Blandford Community Hospital

This article discusses attitudes towards and perceptions of different kinds of suburban-sounding Swedish – ranging from new urban youth styles (here called suburban slang) to a more formal Swedish ...

Azokh Cave (also known as Azikh or Azykh) contains Pleistocene and Holocene stratified sediment infill. The site was discovered by M. Huseinov (also named Guseinov by other authors) who led the previous phase of excavations. The geographic location of the site is at an important migratory route between Africa and Eurasia. The site has yielded Middle Pleistocene hominin remains (a mandible fragment) recovered in the 1960s during a previous phase of excavation work, together with Acheulean (Mode 2) stone tools and contemporaneous fauna. An important characteristic of the Azokh 1 cave site is a continuous sedimentary record along a 7 m section, ranging in age from Middle Pleistocene (MIS 9-8) to Late Pleistocene (Mousterian industry/Mode 3, MIS 5), and to Holocene periods at the top of the series. This detailed record documents three species of Homo: ancestors of Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. In addition, two new fossiliferous sites, Azokh 2 and Azokh 5 (which are currently being explored), constitute a potential new source of information, especially about the Middle to Late Paleolithic transition and Holocene periods in the area. Plans for preservation and protection of the whole site are currently in progress.

The fauna and flora from Azokh 1 are analyzed to provide evidence on past and present environments. The large mammal fauna was accumulated by carnivore and human agents, and it is dominated by woodland species. The small mammals, amphibians and reptiles were accumulated mainly by avian predators, barn owls and eagle owls which hunt over open areas, and their prey may have been brought to the cave from some distance away. The amphibians and reptiles indicate warm dry conditions, with some taxa specific to mountainous regions and many indicating warm arid conditions. The small mammals similarly indicate mainly arid environments with minor elements from deciduous woodland. The difference between small vertebrates and large mammals is taphonomic, and all four groups indicate slight transition to more arid conditions up the section. Bats are present in all units, and it appears likely that they are derived from natural deaths within the cave. They indicate woodland conditions low in the section changing to a treeless, arid and cold environment towards the top. Plant data from charcoal indicate that the regional vegetation was broadleaved deciduous woodland with mainly small trees and shrubs. The location of the cave on the lower slopes of the mountains of the Lesser Caucasus is close to the forest/steppe boundary, with forest on the mountain slopes and steppe on the lowlands to the east, and relatively minor fluctuations in climate would shift the boundary or and down slope, towards or away from the cave, with changes in climate. It is concluded, therefore, that the large mammals and flora represent the local woodland environment, and the small mammals, reptiles and amphibians represent prey species brought from further away.

In line with 2004 NICE guidelines, practitioners in West Dorset, England, are developing and maintaining their basic professional competence in falls' assessment and prevention. Local 'falls champions' have been appointed to assist in the education of all staff who work in older people's services in order to raise awareness and promote best practice. A three-tier style of education has been developed to allow staff to learn skills of assessment and intervention in relation to falls prevention. Evaluation over a two-year period clearly demonstrates how primary care trust staff are beginning to meet the requirements of the NICE recommendation on 'education and information-giving', while choosing their own style of learning.

Students often find that learning to program is hard. Introductory programming courses have high drop-out rates and students do not learn to program well. This paper presents experiences from three educational institutions where introductory programming courses were improved by adopting Python as the first programming language and roles of variables as an aid in understanding program behavior. As a result of these changes, students were able to write working code from the very beginning, they found programming easy and interesting, they passed exams with good grades, and drop-out rates were low. Students became interested in programming and some of them even changed their personal study plan to include more of programming and computer science.

Abstract Both staff and patients at the Blandford Community Hospital Physiotherapy Department were unhappy that sometimes it took as long as 12 weeks for general practice patients to receive their initial appointments. A triage system was introduced and an audit undertaken to compare outcomes before and after triage to see if, after undertaking triage, patients needed fewer treatments or were discharged sooner. Copyright © 2003 Whurr Publishers Ltd.

The contribution of Cambridge ecclesiologists to the revival of Anglican choral worship, 1839–62. By Dale Adelmann. (Music in Nineteenth-century Britain.) Pp. xiv+244. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997. £39.50. 1 85928 389 6 - Volume 50 Issue 2