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Using analytical and experimental methods, this paper examines the extent to which targeted self-funding lotteries described by Morgan ((2000). Review of Economic Studies, 67(234), 761–784) improve social welfare in an environment with multiple public goods. Social welfare improves relative to the Nash prediction, when a single lottery is used to support provision of any socially desirable public good. However, social welfare is maximized if the lottery funds only the most socially desirable public good. Experimental results show that a lottery can fund a less socially desirable public good, but that efficiency declines as lottery ticket purchases crowd out voluntary contributions made in the absence of lotteries.

According to the literature, quality management consists of a set of components: critical factors, tools, techniques and practices. The purpose of this paper is: to identify the components of total quality management (TQM), in order to make them known to managers and thus facilitate successful quality management implementation, and to show the situation of 106 ISO 9000 certified firms concerning these components.

In order to achieve this objective, a literature review and a survey based on 106 ISO 9000 certified firms in Spain were developed.

The results reflect that certified firms must develop their people orientation 1and use techniques and tools to a higher extent in order to progress towards total quality.

The value of the paper is point out which TQM components are important to successfully implement TQM and identify the situation of these components in ISO 9000 certified firms in a particular area.

This article examines the educational decision-making of hearing parents for their deaf children born during a period (1970–1990s) before the introduction of new-born hearing screening in New South Wales, where the study was conducted, and prior to the now near-universal adoption of cochlear implants in Australia.

We present findings from an oral history study in which parents were invited to recall how they planned for the education of their deaf children.

We propose that these oral histories shed light on how the concept, early intervention – a child development principle that became axiomatic from about the 1960s – significantly shaped the conduct of parents of deaf children, constituting both hope and burden, and intensifying a focus on early decision-making. They also illustrate ways in which parenting was shaped by two key structural shifts, one, being the increasing enrolment of deaf children in mainstream rather than separate classrooms and the other being the transformation of deafness itself by developments in hearing assistance technology.

The paper contributes to a sociological/historical literature of “parenting for education” that almost entirely lacks deaf perspectives and a specialist literature of parental decision-making for deaf children that is almost entirely focussed on the post cochlear implant generation. The paper is distinctive in its treatment of the concept of “early intervention” as a historical phenomenon rather than a “common sense” truth, and proposes that parents of deaf children were at the leading edge of late-20th and early-21st century parenting intensification.

This paper aims to determine if the emotional structure of direct healthcare workers was related to their commitment to the organization.

A total of 105 direct healthcare workers completed self‐report surveys to determine their emotional intelligence, emotional coping ability, and affective organizational commitment. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and independent sample t tests were used to analyze the data.

A significant correlation was found between emotional intelligence, emotional coping ability, and organizational commitment. In addition, emotional intellect served as a moderating variable between coping ability and commitment such that those direct care workers who exhibited higher emotional coping abilities were more committed when emotional intelligence was high rather than low.

This was an exploratory study. Larger sample sizes across multiple healthcare settings should be examined before definitive inferences should be drawn. Future studies should likely introduce other variables such as satisfaction, effort, and even performance appraisals to delineate causal relationships.

It appears that personality constructs such as emotional intelligence and coping ability could possibly be used as predictive instruments to determine who might be most successful in operating in the highly emotionally charged environment of healthcare.

This is the first study that examined the constructs of emotional intellect and coping ability and organizational commitment using a direct healthcare worker sample. It provides support for the conjecture that interpersonal emotional dynamics are critical in emotionally charged environments. This knowledge could assist healthcare managers in addressing the shortage and attrition rates associated with many direct healthcare fields.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the use of quality management tools and techniques and their integration into the ISO 9001:2008 standard in a wind power (WP) sector supply chain (SC).

The research project was carried out in 119 WP sector SC companies (i.e. component suppliers, wind turbine assemblers and wind farm operation and maintenance services) using the questionnaire method. The companies selected employ quality management systems (QMSs) which conform to the ISO 9001:2008 standard.

The survey findings reveal that the degree to which quality tools and techniques are used in the WP companies can be characterised as “high”. The results show that internal audits, flowchart diagrams and cost of poor quality are the most-commonly applied tools and techniques, although they also indicate some areas for further improvement, for instance, when using advanced and complex quality techniques such as design of experiments, quality function deployment or business process management. In addition to this, the findings reveal that ISO 9001:2008 establishes a favourable environment for the use of quality tools and techniques.

The study was based on the perceptions of quality managers, quality engineers and company managers (subjective data) and did not examine the reasons for either not implementing and/or the difficulties encountered while implementing quality tools and techniques.

The specific findings indicate that employing quality tools and techniques is useful for managers, not only when implementing a QMS, but also when suggesting recommendations for improvement.

A change of developing a framework integrating the main QT&T procedures into the main ISO 9001 processes.

Gamification is the application of game features, mainly video game elements, into non-game context for the purpose of promoting motivation and engagement in learning. The application of gamification in a pedagogical context provides some remedy for many students who find themselves alienated by traditional methods of instruction. The use of gamification could provide a partial solution to the decline in learners’ motivation and engagement the schooling system is facing today. Specifically, the college environment could benefit a lot from gamifying not only their graduate recruitment strategies, but also the college course content and curricula. This critical analysis of literature on gamification is intended to be part of a sequence on the effect of gamification on motivation and engagement. A proposed methodology in the study of gamification effect on motivation and engagement in addition to an empirical study on three college courses are being finalized to complete this trilogy. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Themes covered in the literature review include: conceptualizing gamification, advantages of gamification over game-based learning, theoretical connections to gamification, motivation and engagement, connecting gamification to motivation and engagement, emotions and fun in gamification, player types and gamification features, gamification in action, and implementation guidelines.

The literature on the effect of gamification on motivation and gamification is still limited on multiple levels. There is a gap between theory and practice in the study of gamification. There is limited literature on the implementation guidelines of the gamified designs.

This critical analysis of literature is followed by connecting it to future research by the same author as part of a sequence on the effect of gamification on motivation and engagement. The second project, will be proposing a methodology for any successful design to provide a holistic understanding of the topic of gamification. Finally, an empirical study on the effect of gamification on students’ motivation and engagement in three college courses will be submitted to complete the trilogy.

This paper is a literature review, so there is a strong connection to literature on this topic. However, the synthesis of the themes and ideas are original. The literature review is extensive and covers the different aspects of the topic of gamification and its relationship to motivation and engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to review evidence related to the factors that influence people's understanding of health information and how miscommunication of health information can jeopardize people's health.

A literature review was conducted of English language articles, cited in major literature databases from the last 40 years, which describe factors related to comprehension of health information. A total of 93 articles were included.

The paper finds that health communication should take into consideration the role of the following factors on the processing and interpretation of health information: health literacy, format presentation of information, and human cognitive biases and affective/personal influences.

Health communication is a major component of health care. Every health care encounter involves exchange of information, which is intended to enhance people's knowledge in order to assist them to make an informed decision about their health care. However, the mere act of providing information does not guarantee comprehension. People's comprehension of information depends on several factors, including health literacy and numeracy skills, the format presentation of health information and human cognitive biases in the information processing and interpretation. Ineffective health communication can result in a wide range of direct and indirect health consequences including failure to understand and comply with treatment, poorer health status, increased risk of injuries, increased hospitalization, and decreased use of preventive services.

This paper provides health professionals and educators with an overview of important issues related to health communication and highlights strategies that facilitate effective communication to help people to make informed decisions about their health care.