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Modern meat processing requires automation and robotisation to remain sustainable and adapt to future challenges, including those brought by global infection events. Automation of all or many processes is seen as the way forward, with robots performing various tasks instead of people. Meat cutting is one of these tasks. Smart novel solutions, including smart knives, are required, with the smart knife being able to analyse and predict the meat it cuts. This paper aims to review technologies with the potential to be used as a so-called “smart knife” The criteria for a smart knife are also defined.

This paper reviews various technologies that can be used, either alone or in combination, for developing a future smart knife for robotic meat cutting, with possibilities for their integration into automatic meat processing. Optical methods, Near Infra-Red spectroscopy, electrical impedance spectroscopy, force sensing and electromagnetic wave-based sensing approaches are assessed against the defined criteria for a smart knife.

Optical methods are well established for meat quality and composition characterisation but lack speed and robustness for real-time use as part of a cutting tool. Combining these methods with artificial intelligence (AI) could improve the performance. Methods, such as electrical impedance measurements and rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry, are invasive and not suitable in meat processing since they damage the meat. One attractive option is using athermal electromagnetic waves, although no commercially developed solutions exist that are readily adaptable to produce a smart knife with proven functionality, robustness or reliability.

This paper critically reviews and assesses a range of sensing technologies with very specific requirements: to be compatible with robotic assisted cutting in the meat industry. The concept of a smart knife that can benefit from these technologies to provide a real-time “feeling feedback” to the robot is at the centre of the discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how participants in diverse schools newly implement the Sanford Harmony social and emotional learning (SEL) program and perceive its benefits for students and overall school climate.

The current study employed a convergent parallel mixed-methods design with a sample of five elementary schools in the western USA. Measures included classroom observations, administrator interviews, teacher interviews and focus groups, student focus groups, and a teacher questionnaire.

Findings indicated expected variation in implementation across schools, although all participants reacted favorably to the program and, importantly, would recommend the program to others. Administrators, teachers and students all saw the value of the program, particularly in terms of student relationship building and improved school climate. Implementation challenges experienced by schools were consistent with research on diffusion of innovations.

The present study demonstrates the importance of effective professional development, continued support, collective decision making and intentional integration of the SEL program throughout a school to support robust implementation and ultimately achieve intended outcomes.

Researchers have yet to examine in-depth implementation of the Sanford Harmony program and how best to support scale-up and more intentional implementation in schools. As implementation fidelity is a key component of a program achieving intended outcomes, the findings from the present study contribute to the knowledge base of supporting SEL program implementation.

This article informs school leaders and staffs about existing research findings on the use of data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Given that teachers are the most important school-based educational resource, decisions regarding the assignment of students to particular classes and teachers are highly impactful for student learning. Classroom compositions of peers can also influence student learning.

A literature review was conducted on the use of data-driven decision-making in the rostering process. The review addressed the merits of using various quantitative metrics in the rostering process.

Findings revealed that, despite often being purposeful about rostering, school leaders and staffs have generally not engaged in data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Using data-driven rostering may have benefits, such as limiting the questionable practice of assigning the least effective teachers in the school to the youngest or lowest performing students. School leaders and staffs may also work to minimize negative peer effects due to concentrating low-achieving, low-income, or disruptive students in any one class. Any data-driven system used in rostering, however, would need to be adequately complex to account for multiple influences on student learning. Based on the research reviewed, quantitative data alone may not be sufficient for effective rostering decisions.

Given the rich data available to school leaders and staffs, data-driven decision-making could inform rostering and contribute to more efficacious and equitable classroom assignments.

This article is the first to summarize relevant research across multiple bodies of literature on the opportunities for and challenges of using data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters.

“What went wrong?” This was the question no doubt asked by the Bush campaign and the Republican Party after the 3 November 1992 presidential election.

The Hispanic population in the United States is rapidly increasing and is expected to be the largest minority group within the next decade. Consequently, a better understanding of this group of consumers is of great importance to marketers. This study investigates the role that acculturation plays on a number of consumer‐related attitudes and behaviors. The results indicate that as acculturation increases, Hispanic consumers are more frequently exposed to English language media, use coupons with greater frequency, and display less loyalty to specific brands.

This paper presents a new research design to test the efficacy of the Arbitrage Pricing Theory of Ross [1976], similar to that applied by Christofi, Christofi and Philippatos [1993]. In particular, we use a combination of factor analysis and canonical correlation to test the underlying relationships between APT factors developed using factor analysis and unanticipated changes in five macro‐economic variables that have been shown to be related to stock returns. The results of this paper indicate that the first factor of industry returns is strongly related to the S&P 500 while the remaining four factors are highly correlated with the term structure of interest rates, the rate of inflation, the default premium, and the industrial production, respectively.

Introduction In a world of increased uncertainty about the future value of exchange rates and increased visibility of foreign exchange gains and losses, it is not surprising that both commercial and financial firms have become more concerned about minimizing foreign exchange risks. Once a company becomes involved in international trade, be it the formation of a foreign subsidiary or simply the import or export of goods, it subsequently becomes subject to foreign exchange risk exposure. Foreign exchange risk exposure can be broken down into three categories for further development; these are real economic exposure, translation exposure, and transaction exposure.

Social studies teachers possess a daunting task in a 21^st century environment of economic-mindedness and technological infatuation. In a setting of individualism and instant gratification, enabling a future citizenry to realize the patterns of economic disparity and to accept their responsibilities towards other less fortunate citizens provides a formidable challenge. The authors interpret understandings of citizenship as being closely related to conceptualizations of economics and view methods by which classrooms employ instructional technology as paramount to exploring these associations. This paper conveys how technology represents an instructional resource that may foster exploration and examination of these relationships and describes a student-centered cooperative instructional model for its classroom implementation.

The development of human capital is critical for firms to gain competitive advantage. However, short‐term, risk‐averse managerial behaviour often produces lower investments in the development of human capital. Short‐term risk‐averse managerial behaviour is often the result of managerial energy absorption in mergers and acquisitions, higher debt levels, increasing diversification and size, inappropriate downsizing and lack of managerial vision. Such problems can be reversed through downscoping, retaining valuable employees during restructuring, emphasizing the importance of human capital, cultivating an effective learning‐oriented corporate culture, developing an entrepreneurial spirit, promoting a long‐term focus, and promoting high‐quality products and services. With these changes, a strategically targeted human resource development programme can be established.

The turbulence enveloping so many organizations today makes it increasingly likely that learning from one’s experience may be both too slow and too embedded in rapidly obsolescing frameworks. Addresses the dilemmas of learning under such conditions of rapid change. Presents an argument for the need for leaders to time travel, to link the future, past, and present to each other even as those links seem frail, even ruptured. Explicates a technique called “histories of the future” that has people locate themselves at some distance in the future (five to ten years), in a specific context and imaginatively look back over the time period. By having several people improvisationally develop a “history of the future” the organization can often invent options that are a rich mix of serendipity and rational thinking. Vivid histories of the future enable people to construct rich narratives, to look at imaged actions, mistakes, successes, moves and countermoves, threats and opportunities in the wider environment, then to step back and connect current points to these possible futures. Reviews the literature on organizational learning that is relevant to the issue of learning for the future in dramatically different environments and suggests why the time travelling skills of leadership are key to helping people prepare for novel challenges.