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The overall performance of an electronic nose system will depend on the individual performance of its constituent elements. Although often overlooked, it is clear that careful design/selection of the front‐end signal conditioning circuit is of critical importance if optimal performance of the odour sensing system is to be achieved. In this paper circuits are reviewed, which have been employed as front‐end signal conditioners for resistance‐based sensors in electronic nose systems, with many of the conclusions drawn being equally applicable to other resistor sensors. The relevant equations governing the behaviour of each circuit methodology are derived and advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The performance of the circuit is then quantitatively assessed in a specific test case, in which the maximum sensitivity of the circuit is calculated in relation to the task of interfacing to a theoretical thin‐film conducting‐polymer sensor.

To show the successful use of self‐organising fuzzy control in enhancing dynamic optimisation, a controller is used to direct the type of optimisation appropriate in each new dynamic problem. The system uses its experiences to determine which approach is most suitable under varying circumstances.

A knowledge extraction tool is used to gain basic information about the solution space with a simple computation. This information is compared with the fuzzy rules stored in the system. These rules hold a collection of facts on previous successes and failures, which were acquired through the performance monitor. Using this system the controller directs the algorithms, deciphering the most appropriate strategy for the current problem.

This procedure is designed for large scale dynamic optimisation problems, where a portion of the computational time is sacrificed to allow the controller to direct the best possible solution strategy. The results here are based on smaller scale systems, which illustrate the benefits of the technique.

The results highlight two significant aspects. From the comparison of the three algorithms without the use of the controller, a pattern can be seen in how the algorithms perform on different types of problems. Results show an improvement in the overall quality when the controller is employed.

This paper introduces a novel approach to the problem dynamic optimisation. It combines the control ability of self‐organising fuzzy logic with a range of optimisation techniques to obtain the best possible approach in any one situation.

The recent LISC discussion paper Basic professional education for library and information work spoke of the need to recruit ‘a number of potential innovators and high fliers … managers of new enterprises’, particularly those in the it field. Small LISC misery twinges, then, at the publication of Graduate supply and availability to 1986 by the Institute of Manpower Studies. Apparently there's a shortage of high flying graduates, characters with substantial personal drive and matching intellectual skills. What's worse is that the problem is sharpest among it graduates where a drop of 10% is expected in the next two years. So dreary old trad librarians may have a short reprieve from being flown over and innovated at.

This paper aims to review the international economic and political context within which China is developing its technology management strategy and its economy. The context represents a time of fundamentally significant change in and between the countries of East and West.

The paper is a conceptual one, which considers the changes in the prevailing politico‐economic consensus including changes in the West, between East and West and within China.

In the context of the current political and economic landscape, the paper suggests there are perhaps three watersheds emerging which will define the present era and the foreseeable future and within which China's technology management strategy and economic development needs to be considered.

Given all the recent developments in international markets and the historic scale of the intervention of governments in the West, the paper is a timely and original analysis of the ending of the neo‐liberal consensus which has prevailed for the last 30 years and the significance of current developments, not least for China.

Groups often perpetuate conflict by developing and enforcing hostile, dehumanized, and objectified images of the “other” with whom they intentionally engage in conflict. The thesis of this article is that if the double hermeneutics of identity “framing processes” (Lewicki, Gray, & Elliot, 2003) drive the dehumanization of the excluded or enemy other, then these same processes can be a factor in the social reconstruction of another's humanity. Specifically, a model of identity affirmation is posited that can ideally challenge and change the dominant discourses and narratives that go into the in-group's social construction of a dehumanized out-group. As such, the process of identity affirmation is designed to be used to rehumanize a once ethnic, excluded, or even enemy “other.” This model was inspired by, and is applied to, a brief case study outlined in the essay involving the Onondaga Sheriff's Department headquartered in Syracuse, New York, and the Onondaga Indians who are part of the Iroquois Confederacy.

This article provides an overview of the literature on the impact of ‘the Troubles’ on mental health in Northern Ireland. It identifies three main phases of professional and policy response from concerns about the effects of the violence in the early 1970s, through many years of collective denial and neglect, until acknowledgment, following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 (Northern Ireland Office, 1998), of high levels of trauma and unmet need. The issues of inequality and stigma are also considered and it is argued that peace is necessary but insufficient for promoting mental health. The development of mental health services in Northern Ireland and the relatively recent focus on promoting mental health are also outlined and examined. It is suggested that attempts to address the needs arising as a result of ‘the Troubles’ and more general mental health promotion strategies have, to some extent, developed in parallel and that it may be important to integrate these efforts. The relative under‐development of mental health services, the comprehensive Bamford Review (2005; 2006) and the positive approach of the Public Health Agency mean that, even in the current economic climate, there are great opportunities for progress. Routine screening, in primary care and mental health services for trauma, including Troubles‐related trauma, is recommended to identify and address these issues on an individual level. It is also argued, however, that more substantial political change is needed to effectively address societal division, inequality and stigma to the benefit of all.

BOURNEMOUTH lies in one of the most beautiful parts of South‐west England; and all the world knows how this region has been immortalised by Thomas Hardy, who by his romances and poems has introduced to the public of England and America the ancient land of Wessex.

In these notes at the beginning of our last volume we expressed the hope that its conclusion would see at least the approach of peace. That hope has not been fulfilled, and only an unreasoning optimist could say that at present the cessation of hostilities is anywhere in sight. The year has been marked by success and tragedy; tragedy in the losses we have sustained of some of the leading young men of the profession who have died in all parts of the world for the Flag; success in the fact that the moral of the nation has grown rather than diminished, that the Empire is more determined than ever to secure a world in which free men may live, that the course of events have proven to our American brethren that our cause is and has been just. As librarians we share in all the feelings created by these facts. Perhaps the most significant social fact of the year has been the gradual awakening of the people to educational opportunities, and the need of them. There has been a wave of interest in things intellectual, from the utilitarian point of view mainly. The need of meeting German after‐the‐war competition is frankly the impetus to interest in education among many public men; but there are educationists with somewhat higher views whose voices are receiving attention; and, it is obvious, alas, that there were never so many cranks in full volubility as now. Whatever may be the causes of the new interest, it is undoubtedly the duty of librarians and library organizations to take full advantage of that interest to press the claims of libraries to a public hearing. How that is to be done is the business (theoretically) of the Library Association to determine, and we understand that of late it is devoting attention to the problem.

The variety of the subjects examined in the preceding chapters reflects the vastness of the contemporary conflict resolution field. To discuss contexts that encompass them requires relying on basic conflict processes. I have chosen such processes related to three fundamental matters: (1) that conflicts are interlocked with each other, (2) that various kinds of inducements are used in conflicts, and (3) that how conflicts are waged and settled is related to conflict outcomes.