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This is an account of a training course consisting of six three‐hourly sessions held in 1989. Sixteen attended the course, all supervisors from a variety of disciplines. The majority were over 40 years old and with more than 15 years service with the company. Greene King Employee Relations Adviser, Rod McAlpine, and Training and Safety Manager, Peter Jackson, felt the need to develop a more formalised training programme at supervisory level and a first series in interpersonal skills was thought to be appropriate. At the same time Relate, formerly the Marriage Guidance Council, was extending its educational and training areas in the Eastern region. Greene King took advantage of this to use them in the organising, actioning and planning of the course. The article consists of two sections, the first written by Rod McAlpine and Peter Jackson giving background details of the company and its training requirements. The second is the work of Mary Pennock, Relate Training Organiser in West Suffolk. In it she recounts how Relate approached what is a logical but comparatively recent extension of their activities. It also covers the details of the course which was designed and packaged for Greene King, bearing in mind the background of those taking part and the particular needs of the company.

A piece of action research is presented into the area of managerial decision making on the subject of employee resourcing. Specifically, the development and application of an “employee resourcing accounting system” (ERAS) to a particular group of pub managers employed by Greene, King and Sons, plc, a regional brewer located in East Anglia, is discussed.

Diagnostic thermo‐hygrometer. A new instrument added to Sheen Instruments range will be of particular value to painters of all manner of steel structures, specially in Britain and other non‐topical climates where condensation can be a problem.

Specialist surface treatment subcontractor, Impact Finishers Limited, has been awarded BS 5750 Part II, and is believed to be the first company of its kind to receive this coveted British Standard qualification.

All the books in this Stack try to capture timeless principles as illustrated by historical figures (Grant, the “Founding Fathers”), war/defense philosophies (The Marines “Way,” Aikido), or both (Machiavelli and The Prince) and then try to apply them directly to modern strategy formulation. Regrettably, few actually make the leap to modern strategy.

The development of chemical sensors based on nanostructures, such as nanotubes or nanowires, depends on the capability to reproducibly control the processing of the sensor. Alignment and consistent electrical contact of nanostructures on a microsensor platform is challenging. This can be accomplished using labor‐intensive approaches, specialized processing technology, or growth of nanostructures in situ. However, the use of standard microfabrication techniques for fabricating nanostructured microsensors is problematic. The purpose of this paper is to address this challenge using standard photoresist processing combined with dielectrophoresis.

Nanostructures are suspended in photoresist and aligned between opposing sawtooth electrode patterns using an alternating current (AC) electric field (dielectrophoresis). The use of photoresist processing techniques allow the burying of the nanostructures between layers of metal, thus improving the electrical contact of the nanostructures to the microsensor platform.

This approach is demonstrated for both multi‐walled carbon nanotubes and tin oxide nanowires. Preliminary data show the electrical continuity of the sensor structure as well as the response to various gases.

It is concluded that this approach demonstrates a foundation for a new tool for the fabrication of microsensors using nanostructures, and can be expanded towards enabling the combination of common microfabrication techniques with nanostructured sensor development.

This approach is intended to address the significant barriers of deposition control, contact robustness, and simplified processing to realizing the potential of nanotechnology as applied to sensors.

Soviet, Polish, European, American and British civil and military craft will be displayed — and flying — at Helitech 91, the international helicopter technology and operations exhibition being held at Redhill, Surrey, UK, now known as the ‘Farnborough’ of the helicopter world.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the employment situation of postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) in the Netherlands, concerning their career prospects and embeddedness within their organisation, in order to discuss theoretical perspectives on academic careers.

This multi-method study consists of three parts: a survey, in-depth interviews, and three focus group meetings with postdocs as well as representatives of the human resource staff and the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This paper reports on the findings from the focus group meetings, which concentrated on how postdoctoral researchers consider their employment situation and career prospects.

The three focus group discussions revealed that postdocs are caught within a dual controversy, the first involves their lack of clarity concerning their career prospects and developments despite their highly valued work, the second regards the fact that they are specialized staff, contributing to the primary process of their employing organisation but faintly connected. Although the postdocs’ formal position seems weak, their situation in terms of academic socialising is much stronger and active than appears at first sight, particularly due to their personal agency.

The postdocs require and appreciate guidance and support, particularly when they must leave academia.

The paper provides new and additional insights into the position of postdocs and their career prospects. Their personal agency in pursuing further career steps is more active than expected in previous studies.

Our fifth annual survey of the business leaders to keep an eye on the next year.

Much has been written in criticism of the social, planning and constructional aspects of many industrial buildings of the 1960s. Government departments have been accused of promoting buildings systems and forms of contract that were bound to lead to problems. However, high rise industrialised building systems have been with us since the last century. Why have so many relatively recent examples gone wrong; what can be done with them; and how do we avoid the pitfalls in the future, while taking advantage of industrialised techniques?