To understand the meaning of disability for children, parents and providers in Bulgaria, Latvia and Russia

This research was commissioned by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre as part of a larger MONEE (Monitoring Eastern Europe) project covering countries in transition – the 27 nations of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The MONEE Social Report combines qualitative and quantitative material in the 2005 Publication 'Children and Disability in Transition' (www.unicef-icdc.org) This paper is concerned with analysing in depth the findings from the qualitative research as the basis for recommendations that keep the voices of children, young people, families and medical and social care providers at the heart of the policy process. This research was conducted in three countries – Russia, Latvia and Bulgaria. The reason for choosing these three countries in consultation with the networking group included the issue of children's rights for children with disabilities in Russia which has been widely reported (UNICEF 1999, 2003). As the largest CIS country, Russia's influence in policy and practice in other neighbouring countries is likely to be significant. Latvia was one of the CEE countries who joined the EU in May 2004 and Bulgaria hope to join the EU in 2007. Thus these three countries are in different stages of transition. The organisations and systems for supporting disabled children are likely to be influenced by political and market transitions and these three countries are interesting examples from which to explore the concept of transition as it relates to disabled children and their families. The theoretical model that informs this research is concerned with applying the social model of disability to families rather than individuals. The structures, policies and processes that cause frustration and disappointment affect the whole family not just the disabled child (Dowling and Dolan 2001). The social model applied in this context aims to combat the past medical and educational ideology of 'defectology' – seeing children with disabilities as defective models – which has been evidenced particularly in Russia but also all other former communist countries (Grigorenko 1998). Defectology as a professional discourse has isolated children from their families and created hostility between medical providers and parents who believe that their disabled children have been taken away from them because professionals believed it was in the best interests of their child to do so. Many of the challenges that are described by children, young people, parents and providers are challenges that need social policy not medical solutions. Medical solutions are also very important for these children. However equally important is the need for medical and social practitioners to work alongside each other, despite their professional and theoretical differences, to provide the best social, emotional and physical opportunities for children with disabilities

Monte-Carlo generator for e+e- annihilation into lepton and hadron pairs with precise radiative corrections

Recently, various cross sections of e+e- annihilation into hadrons were accurately measured in the energy range from 0.37 to 1.39 GeV with the CMD-2 detector at the VEPP-2M collider. In the pi+pi- channel a systematic uncertainty of 0.6% has been achieved. A Monte-Carlo Generator Photon Jets (MCGPJ) was developed to simulate events of the Bhabha scattering as well as production of two charged pions, kaons and muons. Based on the formalism of Structure Functions, the leading logarithmic contributions related to the emission of photon jets in the collinear region are incorporated into the MC generator. Radiative corrections (RC) in the first order of alpha are accounted for exactly. The theoretical precision of the cross sections with RC is estimated to be better than 0.2%. Numerous tests of the program as well as comparison with other MC generators and CMD-2 experimental data are presented.Comment: LaTeX, 23 pages with 18 figure

Electroweak corrections to top-quark pair production in quark--antiquark annihilation

Top-quark physics plays an important role at hadron colliders such as the Tevatron at Fermilab or the LHC at CERN. Given the planned precision at these colliders, precise theoretical predictions are required. In this paper we present the complete electroweak corrections to QCD-induced top-quark pair production in quark--antiquark annihilation. In particular we provide compact analytic expressions for the differential partonic cross section, which will be useful for further theoretical investigations

Monte Carlo simulation for radiative kaon decays

For high precision measurements of K decays, the presence of radiated photons cannot be neglected. The Monte Carlo simulations must include the radiative corrections in order to compute the correct event counting and efficiency calculations. In this paper we briefly describe a method for simulating such decays.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur

Dinnerfor1

'Dinnerfor1' is a 4 monitor video and sound installation which was first exhibited at the British Council Berlin as part of Transmediale Berlin in February 2005. DinnerFor1 is a woman talking to you. Her questions (isolated from the replies using fictional and factual texts) are often universal, so that a viewer is directly engaged: each set of questions is taken from a different source, connoting different strata of society and areas of (public) life. These range from the sensationalist interview into Princess Diana’s private life, through the enquiry into the justification of the Second Gulf War with questions asked of Dr Kelly, the cross examination of Oscar Wilde at his trials to subversive snippets from Wilde’s Importance of Being Ernest. The project consists of four looped videos, entitled the play, the committee, the trial and the interview. DinnerFor1 examines and highlights national identities and their stereotypes in a medium accessible internationally and reflects on the possibilities of communication with virtual acquaintances through the computer and television screen. It was inspired by the cult German television production from 1963, based on a British vaudeville sketch from the 1920s. Dinner for One holds the record for repeated television screenings in Germany. This sketch, starring Freddie Frinton and May Warden, has been shown every New Year’s Eve since 1972. Over the decades it has impressed a vision of the British upon viewers in Germany and other European countries. And yet this TV-production from 1963 is unknown within the UK. The setting of the piece as a permanent online installation and the venues and cities chosen for exhibition (British Council Berlin, Goethe Institute London and Goethe Institute Dublin) reflect and test the complexity of inter-national cultural relations and exchange. Dinnerfor1 was purchased by the Verbund Collection Vienna, in 2006

Digital age: challenges for libraries

Information technology and globalization are the two most influential forces of the modern times. IT has given new meanings to the transmission, dissemination and storage of information; whereas globalisation is reducing the importance of geographical boundaries. Libraries as an important social institution have been affected by these changes. Information retrieval, information storage and information transmission are the core competencies of the libraries. Digital age characterized by efficient graphic user interface, digital imaging, efficient transfer and storage of texts, is presenting important challenges for the libraries. Information privacy, copyrights, and information security are some of the challenging issues faced by the libraries in digital age. This paper is an attempt to present as well as to discuss the implications of these issues so that strategies can be devised to address them effectively and efficiently

Ego & eXtreme programming in the libre software context

NUL

Ubiquitous computing and knowledge management

MOBIlearn is a large European research project to develop a mobile learning system to facilitate formal, non formal and informal learning. The project has two primary objectives: • Develop a methodology for creating mobile learning scenarios and producing learning objects to implement them. • Develop the technology to deliver the learning objects to users via mobile computing devices. This paper will concentrate the MOBIlearn health care domain. One of this applications main objectives is managing and sharing of tacit knowledge. Using the system participants discuss case studies and alternative approaches to specific problems are evaluated and documented. This is then used and extended in future case studies. In a mobile learning environment, individual health workers can use the system to either advanced their skills, or in a ‘live’ incident, use it for reference and indeed call for backup.</p

CORRELATION OF FINE NEEDLE ASPIRATION AND FINAL HISTOPATHOLOGY IN THYROID DISEASE: A SERIES OF 702 PATIENTS MANAGED IN AN ENDOCRINE SURGICAL UNIT

Thyroid nodules are a common clinical entity found among the adult general population. With increasing use of imaging investigations like ultrasonography, there has been a significant rise in the detection of non-palpable thyroid nodules that require further evaluation and management. The routine use of FNAC has reduced the number of unnecessary surgical procedures for thyroid nodules. Taking a decision as to whether to operate on a thyroid nodule is dependent on accurate FNAC testing. This study describes the experience with FNAC in a consecutive series of patients with thyroid nodules who underwent thyroidectomy at a tertiary care hospital in the department of endocrine surgery.