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The purpose of this paper is to provide banking regulators with another tool to crosscheck the appropriateness and consistency of levels of capital adequacy for banks. The process begins by examining banking systems and focuses on market risks and the systemic risks associated with growing global economic integration and associated systemic interdependence. The model provides benchmarks for economic and regulatory capital for international banking systems using country, regional and global stock‐market generated price index returns data. The benchmarks can then be translated to crosschecking capital levels for banks within those systems. For analytical purposes systems are assumed to possess a degree of informational efficiency and credit, liquidity and operational risks are held constant or at least assumed to be covered in loan loss provisions. An empirical study is included that demonstrates how market risk and systemic risk can be accounted for in a benchmark banking system performance model. Full testing of the model is left for future research. The paper merely proposes that such an approach is feasible and useful and it is in no way intended to be a replacement for the current Basel Accord.

The operations research method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) shows promise for assessing radiotherapy treatment plan quality. The purpose of this paper is to consider the technical requirements for using DEA for plan assessment.

In total, 41 prostate treatment plans were retrospectively analysed using the DEA method. The authors investigate the impact of DEA weight restrictions with reference to the ability to differentiate plan performance at a level of clinical significance. Patient geometry influences plan quality and the authors compare differing approaches for managing patient geometry within the DEA method.

The input-oriented DEA method is the method of choice when performing plan analysis using the key undesirable plan metrics as the DEA inputs. When considering multiple inputs, it is necessary to constrain the DEA input weights in order to identify potential plan improvements at a level of clinical significance. All tested approaches for the consideration of patient geometry yielded consistent results.

This work is based on prostate plans and individual recommendations would therefore need to be validated for other treatment sites. Notwithstanding, the method that requires both optimised DEA weights according to clinical significance and appropriate accounting for patient geometric factors is universally applicable.

DEA can potentially be used during treatment plan development to guide the planning process or alternatively used retrospectively for treatment plan quality audit.

DEA is independent of the planning system platform and therefore has the potential to be used for multi-institutional quality audit.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first published examination of the optimal approach in the use of DEA for radiotherapy treatment plan assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to address the benefits of a participatory approach to autism research, demonstrating the positive effects of giving autistic project assistants (PAs) the opportunity to design and undertake a project researching the experiences of autistic university students.

A participatory approach was implemented, engaging autistic university students as research assistants. All the research team except project co-ordinators were autistic. Undergraduate autistic students developed and conducted a set of semi-structured interviews, with two autistic alumni responsible for data analysis and both scheduling and moderating focus groups. Participation in dissemination of the findings was open to all.

The results included in this paper reflect a portion of the overall findings, specifically regarding the participatory approach. The findings of the study indicate the perceptions of respondents being interviewed by autistic researchers in relation to their shared understanding, facilitating positive feelings and a sense of rapport in the interview process. The PAs were able to improve their research skills through the project, which contributed constructively to their CV and allowed them to feel more positive about being autistic, and specifically about being an autistic researcher.

This paper is one of the first to discuss the challenges and benefits of including autistic participant researchers at all stages of the research project, including research design, data collection, analysis and dissemination, being co-written by both project co-ordinators and autistic project researchers.

Due to increasing complexity, modern radiotherapy techniques require comprehensive quality assurance (QA) programmes, that to date generally focus on the pre-treatment stage. The purpose of this paper is to provide a method for an individual patient treatment QA evaluation and identification of a “quality gap” for continuous quality improvement.

A statistical process control (SPC) was applied to evaluate treatment delivery using in vivo electronic portal imaging device (EPID) dosimetry. A moving range control chart was constructed to monitor the individual patient treatment performance based on a control limit generated from initial data of 90 intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and ten volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) patient deliveries. A process capability index was used to evaluate the continuing treatment quality based on three quality classes: treatment type-specific, treatment linac-specific, and body site-specific.

The determined control limits were 62.5 and 70.0 per cent of the χ pass-rate for IMRT and VMAT deliveries, respectively. In total, 14 patients were selected for a pilot study the results of which showed that about 1 per cent of all treatments contained errors relating to unexpected anatomical changes between treatment fractions. Both rectum and pelvis cancer treatments demonstrated process capability indices were less than 1, indicating the potential for quality improvement and hence may benefit from further assessment.

The study relied on the application of in vivo EPID dosimetry for patients treated at the specific centre. Sampling patients for generating the control limits were limited to 100 patients. Whilst the quantitative results are specific to the clinical techniques and equipment used, the described method is generally applicable to IMRT and VMAT treatment QA. Whilst more work is required to determine the level of clinical significance, the authors have demonstrated the capability of the method for both treatment specific QA and continuing quality improvement.

The proposed method is a valuable tool for assessing the accuracy of treatment delivery whilst also improving treatment quality and patient safety.

Assessing in vivo EPID dosimetry with SPC can be used to improve the quality of radiation treatment for cancer patients.

A growing number of travelers seek well-being when traveling. As concerning about outdoor air pollution in tourism destinations escalates, little is known about indoor air pollution in hotel guestrooms. The purpose of the present study is to assess particulate matter (PM) pollution in US hotel guestrooms and to provide baseline indoor PM readings in occupied and unoccupied rooms.

A series of field tests and experiments monitoring PM levels were conducted in the guestrooms overnight – with and without occupants – using the sophisticated, industrial-grade PM-monitoring equipment.

The results revealed that PM levels were very low when rooms were unoccupied or when guests were asleep. However, unhealthy PM mass concentrations were observed in occupied rooms when guests engaged in physical activity such as showering and walking around or while room attendants cleaned rooms. Among the physical activities, room cleaning caused hazardous indoor PM pollution, reaching 1,665.9 µg/m³ of PM10 and 140.4 µg/m³ of PM2.5 although they tended to be brief.

Leveraging increasing guest demand in well-being is essential for sustainable business and further growth. Indoor air quality must be recognized as an important factor to be controlled for well-being and health of guests and employees. Major hotel brands should take it into consideration as they infuse well-being DNA into their products and culture.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical investigation of PM pollution both in occupied and unoccupied hotel guestrooms in the USA, which reveals unhealthy PM pollution associated with the routine human activities in occupied guestrooms.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an online faculty development pilot course on how to engage students online. A framework was used, referred to as the Trifecta of Student Engagement, for the design of the course. The Trifecta of Student Engagement proposes that students, in order to be fully engaged in a course, need to be engaged with their course content, with their peers and with their instructor. The course has three units of content that each correspond to the Trifecta of Student Engagement. This course has gone through one pilot with faculty and has impacted students and faculty positively.

An online faculty development course was piloted with eight faculty members across a range of disciplines who participated in the program. After taking the course, they had to apply the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework to a course they taught and share what they did via written report, webinar, or web presentation. This study summarized the faculty participants’ written reports and presentations as well as provided a qualitative evaluation on the impact this course had on students and faculty.

After faculty applied the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework to courses taught, faculty saw an improvement in student engagement, satisfaction, learning and achievement. Three faculty surveyed students to determine their engagement and satisfaction and found students to respond positively to the use of tools and activities for student-to-content engagement, student-to-student engagement and student-to-instructor engagement. Two faculty examined student grades to determine if there were changes in student outcomes. One professor saw average grades increase by 11 percent. Another professor saw grades improve by 8 percent. She also found that student assessment of learning increased by 0.57. Both faculty attributed the improvement to the effectiveness of the teaching strategies employed.

This research is limited to the eight faculty who participated in the pilot. Some faculty used methods to attempt to measure the impacts of their teaching practices by surveying students and looking at student performance data. A second pilot is needed for additional faculty to take the course and apply the Trifecta of Engagement framework to generate more data for impact.

Institutions looking to create an online teaching professional development course for faculty can utilize the Trifecta of Student Engagement framework for their course design. Additionally, faculty can read about tools and strategies that they can immediately apply to create more student-to-content engagement, student-to-student engagement and student-to-instructor engagement.

Faculty can be more intentional in how they engage students in their online course experience.

This paper adds to the literature on faculty development regarding student-centered teaching practices. Other institutions looking to create a faculty development course or program that utilizes a student-centered framework may find aspects of this paper useful for their own online teaching professional development initiatives.

‘DID YOU KNOW old John Simpson?’ I have lost count of the number of times I have been asked this question about my predecessor over the past thirty‐six years. Inevitably my interlocutor follows up his question with the statement, ‘He was a terror; you either took what he gave you out of a selection of two or three books, or did without’.

Technical education in the twentieth century played an important role in the cultural life of Australia in ways are that routinely overlooked or forgotten. As all education is central to the cultural life of any nation this article traces the relationship between technical education and the national social imaginary. Specifically, the article focuses on the connection between art and technical education and does so by considering changing cultural representations of Australia.

Drawing upon materials, that include school archives, an unpublished autobiography monograph, art catalogues and documentary film, the article details the lives and works of two artists, from different eras of twentieth century Australia. Utilising social memory as theorised by Connerton (1989, 2009, 2011), the article reflects on the lives of two Australian artists as examples of, and a way into appreciating, the enduring relationship between technical education and art.

The two artists, William Wallace Anderson and Carol Jerrems both products of, and teachers in, technical schools produced their own art that offered different insights into changes in Australia's national imaginary. By exploring their lives and work, the connections between technical education and art represent a social memory made material in the works of the artists and their representations of Australia's changing national imaginary.

This article features two artist teachers from technical schools as examples of the centrality of art to technical education. Through the teacher-artists lives and works the article highlights a shift in the Australian cultural imaginary at the same time as remembering the centrality of art to technical education. Through the twentieth century the relationship between art and technical education persisted, revealing the sensibilities of the times.

“Corporate planning” is the term which, perhaps more than any other, epitomises the adoption of business management techniques by the public sector. In Britain, with massive local government reorganisation in 1974, many librarians were forced to come to terms with such techniques whether they liked it or not. Of course, in its purest sense corporate planning applies to the combined operation of an entire organisation be it local authority, university, government department or industrial firm. However, in this paper I do not intend discussing “the grand design” whereby the library is merely a component part of a greater body. Rather, it is my intention to view the library as the corporate body. It is a perfectly possible and very useful exercise to apply the principles of corporate planning, and the management techniques involved, to the running of a library or group of libraries. Indeed, many librarians have already done this either independently or as their part in the corporate plan of their parent organisation.

I was fairly certain that I had explored most aspects of Whitehaven history. However this town of endless surprises had yet one more to spring on me. On his return my plumber friend unwrapped a parcel: it contained a ship's log — not the official one, but one kept by an apprentice on a voyage to the far east in the early nineteenth century — and the minute book of the Whitehaven Literary Society, 1820–1822. Of all the material things written about White‐haven very little has been said about its cultural activities. For the development of an interest in art it should be said by the way that the town owes a debt to William Gilpin of Scaleby Castle, the agent for Sir John Lowther of Whitehaven. Directly through his patronage of Matthias Read, and indirectly through his son and grandsons Gilpin contributed not a little to the promotion of painting in Cumberland and elsewhere.