Questões de Inglês

Reading Comprehension

Shipping industry faces new risks, says Allianz.

Increasing ship sizes, human error and the challenge
of shipping in arctic waters are among the biggest
risks facing the modern maritime industry, according
to Allianz Global Corporate and Speciality. 

[05] The challenge of shipping in arctic waters is among
the biggest challenges facing the modern maritime
industry, the report said. 

Marking 100 years since the sinking of Titanic, the
insurers yesterday published a report which noted
[10] that, while the world commercial shipping fleet has
trebled to over 100,000 vessels over that period,
overall shipping loss rates have declined
significantly. In 1912, they were one ship per 100 per
year; in 2009 they had fallen to one ship per 670 per
[15] year. 

Despite this, Safety and shipping 1912-2012: from
Titanic to Costa Concordia, based on research from
Cardiff University, said the industry faced several
key challenges. These include the growing trend to
[20] ‘super-size’ ships and cost pressures which are
forcing ship-owners to source crews from emerging
economies where training standards can be
inconsistent. 

Other emerging risks include reduced crew numbers,
[25] which can compromise safety and encourage human
error, increasing bureaucracy on board ships and the
increased threat of piracy in Somalia and elsewhere.
The emergence of ‘ice shipping’ and its associated
navigational and environmental complications also
[30] poses a risk, the report said. 

Dr Sven Gerhard, AGCS’s global product leader
for hull & marine liabilities, said the industry
needed to address the new risks facing them
proactively. 

[35] ‘For example, ultra-large ships pose challenges
for insurers due to their sheer size and value,
while others raise concerns on structural integrity
and failure. While scale alone does not make
these ships riskier, the increased sizes introduce
[40] specific risks that need to be addressed, such as
salvage and recovery considerations and
emergency handling,’ he said. 

AGCS noted that, despite hundreds of years of
improvements in safety, human error remained a
[45] challenge. According to the report, over 75% of
marine losses can be attributed to a wide range of
‘human error’ factors, including fatigue,
inadequate risk management and competitive
pressures, as well as potential deficiencies in
[50] training and crewing levels. 

Dr Gerhard said: ‘As technological
improvements reduce risk, so does the weakest
link in the system – the human factor – become
more important. This is where the industry
[55] should focus most closely, so that best practice
risk management and a culture of safety becomes
second nature across the world fleet.’ 

Allianz did, however, note that major accidents
have often been the catalysts for key changes in
[60] maritime industry safety. In light of this, Dr
Gerhard said the Costa Concordia disaster earlier
this year was likely to be ‘no different’,
regardless of the outcome of investigations into
the incident itself.

(The Actuary Newsdesk: Nick Mann 27/Mar 2012)

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Physicians do not receive from the medical model the same explicit guidance in relating to their patients as in making diagnoses and prescribing pharmacologic and other treatments. To meet this need, we offer a framework for expanding the model. Therapeutic contact takes place within a connexional, or transpersonal, dimension of human experience, within which basic human needs for connection and meaning are met. Although seldom explicitly recognized, connexional experience is basic to medical care. Awareness of this dimension of experience leads clinicians to appreciate that establishing a therapeutic relationship is one of the principal goals of medical practice. It also reframes the doctor’s task to make clinical uncertainty more tolerable and situations in which there is no appropriate biomedical response (such as care of the terminally ill) less frustrating and more fulfilling.

(Adaptado de: SUCHMAN, A.; MATTHEWS, D. What Makes the Patient-Doctor Relationship Therapeutic? Exploring the Connexional Dimension of Medical Care. Disponível em: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=701050l. Acesso em: 18 maio 2013.)

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If global temperatures rise, can forests still flourish in their current ranges? Some scientists think not, so British Columbia – with assistance from the U.S. Forest Service – is now testing the climate tolerance of 15 common and commercially valuable tree species in non-native habitats. The aim: to identify ones that can be moved into areas expected to be more hospitable in the future.

Called assisted migration, the controversial approach presumes “evolution can’t keep up with the rate climate change, so it needs some help”, says project head Greg O’Neill. Detractors of the increasingly studied forestry practice cite the risks of altering ecosystems.

British Columbia has already extended the legal range in which timber companies can plant western larch seedlings. Other species, including Douglas fir and lodgepole pine, are being tested at sites spanning 1,700 miles, from Canada’s Yukon to California. These will be monitored for 30 years to evaluate their survival. “One day we could rely on Washington’s seed, Washington on Oregon’s, and so on”, says O’Neill. “It’s a problem that know no geographic bounderies”.

(SHYR, L. Future Forests. National Geographic. v.222, n.1, p.29, jul. 2012.)

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If global temperatures rise, can forests still flourish in their current ranges? Some scientists think not, so British Columbia – with assistance from the U.S. Forest Service – is now testing the climate tolerance of 15 common and commercially valuable tree species in non-native habitats. The aim: to identify ones that can be moved into areas expected to be more hospitable in the future.

Called assisted migration, the controversial approach presumes “evolution can’t keep up with the rate climate change, so it needs some help”, says project head Greg O’Neill. Detractors of the increasingly studied forestry practice cite the risks of altering ecosystems.

British Columbia has already extended the legal range in which timber companies can plant western larch seedlings. Other species, including Douglas fir and lodgepole pine, are being tested at sites spanning 1,700 miles, from Canada’s Yukon to California. These will be monitored for 30 years to evaluate their survival. “One day we could rely on Washington’s seed, Washington on Oregon’s, and so on”, says O’Neill. “It’s a problem that know no geographic bounderies”.

(SHYR, L. Future Forests. National Geographic. v.222, n.1, p.29, jul. 2012.)

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William Hurt shows his remarkable acting abilities to exceptionally good effect in The Doctor, the story of a once-impervious physician who makes a critical 90-degree shift. Dr. Jack MacKee, a prominent heart surgeon, is first seen presiding over an operating room team with the brash, cowboy arrogance of a seasoned expert. The film follows the events that leave Jack lying helpless in the same setting, about to experience a taste of his own medicine after he has been found to have throat cancer.

The Doctor, written by Robert Caswell (from a book by Ed Rosenbaum, M.D.) and directed by Randa Haines, is much more colorful than its weak title would suggest. The film takes a chillingly clinical view of the medical procedures to which Jack is subjected once he falls ill. And the fear that Mr. Hurt registers in these hospital scenes is in its quiet way more affecting than the rest of the story. In addition to following the course of his sickness, the film watches Jack as he recognizes the error of his ways, re-examines his profession, owns up to the emptiness of his marriage and finds inspiration in the courage of a beautiful young woman who has a brain tumor.

The visual backdrop for The Doctor contributes greatly to the film’s unnerving effectiveness. The costumes, especially Mr. Hurt’s, evolve tellingly from high-income armor to an air of less artificiality and greater warmth. And the production design, by Ken Adam, turns the hospital into a sleek, controlled environment in which medicine appears to have triumphed over nature. The Doctor is a powerful reminder that it has not.

(Adaptado de: MASLIN, J. William Hurt as Doctor Whose Spirit Heals When He Falls Ill. jul. 1991. Disponível em: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/24/movies/review-film-william-hurt-as-doctor-whose-spirit-heals-when-he-falls-ill.html. Acesso em: 15 maio 2013.)

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William Hurt shows his remarkable acting abilities to exceptionally good effect in The Doctor, the story of a once-impervious physician who makes a critical 90-degree shift. Dr. Jack MacKee, a prominent heart surgeon, is first seen presiding over an operating room team with the brash, cowboy arrogance of a seasoned expert. The film follows the events that leave Jack lying helpless in the same setting, about to experience a taste of his own medicine after he has been found to have throat cancer.

The Doctor, written by Robert Caswell (from a book by Ed Rosenbaum, M.D.) and directed by Randa Haines, is much more colorful than its weak title would suggest. The film takes a chillingly clinical view of the medical procedures to which Jack is subjected once he falls ill. And the fear that Mr. Hurt registers in these hospital scenes is in its quiet way more affecting than the rest of the story. In addition to following the course of his sickness, the film watches Jack as he recognizes the error of his ways, re-examines his profession, owns up to the emptiness of his marriage and finds inspiration in the courage of a beautiful young woman who has a brain tumor.

The visual backdrop for The Doctor contributes greatly to the film’s unnerving effectiveness. The costumes, especially Mr. Hurt’s, evolve tellingly from high-income armor to an air of less artificiality and greater warmth. And the production design, by Ken Adam, turns the hospital into a sleek, controlled environment in which medicine appears to have triumphed over nature. The Doctor is a powerful reminder that it has not.

(Adaptado de: MASLIN, J. William Hurt as Doctor Whose Spirit Heals When He Falls Ill. jul. 1991. Disponível em: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/24/movies/review-film-william-hurt-as-doctor-whose-spirit-heals-when-he-falls-ill.html. Acesso em: 15 maio 2013.)