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With the three existing specialised paediatric liver centres working beyond bed capacity, this article aims to address the special problems arising from the tension between need for centralisation of skills, and advantages of decentralisation of care.

Three sessions using the appreciative inquiry method were conducted by the authors

This resulted in a new patient‐centred set of priorities in developing a MCN and gave impetus to two regional MCNs and a National MCN movement for Paediatric Gastroenterology.

The authors describe the changes and how the AI method offers a powerful tool for positive change within the NHS. This article will be of special interest to those working within the paediatric liver services.

To obtain preliminary data on the short‐ and medium‐term effects and personal acceptability of appreciative inquiry (AI) in staff development in health care.

AI is a non‐problem‐solving management approach focusing on developing current successes into the future through reflection at individual and group level. Individual one‐hour interviews were undertaken with nursing staff on a national paediatric liver in‐patient ward. They were asked to recount stories based on their experiences of successful delivery of health care, with active listening, followed by reflection on the process. A total of 32 staff members took part with only two refusals. Data were written and analysed by an open coding method. Follow up was obtained two years later using a written, open question method.

The process was emotional but well received. Staff described quality in interpersonal interactions, preventing errors and engaging their personal values in their work. No improvement in recruitment or retention was shown but a high level of sickness absence fell significantly during the period of the project. Two years later, significant positive effects were recalled and attributed to the interviews by many respondents. AI appears a cost‐effective way of connecting professionals’ motivation toward quality in their work with strategic intentions.

The interviewer was a medical consultant and ward manager, implying either that the interviews could have worked as a form of managerial supervision or improvements could be a Hawthorne effect. Other unknown influences were likely to be occurring on the ward during the study period.

Short AI interventions on an individual basis can change sickness absence, at least while the interventions are continuing. It is an important tool for staff motivation with the potential for connecting strategic with micro‐operational levels. AI is an approach to NHS management with wide application including appraisal, personal development and mentoring. It can be a positive introduction to reflective practice.

AI is gaining recognition for its value in staff and service development in health care. The paper shows service and personal effects, cost‐effectiveness and illustrates how to use AI for these purposes.

Studies and analyses changes to the promotion policies and practices at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and identifies outcomes by gender. Suggests that there are quite a few factors to be addressed before gender equity in academia at UWA is obtained. Discusses, in depth, how to try to deal with lack of networks, socialization, the dual‐role burden, masculine organizational culture and gendered power imbalance in the workplace. States that, although great inroads have been made at UWA, statistics show that there are still very fundamental barriers to be addressed to aid further improvement for women academics.

It was only after considerable pressure had been brought to bear by the various health authorities of the country that the Government, in July, 1899, appointed a Departmental Committee to consider the subject of the use of preservatives and colouring matters in food, and it is now some months ago that the full report of the Committee was published, containing certain recommendations of the utmost importance for the consideration of the authorities. Up to the present time nothing further has been heard of the matter, and in answer to a question recently put to the President of the Local Government Board by the Mayor of Kensington, Sir SEYMOUR KING, as to whether the Board intends to take steps by the introduction of a Bill, or otherwise, for giving effect at an early date to the recommendations contained in the report of the Committee, the President stated that the report was “still under consideration,” and that he could make no statement at present as to the course which the Government would take.

A “ Practitioner of over Forty Years' Experience ” in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette observes that few members of the medical profession “ regard ‘ calories ’ and such like as guides to treatment of patients, simply because they cannot implicitly rely upon laboratory experiments. Anyhow, they do not impress the profession generally, as their doubts are based upon everyday experiences.” The real point that seems to have been overlooked by the so‐called experts is that, “ although the same amount of nourishment may be present in two substances, according to laboratory experiments, it does not necessarily follow we can assimilate them equally well. Here is a case in point. We know that starch and dextrine are similar, and contain very nearly the same amount of nourishment, and, chemically, are almost indistinguishable; hence biscuits should be as supporting as bread. But it is a known fact that soldiers cannot march and thrive so well on the former as upon the latter (notwithstanding that in the point of nourishment as shown by laboratory experiments, 18 ounces of biscuit are said to equal 24 ounces of freshly made bread), hence it comes about that ovens are sent to the front rather than tons of biscuits. It is not meant that biscuits are not nourishing, but merely that they cannot be assimilated so well as bread, dextrine so well as starch.”

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.

The standard forms of construction contract are receiving greater attention in the management of projects scholarship as they probably influence the project success and project disputes. The extant literature suggests that the standard forms of construction contract are one of the top sources of disputes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of the standard forms of construction contract, FIDIC and NEC, in reducing disputes in the Palestinian construction industry.

The researchers have used qualitative methods to collect data and more specifically have undertaken 12 semi-structured interviews.

The study reveals that the standard forms of construction contract can be a tool to minimise disputes, but certainly not to eradicate them, and NEC appears to be more capable than FIDIC to do so.

This study contributes to knowledge by bringing an industrial perspective into the role of standard forms of contract in disputes creation and avoidance. The interviewees, recurrent users of FIDIC contract, criticised certain features and expressions and proposed some solutions.

There exists no detailed account of the 40 Australian women teachers employed within the “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal colonies during the Boer War. The purpose of this paper is to critically respond to this dearth in historiography.

A large corpus of newspaper accounts represents the richest, most accessible and relatively idiosyncratic source of data concerning this contingent of women. The research paper therefore interprets concomitant print-based media reports of the period as a resource for educational and historiographical data.

Towards the end of the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902) a total of 40 Australian female teachers – four from Queensland, six from South Australia, 14 from Victoria and 16 from New South Wales – successfully answered the imperial call conscripting educators for schools within “concentration camps” established by British forces in the Orange River and Transvaal colonies. Women’s exclusive participation in this initiative, while ostensibly to teach the Boer children detained within these camps, also exerted an influential effect on the popular consciousness in reimagining cultural ideals about female teachers’ professionalism in ideological terms.

One limitation of the study relates to the dearth in official records about Australian women teachers in concentration camps given that; not only are Boer War-related records generally difficult to source; but also that even the existent data is incomplete with many chapters missing completely from record. Therefore, while the data about these women is far from complete, the account in terms of newspaper reports relies on the existent accounts of them typically in cases where their school and community observe their contributions to this military campaign and thus credit them with media publicity.

The paper’s originality lies in recovering the involvement of a previously underrepresented contingent of Australian women teachers while simultaneously offering a primary reading of the ideological work this involvement played in influencing the political narrative of Australia’s educational involvement in the Boer War.

While substantial scholarly attention has been given to children’s understanding of advertising in the context of traditional advertising channels, there is a gap in the literature with regard to children’s commercial awareness in the context of online social networking sites. This paper aims to seek to explore the nature and extent of advertising literacy among young consumers in the context of their use of social networking sites, namely, Facebook and Bebo.

A three-stage study was conducted with 12 to 14-year-old girls, using focus group discussions, participant observation and in-depth interviews.

The study illustrates that the increasingly blurred line between online advertising and other forms of online brand-related content is militating against the development of advertising and marketing literacy in young consumers. A key issue which is discussed is the extent to which the traditional conceptualisation of advertising literacy is “fit for purpose” in an online context.

The authors propose an alternative to the advertising literacy concept, namely, the Online Brand Communications literacy framework. This framework recognises the convergence of traditional online advertising and other forms of online brand content and also acknowledges that the messaging around a brand may originate from the brand owner in a variety of overt and covert forms. Equally, online consumers may also act as brand promoters when they engage in brand-related word-of-mouth.

Defines the stream of thought in the UK known as Christian socialism or social Christianity as an Anglican movement much influenced by UK Unitarian humanism, and shows that Roscher, who approached the same nineteenthcentury problems as a Lutheran, came to similar conclusions. A comparative study shows the similarity and differences, as well as the continued relevance of these ideas down to the present day.