Search results

The Times for 29th May 1867 carried on its correspondence pages letters from Earl Granville and Lord Taunton warning of the decline of British manufacturing industry and the need to establish industrial (technical) education along the lines of the Grandes Ecoles already established in France and on the Continent generally. Lord Taunton also called for the Government of the day to hold an official inquiry into industrial education on the Continent and wrote that it “should tell the people of England authoritatively what are the means by which the great States are attaining an intellectual preeminence among the industrial classes and how they are making this bear on the rapid progress of their national industries.”

The recent debate in the House of Lords showed that the official plans for milk of better quality, set out in the White Paper three years ago, are only slowly being put into effect. A more active policy was, however, promised by Lord Ammon when labour and plant made it possible. Farmers have come to accept the view that a safe milk supply depends both upon the improvement of animal health and on the heat‐treatment of milk. Some recent figures issued in the Monthly Bulletin of the Ministry of Health show what the pasteurisation of milk has already achieved in reducing the number of deaths among young children from abdominal tuberculosis, a form of the disease which is generally due to tubercle bacillus of bovine origin. In 1921, in the administrative county of London, 136 out of every 1,000,000 children died from this disease. In 1944 the corresponding figure was six. In rural areas the rate in 1921 was 252 and in 1944 still sixty, or ten times the London rate. The London figures for 1944 show a reduction to one‐twenty‐third of the 1921 rate, while for rural areas the reduction is only about one‐quarter. These figures suggest a high degree of correspondence between the increase of pasteurisation and the decrease of mortality from abdominal tuberculosis. In 1944 99 per cent. of London milk supplies was pasteurised; and though more milk has been treated in rural areas and in urban areas outside London during the past twenty years, nothing like the London standard has yet been generally reached. Large towns such as London are at one disadvantage in regard to milk safety in that they receive their supplies in bulk, and samples, before pasteurisation, show a high degree of infection. To this extent rural areas might be expected to have better figures. That they do not would appear to be proof of the greater safety provided by pasteurisation. In the House of Lords debate Lord Rothschild estimated the annual casualties from raw milk contaminated by bovine tuberculosis germs as between 7,000 and 8,000. The case for speedier progress with the provision of pasteurisation plant will be generally endorsed. This development under the auspices of the Ministry of Health needs to be supported by a vigorous effort by the Ministry of Agriculture to build up the health of dairy herds. The problems involved in establishing clean areas, beginning with isolated districts and extending them gradually until in ten or fifteen years' time the whole country is clear of tuberculosis and contagious abortion, were recently discussed in these columns. The Milk Marketing Board, the producers' organisation, has now declared its support for a national drive to clean up the dairy herds; and the Government are assured of general support when a comprehensive plan for ensuring safety in milk is put forward.

Forty years ago the so‐called “theory movement” took root in educational administration because it so fundamentally broke with the past, replacing trial‐and‐error experience with analysis and research in an effort to improve our understanding of educational organizations and how to manage them. Fuelled by support from private foundations and, eventually, the US federal government, this landmark development in administrative and organizational theory altered the way in which universities taught educational administration. In the educational reform movement of the 1980s, however, the established and time‐honoured theoretic concepts of the past four decades – with their emphasis on mathematical proof and ways of thinking borrowed from laboratory science – gave way to newer, richer ways of understanding organizations and thinking about them. Describes the emerging new directions in organizational and administrative theory and where they are taking us.

Solder is a major use for tin and in his function as Chief Metallurgist of the Tin Research Institute, C. J. Thwaites has become internationally recognised as an authority on soft soldering, particularly for the electronics industry. It is with pleasure that the Institute announces that he has recently been awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (Eng.) by London University, for his published work in the field of soldering and related topics.

The above quote, which recently appeared in the Management Accounting newsletter, characterises the state of affairs for the profession. Presently, academic research and instruction have made very few contributions to the body of knowledge for management accounting. To date, a definitive explanation or theory supporting management accounting does not exist. Practitioners view the field as a multidimensional discipline which integrates managerial, financial, social, and political skills. However, academics generally focus only on the financial skills of management accountants. This is evident in the many behavioural studies that address budgeting or decision making topics rather than a broader set of characteristics.

The George Washington University organizational behavior students have been privileged to learn from professors who were students of three different founders of the field. The three strands discussed here are Roethlisberger and the Harvard Business School, Kurt Lewin and NTL, and Herzberg. This learning experience is very different from introductory textbooks, which give the impression that the field has made consistent, linear progress from the early days until today. The enriched experience includes a sense of the false starts, values conflicts, egos, lack of cross‐communication, and other dimensions of the human condition that played a role in the founding of OB&D. This article reviews the development of these strands and points out that, although there are similarities, they were working on different problems, using different data sources, with different units of analysis. The article concludes with a glimpse at how these three founders would view the field of OB&D today.

To study the degradation behaviour of borosilicate glass, which is suitable for hermetic sealing with Molybdenum and Kovar (Fe/Co/Ni) alloys, as a function of concentration and temperature in both acidic and alkaline media for long durations, up to 160 h.

The degradation (weight loss in mg/cm² of the glass sample) was determined by immersing the glass sample in HCl and NaOH solutions at different temperatures for different periods extending up to 300 h. The damage to the glass surface was seen under an optical microscope and the chemical species on the corroded surface were identified by electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis.

The borosilicate glass, having the nominal composition 0.70 SiO₂, 0.039 Na₂O, 0.028 K₂O, 0.21 B₂O₃, 0.01 Al₂O₃ was synthesized by melt and quench techniques. Degradation (corrosion) behaviour of this glass was investigated by immersing glass samples in 5 and 10 per cent HCl and 5 per cent NaOH solutions at different temperatures up to 90°C, for different periods and measuring dissolution rate (weight loss in mg/cm² of the sample). Dissolution rates were found to be 5.47 mg/cm² and 46.77 mg/cm² in 5 per cent NaOH at 60 and 90°C, respectively, whereas they were comparatively low (2.59 and 5.80 mg/cm² at 60 and 90°C, respectively, in 5 per cent HCl medium) after 160 h of total immersion period. The plot of dissolution rates against the temperatures showed the nonlinear behaviour at higher temperatures, probably due to the change in mechanism of corrosion. XPS studies exhibited the chemical species on the corroded surfaces. The optical microscopy of the corroded surface revealed that the corrosion mechanisms were different in acid and alkali media.

The degradation behaviour of borosilicate glass having a specific composition has been investigated as a function of concentration and temperature in both acid and alkaline media. The mixed alkali effect on the degradation behaviour may be studied by varying relative amount of Na₂O and K₂O in the glass composition.

The glass composition under the present study has been used for fabrication of matched type glass‐to‐metal (GM) seals with kovar alloy. In this respect the present study is significant in deciding the environmental conditions for its use.

The degradation behaviour of borosilicate glass having alkali and alkaline earth metal oxides has been investigated as a function of concentration and temperature in both acid and alkali media. The findings in this paper have the potential implications in deciding the environmental conditions for use of GM seals fabricated using this glass.

McGregor was the consummate process consultant, but his behavior was derived not from his philosophy of participation but from his theory of human behavior. He was a Theory Y person who found in an academic setting that the managerial style resulting from this set of assumptions was ideally suited to what an academic environment needed. Douglas McGregor was a theoretician, moral philosopher or behaviorist. This reflection aims to provide an analysis of the interconnections between assumptions, values and behavior and an analysis of how his behavior impacted both his theory and value system.

This paper provides an analysis of the interconnections between assumptions, values and behavior.

Some of the misunderstanding of McGregor's views is based on the failure to see him above all as a theoretician.

McGregor displayed the patience to wait for the right time, to lead by asking the gentle questions, to focus on small changes in process rather than pushing content. For us, it is time to take McGregor's theory seriously and do a great deal more research on managerial assumptions. We have pretty good measures of performance but we must put more effort into studying the assumptions underlying managerial behavior.