Humanitarian Mine Action in Northern Iraq

Through sustained efforts, the Mines Advisory Group has made significant progress in the demining of war-torn Northern Iraq. Cooperation with local villagers has been a key to their success

Numerical Solutions to Two-Dimensional Integration Problems

This paper presents numerical solutions to integration problems with bivariate integrands. Using equally spaced nodes in Adaptive Simpson\u27s Rule as a base case, two ways of sampling the domain over which the integration will take place are examined. Drawing from Ouellette and Fiume, Voronoi sampling is used along both axes of integration and the corresponding points are used as nodes in an unequally spaced degree two Newton-Cotes method. Then the domain of integration is triangulated and used in the Triangular Prism Rules discussed by Limaye. Finally, both of these techniques are tested by running simulations over heavily oscillatory and monomial (up to degree five) functions over polygonal regions

Community Liaison in Mine Action: Partnerships for Growth

Using a Community Liaison model that emphasizes community participation, Mines Advisory Group (MAG) prioritises minefield clearance to lessen landmines’ impact on communities in Angola

"Roots" Nationalism: Branding English Canada Cool in the 1980s and 1990s

In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Canadian nationalists worried about the influence of the United States on Canada’s economy and foreign policy, and worked to promote and protect Canadian culture. This phase of nationalism is often seen to have come to an end with the election of Brian Mulroney in 1984 and the signing of the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement in 1988. In fact, Canadian nationalism did not disappear in the 1980s, but it did change form, moving away from cultural and economic concerns to take on a more consumer-oriented and branded nature, exemplified here by the tremendous success of the company “Roots”. With its liberal use of Canadian symbols — beavers, canoes, and maple leaves — Roots allowed Canadians to purchase identity and proudly display their country’s cool image to the rest of the world. “Roots nationalism” was a product of the globalizing world economy, of the growing emphasis on branded clothing and lifestyles, and of the particularities of the national crisis in Canada.Dans les années 1950, 1960 et 1970, les nationalistes canadiens craignaient l’influence des États-Unis sur l’économie et sur la politique étrangère du Canada et ils se sont attachés à promouvoir et à protéger la culture canadienne. Beaucoup estiment que cette phase du nationalisme s’est éteinte avec l’élection de Brian Mulroney en 1984 et avec la signature de l’Accord de libre-échange en 1988. En fait, le nationalisme canadien n’a pas rendu l’âme dans les années 1980, changeant plutôt d’habits pour laisser choir sa livrée économique et culturelle afin de loger davantage à l’enseigne de la consommation et des marques de commerce, comme en témoigne le succès phénoménal de la compagnie Roots. L’usage abondant de symboles canadiens – castors, canots et feuille d’érable – par l’entreprise a permis aux Canadiens de s’acheter de l’identité et de montrer fièrement l’image branchée de leur pays au restant de la planète. Le « nationalisme à la Roots » fut un produit de la mondialisation de l’économie, de la place grandissante des vêtements et styles de vie de gravitant autour des marques et des particularités de la crise identitaire canadienne

Immunological studies in diabetes mellitus

The studies presented here were all undertaken in the labor- atories of Dr. W. James Irvine, Reader in Medicine, University of Edinburgh. Dr. Irvine kindly permitted me access to his technical facilities and arranged for help and tuition in laboratory techniques from his permanent staff. He suggested avenues along which new research should be directed and gave active help and support in submitting applications for research grants. Above all, he gave me the benefit of his own immense expertise in the field of medical immunology, in which he is an international authority. It was a privilege to work with him and I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.Professor K.W. Donald, University of Edinburgh, was good enough to allow me to spend a prolonged period in laboratory -based research during my tenure of a senior registrarship in his department. More- over he actively encouraged the work and lent the weight of his support to applications for research grants. I could not have engaged in work of this nature without his assistance and advice and I am grateful to him for all his kindness.Substantial finance assistance for many of the studies presented here was obtained from research grants made (jointly or separately) to Dr. Irvine and myself by the Medical Research Council, the Scottish Home and Health Department and the South- Eastern Regional Hospital Board. These grants were quite invaluable in allowing the purchase of expensive equipment and reagents and in providing finance for trained technical help. To all these bodies I extend my thanks and my gratitude for their support.e studies of immunology in diabetes mellitus which form the basis of this thesis were performed upon patients attending the Diabetic Department, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, under the care of Dr. L.J.P. Duncan and Dr. B.F. Clarke. Drs. Duncan and Clarke spent many years in teaching me the rudiments of clinical diabetes mellitus and were good enough to allow me an unlimited facility to study the patients under their care. Meaningful studies of immuno- logy in diabetes could not have been undertaken without access to their patients and I am extremely grateful for their help and support as well as their tuitionMany other friends and colleagues collaborated in some of the studies presented here. Their contributions are acknowledged individually in the relevant chapters but I would extend particular thanks to Dr. W.J. Penhale, Senior MRC Research Worker, who taught me a great deal of basic immunology, initiated and directed the development of one particular assay system used in the work and was an authoritative source of information on difficult technical questions

Older and wiser? Men’s and women’s accounts of drinking in early mid-life

Most qualitative research on alcohol focuses on younger rather than older adults. To explore older people’s relationship with alcohol, we conducted eight focus groups with 36 men and women aged 35 to 50 years in Scotland, UK. Initially, respondents suggested that older drinkers consume less alcohol, no longer drink to become drunk and are sociable drinkers more interested in the taste than the effects of alcohol. However, as discussions progressed, respondents collectively recounted recent drunken escapades, challenged accounts of moderate drinking, and suggested there was still peer pressure to drink. Some described how their drinking had increased in mid-life but worked hard discursively to emphasise that it was age and stage appropriate (i.e. they still met their responsibilities as workers and parents). Women presented themselves as staying in control of their drinking while men described going out with the intention of getting drunk (although still claiming to meet their responsibilities). While women experienced peer pressure to drink, they seemed to have more options for socialising without alcohol than did men. Choosing not to drink alcohol is a behaviour that still requires explanation in early mid-life. Harm reduction strategies should pay more attention to drinking in this age group

Disability and Citizenship in the Life and Fiction of Jean Little

Jean Little was one of the first children's authors to deal extensively with issues of disability. Her views towards disability were affected by her own experience of visual impairment, but also by her family's missionary work abroad and their commitment to social justice at home. While disability historians have often stressed the development of the "social model" of disability as being key to the creation of a disability rights movement, this paper suggests that disabled activism also had much to do with Canada's emerging self-definition as a place that stressed the importance of good citizenship, equality and inclusion. Jean Little a été une des premières auteures pour enfants à traiter abondamment de questions liées aux handicaps. Ses opinions à ce sujet ont certes été influencées par sa propre déficience visuelle, mais aussi par le travail missionnaire de sa famille à l'étranger et l'engagement de celle-ci envers la justice sociale au pays. Les historiens du handicap ont souvent mis l'accent sur la conception du > de handicap comme élément fondateur du mouvement pour les droits des personnes handicapées, or le présent article suggère que l'activisme handicapé a aussi eu beaucoup à voir avec l'émergence de la notion canadienne de pays qui défend le civisme, l'égalité et l'inclusion

The Turtle Head Immobilization System (THIS): A Tool for Faster and Safer Handling and Processing of Aggressive Turtle Species

The turtle head immobilization tool (THIS) is an efficient and cost effective tool to aid in the processing of large, aggressive turtles such as the Eastern Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina). THIS aids in the reduction of aggressive behaviors by calming the animal during processing and minimizing injuries to the turtle and handlers. This simple tool also streamlines the processing itself, by allowing researchers to focus on measurements and markings, instead of having to maintain the constant vigilance often needed to work safely around these animals

What's in a compound? Review article on Lieber and Štekauer (eds) 2009. 'The Oxford Handbook of Compounding'

The Oxford Handbook of Compounding surveys a variety of theoretical and descriptive issues, presenting overviews of compounding in a number of frameworks and sketches of compounding in a number of languages. Much of the book deals with Germanic noun–noun compounding. I take up some of the theoretical questions raised surrounding such constructions, in particular, the notion of attributive modification in noun-headed compounds. I focus on two issues. The first is the semantic relation between the head noun and its nominal modifier. Several authors repeat the argument that there is a small(-ish) fixed number of general semantic relations in noun–noun compounds (‘Lees's solution’), but I argue that the correct way to look at such compounds is what I call ‘Downing's solution’, in which we assume that the relation is specified pragmatically, and hence could be any relation at all. The second issue is the way that adjectives modify nouns inside compounds. Although there are languages in which compounded adjectives modify just as they do in phrases (Chukchee, Arleplog Swedish), in general the adjective has a classifier role and not that of a compositional attributive modifier. Thus, even if an English (or German) adjective–noun compound looks compositional, it isn't