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This is the first of a series of six articles describing the work on the corrosion and protection of metals and alloys which is being carried out at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington. The present article is by way of a general introduction, whilst the remaining five will describe the programme of work in more detail.

Surveys the use of performance indicators in higher education libraries, arising from a study tour of the USA. Considers the purposes and use of performance indicators in relation to missions and goals. Discusses costs in relation to what is to be measured and examines implementation of performance indicators in higher education libraries.

Notes that vitamin K has long been known to be required for blood clotting, and more recent evidence suggests a role in bone mineralization, atherosclerosis, and apoptosis. Guidelines for vitamin K intake were set in 1991; however, the food compositional data and intake levels in the UK were not known and, as such, no dietary reference values were set. Since then, work in the field has progressed enormously, with a provisional food composition database being developed, both in the UK and USA, and a healthy population reference plasma range for K₁ has been established in the UK in parallel with detailed estimates of K₁ intake. Plasma K₁ and the proportion of undercarboxylated prothrombin and osteocalcin have been identified as sensitive functional markers of vitamin K status. Current work on aspects of vitamin K and bone health in the elderly will further assist with the setting of dietary reference values for the future.

This paper examines in what ways cultural representations of money reveal deprivation and empowerment in poverty.

The study draws on Finnish poor consumers’ narratives of their daily lives to identify the discursive practices involved in money talk. Poverty is seen as a frame in which the tacit cultural knowledge of money and the ways of enacting discursive practices are sustained and produced.

The research constructs a theoretical illustration of consumer empowerment and deprivation in poverty, which is based on four discursive practices: Moneyless is powerless, Capricious money, Wrestling with money, and Happiness cannot be bought with money. The illustration shows the dynamic evolution of empowerment and deprivation as they grow from and vary within the discursive practices.

The study highlights the practical carrying out of life in poverty, which does not emerge only as deprived or as empowered, but instead involves a tension between them.

International assessment data consistently indicate that when compared to their peers from other major developed nations, American students, irrespective of their race, underperform in reading and mathematics (Darling Hammond, 2010; NCES, 2011; PIRLS, 2011; PISA, 2009; TIMSS, 2011). Within an American context, African American males generally have the lowest reading scores as compared to their White peers (Husband, 2012; NCES, 2011; Schott Foundation, 2010; Spellings Report, 2006). Existing research indicates that these disparities in academic performance are a result of inequalities in access to quality education and differences in the treatment of students, which are deeply imbedded in historical patterns of racial, gendered, and class discrimination. However, past studies also indicate that these same students optimize their learning experiences and become high performers when they receive high quality instruction and school enrichments. Thus, this chapter examines the use of Readers Theater as an instructional model that may help to enhance the school achievement of student groups, such as African American males. The chapter documents the challenges that Black males face in schools and proposes performing arts education as a mediating mechanism and reading enhancement tool. Additionally, it includes an in-depth description of Readers Theater and examines several studies on this instructional method and its potential impact on African American males and their reading skills.

The purpose of this paper is to forward an extension of reception analysis as a way to incorporate and give insight to social media mediations and big data in a qualitative marketing perspective. We propose a research method that focuses on discursive developments in consumer debates for example on YouTube – a large-scale open-access social media platform – as opposed to the closed and tightknit communities investigated by netnography.

Online reception analysis

Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we find that big data can enrich online reception analyses by showing new aspects of weak tie online networks and consumers meaning making.

The potential of online reception analysis is to encompass a discursive perspective on consumer interactions on large-scale open-access social media and to be able to analyze socialities that do not represent shared cultures but are more representative of transitory everyday interactions.

Our method contributes to the current focus to define levels of analysis beyond research centered on individuals and individual interactions within groups to investigate other larger socialities. Further, our method also contributes by incorporating and investigating the mediatization of interaction that social media contributes with and therefore our methods actively work with the possibilities of social media. Hence, by extending the advances made by netnography into online spaces, online reception analysis can potentially inform the current status of big data research with a sociocultural methodological perspective.

This chapter summarizes a therapeutic art-based education project in Houston and two United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees resettlement camps in Burkina Faso, a small landlocked country in West Africa. The project, which was developed and led by the authors, Be the Peace – Be the Hope, was born from a spirit of hope and concern for the plight of children; particularly, for the mounting numbers of children displaced by war and conflict. Many of these children now live in resettlement camps. The ages of the participating students ranged from 8 to 22 in the camps. Many participating Houston middle and high school students had arrived recently in the United States and several had been refugees themselves.

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the student mental health crisis in Higher Education (HE), and how resilience and grit, two important positive psychological constructs, can be beneficial for university students’ success and wellbeing. As part of a discussion around some of the current approaches to intervening in wellbeing in universities, the chapter provides evidence for the use of PPIs for wellbeing in university students, alongside some of the challenges of implementing these in HE. It also provides an overview of the Thriving Students Framework and presents a case for a multicomponent approach to monitoring and improving educational success. In particular, a wellbeing framework that, alongside resilience, also recognises the importance of strengths, persistence in the face of difficulty, a growth mindset, self-control and mental wellbeing; Academic Tenacity. The implications of utilising this framework for educational attainment in university students are discussed. The Bolton Uni-Stride Scale (BUSS), a single short measure of academic tenacity that combines the attributes enabling measurement and intervention to support university students to thrive, is also presented for educators to use.

Low-income consumers (LICs) have gained more attention from marketers after Prahalad and Hart (2004) called attention to untapped opportunities among the world’s poorest. Once neglected and seen as price-driven, more recent research has depicted LICs as brand-conscious consumers who are willing to pay a premium for quality. However, because LICs must balance their tight budgets with aspirations for branded items, this perspective may be too optimistic. To address this issue, the purpose of this paper is to investigate brand consideration and loyalty among LICs across a wide range of products.

The authors used a qualitative-inductive approach to assess LICs’ brand considerations across ten fast-moving consumer goods. In-depth interviews with 20 Brazilian LICs were conducted.

The authors found that brand loyalty among LICs is both context- and category-dependent. Patterns of loyalty are influenced by five factors: perceived differentiation, perceived risk, contextual usage, proportion of the category expenditure to household income and hedonic vs functional consumption. It seems that the interplay of these factors ultimately shapes differently the attitudes and repeated patronage of brands within each category among LICs.

Generalizability of findings is limited owing to the qualitative method used.

The authors provide practical insights to managers concerning key attributes that influence brand consideration and loyalty among LICs.

This paper adds to the yet limited knowledge on LICs and provides a deeper and more holistic understanding of the relation of LICs with brands.

In the House of Lords on the 13th November last the Earl of MEATH asked whether it was a fact, as stated in the public Press, that the leaflet of the Board of Agriculture recommending the use of glucose, salicylic acid, and a coal‐tar product known as saccharin, or saxin, as sugar substitutes in jam had been condemned by the Kensington Public Health Committee on the ground of possible danger to health, and whether the Public Analyst told the Committee that glucose was liable to contamination with arsenic, that salicylic acid was a dangerous drug, which should only be administered under medical direction, and that the use of saccharin, except under medical supervision, had been recently prohibited in America, and was entirely prohibited in France in certain commodities, including preserves; and if the facts were as stated, what steps the Government proposed to take to warn the public against the use of these drugs in the preservation of food. The Duke of MARLBOROUGH, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, is reported to have replied that the opinion of expert chemists had been taken on the matters raised in the question. They had reported “that glucose had long been used in the manufacture of jam and for other food purposes, that its value as a food was well recognised, that its manufacture in this country was in the hands of a few firms, and that samples were systematically tested for arsenic at Government Laboratories.” Continuing, his Grace observed that “samples of foreign glucose were also taken for examination on importation. In no case did the arsenic exceed one‐hundredth of a grain per pound of glucose, the point below which the Royal Commission on Arsenical Poisoning had reported that no action should be taken under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. Manufacturers exercised great care to secure freedom from arsenic. Further, the Board of Agriculture had suggested that, as glucose was sold for human food, it came within the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, and was subject to public analytical examination. The public was therefore doubly safeguarded. The leaflet did not refer to the use of salicylic acid in jam making, but to its use for sterilising the paper covers on the pots. The Committee of the Local Government Board which was appointed in 1899 to inquire into the use of preservatives in food had placed a limit of one grain of the acid per pound in the case of solids and of one grain per pint in the case of liquids. The amount used for the paper covers of jam pots was not nearly one grain per pound of jam. The use of coal tar for sweetening was not advocated, and was not referred to in the leaflet. It had, however, been suggested that saccharin or saxin could be used in place of cane sugar where cane sugar was not obtainable. Saccharin underwent no change in and was not absorbed by the body. The Department had no precise knowledge of the reasons which had led to the alleged prohibition of the use of saccharin in America and France. It would appear, however, that the prohibition if it existed, was due to fiscal reasons.” After the delivery of this statement the Earl of MEATH is reported to have said it would relieve a great many minds to hear that in the opinion of eminent chemists there was no danger in using the substances in question. He hoped the public would no longer be afraid to use them.