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This article presents a longitudinal case study of the methods employed by the general managers of two leading Australian local authorities in an attempt to introduce decentralised reform into their organisations. The article commences by detailing the nature of the respective general managers’ criticisms of the traditional divisional approach to local government strategic planning and provision of services as forming the driving motivations behind their reform direction. Their respective reform approaches are then charted, concentrating on the nature of the relationships the general managers consciously cultivated with key stakeholders in order to overcome resistance to change and remove obstacles to their visions. The article then outlines the mistakes made and the lessons to be learned in attempting to successfully implement decentralised change in local government.

The purpose of this chapter is to present a model (Beginning, Acting, Telling (BAT) model) developed for the elementary-school classroom that integrates features identified by research into information-seeking behavior and information literacy.

The chapter provides an overview of research in the areas of information-seeking behavior and information literacy and models in which they have intersected (namely, the Information Search Process (ISP) model) to provide a theoretical framework in which to situate the BAT model. Examples from previous empirical studies conducted by the author that informed the model are provided.

A preliminary iteration of the BAT model has successfully been piloted in two third-grade classrooms in Buffalo, New York. Plans are underway to introduce the model to a wider audience.

The BAT model with its use of image and mnemonic cues can be used to teach the research process to students, beginning in the earliest grades of elementary school.

This chapter is the first time the final iteration of the BAT model has been presented. It is the first model integrating features inherent in information-seeking behavior and information literacy that also makes use of imagery and mnemonic.

This paper aims to indicate that library guides seem to be unfamiliar to most students or not easy to find or use. Some improvements have been made by embedding the guides in the learning management system or promoting the guides in formal library instructional classes. Are there other ways to promote or improve the use of library guides? The author proposes an exploratory visual solution to minimize this gap between library users and library guides.

Guided by the cognitive load theory, the proposed solution is a knowledge map created with Freeplane. The proposal is illustrated by comparing a sample knowledge map with its content source, a subject guide in LibGuides, via three browsing paths in locating a recommended database for a particular course on the sample subject guide website.

The knowledge map can display contents in different ways and provide a simple and visual layout with direct access to the library resources, which may help lessen users’ intrinsic cognitive load, minimize extraneous load or promote germane load. The map can also be beneficial to librarians for preparing teaching materials or guides management.

The proposed solution can be implemented with Freeplane based on existing library guides or created from scratch.

The proposed solution addresses a gap in the library field, where the use of knowledge maps for library services is overlooked.

This paper aims to explore the placement of the skill of reading in models devoted to information behaviour and information literacy process frameworks, with particular attention to children and young people.

The work is based on an analysis of pertinent literature that has been published over a period of some 80 years. The sources include monographs, essays in books, academic journal papers, conference proceedings and articles in professional periodicals.

Much thinking on information behaviour tends to assume that reading takes place either for leisure purposes or to support study, whilst information literacy (IL) frameworks typically either emphasise higher-order reading skills or present generic stages in which reading is subsumed within a category of more abstract action. Many IL models implicitly assume that the individual has already mastered the fundamentals of reading.

Although extensive, the author’s literature review is by no means exhaustive. It does not refer to all models of either information behaviour or information literacy.

Information professionals need to acknowledge the true variety of motivations that prompt young people to read, and those responsible for information literacy instruction must determine how far they view their role as providing teaching in basic reading skills.

The paper is unusual in examining reading from two quite different perspectives - those of information behaviour and information literacy - and, despite its academic orientation, concludes with a range of suggestions intended to be of use to practising librarians.

This exploratory study aims to examine the effects of leadership on organizational climate, employee psychological capital, commitment, and wellbeing in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.

Leadership effects are investigated using established scales including the transformational leadership scale, (TLS), organizational climate questionnaire (OCQ), positive and negative affect scale (PANAS), psychological capital (PsyCap), and organizational commitment. It is a context‐based study that considers a unique organizational culture that comprises social, political, economic, technological, personnel, and personal facets. The survey was administered across a large religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.

The findings show strong positive relationships between employee ratings of their immediate supervisor's transformational leadership and employee ratings of organizational climate, wellbeing, employee commitment and psychological capital. Additional analyses which explored the impact of demographic variables revealed older employees recorded significantly higher scores on psychological capital than younger employees. These findings inform organizational sustainability where the principles of socially responsible management practices form the heart of responsible stewardship.

Risks of method variance or response biases are likely as all data are drawn from employee surveys, and some selection bias as respondents could not be directly compared with non‐respondents.

This study makes a significant contribution to the non‐profit literature by providing further evidence of the impact of leadership on organizational climate, with the added dimensions of psychological capital, employee wellbeing, and commitment adding to the knowledge of these relationships.

The automatic body measurement is the key of tailoring, mass customization and fit/ease evaluation. The major challenges include finding the landmarks and extracting the sizes accurately. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new method of body measurement based on the loop structure.

The scanned human model is sliced equally to layers consist of various shapes of loops. The semantic feature analysis has been regarded as a problem of finding the points of interest (POI) and the loop of interest (LOI) according to the types of loop connections. Methods for determining the basic landmarks have been detailed.

The experimental results validate that the proposed methods can be used to locate the landmarks and to extract sizes on markless human scans robustly and efficiently.

With the method, the body measurement can be quickly performed with average errors around 0.5 cm. The results of segmentation, landmarking and body measurements also validate the robustness and efficiency of the proposed methods.

The calibration is a key but cumbersome process for 3D body scanning using multiple depth cameras. The purpose of this paper is to simplify the calibration process by introducing a new method to calibrate the extrinsic parameters of multiple depth cameras simultaneously.

An improved method is introduced to enhance the accuracy based on the virtual checkerboards. Laplace coordinates are employed for a point-to-point adjustment to increase the accuracy of scanned data. A system with eight depth cameras is developed for full-body scanning, and the performance of this system is verified by actual results.

The agreement of measurements between scanned human bodies and the real subjects demonstrates the accuracy of the proposed method. The entire calibration process is automatic.

A complete algorithm for a full human body scanning system is introduced in this paper. This is the first publically study on the refinement and the point-by-point adjustment based on the virtual checkerboards toward the scanning accuracy enhancement.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 25.7% of individuals residing in the United States were under the age of 18 in the year 2003 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004a). Within that group 17.6%, about 12 million children, were living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004b). Of the children classified as living in poverty, most lived in metropolitan areas. As defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), metropolitan areas are geographic entities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, or an urbanized area made up of a central place and adjacent territories where the general population density is at least 1000 people per square mile of land (U.S. Census Bureau 2004c). The largest city in a metropolitan area is called a “central city” or an urban center. These densely populated urban cities are home to most children living in poverty in metropolitan areas.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the nomological network of associations between collective mindfulness and big data analytics in fostering resilient humanitarian relief supply chains.

The authors conceptualize a research model grounded in literature and test the hypotheses using survey data collected from informants at humanitarian aid organizations in Africa and Europe.

The findings demonstrate that organizational mindfulness is key to enabling resilient humanitarian relief supply chains, as opposed to just big data analytics.

This is the first study to examine organizational mindfulness and big data analytics in the context of humanitarian relief supply chains.

This article seeks to explore the historical context of government policy in relation to mentally disordered offenders. The article will relate this context to the work of the Probation Service, in particular the development of the Offender Management System (OASys), risk assessment and the implications and challenges that face the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). The key question to be assessed is whether NOMS and OASys can lead to a better service for those with mental disorder, and therefore reduce their risk.