Zoe Stanley's Blog

Salary structures and the unpredictability of recruitment patterns…

zoestanley — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:12:08 +0000

Salary structures and the unpredictability of recruitment patterns are also likely to bring the technician more to the notice of discerning employers.
This will not so much create a two-tier structure within the Division, as enable a wider spectrum of students to participate in the profession, allowing them to stop off, by way of academic attainment, economic circumstances or job notice, at different levels and secure in the knowledge that they have professional status, capable of being upgraded if they so wish. CONCLUSION
While the evolution of the Building Surveyors Division, and consequently the education and structure that had to serve it, was a little painful, disconcertingly humble and certainly slow and the present circumstances give cause for dignified confidence.
The prognosis is for more full-time and part-time degree courses, providing study based upon technology, but incorporating management skills and together with enhanced distance learning facilities to provide bridging courses for non-cognate graduates.
However, none of this makes up a complete education and training programme for a building surveyor: it is only the first part and the second being the professional training component culminating in the Test of Professional Competence.
An academic model for building surveying education has been established by the “centres of excellence”, and where the shortfall in employment prospects has chilled the ebullience of some job markets and the building surveyor is currently displaying skills and attributes that stimulate a demand and maintain a 100% employment record for the graduates.
The prospects are bright and assured: “Never fear the want of business ” a man who qualifies himself well for his calling never fails of employment”(Thomas Jefferson). Michael Finn
Practice Management and Job Control
As any professional practice or department becomes more successful, its expansion is unlikely to be achieved without growing pains.
This is no less true in the surveying profession, and those who were once concerned only with the responsibility of quality control and personal time apportionment will have found that a position of seniority in an expanding work sector now requires a far broader range of management skills.
Job costing, fee assessment, cash-flow forecasting and staff motivation are only a few of the requirements of a successful practice manager.
Although accountants may be on hand and the surveyor at partner level in a growing practice, or one of a substantial size, may find himself in the anomalous situation of spending the major part of his time on management for which he received no training rather than on technical matters, in which he is expert.
There is no doubt that competition from both within and outside the profession will continue to grow, and efficient practice management in all its forms has become as important as technical skill in maintaining and improving profitability.
An increasingly perceptive and litigation-conscious clientele, combined with the abolition of fee scales and the introduction of fee tendering, will ensure that only those practices with an awareness of management skills will survive.
Strong management is required at two levels ” management of the practice and management of each project.
Surveyors must decide whether to meet this challenge themselves or employ others to do so. There really is no alternative.
Many of the traditions and principles of professional practice are today being challenged by social, economic and to some extent legal changes in society.
The process of training and qualification does not automatically guarantee the surveyor job security and the buyer of professional services is no longer interested either in tradition for its own sake or in the mystique in which many professions have corseted themselves.
The breeze of competitive change dictates that the professional who wishes to survive must be a very different animal in the next fifty years from previously, and that no surveyor can approach the problems of the future with attitudes and practices which are rooted in the past.
Whilst the maintenance of professional standards must remain paramount, competition is increasing as a result both of clients demanding evidence of value for money and of the number of professional practices anxious to increase the size of their slice of the cake.
This pressure must bring about greater awareness of the need for good management techniques both in the organisation of a practice or department and in the execution of clients’ work.
The resources necessary to discharge the functions of a surveying practice may not be scarce, but these functions grow increasingly costly and therefore efficiency in the application of those resources is essential in running a successful practice.

Wired Olx Myegy logiciel planification projet

There is a slowly burgeoning market for this type of entertainment,

zoestanley — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:04:27 +0000

There is a slowly burgeoning market for this type of entertainment, with many music and arts societies looking for such a programme.
I would have thought that there would be an appreciable market for this CD, which, on a personal level, I have enjoyed a great deal. [RH]
“HOROWITZ THE POET”
SCHUBERT: Sonata in B flat D960; SCHUMANN: Kinderszenen Op 15 HOROWITZ (piano)
Deutsche Gramophone has chosen to call this album “Horowitz the Poet”, which is by any standards an annoying an inaccurate title.
Schubert and Schumann could whimsically be described as poets, but calling Horowitz a poet is as silly as calling Lawrence Olivier a poet, or for that matter the builders who followed Wren’s drawings and erected St. Paul’s Cathedral.
We must be careful in controlling our natural urges to defy musical interpreters.
During my inglorious years as a concert agent I used to reduce my clients to tears by stubbornly refusing to call them “artistes”. Musicians was, and still is and the appropriate term.
I turned straightaway to No. 13 of Kinderszenen (“The poet speaks”) to see if perhaps I missed the point.
Kinderszenen I felt was somehow a bit disappointing compared to the studied and elegiac reading of Schubert’s great B flat Sonata . He draws out the richest tones that he is capable of here.
Nonetheless he brings new ideas to “Haschmemann” and “Am Kamin”.
I am convinced though that Horowitz would be able to produce a more moving “Traumerei” than this. There is nothing wrong at all with the Schubert, however.
Horowitz’s strong, warm personality is everywhere in evidence. As one would expect and the recording is as musical as one could wish for.
The opening of the Scherzo sounds remarkably like the twittering of birds in the trees and something I first noticed when it was played to me on an 1820s Graaf piano similar to the one owned by Schubert.
It is a relief to hear him taking the Trio at the same speed as the Scherzo, and not inexplicably slowing down like so many others.
But you can never expect Horowitz to toe the party line which is why, in the end, he succeeded in making so many first-rate recordings. [AW]
“LES INTROUVABLES DE CZIFFRA”
CZIFFRA (piano)
Hungarian-born pianist Gyorgy Gziffra has never been as well known, or for that matter, as well regarded in England as he has been on the Continent or in the USA. Since 1956 he has lived in France.

Sabah Onlinedown logiciel gestion commerciale open source

A newly-described mode of evolution and…

zoestanley — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:38:19 +0000

A newly-described mode of evolution and termed “molecular drive”, causes the genetic make-up of all individuals of a population to change in unison
A new and widespread mode of evolution has been described by a research group led by Dr Gabriel Dover, at the University of Cambridge.
He argues that, even in the absence of natural selection or genetic drift, a population can go through a process of evolutionary change.
Moreover, individuals in a population will change in unison, with very little genetic variation between them during the period of change.
This unexpected cohesive mode of evolution he and his colleagues, E. Coen, T. Strachan and S. Brown, have called “molecular drive”(Nature, vol 299, p 111)” Evolutionists, up to now, have considered only two processes that could spread mutations of genes to all individuals in a population and so create evolutionary change.
The first and foremost is natural selection; individuals that are particularly well-adapted to their environment reproduce more than their fellows and so copies of their genes become more common.
This idea dates, at least in principle, from Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Natural Selection , of 1859.
More recently, population geneticists have recognised a second evolutionary force: genetic drift. Drift is a random process of genetic change due to”sampling error”.
By chance certain genes will become relatively common in a population simply because large numbers of gametes, which may contain other genes, are wasted.
Dover is now proposing a third force that can genetically transform a species; transforming not because of the external forces of selection or drift, but from within.
In Dover’s molecular drive model and the genetic changes still arise through mutation.
However, in contrast to the spread of classical gene mutations by selection and drift, Dover points out that some mutations can also be spread by internal mechanisms of “turnover” in DNA.
This turnover, and its evolutionary consequences, occurs only in genes that have several copies within the same individual and so called”families” of genes.
Families of genes with multiple copies are numerous in all animals and plant studied so far.
They can have from a handful of copies to several hundred, often scattered on many different chromosomes.
In almost all families and the copies are unexpectedly similar to each other within each species and yet different between species.
Good examples of this are the genes that give rise to the histones (proteins that make up the chromosomal superstructure) and the ribosomal RNA and the immunoglobulins and many others.
The extent to which genes within a family are similar to one another(that is and the degree of homogeneity in a family) depends upon a balance between the rate of homogenisation and the rate of mutation and the selective forces that also act on the family. Mutation (the alteration of a gene) and selection are well established.
Homogenisation ” the forces keeping the genes in a family similar to each other” is more subtle; but the way in which this can occur can now be explained by a variety of molecular mechanisms which ensure, willy-nilly and that one variant copy would replace all other copies.
Turnover is a consequence of frequent molecular exchanges between copies of a family.
Such exchanges can cause fluctuations in the prevalence of a particular variant copy, and are an unexpected consequence of the chemical and physical properties of DNA.
In one type of exchange, called gene conversion and two initially slightly different copies end up sharing the DNA sequence of one of them.

Iwon Seesaa Mozzi selbständigkeit

Of these elongated seats those contoured to…

zoestanley — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:51:10 +0000

Of these elongated seats those contoured to give good support to the thighs and buttocks were most popular. The message is loud and clear.
Give longer seats and more contours!
Solitary waves of polyacetylene conduct
WHAT have the River Severn and polyacetylene in common?
The answer is that both provide a medium for solitons.
Solitons are solitary waves; the Severn bore is a good example.
They also occur in polyacetylene, an organic, one-dimensional semiconductor, where they can be invoked to explain many of that material’s properties.
This discovery has given scientists a unique opportunity to study these unusual phenomena.
The idea of solitary waves travelling along rivers and canals has been around since 1844. it was considered a novelty until the early 1960s, when scientists discovered that two solitary waves travelling in opposite directions need not destroy one another, but could in fact continue unscathed.
In 1965 the term soliton was coined to describe waves with this remarkable behaviour.
In the 1970s the search for a room temperature superconductor led chemists to look at one-dimensional organic conductors and semiconductors. The simplest of these is polyacetylene.
It consists of a chain of carbon atoms, with one hydrogen atom attached to each carbon. Carbon has four electrons that it uses to form chemical bonds.
Each atom in the skeleton of polyacetylene uses three electrons and to form bonds with the two adjacent carbon atoms and one hydrogen atom. This leaves one electron on each carbon atom unaccounted for.
The simplest model predicts that this electron will interact with those on both neighbouring carbon atoms and resulting in a continuous “bond” along the whole polymer chain. (This happens in benzene and other “aromatic” hydrocarbons.)

Onestopdownloads mp3 kopfhörer test

A version, with a cargo carrying…

zoestanley — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:10:38 +0000

A version, with a cargo carrying deck in place of the passenger cabin, for military and offshore-industry applications can ferry loads weighing more than 8 tonnes.
The suggested design has a flat deck 15×4.8 m with access via a 2.7 m wide bow ramp.
The trials have gone well, according to BHC, with only minor modifications necessary for the production version.
The company will shift the engines and fuel tanks forward to increase the distance over which the centre of gravity can move without limiting the load.
Firewalls have proved necessary to reduce heating of bearings caused by the engines, but the skirt design has proved satisfactory without modifications. The British Hovercraft Corporation has fixed a price of between £1. 1 million and £12 million for the AP1-88, depending on the layout.
The company says that it has received inquiries from about 470 companies, of which perhaps a quarter are potential customers.
BHC is having detailed discussions with four of these and hopes to sell 90100 AP1-88s over the next decade.
The simple construction method allows the company to build an AP1-88 in nine to ten months.
The corporation has prepared a detailed indication of running costs for the new hovercraft. It suggests that the machine will cost about £120 for every hour of service.
This figure assumes two craft in use, each running for 20003000 hours a year over an average 19 km route at 55 km/h. Fuel consumption is taken to be 336 litres/h.
Other hovercraft designers scoffed at the idea of the AP1-88 when is was first announced and saying that BHC had miscalculated its figures.
Rivals in Britain, Japan and Finland are now coming out with their own similar designs.
For the future and the company has its eyes on scaled-up versions to carry 200 to 250 passengers and is studying other ways to apply aspects of AP1-88 technology. Mules must come to science
Hybrids between jack donkeys and mares, or stallions and she-asses, are outstanding subjects for research in reproductive biology ” both animal and human Sir Cyril Clarke
“SURE of foot, hard of hide and strong in constitution, frugal in diet, a first-rate weight carrier, indifferent to heat and cold, he combines the best of the most homely characteristics of both the noble houses from which he is descended.” So wrote Rudyard Kipling’s father about the mule in the 1890s.
Today and quite apart from its scientific interest and the mule, offspring of a donkey and a mare, has enormous economic potential: as a work animal and the mule’s life is almost twice that of the horse; it pulls more in proportion to its weight; it needs shoeing less often; and it can be worked in large teams without difficulty.
In 323 BC Alexander the Great’s funeral carriage was drawn by 64 mules, and much earlier, around 1000 BC, Homer had extolled mulish virtues.
The mule is very much a product of artificial selection, for although wild horses and asses have roamed together in parts of South America there appear to be no records of naturally occurring hybrids.
Both the mule and its much less common reciprocal and the hinny (by a stallion out of a she-ass), are the result of man’s observations and interference. But how did they come about?
When horses and donkeys are pastured together there is no doubt that each species mates preferentially with its own kind.
Occasionally, however and there are “kinkies” who prefer a change; mules and hinnies are the inevitable result.

Dl4all Bhg Searchignited gleitsichtgläser

Free the campus entrepreneurs…

zoestanley — Sat, 29 May 2010 19:44:02 +0000

COMMENT
Free the campus entrepreneurs
BREATHLESS PHONE calls first thing in the morning; indecipherable typescripts bristling with spidery illustrations; wild-eyed magnetic levitationists turning up at reception “New Scientist has dealt with the British inventor in his most extreme forms.
Lone inventors are by no means all nutters, but we can sympathise with anyone who has to deal with them all the time.
That is one of the jobs of the British Technology Group (BTG), which the government created in 1980 by merging the National Enterprise Board with the National Research Development Corporation.
The BTG’s job, according to its latest annual report, is “to promote the development of technology throughout British industry and to advance the use of British technology throughout the world”.
To achieve this goal and the MTG has a priceless asset a “first bite” at the patent rights and market opportunities of any invention developed in Britain’s universities and government research laboratories.
Now the departments of education and industry ” against the wishes of the Treasury ” want to take away that first bite.
They plan to give university researchers the chance to patent and exploit their own inventions (This Week, p 141).
Such a move will provoke howls of rage within the BTG “”Britain will lose the fruits of its research”, “where will inventors turn to for impartial advice”" and so on. But for once and the government is right in this move to “privatisation”.
Although it has mended its ways in recent years and the NRDC deserves some of the criticism that has come its way.
It has been too complacent in collecting large sums of money from a few lucrative inventions and such as the cephalosporin antibiotics, and has not taken on enough risky new ventures. Indeed, its method of taking decisions is inherently biased toward caution.
As one vice-chancellor said to New Scientist this week, “a government scientist does not stand to gain anything by backing a successful idea.
But if he recommends support for an idea that does not work, he will hear all about it.” Caution and innovation do not mix.
So what can be done?

Weebly Arabseed auktionshäuser

In 1688, James II of England and VII of Scotland and…

zoestanley — Sat, 29 May 2010 02:31:11 +0000

In 1688, James II of England and VII of Scotland and the last of the Stewart Kings, was deposed and replaced by Prince William of Orange from Holland who became King William III.
Most of Scotland accepted the new King and a measure of much needed stability was brought to Scottish affairs.
But loyalty to the House of Stewart was strong in the highlands and Graham of Claverhouse raised an army from the clans in support of the restoration of King James.
In 1689 they defeated government forces at the Battle of Killiecrankie but Graham was killed and soon afterwards the rebel army was defeated at Dunkeld and the uprising ended.
The clan chiefs who had taken part against the King were offered pardons on condition that each took an oath of allegiance to King William before 1st January, 1692.
All but one of the chiefs took the oath timeously and the exception being the aged McIan Macdonald of Glencoe who delayed until the last few days of 1691.
He then set out in a violent storm and heavy snow for Fort William, where he hoped to take the oath in the presence of the local commander of government troops.
Under the terms of the pardon and the commander was not empowered to accept Macdonald’s submission and the old man had to make his way through the blizzard to Inveraray.
He did not arrive there until 2nd January, 1692, outwith the time allowed for the oath, and then found that the Sheriff-Depute who was empowered to accept his vow of allegiance was absent.
The official returned on 5th January and McIan Macdonald’s oath was certified and a copy of the certification was sent to the Privy Council in Edinburgh.
In the capital and the certificate relating to Macdonald was received by John Dalrymple, Master of Stair, who had been appointed Secretary for Scotland by King William.
It had been Dalrymple’s idea to require the clan chiefs to take the oath of allegiance and it became obvious that he had hoped for an opportunity to punish one clan as an example to the others.
When it was seen that all clan chiefs had taken the oath, Dalrymple was frustrated, but not for long.
He declared that McIan Macdonald’s late submission was invalid and that vengeance was to be taken against his clan.
He prepared an instruction for the King’s signature, declaring that the Macdonalds of Glencoe were to be pursued “by fire and sword” and that troops were to “burn their houses and seize or destroy their goods or cattle, plenishings or clothes, and to cut off the men.”
For centuries and the Clan Campbell had been the enemies of Clan Macdonald and to ensure that no mercy was shown to the Macdonalds of Glencoe and the Campbells of Glen Lyon were instructed by Dalrymple to enforce the orders.
During February, 1692 the Campbells went to Glencoe and under the guise of friendship billeted themselves on McIan Macdonald and his kinsmen.
For a week they accepted generous hospitality and it is said that on the evening before the massacre their leader played cards with McIan and his family.
At 5 a.m. on 13th February, 1692, while the Macdonalds were still asleep in their humble dwellings throughout the glen and the Campbells began the slaughter of their hosts.
Each end of Glencoe was sealed off and every adult male who could be found was killed.
In all, 38 of the 150 Macdonald men were murdered, including McIan and his sons, and many more died of exposure while trying to escape in their nightclothes in the arctic conditions. The massacre has left an indelible stain on the name of Clan Campbell.

Sporx Peeplo Adv-adserver ölgemälde

On those occasions when dependence on the providence of some undefined…

zoestanley — Thu, 20 May 2010 15:43:08 +0000

On those occasions when dependence on the providence of some undefined “god” has apparently been effective and some relief from troubles apparently obtained, it could have been shown that the relief came, in reality, from a human source.
The contention would then have been put forward that it was the “god” who motivated the human being or beings who actually provided the relief.
This particularly devious and invidious form of argument can be endless, and it denies credit to human beings where it is due, and gives an excuse to those who, intending to avoid their obligation to contribute towards the world’s work, cite the doctrine, “god will provide”.
In reality, of course and such people are shamelessly exploiting the naivety of others who genuinely believe the doctrine and allow themselves to be thrust into the role of “god-motivated” providers ” actually doing the work attributed to the “god”, whilst the exploiters enjoy the fruits of it.
Stripped of its deviousness and the doctrine can be interpreted to imply that “god” will supply the wants of the improvident by taking from the provident. This is unacceptable.
The giving of the necessities of life from one who has the goods to give and to one who has not, is the province of charity, and charity and relieved of its religious trappings and admitted to be a matter of free will, is a wholly commendable human virtue. “God-compelled” charity is expropriation .
No reliance on the imagined generosity of a mythical “god” can provide escape from the natural order that ultimately insists that responsibility for the provision of the needs, for example of a family, lies primarily with the parents.
This is a fact of life itself, and no amount of political or social manoeuvring will remove it.
Nevertheless, within controlled limits and in certain circumstances, civilised life must provide room for a certain amount of transfer of that responsibility to the social and political structure, but human beings must never forget that parenthood is first and foremost a personal responsibility .
Since the arrival of civilisation, providing for a family does not necessarily mean the direct production of food, clothing and shelter, but of making an adequate effort to provide these things by using the organisation of the society lived in.
That, for most people, means obtaining employment, which in its turn means accepting the necessity of acquiring adequate personal ability compatible with the standard of life expected. This demands sincere and sustained effort by the individual.
From the earliest possible age children should be appraised of this so that they know the importance of accepting any education offered them.
There is no other route to real human progress than through the correct teaching of young children, and humanity ignores this at its peril.
The chapter on “The Created God” puts the foregoing into a logical religious context.
Any action on the part of a religious or other teacher which undermines an individual’s awareness of his personal and family duties and leaves him with the means to claim that a “god” will relieve him of them, is an action which is utterly irresponsible.
It is the underlying implication of the existence of a providing “god” which lies at the bottom of a great deal of the world’s misery.
Except where the generosity and charity of his fellow creatures must play their rightful part, each individual, as master of his own destiny must be a provider to his utmost ability. This must be a foundation-stone of his life.
Missionary Teaching with Misguided Emphasis
In the matter of misguided teaching, it may well be asked to what extent the missionaries of the western world have contributed to the immense amount of suffering endured by underdeveloped peoples.
The preaching of the existence of a provident god who would supply all needs, was no doubt generally of good intent, but such preaching has been taken far too literally, especially by uneducated peoples, and the outcome has been a reduced sense of personal responsibility permitting, among other things and the production of large numbers of children for whom the progenitors had not the slightest hope of providing.
How different the world may have been if long ago those missionaries who set out to convert the world to belief in an all-providing benevolent “god”, had themselves been aware that the human race and sooner or later, would have to control its rate of procreation, for the world can never provide for unlimited human life.
They may then have made that a major guiding light in their teaching, introducing the concept carefully but firmly, whilst at the same time concentrating on improving the agriculture and amenities.
Had these been their primary concerns instead of biblical indoctrination, it is possible that the tragic famines and misery now prevalent would never have occurred.
Unfortunately and those well-meaning missionaries, almost certainly believed in the “god” themselves and therefore had no idea of what they were really doing.
The message is:”The giving of help to “backward” peoples must be based on a genuine desire to share the quality of life enjoyed by the givers, and not on an intention to indoctrinate with some orthodox religion .

Geizhals Alt Gutefrage laufräder test

Accepting forgiveness can be hard too.

zoestanley — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:55:48 +0000

Accepting forgiveness can be hard too.
Serious wrongs ” unfaithfulness, cruelty of one kind or another ” are not easy to confess or to forgive, but any other way of dealing with the past will harm not only the marriage but the two individuals ” whether they need to forgive or to be forgiven. Affairs
Some manuals on sex and marriage recommend an affair as a means of refreshing a stale marriage.
Men and women who grew up during the swinging sixties may have a different view of sexual fidelity from those who are slightly older.
But, however much people may defend the extra-marital affair in theory, many still discover in practice that their partner’s unfaithfulness leaves them feeling deeply betrayed.
A number of marriage counsellors I have spoken to all agree that they have never in fact come across a case where infidelity has improved a marriage.
Instead and they all found that adultery ” alone among the changes within marriage ” was perceived as the ultimate betrayal.
A wife whose husband had taken a girl out on a number of occasions would tell the counsellor, “This time it’s different ” they’ve slept together.”
Lewis Smedes, in his book Sex in the Real World , lists a number of reasons why adultery is so much more common now than in previous generations.
He also suggests why, nonetheless, it is still perceived as a serious betrayal of the marriage.
Not only is it a way of cheating on the partner, and likely to hurt at least one of the three people involved, but it causes damage that goes deep.
“The wrongness of adultery,” he writes, “is knit into the inner lining of sexuality.
Sexual intercourse has a mystique about it: there is something inescapably ” if invisibly ” special in this encounter.
Most people, I suspect and still sense this, even when they do not honour it in practice.
Most people who have sex outside marriage still find it necessary to invoke some powerful excuse for it ” even to themselves…
Even if we can convince ourselves that nobody is getting hurt, even if we are sure we are not cheating, we have a suspicion that it is inappropriate.”
There seems to be some reaction against permissiveness within marriage even in sophisticated and secular circles.
In an article in the magazine Options , Rose Shepherd debunked the glamour surrounding extra-marital affairs and described the downward spiral of personal unhappiness, as well as the destruction of the marriage.
Her friend, Miriam, had embarked on what she euphemistically described as “a wonderful adventure”" her first act of adultery, after a nine-year marriage rooted in mutual devotion and trust.

Pcauto Readme immagini mare in tempesta

In order to separate a lunar effect…

zoestanley — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:21:08 +0000

In order to separate a lunar effect the team looked at the lunar day and the position of the Moon.
Only the phase of the Moon had an effect approaching significance: 14.6 per cent more copulations occurred during a full Moon. Any lunar effect seems to be mashed by weekly sex patterns.
Predictably, couples had sex most often at the weekends the favourite day being a Sunday. Does language begin in the womb?
Even before we are born the shape and pattern of wrinkles on the surface of the two hemispheres of the brain differ to an appreciable extent (see figure) -some of the most noticeable asymmetries being found in the regions of cerebral cortex associated with language.
But do these “imperfections” imply that the two hemispheres differ in their cognitive abilities?
A recent paper from Paul Satz and his colleagues at the University of Florida (Science , vol 218, p 797) provides some of the answers to this long-standing problem.
In the 1860′s the French anthropologist and anatomist, Pierre Paul Broca called attention to the fact that language disorders (termed “aphasias”) were far more commonly observed after damage to the left hand side of the brain.
Since Broca’s pioneering work, a variety of studies have confirmed that the left hemisphere plays a dominant role in the comprehension and expression of written and spoken language.
The corresponding regions on the right hand side seem to be smaller and they control the rhythm, pitch and stress of pronunciation which impart the emotional flavour to all we say and hear. Is this “lateralisation of function” present in early life?
A number of studies purported to show that, unlike Broca’s patients, children are often severely aphasic after right hemisphere lesions.
This, it was argued and suggested that in the first years of life the two hemispheres have similar linguistic abilities and that the left side became dominant only as speech itself developed.
One perplexing feature of this conclusion is that since the late nineteenth century far fewer children with right hemisphere lesions are aphasic.
This effect might result from antibiotics, brought into paediatric medicine in the 1940s.
Before this, childhood brain lesions were often due to the uncontrolled spread of bacterial infections.
A brain abscess in the right hemisphere could also be accompanied by diffuse damage to the left: that is and the aphasia in these children might not be related to damage to the right-hand side of the brain.
Perhaps then the apparent bilateral representation of language in young children was an artefact.
In the Satz study only those patients whose aphasia could not be unequivocally linked with focal brain damage were included in the statistics. The differences between the adult and child data then became insignificant.
Satz concluded that cerebral dominance for language is established before the age of five.
During the 1960′s Noam Chomsky popularised the view that human languages together share certain universal grammatic features, and that language is not learnt from scratch but rather acquired by brain centres sensitive to this underlying syntax.
Since the anatomical asymmetries of human language areas first appear in utero and the implication is that preliminary stages of language acquisition could begin before birth. TECHNOLOGY
Computerised tank outshoots its rivals
THE Royal Ordnance Factory at Leeds yesterday delivered to the British Army the first production version of the Challenger tank, less than three years after the Ministry of Defence ordered the vehicle.The army is receiving more than 200 Challengers, costing about £300 million and to beef up its defences in Germany against Soviet tanks.

Rmxads Dayoo Multiupload abschlußprüfung bürokauffrau