Action Instructions Research Articles

Training Course for Village Nutrition Programs

The aims and objectives of a training course to train the trainers for village nutrition programs in Indonesia are described along with the selection and preparation of participants, course syllabus, and the various field and classroom activities. Certain aspects of both the program and training course are unique to Indonesia, but the principles of community nutrition and education techniques are applicable to many varied situations. The training course is aimed at workers who will be training villagers and overseeing the initiation and the operation of the various program activities envisioned. The assumption is that participants will enter the course with a firm background knowledge of nutrition and some grasp of the precepts of public health. The participants are divided into groups of 6-7 persons in order to ensure a heterogeneous mix of experience, geography and professional background. The general course objective was to educate persons designated as trainer for specified districts who will be prepared to train village level volunteers to organize and operate the village nutrition programs. Course content includes the following: nutrition; anthropometry; village weighing program; supplementary feeding; nutritional first aid; simple curative health services; home gardening; and organization/management. The specific objectives for each of the course content areas are outlined. A precourse reading assignment is sent to each participant 6 weeks prior to the training. The assignment includes 4 concise pamphlets covering basic nutrition, simple anthropometry, a village weighing guide, and a supplementary feeding program guide. Accompanying these pamphlets is a detailed examination to be used as a self test by the participant to assure an adequate standard of baseline knowledge on entering the course. Emphasis during the course is on small group (5-7 members) problem solving activities in the classroom and in the field. All lectures are illustrated with slides and briefly stenciled outlines that provide all necessary information. This approach encourages participants to interact more freely with the speaker and to grasp concepts rather than trying to record facts. A set of detailed written guides to provide clear instructions for action on return home is provided to all participants. A course schedule is outlined in detail.

Communication system requirements for process management

To enable management to exercise their functions more effectively, they require a comprehensive, accurate and immediate communication system which reaches out to embrace all the various sections of their particular industrial complex. With such a facility, it now becomes feasible to take into account current process achievements and plant conditions in formulating optimum strategy for the following peiiod and issuing the corresponding production schedule for action with the minimum of delay.The first stage in implementing such a communication system is to establish the true management objectives together with the method for assessing their achievement and relate them to the organisational structure. It is then possible to determine the various decisions that have to be taken, what corresponding data is required and the manner in which this data is to be originated. Whenever possible automatic means should be adopted but where this is not practical, reliance must be placed on the operator. As he is only human it is essential that allowances be made for his frailties and some form of protection provided against the inevitable errors he will introduce. Similarly, the content and manner in which the production schedules and corresponding action instructions are to be generated and distributed can be devised.An industrial complex is formed from a number of essentially independent process units, some of which may well have their own process control computer. Thus a comprehensive communication system will in practice generally involve the use of more than one computer of different types interconnected to form a hierarchy.The implications of equipment failure are far reaching and therefore it is essential that the design of the system ensures that such an occurrence can be accommodated.

German Foreign Office Documents on Financial Support to the Bolsheviks in 1917

D OCUMENT No. I reproduced on page I89 in an English translation will contribute to the elucidation of one of the most controversial questions of recent history: that of the relations of the Imperial German Government with the Russian Bolshevik Party in the period between the fall of the Russian Monarchy and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in I9I7. The document has been found in one of the files of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, now in the custody of the British authorities. It is a typescript of five pages dated 3 December I9I7 with a number of corrections and marginal notes. The caption 'Tel. Hughes' provides for transmission by the Hughes direct line telecommunication system. The message was addressed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baron R. von Kiihlmann, to an official who was to communicate its content orally to the Kaiser. Document No. II shows that the message was duly dispatched and received; and that the Kaiser expressed agreement with its contents. Document No. ii is the deciphered text of the reply to Document No. i, dated 4 December I9I7, from the German General Headquarters and signed 'Gruenau', an official of the German Foreign Office attached to the person of the Emperor. The urgency and frankness of the message are due to the circumstances in which it was written. The German Government was at the time about to dispatch a special mission to Petrograd to start negotiations on the return of German prisoners of war and the resumption of trade relations with the newly formed Bolshevik Government. The mission was to be headed by the representative of the Foreign Office, Count Mirbach, and a representative of the GHQ, Admiral Count Keyserling. Besides, the Armistice negotiations in Brest-Litovsk were about to begin. The outcome of the war might well depend to a large extent on the success of these negotiations. The outline of German policy towards Russia had been discussed between the Kaiser and his Foreign Minister at some length on a previous occasion. The Minister had now to draw up the necessary instructions for these various actions. He wished to have the Kaiser's approval of their general tenor, and as the Kaiser was then at GHQ the State Secretary had recourse to telegraphic communication. The text was then filed with other top secret documents concerning, for the most part, affairs involving the Kaiser personally. The Minister felt it necessary to remind the Monarch of certain i8i