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The purpose of this paper is to explore how students interact with discussion boards, given different cultural backgrounds. The paper draws from the literature on activity theory, communities of practice, as well as learning theory to inform a discussion on students use of discussion boards.

Students from a range of nationalities studying in London were issued with a five-point Likert scale questionnaire that was supplemented with opportunities for students to elaborate on their thoughts through the use of open response comment boxes. In addition to qualitative analysis, statistical analysis using the Kruskal-Wallis test was undertaken to investigate the degree to which national background influenced the use of discussion boards. Students were divided into four groups (British, European, Asian and African) for the purpose of analysis.

The findings tentatively echo earlier work (Hofstede) on how cultural/national factors impact on how people approach work/study. In this case, differences between African and Asian students were most apparent in a number of interesting areas.

This study is limited by the sample size and time constraints involved. The data were drawn from 70 students. Future student intake will be added to this cohort to build up the sample and test preliminary findings.

This paper infers that teachers should be actively aware of how nationality/cultural background may impact on how students learn and engage with information technology during the learning process.

This paper contributes to the work on learning in diverse learning communities and how information technology can contribute to a learning community.

The pre‐commitment approach to bank capital regulation proposes that banks self‐select capital reserve requirements, facing penalties ex post for incurring losses in excess of reserves, hence providing incentives for high‐ risk banks to choose higher capital requirements. In order to assess the validity of the pre‐commitment approach, this article analyzes its comparative statics within the context of a standard European option written against the bank's capital base. The author finds that this approach works when it is not needed (when banks possess unlimited capital and hence cannot fail), but not when it is.

Dr. Alexander R. M. Gibb has been appointed regulatory affairs officer by Anchor Chemical (UK) Ltd.

Discusses challenges facing the US health‐care system now that prepaid or capitated health plans are gaining market share. Investigates how this affects providers, payers and policy makers and the concerns for the maintenance of a quality system. Concludes that the current changes in the US health‐care system are driven by the changing role of the consumer, concerns for quality and efforts to contain costs. Maintains that further research is needed to provide better guidelines to help these challenges to be met.

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the concept of mandatory reporting in adult safeguarding in the jurisdictions of Australia, Canada, England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

A rapid realist evaluation of the literature on this topic was carried out in order to answer the question: "what works, for whom and in what circumstances?” Particular attention was paid to Context(s), Mechanism(s) and Outcome(s) configurations of adult safeguarding reporting systems and processes.

The evaluation found a range of arguments for and against mandatory reporting and international variations on the scope and powers of mandatory reporting.

This review was undertaken in late 2018 so subsequent policy and practice developments will be missing from the evaluation. The evaluation focussed on five jurisdictions therefore, the findings are not necessarily translatable to other contexts.

Some jurisdictions have introduced mandatory reporting and others are considering doing so. The potential advantages and challenges of introducing mandatory reporting are highlighted.

The introduction of mandatory reporting may offer professionals increased powers to prevent and reduce the abuse of adults, but this could also change the dynamic of relationships within families, and between families and professionals.

This paper provides an accessible discussion of mandatory reporting across Ireland and internationally which to date has been lacking from the literature.