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Random shocks are a leading cause of equipment failure. The shocks arise because of large variations in parameters like operating load, voltage, pressure, thermal load, hardness, contamination, tolerances on clearances and alignments, among other factors. Frequent inspections can help detect deterioration at an early stage and prevent failure. However, inspection is also expensive. The challenge is to develop a model that keeps inspection costs to a minimum while ensuring that the equipment down time is prevented or minimised. This paper first develops a model based on failure due to random shock loads, and then follows it up with a strategy for preventing or minimising such failure at optimum cost.

To succeed in a competitive tourist market and attract more foreign tourists, it is essential to have a clear understanding of what travellers are seeking and endeavour to meet those needs, as well as key influential factors in their travel decision-making process. The purpose of the study is to develop and examine tourists’ pre-trip motivational model using the push–pull theory.

A tourists’ pre-trip motivational model was developed and then tested based on a sample of 320 Chinese and non-Chinese visitors to Melbourne, Australia, to assess the suitability of the new model. Data were analysed by descriptive and inferential statistical techniques, such as principal component analysis and independent T-tests.

The analysis revealed statistically significant differences between studied samples in terms of the push and pull factors. In comparison with non-Chinese tourists, Chinese visitors to Melbourne assigned higher importance to resting and relaxing opportunities, family-oriented activities, as well as safety and a high level of service. The identified differences should be reflected in marketing and promotional activities provided to Chinese and non-Chinese travellers.

The study provides useful information for Destination Marketing Organisations in tourism cities wanting to develop specifically customised tourist products, services and promotion programs tailored to each market.

The proposed extended push–pull model represents a holistic and complex model of the travel decision-making process with the multiple linkages between motivations for travelling, preferences of destination attributes, information source usage, trip expectations, possible constraints for travelling and evaluation of destination choice criteria. Understanding all these factors, their relationship and their influence on the final destination choice is a prerequisite for effective and successful actions on attraction and retention of visitors for all tourist destinations. The developed tourists’ pre-trip motivational model may be used as a conceptual framework to guide subsequent motivational studies in tourism.

This article aims to introduce a guide to improving hospital bed setup by combining lean technical practices (LTPs), such as kaizen and value stream mapping (VSM) and lean social practices (LSPs), such as employee empowerment.

Action research approach was employed to analyze the process of reconfiguration of bed setup management in a Brazilian public hospital.

The study introduces three contributions: (1) presents the use of VSM focused specifically on bed setup, while the current literature presents studies mainly focused on patient flow management, (2) combines the use of LSPs and LTPs in the context of bed management, expanding current studies that are focused either on mathematical models or on social and human aspects of work, (3) introduces a practical guide based on six steps that combine LSPs and LSPs to improve bed setup management.

The research focused on the analysis of patient beds. Surgical beds, delivery, emergency care and intensive care unit (ICU) were not considered in this study. In addition, the process indicators analyzed after the implementation of the improvements did not contemplate the moment of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, this research focused on the implementation of the improvement in the context of only one Brazilian public hospital.

The combined use of LSPs and LTPs can generate considerable gains in bed setup efficiency and consequently increase the capacity of a hospital to admit new patients, without the ampliation of the physical space and workforce.

The improvement of bed setup has an important social character, whereas it can generate important social benefits such as the improvement of the admission service to patients, reducing the waiting time, reducing hospitalization costs and improving the hospital capacity without additional physical resources. All these results are crucial for populations, their countries and regions.

While the current literature on bed management is more focused on formal models or pure human and social perspectives, this article brings these two perspectives together in a single, holistic framework. As a result, this article points out that the complex bed management problem can be efficiently solved by combining LSPs and LTPs to present theoretical and practical contributions to the important social problem of hospital bed management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Australian academic librarians marketed their services and resources, which marketing approaches were most effective, and the factors influencing the perceptions of the approaches used.

An online survey was sent to 37 academic librarians in Australia. The response rate was 54.1 percent. The information sheet and consent form for phone interview participants were e-mailed to 17 participants and ten signed consent forms were e-mailed back to the researchers. The response rate was 58.8 percent. The qualitative data were analysed using content analysis. The collected quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using descriptive (frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations) and inferential statistics (correlations).

Academic librarians were involved in a variety of marketing activities and had varied perceptions of the effective approaches used to market services and resources. Correlation analysis confirms that demographics, human capital and library variables play significant roles in predicting librarians' perceptions of the effective marketing techniques used.

Because of very small sample size, the results may lack generalisability. Future research is a large-scale study.

This paper provides a better understanding of academic librarians' attitudes, views and effective techniques with regard to marketing their services and resources.

Librarians may use the results to reflect on the effectiveness of the marketing approaches used, to balance the weight of the factors' influences, and to better understand various effective marketing approaches to enable them to market academic library services and resources more effectively in the future.

Micronesia, a term that means “small islands,” refers to a region of Western Pacific islands scattered across an area of the Pacific Ocean larger than the continental United States (see figure 1). This vast area, located in the tropics almost entirely north of the Equator, covers more than 4,500,000 square miles of ocean and includes more than 2,100 palm tree‐studded islands, islets, and coral atolls. Yet its total land area is fewer than 1,200 square miles—only slightly larger than Rhode Island (see figure 2). Only about 125 of the islands are inhabited on a permanent basis, by some 350,000 people.

Given the rise of sport non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and sponsorships from cryptocurrency companies in the sport industry during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, this paper aims to critically frame the partnerships between cryptocurrency and sport by exploring the reception of fan tokens amongst supporters of three English Premier League clubs: Manchester City, Everton and Crystal Palace.

Drawing upon the emerging critical scholarship on cryptocurrency and the political economy of professional football, this study uses digital ethnography in an attempt to understand the major themes emanating from the online forum discussions amongst fans in response to the issuance of fan tokens by the aforementioned three clubs, among other types of partnerships with crypto companies.

The supporters’ critical deliberations revolved around the contradictions of fan tokens (as a means for supposed “fan engagement” or for financial speculation) and the utility of cryptocurrency for the public. These reactions in turn showcase a larger tension underlying the financially unstable professional football industry: the contest between the owners and the fan bases over the exchange value (for profit) and use value (for community) of the clubs.

This paper is one of the first studies to adopt a critical framework to examine the emerging partnerships between sports and cryptocurrency companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also provides one of the first in-depth analyses of the critical receptions of sport NFTs amongst sport fans. While contributing to the literature on fan activism/protest in the context of the commercialization and commodification of sport, the paper also raises new questions on the responsible use of cryptocurrency/NFT in sport.

Julie Abrams, President, Microfinance Analytics, has been a consultant to the microfinance industry for 15 years. She has authored or co-authored 16 publications on microfinance topics including international financial institution funding, foreign investment, MFI debt default, foreign exchange risk, an e-course on financial risk management, capital structure, profitability, financial performance, and MFI appraisals. Julie has been on the review panel and jury for CGAP's Financial Transparency Awards. She currently serves as an advisor for Research and Analysis to the International Association of Microfinance Investors (IAMFI) and is a member of the Calvert Foundation's External International Investment Committee, including reviews of MicroPlace and all syndicated lending. She began working in microfinance in 1985 with Women's World Banking. Julie was a fellow at the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies, where she earned an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a BA in Economics from Oberlin College.

This study contributes to the understanding of the health effects of pesticides exposure and of how pesticides have been and should be regulated.

This study presents literature reviews for the period 2000–2013 on (i) the health effects of pesticides and on (ii) preference valuation of health risks related to pesticides, as well as a discussion of the role of benefit-cost analysis applied to pesticide regulatory measures.

This study indicates that the health literature has focused on individuals with direct exposure to pesticides, i.e. farmers, while the literature on preference valuation has focused on those with indirect exposure, i.e. consumers. The discussion highlights the need to clarify the rationale for regulating pesticides, the role of risk perceptions in benefit-cost analysis, and the importance of inter-disciplinary research in this area.

This study relates findings of different disciplines (health, economics, public policy) regarding pesticides, and identifies gaps for future research.

The Research Autism Cygnet Mentoring project was a two-year pilot study, completed in 2016, which aimed to develop, trial and evaluate a mentoring scheme designed with input from autistic people, their families and supporters. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The mentoring scheme involved 12 matched pairs (mentor/mentee) meeting once per week for one hour, over a six-month period. All mentors attended a training day, led by the principles of personal construct theory and an emancipatory research ethos. The project and training involved significant involvement of autistic people in both its design and delivery.

Participants on the autism spectrum found their mentoring experience very helpful in enabling them to progress towards self-identified goals, and mentees felt empowered by the person-centred ethos and the methods employed on the project. However, a number of aspects of the mentoring project have been identified that require further investigation, including: caution over offering mentoring without formal structures, boundary setting, supervision, flexibility and the matching of mentees with mentors.

The project has highlighted the potential benefits of time-limited goal-orientated mentoring and the negligible evidence base underpinning current mentoring practice with adults on the autism spectrum. In order for the project to realise its emancipatory aim, there is a need for a large-scale quantitative study and a health-economics analysis to provide the necessary evidence base for mentoring to be recommended as a cost-effective intervention with clear benefits for individual wellbeing.