The Dramatic Function of the Gravediggers\u27 Scene in Hamlet

It is unfortunate that one of the scenes most often cut from contemporary productions of Hamlet is the first scene of Act V, the gravediggers\u27 scene. The scene is, after all, static; it is merely a lyrical passage which seems, at first, to delay the movement of the drama, and, at all events, to add nothing to it. The producer wants swift, forward-moving action, and, certainly, he finds little enough of what he wants in the almost perverse, but always fundamental, deliberateness of this play. Consequently, one of the first scenes to be eliminated is almost invariably this one, despite its trenchant, laconic prose, its macabre humor, and its mordant, cynical philosophy of ultimate disillusion. The scene, in itself, as a separate entity, is probably one of the most famous in Shakespeare. Certainly it contains the most often misquoted line in English literature ( Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio. ), as well as one of the funniest ( \u27Twill not be seen in him there (England); there the men are as mad as he. ). Perhaps the contemporary producer is short-sighted in cutting out the gravediggers\u27 scene; perhaps it does contribute, very definitely, to the tragedy, apart from its intrinsic excellence

Device for handling printed circuit cards Patent

Handling tool for printed circuit card

Survey of policy for MRSA screening in English cataract surgical units and changes to practice after updated National guidelines

National guidelines on MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) screening policy in England have changed on a number of occasions, but there is limited data on its influence at a local level. The aim of this study was to determine if changes in National policy influenced preoperative screening of cataract patients for MRSA

Positive and Negative Congruency Effects in Masked Priming: A Neuro-computational Model Based on Representation Strength and Attention

Positive priming effects have been found with a short time between the prime and the target, while negative priming effects (i.e., a congruent prime causes longer RTs) have been found with a long time between the prime and the target. In the current study, positive and negative priming effects were found using stimuli that have strong and weak representations, respectively, without changing the time between prime and target. A model was developed that fits our results. The model also fits a wide range of previous results in this area. In contrast to other approaches our model depends on attentional neuro-modulation not motor self-inhibition

GP prescribing of nicotine replacement and bupropion to aid smoking cessation in England and Wales

Aims Prescribing nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or bupropion for smoking cessation is of considerable importance to public health but little is known about prescribing practices. This paper examines general practitioners' (GPs') prescribing patterns in Britain where these drugs are reimbursed. The results have implications for other health-care systems considering introducing reimbursement.Design, participants and setting Postal survey conducted in 2002 of a random sample of 1088 GPs in England and Wales, of whom 642 (59%) responded.Measures Number of requests GPs reported having received from patients for NRT and bupropion over the past month, the number of prescriptions they reported issuing and ratings of attitudes to these medications.Findings GPs reported receiving an average of 4.3 requests for NRT and 1.9 for bupropion in the previous month. They reported issuing 3.5 prescriptions for NRT and 1.2 for bupropion. Almost all GPs accepted that NRT (95%) and bupropion (97%) should be reimbursable on National Health Service (NHS) prescription. However, a significant minority of those who received requests for prescriptions did not issue any (81% for NRT and 26% for bupropion). This was related to whether they thought these products should be available on NHS prescription for both NRT and bupropion (OR = 0.66, P < 0.05), which in turn was related to beliefs about whether smokers should have to pay for treatment themselves, the cost-effectiveness of NRT/bupropion and the low priority they would give NRT/bupropion in the drug budget. For bupropion, concern about side-effects independently predicted not prescribing [odds ratio (OR) = 1.46, P < 0.03].Conclusion In the British health-care system, which has a well-established system for technology assessment and professionally endorsed guidelines, a significant minority of GPs decline all patient requests for stop-smoking medicines

Description of historical crop calendar data bases developed to support foreign commodity production forecasting project experiments

The content, format, and storage of data bases developed for the Foreign Commodity Production Forecasting project and used to produce normal crop calendars are described. In addition, the data bases may be used for agricultural meteorology, modeling of stage sequences and planting dates, and as indicators of possible drought and famine

Normal crop calendars. Volume 1: Assembly and application of historical crop data to a standard product

The approach used in the collection, collation, and compilation of normal crop calendar for the foreign commodity production forecasting (FCPF) project of the AgRISTARS program is described