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It may appear rash to claim that an information retrieval system is ‘intelligent’, even if such claims are made within the limited context of artificial intelligence; nevertheless, such a claim is implicit in the MORPHS acronym: minicomputer operated retrieval (partially heuristic) system. What is a heuristic system? Heuristics are systems where the instigator is less than completely certain about the outcome of material fed into them. This is not the type of behaviour most would expect from a computer system, where provided the program has been written correctly, the software and hardware are functioning correctly, and the limits of the system are not exceeded, results are highly predictable.

Since 1965, a feature card index has formed an essential component in answering technical enquiries. It now contains over 20 000 items. By 1973 the Mathatron Desk‐Top computer used to process the paper tape output from an automatic testing machine had become obsolete. It was decided that the replacement should handle the retrieval system input as well as meeting the general needs for scientific calculating. The machine selected was a Varian 620L: a £12 000 machine with 12–16K core and disc storage. Although the basic notion of an inverted file has been retained, a number of novel automatic features have been incorporated. These include the reduction of index entries (which may be compounds) to their singular root forms, the elimination of redundant words and the auto‐roling of words through their morphology. Some measure of heuristic performance is sought in this process. The system can easily contain the entire index to date on a single interchangeable disc and it is expected that subsequent discs will contain at least 3–4 years information.

A country no stronger than its information As a result of the new Gramm‐Rudman‐Hollings law which mandates a balanced federal budget by 1991 (a cut of $9.9m), and an $8.4 in budget reduction by Congress, the Library of Congress is suffering a total cutback of 7.6% from last year. This means a loss of $1 in every $13. The total number of hours open will be reduced by 30% per week; evening and weekend hours by 59%. The Library will be unable to purchase some 80 000 new books.

Forthcoming Conference The Institute of Information Scientists announces that its 1992 Conference will be entitled “The Common Market for Information” and will be on the theme of information‐gathering techniques and information usage in Europe and beyond — a wide field! The venue is likely to be the Bedford Moat House Hotel and the time mid‐May or early June, but at present IIS is calling for papers. Reply to Sue Ward, Chairman IIS 1992 Conference Committee, Wiggins Teape Research and Development Ltd, Butler's Court, Wattleton Road, Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 1RT (Tel: 0494–675652) and, if asked, she will also give further information about the Conference.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Globalisation is generally defined as the “denationalisation of clusters of political, economic, and social activities” that destabilize the ability of the sovereign State to control activities on its territory, due to the rising need to find solutions for universal problems, like the pollution of the environment, on an international level. Globalisation is a complex, forceful legal and social process that take place within an integrated whole with out regard to geographical boundaries. Globalisation thus differs from international activities, which arise between and among States, and it differs from multinational activities that occur in more than one nation‐State. This does not mean that countries are not involved in the sociolegal dynamics that those transboundary process trigger. In a sense, the movements triggered by global processes promote greater economic interdependence among countries. Globalisation can be traced back to the depression preceding World War II and globalisation at that time included spreading of the capitalist economic system as a means of getting access to extended markets. The first step was to create sufficient export surplus to maintain full employment in the capitalist world and secondly establishing a globalized economy where the planet would be united in peace and wealth. The idea of interdependence among quite separate and distinct countries is a very important part of talks on globalisation and a significant side of today’s global political economy.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The aim of this article is an analysis of the links between race and psychotic illness, psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, as well as psychiatric, police and prison violence against people with mental health problems. The analysis focuses on Black men who are more frequently diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders and who face more brutal treatment than other people with such diagnoses. We have adopted a multidisciplinary approach which draws insights from psychiatry, psychology, and sociology and challenges the biologistic interpretation of “mental illness.” We take into account the United States and Britain – two countries with large Black minorities and an established tradition of research on these groups. Among the crucial findings of this study are the facts that racial bias and stereotypes heavily influence the way Black men with a diagnosis of psychotic illness are treated by the psychiatric system, police and prison staff, and that the dominant approach to psychosis masks the connections between racism and mental health.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.