Are we doing enough to prevent a heart disease epidemic?

This editorial is intended to provoke debate on the relevance of our contribution and its impact on the health care challenges faced by our entire population amidst the current financial and human resource constraints

Doprava a udržitelný rozvoj

The aim of this thesis is to align the role of transportation together with sustainable development to achieve sustainable transportation. Sustainable transportation aims to provide better and healthier ways of meeting individual and community needs while reducing the environment and social impacts of current mobility practise. Negative impacts on environment, economic growth and social equity have led to governments and other organisations to come up with policies and strategies to improve current unsustainable situation such as: traffic congestion, air pollution, climate change, transport cost, accessibility etc.. Transportation is a non-separable part of society, which is why working toward a sustainable future in transportation should be a responsibility of everyone.Cílem této diplomové práce je zarovnat roli dopravy spolu s udržitelným rozvojem k dosažení udržitelné dopravy. Udržitelné dopravy si klade za cíl poskytovat lepší a zdravější způsoby uspokojování potřeb jednotlivce a společenství zároveň snižuje životní prostředí a sociální dopady současné praxe mobilitu. Negativní dopady na životní prostředí, hospodářský růst a sociální spravedlnosti vedl k vládám a další organizace přijít s politiky a strategie ke zlepšení současné neudržitelné situaci jako například: dopravní zácpy, znečištění ovzduší, klimatické změny, nákladů na dopravu, přístupnosti atd.. Doprava je bez oddělitelná část společnosti, která je proto pracovní směrem k udržitelné budoucnosti v dopravě by měla být odpovědnost každého.Katedra dopravního managementu, marketingu a logistikyProblematiku řešenou ve své bakalářské práci dokázala studentka odpovídajícím způsobem obhájit. Prokázala schopnost samostatné práce. Na doplňkové otázky reagovala pohotově, se znalostí věci a bez závažných nepřesností je zodpověděla

Choosing antihypertensive treatment for a South African population

There is no uniform agreement as to which antihypertensive drugs should be given for initial therapy. All of the antihypertensive agents are roughly equally effective, producing a good antihypertensive response in 30 to 50 percent of cases. Thus, in uncomplicated cases, the choice of an antihypertensive drug is not generally made on the basis of efficacy. There is, however, wide inter-patient variability as many patients will respond well to one drug but not to another. There are also some predictable differences, such as black patients generally responding better to monotherapy with a thiazide diuretic or calcium channel blockers (CCBs), and relatively poorly to ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors or beta blockers. South African Family Practice Vol. 49 (8) 2007: pp. 27-3

In-hospital outcome of patients discharged from the ICU with tracheostomies

Objective. To document the outcome of patients discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU) with  tracheostomies.Design and setting. This was a retrospective study conducted in the ICU of Dr George Mukhari  Hospital, Pretoria.Patients. All patients discharged from the ICU with tracheostomies over a period of 1 year from 1 January to 31 December 2003.Interventions. None.Measurements. The main variables studied were post-ICU mortality and length of hospital stay, the  Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) at discharge from ICU and the multiple organ dysfunction score on the day of discharge from the ICU.Main results. Forty-seven patients were discharged with tracheostomies during the study period. The post-ICU mortality was 57%. The mortality of patients discharged with a GCS below 8 was statistically higher than that of patients discharged with a GCS above 8 (79% v. 22%, p = 0.0002). Survivors had  significantly longer duration of hospitalisation (26.95 ± 21.47 days v. 13.48 ± 14.24 days, p = 0.021) than non-survivors. The mortality rate was higher if the tracheostomy was performed for a low GCS than whenit was performed for reasons other than a low GCS (p = 0.0001). The 20 surviving patients were  decanulated before discharge from hospital.Conclusion. The outcome of patients discharged from the ICU with tracheostomies is, on the whole,  unfavourable compared with predicted mortality. A GCS of less than 8 is a good predictor of poor  outcome

Bronchogenic carcinoma: Has the outlook changed?

Background: The purpose of the study was to determine the proportion of patients with bronchogenic carcinoma amenable to curative surgery at diagnosis. Methods: A retrospective approach was used in the setting of an academic hospital. The patients used for the study were all those presenting at the hospital over a two-year period (1999-2000) who were confirmed to have primary bronchogenic carcinoma. No interventions were undertaken. Results: Eighty-six (86) patients were confirmed with bronchogenic carcinoma during the study period. The mean age of the patients was 57.9 ± 10.8 years. Eighty-five percent (85%) were current tobacco users. Ninety percent (90%) of the cancers were of the non-small cell variety. Only 15% of the patients were deemed suitable for curative surgery. The tumour histology, the sex of the patients and the duration of symptoms prior to presentation had no bearing on the probability of being suitable for curative surgery. Almost 40% of the patients had metastatic disease at presentation. Conclusions: The prognosis of bronchogenic carcinoma remains extremely grave. Tobacco use remains an important risk factor. SA Fam Pract 2004;46(8): 26-2

Making great places in slums/ informal settlements

According to UN-Habitat (2007) “a slum is a heavily populated urban informal settlement characterized by substandard housing and squalor”. The word slum is generally used to describe low-income settlements with deprived conditions. (UN-Habitat, 2006). There is no universally agreed definition of the word slum. As conditions differ from country to country, different scholars from various countries define the term “slum” differently. Definitions mainly include: illegal, poorly-constructed settlements without basic services, even when some of them are relatively more different and have proper structures? An informal settlement can be defined as stated by Huchzermeyer and Karam (2006) as those settlements that were not planned by nor have formal permission to exist from government. Srinivas (1991) defines informal settlement/ slums as an area where the urban poor resides and usually have no access to tenure rights and are forced to ‘squat’ on vacant land either private or public. While slums/ informal settlements differ in size and other characteristics in different counties, but what most slums/informal settlements share in common are the lack of reliable basic services such as the supply of clean water, electricity, timely law enforcement and proper services. (UN-Habitat 2007). Place making is a described as an approach that is used to inspire and encourage communities to create their own space/ places. Place making is how we collectively shape our public realm to maximize shared value (Project for public spaces, 2009). The focus on place making was intended to remind planners of the human aspect of city-building and the ultimate goal is to create places that people use, that inspire social interaction and promote community stewardship (Urban Strategy Inc., 2008). This paper highlights critical determinants of place making in slums/informal settlements. In the context of slums/ informal settlements, firstly it covers what great places are and what constitutes as a great place. Secondly it covers the characteristics of a great place/ place making and how we can upgrade slums/ informal settlements in to great places. Lastly what is the perception of communities of great places and what they think is needed to make their settlement a “great place”. The paper is based on a research study of Kaya Sands slums/ informal settlements of Midrand, South Africa

The Institutionalization of Genocidal Leadership: Pol Pot and a Cambodian Dystopia

© 2015 University of Phoenix. Misleadership is defined as leadership process involving a complex interplay of leader, follower, and situational elements, inscribing a vicious circle of intensifying dysfunctional action. It is tempting to see misleadership as the result of the madness of one leader. It is also misleading. Leadership research has been insufficiently attentive to misleadership and, in particular, to the misleadership factors intervening in genocidal processes. Discussed in the current article are the antecedents and the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s as an extreme case of misleadership. Lessons from the Polpotist dystopia are derived and reflections on possible contra-strategies are presented. In particular, it is suggested that it is necessary to distinguish measures for social change that are admissible and positive, from negative utopian visions that are negative, inadmissible, and facilitative of evil leadership

Organizational zemblanity

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. We introduce the concept of zemblanity to organization studies to refer to the enactment of disaster when, in systems designed to impede risk, key actors nonetheless construct their own misfortune. The case of the Costa Concordia provides an opportunity to discuss organizational zemblanity. Active as well as passive behaviours by the Costa Concordia's Captain created a vicious circle of inappropriate decision-making with traumatic effects. These were complemented by structural elements to be found both in the individual behaviours of others (mainly, the vessel's first line of command) and the lack of other effective organizational controls, both in terms of structures and routines. As our discussion illuminates, there are two overarching elements in play: an excess of individual discretion and a lack of proper organizational controls. We go on to consider the significant implications for both theory and practice that flow from our analysis

An institutional palimpsest? The case of Cambodia’s political order, 1970 and beyond

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. How do continuity and change coexist and coevolve? How does continuity enable change and change reinforce continuity? These are central questions in organizational and political research, as organizational and institutional systems benefit from the presence of both reproduction and transformation. However, the relation between the processes of change and continuity still raises significant questions. To contribute to this discussion, we analyse the coexistence of deep institutional continuity and radical political change in the second half of twentieth-century Cambodia. Over a two-decade period, Cambodia was ruled by radically different political systems of organization: a traditional monarchy with feudal characteristics, a failing republic, a totalitarian communist regime, and a Vietnamese protectorate, before being governed by the UN and finally becoming a constitutional monarchy. We use an historical approach to study how a succession of radical changes may in reality signal deep lines of continuity