The article presents information on the American Accounting Association's members. Canada-based Queen's University R.G.H. Smails has resigned from the position of director of the School of Commerce and Business Administration. He will continue as professor. L.G. Macmason has been designated director. Maurice Moonitz, associate dean for the last three years at the University of California, served as acting dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration during the summer. Hector Anton has proceeded on leave for the current year for the purpose of filling a position on the faculty of the University of Minnesota. Carl T. Devin of the University of Florida and R.B. Mattessich of Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, are visiting members of the faculty for the academic year 1958-59. A.B. Cason has been promoted to the rank of professor. He is serving during the current academic year as acting chairman of the Department of Business Administration as well as acting associate dean of the School of Business Administration.

Distribution costs have certain unique characteristics that resist the refined tools of production accounting. Production accounting deals with quantitative, mechanical functions capable of physical measurement. Distribution accounting is confronted by qualitative functions incapable of finite measurement. The challenges confronting distribution accountants are the selection of functions, the allocation of primary expenses to functions, and the determination of service units. The selection of functions depends on the degree of cost control and cost responsibility desired. Accountants and distribution executives should determine the functions jointly. The task of subdividing primary expenses into functions becomes involved when an expense is common to one or more functions. This accounting trouble-area is frequently labeled "joint-cost problems." The application of production accounting tools to distribution problems proved inadequate and exposed the need for specialized distribution accounting techniques.