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Gives an in depth view of the strategies pursued by the world’s leading chief executive officers in an attempt to provide guidance to new chief executives of today. Considers the marketing strategies employed, together with the organizational structures used and looks at the universal concepts that can be applied to any product. Uses anecdotal evidence to formulate a number of theories which can be used to compare your company with the best in the world. Presents initial survival strategies and then looks at ways companies can broaden their boundaries through manipulation and choice. Covers a huge variety of case studies and examples together with a substantial question and answer section.

At the passing of the Fair Trading Act, 1973, and the setting up of a Consumer Protection Service with an Office of Fair Trading under a Director‐General, few could have visualized this comprehensive machinery devised to protect the mainly economic interests of consumers could be used to further the efforts of local enforcement officers and authorities in the field of purity and quality control of food and of food hygiene in particular. This, however, is precisely the effect of a recent initiative under Sect. 34 of the Act, reported elsewhere in the BFJ, taken by the Director‐General in securing from a company operating a large group of restaurants a written undertaking, as prescribed by the Section, that it would improve its standards of hygiene; the company had ten convictions for hygiene contraventions over a period of six years.

In the June issue of TECHNICAL EDUCATION John Wellens drew attention to the spotlight now being played upon education in the Overseas Territories and the Commonwealth and illustrated his point by a concise account of problems and developments in the field of technical education in British Guiana.

Libraries and the information community have moved rapidly into an era of powerful networked scholarly workstations, large quantities of information accessible in electronic formats, and dispersed information sources connected to regional and national networks. This rich diversity poses new challenges for the provision of appropriate reference services. The University of Texas at Austin General Libraries successfully implemented and tested a prototype solution to the problem of providing reference assistance to scholars who are accessing networked information resources and who are at locations remote from expert librarians. Librarians were able to intervene directly in information access and retrieval sessions, remotely assisting the user during the real‐time, online process. The testbed for the project was a CD‐ROM network delivering U.S. government information to DOS workstations via Ethernets connected to a routed TCP/IP wide‐area network and utilizing off‐the‐shelf remote control software. Although problems with existing technology were discovered, this mode of providing reference assistance is a valid model for future services.

In an address to the East India Association Sir John Woodhead drew upon his experience as chairman of the Famine Inquiry Commission to review in authoritative fashion what Lord Scarborough described from the chair as one of the most important requirements of to‐day, that of increasing the food supplies and improving the diet of the people of India. Of the present population of about 400,000,000, it has been estimated that fully one‐third are under‐nourished, while a still larger proportion are ill‐nourished for lack of a balanced diet. The staple articles of diet are rice, wheat and millet, and even when these are consumed in adequate quantities their deficiencies in proteins, fats, vitamins, and mineral salts must be made good by protective foods. The technological possibilities of increasing food production are very great. It is known that the yield of rice can be increased by anything up to one‐half by manuring and by the use of improved strains; and that potential increases in millet and wheat are of the order of 30 per cent. The Famine Inquiry Commission concluded that self‐sufficiency in cereals was practicable as well as desirable as a policy for the future, and that a large increase in protective and supplementary foods, such as pulses, vegetables, fruit and fish was entirely feasible. Nor is there any mystery as to how the increase is to be achieved. The methods which must be followed, such as the provision of an assured water supply, the utilisation of every source of fertilising material, the cultivation of improved strains of plants and beasts, the protection of husbandry from pests and of the husbandman from ill‐health—all these are familiar in plans for the improvement of the rural economy of India. What is novel, however, is the increasing recognition that only a concerted effort, on a national scale, employing the resources of the people and of the Government in close partnership, can avail to raise the Indian masses from ramshackle medievalism to ordered, progressive modernity. Improvement of diet is among the most important elements in that improvement of the standard of living which is the principal object of all Indian planning to‐day. At present, lack of purchasing power is the root of malnutrition as of many other evils; increased agricultural production and a better diet arc bound up with the process of increasing the national wealth through simultaneous industrial development. Urbanisation and higher living standards may in turn exert their influence upon the growth of population; for Sir John Wood‐head's commission found that among the upper and professional classes the birth‐rate is falling steadily. Throughout the whole population, indeed, the birth‐rate fell from 34 a thousand in 1940 to 26 a thousand in 1943; but this decline may be due to transient causes only. There seemed good grounds for hoping that the future pressure of population need present no immovable obstacle to the success of a really national movement for better livelihood.

The British countryman is a well‐known figure; his rugged, obstinate nature, unyielding and tough; his part in the development of the nation, its history, not confined to the valley meadows and pastures and uplands, but nobly played in battles and campaigns of long ago. His “better half”—a term as true of yeoman stock as of any other—is less well known. She is as important a part of country life as her spouse; in some fields, her contribution has been even greater. He may grow the food, but she is the provider of meals, dishes, specialties, the innovating genius to whom most if not all British food products, mostly with regional names and now well‐placed in the advertising armentarium of massive food manufacturers, are due. A few of them are centuries old. Nor does she lack the business acumen of her man; hens, ducks, geese, their eggs, cut flowers, the produce of the kitchen garden, she may do a brisk trade in these at the gate or back door. The recent astronomical price of potatoes brought her a handsome bonus. If the basic needs of the French national dietary are due to the genius of the chef de cuisine, much of the British diet is due to that of the countrywoman.

In this article we compare the performance of the traditional CAPM with the multi factor model of Fama and French (1996) for equities listed in the Shanghai Stock Exchange. We also investigate the explanatory power of idiosyncratic volatility and respond to the claim that multi factor model findings can be explained by the turn of the year effect. Our results show that firm size, book to market equity and idiosyncratic volatility are priced risk factors in addition to the theoretically well specified market factor. As far as the turn of the year effect is concerned we reject the claim that the findings are driven by seasonal factors.

We observe with pleasure that the French Analytical Control, which is known as the Controle Chimique Permanent Français, continues to make satisfactory progress. The value and importance of the system of Control cannot fail to meet with appreciation in France—as it cannot fail to meet with appreciation elsewhere—so soon as its objects and method of working have been understood and have become sufficiently well known. From the reports which appear from time to time in l'Hygiène Moderne, the organ of the French Control, it is obvious that a number of French firms of the highest standing have grasped the fact that to place their products on the market with a permanent and authoritative scientific guarantee as to their nature and quality, is to meet a growing public demand, and must therefore become a commercial necessity. An ample assurance that the Controle Chimique Permanent Français is a solid and stable undertaking is afforded by the facts that it is under the general direction of so distinguished an expert as M. Ferdinand Jean and that he is assisted by several well‐known French scientists in carrying out the very varied technical work required.

The island of Arran is situated in the Firth of Clyde astride the Highland Boundary fault zone. It is 19 miles long by 10 miles wide. Although similar in size to the Isle of Wight it has only a twenty‐fifth of that island's population. The number of inhabitants in 1981 (4743) is almost the same as in 1755 (4600). The island's population reached its highest level in 1821 (6541) and fell steadily for the rest of the century, reaching a figure similar to its present level in 1911.