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A key development in early adolescence is the active construction of individual identity; for autistic young people, integrating the idea of “being autistic” forms part of this process. The purpose of this paper is to explore identity development from a contextualist perspective, foregrounding young people’s experiences within mainstream educational settings.

A longitudinal, qualitative methodology was used: semi-structured interviews were conducted annually with 14 autistic young people, their parents and teachers between school years 6 and 9.

Young people felt different from their neurotypical peers and their acceptance of their diagnosis changed over time as they managed their developing personal and public identities. In pursuit of being treated “normally,” many camouflaged their differences at school, which sometimes involved opting out of school-based support. Adults described their own understandings of autism and discussed the responses of others in the school environment to autistic differences.

The influence of sociocultural discourses of autism on young people’s identity development is discussed and implications for both school based and post-diagnostic support for young people and their families explored.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and extract various significant factors influencing the implementation of total quality management (TQM) and total productive maintenance (TPM) on business performance for the following approaches: TPM alone; both TQM-TPM combined for improving manufacturing performance in the Indian manufacturing industry.

In the present study, 94 manufacturing organizations have been extensively surveyed, to ascertain the contributions made by TQM and TPM initiatives in the Indian manufacturing industries toward realizing manufacturing performance improvements. The correlations between various TQM and TPM implementation issues and manufacturing performance improvements have been evaluated and validated by employing various statistical tools.

This paper illustrates how the synergistic relationship of TQM and TPM paradigms can be helpful for Indian manufacturing industries to enhance overall business performance. The major objectives of this research is to examine, the effectiveness of performance parameters (dependent variables) and factors of implementation (independent variables) of companies implementing TPM alone and TQM-TPM combined approach to improve their business performance and how the support of TQM provides a synergetic effect on TPM's contribution in improving better business performance.

TQM and TPM, are such popular initiatives employed by the manufacturing organizations as performance improvement techniques. These programs are employed world over for attaining customer satisfaction, reliability, productivity, market share, profitability and even survival. The study stresses upon the need for improving coordination between manufacturing parameters and other organizational quality improvement initiatives through transfusion of TQM and TPM and to examine the impact of experience in terms of time period on effectiveness of performance parameters when TQM is supported by TPM for Indian manufacturing companies.

A common criticism of research into information seeking on the internet is that information seekers are restricted by the demands of the researcher. Another criticism is that the search topics, are often imposed by the researcher, and; particularly when working with children, domain knowledge could be as important as information‐seeking skills. The research reported here attempts to address both these problems.

A total of 15 children, aged 11 to 16, were each set three “think aloud” internet searches. In the first, they were asked to recall the last time they had sought information on the internet, and to repeat the search. For the second, they were given a word, asked to interpret it, then asked to search for their interpretation. For the third, they were asked to recall the last time they had been unsuccessful in a search, and to repeat the search. While performing each task, the children were encouraged to explain their actions.

The paper finds that the factors that determined a child's ability to search successfully appeared to be: the amount of experience the child had of using the internet; the amount of guidance, both from adults and from peers; and the child's ability to explore the virtual environment, and to use the tools available for so doing.

Many of the searches performed by participants in this paper were not related to schoolwork, and so some of the search approaches differed from those taught by teachers. Instead, they evolved through exploration and exchange of ideas. Further studies of this sort could provide insights of value to designers of web environments.

Feelings about conflict in labor relations are determined by both the objective conditions surrounding the dimension of labor relations and their subjective evaluation. This study aims to examine features of the subjective evaluation factors in labor relations for new generation employees born in the post-1980s, transitional China, and to explore the conflict reduction strategies in labor relations.

This study designed items and a scale to measure employees’ subjective evaluation bias regarding labor relations, and conducted a survey of 1,500 employees in 80 Chinese enterprises. It conducted a principal components analysis of the subjective evaluation biases, and a covariance analysis to explore differences in the common factors between employees of two generations. Comparing the subjective bias with the objective status of labor relations, as well as with employers’ expectations, this study analyzed the feelings toward conflict and conflict management strategies.

There are eight common factors in the subjective evaluation bias toward labor relations, four of which show significant differences between employees of two generations. Employers should study these differences, and apply conflict reduction measures to manage labor relations.

This is one of the first studies to propose the concept of a subjective evaluation bias regarding labor relations, and examine the common factors and features among new generation employees. It establishes a model for feelings toward conflict through four combinations of the subjective preferences and objective status dimensions. This study offers new insights for reducing workplace conflict.

This study investigated what are the effective leadership styles and practices that boost employees’ work outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of facilities management professionals (FMPs).

Three predominant leadership styles (transformational, transactional contingent reward and disaster management) were operationalized into 38 leadership practices (X variables) and 8 work outcomes (Y variables). The explanatory sequential research design was adopted. Online questionnaire survey was first conducted on FMPs who managed facilities during the critical periods of COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore. In-depth interviews were then carried out with subject matter experts to elaborate on the quantitative findings.

During the pandemic, FMPs were significantly stressed at work, but also experienced significant job satisfaction and satisfaction with their leaders/supervisors. Statistical results revealed a range of leadership practices that are significantly correlated with FMPs’ work outcomes. One leadership practice is critical as it affects 4 of the 8 FMPs’ work outcomes - frequently acknowledging employees’ good performance during the pandemic.

The study explored 3 leadership styles. There are other styles like laissez faire and servant leadership that might also affect work outcomes.

Based on the findings, suggestions were provided to organizations that employ FMPs on how to improve their work outcomes during a crisis such as a pandemic.

The novelty is the discovery that in the context of a global disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the most relevant leadership styles to boost employees’ work outcomes are transactional contingent reward and disaster management leadership. The study adds to knowledge by showing that not one leadership style is superior – all 3 styles are complementary, but distinct, forms of leadership that need to work in tandem to boost FMPs’ work outcomes during a crisis such as a pandemic.

The problem solved is that of an initially curved circumferential skin strip, representing a section of the panel midway between frames, continuous over the stringers which act as sinking supports and transfer part of the internal pressure load to the frames. The remainder of the pressure load produces hoop tension in the skin strip, but the maximum total stress including bending in the skin at the stringer, which is evaluated, is usually greater than would arise from hoop tension alone, in an unstiffened shell.

This study aims to solve the problem of job scheduling and multi automated guided vehicle (AGV) cooperation in intelligent manufacturing workshops.

In this study, an algorithm for job scheduling and cooperative work of multiple AGVs is designed. In the first part, with the goal of minimizing the total processing time and the total power consumption, the niche multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is used to determine the processing task arrangement on different machines. In the second part, AGV is called to transport workpieces, and an improved ant colony algorithm is used to generate the initial path of AGV. In the third part, to avoid path conflicts between running AGVs, the authors propose a simple priority-based waiting strategy to avoid collisions.

The experiment shows that the solution can effectively deal with job scheduling and multiple AGV operation problems in the workshop.

In this paper, a collaborative work algorithm is proposed, which combines the job scheduling and AGV running problem to make the research results adapt to the real job environment in the workshop.

The purpose of this research is to study the information‐seeking habits of children at an English secondary school. Data from two different research exercises were collated in order to provide an insight into how students perceived and used a range of information resources.

In the first research exercise, groups of children from each academic year were asked to discuss a set of information resources and to rank them according to perceived usefulness. In the second, students were asked to report, throughout the school year, on the resources they used to complete homework assignments.

The findings from these two exercises are best interpreted by using them to provide the answers to three questions: Which information resources did students consider to be the most useful? Which information resources did students use the most? When an information resource was referred to, how likely was it that students found it to be useful? The rankings differed considerably, depending on which question was being asked.

The results gave an insight into how different information resources were used for different subjects. They also provide evidence of the fact that students' reliance on other people as an information source begins to decline as they get older, and there is a corresponding increase in their use of books and electronic information sources.

This paper aims to introduce a research project investigating school library impact across the four home nations of the UK. The research aims to identify whether there are key contributions afforded by a school library or learning resource centre and by a school librarian, and if so, to offer case models and approaches which may be used to inform strategy and practice. The paper also aims to discuss the pilot phase of the research and explore the nature of impact assessment for school libraries adopted in American studies and UK literacy research, weighing their advantages and drawbacks. Consequent on this, it seeks to define a mixed‐method approach for this study, combining multiple surveys and more detailed interviewing and focus group research within a selected and balanced sample of schools across the four home nations, and a correlation with school performance ranking.

An online survey has been developed for circulation to secondary school students in all four of the UK home nations, mapping their perceptions and expectations of the place of the LRC and of the librarian within their school experience. Secondary schools in all four home nations were ranked according to Ofsted evaluation and league table performance. A sample of schools was selected from each nation and interviews are currently being conducted with management, teaching staff, librarians and with focus groups of school pupils. This is complemented by a survey of a sample of higher education students in different disciplines to identify their view of the contribution of the school library to preparedness for university study.

Findings from the pilot phase of the research tend to support the hypothesis that a correlation may be traced between good library provision and positive pupil engagement with reading and information skills. Should the full research project discover positive stories in schools without an active library or librarian, this will complement the identification of critical success factors, towards informing possible library advocacy action and policy approaches. A key issue identified from the pilot phase for impact research in schools is that pupils and teachers both have considerable difficulty in articulating how they experience the differences that libraries and librarians contribute. A case bank of good practice material collected is being developed at University College London.

For maximum validity, the in‐depth sample schools should include examples with and without a LRC and/or a school librarian, and both high and low performing schools. It is anticipated that the final profile may under‐represent schools without a LRC and/or school librarian, where it has been found harder to engage cooperation from head teachers in participation in this study. Ideally, evidence of impact would require close mapping, at the individual pupil level, of performance and engagement with the library; this research does not include such mapping at a systematic level across all the sample schools.

This research contributes to a key recommendation emerging from the work of the School Library Commission, by filling a gap in impact research on British secondary school libraries.

Economic aspects of a resource discovery network (RDN) consisting of a centre and eight subject‐based hubs were explored using Ithink Analyst, a modelling software package. A model was developed and simulations were used to monitor the effect of variations in the values of key model elements. The model was based on a recent report which suggested that a RDN could survive on a combination of grant funding and sponsorship. Model elements were manipulated to determine the level of sponsorship required for a RDN to be self sustaining within ten years if grant funding contributed 50% of required income. Additional simulations were used to explore the feasibility of subscription as an income source. The results suggest that with a combination of sponsorship and subscriptions income a RDN could succeed without grant funding within ten years of its launch.