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Advocates of minority groups often claim that the corporate management lays off minority workers first at the onset of recessions and hires them last once the recovery begins. Assertions of this sort are rooted in the belief that the labour market remains inherently discriminatory in spite of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action laws. Often times the popular media reinforces such assertions. An article in The Wall Street Journal claimed that during the U.S. recession of 1990–91 only blacks suffered a net employment loss (Sharpe, 1993), whereas another report by a Hispanic organisation contended that Hispanics were one of the few minority groups who did not recover from the last recession.

Families referred to child welfare for maltreatment and neglect are frequently mandated to attend parenting programmes. Evidence‐based parenting programmes (EBPs) are under‐utilised or not delivered with fidelity for this population. The Incredible Years (IY) parenting programme is an EPB that has been proven to reduce harsh parenting, increase positive discipline and nurturing parenting, reduce conduct problems and improve children's social competence. There is also promising preliminary evidence that IY is an effective intervention for families involved in child welfare and for foster parents. This article describes how the updated IY parenting basic programme is delivered with fidelity to this population.

Before this great innovation assaults the long‐suffering British public in mind and matter, in the retailer's cash register and the spender's pocket, a brief comparison between the present coinage and the promised decimal one might not be amiss. The £sd system has its faults and understandably is difficult for the foreigner, but no more so than the language and the weather. Like many things British it is so haphazard: why should there be 240 pennies to the pound? Why 12 pennies to the shilling? One thing, however, about this awkward currency is that it is amazingly well‐adapted to price variations at the lower level, and most commodities are in this range. Whether prices have adapted themselves to the flexibility of the coinage or the other way round is immaterial but the centuries have well and truly married the two. As a lowly coin such as the farthing has ceased to have commercial use with the falling value of money, it has disappeared and its place has been taken by the next larger, the halfpenny and then by the penny, and this must surely be the one great advantage of the £sd system.

Despite the importance of increasing engagement and minimising attrition and drop‐out in parenting interventions, there is a paucity of empirical evidence examining factors related to engagement and participation. The range of factors examined in relation to engagement is generally limited in scope and variety, focusing on variables of convenience rather than utilising a theoretically‐driven approach.The aim of this article is to review the factors related to parental engagement with interventions and to describe strategies and implications for improving engagement with parenting interventions. Several policy and practice implications are identified: (1) Poor parental engagement may threaten or compromise the capacity of parenting programmes to deliver valued outcomes. Viable engagement strategies need to be a core part of prevention and early intervention parenting programmes; (2) Agencies delivering parenting services need a proactive engagement strategy, which includes strategies to prevent drop‐out, as well as strategies to actively respond to parental disengagement; (3) Research is needed to test the efficacy and robustness of different engagement enhancement strategies. Empirical tests are needed to test the effectiveness of different engagement strategies in order to ensure that the most efficient, cost‐effective and efficacious approach is used in order to engage parents. Investment of research effort to improve parental engagement is likely to have a high yield in terms of programme efficiency, utility and cost effectiveness. We conclude that research examining how to improve engagement and decrease non‐completion is needed to strengthen the population level value of parenting programmes as preventive interventions.

Perhaps the greatest peril to civilisation is the fragmentation of knowledge. Science often lends itself to easy application to technology and our economic systems are the result of applying this knowledge to our resources. But our knowledge of how societies work lags significantly, and the economic system frequently multiplies our social problems. At the heart of the problem is the distinction between knowledge of universals – scientific laws for example – and knowledge of people, who are unique particulars. The paper examines some recent disputes in the social sciences and suggests how the gap might be filled and economic systems made more responsive to social problems.

This study empirically examines the impact of quality effort orientation on the financial performance of certified Portuguese firms. The results of factor analysis revealed four quality efforts orientation factors. The results of cluster analysis revealed the existence of three distinct groups of firms with regard to quality efforts orientation and performance. The analysis of variance results revealed that firms with a quality efforts orientation focusing on the customer tends to outperform firms utilising other quality efforts orientation with regard to net profit after taxes.

IN the death of Mr. JAMES DUFF BROWN, the library profession loses one of its most striking personalities and librarianship its most powerful influence for progress. Any attempt at present to estimate the extent of his influence upon the modern public library must necessarily be inadequate, because not only are some of the movements he started only beginning to gather force, but his retiring nature made him refrain from labelling many things as his own. With the possible reservation that he was unable to do himself justice on the platform, he was the ideal born public librarian. As an organiser and teacher of librarianship, as a keen and discerning student and critic of tendencies, methods and results, and as an expounder of professional knowledge through the medium of the written page, he was without an equal. Like all pioneers and men of strong opinions, he did not make only friends ; but he had world‐wide friendships, and he forced the attention and respect of all library workers. On another page of this issue an old friend and one‐time colleague of his gives a brief outline of his life and works, and we need not do the same again here. But as his successors in the editorship of THE LIBRARY WORLD, which he founded and edited until a year or two ago, we cannot refrain from adding our tribute to his memory. Representing the best type of efficiency and progress in librarianship, he was a real friend and teacher, and his death leaves a sad gap in our ranks.

The British Food Journal with the present issue enters upon its fiftieth year of publication. The policy of the Journal has always been to expose and to assist in the suppression of adulteration and sophistication, to support the interests of Public Analysts, Medical Officers of Health, and Inspectors in the carrying out of their official duties, to be of service to all who are interested in or in any way associated with the administration of the various Acts relating to food, and to protect honest manufacturers and producers against competition from inferior or adulterated products. Criticism and comments upon the value of the Journal are always welcome, and it is hoped that in the future readers will utilise our columns for correspondence.

The old year has gone, leaving its trail of never‐to‐be‐forgotten memories of strife and turbulence, calamity, disaster, and a huge burden of worries for us to face in the New Year. Few if any will not be deeply grateful to see the passing of 1985. Except for the periods of calm there cannot be a year within living memory to equal it in terms of violence, unparalleled in times of “peace”, collosal in terms of soaring social and public expenditure and financial loss, and in disasters in the world beyond the shores of these islands. It would not be an exaggeration to state that the enormous indebtedness which the year has heaped upon the people will never be wiped off, and it has got to be done mainly by those innocent of any misconduct, and their descendants. The unprecedented scale of street and community violence, the looting, thieving and general crime committed behind the screen of it.

Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, stated in the House of Lords, on March 11th, that “to reduce the tonnage used for the transport of wheat” the Government had decided to increase to 85 per cent. the ratio of flour from the wheat milled in this country; and that it will be illegal to sell, except under licence, any “white” bread from April 6th. In the discussion that followed, Lord Horder stated that he and his medical colleagues were satisfied that no other step concerning the nation's food was so calculated to raise the level of the nation's nutrition. He added that there was no evidence that 85 per cent. extraction flour is indigestible; and that where bread of any kind is permissible in diseases of the digestive system, it may be given with impunity. Moreover, Sir Ernest Graham Little, M.D., has rendered a great service to the public by his oft‐repeated and strong advocacy, in the House of Commons, of better bread than that which constitutes the “white loaf.” The unanimous verdict of those who are best qualified to express an opinion supports the conclusion that adequate nutrition is the prime requirement for the physical well‐being of mankind. Neglect this and all other hygienic props fail to support us. It is deplorable, therefore, that so little has been done hitherto in the sphere of national welfare to support the findings of science in favour of the more adequate loaf which has been so powerfully advocated for years. It is no exaggeration to state that the “white loaf” has been a real impediment to an improvement in the hygienic development of the growing child; as the “national loaf” (which will be superior to the “standard bread” of the last war) will not only reduce the tonnage for the transport of wheat, but will also greatly benefit the children, more especially those of the poorer section of the community with whom bread is the main food. Although from a standpoint of nutrition the “National” loaf falls short of the desirable “Wholemeal” loaf, it certainly represents a valuable step in the right direction. As the much impoverished wheat of the “white loaf” is a matter for considerable national concern, it is an anomaly that it should be permitted, seeing that similar impoverishments of natural foodstuffs have for long been punishable by law. For instance, prosecutions and fines for the watering of milk occupy pages of most issues of The British Food Journal. Why, then, should the serious reduction of the valuable mineral matter and vitamins of the wheat used for the wheaten loaf be suffered to continue? The general public do not readily accept guidance upon what they should eat, and it is unlikely that they will have displayed a concerted predilection for the “national loaf” by the time the war ends. But by then much will have been gained by the reduction of prejudice and the increased accommodation which even short phases of custom can confer. Therefore the war‐time expedient of a “national loaf” may very usefully contribute to the perpetuity of its advantages. If we are wise, propaganda to this end will be maintained meanwhile, and be made to develop in power and authority during the early clays of peace. If the Government and the Local Health Authorities are in default in impressing, and (if need be) imposing such a major interest to the nation, the passing of the “white loaf” will soon be followed by its return. Especially is it to be hoped that the Ministry of Health will then give greater support to the advocacy of a better loaf than hitherto. The British Food Journal has often given expression to the public need for an improved loaf, and if this is destined to become an accomplished fact it will partake of the nature of a crowning event to our modest efforts.