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Purchase-of-service contracting is both new and relatively underdeveloped in the United Kingdom (UK) personal social services system. It already appears likely, however, that POS contracting will become the principal, and possibly sole, form of state funding for voluntary organizations in the social services field within the next few years. Unlike the United States, where contracting has developed on an ad hoc basis, in the UK it is a deliberate aim of government policy (Deakin, 1993).

This paper describes the development of a corpus or database of hand-arm pointing gestures, considered as a basic element for gestural communication. The structure of the corpus is defined for natural pointing movements carried out in different directions, heights and amplitudes. It is then extended to movement primitives habitually used in sign language communication. The corpus is based on movements recorded using an optoelectronic recording system that allows the 3D description of movement trajectories in space. The main technical characteristics of the capture and pretreatment system are presented, and perspectives are highlighted for recognition and generation purposes.

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Observation of overt pain behaviours was carried out by physicians during routine clinical examination of 120 patients with chronic low back pain. Reliable ratings were achieved but only after very careful standardization in an additional 60 pilot patients. Overt pain behaviour was found to be related to other clinical measures of illness behaviour—pain drawing, behavioural symptoms, behavioural signs, use of walking aides and downtime—but did tap an additional dimension. It is concluded that clinical observation of overt pain behaviour can provide useful additional information about illness behaviour in low back pain. Reliable observations can be achieved in a carefully standardized research situation but in routine clinical practice are vulnerable to considerable observer error and bias.

During the two-week period from August 16-27, 1999, Argonne National Laboratory hosted the first National School on Neutron and X-Ray Scattering funded by the Office of Basic Energy Science of the Department of Energy. Many of Argonne's divisions were involved in the preparation and implementation of the intense two-week program and, as judged by the students who attended the school, the effort was a success. The school is necessary in order to fulfill a national need in training graduate students in the utilization of national user facilities and it is our intention to offer this course at Argonne in the future.

In the past, investigations into the effects of target uncertainty on search times have been confined to tasks where the stimulus material is carefully structured. The results have been interpreted in terms of models of pattern recognition. In this paper target uncertainty was studied in tasks where subjects could exert greater freedom in determining their scanning strategies. With eye movement recording, it was established that skewed distributions of search times are obtained even when subjects adopt comparatively systematic strategies. There was no evidence that processing time, as reflected in eye fixation times, was generally lengthened with increase in target uncertainty. The observed effects of target uncertainty were discussed in relation to how subjects attempt to overcome the problem of searching simultaneously for targets of different conspicuity.

There have been statements in the medical and the lay literature to the effect that weight loss occurs more rapidly with diets high in fat and protein asc compared to equi-caloric diets containing large amounts of carbohydrate. In the present study, subjects have been maintained for many weeks on constant calorie intake. At intervals, the composition of the diet has been changed, the fat intake varying from 12 to 83 per cent, protein from 14 to 36 per cent, and carbohydrate from 3 to 64 per cent of total calories. In any given subject, the rate of weight loss was essentially constant throughout the entire study. It is therefore obvious that the significant factor responsible for weight loss is reduction of calories, irrespective of the composition of the diet.

A recent accident in the flare extrusion facility fatally burned the press operator. During restoration of the facility, several additional safety features were incorporated. Tangible proof that the changes were adequate was desired. Permission to conduct a controlled burn test, with the press loaded so as to simulate a point in the extrusion cycle at which an accidental ignition might occur, was requested and granted. The test was considered to be successful. Confidence in operator safety has increased. Similar tests on other operations would greatly improve personnel safety in pyrotechnics. (Author)

Undertaken for the purpose of promoting legitimate trade in Central Africa, the Richardson mission was a compound of philanthropic and diplomatic interests advocated by Richardson. His main targets were the Sahara, Bornu and the Sudan.

http://archive.org/details/ananuykinterpret1094515989

This paper pulls together a diverse body of theoretical and empirical material bearing upon the relationship of educational systems to stratification systems. I argue that traditional approaches in the sociology of education are unable to account for recent findings emerging from the study of occupational recruitment and social mobility. A conflict model in which education is viewed as a dependent, rather than an independent, variable is better able to incorporate what would otherwise be anomalies and contradictions. Thus, educational systems may be seen as shaped by, rather than shaping, the dominant patterns of class inequality; and educational qualifactions legitimate rather than "cause" social mobility. Some implications of this perspective for research in Canada are discussed. Resume. Cet expose rammasse un corps divers de donnees theoriques et empiriques qui portent sur le rapport entre les systemes d'education et les systemes de stratification. C'est mon avis que les approches traditionelles dans la sociologie d'education ne reussissent pas a expliquer certaines trouvailles recentes sorties de l'etude du recrutment occupationale et de la mobilite sociale. Un modele base sur le conflit dans lequel on considere l'education comme un variable dependant plutot qu'independant peut mieux incorporer ce qui serait autrement anomalies et contradictions. Ainsi, on peut considerer que les systemes d'education sont influences par, plut6t qu'ils ne les influencent, les formes dominantes de l'inegalite de classe, et que la formation educationale legitime plut6t qu'elle ne la cause la mobilite sociale. Je discute egalement quelques implications de cette perspective pour la recherche.

Little is known about the nature and determinants of downward mobility. It has been suggested that downward movement implies the extension of meritocratic norms of selection and rejection. Alternatively, those who fall are seen as social casualties. A third explanation, that most middle-mass downward mobility represents a two generation process of status consolidation, is proposed here. Data for a sample of downwardly mobile urban British males and their fathers provide strong support for the status consolidation explanation. These data indicate that in the middle-mass there is, in fact, very little genuine downward mobility. Rather, most men who 'fall' come from risen working-class families, those which because of the upward mobility of one or both parents are peripheral rather than core members of the middle class. Sons were encouraged towards what fathers viewed as the less ambivalent status provided by skilled trades. In moving 'downwards' into these occupations sons were, in effect, fulfilling status and occupational aspirations of their fathers.