About this issue

IT IS probably more than coincidence that three of the six articles in this issue deal with subjects related to personnel in research, development, and engineering (RD&E). A number of factors in the environment and inside RD&E organizations have focused attention on particular aspects of personnel. These factors include the rate of change of the states of the various sciences and arts employed in the aerospace and military fields, the aging of some of our large laboratories (many of which are soon to enter their fourth decade of existence), the environment of inquiry into the effectiveness and productivity of laboratories in many organizations — industrial and governmental, the growth (or lack of growth) in university concentration and output across disciplines, and many others.