Search results

The purpose of this research project was to determine more precise methods for the enrolment of 16‐year‐old engineering students when they first commence classes in colleges of further education. This research work has now been going on at the Aylesbury college for four years. It was originated because we felt that we would like to have some more exact methods of predicting examination successes rather than the previously used methods which we had in operation at the time.

The paper presents a comprehensive review of the UK research literature on the health needs of people with learning disabilities, and the response of mainstream health services to those health needs. Evidence from the review, although limited in some areas, clearly demonstrates that people with learning disabilities in the UK have significantly poorer health than the UK population generally in a number of priority areas for the NHS. Furthermore, people with learning disabilities have particularly poor health in a number of additional areas involving significant mainstream NHS resources. Despite these considerably greater health needs, people with learning disabilities receive poorer support from mainstream health services, across primary care, hospital services and screening programmes.The findings of the review indicate that mainstream NHS services should not only include people with learning disabilities, but also prioritise them as a particularly vulnerable group requiring urgent attention if general NHS priorities for health inequalities and service standards are to be met.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are increasingly being adopted as a strategic approach to consolidating financial institutions and banks, with a focus on enhancing capital strength, broadening business operations and maintaining financial stability. Operational efficiency within the banking sector is crucial for effective functioning and delivering quality services to customers. This study analyzes the efficiency of large-scale mergers involving several Indian public sector banks announced between 2016 and 2019.

The study used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Logistic Regression, Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis for the analysis purpose.

The results from DEA indicate that the average efficiency of merged public sector banks improved post-merger, with four out of six banks achieving technical efficiency in the post-merger period. However, efficiency varied, with OTE scores ranging from 65.8 to 100%. The SFA analysis shows that loanable funds are key drivers of both interest and non-interest income, while significant inefficiencies, particularly in labor, require attention. Physical capital plays a secondary role in income generation. The Malmquist productivity index analysis reveals a 1.6% average productivity growth in the post-merger year Y+1, driven by technological change, with positive TFP in Y+1 and Y+2 and a decline in Y+3. Only four of the six merged banks, namely Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Canara Bank and Punjab National Bank, achieved positive TFP growth, primarily due to improvement in technical efficiency. Additionally, the logistic regression analysis indicates that asset quality and size have statistically significant regression coefficients in predicting operational technical efficiency (OTE).

This paper will contribute to the existing literature of banking, mergers and acquisitions and financial economies.

The rearing of food animals by intensive factory methods has received a great deal of publicity in recent months. This has induced the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to set up a technical committee to examine the conditions in which livestock are raised and kept under systems of intensive husbandry, and to advise if standards should be set in the interests of their welfare. He announced this in Parliament on April 20 and hoped soon to name the chairman and other members of the committee. The committee will quickly note that most criticism has been directed at what many regard as inhumane methods, most of this coming from the heart rather than the head. Battery hens, fooled by changing periods of electric light, have increased their laying and since the broiler industry exploded into the food market only a few years ago, the small seasonal trade has become an all‐the‐year round trade of 100 million birds, a prodigious output that is still rising. This mass production of white meat had already made similar strides in the U.S.A. and a few continental countries a few years previously. Its commercial success, however, is undoubtedly due to the economics of the trade; that it is possible to sell poultry of relatively small size and uniform quality as cheap, or even cheaper, than butchers' meat. All this tends to encourage the application of the same intensive methods of production in the meat trade. Anything that can increase the amount of first‐class animal protein in a world rapidly growing short of it and at lower prices merits more than a sentimental appraisal.

SO SUCCESSFUL in user terms have been the leaflets, brochures and informational posters prepared in recent years by Lambeth Public Libraries' design studio, that an exhibition of the graphic work of designers Adrian Hodgkins and Linda Grimes for the library service was mounted at the London College of Printing in Clerkenwell during May. The printed introduction to the exhibition remarks that ‘Lambeth and a number of other local authorities recognise the need for a high standard of graphic presentation for the publicity and dissemination of information of its activities’—a judgment which was amply confirmed by the work on display. Director Roy McColvin adds: ‘It is our view that a free, non‐institutionalised but appropriate design policy helps enormously, first to give information of the services, and secondly to publicise the activities’.

This study aims to explore the role of the Indian merchant class in 19th-century colonial India in addressing the social concerns of disability. Specifically, it addresses why and how business engaged with disability in colonial India.

This study’s methodology entailed historiographical approach and archival investigation of official correspondence and letters of business people in 19th-century colonial India.

Using institutional theory, the study’s findings indicate that guided by philanthropic and ethical motives, Indian businesses, while recognizing the normative and cognitive challenges, accepted the regulative institutional pressures of colonial India and adopted an involved and humane approach. This manifested in the construction of asylums and the setting up of bequeaths and charitable funds for people with disability (PwD). The principal institutional drivers in making of the asylums and the creation of benevolent charities were religion, social practices, caste-based expectations, exposure to Western education and Victorian and Protestantism ideologies, the emergence of colonial notions of health, hygiene and medicine, carefully crafted socio-political and economic policies of the British Raj and the social aspirations of the native merchant class.

In contrast to the 20th-century rights-based movement of the West, which gave birth to the global term of “disability,” a collective representation of different types of disabilities, this paper locates that cloaked in individual forms of sickness, the identity of PwD in 19th-century colonial India appeared under varied fragmented labels such as those of leper, lunatic, blind and infirm. This paper broadens the understanding of how philanthropic business response to disability provided social acceptability and credibility to business people as benevolent members of society. While parallelly, for PwD, it reinforced social marginalization and the need for institutionalization, propagating perceptions of unfortunate and helpless members of society.

Worldwide, dichotomies exist within macro- and micro-educational planning of systems of education. Inner Mongolia represents an interesting case in the sense that its educational system has been influenced by its historical and passive reliance on China’s political reforms and ongoing identity issues. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how cultural ecology and isomorphism can be compared and managed in the form of a dualism, involving complex organisational structures, operational procedures, and learning outcomes. These may be macro in focus but may also promote the development of social and cultural identity at micro levels. Emphasis is placed upon examining cultural ecology, a concept advocated by the cultural anthropologist, Roy Rappaport, but with concern for embracing indigenous knowledge as a complement to traditional educational attainment.

This discussion further considers the feasibility and implementation of a rubric (the Denman-James Rubric (DJR)) that is a custom-tailored pilot project designed to visually demonstrate one’s mastery of creativity and communication, reflective thinking, and analytical and problem solving skills. A demonstration of the DJR is presented to highlight the progress made in its usage and utility in Inner Mongolia and elsewhere.

A primary research goal is to investigate whether differing teaching and learning approaches and the use of alternative assessments over a period of time can promote, encourage, and empower students into taking greater ownership of their learning.

This narrative is an original look at Inner Mongolia’s educational system and how it has been influenced by its historical and passive reliance on China’s political reforms and ongoing identity issues.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.