Lionel Billows (1909 – 2004): in memoriam

Lionel Billows, who died earlier this year at the age of ninety-four, was a pioneer of what came to be known as ‘situational language teaching’, the mainstream approach which preceded communicative language teaching in the British ELT tradition. He was best-known for his book Techniques of Language Teaching (1961), whose humanism and continuing interest value Maley (2001) has recently highlighted. Billows’ most notable practical achievement was his work as Education Officer for the British Council in South India between 1954 and 1960, when he conceived and initially directed a ‘campaign’ for the wholesale retraining of 28,000 Primary School teachers. This project has entered ELT mythology as the ‘Madras Snowball’, due to an article by Billows’ successor which unaccountably fails to mention his contribution (Smith 1962), but Billows himself disliked the term, preferring to call it instead the ‘MELT (Madras English Language Teaching) Campaign’

Logistic costs in the accounting system: the problem of identification and registration

In the article the problem of identification and registration of logistics costs in the accounting system was studied. Objects of accounting magnets of logistics costs were defined. The peculiarities of the individual components of logistics costs and their impact on the final financial result were revealed. The approaches to the classification of logistics costs were reviewed and the author’s approach to classification logistics costs, which minimize their subordinates goals and finding reserves to reduce within specific logistics system was offered

The Fatherhood Factor: The Impact of the Father-Child Relationship on the Social, Interpersonal, and Recidivism Risk Factors of Previously Incarcerated Men

Of the men who return home from prison, nearly 7 out of 10 will be re-arrested and sent back within 3 years of their release (Travis, Solomon, & Waul, 2001). This trend has large- scale implications, not just for individuals, but for their families and communities as well. Clearly, understanding the factors that contribute to a man’s success or failure in staying out of prison is extremely important in constructing policy and programs to assist these at-risk individuals and communities. Of the few studies that have explored the lives of previously incarcerated men, some have found fatherhood to be a salient factor (Arditti, Smock, & Parkman, 2005). The current study investigated this particular relationship by looking at the father’s perceived quality of the father-child bond, and how that relationship is related to the fathers’ risk for re-offending. The study also investigated the contribution that social and individual factors play in facilitating the father-child bond, as well as the contribution that those factors may make in predicting recidivism risk; specifically, the father’s own experience of being parented, the quality of communication they have with their child’s mother, their perception of social support, and individual factors associated with motivation to change. The study found empirical evidence to suggest that a positive father-child bond may reduce recidivism risk for previously incarcerated men. In addition, the study found that the father-child relationship may be a more significant predictor of recidivism risk than individual characteristics, intergenerational influences, co-parental communication, or social support alone. This evidence suggests that the father-child relationship is not only an important familial tie that can be correlated with better re-entry, but may be a potentially salient area for future intervention to aid this at-risk group of men, their families, and communities

Modified Appleby Procedure with Arterial Reconstruction for Locally Advanced Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma: A Literature Review and Report of Three Unusual Cases.

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic body and tail ductal adenocarcinomas are often diagnosed with local vascular invasion of the celiac axis (CA) and its various branches. With such involvement, these tumors have traditionally been considered unresectable. The modified Appleby procedure allows for margin negative resection of some such locally advanced tumors. This procedure involves distal pancreatectomy with en bloc splenectomy and CA resection and relies on the presence of collateral arterial circulation via an intact pancreaticoduodenal arcade and the gastroduodenal artery to maintain prograde hepatic arterial perfusion. When the resultant collateral circulation is inadequate to provide sufficient hepatic and gastric arterial inflow, arterial reconstruction (AR) is necessary to supercharge the inflow. Herein, we review all reported cases of AR with modified Appleby procedures that we have identified in the literature, and we report our experience of three recent cases with arterial reconstruction including two cases with arterial bypasses not requiring interposition grafting. METHODS: Perioperative and oncologic outcomes from our Institutional Review Board-approved database of pancreatic resections at the Thomas Jefferson University were reviewed. Additionally, PubMed search for cases of distal or total pancreatectomy with celiac axis resection and concurrent AR was performed. RESULTS: From the literature, 12 reports involving 28 patients were identified of distal and total pancreatectomy with AR after CA resection. The most common AR in the literature, performed in 12 patients, was a bypass from the aorta to the common hepatic artery (CHA) using a variety of interposition conduits. In our institutional experience, patient #1 had a primary side-to-end aorto-CHA bypass, patient #2 had a primary end-to-end bypass of the transected distal CHA to the left gastric artery in the setting a replaced left hepatic artery, and patient #3 required an aortic to proper hepatic artery bypass with saphenous vein graft and portal venous reconstruction. All patients recovered from their operations without ischemic complications, and they are currently 16, 15, and 13 months post-op, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The criteria for resectability in patients with locally advanced pancreatic body and tail neoplasms are expanding due to increasing experience with AR in the setting of the modified Appleby procedure. When performing AR, primary arterial re-anastomosis may be considered preferable to interposition grafting as it decreases the potential for the infectious and thrombotic complications associated with conduits and it reduces the number of vascular anastomoses from two to one. Consideration must also be given to normal variant anatomy of the hepatic circulation during operative planning as the origin of the left gastric artery is resected with the CA. The modified Appleby procedure with AR, when used in appropriately selected patients, offers the potential for safe, margin negative resection of locally advanced pancreatic body and tail tumors

The fields o\u27 Ballyclare

https://digitalcommons.ithaca.edu/sheetmusic/1209/thumbnail.jp

The late Holocene palaeoenvironment in the lake Njupi area, west Cameroon : implications regarding the history of lake Nyos

Le lac Njupi, au sein de la ligne volcanique du Cameroun, s'est constitué par barrage d'une dépression à 1 km à l'est du lac Nyos. Les deux sondages du lac Nyos analysés ont traversé les sédiments déposés au marges du lac. Les dépôts les plus anciens sont datés à 3400 BP, cet âge est proposé comme un minimum pour l'apparition du lac Njupi. Des études sédimentologiques, palynologiques et géochimiques d'une coupe de 2 m permettent de reconstituer l'histoire fini-holocène de cet environnement. Il s'agit d'un dépôt tourbeux (plus de 30% de carbone organique) avec une importante fraction de spicules silicieux de Spongiaires. La sédimentation a été relativement régulière, entrecoupée seulement durant les 800 ans du dépôt, de cinq lamines plus grossières caractérisées par des grains de quartz et de gros débris ligneux. Ces flux sont soulignés par des concentrations de carbohydrates ou parfois par des composés phénoliques bien conservés. Cette étude confirme et précise l'existence d'une phase aride qui s'intensifie ici entre 2500 et 2000 ans BP. Cette crise climatique qui a débuté vers 3000 ans BP est, en fait, très générale dans l'Afrique centrale Atlantique (sud Cameroun). Le lac Njupi, situé aujourd'hui dans un paysage essentiellement composé de savanes d'où sa dénomination de "Grass Fields", permet d'observer avant 2500 ans BP un paysage mixte de forêts et savane en mosaïque, puis son évolution vers une savane avec quelques îlots forestiers, couvert défini alors par 75% à 85% de pollens herbacés. La végétation montagnarde, caractérisée par #Podocarpus et #Olea capensis, régresse vers 2300 ans BP, au moment où #Elaeis guineensis$ (le Palmier à Huile) initie son expansion, d'abord comme un arbre pionnier, offrant ainsi ultérieurement à l'Homme l'opportunité de sa culture. (Résumé d'auteur