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The internet offers an opportunity for researchers to engage participants in research in a cost-effective and timely manner. Yet the use of the internet as a research tool (internet research) comes with a range of ethical concerns, and the rapidly changing online environment poses challenges for both researchers and ethics committees. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the key ethical issues of using the internet to recruit, retain and trace participants in public health research, from the perspectives of researchers and human research ethics committee (HREC) members.

This study employed a qualitative design using semi-structured interviews with eight public health researchers and seven HREC members in Australia to explore the key ethical issues of using the internet to engage research participants.

The study identified commonalities between researchers and HREC members regarding the utility and ethical complexity of using the internet to recruit, retain and trace research participants. The need for guidance and support regarding internet research, for both groups, was highlighted, as well as the need for flexibility and responsiveness in formal ethical processes.

This research contributes to the understanding of how the internet is used to engage participants in public health research and the ethical context in which that occurs. Supporting the ethical conduct of internet research will benefit those involved in research, including researchers, HRECs, organisations and research participants.

THIS scheme of exact classification has now been long enough upon trial to justify the publication of a few explanatory notes, adjustments, and revisions which may be useful to present and future users of the system. For an entirely new scheme, which to some extent broke fresh ground, its reception has been extremely kind and flattering, and although it has not escaped criticism, nothing has appeared which has been anything but reasonable and helpful. A surprising circumstance has been that, notwithstanding the very controversial nature of much of the subject, so few points of difference have appeared. These are all more or less directed against the mere placing of certain topics and do not to any extent reflect upon the theory or structure of the system as a whole. One mistake has been made, however, of a more important nature, but this must have arisen either through misapprehension or carelessness. It has been assumed that the Subject Classification claims to be thoroughly scientific, and that each class is arranged in a logical and evolutionary order, so as to modulate or merge naturally into its successor. Any modest claim which may have been made to an attempted logical order is invariably qualified by a statement in the “Introduction” to the effect that such perfect order is only to be expected to a very limited extent. On page eight it is stated that—“The departments of human knowledge are so numerous, their intersections so great, their changes so frequent, and their variety so confusing, that it is impossible to show that they proceed from one source or germ, or that they can be arranged so that each enquirer will find the complete literature of his special subject at one fixed place.” All through the tables and the introduction the same kind of limitation is insisted upon, and it can only be due to misunderstanding to say that I have made such a preposterous claim to sequential perfection. No librarian who has attempted to compile a system of exact classification would ever dream of claiming that he did more than get as near as possible to an ideal arrangement in accordance with his basal plan.

We have before us the recently‐issued Annual Report of the Local Government Board on the work done by the Local Authorities under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. While preserving the general form and arrangement of its predecessors, it shows that not only the Board itself, but the local authorities also, are coming to an increasing realisation of the importance of the subject. Six years ago we had occasion to point out some of the defects attaching to these reports, and to suggest various improvements that might be made in them. We felt, and expressed at the time our belief, that the Board was much handicapped by the form of quarterly reports imposed on the Public Analyst by the Food and Drugs Acts, and by the non‐existence of any machinery by which it could get together and collate the vast amount of information which those reports ought to, but do not, yield. Until the law is altered the present system must continue, but it is striking evidence of the lack of serious study spent on the matter that for want of effective coordination and control more than one‐half of what may be considered the real and permanent value of the Public Analyst's work goes into the waste‐paper basket. The work done by most Public Analysts as individuals is limited to some few hundreds of samples of any one article of food, but the combined expeperience of them all would in most cases — assuming it could be accurately ascertained—go far towards settling in a single year many of the thorny questions relative to standards and limits which are fought out at such great length and still greater cost to the community in the courts of law.

The objective of this paper is to give an overview of various reliability concepts that have been developed in the last decades. The paper first summarises various indicators that have been developed in order to measure the reliability of a network and then looks at techniques to calculate these indicators. The usefulness and limitations of the different indicators is discussed. The paper suggests that there is no single perfect indicator but that the choice of indicator and technique depends on several factors, including the viewpoint of the analyst and the type and range of interventions being considered. In order to assess the impact of incidents the authors propose to distinguish between three types of intervention, namely “benevolent”, “neutral” or random, and “malevolent”. Also discussed is why the provision of up-to-date information to the traveller has a central role to play when trying to minimise the impact of an incident.

Corporate accountability is a complex chain of reporting that reaches from external stakeholders into the organization’s management structure. The transition from external to internal accountability mechanisms primarily occurs at the board of directors. Yet outside of incentive mechanisms, we know surprisingly little about how internal actors (management) are held to account by the representatives of external shareholders (the board). The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of accountability at this transition point by documenting the routines used by boards to hold the firm’s management to account. In doing so, we develop the understanding of the important transition between internal and external firm accountability.

An inductive, case-based approach identifies recurrent behaviour patterns in two matched boards over three video-taped meetings. Sequential analysis of coded group and individual behaviours provides insight into boards’ accountability routines.

The boards engaged in clear, recurrent accountability routines. Individuals on the boards play different roles in these routines depending on the issue before the board, allowing both directors and managers to hold each other to account. The outsiders (directors) both challenge and support the insiders (managers) during board discussions, switching their behaviours with different agenda items but maintaining a consistent group level of support and scepticism across the meeting. This allows for the simultaneous development of trust and verification at the group level, a necessary condition for effective accountability.

As board relationships and organisational context are highly variable, future research should concentrate on testing the generalizability of the results across different board and shareholder structures.

The results call into question the current governance focus on the independence of the individual director, as the authors identify that all directors appear to act as agents at one time or another in a meeting. Accountability at the boardroom level requires an effective group process not usually addressed in governance recommendations or regulation.

This study provides unique insights into board dynamics, documenting the accountability implications of group behaviours. By focussing on the group process, the authors highlight the potential mismatch of monotonic, individual-level approaches to governance and accountability prevalent in current agency approaches.

TO operate effectively in his environment a man should seek to appreciate the sources which created it. There are few better ways for the work study man, or others concerned with the efficient running of the industrial machine, to do so than by digesting Management Thinkers, published at 40p in the Pelican Library of Business and Management.

This paper supports project based research and agrees with the view that it is impossible to draw a boundary around a group of subsystems in the real world so as to research only these. All aspects of the manufacturing system including strategy, management style and organisational structure are involved potentially. Project based research has produced little in the way of generalisable results, and in some cases is difficult to distinguish from management consultancy. What needs to be understood better are the methodologies of a general nature. The main movements are likely to be away from calculation towards data analysis and definition, and away from mathematical models towards formal descriptive models.

ONE effect of sharing a common language with America is the imposition of a surfeit of books on matters like work study, in which our own literature is modest indeed. The almost simultaneous publication of two books with a common subject is therefore very unusual. They both deal with work measurement, one in forty‐seven chapters and the other in fifteen. Since books are not judged by a quantitative standard this is no guide to their respective merits.

THE responsibility for materials handling methods, as for all other production methods, should be made the clear responsibility of the head of Work Study. The reasoning behind that firm conclusion is very logical. Industry in general depends for its success upon the application of some process such as machining or finishing of raw materials. Every such operation adds to its value and builds up a firm's turnover. It is therefore obvious that the more time there is devoted to conversion the less will be wasted on profitless storage or unproductive transport from one part of the works to another.