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The purpose of this study is to highlight special characteristics of building services systems and investigate how practitioners view reliability and maintenance. These characteristics include energy‐hungry services systems, operating modes, maintenance types, the relationship between procurement costs and maintenance costs.

The practitioners' viewpoints on reliability and maintenance are explored through a workshop. The authors wish to draw the attention of researchers in the reliability and maintenance community and furthermore emphasise the difference between building services systems and systems in industries other than construction.

It is shown that a lack of failure data and maintenance data is the main problem from both academic researchers' and industrial practitioner's points of view. The paper suggests that there exists no fixed cost ratio available to apply to building services systems; the analysis of RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety) should include duty cycles and the environment; and clients of the construction industry would benefit from mandating a LCC to be applied to the build.

The gap between academia and practitioners should be bridged through better understanding each other's needs. Accurately estimating the ratio between procurement and maintenance costs is needed from a whole life costing perspective.

This paper is a good reference for building designers, facility managers and maintenance staff of building services systems. It also offers reliability researchers references on special characteristics of building services systems.

Describes the development and testing of a standard assessment method for the preservation needs of paper‐based and photographic materials (including microforms) in libraries, which will facilitate an assessment of national preservation needs and priorities. After outlining how the research was carried out, it briefly describes the assessment method which was finally developed; explains why a sample‐based approach was adopted and how libraries should choose their samples; discusses the core preservation management issues identified during the earlier part of the research and shows how a set of questions relating to these issues was developed for inclusion in the method.

The use of accounting to help apply the principles of scientific management to business affairs is associated with the adoption of standard costing and budgetary control. This first British industry‐based study of the implementation of these calculative techniques makes use of the case study research tool to interrogate archival data relating to leading iron and steel companies. We demonstrate the adoption of standard costing and budgetary control early on (during the inter‐war period) by a single economic unit, United Steel Companies Ltd, where innovation is attributed to the engineering and scientific background and US experiences of key personnel. Elsewhere, significant management accounting change occurred only with the collapse in iron and steel corporate profitability that began to become apparent in the late 1950s. The process of accounting change is addressed and the significance for our study of the notions of evolution and historical discontinuity is examined. The paper is contextualised through an assessment of initiatives from industry‐based regulatory bodies and consideration of the economic circumstances and business conditions within which management accounting practices were the subject of radical revision.

Further evidence was given on April 3 before the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into questions relating to the butter trade.

ALL who have visited Liverpool for any length of time have affection for her. She lies alongside a noble river, watched over by the lofty Liver building and the perhaps more architecturally perfect offices of the Mersey Dock authorities. Even in these days, when the very largest ships have been diverted to Southampton, splendid vessels come from and go to the ends of the earth almost daily. The river is the essential fact about Liverpool; she was born of the river and her waterfront is one of the world's rendezvous. As a city she compares favourably with any English town, and perhaps excels most in her few splendid buildings, amongst which the new and rapidly growing Cathedral takes first rank.

It has been the custom for many years to preserve foodstuffs by drying, smoking, salting and pickling, and by the addition of sugar. The more modern methods include pasteurisation, sterilisation by heat or other means, refrigeration and the addition of chemical substances having an antiseptic action to a greater or less degree.

In those frightening years between the two Wars and governments in France came and went with dismal frequency, it used to be said that any French Government which permitted food prices to rise had no chance whatever of surviving, and the result was that food was bountiful and incredibly cheap. Times have changed dramatically but not the attitude of people to the price and availibility of food and, in particular of political control; this is very much the same as always. Mostly, it revolves around the woman and what she sees as an abuse, greed and taking mean advantage of prevailing conditions and, make no mistake, this will be reflected in the political field; in the way she votes. It has happened in previous elections; it will happen in even greater degree in the next election and, although not decisive, it can have a not insignificant impact. None know better than the housewife how meaningless is the smug talk of the politicians when it comes to food prices. Their attitude may not have been the main factor in throwing out the last Conservative Government; this was undoubtedly the fear that their continuance in office would result in widespread strikes and the serious effect these upheavals have on food prices (and other household necessit ies), but the votes of woman were an unimportant contribution. As it was, it mattered little to the muscle men of the trade unions which party is in power. Women's talk around the shops and supermarket's, up and down the High Street to‐day is one long grumble and disillusionment with politicians generally.

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.”

The purpose of this paper is to consider and evaluate judicial independence in China, through reviewing the value in its presence, assessing its current state in China and evaluating what the future holds for it.

The paper reviews the benefits of judicial independence in its support of the rule of law. Following this, an evaluation of the current independence of the judiciary in China is presented. The reforms of the judiciary in the Fourth Plenary Session and the outlook for judicial independence in China are assessed.

The paper finds that judicial independence in China cannot be said to exist, being vulnerable to influence from a variety of sources. There is, however, progress observed, and this is expected to continue.

This paper’s consideration of judicial independence in China and its outlook are framed with discussions of the relationships between judicial independence and the rule of law, and the Chinese state and the rule of law. The paper should thus contribute to discussion of the development trajectory of China in this important facet.