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HITHERTO, OVER‐EMPHASIS by teachers on the skills and techniques of writing has tended to obscure the fact that communication does not take place in a vacuum, but is always to someone, about something, and in some context. The consideration of these matters is at least as important as the skills of writing and the techniques of presenting written information. Indeed, no amount of purely literary expertise will by itself make a communication effective, and there is clearly an important sense in which such expertise is secondary and incidental — so that a person who writes well but cannot effectively relate his writing to the circumstances of the communication he wishes to make is comparable to a ‘ghost writer’ who does no more than improve the presentation of what may be the interesting and important but badly expressed ideas of someone else. Many technologists who become managers find themselves, because of their poor writing ability, obliged to use their secretaries as ghost writers — a frustrating and time‐wasting method, and one which can be entirely abortive if the secretary also lacks writing skill. The matter may perhaps be summed up by saying that the skills of writing are to the technologist‐manager what applied mathematics is to him as a technologist — something which must be competently known, but which has no immediate importance apart from the uses to which it is put.

NOTHING IS so depressing about present‐day scientific education as its compartmentalism — the widespread failure to ‘carry over’ scientific ways of thinking and apply them to those problems we do not ordinarily think of as scientific. Many a technologist who would not dream of applying any but the most rigorous scientific methods to the design of a machine or the study of a material will quite happily use any old rag‐bag of ignorance and prejudice in considering political, social, or economic questions.

There must be a considerable number of colleges in which law teachers, whose primary function is to teach in professional courses, also make a contribution to the liberal studies programme. There may even be a very few law teachers who teach liberal studies as their main or only activity.

THERE IS a growing tendency for industrial managements to recognise the importance to morale and efficiency; of effective communications‐horizontal and vertical, individual and collective, within the workplace, and between the organisation and the outside world. This has led to an increased interest within colleges, and to the establishment of teaching posts in Communications, mainly within departments of Management and Liberal Studies. However, because this movement is still in its infancy there is no general body of agreement as to the subject matter of a course in Communications, or how it should be taught. The following notes are therefore offered in the hope that they may stimulate some fruitful thought and discussion. They will be concerned with immediate and practical matters only; for, in the nature of things, it will be many years before a body of generally received theory can be built up.

FIVE LEADING scientists recently travelled across the world to lecture a group of Australian teenagers. The scientists, from England and the US, were guest lecturers at the 1963 Summer Science School for 150 Australian high school students, held at Sydney University. Two children from New Zealand also attended.

Long-term care (LTC) homes are highly regulated settings that provide care to people living with complex health conditions who are often at the end of their lives. Mental health and quality of life are important concepts in LTC given the inherent poor health and diminished autonomy of residents living in this setting. The COVID-19 pandemic had the potential to further compound these issues through lockdowns limiting movement within and outside of LTC homes, increased fear of severe COVID-19 infections, staff shortages, and impaired communication through personal protective equipment. However, the evidence describing the effect of the pandemic on mental health and quality of life is mixed, with some studies describing increased rates of mental health concerns and others presenting modest increases or decreases. Creative strategies to mitigate negative mental health consequences of lockdown included technology supported and window or outdoor visits, increased access to volunteers, and supports for families. However, the evidence in this area continues to evolve as subsequent waves of the pandemic progress. Future research may present new evidence about other strategies that became important in different stages of the pandemic.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Computerized layout (or “topology”) optimization was pioneered almost four decades back. However, despite dramatic increases in available computer power and the application of increasingly efficient optimization algorithms, even now only relatively modest sized problems can be tackled using the traditional “ground structure” approach. This is because of the need, in general, for the latter to contain every conceivable member connecting together the nodes in a problem. A simple, but effective solution method capable of tackling problems with large numbers of potential members (e.g. >100,000,000) is presented. Though the method draws on the linear programming technique of “column generation”, since layout optimization specific heuristics are employed it is presented as an iterative “member adding” method. The method requires a ground structure with minimal connectivity to be used in the first iteration; members are then added as required in subsequent iterations until the (provably) optimal solution is found.

The purpose of the paper is to study the use of management tools and their costs for monitoring building operation and maintenance (O&M) service contracts.

The management tools usable for monitoring building O&M contracts were reviewed, with their characteristics highlighted and compared. A series of face‐to‐face interviews with practitioners looking after building O&M contracts was conducted to collect empirical information, followed by data analysis and discussion of the results.

The paper finds that using balanced scorecard or benchmarking to monitor building O&M contracts was unpopular. The use of customer satisfaction survey was rather common. The cost for monitoring contracts through performance review meeting and O&M audit was measured. It tended to reduce in relative amount with larger scale of contracts.

More research is needed to study the effect of factors, including propriety of contract, complexity of work, contractual relationship, capability and quality of the contract and management teams on contract monitoring effort. Further works may take a similar approach of the study to investigate other transaction cost elements.

The cost amounts for implementing the management tools inform practitioners about their significance relative to the amounts for procuring O&M services. How to make effective use of management tools to monitor O&M contracts should be investigated.

It has been demonstrated how to measure the cost for using management tools to monitor building O&M contracts. The reviewed characteristics of the management tools and the unveiled amounts of contract monitoring cost are useful information to O&M practitioners.