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The purpose of this paper is to present the question and answer (Q/A) to provide an opportunity for two seasoned academic business librarians to share their experiences with courses in entrepreneurship in their universities.

Question and answer.

The evolving business school curricular landscape, and especially an increase in courses in entrepreneurship, presents unique opportunities for engagement, visibility and centrality for academic business librarians.

Entrepreneurship is increasingly valued in today’s world. To be successful, entrepreneurs must successfully deal with and navigate a highly complex information landscape. Academic business librarians are positioned to help student, faculty and future entrepreneurs alike learn the skills to successfully traverse this landscape.

We develop a Bayesian approach for modeling brain activation and connectivity from functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) data. Our approach simultaneously estimates local hemodynamic response functions (HRFs) and activation parameters, as well as global effective and functional connectivity parameters. Existing methods assume identical HRFs across brain regions, which may lead to erroneous conclusions in inferring activation and connectivity patterns. Our approach addresses this limitation by estimating region-specific HRFs. Additionally, it enables neuroscientists to compare effective connectivity networks for different experimental conditions. Furthermore, the use of spike and slab priors on the connectivity parameters allows us to directly select significant effective connectivities in a given network.

We include a simulation study that demonstrates that, compared to the standard generalized linear model (GLM) approach, our model generally has higher power and lower type I error and bias than the GLM approach, and it also has the ability to capture condition-specific connectivities. We applied our approach to a dataset from a stroke study and found different effective connectivity patterns for task and rest conditions in certain brain regions of interest (ROIs).

The Leap Motion represents a new generation of depth sensing cameras designed for close range tracking of hands and fingers, operating with minimal latency and high spatial precision (0.01 mm). The purpose of this paper is to develop virtual reality (VR) simulations of three well-known hand-based rehabilitation tasks using a commercial game engine and utilising a Leap camera as the primary mode of interaction. The authors present results from an initial evaluation by professional clinicians of these VR simulations for use in their hand and finger physical therapy practice.

A cross-disciplinary team of researchers collaborated with a local software company to create three dimension interactive simulations of three hand focused rehabilitation tasks: Cotton Balls, Stacking Blocks, and the Nine Hole Peg Test. These simulations were presented to a group of eight physiotherapists and occupational therapists (n=8) based in the Regional Acquired Brain Injury Unit, Belfast Health, and Social Care Trust for evaluation. After induction, the clinicians attempted the tasks presented and provided feedback by filling out a questionnaire.

Results from questionnaires (using a Likert scale 1-7, where 1 was the most favourable response) revealed a positive response to the simulations with an overall mean score across all questions equal to 2.59. Clinicians indicated that the system contained tasks that were easy to understand (mean score 1.88), and though it took several attempts to become competent, they predicted that they would improve with practice (mean score 2.25). In general, clinicians thought the prototypes provided a good illustration of the tasks required in their practice (mean score 2.38) and that patients would likely be motivated to use the system (mean score 2.38), especially young patients (mean score 1.63), and in the home environment (mean score 2.5).

Cameras offer an unobtrusive and low maintenance approach to tracking user motion in VR therapy in comparison to methods based on wearable technologies. This paper presents positive results from an evaluation of the new Leap Motion camera for input control of VR simulations or games. This mode of interaction provides a low cost, easy to use, high-resolution system for tracking fingers and hands, and has great potential for home-based physical therapies, particularly for young people.

Despite consumers being essential stakeholders in the exponential growth of the sharing economy, consumers’ attitudes towards their rights and responsibilities are relatively unknown. This study aims to test a novel hypothesised model mapping consumers’ attitudes towards their consumer rights and responsibilities with that of their political ideology (liberalism, conservatism and libertarianism) and moral foundations (avoiding harm/fairness, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity).

Two survey studies were conducted with consumers of the Uber ride share service; the first being to test measures of political ideology and consumer rights/responsibilities. These measures were then taken into the second study along with the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. The hypothesised model was tested using structural equation modelling.

The findings suggest that political ideology associates with similarities and differences in how consumers perceive their rights and responsibilities in the sharing economy, including mutual self-regulation. Support for these findings is established by identifying links with specific moral foundations.

This study considers a single participant in the sharing economy.

Little is known about how and why pilots are useful in the context of organisational change. There has similarly been little attention to processes of distributed leadership in organisational change. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical argument relating to how key aspects shaping organisational change can be addressed by distributed change leadership through the mechanism of pilots.

The paper contribution is to review extant literature on change management and distributed leadership to build a model of distributed change leadership.

The paper outlines how the model of distributed change leadership can be applied through a pilot strategy to help engender commitment and learning, as well as contextualising the change to cope with the complexities of the situation.

The paper concludes with a discussion on the opportunities distributed leadership through pilots can bring to the effectiveness of organisational change interventions. The paper identifies a series of research propositions to help guide future directions for research. Finally the paper explores practical implications of the suggestions.

There is an absence of discussion on distributed leadership within the context of change management. Further the mechanism of pilots shaped by distributed leadership has not been explored. This paper is intended to provide a stimulus for exploring this important area in terms of shaping thinking and designs for organisational change to enhance effectiveness.

Undergraduate legal studies classrooms are ideal places in which to engage discourses on judging, and to invite students to analyze and understand contemporary cultural and political representations of the proper roles of judges and judging in democracies. This chapter examines undergraduate understandings of judicial independence and judicial activism, via class discussions surrounding the judicial retention election in Iowa in 2010. The election was occasioned by the groundbreaking state supreme court case Varnum et al. v. Brien (2009), legalizing same-sex marriage in the state. Drawing on participant–observation research as a professor in these courses, and examining student dialogue, class discussion, and web-board postings on the topic, I find that legal studies students are able to articulate a complex range of views regarding the judiciary, judicial activism, and same-sex marriage. Their ability to engage in (mostly) civil discourse on the topic of judging is of particular societal importance, given the limitations of contemporary public discourses about judging. These findings point, as well, to the potential role for engaged academics in expanding and contextualizing public conversations about judicial independence, judicial activism, and rights. The chapter also highlights, however, limits in that educational experience, in particular students' lionization of legal processes, simultaneous to their cynicism about, and lack of engagement in, electoral/political processes. This points to the development of interdisciplinary legal studies curricula as a means toward effective education for democracy.

The main purpose of this paper is to present some of the findings of a PhD research project. The findings are related to issues of integration of the key players in the control of healthcare associated infections (HAI) in FM services. Out of the FM services, the focus of the study was limited only to domestic services.

Most of what is put forward in this paper is based on a PhD research project which is at its final stages. The findings are grounded on a case study approach and a questionnaire survey approach, carried out as part of the research. Informal interviews with infection control experts in the national health service (NHS) in Scotland and a thorough review of literature also provided useful insights to make conclusions of this paper.

It is evident from a thorough review of literature that the integration between the clinical teams and domestic teams is vital in order to ensure well maintained standards in the control of HAI in domestic services. However, the findings of the case studies and questionnaire survey suggest that, at present, there is less integration between domestic teams and clinical teams (mainly infection control team members). This is mostly due to the fact that the clinical teams and domestic teams consider themselves as two separate entities. This is obvious especially when the domestic service is managed by an external party (e.g. PFI contractor). However, many UK government studies have shown that there is no correlation between contracting‐out and HAI. Therefore, the solution (to control HAI) is not to rush and bring cleaning contracts back in‐house, but to take steps to create and improve communication and coordination between the domestic teams and clinical teams. More empirical research is, therefore, needed to resolve the issue of “integration” in order to create a “friendly” and a “coordinative” environment in hospitals.

Targeted guidelines on the role of domestic services in the control of HAI as well as the paucity of relevant literature on related areas could be considered as limitations.

The cultural issues between the clinical teams and non‐clinical teams (particularly domestic teams in this study point of view) are major implications to adopt a team‐based approach in the control of HAI.

The paper focuses on one of the major issues in healthcare, i.e. HAI. Few have taken an FM perspective on this issue. It is worthwhile to note that, at the time of this research, there was only a handful of literature on the aforementioned issue. Besides, none of the literature has discussed the issue of involvement and integration particularly with regard to control of HAI in domestic services. Many of the case study participants and survey respondents also commended the in‐depth interest taken on the aforementioned issue. This paper, therefore, adds a significant value to healthcare research and research on FM.

This paper examines a data set that has its origins in European Social Fund Objective 4 financed training programmes in small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Britain to examine the extent to which three different personal development outcomes are attributable to different types of skills acquired during the training process. The three outcomes in question are: whether an individual gains more confidence at the workplace; whether an individual obtains a qualification; and whether an individual quits the company at which the training took place. To the extent that it is possible to isolate one skill dimension from an inherently multi‐dimensional bundle, it is observed that some of these skill dimensions have important, if sometimes different, impacts on the likelihood that the outcome in question occurs.

This paper examines differences and similarities between private and public sectors regarding green supply: the incorporation of environmental considerations into procurement and supply chain relationships. While there are considerable differences between the sectors, there are two key areas of similarity. Firstly, responses in both sectors are heavily influenced by organisational structure and patterns of decision-making and information flow. Secondly, the success of green supply initiatives appears to be heavily dependent on organisation’s ability to align activity with dominant corporate objectives.