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The purpose of this paper is to explore the violence risk assessment practices in Israel by social workers, clinical criminologists, and marriage and family therapists using a Web-based survey.

A Web-based survey and participation letter were translated into Hebrew and distributed to members of the Israel Association of Social Workers, the Israel Society of Clinical Criminology and the Israel Association for Marital and Family Therapy following the Dillman Total Design Survey Method.

The sample was composed of 34 professionals, who reported using structured instruments to predict and manage the likelihood of violence in over half of their risk assessments over both their lifetime and the past 12 months. Younger female respondents who entered their profession more recently were more likely to use instruments during the risk assessment process. There appeared to be a trend toward decreased use of actuarial instruments and increased use in structured professional judgment instruments.

The first national survey of violence risk assessment practices by behavioral healthcare professionals in Israel was conducted. This study revealed the risk assessment utility trends in Israel, finding that compared to professionals in North America, South America, Europe, East Asia and Australia, professionals in Israel conducted fewer risk assessments and used structured instruments less often, highlighting concern about the lack of reliance on evidence-based techniques in the country.

The majority of individuals diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) will become involved with the criminal justice system during their lifetime. Due to the signs and symptoms of their illness, the psycholegal impairments presented by such alleged offenders pose unique challenges for the attorneys tasked with prosecuting their crimes. That said, little is known about the training and courtroom background of district attorneys with this population. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A web-based survey was developed to investigate the knowledge bases and legal experiences of US District Attorneys concerning FASD, and to compare these across sexes, legal experience levels, as well as geographical regions. The survey was distributed electronically to all US District Attorneys following the Dillman Total Design Method. Surveys were completed by 216 respondents (men, n=166; women, n=50; Northeast, n=32; South, n=102; Midwest, n=36; West, n=46) with an average of 25.03 years (SD=10.71) of legal experience.

Participants displayed variable levels of knowledge concerning the signs and symptoms of FASD and underestimated how often persons with FASD become involved in the criminal justice system. The majority of participants had never received training on the psycholegal impairments of individuals diagnosed with FASD and reported that they would benefit from a Continuing Legal Education course on the subject. Participants also reported that they would benefit from seeing the findings of an FASD screening tool in daily practice.

First survey of legal professionals’ perceptions of FASD.

Persons diagnosed with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) are more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system than general population controls. Although previous survey evidence has suggested that federal district attorneys are limited in their knowledge of the psycholegal impairments presented by defendants with this condition, such research has yet to have been conducted with state-specific public defenders. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The Dillman Total Design Method was used to disseminate an electronic survey to public defenders in Minnesota. The survey included questions designed to measure their knowledge bases on and legal experiences with FASD. Surveys were completed by 135 respondents (n_Men=63; n_Women=72) with an average of 16.22 years (SD=11.34) of legal experience.

Respondents varied in their knowledge bases on the cognitive impairments, social deficits, and physical complications characteristic of FASD. Less than 20 percent of respondents reported having received training on the psycholegal impairments experienced by individuals diagnosed with FASD from arrest until the start of adjudication, during adjudication, or during incarceration. Over 95 percent of respondents reported that they could benefit from a Continuing Legal Education course on the psycholegal impairments of individuals diagnosed with FASD, and over 90 percent reported that they could benefit from being provided the findings of a screening tool for FASD in their daily practice.

First survey of state public defenders’ perceptions of FASD.

This paper aims to study almost Ricci–Yamabe soliton in the context of certain contact metric manifolds.

The paper is designed as follows: In Section 3, a complete contact metric manifold with the Reeb vector field ξ as an eigenvector of the Ricci operator admitting almost Ricci–Yamabe soliton is considered. In Section 4, a complete K-contact manifold admits gradient Ricci–Yamabe soliton is studied. Then in Section 5, gradient almost Ricci–Yamabe soliton in non-Sasakian (k, μ)-contact metric manifold is assumed. Moreover, the obtained result is verified by constructing an example.

We prove that if the metric g admits an almost (α, β)-Ricci–Yamabe soliton with α ≠ 0 and potential vector field collinear with the Reeb vector field ξ on a complete contact metric manifold with the Reeb vector field ξ as an eigenvector of the Ricci operator, then the manifold is compact Einstein Sasakian and the potential vector field is a constant multiple of the Reeb vector field ξ. For the case of complete K-contact, we found that it is isometric to unit sphere S²ⁿ⁺¹ and in the case of (k, μ)-contact metric manifold, it is flat in three-dimension and locally isometric to Eⁿ⁺¹ × Sⁿ(4) in higher dimension.

All results are novel and generalizations of previously obtained results.

This chapter explores the potential economic advantages and disadvantages of reusable plastic containers (RPCs) in the transport of fresh produce from growers to retail stores. The empirical research linking packaging to quantifiable economic and social benefits is reviewed. This study answers the question – what are the economic and social impacts of increased standardization of bulk packaging in the North American fresh produce supply chains? Implications for the potential use of RPCs and its impact on sustainability are explored.

The chapter describes data from grocery retailers who have implemented both one-way and reusable plastic containers for fresh produce distribution. A Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TD-ABC) analysis was conducted to capture and evaluate process times and product damage associated with the typical deployment of bulk containers in the grocery retailers’ distribution centers (DC), retail stores, and asset recovery centers of the supply chain. Economic measures were implemented and together with the social dimensions provided insights about sustainability-based implications.

Fresh produce shipments using the RPC technology had significantly less waste and damage representing potential social and economic benefits. The empirical findings included results about the economic impact of RPCs on the sustainability level of a typical supply chain for fresh food products.

The quantification of the economic and potential social sustainability for the explored packaging types constitutes an important contribution. Much of the previous research did not contain comprehensive assessments. The impact of technological change – the introduction and use of RPC in packaging – is examined. In addition, the supply chain scope for this research included most of the major activities that involve the packaging of fresh produce commodities in its practical dynamics.

The purpose of this study was to develop a suitable module for digital conservation of traditional knowledge of medicinal plants (MPs) used by tribal communities living in the Anuppur district of Madhya Pradesh, Central India.

The research used a qualitative approach to gather the data of MPs through the use of literature review and field survey. Based on the acquired data, a prototype digital learning system was constructed and assessed. This study used digital learning technologies to assess the requirements for transmitting traditional knowledge of important MPs used by tribal communities so that people can absorb and conserve them.

Over time, the focus on the digital conservation of traditional MP’s knowledge has progressively increased globally. Despite the rise in this field of study, information technology methods to preserve and distribute traditional knowledge of MPs have remained a few. When adopting digital learning to maintain traditional knowledge of MPs, it was discovered that it would be necessary to engage with relevant knowledge keepers, use multimedia, and provide content in local languages.

This study helps in conservation of important MP species that are having biologically important therapeutic compounds meant for treating various ailments. Older generations of various tribal communities mainly hold traditional knowledge of important MPs, and unless it is preserved, it will perish along with its caretakers.

It is worth looking at a digital platform that can help future generations to maintain traditional knowledge of MPs, as it is a dynamic and ever-changing, it must involve a digital tool for its future conservation. Current methods for maintaining traditional knowledge of MPs were ineffective and constrained by space and time.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how a web‐based virtual ideation tool, dialogr.com, can be used to capture insights from consumers and to gain an understanding of consumer satisfaction with package design during and after product use. The authors also demonstrate how the resulting rich qualitative data can be combined with output from traditional survey research, to provide insight into the impact of satisfaction with package design on purchase intent.

A mixed‐methods approach was employed that captured qualitative insights from a large number of consumers regarding their experience using product packaging and combined the quantitative rigor of survey research to capture brand familiarity and perceptions, as well as brand preference and loyalty.

Results demonstrate that design is important to consumers and also that consumers are increasingly design literate. The perceived quality of the package design does impact brand evaluation. Negative reactions to product packaging adversely impacted intent to purchase and intent to recommend the product to others.

Results show that the mixed model is a promising method for gaining feedback on new package designs. Substantive implications include: design drives purchase, consumers want to be involved in design, and getting user input on design is important.

Consumer packaged goods companies often test packaging prototypes in a limited way – they either ignore qualitative measurement completely or use small sample focus groups. This quali‐quant method offers two advantages over the methodologies most commonly used to study package design; it has the capacity to engage large numbers of consumers and it can be set up to gather data from consumers during or immediately after product use.

This study aims to explore the reasons for the rise of independent, stand-alone restaurants and ascertains the benefits of outsourcing food and beverage (F&B) in luxury hotels in India from the perspectives of the strategic partners involved in such an alliance. The study also proposes different formats for F&B outsourcing in luxury hotels.

An exploratory study was carried out by collecting primary data from 16 Hotel General Managers and F&B operations experts through qualitative, semi-structured, personal and in-depth interviews. NVivo12 software was used to carry out a qualitative thematic analysis of the data. The primary data collected were triangulated with secondary data gathered through literature review of academic papers, industry reports and studies on the trends of restaurants in luxury hotels being outsourced.

The study focusses on the antecedents of the rise of stand-alone restaurants in the Indian hospitality industry. To combat the competitive disruption arising because of this trend, the study posits the business model innovation of outsourcing F&B operations in luxury hotels.

The benefits of a strategic alliance from the perspective of both parties – the luxury hotel and Michelin-star chef or branded/marquee restaurant – are elucidated. Further, three broad formats, which can be adopted for speciality restaurant outsourcing are also proposed. Practitioners, researchers and educationists in the hospitality industry would find the implications of this study useful in the context of the present customer-centric business environment where hotels are constantly striving to meet the exponentially rising bar of guest expectations in an increasingly globalised milieu.

The study proposes a preliminary road map for internationalisation of F&B operations through the business model innovation of outsourcing operations of in-house specialty restaurants by luxury hotels in the Indian context.

We argue that in order to address the contemporary challenges that organizations and societies are facing, the field of organization development (OD) requires frameworks and skills to focus on the eco-system as the level of analysis. In a world that has become economically, socially, and technologically highly connected, approaches that foster the optimization of specific actors in the eco-system, such as individual corporations, result in sub-optimization of the sustainability of the natural and social system because there is insufficient offset to the ego-centric purposes of the focal organization. We discuss the need for OD to broaden focus to deal with technological advances that enable new ways of organizing at the eco-system level, and to deal with the challenges to sustainable development. Case examples from healthcare and the agri-foods industry illustrate the kinds of development approaches that are required for the development of healthy eco-systems. We do not suggest fundamental changes in the identity of the field of organizational development. In fact, we demonstrate the need to dig deeply into the open systems and socio-technical roots of the field, and to translate the traditional values and approaches of OD to continue to be relevant in today’s dynamic interdependent world.