sions both of a paper presented by Major Gen. George Olmsted, chairman and president of the International Bank, at a Washington, D.C., meeting of the Society for Advancement of Management, and of a study of U.S. operations overseas by Handy Associates, Inc., a New York-based consulting firm specializing in executive search. Gen. Olmsted points out that production from U.S.-owned facilities overseas has a total value of $120 billion per year—an amount that would be third on a national scale after the domestic production of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. However, in many areas U.S. companies are facing competition from foreign firms that are bigger and more powerful than they are. Hence, the general reasons, U.S. companies can no longer succeed overseas if they just try to exploit resources, control managements, and dominate markets. "We must be willing to share ownership, control, and management with the nationals in other countries where we operate." "While seeking the most efficient management techniques," he continues, "we must learn to speak the languages and accept the established customs which are traditional and precious to the people in other countries, realizing that our way is not always the best simply because it is the American way." Elaborating on this same point, the Handy Associates report points out that there is still a certain type of U.S. management man who condones or even sympathizes with a disdainful or contemptuous attitude toward the nationals in the overseas affiliate. The study was conducted by Handy managing director George B. Baan and based on interviews with 245 executives of 50 client companies seeking individuals for overseas assignment. The study points out that many U.S. companies are actively pressing the search for top nationals qualified to take major profit-making responsibilities. But there are not enough to go around. Because of this shortage, a breed of "international" American is developing. The main function of this new management man is to train, counsel, advise, and subtly guide foreign managers. He is responsible for imparting modern American business techniques to his national counterpart. This special type of American must possess extraordinary tact and finesse as well as a profit-making ability. "What we are really seeking is the man of good will," Mr. Baan explains. The basis for success of an international American is understanding others and sympathy with their ideas.
ACS, other groups join AID in nutrition program A group of six scientific organizations, including ACS, has signed an agreement with the Agency for International Development (AID) by which the organizations will provide information and assist in solving technical problems in nutrition programs in the developing areas of the world. Shown signing the agreement in the photo above are AID administrator William Gaud (seated, left) and Arthur Prater, of the Institute of Food Technologists. Looking on are representatives of the participating organizations, including (left to right) Irwin Hedges, of AID'S Office of the War on Hunger; Dr. O. L. Kline, American Institute of Nutrition; R. C. Stillman, American Oil Chemists' Society; Dr. Louis Lykken, ACS; Dr. Albert Elder, Volunteers for International Technical Assistance; Raymond Tarleton, American Association of Cereal Chemists; and Dr. Herman Brooks James, AID'S Office of the War on Hunger. Incorporated as the League for International Food Education (LIFE), the consortium will act as a clearinghouse for advice and information on food technology, nutritional aspects of public health, clinical evaluation, and the use of mass communications.
Copper strike may have caused lost copper markets Copper producers may have lost about 560 million pounds of copper sales as a result of the prolonged 1967 copper strike, according to a market study by Herman B. Director Associates, Inc. The study also says that, while the permanency of this loss is presently only conjecture, the 1966-67 trends indicate that building products, electrical machinery, and component parts markets will be hard put to regain their losses. A key assumption of the Director Associates study is that copper use in end products would have remained at 1965's levels had there been no strike. Unit consumptions below the 1965 levels indicate market losses from design changes in the various final end products. Decreasing per-unit use of copper or its alloys can be attributed to substitutions with materials such as aluminum and plastics. To estimate copper consumption for 1965, 1966, and 1967, the Director organization made three sets of adjustments to the Bureau of Census net totals of brass mill domestic shipments (excluding electric wire mills,
foundries, and powder mills). These adjustments are: • Shipments made to jobbers, dealers, and distributors were redistributed to actual consuming markets by supplying appropriate patterns developed by Director Associates. • Quantities for end uses not identified were excluded. • Inventory increases over the 1965 level were subtracted from 1966 and 1967 shipments to copper users before actual consumptions were compared.
Copper strike cost market penetration 1967 estimated sales volume loss Quantity (Millions of Per pounds) cent
Building products Machinery, parts, and supplies (electrical)
352.0 90.5
Component parts
50.1 492.6
Total Source:
41% 23
16
Herman B. Director Associates, Inc.
JUNE 24, 1968 C&EN 13
brain. In rat brain, under the conditions of their experiments, the two scientists say, the acetylcholinelike activity determined by bioassay can be quantitatively accounted for by acetylcholine itself. So far, Dr. Holmstedt and Dr. Jenden have experimented only with rats and have used whole brains. Presumably, however, they will find acetylcholine present in brain tissue from other mammals, including brain tissue of man.
Vast reserves of potash still remain on earth
Cast copper billets Hard put to regain losses
These adjustments result in an estimated consumption of 3.3 billion pounds of copper in 1966 and 2.6 billion pounds in 1967. On the other hand, the potential markets based on 1965 penetration figures were estimated to be 3.4 billion pounds in 1966 and 3.1 billion pounds in 1967. Director Associates concludes that the 1966 loss in copper markets was 3 % , or 99.4 million pounds, and in 1967 the loss rose to a sobering 18%, or 561.2 million pounds. In individual market categories, building products lost 4 1 % , machinery parts and supplies 2 3 % , and component parts 16% of markets that could have existed had 1965 consumption patterns been maintained. The most affected shape was unalloyed pipe and tube, with alloyed rod, bar, and mechanical wire also seriously affected, according to the report.
Acetylcholine's presence in rat brain tissue confirmed Acetylcholine, biochemically important because it serves as the chemical transmitter of nerve impulses in the autonomic chain and apparently plays a similar role in the brain, has been isolated and positively identified in brain tissue for the first time. Using the combined gas chromatographicmass spectrometric (GC-MS) technique, a Swedish-American research team completed its determination of acetylcholine's presence in rat brain just 20 days ago at the Karolinska Institute^ Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Bo Holmstedt, head of the department of toxicology at the institute, and Dr. Donald J. Jenden, professor of pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles, announced their 14 C&EN JUNE 24, 1968
finding at a conference, organized by the National Research Council, on applications of newer physical techniques to drug metabolism, held at the National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Md. For several decades, Dr. Jenden says, scientists have assumed that acetylcholine is present in the brain. But the evidence—bioassay results or a spot or peak on a chromatogram—has been only circumstantial. What distinguishes the Swedish-American work, he points out, is that it is a rigorous chemical identification. It also illustrates the technical advances since acetylcholine was first isolated and identified in animal tissue. Some 40 years ago, about 40 kg. of horse spleen was required for analysis. In the latest effort, only 200 mg. of starting material, fresh rat brain, was necessary. Working from rat brain frozen 30 seconds after the rat is killed, the Swedish-American team extracts an acetylcholine fraction. Next comes a key step. Because acetylcholine is nonvolatile and cannot be analyzed by gas chromatography, Dr. Jenden, Dr. Israel Hanin, and Dr. Sandra I. Lamb developed a method at UCLA for quantitative formation in micro quantities of an acetylcholine derivative. By successfully applying a general reaction described two years ago for removing a methyl group from quaternary nitrogen by sodium benzenethiolate, they convert acetylcholine to dimethylaminoethyl acetate. Gas chromatography then resolves this derivative from other components. The derivative is then positively identified by the mass spectrometer. The mass spectrometer results, Dr. Holmstedt explains, rule out two other substances—propionyl- and butyrylcholine—thought to be present in the
Enough known minable reserves of potash are scattered around the earth to meet man's needs until the year 3650, an Anaconda Co. geologist told a symposium last week in Muscle Shoals, Ala. Dr. Samuel S. Adams says total reserves work out to 48 billion metric tons of potassium as K 2 0. Around 90% of this tonnage is sylvinite (NaCl-KCl) and carnallite (a KC1NaCl complex). Speaking before about 300 potash specialists at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Fertilizer Development Center, Dr. Adams said the largest known deposits in the world today are Canada's recently opened Devonian prairie evaporite formation covering Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, dipping also into North Dakota. By 1970, eight companies, including International Minerals and Chemical, which opened up the area in 1962, will be mining and refining this highgrade material. Annual production capacity from the Canadian find is expected to be over 6 million metric tons as K 2 0 , or 307c of world potash production. The deposits are so rich, thick, uniformly mineralized, and undeformed that the 3000-foot depth to the main ore body should offer no economic obstacles. Elsewhere in Canada, low-grade sylvinite and carnallite are being sampled in Nova Scotia. And oil drilling operations have turned up possibilities of other potash sources on Arctic islands. "This may be the last major world evaporite basin to be explored adequately," Dr. Adams says. The chief reserves in the U.S. are the sylvinite deposits at Carlsbad, N.M. These were first mined by U.S. Borax and Chemical in 1931. Six other companies now operate there. While brines do not constitute a major domestic potash source today. Dr. Adams points out that they could become a major contributor to U.S. production in the future. American Potash and Chemical at Searles,
