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The purpose of this paper is to present an interview with Professor Michael Beer of Harvard Business School, whose recent book is Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value, to learn what methods these leaders use.

The paper discusses his book, in whihc Beer and his co‐authors studied 36 corporate leaders who are recognized for inspiring their firms to create superior and lasting economic and social value. Beer calls this “higher ambition” management and says it is the key to transforming companies into high commitment, high performance organizations.

Beer and his co‐authors found evidence that creating social value unlocks the dormant creative energies that exist in all employees. Creating both social and economic value directly reinforces the primary motivators of people, purpose, autonomy and mastery.

The authors did not systematically investigate leaders and companies who did not fit the higher ambition (HA) definition. Thus it is impossible to conclude definitively that the HA practices described in the book are distinctive – that they do not also exist in companies that do not fit the HA definition. The authors did, however, use their consulting experience with many companies over many years and interviews with a few CEOs who were not HA leaders to contrast HA leadership practices with “common” and “best practice.”

Beer's advice for rising executives aspiring to become higher‐ambition leaders: find your anchor, choose your teachers and company, learn from experience, and engage in honest conversations.

Beer explains why a leader's higher ambition is essential to creating a resilient and sustainable enterprise and how top CEOs do it.

“Baseball must be a great game to survive the fools who run it. No business in the world has ever made more money with poorer management. It can survive anything.”

Crack damage detection for aluminum alloy materials using fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensor is a kind of structure health monitoring. In this paper, the damage index of full width at half maximum (FWHM) was extracted from the distorted reflection spectra caused by the crack-tip inhomogeneous strain field, so as to explain the crack propagation behaviors.

The FWHM variations were also investigated through combining the theoretical calculations with simulation and experimental analyses. The transfer matrix algorithm was developed to explore the mechanism by which FWHM changed with the linear and quadratic strain. Moreover, the crack-tip inhomogeneous strain field on the specimen surface was computed according to the digital image correlation measurement during the experiments.

The experimental results demonstrated that the saltation points in FWHM curve accorded with the moments of crack propagation to FBG sensors.

The interpretation of reflected spectrum deformation mechanism with crack propagation was analyzed based on both simulations and experiments, and then the performance of potential damage features – FWHM were proposed and evaluated. According to the correlation between the damage characteristic and the crack-tip location, the crack-tip of the specimen could be measured rapidly and accurately with this technique.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the findings of a research program that set out to define HR's role as a catalyst for the consistently high growth performance of companies in the Asia‐Pacific region and, in doing so, to share valuable lessons with the West.

Next Generation HR in Asia is the second phase of a major research program initiated by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and Bridge. The aim is to identify aspects of leading edge HR practice that give a glimpse of “next practice” that will shape HR's future. Phase one of the project involved interviews with some of the most innovative HR practitioners in Europe, while phase two draws on interviews with leaders in 27 companies operating across the Asia Pacific region.

Dealing with the demands of the high growth and highly diverse market in Asia‐Pacific, and the associated extreme competition for talent, is resulting in innovative and flexible approaches to HR. Four next practices for HR emerged from the research. They are innovative solutions based on deep insight, developing loyalty and retention, leveraging the challenges of culture clashes, and being well positioned when the growth curve flattens.

While context is key and it is necessary to be aware of a one size fits all approach, the West can draw inspiration from the way in which entrepreneurial Asian leaders are putting themselves at the forefront of efforts to deliver superior organizational performance.

The paper provides useful information on leading edge HR practices, which are a catalyst for consistently high growth performance of companies in the Asia‐Pacific region.

I. While our knowledge of environmental problems has grown immensely in the last few decades our ability to take rational and effective decisions and implement them has not kept pace with our accumulated information. II. A major contribution to the discussions concerning the carbon dioxide problem and its effects on our environment. III. The possible impact of climate warming is starvation and malnutrition in many parts of the world.

Posits that trade in agriculture constitutes the main element of the ongoing multilateral trade negotiations, with the World Trade Organisation, which has a conclusion date of 1 January 2005. Acknowledges that liberalization of trade in this sector was the prime reason why developing countries joined the WTO. Reckons that developed countries resist mounting pressure of decisive moves towards agricultural improvement, during the trade negotiations, by trying to protect their own agricultural sectors from foreign competition.

This paper aims to construct smooth poly-ellipsoid shapes from synchrotron microcomputed tomography (SMT) images on sand and to develop a new discrete element method (DEM) contact detection algorithm.

Voxelated images generated by SMT on Colorado Mason sand are processed to construct smooth poly-ellipsoidal particle approximations. For DEM contact detection, cuboidal shape approximations to the poly-ellipsoids are used to speed up contact detection.

The poly-ellipsoid particle shape approximation to Colorado Mason sand grains is better than a simpler ellipsoidal approximation. The new DEM contact algorithm leads to significant speedup and accuracy is maintained.

The paper limits particle shape approximation to smooth poly-ellipsoids.

Poly-ellipsoids provide asymmetry of particle shapes as compared to ellipsoids, thus allowing closer representation of real sand grain shapes that may be angular and unsymmetric. When incorporated in a DEM for computation, the poly-ellipsoids allow better representation of particle rolling, sliding and interlocking phenomena.

Method to construct poly-ellipsoid particle shapes from SMT data on real sands and computationally efficient DEM contact detection algorithm for poly-ellipsoids.

“The Human Face of Retailing” was one of the major themes of the 12th Annual European Conference of the International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC), held at Monte Carlo in March. There was the usual impressive spread of speakers from major companies in continental Europe, some of which we summarise in our special report on the following pages. Peter Spriddell of Marks & Spencer referred obliquely to his company's out‐of‐town initiative with Tesco by drawing attention to the shopper's need for a better environment, which means good car parking, and pointed out that “both out of town and city centre retailing have their place” — an assertion that only a couple of years ago would have been more than a little startling from a Marks & Spencer spokesperson. Francis Rigotti, from another highly prestigious company, Migros, talked about his company's search for “produits vivants”, by which he means articles which decorate the lifestyle and affirm the personalities of the “me‐generation”. We are celebrating the demise of the mass market, he implied; quality has supplanted quantity in modern life. And what of the retail pattern in Germany? Professor Dr Bernd Falk described the importance of the role of the shopping centre, whilst at the same time explaining the difficulties of the department store. And we offer our congratulations to the designers of the Kö‐Gallerie in Dusseldorf, which won this year's ICSC design award in the category of large centres, and which we feature on our front cover. Described as a “beautifully developed dream”, it was conceived, designed, developed and leased by Walter Brune of Dusseldorf. RDM was represented at the conference by David Sands.