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Some historical notes of the early stages in the development of a slender wing supersonic transport aircraft. This article recounts some of the early steps in the development of the concept of a slender wing supersonic transport aircraft during the 1960s, which ultimately led to the design of Concorde. It attempts to indicate how an advanced design problem was met successfully by a completely new approach to aerodynamic design. Since a complete history of the work would fill a large book, the approach is necessarily selective in a way intended to illustrate the development of the main aerodynamic issues.

Under this heading are published regularly abstracts of Reports and Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Council and Publications of other similar Research Bodies as issued.

Under this heading are published regularly abstracts of all Reports and Memoranda of the Aeronautical Research Council and publications of other similar Research Bodies as issued.

Recently, there has been a shift toward the embodied energy assessment of buildings. However, the impact of material service life on the life-cycle embodied energy has received little attention. We aimed to address this knowledge gap, particularly in the context of the UAE and investigated the embodied energy associated with the use of concrete and other materials commonly used in residential buildings in the hot desert climate of the UAE.

Using input–output based hybrid analysis, we quantified the life-cycle embodied energy of a villa in the UAE with over 50 years of building life using the average, minimum, and maximum material service life values. Mathematical calculations were performed using MS Excel, and a detailed bill of quantities with >170 building materials and components of the villa were used for investigation.

For the base case, the initial embodied energy was 57% (7390.5 GJ), whereas the recurrent embodied energy was 43% (5,690 GJ) of the life-cycle embodied energy based on average material service life values. The proportion of the recurrent embodied energy with minimum material service life values was increased to 68% of the life-cycle embodied energy, while it dropped to 15% with maximum material service life values.

The findings provide new data to guide building construction in the UAE and show that recurrent embodied energy contributes significantly to life-cycle energy demand. Further, the study of material service life variations provides deeper insights into future building material specifications and management considerations for building maintenance.

THE end of October saw the return of most of our overseas visitors, continental and otherwise, to their homes, leaving with us pleasant memories of a mutually successful visit. The Englishman's proverbial difficulties with foreign tongues, even of neighbouring France, did not complicate matters unduly or reduce too much those interchanges which conference and school afforded. We can repeat our frequently‐expressed hope that there will be an ever increasing series of visits, both of the foreigner to England and of ourselves as foreigners to other countries. We would welcome longer stays in both cases. Nothing but good can come from them.

This paper was motivated by the current debate over the voluntary approach to environmental disclosures in corporate annual reports and assesses the effectiveness of the current policy of voluntarism in the UK. A brief review of the relevant theories, which explain why managers might choose to voluntarily provide environmental responsibility information to parties outside the organisation, is presented. With this background, the paper then questions whether the UK government’s faith in voluntarism and the pursuit of best practice will be enough to generate any real change in current environmental reporting practices. We argue that voluntarism is not effective and that there is an urgent need to introduce strict governmental regulations on the information that must be disclosed and the form in which it should be presented in corporate annual reports as have been established in several other countries. In addition, further consideration is needed to achieve reforms in academic accounting education in order to improve corporate accountability and transparency in corporate annual reports. Organisations need to respond to the growing demands for corporate social and environmental responsibility and this will be possible with the support of an accounting profession that takes a more proactive approach to engaging with stakeholders. For this to happen, we need to rethink the focus of accounting and business education. We must move away from the dominant model, which treats accountancy as a set of techniques, towards a more holistic approach which recognises the social and environmental impacts of organisational activity.

Commentators have highlighted the growing political and research interest in user involvement, with particular reference to social policy (Kemshall & Littlechild, 2000). Beresford (2002) has noted the tendency to present it as a ‘good thing’ pointing out, however, that it has both liberatory but also regressive potential. At the same time, Barnes (2001) has illuminated the limitations of ‘mainstream’ theory and practice in user participation in their failure to accommodate emotional experience, storytelling and diverse debates, as well as to develop more creative ways of working.This paper describes elements of the above as part of a critical reflection on the experiences of working with older women from a range of communities in research. The focus is on the practicalities of setting up and carrying out the research, though implications for the process of policy‐making are also briefly highlighted.

This paper proposes a framework that focuses on instilling feelings of gratitude within consumers. Participant sports events are often funded largely by sponsorship revenues, and their consumer base is considered to represent an identifiably unique market. These conditions are argued to be favourable for integrating a gratitude framework. A model is presented that depicts gratitude as a mediating mechanism within a reciprocal relationship between the sponsor and the consumers. It includes purchase intentions as the behavioural outcome of gratitude. The findings suggest that incorporating feelings of gratitude may prove to be advantageous for potential sponsors within the participant sports industry.

The objective of this paper is to increase understanding of social media in international business context. To this end, the authors make an attempt to integrate the existing, still somewhat limited views in a framework that advances the knowledge of scholars and decision-makers on this topic.

The authors conduct a conceptual study supported by use of a systematic literature review method.

This study shows marketing as a dominant area of discussion and reveals that many firm functions where social media plays a role have received relatively little attention. Furthermore, the study shows that the positive features of social media in international activity tend to be more widely acknowledged and better understood than the potentially problematic aspects.

The number of articles analyzed in this study was relatively small, resonating with the nature of an emerging research area. Research on social media has only taken off over the last years, and it is understandable that there is limited research that connects it specifically to phenomena of international business.

This study reminds managers to be cautious when using social media in international markets. The relationship between social media and international business exhibits dynamism and is dependent on a variety of factors. Social media does not come without costs, nor is easily transferred from one market to another. Efficient use of this media in the international context may increase the need of specific and qualified human resources, and it may necessitate having the whole process from R&D to delivery, and beyond, ready for adaptation.

It can be argued that we know too little about the relevant factors and relationships between social media and international business. The authors hope that this study revealing the scarcely studied aspects and suggesting a tentative framework for capturing the dynamics of social media and international business can guide subsequent research and accelerate its emergence.