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This research priority setting partnership (PSP) aims to collaboratively identify the “top ten” research priorities relating to communication and swallowing for children and adults with learning disabilities, across the lifespan in the UK, using a modified James Lind Alliance approach.

A steering group and reference group were established to oversee the PSP. A survey of speech and language therapists (SLTs) resulted in 157 research suggestions. These were further developed into 95 research questions through a multi-stakeholder workshop. Questions were prioritised via an online card-sort activity completed by SLTs, health-care or education professionals and carers. Research questions were analysed thematically. Ten adults with learning disabilities were supported to assign ratings to themes reflecting their prioritisation. The top ten research priorities were identified by combining results from these activities.

The top ten research priorities related to intervention, outcome measurement and service delivery around communication and dysphagia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first UK-wide research PSP on learning disabilities and speech and language therapy across the lifespan. It uses a novel approach to incorporate the preferences of people with learning disabilities in the prioritisation.

Globally “non-urgent” health care services were ceased in response to the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19, until 2021, when restrictions were lifted. In the UK, this included speech and language therapy services. The implications of COVID-19 restrictions have not been explored. This study aimed to examine the impact of the UK’s COVID-19 response on speech and language therapy services.

An online survey of the practice of speech and language therapists (SLTs) in the UK was undertaken. This explored SLTs’ perceptions of the demand for their services at a time when COVID-19 restrictions had been lifted, compared with before the onset of the pandemic. The analysis was completed using descriptive statistics and content analysis.

Respondents were mostly employed by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) or the private sector. Many participants reported that demands on their service had increased compared with before the onset of the pandemic. The need to address the backlog of cases arising from shutdowns was the main reason for this. Contributing factors included staffing issues and redeployment. Service users were consequently waiting longer for NHS therapy. Private therapy providers reported increased demand, which they directly attributed to these NHS challenges.

This presents the only focused account of the impact of the national response to COVID-19 on speech and language therapy services in the UK. It has been identified that services continue to face significant challenges, which indicate a two-tier system is emerging. Healthcare system leaders must work with service managers and clinicians to create solutions and prevent the system from being overwhelmed.

There is dearth of research pertaining to how persons with disability (PWDs) view their career and the issues they face in career development; past studies highlight either the organizational initiatives or individual factors in this regard. The present study bridges this gap by studying the PWDs' experiences and perceptions on challenges in their career development.

An exploratory study through interview of professionally qualified PWDs in India, who have a permanent employment.

PWDs experience that affirmative action has a negative fallout as it leads to positive discrimination and hence, adversely affects their confidence and development.

The present study throws up new themes in the organizational climate that the PWDs face in career development, future studies can understand the aspirations of PWDs toward career and focus on the how the PWDs engage in shaping their career. Researchers can explore strategies that PWDs plan/adopt in creating a sustainable career for themselves. Scholars can also map the issues raised by PWDs with the career outcomes.

The Rights of Persons with Disability Act, 2016, of Government of India introduces a social model of disability in India. This paper deploys the social model of disability to enhance our understanding of the disability climate in India from a new lens.

This study introduces new themes that depict the environmental factors and are related to the organizational climate rather than self-focused issues of PWDs. The paper introduces two new subjective criteria, voiced by PWDs, for career development – a well-crafted capability-based career path and role of inspirational platforms. It introduces hitherto undiscovered issues toward career development, faced by PWDs who have a secure employment and a professional career. This is the first exclusive study of PWDs employed in public sector and thus, brings uniqueness in the context.

The purpose of this paper is to give a comprehensive description of various safety factors that need to be determined while assessing the short‐circuit strength of transformers.

Factors of safety are divided into two categories: radial and axial. Some of the latest approaches in assessing the strength are elaborated.

Six major sets of calculations are identified: three each for radial and axial electromagnetic forces. Corresponding factors of safety are defined and calculated for practical transformers. These factors are related to the strength and stability aspects of windings.

The work gives pointers for further research at appropriate places while highlighting the challenges involved in the assessment of the short‐circuit strength.

The presented overview of the factors of safety can be a useful guide for the practicing transformer engineers.

The main contribution of the reported work is in highlighting the intricacies associated with the subject of short‐circuit strength of power transformers. It can serve as a reference document for future research works in the area since the procedures are outlined for calculating the factors of safety through six case studies.

This paper presents a design approach for process-based knowledge management (PKM) systems that can support knowledge-intensive processes where effective task execution is highly reliant on the knowledge and expertise of participants executing the tasks. The proposed design approach includes design methods and kernel theories governing the design of PKM systems and can also be easily integrated with existing systems analysis and design techniques.

The design science research methodology is used to design and develop the artifact which includes the overall PKM design approach. Information systems design theory is used as a high-level framework to develop and structure the design approach. Relevant design methods and behavioral theories are reviewed to identify kernel theories that guide the design and development of PKM systems. The design approach consists of meta-requirements for PKM systems and design processes to achieve the meta-requirements. A feasibility study is conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

The design approach presented in this paper can guide system analysts and system developers in the design of knowledge management systems for supporting knowledge-intensive processes. The paper also includes a comprehensive design theory for PKM systems consisting of meta-requirements and a synthesis of various kernel theories into actionable design procedures. The proposed procedures include knowledge requirements modeling, knowledge flows modeling and knowledge and process performance modeling procedures. The feasibility study indicates that the PKM approach can be more useful and effective than solely using unified modeling language (UML)-based systems analysis and design techniques for the design of PKM systems.

An implication to information systems design research is the feasibility of developing a specialized design approach that incorporates significant domain knowledge to solve complex information system design problems. An implication to practice is the significant potential to improve productivity and effectiveness of systems analysts and designers in developing PKM systems. A limitation is the small sample size of the feasibility study used to evaluate the ease of use and utility of the design approach.

The study makes a unique contribution by proposing a design approach that integrates business process and knowledge management considerations. The approach is particularly valuable because of the focus on integration with existing systems analysis and design techniques, thus allowing for easier adoption.

Online search effort is routinely measured by the duration of visit at the website as obtained from clicksream data or surveys. Measuring search effort by the time spent at a website assumes that all consumers who search for the same duration obtain the same amount of information. This would be acceptable if all consumers possessed the same navigational ability. In practice, different consumers have different levels of ability to navigate a website. The purpose of this study is to find whether an individual’s navigational ability has an influence on visit duration and purchase likelihood.

The authors use visit duration data from a real website which makes it possible to partition the visit duration into the times spent on relevant and irrelevant pages. The data were collected through an experimental study. The authors develop an empirical model, comprising hazard and choice models, to assess the relationship between navigational ability and elements of website usage.

A consumer with poor navigational ability spends more time searching on the Web and has lower purchase probability compared to a consumer with superior ability.

The study is limited to one data.

This research has managerial implications for website design, such as link-structure, appearance, size and the number of graphics.

This is the first study to research navigational ability’s influence on online consumer behavior.

This research aims to study the coping experience of visually impaired (VI) bankers in India after they have received reasonable accommodation from their employers, that is, the work process or environment has been suitably modified to ensure a barrier-free environment for them.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 VI bankers working with public sector banks in India. A phenomenological approach was adopted during data analysis.

Despite the provision of reasonable accommodations, VI employees often find it difficult to fulfill their job responsibilities. This is on account of extensive paperwork required for completion of their jobs and the partially accessible information systems available to them. As a result, these VI employees are found resorting to workarounds to carry out their jobs, with the nature of workarounds adopted varying with the type and extent of visual impairment. Furthermore, it is observed that VI employees require social support not only from their superiors and peers but also from their subordinates and customers to carry out their tasks.

Data collection was done through snowball sampling which could have resulted in sampling bias. Due to confidentiality issues, observation of workarounds in practice by VI employees could not be carried out as part of the study.

The study contributes to the literature on integration of persons with disabilities (PwDs) by examining their coping experience after provision of reasonable accommodations. It emphasizes the role of workarounds, an under-studied area in PwD integration, as well as support of other stakeholders in the experience.

An adaptive slicing algorithm that can vary the layer thickness in relation to local geometry is presented. The algorithm is based on three fundamental concepts: choice of criterion for accommodating complexities of surfaces, recognition of key characteristics and features of the object, and development of a grouping methodology for facets used to represent the object. Four criteria, cusp height, maximum deviation, chord length and volumetric error per unit length, are identified and the layer thickness is adjusted such that one of the four is met. Next, key characteristics of the object, such as horizontal and vertical surfaces, pointed edges and ends, are identified based on the local changes in surface complexity, and slice based feature recognition is introduced to identify the nature of a feature, protrusion or depression, by studying the slice data. Note that the present approach uses information only from the tessellated model, and thus is different from current implementations. Finally, the concept of grouping of the facets based on their vertex coordinates is developed to minimize the number of searches for possible intersection of the facets with a slice plane. The slicing algorithm is interfaced with adaptive laminated machining and the stereolithography process through a CNC post processor and a hatching algorithm respectively. A comparison of the estimated surface quality and build time indicates that adaptive slicing produces superior parts in a shorter build time. The implementation of this work is protected under US Patent laws (Patent # 5,596,504, January 1997).

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of entrepreneurial growth from the perspective of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and transaction cost theory (TCT) and to formulate propositions regarding the entrepreneurs’ decisional rules and structural elements in this process.

The argumentation draws upon three fields of academic research, namely, entrepreneurship studies on firm growth as well as strategic management and organization science studies on company scope and size (boundary). A systematic review of the literature was performed that combines the RBV and TCT to explain a firm’s boundary.

Three levels of entrepreneurial decisional rules in the process of growth were identified. The first level includes main decisional criteria. The second level approaches the structural elements of growth process, namely, its motives, rationale, mechanism and modes. The third level assumes evolutionary approach to decision making, namely, feedback relationships among transaction costs, governance and capabilities to create value from growth.

The paper broadens the early stream of research in the process of entrepreneurial growth. It contributes to explaining the way growth is realized, instead of identifying its predictors, which has dominated in to-date studies. The entrepreneurs’ decisional rules and choices in the process of expansion were suggested. Moreover, the integrated RBV-TCT approach was proposed as a theoretical background for studying this phenomenon.