Strengthening Primary Care: Recent Reforms and Achievements in Australia, England, and the Netherlands

Outlines efforts to enhance primary care quality and access, including postgraduate training for family physicians, general practitioner accreditation, greater use of nurse practitioners, and after-hours care; their outcomes; and insights for U.S. reform

Minimal and Direct Access Surgery in Urology

An alternative method to laparoscopic surgery has been developed for urological procedures. The surgery is minimal access because the length of the single skin incision ranges from 3–6 cm depending on the type of operation. It is direct access because the surgeon sees the operative area directly and stereoscopically by eye without video-optical support. The procedure requires a special open-lumen retractorscope (JakoscopeTM) with a high intensity fiberoptic light system and modified standard hand instruments. Among the procedures performed nephrectomy, ureterolithotomy, prostatic adenomectomy, spermatic vein ligation and others have been performed. The kidney procedures have been operated retroperitoneally through a minilumbotomy incision. The procedures are simple, rapid and the instruments are inexpensive. The postoperative pain and morbidity are comparable to the laparoscopic approach

Pulse Ratings and Thermal Characteristics of Power Transistors

Power transistors are used in switching circuits of various types. Their operation in these circuits can be considered as an essentially on-off operation. Designers working with these circuits found that the ratio of the on-time to the off-time is a critical factor in determining the average power that the transistor can dissipate without exceeding its inherent temperature limits

Small ideas for big impacts: Multifunctionality in the rural village of Verkykerskop

Nijkamp affirms the Utopians’ claim of an open and flexible future, where development could imply surprising steps towards something better. Castells questions admonishingly whether planning approaches are changeable in a world that has already changed. Following Davidoff’s indications of making urban life beautiful, exciting and creative, planners encounter “surprising steps” within the planning approaches of compact cities, new urbanism, new ruralism, smart growth, green urbanism, and so on. In responding to Castells’ “multidimensional change in the spatial dimension”, the imagination of planners is intercepted, angling them towards a multifunctional planning advent. This article reasons that a combination of the new urbanism, green urbanism and new ruralism may be a beneficial response to multifunctionality, especially as megatrends emphasise the need to abandon the pursuit of a predictable single future or outcome. It questions whether the reciprocal use of these planning approaches may induce multifunctional rural landscapes. The uniqueness of the inherently rural South African landscape also necessitates a rural emphasis in this article, questioning whether the reciprocal use of the three planning approaches in the recently planned rural village of Verkykerskop, acclaimed by the Charter for New Urbanism in 2012, generated multifunctional rural land use.&nbsp

Demand Side Management in Small Power Systems – The Estonian Case Study

The increasing amount of stochastic power generation connected to power system increases the need for additional ancillary reserves. Most of today's electricity consumers are relatively flexible and easily controllable,providing an already existing supplement for traditional power system ancillary services. The flexibility of loads depends on the number, type and size of consumers. In small power systems utilizing loads for power system services pose different challenges for the system operator than in larger systems. The main challenge lies in developing a business case and incentives for the customers to participate in such services. This paper discusses and analyses the Estonian three most energy intensive economic sectors potential for demand side response from a small power system point of view. Generally, it is determined that demand side flexibility provides incentives not only for the power system operator but also for the customer who is able optimize its processes to gain higher economic and energy efficiency and at the same time provide flexibility for the system operator

Exploring Autonomography: The Development of a Self-directed Writing Self-rating Scale

Writing involves a number of skills and being self-directed in the process would contribute to greater effectivity. The concept of autonomography, or being self-directed in terms of writing, draws from the literature on self-directed learning and specifically self-directed writing, where concepts such as selfregulation and learner autonomy are relevant in the language learning process. This study entailed the development of a self-directed writing questionnaire through a thorough overview of the pertinent literature and a consultative process with language experts in order to explore the nature of autonomography among a selected Afrikaans-speaking university student population. The statistical factor analyses confirm that autonomography involves a writer's self-directedness, voice and selfinvolvement, self-assessment and problem-solving, preference for own and expressive language, sensitivity towards other languages and language varieties, metacognitive skills, approach to selfdirected writing on computer as well as editing and problem-solving on computer. These factors provide measures but also key areas of development in writing instruction. In addition, the level of autonomography wa