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To provide an overview of a model for clinical governance in the National Health Service that incorporates continuous improvement and innovation as a core theme.

The paper considers the core functions of clinical governance and how these are related to established structures and roles within the modern NHS. A case study approach is used to describe the implementation of a theoretical model in a large teaching NHS Trust.

A clinical governance cycle is described that comprises three functional domains: accountability, assurance, and innovation. For each domain there is a definable outcome and a key role. Critical success factors for implementation of the model are described.

This paper introduces a new model for clinical governance that focuses on continuous improvement. The paper will be of particular interest to managers and lead clinicians responsible for the development of robust systems for clinical governance and modernisation in the NHS.

Many scholars have noted that, since at least 1790, U.K. economic fluctuations have seemed to reach major peaks every 7–10 years. Keynes (1936, ch.18) used the elements of his theory to explain non‐periodic economic fluctuations. His explanation of periodic fluctuations, i.e. cycles, appears in Chapter 22 of the General Theory. As is well known, he believed that fluctuations in “animal spirits” (that were often only loosely connected with the cost and the real rate of return on capital) led to oscillations in investment which, combined with the durability of capital goods, caused the duration of modern major cycles; fluctuations in liquidity preference and the propensity to consume played lesser roles. Bowing to Jevons (1964), Keynes also noted that unstable agricultural inventories could have been a source of waves in the early 19th Century when agriculture was relatively more important in the U.K. But Keynes did not demonstrate just how his investment theory implied a definite cycle period, because he did not merge his multiplier with the accelerator principle to provide an endogenous explanation of periodic turning points in output. Consequently, as Hicks (1950, p. l) notes, Keynes did not demonstrate how investment and income could peak every 7–10 years; his was really a theory of nonperiodic waves.

Representatives of six prominent library system vendors—Joseph R. Matthews (Inlex), Mike Monahan (Geac), Kelvin Browne (Utlas), Carl Lee (VTLS), Michael J. Mellinger (Data Research) and Stephen R. Salmon (Carlyle)—address the key issues related to system performance. From their experiences and perspectives as vendors, they address the issues of 1) designing, configuring and sizing systems, 2) the establishment of performance criteria, 3) the use of benchmark and acceptance tests, 4) the risks of miscalculations, 5) the roles of the vendor, consultant and library, and 6) related topics.

The seasonality in the behavior of travelers is something that goes back to the origin of the trips themselves. This seasonality is due to multiple factors, some easy to counteract and others difficult to solve. But, regardless of the causes, it is a phenomenon that generates significant negative impacts on society and the environment in which the phenomenon of tourist seasonality occurs. All tourist destinations have seasonality, but in some cases, it is very high and in others it has a minimal incidence. The objective of this chapter is to ponder the impacts and consequences of seasonality in regions with a strong tourism development, allowing to put into context the aspects of society impacted by this phenomenon and the positive implications that the reduction of seasonality would have. For this, an analysis of a theoretical model with two regions in opposite situations is carried out, raising the possible effects of a high seasonality. The cases of the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands are also reviewed, as real examples of the regional typologies taken into consideration in the theoretical model. This seeks to ponder the problems attributable to seasonality. As a final reflection, the enormous typology of negative impacts generated and the need to continue analyzing the seasonality and its impacts are emphasized.

The case on ABIL deals with the important issue of corporate governance, and particularly the crucial role that the board of directors plays. It highlights the complex issue institutional investors face when trying to assess the strength of a board and the quality of information and disclosure. The case is set in South Africa which is an emerging market.

The case targets MBA students and can be taught as part of a corporate governance or sustainable and responsible investment module or course. The case is aimed at both local and international students as the case deals with corporate governance principles that are applicable to both audiences. Where necessary, the case provides information to guide international audiences.

The teaching case is set on 6 August 2014 when Ian Matthews, the Head of Equities at a South African Asset Manager, BG Wealth, gets a call while on leave. The call is from his boss, chief investment officer, Deryck Medley, informing him of the negative trading update and asking him to come back to prepare for an emergency investment committee that afternoon. The case traces Matthews’ day as he reviews the research reports BG Wealth had put together on ABIL over the previous 15 months. Matthews also recalls the process the investment team went through internally before finally deciding to invest in the company. The case highlights not only the corporate governance failures of ABIL but also the lack of consideration given to ESG factors by BG Wealth.

The case’s primary teaching objective is to highlight the importance of corporate governance. The case provides detailed insights into the area of corporate governance through the analysis of a corporate failure. Through this teaching case, the students will follow the real-life events that led to the collapse of ABIL. It is intended that the students will be forced to deal with a complex situation and will be required to develop specific solutions to the issues raised.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

This article provides a review and conceptual comparison between self‐report and performance‐based measures of emotional intelligence. Analyses of reliability, psychometric properties, and various forms of validity lead to the conclusion that self‐report techniques measure a dispositional construct, that may have some predictive validity, but which is highly correlated with personality and independent of intelligence. Although seemingly more valid, performance‐based measures have certain limitations, especially when scored with reference to consensual norms, which leads to problems of skew and restriction of range. Scaling procedures may partially ameliorate these scoring weaknesses. Alternative approaches to scoring, such as expert judgement, also suffer problems since the nature of the requisite expertise is unclear. Use of experimental paradigms for studying individual differences in information‐processing may, however, inform expertise. Other difficulties for performance‐based measures include limited predictive and operational validity, restricting practical utility in organizational settings. Further research appears necessary before tests of E1 are suitable for making real‐life decisions about individuals.

Metal additive manufacturing is an inherently thermal process, with intense localised heating and for sparse lattice structures, often rapid uneven cooling. Thermal effects influence manufactured geometry through residual stresses and may also result in non-isotropic material properties. This paper aims to increase understanding of the evolution of the temperature field during fabrication of lattice structures through numerical simulation.

This paper uses a reduced order numerical analysis based on “best-practice” compromise found in literature to explore design permutations for lattice structures and provide first-order insight into the effect of these design variables on the temperature field.

Instantaneous and peak temperatures are examined to discover trends at select lattice locations. Insights include the presence of vertical struts reduces overall lattice temperatures by providing additional heat transfer paths; at a given layer, the lower surface of an inclined strut experiences higher temperatures than the upper surface throughout the fabrication of the lattice; during fabrication of the lower layers of the lattice, isolated regions of material can experience significantly higher temperatures than adjacent regions.

Due to the simplifying assumptions and multi-layer material additions, the findings are qualitative in nature. Future research should incorporate additional heat transfer mechanisms.

These findings point towards thermal differences within the lattice which may manifest as dimensional differences and microstructural changes in the built part.

The paper provides qualitative insights into the effect of local geometry and topology upon the evolution of temperature within lattice structures fabricated in metal additive manufacturing.

An important and challenging question for air transportation regulators and airport operators is the definition and specification of airport capacity. Annual capacity is used for long-term planning purposes as a degree of available service volume, but it poses several inefficiencies when measuring the true throughput of the system because of seasonal and daily variations of traffic. Instead, airport throughput is calculated or estimated for a short period of time, usually one hour. This brings about a mismatch: air traffic forecasts typically yield annual volumes, whereas capacity is measured on hourly figures. To manage the right balance between airport capacity and demand, annual traffic volumes must be converted into design hour volumes, so that they can be compared with the true throughput of the system. This comparison is a cornerstone in planning new airport infrastructures, as design-period parameters are important for airport planners in anticipating where and when congestion occurs. Although the design hour for airport traffic has historically had a number of definitions, it is necessary to improve the way air traffic design hours are selected. This study aims to provide an empirical analysis of airport capacity and demand, specifically focusing on insights related to air traffic design hours and the relationship between capacity and delay.

By reviewing the empirical relationships between hourly and annual air traffic volumes and between practical capacity and delay at 50 European airports during the period 2004–2021, this paper discusses the problem of defining a suitable peak hour for capacity evaluation purposes. The authors use information from several data sources, including EUROCONTROL, ACI and OAG. This study provides functional links between design hours and annual volumes for different airport clusters. Additionally, the authors appraise different daily traffic distribution patterns and their variation by hour of the day.

The clustering of airports with respect to their capacity, operational and traffic characteristics allows us to discover functional relationships between annual traffic and the percentage of traffic in the design hour. These relationships help the authors to propose empirical methods to derive expected traffic in design hours from annual volumes. The main conclusion is that the percentage of total annual traffic that is concentrated at the design hour maintains a predictable behavior through a “potential” adjustment with respect to the volume of annual traffic. Moreover, the authors provide an experimental link between capacity and delay so that peak hour figures can be related to factors that describe the quality of traffic operations.

The functional relationships between hourly and annual air traffic volumes and between capacity and delay, can be used to properly assess airport expansion projects or to optimize resource allocation tasks. This study offers new evidence on the nature of airport capacity and the dynamics of air traffic design hours and delay.

The purpose of this paper is to present an algorithm for an additive/subtractive rapid pattern manufacturing (RPM) process where thick slabs of material are sequentially stacked and then cut to 3D shapes. Unlike traditional rapid prototyping processes where layer thickness is typically uniform, this process is able to vary the layer thickness in order to most effectively generate feature shapes.

This paper discusses the factors affecting layer thickness decisions and then presents an algorithm to determine layer thicknesses for a given part model. The system is designed to import a computer‐aided design file and use the algorithm to automatically generate the set of layers based on the slab height, material and bonding properties and the process parameters used in the system.

The layer thickness algorithm is implemented and tested using an additive/subtractive manufacturing system developed in the laboratory. The algorithm has proved effective in determining appropriate layer heights for thick slab machining, taking into account a variety of geometries. Several sand casting patterns have been successfully created using the proposed system, which could significantly improve traditional sand casting pattern manufacturing.

The proposed RPM process is a new process presented by the authors, developed for rapid sand castings. The layer thickness algorithm is an original contribution that enables automatic process planning for this new process.