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Relatively little is known about autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in later life, though the available evidence indicates that it is as prevalent as in childhood and youth. The current study was an on‐line questionnaire (of basic biographical information, general health, quality of life and score on the Autism Quotient [AQ] measure) of UK‐resident adults in their forties who had been diagnosed with ASD or suspected they had ASD. The findings indicated health and quality of life problems very significantly greater than the population norms, with strong indications that prototypical problems of younger people with ASD (such as social isolation and anxiety) persist throughout adult life, even in individuals in high‐income professions. Respondents who thought they had ASD were qualitatively identical to respondents with a formal diagnosis ‐ only the strength of symptoms differed. Scores on the AQ measure did not correlate with other symptoms. Although the study is of a relatively small number (N = 29) of people and there are limitations imposed by the study's design, the findings are robust, and indicate an urgent need to examine ASD in the older population using a larger, more demographically representative study.

The Electronic Article Supply “EASY” is a document delivery project, setting out to test a system to satisfy inter‐library loans from publisher’s digital versions of articles. A user’s request for an ILL is screened against digital holdings in ingenta, if it is found there, for a fixed standard fee the request can be satisfied by the system, directly or subject to approval by a librarian.

Part 1 of this paper provides an overview of a research project currently being undertaken at the Polytechnic of Wales, engaged in investigating the suitability of expert systems for the valuation of vacant possession residential property for mortgage purposes.

Despite the extensive body of research on the relationship between trust and performance in a supply chain environment, the concepts and the relationship between them has not been fully understood. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that links the antecedents of trust, trust itself and firm outcome success.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to gather the data for this study. Statistical analysis included factor analysis with reliability and validity tests, and partial least square of structural equation modeling.

The data suggest that trust is built principally through supplier centric traditional performance metrics such as delivery reliability and product quality conformance. However, contrary to the extant literature, the people oriented trust enablers (e.g. personnel exchange, interpersonal contacts) have no bearing on the establishment of trust.

The research limitation is the relatively small sample size. However, this study can be perceived as a directional one for further research.

The results can be used by the managers to improve their understanding on the relationship with other parties in the supply chain.

The significant value of this research can be retained by buying firm managers. The results are particularly important for them to improve their understanding in how they allocate time and resources in managing their supply chains and partner firms.

The design of new services is a fundamental element of a firm’s growth strategy but, despite some recent work, our knowledge of the new service design process remains weak. This paper examines the impact of service culture and internal politics on the design, introduction success and rejection of new service design proposals. The extant literature is reviewed, a conceptual framework is developed and several longitudinal case examples are discussed. The results indicate that existing service culture can have a significant impact on modifying the new service design proposal making implementation success and high customer satisfaction levels more difficult to achieve. Several propositions for future research are presented.

Examining the work of Frantz Fanon and Stuart Hall, this article argues that their biographic practices and experiences as colonial subjects allowed them to break with imperial representations and to provide new, anticolonial imaginaries. It demonstrates how the experience of the racialized and diasporic subject, respectively, creates a kind of subjectivity that makes visible the work of colonial cultural narratives on the formation of the self. The article first traces Fanon’s and Hall’s transboundary encounters with metropolitan Europe and then shows how these biographic experiences translate into their theories of practice and history. Living through distinct historical moments and colonial ideologies, Fanon and Hall produced theories of historical change, which rest on epistemic ruptures and conjunctural changes in meaning formations. Drawing on their biographic subjectivities, both intellectuals theorize cultural and colonial forms of oppression and seek to produce new knowledge that is based on practice and experience.

Investigates the change in requirements to sustain supplier alliances as the relationship matures. Notes that the trend to outsource more materials and services has made firms more reliant on their sources of supply. This has led to a move towards increasingly collaborative supplier relationships, referred to as supplier alliances. Widespread use of these relationships is new and relatively little is known about the attributes that may promote success or failure. A recent paper concludes that such “partnership” relationships tend to expand and be more successful with each year following establishment. Tests this assumption using a longitudinal survey of 41 buyer‐supplier relationships. Finds that the purchasing firms perceived some improvements in benefits from their alliance‐like relationships but not significantly more than those which maintained traditional relationships. Also finds that the factors leading to improved benefits changed significantly as the alliance matured, with specific information flows becoming key. Proposes a profile of the relative importance of these factors over time.

In recent years considerable research has been carried out on the metallising of plastics. It has long been realised that there could be many important industrial applications, especially in the field of corrosion resistance, if the surface hardness and moisture permeability of plastics could be improved by a durable coating of metal. In the purely decorative department, where appearance is more important than length of service, it must be admitted that the demand has been fairly satisfactorily met by such processes as vacuum deposition, with or without electroplating. In the industrial sphere, however, the picture has not been quite so encouraging and the product has fallen short in many ways.

Discusses the components of valuation expertise as applied to the residual mortgage valuation domain and considers the different levels of analysis at which this expertise is exhibited. Explores the difference between ′true′ valuation expertise and expertness, the implications of the consultant′s ability to work across different domains of specialization by using analogies and the use of both individual and multiple experts in producing a ′domain theory′ which could be utilized in the production of an expert system for the mortgage valuation problem.