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This chapter presents a novel visualisation tool, known as Flexible Integrated Transport Services (FITS) that transport commissioners, providers and administrators could employ to specify and edit the operating constraints as they redesign transport services.

The context of rural transport planning is discussed noting that where resources are fewer, effective co-ordination is required to provide passengers with efficient transport services. An overview of the FITS visualisation tool and its different sub-systems (e.g. general information regarding services, operating area, passenger eligibility, fare structure and surcharge structure) is given. Additionally, some key computational details of the system are discussed. Preliminary results of a sample case study that trialled the FITS tool in a specific test run, using simulated transport to health data in the Morayshire and North-West Aberdeenshire area of Scotland are presented. The concluding discussion considers the potential impact of employing tools like FITS in planning transport services in rural and low-demand settings.

Results from the case study show how these effects could be quantified in terms of changes in costs incurred by transport providers, the level of potential demand that could be covered and the associated revenues (fares and subsidies) which could be generated by providers.

The FITS visualisation tool has the potential to act as a planning tool to help transport commissioners, providers and administrators visualise the effects of shifting operating boundaries of flexible transport services.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a more holistic approach to analysing the impact of all the behaviour of a conflict's participants its overall dynamics, using the example of the Northern Irish troubles.

A novel multivariate time series approach developed by Professor Paul Smoker is presented which can map the dynamics of this conflict and its causal inferences as a series or “systemograms”.

The case example reveals high levels of autocorrelation in the variety of techniques used by the state security authorities to suppress terrorism, indicating their strong role in maintaining this conflict. When more than one party exhibits such behaviour, the conflict “locks in”.

The work remains preliminary and historical. Data was collected on a month‐by‐month basis which suggests associated rather than direct causal influence. It would be useful to further explore these findings using data from similar conflicts.

Suggests that some counter‐terrorism approaches may be dysfunctional especially those adopting sub‐lethal weapons. Provides some insight into behavioural changes required to prevent conflict destabilisation.

Provides a novel conflict research methodology which allows the strong structural dynamics of the conflict to be seen – much the way that elapsed time photography enables hidden processes to be revealed. The raw statistics are presented here.

There is increasing awareness of the needs of people with learning disabilities from different ethnic communities. This paper focuses on the impact of ethnicity on the presentation of mental health problems. The main aim of the paper is to inform those planning and delivering mental health services for people with learning disabilities of the current evidence, in order to enable their practice to improve health outcomes for people from minority ethnic communities.

The use of violence risk assessment measures within intellectual disabilities (ID) services is now the norm and a growing target for research. The purpose of this paper is to examine the clinical utility of the historical and clinical factors of the HCR-20 in predicting violence.

The study took place within a national low secure service for adults with ID examining all completed admissions over a six-year period, (N=22). Clinical records covering the first three months of admission were examined along with historical reports and incident data recorded at three, six, nine and 12 months admission using the Modified Overt Aggression Scale (MOAS).

Significant positive relationship between Historical score and total number of incidents was established. Patients with challenging behaviour less likely to have a previous history of violence, and more likely to be older at first violent incident than patients without challenging behaviour. Incidents involving patients with autism were less severe and those with no additional psychiatric diagnosis were significantly more likely to have substance misuse problems than those with a diagnosis.

The study found the Historical section was predictive of violent incidents and whilst the study is too small to draw any firm conclusions, the significant positive relationship between the Historical Score and number of incidents for those without additional diagnosis needs to be investigated further as well as the potential positive clinical impact of using the HCR-20 in routine clinical practice.

In two previous articles, this author drew attention to the importance of the linguistic resources of legitimising principles, and the uses of ideology and rhetoric in bargaining and negotiation. It was argued that if we are fully to understand the processes of power in organisations generally, and in industrial relations in particular, we need to study in more detail the nature and uses of ideology, legitimising principles and rhetoric, and the ways in which these are used continually to reinforce and reproduce structures of power and domination. Illustrative material from an engineering company, Bettavalve Placid, was used to demonstrate the nature of some of these processes.

Considers the importance of knowledge management for competitive advantage and the contribution which expert systems may make to the process. Explains the structure and role of expert systems, and outlines the advantages they may offer. Explores different methods of introducing them into an organization and subsequently developing their potential, comparing the traditional life‐cycle approach with that of evolutionary methods including prototyping. Concludes with a description of the early stages of introducing an expert system into a large engineering company, based on an action research approach.