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An interdisciplinary model network consisting of the regional agricultural economic model RAUMIS and the hydro(geo)logical models GROWA/WEKU is used to analyze the effect of different scenarios of maximum agricultural nitrogen balance surplus on water quality. The study area is the federal state of Lower Saxony, Germany, which features heterogeneous natural site conditions as well as agricultural production structures. A focus of the study is the modeling of supra-regional manure transports that, according to the model's results, considerably increase due to a lowering of maximum nitrogen balance surpluses. The assessment of the examined nitrogen reduction measures reveals that adequate indicators have to be applied. In this regard, the model results show that even though the analyzed measure leads to a substantial overall reduction of agricultural nitrogen surpluses, nitrogen discharges into surface and groundwater can regionally increase.

Managing the diversity of the enlarged European Union (EU) is a central task for European policies. It is argued that this diversity leads to the development of a core-periphery pattern, separating cores of economic strength from peripheral regions being on the margins and lagging behind with mainly rural areas playing the peripheral part. This chapter describes the approach taken by the FP7 EU research project RUFUS – Rural Future Networks. It concentrated on rural regions and tried to work out the implications of the diversity of European rural areas by creating an interdisciplinary typology. The RUFUS typology is based on nine economic, social and ecological indicators and included regions (NUT3 level) from 10 European countries. A factor and cluster analysis was performed leading to a set of types of rural areas displaying their strengths and weaknesses related to their economic, social and ecological characteristics. The analysis was performed with different combinations of countries. The data set based on countries within the EU15 led to a first typology of four types showing a specific distribution of strong(er) and weak(er) types of regions already functioning for a longer time in the context of EU integration. Including more Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries led to a set of five types combined with the change of type distribution within and between the countries. The approach is an easy to understand classification and visualisation tool to show the relative development status of European regions as well as the relationship of the status with their location (core or border region).

The aim of the paper is to propose a methodology that allows researchers and practitioners to structure a small amount of data in a way which aids understandings and allows predictions to be made.

The paper explores how formal concept analysis can be combined with fuzzy reasoning to make predictions based on small datasets. A dataset of nine regions in Norway described by six attributes is used. The paper focuses on regional disparities in labour market outcomes such as unemployment and wages.

The paper finds that unemployment tends to be concentrated in the most prosperous parts of the study area. These regions have high incomes and experience population growth. More rural regions have virtually no unemployment. The methodology proposed allows these patterns to be seen. The authors made predictions with an accuracy rate of over 75 per cent.

A common response to high unemployment in urban areas is to stimulate employment growth. The findings suggest that this will simply increase migration towards the cities. The net result will be no change in unemployment but an accelerated depopulation of more rural regions.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first application of fuzzy reasoning to the topic of regional disparities. The methodology aids in the interpretation of small datasets. The methodology should be of interested to practitioners at the local level, who are interested in analysing their own region, even when limited data are available.

A successful, multigeneration manufacturing family business, with progressive human resources policies, weighs the pros and cons with family owners and company employees of selling the business to meet the challenge of global competition.

Bibliographic information from one of the world's most celebrated botanic library and archive collections, the Library and Archive of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, will be added to the OCLC On‐line Union Catalog through a conversion project by OCLC's RETROCON Service.

ELSEWHERE in this number we list libraries which have Esent us copies of their annual reports which we are glad to have. Now and again we are able to elaborate on these, but in the present issue that has not been possible. We would say, however, that these reports are deserving of the attention of librarians generally, and of students at the library schools. They are records of work in progress, and they do suggest the development of library policy. The best of them are of textbook value.

The purpose of this paper is to address two important gaps in the brand love and consumer‐brand relationships literatures. First, this study aims to investigate several interpersonal antecedents of brand love in a services setting. Second, this study also aims to examine the differential influence of the valence of the service delivery process and the way that brand love develops under qualitatively varied conditions.

A between‐subjects experiment that varied the valence of the service delivery process (positive/negative) in a relational context was designed to examine the influence of interpersonal antecedents across service delivery levels on brand love.

This study provides empirical support for the importance of interpersonal antecedents in driving brand love in service relationships. The results also reveal an asymmetrical pattern of effects between study variables across service delivery levels.

These findings can help service firms to better understand the role of interpersonal influences in development of emotional bonds with current customers and to develop strategies to nurture brand love under positive and negative circumstances.

This research helps to establish the transferability of interpersonal love into the services domain and brings service employees and the social aspects of exchange into the discussion of brand love. The research findings suggest consumers have the propensity to perceive and respond to service firms as active participants in relational exchanges and to use their interaction with frontline employees as a basis for developing brand love.