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Supporting many policies of contaminated sites management, the risk assessment methodology needs a deep knowledge of the characteristics of the contamination of soils. Physico‐chemical analysis has to take in account the heterogeneity and the specificity of the soil. A better knowledge of the interactions between the chemical substances and the matrix should be developed and its influence on the measurement chain shall be determined. In particular, the influence on the final result of each of the analytical steps (pre‐treatment, extraction, purification, analysis) has to be quantified. An experimental protocol has been designed to study the influence of the type of pre‐treatment chosen in relation to the characteristics of the matrix of real contaminated soils by PCB and PAH. The results show and quantify how the texture, the granulometry, the water content and the total organic carbon (TOC) content may affect the analytical result depending on the analytical pre‐treatment‐step chosen.

In 2017, one study (Derek Pyne; Journal of Scholarly Publishing; DOI: 10.3138/jsp.48.3.137; University of Toronto Press) in the “predatory” publishing literature attracted global media attention. Now, over three years, according to adjusted Google Scholar data, with 53 citations (34 in Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science), that paper became that author's most cited paper, accounting for one-third of his Google Scholar citations.

In this paper, the authors conducted a bibliometric analysis of the authors who cited that paper.

We found that out of the 39 English peer-reviewed journal papers, 11 papers (28%) critically assessed Pyne's findings, some of which even refuted those findings. The 2019 citations of the Pyne (2017) paper caused a 43% increase in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing 2019 Journal Impact Factor, which was 0.956, and a 7.7% increase in the 2019 CiteScore.

The authors are of the opinion that scholars and numerous media that cited the Pyne (2017) paper were unaware of its flawed findings.

Insurance in Malta has been very largely influenced by English practice and law. The influence of the English market insurance practice and law not only shaped the Maltese market but practically that of all common law jurisdictions in former members of the British empire. Since the London insurance market continues to be a very dominant force globally until today, the connection has undoubtedly served Malta well.

The origins of UK insurance principles of utmost good faith and insurable interest under contract law, date back to times which were very different from today and the need to revise the laws has now been felt in the UK as well as in other jurisdictions which were influenced by its law and practice. In Malta, minimal legislative intervention and the Maltese courts were and continue to be mostly guided by English case law, some of which has now been superseded by the updated statute law which was recently introduced in the UK by virtue of the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act (2012) and Insurance Act (2015).

We herein lay out a case study of the development of utmost good faith and insurable interest in insurance contracts within the Maltese legal context, based on empirical literature findings and semi-structured interviews together with several legal experts who are specialized in the field and experienced insurance professionals.

ONE of the subjects which will probably come up for discussion at the Brighton meeting of the Library Association is that of instituting a Register of qualified librarians. This has already been talked about in various connections, and has now become an inevitable topic for discussion at meetings of branch associations owing to Messrs. Jast and Sayers having imitated the peripatetic method adopted by Mr. G. T. Shaw for securing a larger hearing for his scheme of improvement. A brief examination of the whole situation may not come amiss at this particular juncture, as most librarians have only a hazy idea of what is meant by the registration of Messrs. Jast and Sayers, and that proposed by the promoters of the Institute of Librarians; and wherein both proposals differ from the legal and effective registration secured to other professional bodies by statute or otherwise.

There has reached us during the last few days an account of certain “Notices of Judgment” under Section 4 of the Food and Drugs Act. This has been issued by the United States Board of Agriculture, the Federal Department concerned with the examination of foods and drugs which have been consigned from one State of the Union to another. These form, under the circumstances, an item in inter‐State commerce and the Federal, as distinct from the State authorities, are responsible for seeing that such foods and drugs have been made in conformity with the law and that they are not “misbranded,” that is to say, that no description which may be in any sense misleading to the purchaser appears on the label or on circular letters sent with the package. The judgments in question relate to drugs and to proprietary medicines. The drugs mentioned such as ether, ergot, lime water and so forth, are in some cases not up to standard. The separate States of the Union have their own troubles with regard to so‐called remedies, but these relate to State and not to Inter‐State commerce.

AT the time of writing (Autumn 1966), those who are concerned with technical college libraries stand at a very interesting stage in the development of those services. I was reminded of this fact the other day when I was lunching with one of the College Principals who had been concerned with the ATI Memorandum on College Libraries in 1937. (That, as you may know, was a very forward‐looking document and outlined objectives, not all of which have yet been attained.)

Economy is resurgent in the land, and in characteristically English fashion it applies its attention to health and education. In election speeches one gets such expressions as: “We have been promised an era of universal happiness, but those who made the promise had never considered what it would cost!” The typical speaker we have quoted regarded the whole situation from the point of view of the pocket. The fact that happiness might be worth any cost, if only it were universal, seems not to have occurred to him. This loose thinking is affecting public libraries. We are now busy estimating, and most of us have received hints to retrench. This we are bound to do within reason, as no librarian wants to see the totality of rates increased; but wo hope that all librarians will do their utmost to see that economy is not carried to an evil excess.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the relationship between cataloging data and reference service and the importance of including reference librarians, in general resource description and access (RDA) training.

A literature review and the author’s experiences related to implementing RDA are presented with minimal cataloging jargon to help librarians better understand the effects of cataloging standards on reference service.

There is a noticeable lack of research and training related to RDA for audiences beyond technical services. More research is needed to determine how users are interacting with the catalog, how bibliographic data is supporting their discovery and access, what, if any, obstacles reference librarians encounter as a result of RDA and how future iterations of RDA may open bibliographic data to communities beyond the library.

This paper is one the few that discuss how RDA may affect reference service. It will be useful for providing librarians with a general understanding of the relationship between cataloging and reference and may serve as a starting point for further research.

Purpose – This chapter aims to show the similarities and differences that can be found in the destiny of cooperative banks and mutual insurance companies; these two industries, for reasons both similar and specific, are now “at a crossroads.” To reinforce this, we begin by tracing the history of cooperative banks and mutual insurance companies to better inform the future. Cooperative banks and mutual insurance gradually secularized and out of corporatism have patiently built-in different ways depending on the network as opposed to companies.

Results – This chapter will pursue these observations by identifying the impacts of recent crises in shaping business models by questioning a central issue which is that the trap values meet performance requirements in a fierce competition. Then, this chapter will end with the discussion on the main challenges faced by the mutual sphere; «She» should be replaced by «it». Could it exert a role in the crisis?