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Nurse banks are locally organized in‐house sources of temporary nursing staff. Reports on a study of policy and practice in the management of nurse banks in the National Health Service in Scotland. The study was based on a census survey of all 55 NHS units in Scotland (100 per cent response rate). Examines management rationales in establishing a nurse bank, explores costs and benefits of managing a bank, and provides recommendations on good practice in maintaining continuity of care.

This paper aims to describe the experiences of the National Library of Wales in implementing an integrated information management system.

Discusses the stages involved in the procurement process, data migration and general system implementation.

Emphasises the need for a well‐prepared yet flexible approach to project planning, and the need for consultation and an ongoing dialogue with staff.

Describes the progress of the implementation to May 2007.

This paper provides a case study for libraries looking to procure and implement an information management system.

This experiment investigates the effect of cultural adaptation by American business people on their trustworthiness as perceived by Chinese Indonesians. The sample consists of 140 Indonesian professionals born and raised in Indonesia, who read one of the four stories that differ in degrees of Americans’ cultural adaptation: none, moderate, high using English, and high using the native (i.e., Indonesian) language. The results show that there is no difference among the four adaptation levels on disconfirmation of the adaptor’s stereo types. The high adaptation using English condition is perceived to be more situationally caused than is the high adaptation using the native language condition, which in turn is perceived to be more situationally caused than is the moderate adaptation condition, and the high adaptation using English condition is perceived to be more situationally caused than is the no adaptation condition. The high adaptation using the native language and the high adaptation using English conditions are perceived to be trustworthier than is the moderate adaptation condition, which in turn is perceived to be trustworthier than is the no adaptation condition; these results contradict the findings of some earlier studies but are consistent with those in the cases of Americans adapting to Thais and Japanese in Pornpitakpan (1998), to People’s Republic of China Chinese in Pornpitakpan (2002b), and to Malaysians in Pornpitakpan (2004). Marketing implications are discussed.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus has become a major concern of Australian healthcare providers. From rates of barely more than 1 percent in the mid-90s, diabetes is now the leading cause of morbidity in the country. To combat the growing diabetes epidemic, Western Sydney Local Health District created the Western Sydney Diabetes (WSD) initiative. One of the key components of the WSD initiative since 2014 has been joint specialist case conferencing (JSCC). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the JSCC service including both individual- and practice-based changes.

The authors evaluated the JSCC program by conducting an analysis of patient-level data in addition to a discrete practice-level study. The study aim was to examine both the effect on individual patients and the practice, as well as acceptability of the program for both doctors and their patients. The evaluation included data collection and analysis of primary patient outcomes, as well as a survey of GPs and patients. Patient data on primary outcomes were obtained by accessing and downloading them through GP practice management software by GP practice staff.

The authors found significant improvements at both the patient levels, with reductions in BMI, HbA1c and blood pressure sustained at three years, and at the practice level with improvements in markers of patient management. The authors also found high acceptability of the program from both patients and GPs.

This paper provides good evidence for the use of a JSCC program to improve diabetes management in primary care through capacity building with GPs.

The aim of the JUSTEIS project over the first three cycles (1999‐2002) was to examine the uptake and use of electronic information services in higher education in the UK, so that planning of services could be informed by trends in usage and evidence of specific needs. The objectives were to: examine which services were used by students and academic staff; how senior library staff planned services to purchase content and support its use; and examine how library and information services promoted services through their Web pages. Results over the three years explained the growing popularity of electronic journal services, the acceptance of the search engine model for information retrieval and the important role academic staff play in the promotion of electronic information services for student learning. Conclusions and recommendations concern the need for library and information staff to make their approach to integration of information skills into the curriculum appropriate for the discipline, the type of institution, and its strategy for implementation of any virtual or managed learning environment software.

This research evaluates the impact of sales promotional tools, namely coupon, price discount, free sample, bonus pack, and in‐store display, on product trial and repurchase behaviour of consumers. In addition, the moderation role of fear of losing face (or embarrassment) on the relationship between the sales promotional tools and product trial was examined. The sample points for the research were supermarkets in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. A total of 420 randomly selected customers were surveyed using structured questionnaire, out of which, 312 usable responses were received. The results of data analysis show that price discounts, free samples, bonus packs, and in‐store display are associated with product trial. Coupon does not have any significant effect on product trial. Trial determines repurchase behaviour and also mediates in the relationship between sales promotions and repurchase. Fear of losing face significantly moderates the relationship between in‐store display and product trial. Details of the findings and their implications are discussed.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

The paper seeks to report the impact of a partnership training intervention on trainee teachers' confidence to teach Personal, Social and Health Education.

This intervention required trainee teachers to work in 15 groups of four across subject disciplines. Each group was required to negotiate, plan and deliver their intended lesson on PSHE in a partnership school. The initiative was evaluated on a pre‐ and post‐test basis by getting each trainee to complete a PSHE Key Skills Confidence Scale that consisted of 45 items, 25 pertaining to working together and 20 to communication.

Results revealed a significant change in trainees' confidence in all of the key PSHE‐related skills. Trainee teachers reported increased confidence in “agreeing what else could have been done to improve working relationships and methods”, “using role play strategies”, “reaching agreement on whether or not the activity fulfilled its objectives”, “considering strategies that will empower pupils to make informed choices about their health”, “determining pupils' attitudes and views of health and healthy living”; “ensuring that pupils received information about the factors which affect health”, “identifying factors that influenced the learning outcome”, and “encouraging pupils to be assertive and resist unwanted peer pressure and other influences”.

It is recommended that all trainee teachers are assessed on their ability to deliver and evaluate PSHE lessons as part of the award of Qualified Teacher Status. Furthermore, it is essential that trainee teachers receive specific resistance/life skills training as part of their initial and continuing professional development.

Two perspectives provide alternative insights into household composition in contemporary Eastern Europe. The first stresses that individuals have relatively fixed preferences about living arrangements and diverge from them only when they cannot attain their ideal. The second major approach, the adaptive strategies perspective, predicts that individuals have few preferences. Instead, they use household composition to cope with economic hardship, deploy labor, or care for children or the elderly. This article evaluates these approaches in five post‐socialist East‐European countries, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Russia, using descriptive statistics and logistic regression. The results suggest that household extension is common in these countries and provide the most evidence for the adaptive strategies perspective. In particular, the results show that variables operationalizing the adaptive strategies perspective, including measures of single motherhood, retirement status, agricultural cultivation, and poverty, increase the odds of household extension.

This paper identifies ways in which community action can enhance the quality of life of older residents and reports specifically on four community gardening initiatives developed with older people living in disadvantaged communities in Manchester.

The Community Action in Later Life – Manchester Engagement (CALL_ME) project used an action research approach to engage older people. Older people and other stakeholders were actively involved in designing, planning and implementing the projects.

Drawing on a range of qualitative data, the paper provides evidence of how older people can be actively engaged in community projects, and explores the benefits of involvement including: enhanced well‐being, and increased socialisation, learning and empowerment. The challenges faced by the older people are also reported which include maintaining interest, recruiting new members and needing external support.

The paper also reports the implications for practice, discussing how gardening initiatives can involve and benefit older people and the wider community and the value of an action oriented approach in disadvantaged communities. Recommendations are made regarding ensuring sustainability of such projects by providing education and training to enhance participants' skills and build their confidence.

Whilst recognising the problems associated with living in disadvantaged communities, the CALL‐ME project takes a new approach and moves the focus to ways in which older people can become engaged in and benefit from community action, and empowered to sustain the projects they develop.