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Because of the importance of the product design process, a good control of it is of vital importance. It is shown how design tests can be defined and executed that are able to identify quality problem. Emphasis will be on the early detection of reliability problems. The quality control method itself and the results reached at Philips Electronics Industries‐Consumer Electronics Division (PEI‐CED) in Taiwan will be discussed. First, the organisation of a design process and design reliability evaluation program in general will be considered. Next, it will be explained what opportunities for improvement of reliability control in the design process at PEI‐CED were detected. A risk analysis, aimed at identifying reliability risks and analysing them, will be the basis for the reliability tests that will be elaborated next.

Despite the importance of increasing engagement and minimising attrition and drop‐out in parenting interventions, there is a paucity of empirical evidence examining factors related to engagement and participation. The range of factors examined in relation to engagement is generally limited in scope and variety, focusing on variables of convenience rather than utilising a theoretically‐driven approach.The aim of this article is to review the factors related to parental engagement with interventions and to describe strategies and implications for improving engagement with parenting interventions. Several policy and practice implications are identified: (1) Poor parental engagement may threaten or compromise the capacity of parenting programmes to deliver valued outcomes. Viable engagement strategies need to be a core part of prevention and early intervention parenting programmes; (2) Agencies delivering parenting services need a proactive engagement strategy, which includes strategies to prevent drop‐out, as well as strategies to actively respond to parental disengagement; (3) Research is needed to test the efficacy and robustness of different engagement enhancement strategies. Empirical tests are needed to test the effectiveness of different engagement strategies in order to ensure that the most efficient, cost‐effective and efficacious approach is used in order to engage parents. Investment of research effort to improve parental engagement is likely to have a high yield in terms of programme efficiency, utility and cost effectiveness. We conclude that research examining how to improve engagement and decrease non‐completion is needed to strengthen the population level value of parenting programmes as preventive interventions.

In recent years there has been a dramatic expansion in both the number and scope of policy proposals explicitly intended to reduce inequality proffered by policymakers in the Democratic Party. In the following, it is argued that this state of affairs is the result of a complex series of developments triggered by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests. OWS dramatically enhanced both the salience and the politicization of economic inequality. These developments altered the strategies of elites and organizations within the institutional left and advantaged elite movement allies within the Democratic Party. In combination, these indirect and elite-mediated responses resulted in antiinequality positions becoming integrated into both the partisan identity and the platform of the Democratic Party. Despite the Occupy movement being relatively short-lived and explicitly eschewing reliance on institutional politics, it nonetheless had a significant impact on conventional politics. By significantly shifting the political discourse around the issue of inequality, the movement reshaped the political landscape in a manner that created new opportunities and openings for political actors. As organizations within the Democratic Party's coalition increasingly adopted antiinequality messaging this both pressured and incentivized establishment Democrats to fully embrace an antiinequality agenda. This account is consistent with a theory of political parties in which the key actors are activists and interest groups, not party leaders, and social movement research that suggests that movements are often more influential in the earliest stages of the policymaking process.

This paper aims to deal with the experimental and numerical investigations of the fire protection performance of a waterborne intumescent coating (IC) on structural steel in case of natural fires. Based on own small-scale laboratory tests, an advanced numerical model is developed to simulate the fire protection performance of the investigated coating in case of arbitrary fire scenarios. The insulation efficiency of the coating is described within the model by temperature and heating rate-dependent material properties, such as expansion factors, thermal conductivity and heat capacity. The results of the numerical model are compared to own large-scale fire tests of an unloaded I-section beam and column.

As natural fires can show arbitrary regimes, the material properties of the waterborne IC are investigated for various heating rates. Based on these investigations, a material model for the IC is implemented in the finite element program ABAQUS. With the help of user subroutines, the material properties of the coating are introduced for both the heating and cooling phase of natural fires, allowing for two- and three-dimensional thermomechanical analyses of coated steel elements.

The results of the performed small-scale laboratory tests show a heating rate-dependent behavior of the investigated coating. The mass loss as well as the expansion of the coating change with the heating rate. Moreover, the material properties obtained on small scale are valid for large scale. Therefore, a material model could be developed that is suitable to reproduce the results of the large-scale fire tests. Additionally, with the help of the numerical model, a dimensioning approach for the dry film thickness (DFT) of the investigated coating is derived for arbitrary natural fires.

The material properties presented in this paper are only valid for the investigated waterborne IC and the parameter area that was chosen. However, the developed modeling approach for the fire protection performance of ICs is general and can be applied for every coating that is part of the intumescent product family.

Until now, only few research works have been carried out on the fire protection performance of ICs under non-standard fire exposure. This paper deals extensively with the material properties and the material modeling of a waterborne IC exposed to natural fires. Especially, the laboratory examinations and the numerical simulations are unique and allow for new evaluation possibilities of ICs.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Since the emergence of partnering in the construction industry in the late 1980s, it has received a great deal of attention from practitioners and researchers. The published research that is presented in the major journals typically advocates guidelines and models for implementing partnering. To date, however, no paper has attempted to summarize and present a critique of the existing partnering literature. This paper, therefore, reviews the partnering literature that has been published in four high quality rating journals, these being Construction Management and Economics. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management and ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering. It is concluded that there were four major themes of empirical studies, which were research on project partnering, examining a dual relationship, international partnering and a special application of partnering. Moreover, nonempirical studies were classified as the types of partnering, partnering models, partnering processes and partnering structure. The review provided in this paper ‘polishes the signposts’ and offers new directions for partnering research and its application in construction. Future studies are recommended to emphasize on the identification of performance measures and critical success factors, development and test of partnering models and processes, and the formation and selection of partnering strategy.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.