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There can be few who will regret the departure of 1966. As he makes his way towards that dim hall where the years are supposed to sit on their granite columns there will be few sighs at the parting. The year has been ‘a holy terror’ to almost everybody. Contraction has been its forte and uncertainty its foible. There have been severe restraints on enterprise, the crushing of many hopes and an air of apathy verging on despair. Future historians may well describe contemporary events as taking place ‘in the year of the Freeze’, much as it was once common to say ‘in the year of the French Revolution’.

DURING some comments on the brain drain last month it was remarked that work study technologists stood on the periphery. Suddenly they have been moved right to the centre as the result of a communication from Dr. Robert N. Lehrer. He is among the six American work study experts best known to the profession in this country, ranking with Barnes and Mundel as having contributed much to a right appreciation of the subject's value and its techniques.

IN the middle of a January afternoon an audience which packed the National Film Theatre was held in thrall by a film. These people drawn from Government departments, trade unions, employers, technical colleges and local productivity committees were not wasting precious time watching the miming of famous film stars.

Reliability evaluations for new electronic components and assemblies regularly require extensive test cycles that are both time consuming and costly. Objectives of such test batteries are to identify failure mechanisms and the relationship between these mechanisms and product design or processing features. Optimisation of these critical factors or process steps results in optimised reliability. Statistically designed experiments can facilitate the optimisation process by minimising the amount of testing needed to identify factors affecting reliability, and by providing insight into how these factors can be specified to ensure optimum product design. Designed experimentation was utilised in this study to look at product design and process factors affecting the reliability of inner leads for tape automated bonding (TAB) components. Four factors are considered: outer lead compliancy; chip immobilisation; downset; and tape stiffness and rigidity. Experimental details and results are presented which assess the relative importance of these factors in determining ultimate inner lead reliability, and also provide guidance for final product design considerations.

There has reached us during the last few days an account of certain “Notices of Judgment” under Section 4 of the Food and Drugs Act. This has been issued by the United States Board of Agriculture, the Federal Department concerned with the examination of foods and drugs which have been consigned from one State of the Union to another. These form, under the circumstances, an item in inter‐State commerce and the Federal, as distinct from the State authorities, are responsible for seeing that such foods and drugs have been made in conformity with the law and that they are not “misbranded,” that is to say, that no description which may be in any sense misleading to the purchaser appears on the label or on circular letters sent with the package. The judgments in question relate to drugs and to proprietary medicines. The drugs mentioned such as ether, ergot, lime water and so forth, are in some cases not up to standard. The separate States of the Union have their own troubles with regard to so‐called remedies, but these relate to State and not to Inter‐State commerce.

‘Cebelcor’ (Centre Beige d'Etude de la Corrosion) is a non‐profit‐making association founded for the purpose of fighting corrosion by scientific, technical and educational means. It pursues this objective in collaboration with similar bodies in Belgium and abroad. A description of the organisation and workings of this corrosion research centre is given in this article, the sixth in our series describing corrosion research laboratories.

Today's electronic assembly manufacturing operations can be complex combinations of process steps such as IR reflow, wave soldering, special soldering of connectors or sensitive components, cleaning, rework, etc. Such multiple exposures to elevated temperatures and/or oxidising environments (e.g., aqueous cleaning) can have a negative effect on the solderability of printed wiring board (PWB) surfaces. This in turn may limit the effectiveness of subsequent soldering operations, such as wave soldering following an IR reflow step. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of individual assembly process steps on the solderability of PWB surfaces. The PWB surfaces are initially treated with protective coatings of benzotriazole (BTA). The process steps investigated include: IR reflow in air and in nitrogen; vapour phase reflow; aqueous cleaning; adhesive cure; and wave soldering as a function of solder temperature and flux type. Meniscograph wettability testing is used to measure relative solderability changes, and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) is used to monitor surface chemical changes, particularly oxide formation. The overall result is a body of fundamental information providing insight into optimisations of process flows, equipment operating specifications, process temperatures and selection of flux types.

While digital technologies have led to many important social and cultural advances worldwide, they also facilitate the perpetration of violence, abuse and harassment, known as technology-facilitated violence and abuse (TFVA). TFVA includes a spectrum of behaviors perpetrated online, offline, and through a range of technologies, including artificial intelligence, livestreaming, GPS tracking, and social media. This chapter provides an overview of TFVA, including a brief snapshot of existing quantitative and qualitative research relating to various forms of TFVA. It then discusses the aims and contributions of this book as a whole, before outlining five overarching themes arising from the contributions. The chapter concludes by mapping out the structure of the book.

Most Asians are directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture, and most live in rural areas. Since Asia is primarily an agricultural economy, rural tourism and agrotourism are critical in enabling growth. Agrotourism is a term that refers to the fusion of tourism and agriculture. The freshwater turtles (Batagur sp.) are a group of six turtles that once roamed southern Asia's great rivers and estuaries from the Indian Subcontinent to the Indonesian islands. Therefore, this review is to investigate the current state of agrotourism in Batagur sp. conservation and assess the associated challenges and opportunities. This review paper recognized the impacts and benefits for the rural site as an agrotourism industry. Moreover, three initiatives in Batagur sp. conservation programs were also discussed. Agrotourism, with a focus on the conservation of Batagur sp., is a vital driver of economic growth in rural Asian regions. It diversifies rural communities' income sources, enhancing economic stability and resilience.