For ease of use and to aid precision, left-handed instruments are invaluable to the left-handed surgeon. Although they exist, they are not available in many surgical centres. As a result, most operating theatre staff (including many left-handers) have little knowledge of their value or even application. With specific reference to cardiac surgery, this article addresses the ways in which they di...

The Northwest Society for Classical Studies (NWCS) was honored and privileged to have Professor Larry Bliquez speak on one of his favorite topics, the surgical instruments found in classical archeological sites and described in classical literature. Professor Bliquez is a distinguished and popular University of Washington professor, trained in classical (Latin and Greek) philology, winner of th...

In radiosurgery, a moving beam of radiation acts as an ablative surgical instrument. Conventional systems for radiosurgery use a cylindrical radiation beam of fixed cross section. The radiation source can be moved only along simple, standardized paths. A new radiosurgical system based on a six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm has been developed to overcome limitations of conventional systems. We a...

This paper estimates the effects of non-randomly distributed government programs in Indonesia using a new instrumental variables technique. Based on the maintained assumptions that governments are responsive to regional attributes and not to individual characteristics, and that conditional on the presence of programs, individual outcomes are uncorrelated with mean characteristics, regional leve...

The paper surveys existing theory of e-commerce business models and associated conceptual instruments. It employs three original case studies of SMEs using e-commerce to demonstrate the dynamic nature of e-commerce business models for networked SMEs. The idea of evolutionary business planning based upon Molina’s sociotechnical constituency approach and the diamond of alignment is

An overview of the current status of the development of our navigation system for resection of liver tumours is given. The system is based on intraoperative 3D ultrasound volumes for image-guided navigation of surgical instruments. It is also possible to perform a virtual 3D planning of the tumour resection and to non-rigidly register these preoperative models to the intraoperative ultrasound v...

The last fteen years have seen a remarkable revolution in both the conduct of and the common understanding of monetary policy around the world. This revolution has encompassed instruments, with an increased emphasis on transparency about short and medium run central bank policy planning and decreased emphasis on intermediate targets such as monetary aggregates. This revolution has also encompas...

Designing sustainable energy policies has a strong impact on economy, society and environment. Beside a planning activity, policy makers are called to design a number of implementation instruments to enforce their plans. They encompass subsidies, fiscal incentives, feed in tariffs to name a few. Understanding the impact of these instruments on the energy market is essential to select the most e...