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The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical investigation of the idea that imperfectly informed consumers use simple signals to identify the characteristics of wine, for example, the geographical denomination. The reputation of a denomination will thus be an important guide for consumers when assessing individual wines.

The price–quality relationship is studied in a fairly homogenous geographical area where a large number of wine types is present. This is done by using a simple ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis on a database of more than 2,000 different red wines produced in a period of just four years in only one Italian region.

The results show that some denominations have a lower average quality score and that price differentials between denominations are linked to differences in average quality, although consumers tend to exaggerate the quality gap between prestigious denominations and others.

A producer in a prestigious denomination benefits from a substantial mark-up relative to an equally good producer from another denomination. Furthermore, denomination neutral wines have a stronger price–quality relationship than denomination specific wines.

Consumers should not be misled by what is on the bottle, but should rather consult wine guides to become better informed before purchasing.

The fact that quality and sensory characteristics often play a minor role in determining the price of a commodity is not immediately compatible with the postulate that consumers are well informed.

Unlike previous work, this paper investigates a limited area (Tuscany) and only red wines, thus making it possible implicitly to control for many other factors which might otherwise confound the price–quality relationship.

The questions at the origin of this chapter are: Are children aged 5 years able to become involved in a critical thinking process, which implies a certain degree of abstraction and decentering? To what extent can an approach centered on philosophical dialogue among peers contribute to this development? The chapter describes a study of the exchanges in two groups of children aged 5 years. One group had experience with the philosophical dialogue tool, the Philosophy for Children approach, while the other group had no such experience. The analysis grid was the operationalized model of the developmental process of dialogical critical thinking, as revisited by Daniel and Gagnon, which includes four thinking modes (logical, creative, responsible, and metacognitive) and six epistemological perspectives (egocentricity, post-egocentricity, pre-relativism, relativism, post-relativism, intersubjectivity). Results of the analysis showed that 65% of the experimental group's interventions were situated in relativistic perspectives and 35% in egocentric perspectives, whereas 60% of the control group's interventions were situated in egocentric perspectives and 40% in relativistic perspectives.

This paper explores the role of paradigms in information retrieval research. The nature of a paradigm is outlined and the fundamental sense of a paradigm as an exemplar is identified. The applicability of the paradigm concept to a multi‐disciplinary field such as information science is discussed and it is concluded that paradigms can be a legitimate feature of information science though they may not be connected with the development of normal science. The features of two paradigms operating in information retrieval research, (1) the physical paradigm and (2) the cognitive paradigm are outlined, and their origins, nature and role examined. It is argued that although most work in information retrieval research takes place within the physical and cognitive paradigms, neither provides the basis for a powerful paradigm directed science. An explanation for the failure to develop a powerful body of theory articulated within a well developed paradigmatic framework is offered with reference to the inherent categorial duality of the field.

The dynamics of globalisation as the increasing interconnectedness between all aspects of social, cultural, economic, and political spaces have seen an unprecedented focus on migrants across the world. Far less discussed though has been the connections between spaces and places during migration - how conceptualisations of proximity/distance, inside/outside; native/migrant; past/present; memories/experiences produce and shape buildings, streets, and urban environments. While it is suggested that the unprecedented movement of people in a globalising world will be particularly significant for cities and urban life, it is also argued that such movement has led to a problematisation of ‘home’ as a particular type of built form in a physical location. This special issue is therefore interested in making the links between three important processes in a globalising world-home, migration, and the city - and their significance for built forms and built environments across the world.

The correspondence recently in the T.L.S., rising from a reader's failure to get a certain work of fiction from a branch library in a great city, raised once again the charge that the public librarian was a censor, an office for which, it was indignantly assumed, he had neither capacity nor authority. The subsequent letters reiterated the arguments with which every experienced librarian is only too familiar: that public librarians operate with limited funds and “select” books of which they know their readers have need. They cannot provide every book. It is always fiction that raises this hubbub from the reader who assumes that he should be provided with anything his fancy suggests at the expense of his fellow ratepayers, many of whom may greatly dislike the book in question. As Mr. O'Leary, in his part of the symposium wrote, any form of censorship may not only be wrong ; it may be fatuous. The whole history of literature indicates that. But librarians are trusted by the community to give what is best to the greatest number of people and, if they do not stock particular books, this, as another correspondent points out, is not censorship if the book can be got through any bookseller or at the subscription libraries, although the latter were compelled to experiment some years ago with a form of exclusion. That is not unreasonable seeing that thousands of readers come upon books as it were by accident and are often displeased at what they find ; and it is useless, to be quite practical, to point out that no one need read a book he finds to be offensive, and all should at least try to determine the character of any book they intend to read. Obviously, as we have long known, the question is complicated and these and many other factors have to be borne in mind in practice.

While several studies have examined the roles of husbands and wives in making decisions about products, few have examined the impact of children. This article reports the results of a 1985 study of the influence of children on families. The study examines children's influence in each of four stages of the purchase decision, for 25 products, and by age of the children. For child‐centered (e.g., toys, children's clothing, food) and child‐used products or services (e.g., vacations, restaurant choices, outside entertainment), the study shows that children are perceived as influential by most households. Older children are perceived as more influential than younger children for nearly all the products studied. The study concludes that “family” decision making is quite different from “husband‐wife” decision making.