This paper tells the story of a doctor in a vegetative state. The approach towards him is quite different from that towards a common patient. The other physicians cannot deal with this situation with the necessary open mind.

Two improved list-ranking algorithms are presented. The “peeling-off” algorithm leads to an optimal PRAM algorithm, but was designed with application on a real parallel machine in mind. It is simpler than earlier algorithms, and in a range of problem sizes, where previously several algorithms where required for the best performance, now this single algorithm suffices. If the problem size is muc...

We outline an approach to enumeration problems which relies on the algebra of free abelian groups, giving as our main application a generalisa-tion of the chromatic polynomial of a simple graph G. Our polynomial lies in the free abelian group generated by the poset K(G) of contractions of G, and reduces to the classical case after a simple substitution. Its main properties may be stated in term...

A variant of Heapsort|named Ultimate Heapsort|is presented that sorts n elements in-place in (n log 2 (n + 1)) worst-case time by performing at most n log 2 n + (n) key comparisons and n log 2 n + (n) element moves. The secret behind Ultimate Heapsort is that it occasionally transforms the heap it operates with to a two-layer heap which keeps small elements at the leaves. Basically, Ultimate He...

A book which tells the story of the children's early life, the horrors endured on the way to Belsen and in the camp, can hardly fail to be moving. This book is intensely so. The patient handling of the children after their arrival in Ireland and the gradual building of confidence is not the least moving section. This may be due to a certain lack of "expertise" in the handling of the early part ...