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This research paper explores the degree to which employability skills are embedded across educational programs in higher education (HE) institutions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to establish how successfully the required graduate attributes are being promoted, particularly those relating to employability.

An employability self-assessment matrix, adapted from one originally developed by the UK Centre for Bioscience for a similar purpose, was utilised as the research framework in this study to generate data relevant to the UAE. The tool used was a self-administered questionnaire completed by curriculum managers on the target campuses.

The findings reveal that employability skills are increasingly being integrated into curricula and that the use of a self-assessment matrix proves to be an effective tool in gauging and further improving institutional effectiveness in this area. Supporting Higher Education institutions in promoting and developing employability skills through raising awareness and targeting resources more effectively.

In the context of a shifting labour market landscape, this study contributes to the ongoing discussions on the importance of employability skills and how they can be effectively integrated into HE programs to enhance career prospects and economic prosperity.

The multiplicity of the late-night television offer is a recent phenomenon. In the late 1940s, TV was still in its experimental stage and programming was limited to certain hours of the day. How then did late-night evolve from one dominant program to the cornucopia that exists today? To what extent did the progressive fragmentation of the media environment contribute to this exponential growth in late-night programs? To answer these questions, this chapter will look closely at three phases of late-night history: the ascendance of The Tonight Show during the Johnny Carson era, Johnny's succession when two princes vied for his late-night throne, and then finally the latest developments where a new generation of late-night royalty, which I refer to as The House of Stewart, would emerge with a plethora of shows. Simultaneously, this chapter will also delve into the media context during each phase which became increasingly fragmented leading to an explosion of new ways of experiencing television.

Sustainability features in the national and local policies of many countries, but there is often a lack of clarity about what it means in practice. Interpretations of sustainable development (or sustainable cities and places) vary widely between different countries and social, economic, political, and environmental actors and interest groups influenced by underlying values and specific contexts. Considering the already-felt impacts of rapid climate change and ecological breakdown, continuing with business as usual will add more pollution, resource depletion, and lead to economic and societal turmoil under a massive shift or collapse in ecological and climate systems. A significant factor in past and current policy failures is that “weak” rather than “strong” sustainability models have been adopted laced with a voter-enticing rhetoric yet delaying painful (to the current status quo), but essential, changes in production and consumption and a shift in focus away from profit toward human and ecological well-being. This requires clear and ambitious legal, regulatory, and policy frameworks, yet also flexible approaches and “agency” of citizens, employees, employers, and politicians for transformation across different geographical and institutional levels, moving away from competition and greed, making room for experimentation and creativity and old and new forms of collaboration and sharing. Relevant concepts, principles, examples and critiques can be gleaned from the ecological economic, social–ecological transformation, and planning literature, offering direction for the kinds of shifts in placemaking to achieve social and environmental justice and well-being.

The resurgence of VR began in 2009 with Palmer Luckey's project to create a head-mounted 3D VR gaming device, leading to the development of Oculus. This movement was heavily influenced by hardcore gaming values, particularly those of John Carmack, a pioneer in first-person shooter games. The Oculus Kickstarter in 2012 emphasised VR for hardcore gamers, aiming for high graphical fidelity and immersive experiences. However, this focus has limited VR's potential. The chapter examines two case studies: SuperHot VR and Beat Saber. SuperHot VR challenges the emphasis on photorealism by offering immersion-through-proprioception, providing a unique VR experience without relying on high graphical fidelity. Beat Saber, though often seen as a casual game, has become the bestselling VR game by offering a pleasurable, short-play experience reminiscent of Nintendo Wii's casual games. The success of these games suggests that VR can thrive by appealing to a broader audience beyond hardcore gamers. By focusing on embodiment rather than purely visual immersion, these games highlight the potential for diverse VR experiences. This chapter argues that the fixation on hardcore gaming values, characterised by hyper-realistic graphics and intense gameplay, has restricted VR's growth. The success of games like SuperHot VR and Beat Saber demonstrates that VR can achieve broader appeal and greater success by catering to more varied gaming preferences and moving beyond the narrow confines of hardcore gamer culture.

Despite the abundance of small-scale farms in the USA and their importance for both rural economic development and food availability, the extensive research on small business management and entrepreneurship has mostly neglected the agricultural context, leaving many of these farms' business challenges unexplored. The authors focus on informing a specific decision faced by small farm managers: selling directly to consumers (i.e. farmer's markets) versus selling through aggregators. By collecting historical data and a series of interviews with industry experts, the authors employ simulation methodology to offer a framework that advises how small-scale farmers can allocate their product across these two channels to increase revenue in a given season. The results, which are relevant for operations management, small business management and entrepreneurship literature, can help small-scale farmers improve their performance and compete against their larger counterparts.

The authors rely on historical and interview data from key industry players (an aggregator and a small farm manager) to design a simulation analysis that determines which factors influence season-long farm revenue performance under varying strategies of channel allocation and commodity production.

The model suggests that farm managers should plan to evenly split their production between the two distribution channels, but if an even split is not possible, they should plan to keep a larger percentage in the nonaggregator (farmers' market/direct) channel. Further, the authors find that farmers can benefit significantly from a strong aggregator channel customer base, which suggests that farmers should promote and advertise the aggregator channel even if they only use it for a limited amount of their product.

The authors integrate small business management and operations management literature to study a widely understudied context and present practical implications for the performance of small-scale farms.

Red Riding Hood is said to have been assembled from folktales that pre-date the collector Charles Perrault's 1697 re-telling and initial publishing (Dundes, 1989; Zipes, 1993). Since then, it is a story that has been re-told and re-imagined many times in various media contexts, with Beckett suggesting that it is one of the most familiar icons of Western culture, and a ‘highly effective intertextual referent’ (Beckett, 2002, p. XVI). Even though this story has been generally regarded as a children's tale, adult themes of sexuality and transgression have been explored in modern re-conceptions. In this chapter, we examine the representation of gender and masculinity in commercial media output: the 2011 American film Red Riding Hood (Hardwicke, 2011) and the pilot episode of the NBC series Grimm (2011). In Red Riding Hood, a romantic horror film, the male characters may be regarded as satellites that cluster around the female protagonist, whereas in Grimm, through its generic fusion of police procedural and horror genres, the text plays upon strong established examples of traditional male roles alongside more nuanced and contemporary representations of masculinity. Our analysis explores themes of transformation and heteronormativity and the extent to which the texts challenge or conform to traditional tellings.

In this chapter, I will outline the labels of giftedness and underachievement and present the theoretical debates surrounding these labels. A historicist examination of these labels follows, highlighting how the gifted underachievement (GUA) label emerges through the negation of “giftedness.” Subsequently, I explore the concept of GUA and its negative connotations, stemming from the positive valuation inherent in the term “giftedness” and its implications for what is considered “normal.” This chapter also reviews perspectives on shifting the focus away from the individual within the current paradigm of labeling giftedness and explores insights from systemic thinking and symbolic interactionism (SI). The conclusion underscores the necessity of a symbolic interactionist perspective to address the gaps in research on the labeling of giftedness and underachievement. Finally, I propose a generic definition that can be used in GUA research in the light of SI.

Food security reflects the amount of access and availability of healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food and represents a significant problem both nationally and globally. Individuals and families that are considered food insecure experience disparities and inequities in food access and availability and insufficiency in the amount and kind of food required for a healthy lifestyle. We see high food insecurity as a violation of one's rights to a healthy and secure life and a denial of the opportunity for individuals, families, and communities to realize their full potential in society. Thus, we examine food insecurity from three distinct but related perspectives: social responsibility, social justice, and social sustainability. We then explore the link between food insecurity and the “built environment” as needed to shape research, practice, and sustainable solutions in the future.

The United States experienced its own damaging attempt at secession between 1861 and 1865, and one would expect the US Government to condemn all secession attempts at home and abroad. This paper examines four cases of secession in sub-Saharan Africa and the US policy toward those independence movements: Katanga, Biafra, Eritrea, and South Sudan. The finding is that the American Government's policy toward fragmentation in other countries has surprisingly not been characterized by a condemnation of the secessionist movements. The US response has most often been tacit support or reluctant opposition to nascent independence movements, which always stopped short of full diplomatic recognition prior to 1991. Anticommunism also played a role in US foreign policy decisions regarding secession abroad during the Cold War but did not lead in any case examined to open political or military intervention.