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TODAY's high‐grade foams provide airport fire‐fighting crews with the capability to rapidly knockdown and extinguish fires as a result of aircraft crashes or engine failure. Furthermore, the ability of foams to bring fires quickly under control ensures that the damage done to the local environment by harmful fumes is kept to a minimum. Here, Michael Clarke, of 3M Industrial Chemicals Group outlines the development of fire fighting foams and their applications, and discusses the merits of the US Military Specification, contrasting it with the recent International Civil Aviation Organisation's specification.

The scries of trials arising out of the Metropolitan Police investigation into arson and other insurance frauds under the name Operation Nero concluded in early 1998. The central figure was loss assessor Peter Scott, who was convicted, along with various associates, at two trials in 1996 and 1997 for a number of offences going back to the early 1990s. He received three years' imprisonment for several offences of conspiring to defraud involving bogus burglaries, and another assessor and a jeweller who provided fake valuations received one year each. He was then sentenced to seven years, to run consecutively with his earlier sentence, for organising the arson of a clothing warehouse in the East End of London, and a further five years on charges of conspiracy to defraud insurers, to run concurrently. The owner of the warehouse also received seven years, and three co‐conspirators who rented space in the warehouse received three‐year sentences. A number of other co‐conspirators gave evidence for the Crown. Scott was acquitted in a further trial where he was accused of a £400,000 mortgage fraud which police described as complex and clever. The value of the fraudulent arson at the warehouse was £5m and the police estimated that Scott was responsible for at least £30m of insurance claims, half of them settled by the time his business was raided and records siezed in 1992.

Aim: To assess the potential for improved clinical effectiveness through the use of research‐based evidence in obstetric care. Design: A questionnaire survey to obtain evidence about (i) the usage of reviews of controlled perinatal trials, and (ii) the attitudes of professionals towards the reviews and their practice, relating to 27 areas of clinical care addressed by the reviews. Subjects and setting: All doctors and midwives working in two teaching hospital maternity units (Units X and Y). Main outcome measures: The use of the reviews. For each of the 27 areas of clinical care, (i) whether a majority of professionals were in agreement with research‐based evidence, and (ii) how perceived current practice compared with research‐based evidence. Results: For most areas of clinical care (21/27 in unit X, 20/27 in unit Y) a majority of professionals agreed with the research‐based evidence. However, for a large proportion of these areas (16/21 in unit X, 12/20 in unit Y), practice appeared to be inconsistent with research‐based evidence. Conclusion: There is a considerable opportunity to improve clinical effectiveness, as in many of the areas of care examined professionals agree with research‐based evidence, but clinical practice appears to be inconsistent. The approach used in this study could be used to help develop practices for promoting clinical effectiveness.

Corrosion monitoring techniques fall broadly into two categories: those which provide simple numeric data for control purposes, and those which offer a spectrum of information for diagnostic purposes. Corrosion monitoring can be carried out directly at locations susceptible to corrosion, or indirectly under conditions simulating susceptible but inaccessible points. The interpretation of the data can reflect the purpose of monitoring at the particular location. A consistent form of presentation, and comparative tabulation including statistical analysis can greatly facilitate correlation and trend spotting. Broad spectrum techniques may give an early indication of new problems. An effective internal corrosion monitoring programme can make a major contribution towards the control of plant operating costs.

In his examination of the links between power and crime, Steven Box defined corporate crime as crime committed for the corporate organisation and not against it. Thus, employee theft, including fraud and embezzlement against an employer, would not be categorised as such. Braithwaite adopts a similar definition to Box, suggesting that corporate crime refers to ‘the conduct of a corporation or individuals acting on behalf of the corporation that is proscribed by law’. Corporate crime, then, involves illegal acts of an individual or group within a legitimate formal organisation which are in accordance with the goals of that organisation.

This paper aims to examine the cultural heritage of outdoor rock and pop music festivals in Britain since the mid‐1960s, and relates it to developments in, and critiques of, corporate sponsorship in the contemporary music festival sector.

The paper uses extant research materials to construct an account of British music festival history since the mid‐1960s. It then draws upon Bakhtin's concept of the carnivalesque and the literature on sponsorship, experiential marketing and branding, in order to understand critiques of corporate sponsorship and the changing nature of the sector.

Outdoor rock and pop music festivals were dominated by the ideologies of a “countercultural carnivalesque” from the late 1960s until the mid‐1990s. In the 1990s, changes in legislation began a process of professionalization, corporatization, and a reliance on brand sponsorships. Two broad trajectories are identified within the contemporary sector: one is strongly rooted in the heritage of the countercultural carnivalesque, while the other is more overtly commercial.

It is argued that experiential marketing and brand activation are key methods for achieving a balance between the competing aspects of commerce and carnival. Hence, festival organisers and sponsors need to understand the history of the sector and of their own events and attendees in order to use corporate sponsorship more effectively.

This paper adds historical and theoretical depth to the debate between commerce and carnival within the music festival sector, and makes connections between cultural theory and the literature on sponsorship and branding.

Some children with severe speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) can make use of assistive communication technology (ACT) to support and augment their speaking and writing. Different stakeholders may place emphasis on specific areas for ACT use, and this paper, therefore, proposes a framework for discussing and clarifying these varied expectations, using the ICF/ICF‐CY domains as a basis.

The authors discuss how the goal of increased participation for children helps all involved to keep in mind that, despite varying focuses for the use of ACT, it is the move towards increased involvement in life situations that will best drive our joint decisions and target‐setting.

Multi‐functional PC devices can support a range of communicative functions, including “chat”, curriculum support, play and leisure. Provision and use of ACT can, in consequence, have different focuses for different stakeholders (child, family, health and education staff), which can lead to disparate expectations around implementation of such technology.

A framework is proposed in this paper for an approach that hopes to offer a common understanding from which to discuss potential applications for ACT. This approach encourages equal value or weighting to each of the supports for inclusion and, therefore, encourages stakeholders to value their own priorities whilst considering others'.

In this paper, the accessibility of e‐learning environments designed for deaf learners is discussed. Starting from a discussion of the meaning of text and web accessibility, the paper describes the development of a Deaf‐centered E‐Learning Environment (DELE) which focusing on utilizing the visual skills of the target users. This work is conducted under the auspices of the Italian FIRB‐VISEL project (E‐Learning, Deafness, Written Language: A Bridge of Letters and Signs Towards Knowledge Society) which involves the development of a distance learning environment aimed at improving the literacy skills of prelingual deaf children and young adults.

The e‐learning environment is based on embodied cognition/semantics, imitation, storytelling, and the construction of educational games. Conceptual metaphors provide the browsing structure of the entire environment, in which the learning paths are developed.

DELE is currently undergoing testing in which end‐users are providing feedback about their use of the system.

The authors think that DELE could positively affect the didactic methodology used with deaf young people, through a new visual‐based approach to teaching.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time in which such a theoretical approach has been applied to an e‐learning environment for deaf users.

Working memory (WM) is a key component of effective and efficient communication in typical communicators, with, potentially, even greater significance for those who benefit from augmentative communication. This study aims to explore the emergence of WM strategies in children with complex communication needs who may be reliant on aided communication strategies.

A quasi‐experimental repeated measures, multi‐factorial research design, comparing 30 children with complex communication needs (CCN) aged three to six years and 30 age‐matched typically developing peers. Picture stimuli representing verbs and adjectives in three categories: control words, long words and phonologically similar words are presented visually or silently in sequences of increasing length to establish each participant's memory span.

Articulatory rehearsal does not appear to be used as a memory strategy with verb material. With adjective material, there is limited evidence of emerging articulatory rehearsal at age six. Input modality does not influence rehearsal of either verbs or adjectives.

The study is small scale and exploratory, but there are suggestions that both groups of participants handle verb and adjective material differently to noun material.

Emerging WM skill in children with CCN needs to be considered in relation to the use of speech generating technology.

This paper contributes to understanding of the development and potential influence of WM in efficient aided communication.