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This paper provides insights into national practices used to schedule, collect and manage the transportation infrastructure of raw milk by Irish processors.

A survey was designed and distributed to 14 processors, collecting details regarding suppliers, seasonality, costs per litre, planning, processing sites and emissions related to milk collection.

Irish raw milk transportation costs €95 million per annum, with an average weighted cost of 1.1 cents per litre. Primary route clustering of suppliers is based on farm location. Typically, collections employ forty-eight-hour rotas. Just three of the processors reported transportation emissions data. A disjointed approach to the adoption of scheduling and transportation technology was revealed.

Given the broad scope of the survey covering financial, operational and environmental aspects of milk collection, it was challenging to find a single representative such as a transport manager who could be tasked with responding to the entire survey. Future research may consider a more focused interview-based approach with the various stakeholders to provide a more in-depth analysis.

Processors can gain an improved understanding of diversified milk collection methods. The research supports policymakers in considering environmental issues related to milk transportation. Costs could be reduced if transportation was better managed collectively with benefits accruing to the industry, suppliers and wider rural community. Stakeholders will need to address aspects of responsibility concerning environmental issues going forward.

In this paper the authors recognise the environmental cost of milk collection. By improving the transportation infrastructure, this will have a positive impact on society in general.

The paper highlights the unique challenges and extends present knowledge in relation to milk collection; thus, this paves the way for new approaches to raw milk transportation.

Initial results are presented from an ongoing, work‐based collaborative inquiry between three medical consultants (a pathologist, a radiologist and a dermatologist) and three experienced visual artists into processes of clinical and aesthetic judgements in the visual domain. The doctors’ habitual conventions are challenged through the interventions of the artists, leading to a re‐education of the senses through a revitalised clinical imagination. Outcomes include self‐assessed improvement of clinical acumen through systematic review of the clinical reasoning process looking specifically at the aesthetic dimension. A central research interest is how forms and styles of judgement construct identities of the expert practitioner in work settings. The papers describes a change in practice from “looking” to “seeing” as the development of a “connoisseurship” of informational images informed by tolerance of ambiguity, creating a practice identity against the grain of the normative technical‐rational discourse of clinical reasoning.

This chapter explores the domestication of Marx's critique of political economy within Marxist-oriented environmental sociology, and treadmill of production (ToP) theory, in particular. The aim is to explicate the theoretical resources for a rigorous critique of capital-induced planetary degradation. Shortcomings of ToP theory pertaining to the conceptualization of capital and value are identified. The reasons for these shortcomings, including how they might be addressed, are elaborated by reconsidering key aspects of Marx's critical theory of modern capitalist society. The chapter contributes to current discussions in both critical theory and environmental sociology by demonstrating the continued relevance of Marx's critical theory for understanding the political-economic, social, and ideational dimensions of planetary degradation. In contrast to ToP theory, which critically examines the production of wealth by counterposing finitude and limits against the expansionary tendencies of economic growth, the critical theory approach advanced in this chapter conceptualizes the acceleration of environmental degradation following World War II in terms of a ToP of value, whereby the necessity of the value form is continuously established in the present. The chapter discusses how Marxian critical theory facilitates a critical examination of the widespread growth of environmentalism as concomitant with the spread of neoliberal capitalism.

How one company has tackled the implementation of a quality system using BS5750 Part 2 as its guide is described. The setting of objectives, activating cultural change, planning, implementation, control and continuous review are addressed with examples drawn from experience gained during the project.

In this second part of the report on Printed Circuit World Convention IV held at the Tokyo Prince Hotel, Tokyo, from 3–5 June 1987, a general synopsis of the content of the papers presented in the eighteen technical sessions will be given. As three sessions were run in parallel throughout the 2½‐day conference, and therefore not all presentations were heard by those reporting on the technical programme, a number of them have been briefly summarised from the Convention Proceedings.

In recent years, the proliferation of free trade agreements (FTA) has led to rapid economic boons and political security among nations. This study investigates whether the percentage of expats or permanent foreign residents plays a role in deciding which countries to partner with in bi-lateral FTAs. Previously, the reasons for FTA formation were believed to be primarily based upon economic, geographic, and political reasons. However, through the use of social network analysis, a larger picture can be mapped which allows for a more comprehensive understanding of key players in the current state of FTA formation in relation to the immigrant network that they share between them. More specifically, through computerized social network analysis, centrality can be calculated to determine the key players and the most central immigrant populations. When analyzing both the immigrant centrality in relation to FTA centrality, it becomes evident that there is a high correlation between the two factors. Thus, the findings highlight that immigration trends can be used as a predictor of FTA formation. As a result, it emphasizes the weight of immigration policy on the formation of bi-lateral FTAs.

BACIE AND TRAINING OFFICERS — the Caxton Hall Conference ‘The Role and Function of the Education and Training Officer’ was the title of the recent Caxton Hall conference of BACIE's London and Home Counties Group, but no‐one present was in any doubt that more was in the air than self‐examination. Long before the talk by Mr J. H. Smith of the London School of Economics on ‘The Professions and Society’ the question of forming a professional body for Education and Training Officers had been raised — only to be gently put off for the moment by the Chairman.