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This paper sets out to engage with current debate over local foods and the emergence of what has been called an alternative food economy and to examine the distribution of local food activity in the South West and West Midlands regions of England.

Databases on local food activity were constructed for each region from secondary sources. The data were mapped by means of choropleth mapping at postcode district level.

Although local food activity is flourishing in the South West and, to a lesser extent, the West Midlands, it is unevenly distributed. Concentrations occur in both regions. These may relate to a variety of factors, including: proximity to urban centres and particular trunk roads, landscape designations and the geography of farming types. The products that tend to predominate – horticulture, dairy, meat and poultry – can either be sold directly to consumers with little or no processing, or remain readily identifiable and defining ingredients after being processed.

The findings require testing through a larger‐scale survey using primary data. Many local food producers also supply conventional markets. Further research is required into their reasons for doing so and into whether the local food sector can become a significant alternative to conventional food supply chains.

The paper maps local food activity in England on a larger scale than attempted hitherto. It contributes to debate over the alternative food economy and provides a basis for further empirical research.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate new design concepts for 24 classes of laminate, which have been derived as part of an ongoing study on the development of a unified approach to the characterization of coupled laminates. The paper presents a description of each class of coupled laminate.

The paper gives an overview of the desired performance and requirements of a smart leading edge device, its aerodynamic design for the wind tunnel tests and the structural pre‐design and sizing of the full‐scale leading edge section which will be tested in the wind tunnel.

Coupled laminates have potential applications in the design of aero‐elastic compliant rotor blades or aircraft wing structures, by introducing tailored extension‐twist and/or shear‐extension coupling at the laminate level; or in the design of thermally activated morphing structures, by exploiting more complex coupling behaviour.

These laminates contain standard cross‐ply and/or angle‐ply combinations, although double angle‐ply laminates are also considered, and correspond to any standard fibre/matrix system with a constant ply thickness throughout.

The vast majority of the laminate described possess coupling behaviour not previously identified in the literature.

The US Government adopted the base realignment and closure (BRAC) to resolve the military, economic and political issue of excess base capacity. There have been five rounds of BRAC since 1988, and more are expected to come in the years ahead. The complexity of the closure and realignment decisions and the plethora of factors that are often involved necessitate the need for a sound theoretical framework to structure and model the decision‐making process. This paper aims to address the issues.

The paper presents a multiple criteria benchmarking system that integrates the employment, environmental, financial, strategic, and tactical impacts of the closure and realignment decisions into a weighted‐sum measure called the “survivability index.” The proposed index is used to determine whether the returns generated by each military base on the Department of Defense (DoD) hit list meet a sufficient target benchmark.

There is a significant amount of evidence that intuitive decision making is far from optimal and it deteriorates exponentially with problem complexity. The benchmarking system presented in this study helps decision makers (DMs) crystallize their thoughts and reduce the environmental complexities inherent in the BRAC decisions. The presented model is intended to create an even playing field for benchmarking and pursuing consensus not to imply a deterministic approach to BRAC decisions.

An iterative process is used to consistently analyze the objective and subjective judgments of multiple DMs within a structured framework based on the analytic network process and fuzzy logic. This iterative and interactive preference modeling procedure is the basic distinguishing feature of the presented model as opposed to statistical and optimization decision‐making approaches.

This article proposes a schema for meta‐information about MARC that can express at a fairly comprehensive level the syntactic and semantic aspects of MARC formats in XML, including not only rules but also all texts and examples that are conveyed by MARC documentation. It can be thought of as an XML version of the MARC or UNIMARC manuals, for both machine and human usage. The article explains how such a schema can be the central piece of a more complete framework, to be used in conjunction with “slim” record formats, providing a rich environment for the automated processing of bibliographic data.

Since world attention has been focussed on the quality and safety of drugs, thought is being given to improving the methods of dealing with this branch of control under the Food and Drugs Act, 1955. This work is entirely different to the several projects now being undertaken, such as the Government‐sponsored “safety committee” dealing with the clinical testing of new drugs before sale; this deals mainly with toxicity trials, therapeutic efficiency and adverse reactions and is designed to prevent such catastrophies as the recent drug‐induced deformities of babies. The recently proposed scheme of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry for an advisory centre had similar objectives.

This paper aims to revisit paradigmatic depictions of organized criminal behavior. Unveiling shortcomings, it asks how contingent manifestations of organized crime can be better grasped by borrowing analytical tools from organizational scholarship.

The potential for cross-disciplinary fertilization is showcased by reflecting recent transformations of Mexican organized crime. Over a year of close-proximity fieldwork, exclusive first-hand empirical data were gathered on Los Caballeros Templarios, one of Mexico’s principal criminal organizations. Interviews with its leaders were carried out and participant observation conducted amongst local communities.

Criminal organizations have turned to the local to generate resources vital for their survival. Emerging as forces of alternative governance, the strategic use of organizational legitimacy has gained unprecedented prominence. It acts as an interface for reciprocal criminal-organization–environment influences. Largely neglected, it has driven the mutation of Mexican organized crime and the country’s armed conflict altogether.

The reported findings are of limited scope insofar as they are derived from in-depth data on a single case. Future research would ideally generate such data on further cases, enabling greater theorization qua cross-comparison.

Informed by rare first-hand empirical data, this paper offers exclusive insights into the on-the-ground realities of Mexican organized crime and its role in the fragmentation of social order and governance. This is of interest for scholars, the wider public and policymakers alike. The innovative conceptual approach is easily replicable so as to support similar enquiries.

The purpose of this paper is to outline how article genres, or article types, are classified and described in the disciplines of biology, education, and software engineering. By using the expression article genres, emphasis is placed on the social role of journal articles that, as such, accomplish specific communicative functions and are intended for a certain context and audience.

Drawing on this idea, the instructions to authors of the research journals cited in the Journal Citation Reports for each of the three disciplines are analysed.

The information provided by the instructions to authors of major publications in the fields studied allows one to describe the following article genres: major articles, theoretical articles, review articles, short articles, practice‐oriented articles, case studies, comment and opinion, and reviews.

Results show that article genres reflect the nature of research in each field to the extent that using them to describe items along with topic may improve management and retrieval of scientific documents. In addition, article genres perform specific communicative functions within disciplinary communities, which accounts for both emerging types of articles and variations in traditional types.

The paper summarizes the information on article genres available in the instructions to authors of scientific journals in the disciplines of biology, education and software engineering. It attempts to show how results can mirror the nature of research in each field as well as current debates within each discipline on the state and quality of research. Also it shows how article genres convey specific communication needs within disciplinary communities, which proves that genres are social and evolving objects.

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.