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The trend in wireless and mobile communications for broader bandwidth microwave circuitry, coupled with high packaging density and low cost fabrication has triggered investigations of new circuit configurations and technologies that meet these requirements. We have addressed these issues through the study of multilayer microwave structures using advanced thick‐film technology. The techniques described employ several layers of metal sandwiched by thick‐film dielectric. This leads to an efficient solution for system miniaturisation. The significance of this work is that it shows the multilayer approach to microwave structures, coupled with new thick‐film technology, offers a viable and economic solution to achieve high‐density, high‐performance microwave circuits.

Within the framework of a research project into alternative ways of representing documentation languages and into their flexibility, an attempt is made to draw up a list of performance criteria that an ‘ideal’ thesaurus graphic display should respect. However, a study of the main bibliographies listing thesauri, shows that less than 6 per cent of them contain graphic displays, even though a concurrent literature survey reveals that such displays offer many potential advantages. Up to now, use of displays was probably limited by technology and by the rarity of studies into the cognitive processes of the users of automated systems. Current research in several disciplines (computer graphics, ergonomic psychology and spatial representation) should contribute to the emergence of new types of documentation retrieval tools, well adapted to a broader and more diversified clientele.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the problem of international income inequality and the growth rates of different income classes. The Myrdal thesis of the cumulative process of the international mechanism of inequality is challenged. Countries which have reached a certain level of per capita income and have acquired a re‐allocative and transformative capacity grow at an accelerated pace which tends to narrow the gap between them and rich countries. The widely held view that the rich countries become richer and the poor become poorer does not hold without qualifications and further analysis.

A binary choice model explaining the distribution of holidays abroad undertaken by UK residents is constructed and estimated. The foreign holiday demand function is generated from a comparison of holiday costs and benefits, and stochastic behaviour is permitted. In addition, the effects of incomplete knowledge on holiday choice are incorporated in the model. It is shown that the empirical results support the theoretical framework and that the £50 foreign currency limit imposed by the British Government between 1966 and 1969 resulted in a shift in the distribution of foreign holidays.

Knowledge, as represented in the history of ideas and in studies of knowledge paradigms and bibliographical structures, appears coherent and rationalistic. By examining the work of the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, this view is discussed. Special attention is given, in any cultural or scientific interpretation of an age, to the need to get behind the dominant or hegemonistic body of institutionalized and documented knowledge. We need to investigate the assumptions and underlying influences on the ways in which discourse embody and shape meanings. What preconceptually underpins, we might ask, what people know as knowledge. Important links between language, truth and power are examined, and these are major concerns for Foucault. It is argued that Foucault's ‘archaeological’ and ‘genealogical’ insights into the nature of warranted knowledge are crucial for an understanding of the communication process and the knowledge‐organizing activities of information specialists.

IT would be quite impossible adequately to report a Dublin conference of any kind in purely professional terms. The warm friendliness of its people demands an equally personal reaction from its visitors and for public librarians certainly this is as it should be, because we are ourselves, above all, involved with people. So professional affairs at this conference were kept in their proper place—as only a part of the whole and merely providing a framework round which the business of renewing contacts and making friends could take place.

Although many large systems have by‐passed the problem by employing ‘natural language’, compound words remain a difficulty in thesaurus construction. In the past, rules have been devised which attempted to approach the problem via syntax, but these were not altogether satisfactory. Instead, it is proposed that the major criteria for handling compound words should rest upon their orthography (i.e. physical form), lexicography (dictionary definition) and semantics, with special attention being given to the possible occurrence of homographs—words which differ in meaning, but share a common form. The suggestions contained in BS 5723, Guidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri, are assessed in relation to these criteria. BS 5723 is criticized for failing to pay sufficient attention to the requirements of mechanized systems, and for its partial failure in not recording the divergent needs of pre‐and post‐coordinate systems.

The theme of the thirty‐fifth Annual Conference of ASLIB, held at Brighton from 28th to 30th September, was ‘Research in Special Library and Information Work’. Because of his sudden illness Lord Verulam was unfortunately unable to give his Presidential address. In his place, at very short notice, Professor. J. D. Bernal gave a talk on the importance of all library and information centres being organised with the user in mind. The idea of storing information, of collecting publications to preserve thereby the history of scientific knowledge on any subject was not the purpose of the library and information units run by members of ASLIB. Their aim was to be part — and a very valuable part —of the communication system whereby the latest knowledge was fed to the research worker.

Sir Raymond Streat, C.B.E., Director of The Cotton Board, Manchester, accompanied by Lady Streat. A Vice‐President: F. C. Francis, M.A., F.S.A., Keeper of the Department of Printed Books, British Museum. Honorary Treasurer: J.E.Wright. Honorary Secretary: Mrs. J. Lancaster‐Jones, B.Sc., Science Librarian, British Council. Chairman of Council: Miss Barbara Kyle, Research Worker, Social Sciences Documentation. Director: Leslie Wilson, M.A.