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Purpose – Crime, criminals, the criminal justice system, and criminal justice system actors have traditionally occupied a prominent place in popular media. Comic books and graphic novels are no exception to this trend. Despite this, these media have received comparatively little attention from criminal justice scholars. This chapter seeks to explore the depiction of crime and justice in modern-era comic books and graphic novels.

Methodology/approach – Content analysis techniques were used to examine 166 individual comic books from the modern age (mid-1980s to present), including those compiled in graphic novel form. Particular emphasis was placed on issues of crime control and due process.

Findings – Clear criminal justice themes were seen across the sample, including an emphasis on crime control and crime prevention. Further, comic books featuring the individual characters of Superman and Batman portrayed opposing conceptions of justice, such as justified/unjustified use of force and a willingness to follow or break the law.

Research limitations – This research represents an exploration of the depiction of crime-related themes in comic books and graphic novels, but is by no means definitive. It would be useful to extend this research by examining other eras in comic book history as well as other comic book characters and publishing companies.

Practical implications – The public's perceptions of the criminal justice system ultimately affect societal views of the legitimacy of the system. Since legitimacy is a requisite for compliance, it is important to understand factors that may influence these perceptions. These may include comic books, graphic novels, and other popular media.

Originality/value of paper – Comic books stories and themes have long reflected the times. However, it is unclear how crime and the criminal justice system are portrayed in the comic book world. This chapter is an attempt to fill a gap in the extant literature by examining this often neglected form of popular media.

COVID-19 has shaken views of what is normal and what is possible, raising questions about conventional norms, ways of working and our understanding of agility. This paper aims to respond to calls for empirical research of supply chain capacities in times of crisis and offer a unique perspective on agile procurement and supply chain management from a case study of the Ventilator Challenge.

A descriptive case study was undertaken, adopting an inductive approach. Interviews were conducted with the major stakeholders tasked with the design, sourcing and assembly of ventilators.

Findings are delivered across four key areas: context; procurement and supply chain management; technology and culture; and environment. Key challenges and enablers are discussed, highlighting the critical roles of trust, empowerment and enabling technologies in the construction of an entirely new ventilator supply chain, from scratch, in five weeks.

This paper delivers contributions for both academic research and practice. The case study offers rich new insights relating to procurement in times of crisis, contributing to efforts to advance beyond outdated approaches for resilience in literature. Practical contributions arise in highlighting the significance of adapted sourcing and recruitment, technology, collaboration, people and power of purpose in enabling agility and achieving the impossible.

This essay investigates the role of WTO Member States’ political institutions in their decision to comply with adverse rulings. In the end, implementation of these rulings is a political act that Member States must undertake on their own. The decision to comply will thus be affected by domestic political pressures and institutions, including who wins and who loses if the decision is implemented, the locus of decision-making necessary to comply, and the overall structure of government. In this chapter, we explore the impact that domestic partisan preferences have on compliance rates among OECD countries. We construct a formal model of WTO implementation, predicting that when left-leaning parties, those who tend to favor protection for domestic labor and markets, control government, compliance rates should tend to fall. In contrast, right-leaning governments, those who weigh highly market access and returns to capital, should be more willing to comply with adverse WTO rulings. We test these hypotheses using data from WTO trade disputes involving twenty-five advanced industrialized countries and the European Union from 1970 to 2000, and find consistent support for our theory.

To develop an open‐source remote patron authentication system to replace a problematic, proprietary vendor product.

Functional requirements were developed using the vendor product as a model with additional requirements determined by the libraries planning to use the application. Using PHP on Apache web server with a connection to our ILS database on Sybase, a flexible system that can be configured to the local libraries requirements was created.

Overall, the new system has been welcomed and the most widespread problems we encountered have been resolved. Most importantly though, using an in‐house system empowers libraries to introduce enhancements and bug fixes as soon as possible and not rely on a vendor's schedule for doing so.

A project like this would not be possible if the ILS database was proprietary and inaccessible from other, open‐source technologies like PHP or the data structures were not published.

The remote patron authentication system is only one possible use of these technologies. Other applications using ILS data could be developed.

Using PHP with Apache and a connection to the ILS database, the necessary functionality was retained and added other features that improved reliability, configurability and cross‐browser usage. By embracing this approach, the authors also retained control on its future development and improvement.

Aadhaar card is an innovative step taken by the Government of India to facilitate smooth functioning of government welfare programs among the needy citizens of this country. This chapter deals about the Aadhaar Project of the Central Government, its features, its impact on the welfare schemes of government, etc. Second, it also deals with the challenges and loopholes associated with the Aadhaar scheme which eventually led to the case of Justice K. S. Puttaswamy and Another v. Union of India [Writ Petition (Civil) No. 494 of 2012]. At last, the chapter deals with the potential challenges which the Aadhaar scheme may face even after it has been declared constitutional by the Apex Court in the case of Justice K. S. Puttaswamy and Another v. Union of India [Writ Petition (Civil) No. 494 of 2012].

This case study aims to analyse dyadic empirical relations within food supply chains. The categories of market, hierarchy or power, network and social relations were used to disclose the coordinative structures on the chain level and connect these with the chain development.

The actors of three vegetable supply chains were interviewed. The coordinative relations of actors were identified and the coordinative structures on the chain level were made visible by combining the ego networks of chain actors. The “story of supply chain development” was intertwined with the analysis.

The studied food supply chains were coordinated mostly by duplex or multiplex relations, combining market, hierarchy or power, network and social relations. In addition to the strategic network, presented in literature, the study identified a coordinative structural mode of socially overlaid network. In general, the network relation was found to be used as an effective “glue” within all coordinative structures. Both coordinative structural modes exhibited substantial growth, on the condition that agricultural base and buyers enabled enlargement.

Economic sociological perspective has been used in explaining food supply chain development by making visible the coordinative relations and structures on the chain level. The chain level phenomena appear as a promising field of study.

Co-existing health conditions and frequent hospital usage are pervasive in homeless populations. Without a home to be discharged to, appropriate discharge care and treatment compliance are difficult. The Medical Respite Centre (MRC) model has gained traction in the USA, but other international examples are scant. The purpose of this paper is to address this void, presenting findings from an evaluation of The Cottage, a small short-stay respite facility for people experiencing homelessness attached to an inner-city hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

This mixed methods study uses case studies, qualitative interview data and hospital administrative data for clients admitted to The Cottage in 2015. Hospital inpatient admissions and emergency department presentations were compared for the 12-month period pre- and post-The Cottage.

Clients had multiple health conditions, often compounded by social isolation and homelessness or precarious housing. Qualitative data and case studies illustrate how The Cottage couples medical care and support in a home-like environment. The average stay was 8.8 days. There was a 7 per cent reduction in the number of unplanned inpatient days in the 12-months post support.

The paper has some limitations including small sample size, data from one hospital only and lack of information on other services accessed by clients (e.g. housing support) limit attribution of causality.

MRCs provide a safe environment for individuals to recuperate at a much lower cost than inpatient admissions.

There is limited evidence on the MRC model of care outside of the USA, and the findings demonstrate the benefits of even shorter-term respite post-discharge for people who are homeless.

The term ‘obrigatoriedade’ is a colloquial shorthand in Brazil for the policy incentivising South American clubs to open a women's division by making it a prerequisite for entry in the ever more lucrative male Copa Libertadores. The focus of this chapter is a balance of how the South American football federation CONMEBOL's flagship policy has impacted upon the gradual professionalisation of women's football in Brazil. On one hand, the policy has already caused a domino effect as a critical mass of clubs seek to imitate the few clubs who have already provided year-round contracts and conditions that could credibly be described as professional. However, there is a strong feeling that the delivery of the policy has left much to be desired. There are no contractual stipulations requiring clubs to offer professional conditions and from an early stage the practice of outsourcing women's football to another entity or club has sent out a clear message that certain clubs have begun by only paid lip-service to the policy rather than truly embracing the women's game. This chapter considers the future possibilities for the professionalisation of women's football in Brazil. Moreover, the plight of long-standing amateur clubs, who have tirelessly championed the women's game prior to the arrival of the larger clubs, is considered.

In Britain, welfare‐to‐work has been hailed as a radical initiative to help those that are socially and economically disadvantaged in society. The New Deal promises to offer young long term unemployed people the opportunity to train and experience the world of work in a bid to make them more attractive to employers. It is especially pertinent to ethnic minorities who have been identified as having an increased tendency to be unemployed. However, the intention to help ethnic minorities has not been matched with changes to the institutional framework for the delivery of training and work experience placements. This article assesses the likely impact of the New Deal on unemployed people from ethnic minority communities. It contends that the failure of the present arrangement to cater for the needs of ethnic minorities may affect the success of the New Deal as far as ethnic minorities are concerned.

This paper aims to address a specific question over the compatibility of International Financial Reporting Standards with Islamic finance regarding the use of interest rate as discounting rate in impairment testing and valuation techniques.

Inductive methodology and qualitative-narrative methods are used to explore the available texts and literature.

There are two main findings: first, the use of reference rate obtained in non-Islamic financial system is inappropriate from the Islamic perspective. Interest-based valuation techniques have not been adopted by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions in its adaptation of conventional accounting practices, and the majority of Islamic scholars argue against Interest rate benchmarking. Second, the authors suggest nominal gross domestic product (NGDP) growth rate as an alternative benchmark because Islamic finance, in its ideal sense, is based on and closely linked to the real sector. Moreover, recent studies show that there are no statistical differences between NGDP growth rate and nominal interest rate for most of the countries studied.

This paper highlights the accounting implications of the prohibition of interest for valuation techniques and raises the need of acceptable alternative pricing benchmark.