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The terms are not synonymous; their differences are mainly of function and areas of administration. Community Health is used in national health service law; environmental health to describe the residuum of health functions remaining with local authorities after the first NHS/Local Government reorganization of 1974. Previously, they were all embraced in the term public health, known for a century or more, with little attention to divisions and in the field of administration, all local authority between county and district councils. In the dichotomy created by the reorganization, the personal health services, including the ambulance service, may have dove‐tailed into the national health service, but for the remaining functions, there was a situation of unreality, which has persisted. It is difficult to know where community health and environmental health begin and end. From the outside, the unreality may be more apparent than real. The Royal Commission on the NHS in their Report of last year state that leaving environmental health services with local authorities “does not seem to have caused any problems”—and this, despite the disparity in status of the area health authority and the bottom tier, local councils.

Retailing is traditionally defined in terms of the retailers’ place in the distribution of tangible products. However, the retail function may be more widely defined where the retailer concerned is involved not only in the provision of product distribution services but also in the management and provision of financial services. Retailers are rediscovering the impact financial services may have on organisational success. That is, they are increasingly recognising the direct contribution that financial services may make to profit margins and the indirect benefits which may accrue through increased customer loyalty. This article considers the framework within which innovation in the provision of payment systems and other financial services is occurring in the retail sector.

With the ever increasing demands for high performance electronic devices there is a need for circuit board laminates that have enhanced properties when compared to conventional materials such as the widely used epoxide‐based FR4 laminates. Equipment manufacturers require boards with better mechanical stability and improved electrical characteristics. At the same time, new environmental legislation is set to drive electronics assembly temperatures much higher as manufacturers start to use lead‐free soldering processes. The legislation is also raising questions about the long‐term viability of brominated resins as the basis for imparting flame retardancy to laminates. Fortunately, laminate manufacturers have responded to these challenges by developing and introducing a wide range of new laminates that address these issues. This paper describes some of these challenges and gives an introduction to the new high performance laminates that are finding increasing use. It also highlights the need for chemical processes used in the manufacture of interconnects with laminates to be specifically optimised for the chosen substrate material.

The purpose of this paper is to produce a critical history of MP3 technology in an effort to show how its stature as the digital music format of choice had nothing to do with music or associated industries and that its configuration as a product to be bought and sold was unintended.

The approach is reminiscent of Michel Foucault's critical histories, which sought to problematise our current understanding of existing cultural arrangements by unearthing the conditions that made the production of knowledge and their accompanying artefacts possible.

The paper documents how MP3s emerged by outlining the conditions that made its production viable, showing how before MP3s were profiled as commodities to be bought and sold online, the composite of technologies making up the standard MPEG1‐Layer III were objects of knowledge within the fields of electrical engineering and psychoacoustics, and later a process of compression used mainly by audio broadcasting professionals. The paper concludes by examining MPEG1‐Layer III's reconstitution as MP3: its formal configuration and valuation, first as a license for the broadcasting industry to compress sound and then as a “free‐ware” application distributed online.

The paper problematises the taken for granted status of commodities, in this case, MP3s, as digital music to be bought and sold, by revealing how they emerged. At a more parochial level, it produces a competing history of MP3 technology which until now has not been told.

Presents the findings of a survey carried out among the financial directors of leading retail companies in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK. The purpose of the survey was to determine those factors that influence the development of financial services within retail organisations. Considers the introduction of financial services, within the context of retailers’ relationships with their customers, and retailers’ ability to build closer relationships with existing and potential customers. Financial service provision is, therefore, considered in the context of the relationship marketing paradigm. Considers the opportunities which financial services provide for retailers to move from a transactional to relationship approach to marketing.

Among the many influences on group decision making efficacy that have been identified by group researchers, the process that a group follows in arriving at a decision is widely regarded as one of the most important. This chapter reviews the research on group decision making processes for the purpose of explicating (a) the nature of group process, (b) the factors that influence group process, (c) the role that communication plays in group process, and (d) the influence of group process on decision making efficacy. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the way “moderation” is defined and operationalised at UK universities. It is hoped that this investigation provides pointers for modifications in university documentation and practices, as well as indicates possible areas for future research.

This paper begins with a review of relevant scholarly literature, first tracing the history of the concept of moderation (essentially meaning the avoidance of extremes) in western thought and then proceeding to show how moderation is understood and operationalised in UK universities. Relevant documentation from 10 UK universities, all in the public domain, is analysed to show both commonalities and differences in definition and operationalisation of moderation.

This paper shows that universities differ in their understanding of the scope of moderation, with some seeing it as covering the evaluation of draft assessment artifacts. It is also noted that the distinction between moderation and marking is not always expressed in university documentation in ways that distinguish between the two with maximal clarity.

Limitations include the relatively small sample of documents examined. Conversely, ancient universities (e.g. Edinburgh), long-established universities (e.g. Manchester) and 1992 and more recent universities (e.g. Manchester Metropolitan University and Suffolk) are contained in the sample, so moderation practices from across the sector are included.

The main findings are that some universities see moderation as including drafting, redrafting and approval of assessment artifacts, whereas others do not. In addition, although all universities stress that moderation and marking are separate activities, some documentation discusses both the activities in tandem; thus, undermining the contention that they are discrete. Both these findings have implications for UK university documentation in terms of both document structure and precise wording.

The approach taken, in which a sample of publicly available university documents is scrutinised and evaluated, casts a new light on understandings of “moderation”, which is a term and concept that may not always be examined critically by lecturers and quality assurance professionals involved in higher education.

Purpose – This paper examines William Stetson Merrill, the compiler of A Code for Classifiers and a Newberry Library employee (1889‐1930) in an attempt to glean lessons for modern information studies from an early librarian's career. Design/methodology/approach – Merrill's career at the Newberry Library and three editions of the code are briefly examined using historical, bibliographic, and conceptual methods. Primary and secondary sources in archives and libraries are summarized to provide insight into Merrill's attempts to develop or modify tools to solve the knowledge organization problems he faced. The concept of bricolage, developed by Levi‐Strauss to explain modalities of thinking, is applied to Merrill's career. Excerpts from his works and reminisces are used to explain Merrill as a bricoleur and highlight the characteristics of bricolage. Findings – Findings show that Merrill worked collaboratively to collocate and integrate a variety of ideas from a diverse group of librarians such as Cutter, Pettee, Poole, Kelley, Rudolph, and Fellows. Bliss and Ranganathan were aware of the code but the extent to which they were influenced by it remains to be explored. Although this is an anachronistic evaluation, Merrill serves as an example of the archetypal information scientist who improvises and integrates methods from bibliography, cataloging, classification, and indexing to solve problems of information retrieval and design usable information products and services for human consumption. Originality/value – Bricolage offers great potential to information practitioners and researchers today as we continue to try and find user‐centered solutions to the problems of digital information organization and services.

Automatic internal cardiac defibrillators have various indications for placement. However, some patients may not fully benefit from this technology and the devices are expensive. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to describe a development model for clinical decision support to help providers offer their patients a more effective decision‐making process.

A decision tree was built based on previous trials described in the cardiac literature.

A decision‐making model for implanting these expensive but lifesaving devices is developed and a model for testing them (pre‐ and post‐implantation) is described.

The model could be used to develop prospective trials.

The paper demonstrates that the project's goal is better quality and cost‐effective care.

Purpose – The negotiated order branch of symbolic interaction used to examine the process by which welfare regulations were dramatically changed in which the forty-year old AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) was abandoned, and a new W-2 (Welfare Works) welfare reform effort was developed and socially negotiated with the Federal government and in the State of Wisconsin. We probe interactions within the mesodomain of four levels of actors: the Federal government; State-level government in both the executive and legislative branches; county-level government; and public and private welfare service delivery agencies.

Method – Qualitative, naturalistic, ten-year field study entailing interviews and archival analyses.

Findings – The reform effort involved the mutual constitution of the W-2 social structure and the social interactions that surrounded it through such strategies as negotiation, conflict, manipulation, coercion, exchange, bargaining, collusion, power brokering, and rhetoric, which were all circumscribed by and interpenetrated with the predecessor AFDC rule system. In turn, the welfare budget was reduced from $652m to $257m. We observed that the macro structure of welfare shaped the micro social actions of a variety of actors, and that micro social action by institutional entrepreneurs reconstituted structure of welfare policy in what proved to be a moving matrix.

Research implications – Implications were directed at extending and refining the negotiated order perspective.

Social implications – Given that the number of welfare recipients was reduced from 300,000 to 10,000, their fate in a weak economy was explored.

Originality – Chapter extends symbolic interaction concepts to examine a contested social domain.