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Perhaps it should be said that optimal nutrition is an ultimate goal which science is not yet prepared to define descriptively in detail. Speaking operationally, we may say that recent research has established, fully and objectively, the principle of the nutritional improvability of the normal. The experimental evidence can, of course, be but sketchily presented in a review of this sort which attempts to summarise in so little space a scientific advance of undoubtedly far‐reaching significance. Under the necessity of extreme brevity, the writer trusts he will be pardoned for drawing illustrations chiefly from the work with which he is best acquainted. In experiments to determine what proportion of protective food suffices to balance a minimum proportion of wheat in the diet, it was found that a mixture of five‐sixths ground whole wheat and one‐sixth dried whole milk with table salt and distilled water (Diet A) was adequate in that it supported normal growth and health with successful reproduction and rearing of young, generation after generation. Yet when the proportion of milk was increased (Diet B) the average results were better. In the experiments just mentioned, an already‐adequate dietary and an already‐normal condition of nutritional wellbeing and health were improved by a more scientific adjustment of the relative quantities in which the staple articles of food were consumed. And in the comparison of the effects of these two diets the principle of the nutritional improvability of the normal was manifested measurably at every stage of the life cycle. Growth and development, adult vitality, and length of life all were normal on Diet A and all were better on Diet B. This research having been planned in terms of natural articles of food, the sole experimental variable was the quantitative proportion or ratio between the foods constituting the dietary. If, on the other hand, we turn to the consideration of individual chemical factors, we find that the single change in proportions of staple foods had the effect of enriching the dietary at four points: protein, calcium, riboflavin, and vitamin A. Subsequent experimentation was planned both in terms of these four chemical factors separately and in terms of diversification of the dietary by addition of natural foods of other types. Here it was found that enrichment of the original diet with protein alone or its diversification with other natural foods tended to a moderate increase in growth and adult size, but no distinct improvement in the life history. Clearly this indicates that the increased intake of protein played but little if any part in the nutritional improvement induced by Diet B over Diet A; and also strengthens the probability that the observed improvement is essentially explainable in terms of the factors we recognise, for if anything unknown had played an important rôle in this improvement, the diversification of the diet would probably have revealed some indication of it. Calcium, riboflavin, and vitamin A each is found to play a signicant part in the nutritional improvement of the already adequate diet and already normal health. With each of these three factors the level of intake giving best results in long‐term experiments is two or more times higher than the level of minimal adequacy. Some aspects of the respective rôles of these three factors are still subjects of further experimental investigation. It is not to be assumed that the wide margins of beneficial intake over actual need, found as just mentioned with calcium, riboflavin, and vitamin A, will apply to the other nutritionally essential mineral elements and vitamins. Each should be investigated independently in this respect; and with no presuppositions derived from the findings with calcium, riboflavin, and vitamin A, for these were not random samples, but were taken for rigorous experimental study because of the definite suggestions of earlier work. Meanwhile the above‐mentioned findings with the factors already comprehensively investigated afford a basis both for clarification of a fundamental chemical principle in nutrition, and for its practical application. One useful first‐approximation of nineteenth‐century science was that an organism may be expected to grow only as fast or as far as is consistent with the specific chemical composition of its kind; and another was that it is the fixité of the organism's internal environment which enables it to cope with new or changing external environments. It is surprising that these views continued to be held so rigidly for so long when at the same time there were developing physico‐chemical principles which call for a more flexible concept. In this light it seems clear that the so‐called steady states of the body are only relatively so: that one cannot introduce into the system different amounts and proportions of such active factors as we know some food constituents to be, without some resulting changes of concentration levels or of dynamic‐equilibrium points, or both. And now we have the objective evidence of well‐controlled, long‐term experimentation showing nutritional improvement of an already normal bodily condition in such manner as seems best expressed by saying that the chemical aspect of the body's internal environment has been modified for the better. Thus in accordance with physico‐chemical principles we now conceive the “normal level” of each nutritional factor to be not a single fixed level but a zone. Undoubtedly this zone is wider for some factors than for others, and probably also the most advantageous level is with some substances near the upper margins, and with other substances near the middle or the lower margins, of the respective normal zones. Thus while our bodies enjoy by virtue of their biological inheritance certain self‐regulatory processes of striking effectiveness, our minds are now finding, through chemical research, how these can be made still more effective by the scientific guidance of our nutritional intakes; by helpfully influencing our internal environments through good habits in our daily choice of food. Contemporary research in the chemistry of nutrition is here developing a fundamental and far‐reaching scientific concept which hitherto has hardly been apprehended because species have been regarded as more rigidly specific in their chemical composition, and the “steady states” of their internal environment have been regarded as more rigidly fixed, than they really are. The accepted generalisation that each life history is determined (1) by heredity and (2) by environment assigns all except hereditary factors to environment by definition. But as the result of nearly a century of scientific as well as popular habit of thought, the word “environment” actually connotes surroundings. Science exaggerated the extent and rigidity with which our internal chemistry is automatically regulated by our biological inheritance, to such an extent that there seemed nothing for us to do about it except to admire its wonders and stand ready to repair its occasional breakdowns. But now that we are finding ways to add conscious chemical control and improvement to the marvellous mechanism with which nature endows us, we can be not merely repair‐men to a biologically inherited bodily machine, but also architects of a higher health. It may help to make this newly‐opened opportunity clearer if, instead of the above‐mentioned two, we think and speak of three major determinants of our life‐histories: (1) heredity; (2) environment, in the familiar external sense of surroundings; and (3) the body's internal environment, which immediately environs and conditions the life process, and which in the course of the life cycle is much more significantly influenced than hitherto supposed by even the normal differences in what we take into our bodies as food. This responsiveness of our internal chemistry, and resulting degree or level of positive health, to our nutritional intake, usually becomes manifestly measurable only in cases of visible injury from nutritional deficiency, which, once apprehended, we seek to avoid; or in experimentation with laboratory animals whose natural life‐cycles are such as to permit of accurately controlled conditions and observations extending throughout entire lifetimes and successive generations. In the long‐controlled, laboratory‐bred colony of experimental animals used in large numbers for full‐life and successive‐generation feeding tests conducted with all the quantitatively meticulous care and precautions to which research workers in the exact sciences are trained, we now have an instrument and technique of investigation such as has not existed before. Much remains to be done in the new field of research thus opened; but work already completed shows clearly the possibility of nutritional improvements of already‐normal health, vitality and efficiency throughout our lives. Whatever we are individually born with, we can each do more for ourselves to influence our life histories in the direction of our aspirations than science has hitherto thought.

The inspection of steam plant by Engineer Surveyors, either in accordance with statutory regulations when out of service, under working conditions, or at times of trouble, often reveals instances of corrosion. In the past, pitting and corrosion was a regular feature in practically all shell boilers, and not uncommon in watertube boilers, but in recent times this has become comparatively rare. This in itself is a tribute to the realisation, with the advent of the package boiler, of the necessity for boiler feedwater treatment and the maintenance of satisfactory conditions in boiler water in the lower pressure range.

The purpose of this study is to examine the buyers’ preferences influencing the purchase of privately developed affordable housing in Kolkata and to determine whether unsold houses result from misalignment with these preferences.

The literature review and user-opinion survey identified 119 independent variables that indicate buyers’ preferences. A questionnaire survey of 383 households in affordable housing units from 32 housing complexes in Kolkata recorded buyers’ preferences and satisfaction against the independent variables grouped under five levels of characteristics. The product weights of variables derived from the rank sum method and percentage satisfaction give the Utility Score. Multivariate regression and univariate linear regressions were conducted to determine the significance of each Level of characteristics and each variable, identifying the significant variables that would affect the sale of affordable houses.

The multivariate regression analysis has indicated that 68.56% of the variation in the percentage of unsold houses was explained by the five utility scores, which affirms that misalignment with buyers’ preferences significantly affects the sale of privately developed affordable houses. Furthermore, building and neighbourhood-level utility show the highest significance as predictors, while city-level and miscellaneous utility have moderate significance, but housing complex-level utility lacks statistical significance.

This study addresses a research gap in privately developed affordable housing in Kolkata, enhancing understanding of buyer preferences in this segment.

In a Report, issued on July 9, 1896, the Select Committee on Food Products Adulteration recommended the establishment of a central government scientific authority, who should act as a court of reference upon scientific questions arising under the Adulteration Acts, and who should be empowered, at their discretion, to prescribe standards and limits as to the quality and purity of food. It was rightly held by the Select Committee that the constitution of such an authority is an absolute necessity in order that the all‐important question of food standards may be duly considered and dealt with, and that all matters affecting the administration of the Acts and involving scientific considerations may be placed on a more satisfactory footing. The Committee also expressed the opinion that the formation of such an authority would result in the removal of many practical difficulties met with in the administration of the Acts, and would largely obviate the costly litigation in which public bodies, traders, and others are constantly liable to be involved under existing conditions. Nothing whatever has been done to give effect to the recommendation of the Committee in spite of the fact that the necessity for some such course of action as that indicated has been demonstrated beyond possibility of question, and that further evidence proving the wisdom of the Committee's suggestion is constantly afforded. The Islington brandy case provides the latest illustration of the extremely unsatisfactory conditions under which public bodies are required to administer the Acts and under which traders have to answer charges made against them. A local grocer was summoned by the Islington Borough Council for selling, as brandy, a liquid which was certified by the Public Analyst to contain 60 per cent. of spirit not derived from the grape, and which was therefore not of the nature, substance and quality of the article demanded. The vendor naturally referred the matter to the firm who had supplied him. The case was taken up by a traders' association, and, after five lengthy hearings, in the course of which much expert evidence was given on both sides, resulted in a conviction and the infliction of a penalty of £5 and £50 costs—an amount which probably represents only a fraction of the expense involved. For the present we do not propose to review the scientific evidence which was put forward by the prosecution and by the defence. There is no doubt that Mr. FORDHAM, the magistrate who heard the case, was perfectly right in taking the view that the term “brandy,” when unqualified, means a spirit distilled from wine or from fermented products of the grape. It is also perfectly plain that when a person asks for brandy and is supplied with coloured grain spirit, or with a mixture of grain spirit and true brandy, he is prejudiced, and that the vendor commits an offence under the Acts. The fact that the term “brandy” has been commonly applied to “silent spirit” coloured and flavoured to imitate true brandy, or to mixtures of brandy and alcohol derived from other sources than the produce of the grape, is not a legitimate excuse for the sale of such factitious articles as “brandy.” The great difficulty lies in differentiating by analytical means between the genuine article and the imitation. The vast majority of people, being utterly ignorant even of the elements of chemistry, labour under the impression that all that need be done in a matter of this kind is to tell the Public Analyst to “analyse,” and that full, exact, and absolutely definite information which nobody can call in question, will be forthcoming as a matter of course. The evidence given in the case under consideration is quite enough in itself to show the absurdity of this assumption. On the one hand the Public Analyst stated that he was satisfied, from the results of his general investigations in regard to brandy and from the results of his analysis of the sample submitted to him, that this sample contained 60 per cent. of spirit other than that derived from the produce of the grape. On the other hand, a number of analytical experts called for the defence asserted that in the present state of analytical knowledge it was perfectly impossible for any Public Analyst to arrive at the conclusion mentioned in regard to the sample in question, and that, as a fact, the analytical evidence adduced did not justify the statement made in the certificate on which the proceedings were founded. The defence do not appear to have denied that the Public Analyst might be right. In reality it appears only to have been contended that his analytical evidence was not, sufficient to prove that he was so. At any rate the experts called for the defence certainly did not prove by scientific evidence that he was wrong.

The River City Marsh Conflict negotiation exercise describes a conflict between two government organizations—the River City Planner's Office and the Wisconsin State Department of Natural Resources—in a dispute over what to do with the LaCrosse River Marsh. The City Planner's Office wanted to fill part of the marsh to use for expansion of the industrial park. River City officials also wanted to build an additional highway through part of the marsh to accommodate anticipated traffic increases. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wanted the marsh habitat enhanced and protected from development so that threatened species could increase in numbers. These officials also wanted to build trails, canoe access points, and other facilities in order to promote recreational activities in the marsh. In this exercise, students are assigned to the role of either the River City Planner's Office or the State Department of Natural Resources office. Both sides are provided with the same set of facts and many options for consideration involving road construction or expansion, wildlife enhancement, and trail construction. Using these interrelated issues, students must negotiate a plan for the marsh that integrates both side's objectives.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.