DESIGNING QUESTIONNAIRES FOR USE IN MULTICULTURAL CONTEXTS

Measurement is an integral part of the assessment process in social work. Whether or not this isdone formally, social workers inevitably quantify the functioning of client systems duringassessment: “This community lacks access to social resources; this family experiences highlevels of conflict; this person has a severe drug addiction.” All of these statements, typical ofsocial work assessments, involve measurement

Mixing Chiral Polytopes

An abstract polytope of rank n is said to be chiral if its automorphism group has two orbits on the flags, such that adjacent flags belong to distinct orbits. Examples of chiral polytopes have been difficult to find. A "mixing" construction lets us combine polytopes to build new regular and chiral polytopes. By using the chirality group of a polytope, we are able to give simple criteria for when the mix of two polytopes is chiral

Room Temperature Organic Superconductor?

The electron--phonon coupling in fullerene C28 has been calculated from first principles. The value of the associated coupling constant lambda/N(0) is found to be a factor three larger than that associated with C60. Assuming similar values of the density of levels at the Fermi surface N(0) and of the Coulomb pseudopotential for C28-based solids as those associated with alkali-doped fullerides A3C60, one obtains Tc(C28) \approx 8 Tc(C60).Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Memorie di guerra. Verso la riapertura del Bunker della Prefettura e della Torre delle Sirene di Milano

L’articolo tratta del percorso avviato da Città Metropolitana di Milano, in sinergia con il Politecnico di Milano, per restituire alla cittadinanza la Torre delle Sirene – sede della centrale di comando dell’allarme antiaereo della città di Milano – e il Bunker della Prefettura. Si tratta di due manufatti, comunicanti tra loro, particolarmente significativi per il ricordo della seconda guerra mondiale e, soprattutto, della vita quotidiana dei civili sotto assedio, condizione che ancora oggi accomuna numerose popolazioni nel mondo. Entrambi gli edifici sono in stato di abbandono e degrado da diversi anni, ma permangono ancora diverse tracce del passato utilizzo. Il percorso di riapertura appare oggi complesso, sia per i caratteri tecno-tipologici e localizzativi, che per la mancanza di risorse dedicate. L’obiettivo è la trasformazione dell’ex-centro nevralgico del sistema milanese di allerta antiaerea, in epicentro di un nuovo sistema di allerta collettivo sul tema della guerra, che operi proprio attraverso la memoria degli eventi passati. Inoltre, questo potrebbe divenire il polo del più ampio e diffuso sistema del patrimonio dei rifugi cittadini: un network di beni tangibili e intangibili, organizzati secondo una logica comune di valorizzazione della memoria, per far crescere la cultura della pace e realizzare un itinerario culturale nella città fondato sui valori della Storia.The paper concerns the project, promoted by Metropolitan city and Polytechnic university of Milan, of returning to public use Torre delle Sirene – seat of the Milan air-raid alert control unit – and Bunker della Prefettura. Two buildings connected to each other and very significant as memories of the Second World War and, most of all, of the ordinary life of civilian people under siege, a condition still regarding so many people around the world at present. Both the buildings have been neglected and deteriorated since a few years, but they still preserve traces of the past use. The reopening project is difficult due both to the typological and location characters of the buildings and to the lack of available financial resources. The objective of the project is to transform the former central point of the air-raid defence system into the epicentre of a new collective alert system on the topic of war, operating through memories of the past. Moreover, this could become the centre of a wider and widespread heritage system of local air-raid shelters: a network of material and immaterial goods organized by the common logic of enhancing memory, in order to strengthen the culture of peace and realize in the city a cultural itinerary based on historical values

Malignant tumors of the temporal bone - our experience

INTRODUCTION: Malignant tumors of the temporal bone are rare, with an estimated incidence of about 0.8-1.0 per 1,000,000 inhabitants per year. The vast majority of these tumors are squamous cell carcinomas and their treatment is eminently surgical. OBJECTIVE: This study is an attempt at systematizing the forms of clinical presentation, the therapeutic possibilities, and oncological outcomes of patients with malignant tumors of the temporal bone in a tertiary hospital in Portugal. METHODS: The authors present a retrospective study of temporal bone tumors treated and followed during otorhinolaryngology consultations between 2004 and 2014. A review of the literature is also included. RESULTS: Of the 18 patients included in the study, 16 had a primary tumor of the temporal bone, in most cases with squamous cell carcinoma histology. Of these, 13 patients were treated with curative intent that always included the surgical approach. Disease persistence was observed in one patient and local recurrence in five patients, on average 36.8 months after the initial treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The anatomical complexity of the temporal bone and the close associations with vital structures make it difficult to perform tumor resection with margins of safety and thus, tumor relapses are almost always local. A high level of suspicion is crucial for early diagnosis, and stringent and prolonged follow-up after treatment is essential for diagnosis and timely treatment of recurrances.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Brassinosteroid signaling directs formative cell divisions and protophloem differentiation in Arabidopsis root meristems.

Brassinosteroids (BRs) trigger an intracellular signaling cascade through its receptors BR INSENSITIVE 1 (BRI1), BRI1-LIKE 1 (BRL1) and BRL3. Recent studies suggest that BR-independent inputs related to vascular differentiation, for instance root protophloem development, modulate downstream BR signaling components. Here, we report that protophloem sieve element differentiation is indeed impaired in bri1 brl1 brl3 mutants, although this effect might not be mediated by canonical downstream BR signaling components. We also found that their small meristem size is entirely explained by reduced cell elongation, which is, however, accompanied by supernumerary formative cell divisions in the radial dimension. Thus, reduced cell expansion in conjunction with growth retardation, because of the need to accommodate supernumerary formative divisions, can account for the overall short root phenotype of BR signaling mutants. Tissue-specific re-addition of BRI1 activity partially rescued subsets of these defects through partly cell-autonomous, partly non-cell-autonomous effects. However, protophloem-specific BRI1 expression essentially rescued all major bri1 brl1 brl3 root meristem phenotypes. Our data suggest that BR perception in the protophloem is sufficient to systemically convey BR action in the root meristem context

Social work students’ experience and management of countertransference

Countertransference – the emotional reactions that clients trigger in practitioners – can, when not understood or managed, result in unethical conduct and harm to clients, practitioners and the profession. A solid understanding of countertransference theory, insight into one’s countertransference reactions and skills in managing countertransference appropriately are a vital component of ethical and effective social work practice. This paper reports on a small qualitative study among undergraduate social work students. Results reveal that countertransference is indeed experienced by students, but poorly understood and sometimes inappropriately managed. Recommendations for social work education, field instruction and supervision are provided

How fast is the linear chain trick? A rigorous analysis in the context of behavioral epidemiology

A prototype SIR model with vaccination at birth is analyzed in terms of the stability of its endemic equilibrium. The information available on the disease influences the parents' decision on whether vaccinate or not. This information is modeled with a delay according to the Erlang distribution. The latter includes the degenerate case of fading memory as well as the limiting case of concentrated memory. The linear chain trick is the essential tool used to investigate the general case. Besides its novel analysis and that of the concentrated case, it is showed that through the linear chain trick a distributed delay approaches a discrete delay at a linear rate. A rigorous proof is given in terms of the eigenvalues of the associated linearized problems and extension to general models is also provided. The work is completed with several computations and relevant experimental results

A critical review of South African child and youth resilience studies, 2009-2017

Abstract: In contexts of high levels of structural disadvantage, such as South Africa, resilience among children and youth becomes increasingly important to buffer children and youth from the negative effects of adversity. This article reports on a systematic review of research conducted in South Africa over the period 2009 to 2017 on the resilience of children and youth (ages 0 to 24) from the perspectives of young people themselves. It serves as a follow-up and refinement of an earlier publication in 2010. A total of 61 journal articles are reviewed. Four categories of social-ecological resilience-enablers emerge from these study, viz. personal, relational, structural and spiritual/cultural. Most of the resilience-enablers identified in these studies are in the personal and relational domains. Various reasons for this finding are discussed, and emerging recommendations for service professionals (particularly social worker and educational psychologists) and youth resilience researchers are advanced

Applying Multiple Imputation with Geostatistical Models to Account for Item Nonresponse in Environmental Data

Methods proposed to solve the missing data problem in estimation procedures should consider the type of missing data, the missing data mechanism, the sampling design and the availability of auxiliary variables correlated with the process of interest. This article explores the use of geostatistical models with multiple imputation to deal with missing data in environmental surveys. The method is applied to the analysis of data generated from a probability survey to estimate Coho salmon abundance in streams located in western Oregon watersheds