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Mental health champions (MHCs) and young health ambassadors (YHAs) are two innovative public health interventions. MHCs are practitioners who work in schools and other youth settings and aim to be the “go to” person for mental health in these settings. YHAs are a linked parallel network of young people, who champion mental health and advocate for youth involvement, which was co-produced with young people across all stages of development implementation. This paper aims to identify the potential benefits, barriers and facilitators of these interventions.

Semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 19) were undertaken with a purposive sample of n = 13 MHCs, and n = 6 YHAs, between June 2021 and March 2022. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and then analysed following a thematic approach. Ethical approval was granted by Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee.

The findings are organised under five key themes: motivating factors and rewards for MHCs and YHAs; outcomes for children and young people (CYP) and others; impact on youth settings and culture; facilitators of successful implementation; and implementation challenges and opportunities.

These findings are intended to be of relevance to practice and policy, particularly to those exploring the design, commissioning or implementation of similar novel and low-cost interventions, which aim to improve mental health outcomes for CYP, within the context of youth settings.

The interventions reported on in the present paper are novel and innovative. Little research has previously been undertaken to explore similar approaches, and the individual experiences of those involved in the delivery of these types of interventions.

IEEE Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Working Group were divided into subgroups that were in charge of studying industrial robotics, service robotics and autonomous robotics. This paper aims to present the work in-progress developed by the autonomous robotics (AuR) subgroup. This group aims to extend the core ontology for robotics and automation to represent more specific concepts and axioms that are commonly used in autonomous robots.

For autonomous robots, various concepts for aerial robots, underwater robots and ground robots are described. Components of an autonomous system are defined, such as robotic platforms, actuators, sensors, control, state estimation, path planning, perception and decision-making.

AuR has identified the core concepts and domains needed to create an ontology for autonomous robots.

AuR targets to create a standard ontology to represent the knowledge and reasoning needed to create autonomous systems that comprise robots that can operate in the air, ground and underwater environments. The concepts in the developed ontology will endow a robot with autonomy, that is, endow robots with the ability to perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous explicit human guidance.

Creating a standard for knowledge representation and reasoning in autonomous robotics will have a significant impact on all R&A domains, such as on the knowledge transmission among agents, including autonomous robots and humans. This tends to facilitate the communication among them and also provide reasoning capabilities involving the knowledge of all elements using the ontology. This will result in improved autonomy of autonomous systems. The autonomy will have considerable impact on how robots interact with humans. As a result, the use of robots will further benefit our society. Many tedious tasks that currently can only be performed by humans will be performed by robots, which will further improve the quality of life. To the best of the authors’knowledge, AuR is the first group that adopts a systematic approach to develop ontologies consisting of specific concepts and axioms that are commonly used in autonomous robots.

Using two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 17 in-depth interviews, I examine a college gaming group's identity work. Stigmatized as social isolates, gamers employed oppositional identity work to construct themselves as “communal gamers.” Gaming Council members signified an identity counter to prevailing stereotypes by collaboratively coding “communal” to promote member interaction, affirming communality through joking and member recognition, and policing to enforce proper identity presentations. This study contributes to identity work research by furthering our understanding of identity work as group process and how groups manage identity dilemmas.

Asks on whose behalf the black woman poet in the USA speaks, what type of language she uses and what audience she has. Points out that an earlier lack of tradition meant that originally white styles of language were used and aimed at the white audience. Looks at the rise of the blues era and the “blueswoman”. Considers the work of Phillis Wheatley, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Anne Spencer and Angelina Grimke together with Margaret Walker and singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Finally, outlines the development of a political era and the growing sexual freedom of black women and the impact their writings.

Reviews ways in which sunk costs, particularly those embedded in property ownership, can affect programmes of selective closure of retail outlets. Three examples from UK retailing in the 1990s – Littlewoods, the British Shoe Corporation and Do it All – are used to demonstrate that sunk costs have been significant in delaying the execution of rationalisation programmes, and have led to substantial “write‐offs” of property assets in company balance sheets. Certain conventions and inflexibilities in British property law and management are identified as key influences. There is shown to be a need for further research into corporate closure programmes and their relationships with property and locational issues. Some tentative conclusions for corporate retail strategies are discussed.

Childhood obesity is a major global health concern. Understanding children's and adolescent’s eating behaviours and promoting healthier behaviours is key for reducing the negative health outcomes associated with obesity. The current study explored the perceptions of healthy eating behaviours and the influences on eating behaviours amongst 11-to-13-year-old secondary school students.

Nine semi-structured same-sex focus group discussions were conducted in schools located in deprived areas of England, with the discussions subjected to a thematic framework analysis.

Three main constructs were identified in the analysis as follows: (1) eating patterns and lifestyle, (2) social influences and (3) environmental influences. Participants understood what healthy eating behaviours are and the benefits of eating healthy; yet, they reported irregular mealtimes and consuming unhealthy snacks. Students reported that their parents and fellow student peers were strong influences on their own eating behaviours, with girls subjected to being teased by male students for attempting to eat healthily. Finally, students perceived that unhealthy foods were cheaper, tasted better and were readily available in their social environments compared to healthier options, making healthier behaviours less likely to occur.

Findings indicate that students had a good understanding of healthy eating behaviours but did not always practise them and are seemingly influenced by their social and environmental context. The promotion of healthier eating in this age group needs to challenge the misperceptions associated with the accessibility and social acceptability of unhealthy food items.

Purpose – This chapter provides a theoretical and conceptual overview of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It is written as a descriptive document to enhance the understanding of CSR within the context of international business.Design/methodology/approach – This chapter is built based on an extensive literature review.Findings – This chapter contains six subsections. The first subsection looks at the concept of CSR, and it highlights the possible role of CSR in mitigating the negative consequences of globalisation. The second subsection looks at the evolution of CSR since the 1990s. The third section looks at ethics theories. The fourth section looks at political theories to explain CSR. The fifth section looks at the business case for CSR. And finally the sixth section looks at specific CSR initiatives.Practical implications – This chapter provides a response to the necessity for this analysis that arises from the effects of CSR actions in international business.Originality/value of chapter – This chapter provides a summary of the conceptual and theoretical framework of CSR. It could be used as a teaching tool for undergraduate and masters’ courses on either international business or corporate social responsibility.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Reviews the activities of large retailing companies during the period 1991‐93. Identifies their strategic and operational responses to the economic situation prevailing at that time. Conducts the review using a financial model of a typical retailing business, within which a number of strategic and operational scenarios are proposed. Concludes that expansion continued by those companies who remain confident in the acceptance of the “offer” and where the risk was contained. Retailers were also active in consolidation and productivity activities.

It has been found that lactase (a ferment which aids the digestion of milk sugar) is present in the pancreatic juice of puppies, though not in that of the adult animal, but would appear in the latter under the stimulous of a milk diet.