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Education in information studies is, like most other technology‐orientated disciplines, going through a process of exciting creative development. This development is being stimulated by the usual curriculum pressures of discipline and epistemological shift, external social change, technological change, market pressure and student demand; as well as strong pressure from developments in other disciplines such as computing and business studies.

An examination of the work of Consumer Advice Centres and of the information sources and support activities that public libraries can offer. CAC's have dealt with pre‐shopping advice, education on consumers' rights and complaints about goods and services, advising the client and often obtaining expert assessments. They have drawn on a wide range of information sources including case records, trade literature, contact files and external links. The recent closure of many CAC's has seriously affected the availability of consumer information and advice. Public libraries can make many kinds of information sources more widely available, both to the public and to the agencies now supplying consumer information and advice. Libraries can co‐operate closely with advice agencies through local co‐ordinating committees, shared premises, joint publicity, referral and the sharing of professional expertise.

Transient electric birefringence studies have been performed on heat denatured xanthan in 4 m urea. The induced birefringence was positive, the Kerr law was obeyed at low field amplitudes and the birefringence saturated at high fields. The orientation mechanism appears to be mainly induced dipolar in character and the magnitude of the induced dipole moment can be explained on the basis of counterion polarization. The molecules behave as independent rods of mean length 0.65 μm with no evidence for ‘hindered rotation’ in moderately concentrated solutions. The molecular rigidity is attributed to extension of the polyanion due to charge charge repulsions or steric hindrance due to the side chains.

Following gonadectomy, male mice of a C57 Black strain show decreased weight gains and females show increased weight gains relative to intact controls. A similar sex difference results from a single injection of goldthioglucose, and after 100 days, female mice overtake the weight gains of the males. It is suggested that these differences are in part due to the drug causing a functional gonadectomy. This is discussed in the light of experiments on the interaction between gonadectomy and goldthioglucose.

This paper provides a brief comparison between the Employment Contracts Act 1991 (ECA) and the Swedish equivalent, the Co-Determination Act. The Co-Determination Act is then used to provide a framework against which an alternative to the ECA is discussed. The paper concludes by arguing for a system of contracting which emphasises collective bargaining, noting a number of impediments to its effective operation in New Zealand- at least in the short-term. Two such impediments which are discussed are the current low level of union density and voluntary unionism. Additionally, if New Zealand is to ratify ILO conventions 87 and 98, collective good faith bargaining will have to be embodied in any new legislative framework. Recommendations for such a framework are made herein.

This paper details the development of the AUTONOM project, a project that aims to provide an enterprise system tailored to the planning needs of the rail industry. AUTONOM extends research in novel sensing, scheduling, and decision-making strategies customised for the automated planning of maintenance activities within the rail industry. This paper sets out a framework and software prototype and details the current progress of the project. In the continuation of the AUTONOM project it is anticipated that the combination of techniques brought together in this work will be capable of addressing a wider range of problem types, offered by Network rail and organisations in different industries.

This article discusses the experiences of a journal club established to enable staff from different higher education (HE) institutions and roles to develop their knowledge and understanding around a shared interest in the areas of internationalisation and educational technology. Journal clubs have been used, mainly within the field of medicine and healthcare, to facilitate group learning. The club enabled the group to navigate a complex terrain of literature, develop a focus for reading and identifying a potential area for research and collaboration. Members of the journal club experienced several benefits from participation which are discussed together with the challenges of sustaining engagement over time. The article concludes with highlighting ways in which journal clubs can provide a fruitful form of continuing professional development in higher education, particularly in complex subject areas that traverse numerous roles and domains and makes recommendations for those considering establishing a journal club for similar purposes.

Employing the praxis method of theological reflection, this article draws on a spiritual care encounter with a person holding a worldview derived from an empirical approach to the natural world, in order to reflect on the nature of non-religious spirituality and its implications for the spiritual care sector. Non-religious spirituality is examined as a genuine form of spirituality. The hypothesis that the genuine nature of non-religious spirituality necessarily suggests that non-religious people can both receive and provide spiritual care is presented. Healthy secularity is examined as the underlying sociocultural condition for non-religious spiritual care to be recognized in a sector currently dominated by religious assumptions. The study concludes with a call to spiritual care educators and accrediting bodies in the Australian context to begin working toward a secular perspective that is inclusive of non-religious spirituality and spiritual care. The conclusions of the article will have significance for the global spiritual care community, particularly in countries recording increases in populations identifying as non-religious.

This paper outlines a vision for Internet connected production complementary to the Cloud Manufacturing paradigm, reviewing current research and putting forward a generic outline of this form of manufacture. This paper describes the conceptual positioning and practical implementation of the latest developments in manufacturing practice such as Redistributed manufacturing, Cloud manufacturing and the technologies promoted by Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet agendas. In the illustration of the outline of web enabled production a case study is presented based on automotive manufacture. Existing and future needs for customized production and the manufacturing flexibility required are examined. Future directions for manufacturing, enabled by web based connectivity are then examined, concluding that the need for humans to remain ‘in the loop’ while automation develops is an essential ingredient of all future manufacturing scenarios.