Legal imagery on the edge of symbolism : the decoration projects for the Belgian Cour de Cassation

This paper scrutinizes decoration projects, both unexecuted and realized, for the two Cour de Cassation courtrooms in the Brussels Palais de Justice, against the backdrop of the shift from historical to symbolist monumental art and in the context of law and art's symbiosis in fin-de-siècle Brussels

An American plague: Pro-market believers in health policy Comment on “On Health Policy and Management (HPAM): mind the theory-policy- practice gap”

Although American health policy debates address similar problems to other developed nations, it has factual and ideological specificities. I agree with Chinitz and Rodwin on the dominance of micro-economics thinking. However, I am not certain that learning from management theory or modifying medical education will be powerful enough to change the system. The vested interests of the stakeholders are too powerful, the more so when they are supported by economists who ideologically reinforce them and by neglecting the fact that the basic premises of market ideology are false when applied to medical care. There is enough empirical evidence to support that but, apparently, these facts do not dent these beliefs

An Approximate Linear Analysis of Structures Using Incremental Loading of Force Method

A relatively simple technique has been introduced in this paper. The approach is based on the Linear Force Method (FM) with discretion of the applied loads to the subsequence steps and updating coordinates in each iteration to have new geometrical property. The accuracy of the technique depends on the size of the discretion which depends on the number of iterations. A small change in the configuration could hugely affect the displacement and internal forces in geometrically nonlinear structures, that’s why the current approach is vital. The proposed technique is validated with other techniques of nonlinear analysis of the structures with a very good agreement in both terms of external nodal displacements and internal bar forces

Managing Schools in Brussels: Selection and Local Interdependencies

This paper underlines selection processes in the Belgian educational school system. It analyses the schools’ reactions to the recent modification of the enrolment policy that diminishes the freedom that schools have historically benefitted from to regulate their population. The paper shows that the management variations between schools have to be understood with regard to the local interdependencies between them. These local interdependencies constitute hierarchies that form a frame for individual actions in school which contribute to reproduce the hierarchical structure. Doing so, it insists on the necessity to understand the quasi-market and the competition between schools by taking in account the local social and demographic context. School managing practices are not only due to a mechanical cause-effect link with their position in the educational hierarchies. This paper shows that, when studying the actors’ perception in detail, the hierarchies constitute a frame for their actions at a more local level. In this sense, the weight of hierarchies and interdependencies is not automatically built on the spaces defined by flow of pupils between schools. Theses spaces are not a fixed frame for educational actions even within schools sharing a similar position in the hierarchies

Determine the frequency of peripartum hystrectomy in placenta previa

Background: Peripartum hysterectomy is one of the life saving procedure performed after vaginal delivery or caesarean birth or in the immediate postpartum period in cases of intractable haemorrhage due to uterine atony, rupture uterus and placental disorders and it is usually reserved for the situations where conservative measures fail to control the haemorrhage. The objective of the study was to determine the frequency of peripartum hysterectomy in placenta praevia.Methods: The study was cross-sectional. It was conducted at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Punjab Medical College and affiliated Hospital, Faisalabad. Study was carried out over a period of six months from October 2010 to March 2011. Total 130 cases of placenta praevia undergone caesarean section were included in this study. In cases of primary postpartum haemorrhage conservative management was done first in the form of intramuscular syntometrine (Oxytocin 5 IU/ergometrine 0.5 mg). Intravenous infusion syntocinon (40 IU in 500ml 0.9% saline over 4-6 hours).Results: Mean age of the patients was found to be 30.9±6.7 years. Distribution of cases by gestational age shows, 52 (40.0%) patients had gestation of 28-36 weeks and 78 (60.0%) patients had gestation of 37-41. Mean gestational age was observed 37.5±3.4 weeks. Parity distribution was as follows: 76 (58.5%) patients had parity 0-3, 34 (26.1%) patients had parity 4-6 and 20 (15.4%) patients had parity > 6 with mean parity of 3.2±1.9. Conservative management was done in 129 patients (99.3%). Peripartum hysterectomy was found to be in 1 patient (0.7%).Conclusions: Placental pathology is the leading cause of postpartum hemorrhage and the main indications of peripartum hysterectomy. Timely operation minimizes the morbidity and mortality

A two-phase loading model of the cable structures

A method for calculating displacements and stresses of prestressed tensile cable structures is presented. The developed numerical model takes into account the material and geometric nonlinearities. The behavior of the structure under an increasing load, from zero up to the final value is described. The load is usually applied in two phases: the first phase is prestressing, and the second phase is loading by dead and live gravity loads. An incremental approach with the successive application of the Total Lagrange formulation with small displacements is used to solve the problem of large displacements. The spatial discretization of the system is performed by two-noded beam elements. The fiber discretization of the cross-section is performed by triangular elements, where the mechanical properties of each fiber are presented by the stress-strain curve. The described model represents a practical way of implementing the large displacements theory for finding the appropriate form and stresses in prestressed cable structures

Design of an Integrated Analytics Platform for Healthcare Assessment Centered on the Episode of Care

Assessing care quality and performance is essential to improve healthcare processes and population health management. However, due to bad system design and lack of access to required data, this assessment is often delayed or not done at all. The goal of our research is to investigate an advanced analytics platform that enables healthcare quality and performance assessment. We used a user-centered design approach to identify the system requirements and have the concept of episode of care as the building block of information for a key performance indicator analytics system. We implemented architecture and interface prototypes, and performed a usability test with hospital users with managerial roles. The results show that by using user-centered design we created an analytical platform that provides a holistic and integrated view of the clinical, financial and operational aspects of the institution. Our encouraging results warrant further studies to understand other aspects of usability

Respostas sociais para idosos em Portugal

A presente investigação tem como objetivo desenvolver, com as estruturas existentes em Portugal, um conjunto de conclusões e implicações, de forma a melhorar a qualidade dos cuidados ao idoso na comunidade. Através de um estudo baseado na revisão literária e na comparação com outro país europeu. Chegou-se à conclusão que existe uma relação forte entre a qualidade dos cuidados prestados ao idoso e a qualificação do pessoal cuidador, nomeadamente de enfermagem. A integração das respostas sociais associadas ao idoso na Rede Nacional de Cuidados Continuados Integrados juntamente com um sistema de informação e comunicação compatível entre as estruturas e instituições geriátricas, poderia gerar um aumento significativo da qualidade dos cuidados e da sua gestão.This study aims to develop, a set of conclusions and implications, to improve the quality of care, provided by existing structures in Portugal, to the elderly in the community. This study is based on the revision of the literature review and on systematic comparison with other European country. It was possible to conclude that there is a strong relationship between quality of care provided to the elderly and caregiver staff qualifications, nurses in particular. The integration of social responses to the elderly in the National Network for Continuous Care along with a compatible information system and communication between structures and geriatric institutions could create an important increase of quality of care and its management

(Un)spoken: The register and display of the artist’s voice in the museum

This article is a two-fold exploration of the voice in relation to the documentation of artistic practice, whilst also focusing on the nuance and agency of the voice, its capture and presentation. Particularly in connection to the museum, this article posits the potential of approaching contemporary artworks displayed in a museum in an expanded and polyphonic manner. Drawing from a lineage of artistic example, it considers the possibilities and limitations of working with the voice and how to record and represent the interstitial, intimate or informal spaces of artistic production. The role of the museum as safeguard and mediator of artwork has been evolving apace to also accommodate the transparency of process, thus allowing for the revealing of institutional and artistic processes. With this reveal comes an enhanced understanding of the context in which an artwork was created and subsequently how it came to find itself within a particular collection

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Exercise The architectonic space is an exercise in architecture. It invites students to follow a particular approach to design that, for pedagogical purposes, limits the number of questions considered, in order to privilege a specific dimension of architecture. Intended for first-year students, this exercise is the first in the studio sequence to address a building as such. It comes after a drawing-oriented studio where architecture is mainly considered as element of an urban complex; and it is in turn followed by a workshop where the question of building materials and their implementation will become central. An immanent dimension The architectonic space aims to introduce students to the internal modalities of architecture. These include: the partitioning of spaces and the study of the qualities, declensions and articulations that are immanent operations within the architectural act, indifferent to any external or empirical influence. A distilled question Intentionally, the exercise suspends the consideration of two parameters that are usually decisive in the design of housing environments : the program and the site. Proposing an abstracted overview, the problem statement disallows any contextual data such as views, neighborhood, topography etc., and defuses any search for satisfaction of a particular program. The problem statement The statement specifies the outside of the building as well as the preferred distribution. The building is placed in a cube of 24 × 24 × 24 meters. The particular function of the building is not given, but the statement requires, in the manner of a public building, rooms of variable size and number. To these minimal requirements, two further constraints are added: the larger the rooms, the less numerous they will be, and vice versa; and the edifice will include at least one outdoor room. The given dimensions are large enough to allow some diversity, and small enough to make it impossible for the rooms to be fully independent of each other. The stakes Deprived of external resources, the project must then draw from the internal resources of architecture. Students are brought to formulate bold, expansive hypotheses, to re-work them and to make composition the main motivating force of their projects. In the end, the quality of the proposed spaces is evaluated according to their internal economy: the simplicity of their dispositions and the spatial richness they offer. The stripped-down conditions of the exercise bring the students to a radical experiment in architectonics, in the hope that it will awaken and stimulate their potential for architecture. The following persons contributed to the design of this exercise: Olivier Bourez, Pierre Cloquette, Jean-Philippe De Visscher, Arnaud Evrard, Corentin Fivet, Gérald Ledent, Olivier Masson, Renaud Pleitinx, Lee Roland, Jean Stillemans and Benoît Vandenbulcke