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The critical nature of diffusion in understanding the link between individual competency and collective competency is often underconceptualized. Organizational learning involves diffusion of knowledge and/or skill from the individual to members of the collective, and expansion of the collective's capacity to take effective action. Three types of individual and collective competency are identified, ranging on a continuum from explicit‐and‐quickly‐diffused to tacit‐and‐slowly‐diffused Patterns of diffusion can occur in stages: by critical mass, in cycles, or in a synthesis of styles. A model illustrating these dynamics is presented. Criteria for evaluating successful collective learning are introduced.

Imprisonment is common among drug users. However, historically healthcare for injecting drug users in prison in England and Wales has not been equivalent to that offered in community settings. Fiftyone injecting drug users who had a history of imprisonment were interviewed. Interviews focused on the experiences of drug‐related care and treatment in prison. The interviews were analysed using the Framework method. Accounts of prison drug treatment experiences provided valuable insights into drug treatment in the English prison. The participants’ accounts provided a historical perspective, many of which reflected the different practices of different prisons and prison staff and the changes in policy and practice that have occurred in prison healthcare over recent decades. Positive and negative experiences of healthcare and drug treatment in prison were discussed. Issues that affected levels of drug use inside prisons and their receipt of care, support and treatment in prison included prescribing policies, illicit drug availability and prison staff and doctor attitudes. Whilst negative experiences of prison and drug treatment prevailed, users identified that recent policy and practice changes had positively influenced healthcare provision for drug users in prison, particularly the provision of opiate maintenance therapy. Drug users often saw prison as an opportunity to detoxify and contemplate their drug use. Further work needs to build on the positive experiences identified to ensure that prison drug treatment in England and Wales is consistent, effective and efficient in the future.

This paper aims to explore the cessation of injecting amongst male drug users when in prison in England and uncovers what influenced this behaviour and why.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 30 male drug users on release from prison to explore what happened to their injecting drug use in prison. The research was conducted from a pragmatic harm reduction approach using grounded theory.

Not injecting in prison was identified as a pertinent finding and nine overarching themes accounted for this decline. The themes often overlapped with one another, highlighting how the decision not to inject when last in prison was multi‐factorial. Running throughout the themes were participants' concerns regarding the health and social risks attributed to injecting in prison, alongside an appreciation of some of the rehabilitative measures and opportunities offered to injecting drug users when in prison.

This qualitative research offers an updated perspective on illicit drug injecting in prison in England from the view of drug users since health and prison policy changes in prescribing and practice. It contributes to evidence suggesting that prisons can be used as a time of reprieve and recovery from injecting drug use.

A plant layout in the context of manufacturing facilities design consists of the production areas, manufacturing support areas and personnel areas. In facilities design, plant layout has been determined to be one of the most important elements in the effectiveness of systematic manufacturing operability. This paper describes the development of a split departmental plant layout generation system (LAYSPLIT) in the domain of facilities design to develop layouts that will minimize the material handling costs. The plant layout generation system consists of a data acquisition module, a pair‐wise departmental exchange module, a layout development module, and a graphical representation module. The approach used to develop the system using a split departmental method, and the characteristics of the system are outlined. The advantages of the developed system in terms of facilitating effective operations and increasing productivity in manufacturing environments are discussed. The results obtained from LAYSPLIT are compared with that produced by the MCRAFT system and discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore prison drug injecting prevalence, identify any changes in injecting prevalence and practice during imprisonment and explore views on prison needle exchange.

An empirical prospective cohort survey conducted between 2006 and 2008. The study involved a random sample of 267 remand and sentenced prisoners from a large male category B prison in England where no prison needle exchange operates. Questionnaires were administered with prisoners on reception and, where possible, at one, three and six months during their sentence.

In total, 64 per cent were injecting until admission into prison. The majority intended to stop injecting in prison (93 per cent), almost a quarter due to the lack of needle exchange (23 per cent). Yet when hypothetically asked if they would continue injecting in prison if needle exchange was freely available, a third of participants (33 per cent) believed that they would. Injecting cessation happened on prison entry and appeared to be maintained during the sentence.

Not providing sterile needles may increase risks associated with injecting for prisoners who continue to inject. However, providing such equipment may prolong injecting for other prisoners who currently cease injecting on account of needle exchange programmes (NEPs) not being provided in the UK prison setting.

Not providing sterile needles may increase risks associated with injecting for prisoners who continue to inject. However, providing such equipment may prolong injecting for other prisoners who currently cease injecting on account of NEPs not being provided in the UK prison setting.

This survey is the first to question specifically regarding the timing of injecting cessation amongst male prisoners and explore alongside intention to inject should needle exchange facilities be provided in prison.

In a recent RQ column, Sharon L. Baker reviewed the profession's literature in the area of readers' advisory services. She found that very little research existed in the area of readers' advisory services. The research that does exist is focused on “passive” readers' advisory strategies. Baker is a leader in this area and her articles on overload and browsing, the use of displays, and genre classification are essential to understanding the adult fiction reader and ways in which libraries can assist these individuals in locating new authors and titles of interest.

Order picking is one of the most costly logistics processes in warehouses. As a result, the optimization of order picking processes has received an increased attention in recent years. One potential source for improving order picking is the reduction of picker blocking. The purpose of this paper is to investigate picker blocking under different storage assignment and order picker-route combinations and evaluate its effects on the performance of manual order picking processes.

This study develops an agent-based simulation model (ABS) for order picking in a rectangular warehouse. By employing an ABS, we are able to study the behaviour of individual order pickers and their interactions with the environment.

The simulation model determines shortest mean throughput times when the same routing policy is assigned to all order pickers. In addition, it evaluates the efficiency of alternative routing policies–storage assignment combinations.

The paper implies that ABS is well-suited for further investigations in the field of picker blocking, for example, with respect to the individual behaviour of agents.

Based on the results of this paper, warehouse managers can choose an appropriate routing policy that best matches their storage assignment policy and the number of order pickers employed.

This paper is the first to comprehensively study the effects of different combinations of order picker routing and storage assignment policies on the occurrence of picker blocking.

Organisational culture is largely the result of the interaction between the people of an organisation over time and communication plays a major role in such intra‐organisational interaction. The prevailing organisational culture will reciprocally determine the communication of the organisation, not only internally, but also externally with all of its stakeholder groups, and particularly with its customers. This external communication is particularly relevant to an organisation's ability to render service to its customers. This article investigates differences in the way in which managers and employees perceive the role of communication in an organisation in the automotive industry. The results indicate that managers consistently evaluate prevailing service‐related communication contexts more positively than employees. It is concluded that progress in service quality can be seriously inhibited by a false sense of security about prevailing service related communication procedures and practices among the managers of an organisation.

There are very few individuals who have studied the question of weights and measures who do not most strongly favour the decimal system. The disadvantages of the weights and measures at present in use in the United Kingdom are indeed manifold. At the very commencement of life the schoolboy is expected to commit to memory the conglomerate mass of facts and figures which he usually refers to as “Tables,” and in this way the greater part of twelve months is absorbed. And when he has so learned them, what is the result? Immediately he leaves school he forgets the whole of them, unless he happens to enter a business‐house in which some of them are still in use; and it ought to be plain that the case would be very different were all our weights and measures divided or multiplied decimally. Instead of wasting twelve months, the pupil would almost be taught to understand the decimal system in two or three lessons, and so simple is the explanation that he would never be likely to forget it. There is perhaps no more interesting, ingenious and useful example of the decimal system than that in use in France. There the standard of length is the metre, the standard of capacity the cubic decimetre or the litre, while one cubic centimetre of distilled water weighs exactly one gramme, the standard of weight. Thus the measures of length, capacity and weight are most closely and usefully related. In the present English system there is absolutely no relationship between these weights and measures. Frequently a weight or measure bearing the same name has a different value for different bodies. Take, for instance, the stone; for dead meat its value is 8 pounds, for live meat 14 pounds; and other instances will occur to anyone who happens to remember his “Tables.” How much simpler for the business man to reckon in multiples of ten for everything than in the present confusing jumble. Mental arithmetic in matters of buying and selling would become much easier, undoubtedly more accurate, and the possibility of petty fraud be far more remote, because even the most dense could rapidly calculate by using the decimal system.