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First in a series of three articles, addressing the literature and current practice on career management. The series begins by questioning the traditional perspective of careers and centres largely on intraorganizational issues and continuous upward movement. Suggests that interorganizational, interindustry and international career mobility are not only viable career options but becoming increasingly important. Given the changing nature of the global business community and apparent increasing practice of manager transfer as well as the increasing need to address more creative career options for managers, the importance of an examination of manager mobility and associated career practices would seem appropriate.

Expert systems are computer programs which can emulate certain functions of human expertise. They are now used in many areas of business. In the last five years or so a number of software packages have become available, called “shells”, which offer the prospect of users building their own systems. They are relatively cheap and provide a framework into which knowledge or expertise can be built. Describes the development – using one of these shells ‐ of a prototype expert system for evaluating tenders for the supply of new freight containers. The prototype was tested using some data from a previous tender and was found to save more than 90 per cent of the time normally taken to carry out this function. Further benefits were obtained in respect of improved quality of the analysis which could result in additional substantial cost savings. This expert system was built by the manager responsible for the tender evaluation, with a limited amount of assistance. Concludes with some suggestions for managers considering building similar small expert systems.

The increasing literature on international human resource management has produced findings which are largely repetitive and anecdotal and as such are contributing to a reemerging problem for Australian business enterprises wishing to increase their international business activity. The problem concerns the factors which organizations need to consider in most effectively developing and managing international management career programmes. What has traditionally been missing is a strategic framework that links appropriate international human resource management practices with an enterprise′s international business agenda. Develops an argument around this central theme which provides an overview of the need to address what is an emerging problem for Australian business enterprises – how international management careers are best developed and managed in the context of a firm′s human resource management strategy and its strategic international business activity.

Describes a novel concept in aircraft propulsion: investigates a variable cycle jet engine for a supersonic advanced short take‐off vertical landing (ASTOVL) aircraft. The engine is the selective bleed turbofan. The selective bleed turbofan is a two shaft, three compressor, variable cycle gas turbine. At subsonic flight speeds it operates as a medium bypass turbofan. It becomes a low bypass turbofan when flying faster and is capable of supersonic cruise in the dry mode. A preliminary design of an ASTOVL aircraft from Cranfield, the S‐95, was used as the vehicle. Outlines the performance of the engine and its integration with the aircraft. Explains off‐design engine performance characteristics and describes variable geometry requirements. The major advantage of this engine is that all the components are employed all the time, for all operating modes, thus incurring low weight penalties. Predicts that the aircraft/ engine combination will perform in a satisfactory way, meeting most performance targets provided that some improvements are carried out.

An account of how the author has developed his method of delivering sex education to boys. The emphasis is on moving away from traditional teaching methods and interacting with pupils. The aim is to work with boys in a way which does not conspire to maintain traditional expectations in sexual health and contraceptive practices. This is increasingly described as encouraging men to embrace the contraceptive culture. The article should be read by all those interested in developing their skills and knowledge when delivering sex education to adolescent boys.

Discuss the new face of building control which has led to a new breed ot building control surveyor. Argues that the focus has become more centred on the customer in conjunction with the new management culture. This has also led to an improvement in quality and value for money.

Unicode is a standard for a universal character set for all of the scripts of the world’s languages It is one of the fundamental technological building blocks for international exchange of textual information, via computers. It is particularly important to libraries that house collections in many languages and written in various scripts. Ohio State University Libraries houses collections written in many non‐Latin scripts including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Cyrillic. Providing patrons with access to these materials has become much easier with the incorporation of Unicode into library systems and software. This article describes what needs to be in place on personal computers and in the library system in order to take advantage of Unicode as well as providing some guidelines to troubleshoot problems when they occur.

This paper is the first to use the individual level, longitudinal catch-up growth of boys and girls in a historical population to measure their relative deprivation. The data is drawn from two government schools, the Marcella Street Home (MSH) in Boston, MA (1889–1898), and the Ashford School of the West London School District (1908–1917). The paper provides an extensive discussion of the two schools including the characteristics of the children, their representativeness, selection bias and the conditions in each school. It also provides a methodological introduction to measuring children’s longitudinal catch-up growth. After analysing the catch-up growth of boys and girls in the schools, it finds that there were no substantial differences between the catch-up growth by gender. Thus, these data suggest that there were not major health disparities between boys and girls in late-nineteenth-century America and early-twentieth-century Britain.