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The great difficulties which attach to the fixing of legal standards of composition for food products have now to be grappled with by the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture to consider and determine what regulations should be made by the Board, under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, with respect to the composition of butter. As we predicted in regard to the labours of the Milk and Cream Standards Committee, so we predict now that the Butter Committee will be unable to do more than to recommend standards and limits, which, while they will make for the protection of the public against the sale of grossly adulterated articles, will certainly not in any way insure the sale of butter of really satisfactory, or even of fair, composition. Standards and limits established by law for the purposes of the administration of criminal Acts of Parliament must of necessity be such as to legalise the sale of products of a most inferior character, to which the term “genuine” may still by law be applied as well as to legalise the sale of adulterated and sophisticated products so prepared as to come within the four corners of the law. It is, of course, an obvious necessity that official standards and limits should be established, and the Board of Agriculture are to be congratulated upon the manner in which they are endeavouring to deal with these extremely knotty problems; but it is important that misconception on the part of the public and the trade with respect to the effect of the regulations to be made should be as far as possible prevented. All that can be hoped for is that the conclusions at which the Committee may find themselves compelled to arrive will not be such as to place too high and too obvious a premium upon the sale of those inferior and scientifically‐adulterated products which are placed in such enormous quantities on the food market.

Channels of distribution are basic to the marketing strategies of firms, and have been shown to be a key element in the marketing mix. The author here undertakes a comprehensive review of channels literature, primarily to identify and assess the adequacy of the various mainstream conceptual schemes which have emerged. Economic‐based arguments have largely been at the core of channels literature, although these have been partially offset by the concepts of the organisational and behavioural schools. The author concludes that whereas every conceptual approach reviewed has added something to our cumulative knowledge, no single approach has yet reached a point of adequate conceptualisation based on his own basic criteria. As yet channels literature is mainly descriptive, and has virtually no predictive power.

In the last decade increasing attention has been focussed upon the newer and creative areas of marketing such as consumer behaviour, new product development and the communications interchanges between producers and consumers. More recently, the subject of distribution has been receiving a wider conceptual treatment as “marketing logistics” than had been afforded to it earlier by operational researchers searching for optimum rather than acceptable solutions. Managers have come to realise that, not only can substantial cost savings be achieved in the physical distribution area but that the distribution function complements the selling activity at the interface between the company and its customers. In the case of consumer goods these customers are the channel intermediaries such as wholesalers, cash and carry operators, independent and multiple retailers as well as the voluntary chains.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Palestine, and thus to contribute to the existing knowledge on the critical success factors (CSFs) of SMEs in the Palestinian context, especially in the West Bank.

The study is comprised a survey of a convenience sample of 370 SMEs operating in the West Bank, Palestine. It uses a multiple regression analysis to examine the effect of a set of CSFs, namely, reputation of the brand, excellence of customer services, reliable delivery and product innovation on the success of SMEs.

The results show that brand reputation, excellence of customer of services and reliable delivery strongly influence SME success, while innovation is weakly associated with SME success. These results imply that success is tied to customers and competition more than to production, structures or finance. That is, reputable brands, excellent customer service and reliable delivery are means to success according to the results of this research.

The study emphasizes the need for Palestinian SMEs to maintain and develop their brand reputation, institutionalize customer service and develop its logistical systems and practices. Generally, the study suggests that there are specific investment areas for SMEs that can contribute to achieving success. Specifically, excellence in customer service was found to be the factor most linked to the success of SMEs, followed by reliable delivery and then by brand reputation and innovation.

While plenty of research has been done on what contributes to the failure or success of SMEs, research on CSFs for SMEs is limited. The study combines four CSFs not previously used in combination to model the successful performance of SMEs in general and in the Palestinian context in particular. Only some specific factors are critical to the success of SMEs and should be the focal point of SMEs’ efforts as long as they are consistent with their nature as small economic entities competing with big companies in small markets. Thus, instead of using general factors of SME success, the study explains how success becomes more possible through specifying areas for decision-making or activities for the entrepreneurs to undertake, keeping in mind that there is a mechanism by which these factors work together toward the success of the SME.

Although anemia during pregnancy is common in the USA, socio-demographic factors make pregnant women enrolled in Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program more vulnerable than the general population. The purpose of this study was to examine the socio-demographic characteristics, blood hemoglobin concentrations, nutrition knowledge and potential associations among these factors in a sample of pregnant women participating in the WIC program.

A cross-sectional study using survey methodology was conducted. In total, 60 pregnant women who were between 12 and 24 weeks of gestation and were carrying a single fetus were recruited from two WIC clinics. Overall nutrition knowledge was assessed with 42 questions arranged into three subscales. Participants’ scores were transformed into tertiles. WIC program records were used to record blood hemoglobin values. Principal component analysis was used to validate the knowledge subscales. Correlational and multivariate regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship among variables.

Prevalence of anemia among the participants was higher than the national averages. Only 10 per cent of participants scored in the high tertile for nutrition knowledge. Anemia-during-pregnancy knowledge score was positively correlated with blood hemoglobin concentrations (r = 0.23, p < 0.05), and it was also a predictor of blood hemoglobin levels (R2 = 0.364, p = 0.02).

This is the first study to report on the knowledge of anemia, anemia during pregnancy and preventive measures among pregnant women enrolled in the WIC program.

In the paper we extend some Hardy and Littlewood type inequalities on time scales for the function of n variables. Special cases of obtained results include generalized Wirtinger, Hardy and Littlewood type inequalities.

Paley's and Hardy's inequality are proved on a Hardy-type space for the Fourier–Dunkl expansions based on a complete orthonormal system of Dunkl kernels generalizing the classical exponential system defining the classical Fourier series.

Although the difficulties related to the Dunkl settings, the techniques used by K. Sato were still efficient in this case to establish the inequalities which have expected similarities with the classical case, and Hardy and Paley theorems for the Fourier–Bessel expansions due to the fact that the Bessel transform is the even part of the Dunkl transform.

Paley's inequality and Hardy's inequality are proved on a Hardy-type space for the Fourier–Dunkl expansions.

This work is a participation in extending the harmonic analysis associated with the Dunkl operators and it shows the utility of BMO spaces to establish some analytical results.

Dunkl theory is a generalization of Fourier analysis and special function theory related to root systems. Establishing Paley and Hardy's inequalities in these settings is a participation in extending the Dunkl harmonic analysis as it has many applications in mathematical physics and in the framework of vector valued extensions of multipliers.

The 150th anniversary of Thomas Hardy′s birth is briefly noted and a number of recent publications on the author and his work are noted in the context of his corpus of critical material on him.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), careful plotter of the fictional region of “Wessex,” is a novelist both acutely aware of the role of space in his works and remarkably fascinated by violence. Bringing these two significant elements of his fictional method together, this chapter examines the numerous violent spaces created by Hardy throughout his fiction. It focuses in particular on the ways in which different spaces, at first presumed to be safe, become invaded by extreme acts of violence. In the course of the chapter, I ask: How does this perversion of space by violence contribute to Hardy's literary aims? How do spatial relationships and boundaries intersect with his characterization? And does Hardy leave his readers with any hope for future spaces?

I suggest that Hardy's situation of acts of violence in a range of spaces, natural and domestic alike, is purposefully disorientating. It allows him to interrogate defined social ideas of “moral” indoor spaces and “wild” outdoor landscapes during the late Victorian period. There is, in fact, no such thing as a safe space in Hardy – spaces are ambiguous, changing and shaped by their inhabitants. The effect of violent spaces in Hardy, therefore, provides a challenge both to the conventional settings of nineteenth-century realist writing and any presumed knowledge of these environments. It might be tempting to see such spatial aesthetics as rather pessimistic, yet I argue that by dispelling the illusory link between space and safety, Hardy promotes a more sensitive awareness of everyday environments and our interactions with/within them.