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Firth‐Derihon Stampings are one of the UK's leading forgings manufacturers, and, in common with many large engineering concerns, ran into difficulties in the 1970s with the world recession. In addition, they experienced understandable difficulties in controlling the logistics of manufacturing several thousands of components, all requiring high standards of quality control, and many having to go through a detailed certification process for MOD and other demanding customers. The company sought a solution in more comprehensive computerisation and initiated a thorough survey of the possible types of system that might be adopted. The considerable impact of the system on the company is traced and the company management's responses regarding its advantages are described.

In a spinner for the hub of an airscrew, a spinner shell, spoked supports therefor adapted for attachment to said hub, an annular member adapted for detachable connexion with said spinner shell, a plurality of brackets fixed around said member, pivot pins carried by said brackets with their axes arranged tangential to a circle concentric with the rotational axis of said spinner shell, open‐ended sockets at the ends of the spokes of said supports adapted for engagement with said pins and rubber bushes arranged between said pins and sockets with their ends bearing against said brackets.

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has released an account of the preparation of emergency rations in the form of dehydrated foodstuffs. These rations were designed and made when the result of a forced landing of an aircraft flying over polar regions may have to be faced. Having regard to the special circumstances for which the method described by the Department was designed it is perhaps not too much to say that it introduces as great a change in feeding the crews of airships as did Appert in feeding the crews of sailing ships a hundred and thirty‐five years ago. Appert's method did much to eliminate scurvy. This to prevent starvation and loss of life which the accounts of Polar expeditions have too often recorded. Dried fruits and dried vegetables have long been known and used. Milk powder and egg powder are now as well known. If these and tinned foods be regarded as ordinary rations they are too heavy and too bulky to be of use in an emergency such as may arise when a Polar flight ends in an unpremeditated grounding and the crew are left in a Polar desert to make the best they can of the conditions. It will be remembered that in May last the “Aries,” a British Lancaster airship, made a trip of some 17,000 miles. Much of this trip was in the Polar regions. The g eographical North Pole was visited and in the return journey the true position of the magnetic North Pole was ascertained in a 4,000 mile non‐stop return journey from White Horse, Yukon, to Shrewsbury. In view of possibilities an emergency ration had to be designed in which most of the food was in the form of hydrostatically compressed blocks of compounded and dehydrated foods. The compression reducing bulk; dehydration, weight; compounding ensuring variety. The rations so prepared had to be sufficient to feed nine men for twenty‐eight days. An account of the rations so prepared forms the subject of the report issued by the Department. These blocks consist of mixtures of dehydrated foods with added sweetening and flavouring materials where appropriate, so that each is a ready‐made meal requiring only the addition of water. They are fabricated into tablets of standard size (usually 2in. by 2in. by 0·9in.). They need only to be wrapped in high grade waxed films or papers and their standard size facilitates the assembly of mixed rations whilst very little space is wasted as compared for instance with circular cans. They are made by one of two processes—those containing dried foods of large particle size such as dehydrated meat or vegetables are made by compressing the mixture in a hydraulic press. The pressed block can be broken down easily in the hand. Where the particle size of the material is much finer, as with spray dried powders such as milk or egg, such compressed blocks would be very difficult to crumble, and furthermore lumps escaping crumbling would remain as unreconstituted lumps and mar the smoothness of the product. Thus they are prepared by casting the mixture hot into moulds with added molten fat. The block can be dissolved by boiling water. Many of the blocks containing milk powder may be eaten as sweets. Four kinds of menus from these blocks were prepared to relieve monotony of diet. Details of these are given in the report for four days. The total number of calories for each day ranges from 3,550 to 3,380. The weight of food per man in grammes from 715 to 704. Fat in grammes 213 to 177. Percentage of fat 30 to 25. The computed total nett weight was 393 lbs. Rations for two days can be packed in a standard four‐gallon can—gas packed if necessary—as a master container. Fourteen such cans would be necessary. These, together with immediate wrappings, would make a gross weight of 435 lbs. A most important consideration is weight. It is pointed out that the water extracted during the dehydration process would fill another seventeen cans! If light metal alloys instead of tin plate were used for the master cans a reduction of weight would be possible, but even a total weight of 435 lbs. is “very modest” compared with the weight of most emergency rations, even when the weight of master containers is excluded for the rations as drawn up provide for each man three normal meals per day. The Department refers to the theoretical aspect of the provision of a calorific level of 3,400 per day, with a total weight of 704 gms. per man. If the diet were made up of pure carbohydrate, pure fat and pure protein alone, then, using the factors 4·9 and 4 respectively as the number of calories derived from each gramme of food, a diet containing 25 per cent. fat would have an overall calorific value of 5·25 Cals/gm. a diet giving 3,400 calories, as in Day 3, would therefore weigh 647 gms. This is an absolute minimum below which it would be impossible to go. This figure takes no account of the residual water content of dehydrated foods of salt or minerals or roughage. The weight of 715 gms. achieved in practice includes, in addition to water and roughage, some 8 gms. of salt and 13 gms. of tea. It is therefore considered that, for a ration which gives three normal meals a day, it would be virtually impossible with the materials available at present to reduce the weight of the ration further. It may be added that a stove has been designed to burn motor spirit should it be possible to salvage any after a forced landing. It is considered that this type of food may be of great value for future polar expeditions. This is undoubtedly true whether aeroplanes be used as part of the equipment or not. It may be permissible to suggest that rations such as these would prove useful in land expeditions at a pinch. While in the case of a ship having to be abandoned in mid ocean the crew's chance of survival would obviously be bettered by having a supply of such concentrated rations in the ship's boats.

School sex education has the potential to evoke a range of personal and political reactions. While it is usually agreed that sexuality should be ‘done’ in school, few agree on the best way of ‘doing’ it. This article provides a personal account of the development of sex education at Shepparton South Technical School, Victoria, Australia from 1973‐1985. It is supported by interviews with the people involved in those events and archival materials, including media reports. It also documents the efforts of extreme right activists to discredit and stop programmes, and the State Liberal government’s attempt to formulate a policy on sex education. First I provide a general background to technical schools in Victoria in the 1970s followed by a discussion of Shepparton South Technical School specifically. I then discuss the development of the sex education (social biology) programme, the pivotal role of the Social Biology resource Centre, and the networks involved. I also describe the attacks on the programme in the late 1970s, and their origins and impact. I conclude with a discussion of the outcomes of this intense public scrutiny, and the demise of social biology and the secondary technical schools, the ‘techs’ in the 1980s.

In recent years, a wide range of psychosocial health interventions have been implemented among military service members and their families. However, there are questions over the evaluative rigor of these interventions. We conducted a systematic review of this literature, rating each relevant study (k = 111) on five evaluative rigor scales (type of control group, approach to participant assignment, outcome quality, number of measurement time points, and follow-up distality). The most frequently coded values on three of the five scales (control group type, participant assignment, and follow-up distality) were those indicating the lowest level of operationally defined rigor. Logistic regression results indicate that the evaluative rigor of intervention studies has largely remained consistent over time, with exceptions indicating that rigor has decreased. Analyses among seven military sub-populations indicate that interventions conducted among soldiers completing basic training, soldiers returning from combat deployment, and combat veterans have had, on average, the greatest evaluative rigor. However, variability in mean scores across evaluative rigor scales within sub-populations highlights the unique methodological hurdles common to different military settings. Recommendations for better standardizing the intervention evaluation process are discussed.

Using five categories summarized by Bass (1990), this chapter attempts to address three key questions about charismatic leadership:

• (1)

  What are the key behavioral dimensions of charismatic leadership?

• (2)

  How does charismatic leadership differ from other forms of leadership?

• (3)

  Who may become followers of charismatic leaders and when do they become followers?

What are the key behavioral dimensions of charismatic leadership?

How does charismatic leadership differ from other forms of leadership?

Who may become followers of charismatic leaders and when do they become followers?

By focusing on Weber’s original view of charisma, we suggest that his three dimensions of charismatic leader behaviors underlie most contemporary approaches. By considering these three dimensions in more detail, we demonstrate how this view allows for different views of leadership and is distinguishable from management. Finally, by extending Weber’s view and by identifying two types of charismatic leaders who differ in their power motives, we suggest how the characteristics of followers and the context influence followers’ acceptance of charismatic leaders as legitimate. Some implications for leadership effectiveness are discussed.

With influences on aspects of food choice originating from a number of sources and investigation requiring multidisciplinary considerations, more qualitative methods have proved effective in offering some insight into the changing role of food. These methods are particularly useful when considering food encounters and diet of both children and adolescents, as they can provide more personalised accounts of food use and social interactions than more quantitative alternatives. Pictures have previously been used to assist in food related studies, but with limitations. This paper considers the effectiveness of using pictorial prompts to initiate unstructured interviews with two sample groups of children and adolescents, highlighting an increased potential for their use in future research. Other considerations include the restrictions that are often imposed on the independent researcher in terms of time resources and limited access.