Studying (by) disappeared buildings: the “social aspect” as methodology for writing the history of architectural preservation in contemporary Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ponencia presentada a Session 9: Forma urbana y relaciones entre historia y proyecto: el medio ambiente como patrimonio / Urban form and relationships between design and history: environmental heritage, arquitecture and plannin

The Use of Audio in Minimal Access Surgery

In minimal access surgery (MAS) (also known as minimally invasive surgery), operations are carried out by making small incisions in the skin and inserting special apparatus into potential body cavities through those incisions. Laparoscopic MAS procedures are conducted in the patient’s abdomen. The aim of MAS is faster recovery, shorter hospitalisation and fewer major post-operative complications; all resulting in lower societal cost with better patient acceptability. The technique is markedly dependent on supporting technologies for vision, instrumentation, energy delivery, anaesthesia, and monitoring. However, in practice, much MAS continues to take longer and be associated with an undesirable frequency of unwanted minor (or occasionally major) mishaps. Many of these difficulties result precisely from the complexity and mal-adaptation of the additional technology and from lack of familiarity with it. A survey of South East England surgeons showed the two main stress factors on surgeons to be the technical difficulty of the procedure and time pressures placed on the surgeon by third parties. Many of the problems associated with MAS operations are linked to the control and monitoring of the equipment. This paper describes work begun to explore ergonomic enhancements to laparoscopic operating technology that could result in faster and safer laparoscopic operations, less surgeon stress and reduce dependence on ancillary staff. Auditory displays have been used to communicate complex information to users in a modality that is complementary to the visual channel. This paper proposes the development of a control and feedback system that will make use of auditory displays to improve the amount of information that can be communicated to the surgeon and his assistant without overloading the visual channel. Control of the system would be enhanced by the addition of voice input to allow the surgeon direct control

The Supply and Demand for Exports of Pakistan: The Polynomial Distributed Lag Model (PDL) Approach

In the global economy, the performance of any country will greatly depend on the performance of its exports. The trade performance determines the prospects of change. It helps countries win friends, and break the traditional mould of isolation and indifference. The performance of exports of countries depends on various price and non-price factors. In international trade transactions it is important to recognise that these transactions require some amount of time that occurs between the decision to buy and actual delivery of the product from foreign country. In the Econometric modelling lag occupies a central role. It is recognised that due to psychological, technical and institutional reasons, a dependent variable may respond to explanatory variables with lapse of time, in particular when dealing with time-series trade models. A number of studies have been conducted to examine the export performance of Pakistan. In the best of our knowledge, no study has been undertaken incorporating lags to examine the individual and cumulative impact of determinants of export performance of Pakistan. Thus, the ultimate purpose of this paper is to estimate consistent individual (short run) and cumulative (long run) elasticities of both export demand and supply determinants using annual data over the period 1972–2000 by applying Almon approach.