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The study describes the advantages of using the positioning of the prosthesis in the pre-peritoneal space by a posterior approach in the repair of inguinal hernia. The research was carried out on 388 patients (372 (96%) men and 16 (4%) women), who had undergone hernioplasties with the insertion of a polypropylene prosthesis by a preperitoneal approach, between January 1994 and December 1996. 216 of these patients (56%) had an indirect inguinal hernia, 94 (24%) a direct inguinal hernia and 78 (20%) a double inguinal hernia (direct and indirect). In 21 cases (6%) it was a recurrent hernia. The following clinical parameters were considered: pain, sensitivity of the inguinal region, testicular pathology, wound pathology and recurrence. 384 patients out of 388 (99%) were discharged at latest one day after the operation. On average the patients went back to work 6 days after the operation. All the patients were checked at least three times out of four, with follow-ups at 30 days, 6 months, 1 year and 2 years after the operation. In 13 patients (1.8%) there was a minor complication, in 3 patients (0.8%) we found an early recurrence due to technical error. We consider that positioning the prosthesis in the preperitoneal space using this minimally invasive procedure can be carried out easily and with very good clinical results in terms of typical early and/or late complications, which range from 2% to 20% by the anterior approach.

The two main constrains on the characteristics of the acousto-optic deflector are the acoustic sound attenuation and velocity. These two parameters will determine the resolution and the radio frequency bandwidth.

The ammonia emission associated with southern galacticHii regions have been studied. Some physical parameters, computed for each individual sources, were derived and a brief discussion follows.

Solar mappings with moderate angular resolution at 7 GHz seem to support the hemispherical dependence of the sense of circular polarization being right-handed for the southern hemisphere, and left-handed for the northern hemisphere. One explanation of the effect can be found by taking into account the ‘missing’ fields from active centers, emerging from one hemisphere and immersing into the other.

The amount of circular polarization of the total solar radio emission at 7 GHz present permanent changes after the occurrence of certain radio bursts associated with larger flares. For isolated S-components, associated with such flares the changes of the polarization degree ΔΠsranges between 0.004 to 0.1, and appears to be a function of the flare importance. A semi-qualitative interpretation associates ΔΠswith magnetic field reductions at the S-component, agreeing fairly well with a flare mechanism based on collisionless dissipation of magnetic energy, corresponding to energies in the range of 1030 to 1032 ergs, assuming an average model for the coronal condensations.

The eclipse was observed at two microwave frequencies, 7 GHz and 22.2 GHz, and has shown the presence of polarized regions, suggesting also excess of left-handed polarized radiation from the solar northern hemisphere. Difference in eclipsing times at the two frequencies for an active center near the limb is discussed.

INFORMATION about short time scale events in extragalactic objects can have very important implications for the theoretical interpretation of the physical mechanisms involved. Such data are only obtained by using time-consuming observing schedules and methods, and are not usually carried out at radio observatories. This kind of information is thus generally lacking. We report here a study of the nucleus of Cen A (NGC 5128) at a wavelength of 13.5mm. Possible fast variability was observed.

WE report here the first results of a nearly complete, high-sensitivity, water vapour survey of galactic H II regions situated in the Southern Hemisphere.

FOKKER1 has pointed out that the occurrence of similar radio events from the Sun is much more likely to be observed in a comparison of signals originating from the same centre of solar activity than in a comparison of arbitrarily selected events from different centres. Most studies of similarities between solar radio bursts—the study of homologous bursts, in other words—have concentrated on events originating in the same centre of activity2,4. The concept of homology can also be applied to records obtained in Hα and at hard X-ray wavelengths. The occurrence of homologous events suggests that the magnetic morphology of the centre concerned remains unchanged from one event to the other.

Surveys of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the closest satellite galaxy to our Solar System, for water vapour sources of measurable intensity have so far yielded negative results. These searches, by Johnston et al.1 and Kaufmann et al.2, with detection limits of about 150 and 20 Jy (1 Jy = 10−26 Wm−2 Hz−1), respectively, suggest that any water vapour masers that exist in the LMC are much weaker than the sources recognized in our own Galaxy and in several more distant galaxies3–5. We now report the results of a survey using the 45-ft Itapetinga radio telescope which shows the presence of a water vapour maser in the N159 region of the LMC.