more sustainable society.

To achieve the sustainable development goals put forward by the United Nations, it is important for firms to invest in ESG projects. It is nevertheless insightful to know whether these ESG investments, which are currently observed as a cost, also provide benefits to firms and in which countries. If firms clearly see the advantages of investing in ESG projects, they are likely to proactively engage in them.

This article is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to focus on 17 European countries, thereby capturing divergent legal environments. This setting allows us to answer the main novel research question, namely, whether the ESG score can act as a substitute for the legal environment in which the company is domiciled. The article also goes further than previous articles by examining whether the effect is because of the environmental, social and/or governance component and whether these impact the components of the weighted cost of capital, namely, the cost of equity, the cost of debt, the beta or the leverage ratio of the companies.