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This study demonstrates two visual methodologies to support analysts using artificial neural networks (ANNs) in data mining operations. The first part of the paper illustrates the differences and similarities between various learning rules that might be employed by ANN data miners. Since different learning rules lead to different connection weights and stability coefficients, a graphical representation of the data that provides a novel visual means of discerning these similarities and differences is demonstrated. The second part of this research demonstrates a methodology for ANN model variable interpretation that uses network connection weights. It uses empirical marketing data to optimize an ANN and response elasticity graphs are built for each ANN model variable by plotting the derivative of the network output with respect to each variable, while changing network input in equal increments across the range of inputs for each variable. Finally, this paper concludes that such an approach to ANN model interpretation can provide data miners with a rich interpretation of variable importance.

Describes the experiences of an American professor who taught a graduate course in cross‐cultural management at a Portuguese university. Outlines the overall experience before detailing several pedagogic issues which were unforeseen/problematic. Proposes ten axioms to guide similar future internal exchange experiences. Emphasizes four areas of difficulty, preparation, expectations, conduct and relationships.

Numbers of worthy people are no doubt nursing themselves in the fond and foolish belief that when the Food Bill has received the Royal assent, and becomes law, the manufacture and sale of adulterated and sophisticated products will, to all intents and purposes, be suppressed, and that the Public Analyst and the Inspector will be able to report the existence of almost universal purity and virtue. This optimistic feeling will not be shared by the traders and manufacturers who have suffered from the effects of unfair and dishonest competition, nor by those whose knowledge and experience of the existing law enables them to gauge the probable value of the new one with some approach to accuracy. The measure has satisfied nobody, and can satisfy nobody but those whose nefarious practices it is intended to check, and who can fully appreciate the value, to them, of patchwork and superficial legislation. We have repeatedly pointed out that repressive legislation, however stringent and however well applied, can never give the public that which the public, in theory, should receive—namely, complete protection and adequate guarantee,—nor to the honest trader the full support and encouragement to which he is entitled. But, in spite of the defects and ineffectualities necessarily attaching to legislation of this nature, a strong Government could without much difficulty have produced a far more effective, and therefore more valuable law than that which, after so long an incubation, is to be added to the statute‐book.

To identify features of teacher support associated with children who made accelerated progress in writing in an early literacy intervention.

Mixed methods were used to describe the paths, rates, variability, and potential sources of change in the writing development of 24 first grade students who participated in an early literacy intervention for 20 weeks. To describe the breadth and variability of change in children’s writing within a co-constructed setting, two groups who made high and low progress were identified.

We focus on one child, Paul, who made high progress (became more independent in the writing of linguistically complex messages) and the features of teacher support that this child received compared to those who made lower progress. We compare him to another child, Emma, who made low progress. Teacher support associated with high progress included a conversational style and flexibility to adapt to the child’s message intent as the student composed, supporting students to write linguistically more complex and legible messages, and supporting students to orchestrate a broad range of problem-solving behaviors while writing.

We describe how teachers can support children to gradually take control of the composition process, how they can recognize complexity in early written messages and we provide suggestions as to how teachers can systematically assess, observe, and support children’s self-regulation of the writing process.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

Some months ago a national organisation established to keep a watchful eye on the Nation's diet expressed concern over the eating trends of people in what to them appeared to be developing inbalances of necessary nutrient factors and the inadeuacy not so much of calories and energy values but in the nature and quality of main food factors. It was recommended that the national diet should be improved, but the authorities pointed to the National Food Survey results to show that the diet was not deficient; that the average daily intake of protein, vitamins, minerals and overall energy requirements were satisfied; all of which is true for the not‐too‐generous levels set. Even the pensioner households included in the Survey sample appear well‐fed. What causes concern is the year‐by‐year decrease in staple foods consumed—milk, red meat, bread, fresh vegetables—and the heavy reliance on refined, processed foods. In its annual reports on NFS reviews, the BFJ has almost monotonously referred to this downward trend. Individual NFS Reports do not reveal any serious deficiencies, as yet, but in the trend over the years—and herein lies the real value of the Survey and its data—few if any of the changes have been for the better; movements in food groups have tended to be downwards. If these trends continue, the time must surely come when there will be real deficiencies; that substitution within a food group cannot make good essential foods severely rationed by high prices.

Language may be a treasured heritage of small comunities, all that is left to bind them together. It is often a matter of national or regional pride, keeping alive a tongue dead centuries past everywhere else; in an area of the Grisons forty thousand Swiss speak the Latin Romansch, the tongue spoken by the citizens of ancient Rome, and nowhere else in the world is it heard. There are so‐called official languages; in the councils of Europe, it has always been French, which is the official language of the European Economic Community; this means, of course, that all EEC Directives and in due course, judgments of its courts, will be first delivered in French.

In The Changing Body (Cambridge University Press and NBER, 2011), we presented a series of estimates showing the number of calories available for human consumption in England and Wales at various points in time between 1700 and 1909/1913. We now seek to correct an error in our original figures and to compare the corrected figures with those published by a range of other authors. We also include new estimates showing the calorific value of meat and grains imported from Ireland. Disagreements with other authors reflect differences over a number of issues, including the amount of land under cultivation, the extraction and wastage rates for cereals and pulses and the number of animals supplying meat and dairy products. We consider recent attempts to achieve a compromise between these estimates and challenge claims that there was a dramatic reduction in either food availability or the average height of birth cohorts in the late-eighteenth century.

Our planet's essential goods and services emanate from the functions of biological diversity. An ecological sphere rich in variety and endowed with highly productive ecosystem services in which fishery resources are present provides attractive benefits. Fishery resource is the primary form of people's livelihood for survival, especially in coastal areas. It is a major source of food protein for human beings representing at least 15 percent of the average per capita animal protein intake of more than 2.9 billion people [Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2009]. Significant demands for fishery resources create employment opportunities for many people around the world (FAO, 1995). Indeed, the number of fishers, including aquaculturists, has grown faster than the world's population and faster than employment in traditional agriculture during the past three decades (FAO, 2007a, 2009). In 2004, an estimated 51 million people were making their entire or partial living from fish production and capture (Pomeroy & Rivera-Guieb, 2006), the great majority of these in Asian countries (FAO, 2007a, 2009). According to FAO (2009), it has been estimated that for each person employed in the fishery primary sector, there could be four employed in the secondary sector (including fish processing, marketing, and related service industries). The estimated total population employed in the entire fish industry is approximately 204 million people. The total amounts of fish landing, including aquaculture, have maintained an upward trend, as shown in Fig. 1.1. To a large extent, advanced fishing technology that is efficiently and effectively capable of catching or harvesting fishery resources attracted a large number of fishers and has contributed to an increase in fish landing quantity.