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This paper reviews current and proposed fieldbus standards that affect Europe. Relevant technologies and the formation of standards are shown. The initial goal of a single global standard and the recognition of a number of emerging de facto standards are discussed, as is the potential future standardisation of fieldbus technology.

The traditional use of fieldbus is discussed. Examples of novel applications enabled by fieldbus are introduced. Work on temporary fieldbus connectivity that allows more robust and simple tool change mechanisms is then described.

Measuring “impact” is an important aspect of the dissemination of evidence-based practice and relevant to all disciplines. However, it has only recently become a focus of enquiry and is not commonly directly researched within the learning disabilities field. The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of developing a logic model for the UK Positive Behavioural Support (PBS) Academy as part of an evaluation and impact study of its work to date.

Logic models are a visual representation of the relationship between a project’s resources, activities and outputs and identified outcomes, in relation to key stakeholder groups. This representation allows for key impact measures to be identified and can be a useful tool for evaluation purposes. The authors used the process outlined by McLaughlin and Jordan (1998) to develop a bespoke logic model for the PBS Academy.

The model was particularly helpful in making clear the distinction between output and impact, identifying impact criteria differentiated by stakeholder group and across time scales, and highlighting areas of activity that are needed to increase the impact of the work of the PBS Academy in the longer term.

In the absence of any generalised impact evaluation frameworks in the learning disabilities field, the authors suggest that logic models may provide a useful framework for evaluating the impact of policy, practice, and research interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to expose inefficient regulatory policies and organizational weaknesses at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that have contributed to a series of regulatory oversights that have produced some of the largest fraud schemes perpetrated on investors.

Sources of information consisted of scholarly articles and articles retrieved from the web.

Findings suggest that although weaknesses that have been exposed at the SEC may not account for any one securities fraud oversight, cumulatively, the weaknesses create negative synergy that increases the probability that a regulatory oversight will occur.

This paper serves as a useful guide to alert and educate securities regulators and enforcement, regardless of the country they may operate in, to examine their own regulatory policies and organizational structures for weakness that may be similar to the SEC.

There has been a significant reawakening of interest in the applicability of action learning as a paradigm for management development, particularly as a pedagogical device in both classroom and executive development contexts. This development has occurred against a background of a wider re‐examination of the theory and practice of management education and development. Fundamentally, this re‐examination has been stimulated by criticism of the static, content‐oriented approach as inappropriate to the changing environment of the 1990s. In particular, there is a shift required for effective management: business schools will have to focus on the day‐to‐day realities of the business world, develop communication and leadership skills and emphasise continuous attention to the links between theory and practice. The implications are twofold: first, the range of teaching techniques must be extended to include process‐oriented approaches; second, and more fundamentally, there is a need for an expanded definition of the learning arena itself, and of the role of management schools within that. Renewed interest in and attention to the concept of the learning company, and to processes of both individual and organisational learning, redefines the context within which these changes are taking place. Reviews a number of key developments in this understanding of contemporary management education and development, and presents a summary of a new programme built as an action‐ and implementation‐oriented approach to entrepreneurial senior executive development. This programme aims to support the development of leadership in both large and smaller, growth‐oriented, companies, in a partnership which breaches the conventional separation both between the encapsulated learning arenas of the university and the organisation and between management and entrepreneurship education and development. This partnership emphasises the impact of intra‐group and interorganisational learning on both the participants and on the context of their organisations.

Firms embrace environmental management strategies for a number of reasons. Government regulation pushes firms to comply with environmental standards, thereby creating a need for companies to manage environmental performance outcomes. Pressure for good environmental performance is also exerted by a variety of stakeholders including investors, customers, non-governmental organizations, local communities, and employees. Increasingly, the investment community has recognized that environmental performance is closely linked to firm value. In Measuring the Future: The Value Creation Index, a 2000 study of intangible drivers of firm value by Cap Gemini Ernst and Young, environmental performance was ranked as a key intangible driver of firm value. Financial measures of firm value have also been empirically linked to environmental liabilities (Barth & McNichols, 1994; Blacconiere & Northcut, 1997; Hughes, 2000), environmental awards (Klassen & McLaughlin, 1996), and to toxic emissions (King & Lenox, 2002). Increasingly, customer demands drive firms to embrace better environmental management practices. For example, both Ford and General Motors require that their suppliers achieve environmental management certification under the International Standards Organization (ISO) 14001 guidelines, and many other large organizations are following suit. From a starting point in 1995 of just 257 ISO 14001 certifications awarded to facilities in 19 countries, the latest data available for 2004 shows that over 90,000 certifications have been awarded to facilities in 127 countries around the world (ISO, 2005). In addition to implementing an environmental strategy as a reaction to external pressures, managers realize that effective environmental performance leads to more favorable internal outcomes. The operational performance outcomes associated with implementing a proactive environmental strategy include reduced waste and discharges, increased efficiency, reduced energy and resource costs, lower risk and liability, better corporate reputation, and reduced compliance costs (Sharma & Vredenburg, 1998; Hart & Ahuja, 1996; Hart, 1995).