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While the hot‐end of a gas turbine, with its high thermal stresses and vulnerability to excessive exhaust gas temperatures, tends to attract most attention from the aircraft engineer, it is the compressor which is the dominant factor in aircraft gas turbine performance. This is particularly true of smaller types of engine and older designs. In these gas turbines any reduction in compressor efficiency can have a substantial effect on the thermal efficiency and service life of an engine. Between overhauls the turbine will be running in relatively clean combustion gases, but the compressor, from the moment it enters service, will be subject to continuous fouling.

I would like to discuss the implications of recent NHS reforms for the provision and use of information in healthcare—particularly in the National Health Service.

Organization theorists and strategy researchers have effectively leveraged archival assessments of the environment to better understand organizational actions and performance. Despite the successes, several issues continue to plague research. Vague constitutive definitions and mismatches between constitutive and operational definitions are among the most pressing of these issues. To further develop the archival tradition, we clarified existing definitions and proposed new definitions where warranted. Our work has implications not only for the selection of concepts and measures in future work but also for interpretations of past research.

This paper uses as its focus the traditional U.K. retail industry at a time when competition from newer channels is increasing. Research into other industry sectors has proven that well planned and executed customer relationship management strategies can increase profitability by improving customer loyalty. Many areas of the retail sector appeared to have neglected the benefits of CRM strategies, and where attempts have been made to implement CRM one or more of the vital constituents - employees, customers and shareholders have been neglected. The true barriers to CRM implementation are often thought to be financial or technological, according to research into other industry sectors. In reality however, financial and technological barriers are less problematic than organisational change, cultural and people barriers. The results of the retail survey carried out by the researchers support their original idea that few sectors of the traditional UK retail industry have implemented CRM strategies, and those that have are still are the early stages in the cycle. The survey questioned retailers on 3 main areas - The Company; IT Strategy and Future Strategy. Results for each for area are presented and change implications are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the multi-level mechanisms of institutional formation and change and, in particular, how this occurs through the interplay of multi-level mechanisms? This is answered with a processual analysis of the International Paralympic Committee which is the international governing body of sports for people with an impairment.

This study uses a case-study approach based upon archival records, collected in relevant national and international sport organizations. More than 2,700 pages of archives were gathered, some of them being accessible to researchers for the first time. Embargo was also successfully lifted on recent and sensitive documents.

This study highlights multi-level mechanisms involved in institutional change processes triggered by a shifting institutional logic at the organizational field level. This paper also shows how field logic shifted at the moment of alignment between the societal, field and organizational levels. Moreover, it underlines how societal discourses influenced processes of institutional change by shaping the range of organizational actions available at the organizational and field levels.

This paper proposes a rare account of institutional change processes in which interplay between the societal, field, and organizational levels is analyzed. Furthermore, this paper provides a longitudinal investigation of an under-researched empirical setting, the Paralympic movement. Finally, this study integrates insights from the disability studies’ research field, which significantly deepens this analysis.

Some results of a recent study of the information needs of social scientists are selectively summarised and commented upon. Where relevant, to monitor change, this is set in the context of earlier research, notably during the peak period of the 1970s. This paper is not, however, in any sense intended as a balanced state of the art review of research and system design progress since 1970. Instead, it concentrates on the fresh evidence provided by a small‐scale qualitative study by depth interview amongst social scientists, broadly defined, and intermediaries in the social science area.

During 1982–84, BLR&DD supported a study of medical information and its use by practitioners. The problem of low usage of information services was investigated by looking at the characteristics of information itself and the consequences of not knowing — the penalties for ignorance. Experts were invited to contribute papers on information and communication problems in specialist areas, such as addiction, drugs, alcoholism and exotic diseases. In June 1984, a conference was organised to enable a larger group to discuss the issues raised and consider implications for information transfer. A recently‐published volume now brings together the ten specialist contributions, an overview of the project and a report of the conference. Consensus and penalties for ignorance in the medical sciences, edited by J Michael Brittain (BL R&D Report 5842) is published by Taylor Graham, at £15 (isbn 0—947568 03 4).

The intent of this chapter is to examine the historical and present-day intersections of injury, impairment, pain and risk-taking in the Paralympic Movement. While much has been written about injuries that end an athlete’s career, far less consideration has been given to how an injury might launch a sports career. In this chapter, I explore the experiences of athletes for whom injury and sports participation are fundamentally entwined.

To accomplish this, I draw on sociological literature on sport and injury, psychological literature on identities and sport retirement and feminist disability theories. The discussion is further enriched by interviews with Paralympic athletes and informed by own experience as a researcher, guide and volunteer in the Paralympic Movement.

This work illustrates how systems of representation intersect to (re)produce identities. This includes demonstrating how some individuals use sport as a means of claiming an athletic identity while distancing themselves from devalued disabled identities and the subsequent impact this can have on their psycho-social well-being.

This chapter demonstrates how sociologists of sports can engage with critical disability scholarship to deepen understandings of how and why individuals with impairments enter into sport and their experiences therein.

To apply the theories of project management to the transformation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from the colonial‐style army of 1914 into the victorious continental‐style armies of 1918.

The methodological approach examines ten elements in the transformation. They range from the resources required to the necessary governmental changes. Emphasis is given to analysing the application of the new technologies, the political and social changes needed for eventual success, and the learning achieved.

Transforming the BEF was not to be an easy process. Obviously, the German nation, allies and armies did all they could to thwart this transformation. The “total war” waged is the ultimate form of “competition”. Thus, difficult lessons of strategic management, people (both men and women) management, and resources utilisation had to be learned. Through the many innovations, the experience curve was climbed to achieve mastery over the German field army.

To turn the BEF from a force of 120,000 at the battle of Mons to nearly 2 million at the Armistice on the western front was a remarkable achievement. Despite the strains imposed by German military prowess, the many elements were combined successfully. Although applying warfare principles to company management has become popular in the past decade, this paper avoids coming to simplistic conclusions. Rather it presents the transformation as a case study and suggests linkages to modern project management practices though leaving it to the reader to consider how these might be best applied.