Bone Absorptiometry in Metabolic Bone Disease: Baseline Values and Long-Term Treatment with Calcitriol (Post-Menopausal Osteoporosis Versus Osteomalacia)

Total body bone absorptiometry reveals low mineral density in both postmenopausal osteoporosis and osteomalacia patients. The method was used to investigate the effect of calcitriol administration on patients suffering from one of these conditions. In osteomalacia, the administration of calcitriol resulted in a dramatic improvement in bone mineral density (sometimes up to 50% in 12 months), indicating the rapid mineralization of previously uncalcified bone tissue as a result of the normalization of the Ca x P product. In osteoporosis a similar treatment was seen to halt the progressive decrease in bone mineral levels and sometimes resulted in minor increases in density (up to 5%). This is likely to be due to a normalization of intestinal calcium malabsorption which halts secondary homeostatic bone resorption

Fire in the Operating Room During Hypospadias Repair

Fire in the operating room (OR) is a very distressful and shocking occurrence with potential dramatic consequences. Despite safety rules and rigorous recommendations, such unintentional events do occur every so often. Notably, the vast majority of cases have been reported in the adult population, with very few pediatric cases described to date. Herein, we report on a 16-month-old boy undergoing reconstructive surgery for penoscrotal hypospadias, who experienced an OR fire most likely related to the use of alcohol-based solution ignited by monopolar electrocautery

The politics of urban management and planning in African cities

Half of Africa’s population is expected to live in a city by 2035, up from 40 per cent today. This is a testament to the fact that a quarter of the world’s fastest-growing cities are in Africa and 52 African cities already have more than 1 million inhabitants each. But these cities are only projected to absorb a quarter of the growth in urban populations, meaning that small and medium cities will host the majority of new urban dwellers (UN-Habitat, 2014: 23–25). African cities are the most unequal in the world, posing a major challenge to their future (UN-Habitat, 2010: 2)

The World Bank and Urban Policies, From Housing Sector to ‘Sustainable Cities'

The World Bank has recently redirected its urban policies, moving from a focus raising productivity of the housing sector, to one that encourages ‘sustainable cities’. The expansion of the urban agenda hopes to improve urban governance while also building human capital through poverty alleviation programmes such as squatter upgrading. By promoting the discourse of ‘sustainable city’, the World Bank argues that there has been a redirection of its conceptualization of development from income generation to one based on Amartya Sen’s (1999) concept of development as freedom. However this article argues that rather than a change in direction, the World Bank has used Sen’s writings to expand and diffuse its market orientated ideology. The evaluation of the squatter upgrading programme set up by the World Bank in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil through Sen’s perspective assesses the practical implications of the conceptual shifts of the World Bank while also contributing to the discussions on the application and use of Sen’s writings. Furthermore the paper explores the contradictions and inconsistencies within the World Bank’s policy and practice for the promotion of ‘sustainable cities’

Advanced 3D “Modeling” and “Printing” for the Surgical Planning of a Successful Case of Thoraco-Omphalopagus Conjoined Twins Separation

The surgical separation of two Conjoined Twins is a particularly complex operation. Surgical times are particularly long and post-operative complications are very frequent in this type of procedure. We report a clinical case of surgical separation of two thoraco-omphalopagus conjoined twins in which, thanks to the use of (3D) three dimensional technologies, we were able to significantly reduce operative times and improve clinical outcomes

Approaching Development Projects from a Human Development and Capability Perspective

This paper discusses the relevance of the human development and capability approach for development project planning, management and evaluation. With reference to the set of five other studies that it introduces, the paper suggests in which areas insights from human development and capability thinking offer advances and in which areas such thinking needs to link with and be complemented or corrected by thinking from other sources and traditions. The paper aims at capturing the learning from recent experiences and studies, both for project planning and for the human capabilities perspective

Gender, difference and urban change: implications for promotion of well-being?

This article examines the impacts of urban change on the well-being of women and men, and girls and boys, living in cities, and explores how gender intersects with other social relations to differentiate these impacts. It then considers the implications of intersectionality for organisations aiming to promote the interests of specific social groups (such as women, or people with disabilities) vis-a-vis urban change by looking at the experience of Leonard Cheshire’s Asha project, working with girls and boys with disabilities in Mumbai. It concludes that organisations working to promote the interest of identity based constituents should (a) base their strategies around research that recognises the intersectional nature of social identities and (b) develop agendas for change that build agendas for social justice that unite, rather than fragment, identity based claims