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As anecdotal evidence mounts that concerns over the environmental friendliness of products are heightening worldwide, there is a need to assess the importance of a product′s environmental attributes relative to its other attributes in consumers′ product choice decisions. Assesses and compares the trade‐offs among product attributes that American and Dutch consumers are willing to make for the sake of the environment, across three product categories. Survey research was conducted that examined attitudes regarding environmental protection and consumer choice criteria. Results suggest, based on conjoint analysis, that there are noteworthy differences between Americans and Dutch in how they value a product′s environmental attributes.

Prior research has determined that consumers are opposed to services offshoring. The purpose of this paper is to determine the likelihood that consumers would choose a domestic vs an offshore service provider if asked to pay more, wait longer, or sacrifice service quality.

The cost, time to wait, and quality of services provided (for two different services: taxes and customer service) were varied to determine respondent likelihood to choose a domestic as opposed to an offshore service provider when asked to pay more, wait longer, or sacrifice the quality of the service in return for access to a domestic service provider. Data were collected via survey research, using an internet panel.

Results of repeated measures analysis indicated that customer loyalty to the domestic service provider significantly decreased as the cost or time to interact with a domestic service provider increased or the quality of service provided by the offshore service provider increased.

The research results signify that while customers, in general, may be opposed to services offshoring, they will “defect” or show less loyalty to the domestic service provider when asked to sacrifice time or money for that access. Respondents were asked to react to each trade-off as individual factors. Future research might combine these factors to determine interrelated tradeoffs.

The research results signify that while customers, in general, may be opposed to services offshoring, they will “defect” or show less loyalty to the domestic service provider when asked to sacrifice time or money for that access.

The paper extends research with regard to consumer reaction to service offshoring and provides insight into the trade-offs consumers might be willing to incur in return for access to domestic service providers. The paper is of value to practitioners and academic researchers.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

THE following abstract in tabular form has been prepared by some junior members of the Islington Public Libraries staff for the use of candidates in Section V. of the Library Association Examination. It does not pretend to do more than set out the chief provisions of the various Public Libraries Acts in a clear manner, as an aid to the memorization of the principal powers and duties conferred upon library authorities. The whole of the Acts can be purchased through any bookseller for 1s. 4½d., and every student of librarianship is advised to procure them.

The aim of this research is to determine the extent to which the human resource (HR) function can screen and potentially predict suicidal employees and offer preventative mental health assistance.

Drawing from the 2019 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (N = 56,136), this paper employs multivariate binary logistic regression to model the work-related predictors of suicidal ideation, planning and attempts.

The results indicate that known periods of joblessness, the total number of sick days and absenteeism over the last 12 months are significantly associated with various suicidal outcomes while controlling for key psychosocial correlates. The results also indicate that employee assistance programs are associated with a significantly reduced likelihood of suicidal ideation. These findings are consistent with conservation of resources theory.

This research demonstrates preliminarily that the HR function can unobtrusively detect employee mental health crises by collecting data on key predictors.

In the era of COVID-19, employers have a duty of care to safeguard employee mental health. To this end, the authors offer an innovative way through which the HR function can employ predictive analytics to address mental health crises before they result in tragedy.

The purpose of this paper is to address current knowledge gaps in off-site sub-element fabrication efficiency factors, by identifying an explicit relationship between productivity and employee empowerment.

The research is based on two engineering fabrication-yard case studies that investigate both qualitatively (via analysis of semi-structured interviews that incorporate a five-point Likert scale, with fabrication-product stakeholders), and also quantitatively (via assessment using SPSS statistical analyses to determine significance and trends in the data-set) the relationship between empowerment and productivity.

The results reveal a positive linear relationship in off-site construction between “employee empowerment factors” and, explicitly fabrication-yard “productivity-levels”. An especially strong and significant positive correlation is found to exist in resource development, worker involvement, process improvement, and task recognition as they refer to off-site construction productivity.

Most academic studies of off-site construction remain largely anecdotal and lack an empirical objective study; as a result, this (fabrication-yard) case-study research provides a useful approach to measure empirically the link between employee empowerment and productivity of off-site construction.

Employee empowerment in the construction industry has long been a focus of analyses; however, there remains a lack of consensus and very few studies into the direct relationship between employee empowerment on the one-hand, and productivity in off-site construction on the other-hand. It is argued here that the on-going new research undertaken in the present study will go beyond subjective opinion towards objective measurement of actual performance in off-site construction.

Cardiac function generally deteriorates with increasing age, although recent research has found a reversal in this decline in a group of middle‐aged individuals after 18 weeks of brisk walking in single daily bouts of between 20‐40 minutes. Government guidelines advocate accumulative short bouts of exercise for the promotion of health. The purpose of this study was to determine whether accumulative short walking bouts were as effective at producing changes in cardiac function as those previously found from single daily bouts. Presents the results of post‐intervention ANCOVA statistical analysis of 64 healthy men and women, aged 40‐68 years, who were not habitual exercisers, who were randomly divided into matched groups of either short walkers or controls who were also not habitual exercisers.

TECHNICAL Education, after looming before the British public for half a century, is now with us a recognised factor in our national life. The passing of the Technical Instruction Acts of and 1891, and the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act of gave an impetus to the movement, and has produced results of a most gratifying character. Technical schools, or institutions bearing other names in which technical instruction is given, are now considerably more numerous than Public Libraries. According to a return of the National Society for promotion of Technical Education in England (excluding London), 319 technical schools, under municipal and public bodies, have been erected at a cost of £3,186,102—an average of £10,000 per school in round numbers—and of this sum, one quarter of a million has been involved since 1901. In order to obtain an adequate idea of the extent to which technical instruction is given, it is necessary to take into account the higher grade schools and other institutions which are used for this purpose. But if technical schools be numerically stronger than Public Libraries, the former institution is incomplete without the latter. In such isolation, its relative position to the student, is like a conservatory without a garden to the botanist. A Public Library, with carefully selected books of reference, bearing on the subjects taught in the technical school as well as on all the industries carried on in the neighbourhood, is an indispensable condition to the success of the technical school, and I hope County Councils will, in the near future, use their influence to promote the establishment of Public Libraries in every locality where a technical school is considered essential.

The decision of the Wolverhampton Stipendiary in the case of “Skim‐milk Cheese” is, at any rate, clearly put. It is a trial case, and, like most trial cases, the reasons for the judgment have to be based upon first principles of common‐sense, occasionally aided, but more often complicated, by already existing laws, which apply more or less to the case under discussion. The weak point in this particular case is the law which has just come into force, in which cheese is defined as the substance “usually known as cheese” by the public and any others interested in cheese. This reliance upon the popular fancy reads almost like our Government's war policy and “the man in the street,” and is a shining example of a trustful belief in the average common‐sense. Unfortunately, the general public have no direct voice in a police court, and so the “usually known as cheese” phrase is translated according to the fancy and taste of the officials and defending solicitors who may happen to be concerned with any particular case. Not having the general public to consult, the officials in this case had a war of dictionaries which would have gladdened the heart of Dr. JOHNSON; and the outcome of much travail was the following definition: cheese is “ coagulated milk or curd pressed into a solid mass.” So far so good, but immediately a second definition question cropped up—namely, What is “milk?”—and it is at this point that the mistake occurred. There is no legal definition of new milk, but it has been decided, and is accepted without dispute, that the single word “milk” means an article of well‐recognised general properties, and which has a lower limit of composition below which it ceases to be correctly described by the one word “milk,” and has to be called “skim‐milk,” “separated milk,” “ milk and water,” or other distinguishing names. The lower limits of fat and solids‐not‐fat are recognised universally by reputable public analysts, but there has been no upper limit of fat fixed. Therefore, by the very definition quoted by the stipendiary, an article made from “skim‐milk” is not cheese, for “skim‐milk” is not “milk.” The argument that Stilton cheese is not cheese because there is too much fat would not hold, for there is no legal upper limit for fat; but if it did hold, it does not matter, for it can be, and is, sold as “Stilton” cheese, without any hardship to anyone. The last suggestion made by the stipendiary would, if carried out, afford some protection to the general public against their being cheated when they buy cheese. This suggestion is that the Board of Agriculture, who by the Act of 1899 have the legal power, should determine a lower limit of fat which can be present in cheese made from milk; but, as we have repeatedly pointed out, it is by the adoption of the Control system that such questions can alone be settled to the advantage of the producer of genuine articles and to that of the public.

The cultures and languages of Africa and Asia have had an immense impact on the use of English language there. Awareness of this impact led to a recognition of new, indigenized varieties known collectively as world “Englishes”. They display a number of linguistic and pragmatic patterns different from native varieties, and these have been the subject of much scholarly activity over the last 30 years. This selected bibliography attempts to introduce the literature to librarians, other than English, linguistics, or education selectors. Interdisciplinary in nature, the study of world “Englishes” has implications for research in the history, culture, sociology, and politics of these regions. Selectors in these subjects and general reference librarians should therefore know more about world “Englishes” to provide more useful assistance to patrons.