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Tissue implant management can be labor intensive because of multiple storage locations and cumbersome tracking systems. The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) project was to enhance patient safety and nursing satisfaction by upgrading our tissue-management facility and processes. We created a centralized storage room for tissue implants and staffed this room during all shifts. Tissue management was executed using tracking software and transportation devices that supported tissue receipt, storage, disposition, documentation, and reporting. Our project resulted in our full compliance with tissue implant requirements from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and The Joint Commission. We also reduced our documentation error rate from 3% to less than 1%, and decreased the tissue-expiration rate by 1.1%. Tissues are now delivered to ORs, which allows RNs to focus on patient care rather than retrieval of implants. Monitoring of the tissue inventory has improved, resulting in the reduction of tissue wastage.

Drawing on the theoretical insights from the resource-based view of strategic management, this article explores the potential of human resource systems to facilitate or inhibit the development and utilization of organizational competencies. These competencies — managerial, input-based, transformational, and output-based—are presumed to yield sustained competitive advantage for a firm. The competency-based perspective, by focusing attention on the HR activities, functions, and processes that enhance or impede competency accumulation and exploitation, complements the behavioral perspective (Schuler & Jackson, 1987) and, thus, potentially enhances the understanding of strategic human resource management.

THE HISTORY OF AL‐TABARI. VOL. III: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. Translated by WILLIAM M. BRINNER. Albany, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1991. xii, 194 pp. $44.00 (hb), $14.95 (pb). THE HISTORY OF AL‐TABARI. VOL. XXXIII: STORM AND STRESS ALONG THE NORTHERN FRONTIERS OF THE ‘ABBASID CALIPHATE. Translated by C.E. BOSWORTH. Albany, N.Y., SUNY Press, 1991. xix, 239 pp. $57.50 (hb), $18.95 (pb). THE AWAKENING OF PERSIA: THE REIGN OF NASR AL‐DIN SHAH 1848–1896. By A.J. ABRAHAM. USA, Vande Vere Publishing, 1992. 64pp. $18.95. THE EMERGENCE OF KURDISH NATIONALISM AND THE SHAIKH SAID REBELLION, 1880–1925. By ROBERT OLSON. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1992. THE ARAB BUREAU: BRITISH POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST, 1916–1920. By BRUCE WESTRATE. University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. xvi, 240 pp. $35. DIE TURKEI UND AGYPTEN IN DER WELTWIRTSCHAFTSKRISE 1929–1933. By CAMILLA DAWLETSCHIN‐LINDER. (Studien zur modernen Geschichte, 40). Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1989. xviii, 187 pp. 20 tables, 6 diagrams. DM...

ONE of the most persistent problems facing Arab leadership in the twentieth century has been what to do about Palestine. The 'problem of Palestine' brings Arab leaders face to face with their inability to achieve unity, despite much rhetoric to the contrary, or to put their relationships with the West on a footing of greater parity. The issue of King Abdullah of Jordan's involvement in Palestine has always been especially controversial. Discussions of his role in Palestine have usually concentrated on his personality. He is generally characterized as an ambitious man, a man who was never satisfied with his fiefdom of Transjordan. In his own eyes he was a great man from a distinguished lineage, a man whom history had slighted. To rectify history's mistake he tried, throughout his lifetime, to project his political presence and influence beyond the borders of Transjordan. But, while character may determine how one acts in a given situation, it is important, first, to establish the historical circumstances that shape particular actions. Abdullah's territorial ambitions were more than the irrational outpourings of a frustrated personality. Like all Arab political leaders of the Mandate period, he occupied a median position between a European power, that held ultimate control, and a local social structure. His role was to mediate between the interests of the British and the Arabs of Transjordan in such a way as to keep the local social structure intact along with his position at its pinnacle. This was not difficult on the purely Transjordanian level since, for a variety of socio-economic and demographic reasons, there were no credible rivals for his position, at least after 1924. But, by the same token, there was not the interplay of varied interests within Transjordan that would have allowed him effectively to counteract Britain's preponderant weight in the internal Transjordanian configuration of power. In the region, Transjordan existed as an entity separate from Syria or Palestine or, for that matter, from Iraq or Saudi Arabia because of British strategic and political interests. Hence, Abdullah in Transjordan became irrevocably identified with Britain and with British policy in the region. The problem, for Abdullah, was that the thrust of Arab political activities in the interwar period was towards diminishing Britain's presence in the region. From the late 1920s, with Iraqi-British treaty negotiations, the trend in regional politics appeared to be moving in the direction of growing British remoteness from day-to-day affairs. On the one hand, Abdullah wanted very badly to keep step with Faysal's Iraq and to reap the benefits of increased possibilities for independent political action. But, on the other, he was painfully aware of Transjordan's vulnerability-of its material dependence on

The purpose of this article is to point out the critical period in reading development which occurs when children transfer from beginning reading into the more advanced stage of reading where it is used as a tool for other subjects. The article further emphasizes the necessity of careful planning in order that this transition may be made with the least possible difficulty. A detailed description of the suitability of the social studies class and the independent reading class for solving this particular reading problem has been made. Teachers for some time have recognized the fact that there are various stages of progress in the development of reading. Briefly, they have been termed the period of preparation for reading; the initial period of reading in grade one and the first part of grade two; the period of rapid progress which comes in the latter part of grade two and in grade three; the period of enriched reading in grades four, five, and six; and the period of refined or specialized reading in the high school grades.' The problem of reading in the elementary grades could be epitomized as follows: the first three school years are spent in learning to read and the remainder of the years are spent in reading to learn.2 Professor Thorndike characterizes the former as a period wherein the pupils learn to read in the sense of getting by vision what they can get by hearing. The latter period is one wherein the pupils extend this ability and add new abilities, in respect to (1) vocabulary, (2) constructions, and (3) the organization of large units of thought.' A child must of necessity make a transition from the first type of reading to that of the second type. In the first three grades the major concern of the teacher is that the child learn to read. In the remainder of the elementary grades the teachers concentrate more on the content studies. However, a child cannot be expected to make

(1949). Individualizing reading instruction. Peabody Journal of Education: Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 195-201.

(1988). The Jordanian Option: Troubles on the East Bank, by Robert B. Sadoff. Journal of Palestine Studies: Vol. 18, Palestine 1948, pp. 223-225.