Medical assistance in dying for mental illness as a sole underlying medical condition (MAiD MI-SUMC) is a controversial and complex policy in terms of psychosocial and ethical medical practice implications. We discuss the status of MAiD MI-SUMC in Canada and argue for the use of the UK Medical Research Council's framework on complex interventions in programme evaluations of MAiD MI-SUMC. It is imperative to carefully and rigorously evaluate the implementation of MAiD MI-SUMC to ensure an understanding of the multiple facets of implementation in contexts permeated by unique social, economic, cultural and historical influences, with a correspondingly diverse array of outcomes. This requires a complexity-informed programme evaluation focused on context-dependent mechanisms and stakeholder experiences, including patients, service providers and other people affected by the policy. It is also important to consider the economic impact on health and social welfare systems. Such evaluations can provide the data needed to guide evidence-informed decision-making that can contribute to safer implementation and refinement of MAiD MI-SUMC.

While most papers on high-entropy alloys (HEAs) focus on the microstructure and mechanical properties for structural materials applications, there has been growing interest in developing high-entropy functional materials. The objective of this paper is to provide a brief, timely review on select functional properties of HEAs, including soft magnetic, magnetocaloric, physical, thermoelectric, superconducting, and hydrogen storage. Comparisons of functional properties between HEAs and conventional low- and medium-entropy materials are provided, and examples are illustrated using computational modeling and tuning the composition of existing functional materials through substitutional or interstitial mixing. Extending the concept of high configurational entropy to a wide range of materials such as intermetallics, ceramics, and semiconductors through the isostructural design approach is discussed. Perspectives are offered in designing future high-performance functional materials utilizing the high-entropy concepts and high-throughput predictive computational modeling.

This article provides a short review on computational modeling on the formation, thermodynamics, and elasticity of single-phase high-entropy alloys (HEAs). Hundreds of predicted single-phase HEAs were re-examined using various empirical thermo-physical parameters. Potential BCC HEAs (CrMoNbTaTiVW, CrMoNbReTaTiVW, and CrFeMoNbReRuTaVW) were suggested based on CALPHAD modeling. The calculated vibrational entropies of mixing are positive for FCC CoCrFeNi, negative for BCC MoNbTaW, and near-zero for HCP CoOsReRu. The total entropies of mixing were observed to trend in descending order: CoCrFeNi > CoOsReRu > MoNbTaW. Calculated lattice parameters agree extremely well with averaged values estimated from the rule of mixtures (ROM) if the same crystal structure is used for the elements and the alloy. The deviation in the calculated elastic properties from ROM for select alloys is small but is susceptible to the choice used for the structures of pure components.

The collective response of electrons in an ultrathin foil target irradiated by an ultraintense (${\sim}6\times 10^{20}~\text{W}~\text{cm}^{-2}$) laser pulse is investigated experimentally and via 3D particle-in-cell simulations. It is shown that if the target is sufficiently thin that the laser induces significant radiation pressure, but not thin enough to become relativistically transparent to the laser light, the resulting relativistic electron beam is elliptical, with the major axis of the ellipse directed along the laser polarization axis. When the target thickness is decreased such that it becomes relativistically transparent early in the interaction with the laser pulse, diffraction of the transmitted laser light occurs through a so called ‘relativistic plasma aperture’, inducing structure in the spatial-intensity profile of the beam of energetic electrons. It is shown that the electron beam profile can be modified by variation of the target thickness and degree of ellipticity in the laser polarization.

Most descriptions treat the cerebellum as a uniform structure, and the possibility of important regional heterogeneities in either chemistry or physiology is rarely considered. However, it is now clear that such an assumption is inappropriate. Instead, there is substantial evidence that the cerebellum is composed of hundreds of distinct modules, each with a precise pattern of inputs and outputs, and expressing a range of molecular signatures. By screening a monoclonal antibody library against cerebellar polypeptides we have identified antigens – zebrins – that reveal some of the cerebellum’s covert heterogeneity. This article reviews some of these findings, relates them to the patterns of afferent connectivity, and considers some possible mechanisms through which the modular organization may arise.

Objective: This exploratory study applied a biopsychosocial perspective to investigate cognitive and psychosocial factors related to emotional adjustment and QoL after brain tumour. Methods: Participants included 30 adults with a brain tumour (60% benign and 40% malignant) who were aged 28 to 71 years (M = 51.5, SD = 12.3) and on average 5.4 years post-diagnosis (SD = 5.6 years). Participants completed a brief battery of cognitive tests and self-report measures of emotional status (Depression, Anxiety Stress Scale), subjective impairment (Patient Competency Rating Scale), coping (COPE), social support (Brief Social Support Questionnaire), and QoL (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy — Brain Tumour [FACT-Br]). Results: QoL was significantly associated with global cognitive ability (r = .49, p < .01), subjective impairment (r = .66, p < .01), and satisfaction with support (r = .50, p < .05). Level of depressive symptoms was significantly correlated with premorbid IQ (r = -.49, p < .01), use of planning to cope (r = -.48, p < .01), and satisfaction with support (r = -.47, p < .01). Conclusions: Overall, these exploratory findings indicate that emotional adjustment and QoL after brain tumour is related to a slightly different pattern of neuropsychological, psychological (self-perceptions and coping) and social factors. The clinical implications for interventions with individuals with brain tumour are discussed.

In May, 1980, when the Geneva meeting on Humani tarian Assistance and Relief to the Kampuchean People took place and funds to continue aid were pledged, the food distribution system inside Kampuchea was a sham bles. Rice-laden ships were backed up in the harbors at Kampong Som and Pnompenh, where warehouses were full. Rice, unlike rice seed, was not reaching the villages.

There was rare consensus on this point, even among those international organizations and voluntary agencies that had been presenting a generally positive pic ture of developments inside Kampuchea. Relief work ers in Pnompenh took the unprecedented step of jointly warning the Heng Samrin regime that it could not count on continued international aid unless distribu tion improved. Interviews with Khmer peasants treking on foot, by bicycle, and oxcart to the Thai border from several provinces in west and northwest Kampuchea confirmed that food distribution was grossly inadequate if it existed at all. Heng Samrin's own village commit tees, with no rice to give peasants and farmers, were issuing passes to the Thai border that were being hon ored by the Vietnamese soldiers who control much of the access to the relief “land bridge” at Nong Chan.

The implementation of a policy of ‘community care’ is seen to involve a number of assumptions, some of which are rarely examined. These can be roughly categorized as involving the nature of mental illness, the nature of community, the course and treatment of mental illness, the proper scope of psychiatry, the burden on the community and the efficacy of social work. Data bearing on these assumptions are reviewed, and the conclusion is offered that they are far from being uncontentious.

It is suggested that the movement toward community care has many of the attributes of a moral enterprise which, unless substantiated by benefits to the patient or his family, may be the latest diversion of the psychiatric conscience from the care and treatment of the chronic mentally ill.

It is shown that all stationary self-exciting point processes with finite intensity may be represented as Poisson cluster processes which are age-dependent immigration-birth processes, and their existence is established. This result is used to derive some counting and interval properties of these processes using the probability generating functional.