We examined the growth of understory conifers, following partial or complete deciduous canopy removal, in a field study established in two regions in Canada. In central British Columbia, we studied the responses of three species (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca (Beissn.) Franco, Picea glauca (Moench) Voss x Picea engelmannii Parry ex Engelm., and Abies lasiocarpa (Hook.) Nutt.), and in northwestern Quebec, we studied one species (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.). Stem and root diameter and height growth were measured 5 years before and 3 years after harvesting. Both root and stem diameter growth increased sharply following release but seedlings showed greater root growth, suggesting that in the short term, improvement in soil resource capture and transport, and presumably stability, may be more important than an increase in stem diameter and height growth. Response was strongly size dependent, which appears to reflect greater demand for soil resources as well as higher light levels and greater tree vigour before release for taller individuals. Growth ratios could not explain the faster response generally attributed to true fir species or the unusual swift response of spruces. Good prerelease vigour of spruces, presumably favoured by deciduous canopies, could explain their rapid response to release.


Gram-negative bacteria contain a double membrane system which is made up of the inner membrane (IM) and the outer membrane (OM). The OM, the asymmetric membrane, is an important contributor towards resistance against various toxic molecules which provides extensive protection of cell viability. The OM consists of lipopolysaccharides (LPS) at the outer leaflet and glycerophospholipid (GPL) at the inner leaflet. LPSisa large amphipathic moleculethatis essential for most Gram-negative bacteria and is composed of three moieties: lipid A, core oligosaccharide and O-antigen. Precursors of LPS, the rough LPS and O-antigen units, are synthesized at the inner leaflet of the IM and are assembled into mature LPS at the outer leaflet of the IM. Seven proteins, lipopolysaccharide transporters (LptA-G), form a periplasmic bridge and transport mature LPS from the IM tothe outer leaflet of the OM, where LPS functions as an impermeable barrier. The inner leaflet of the OM is also an obligate componentfor the stability and functionality of OM. GPL molecules consist of phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylglycerols (PG) and cardiolipin (CL) in an approximately 75: 20: 5 ratio in most bacterial membranes. The biogenesis and transport of LPS and GPL are often the highlights of novel drug development; however little is known about the mechanisms of the actionsof the proteins involved in these processes.

Protein X-ray crystallography is a technique that determinesthe molecular structure of a protein or a protein complex from the diffraction data of a protein crystal generated underX-ray beam. Knowing a protein's molecular structure provides us with the informationwhich may include possible molecular motion and conformational changes or interactions between residues, substrates and domains. These important details may provide hints into how to perform further studies on broad-ranged specific targets.

This thesis includes four Chapters related to the X-ray crystal determination of proteins involved in biosynthesis, modificationand transport of LPS and the transport of CL. In Chapter 1 I have included the successful cloning, expression and structure determination of the ABC transporter LptB2FG, which is responsible for LPS extraction from the inner membrane. Also, the corresponding in vivoand in vitroassays are reported to support the LPS extraction and transportation functionality of LptB2FG. Chapter 2 contains the successful expression of glycosyl transferase WaaB and the determination of its structure. Mutagenesis and enzyme activity assays have also been performed to determine the galactosyl transferase activity site of WaaB(work by Gareth James Asheworth). Chapter 3 describesthe successful cloning and structural determination of LapB, which may controlan intermediated step of lipid A biosynthesis via balancing the level of LpxC & FtsH, Finally, Chapter 4 reveals the protein expression and structural determination of the globular domain of PbgA. PbgA is regarded as the cardiolipin transportation protein and we have also performed in vivo mutagenesis functional assays to identify the important residues for its functionality.


Among scholars of neoliberal capitalism, it is commonly noted that neoliberalism shapes human subjectivity. In this thesis, I address this relationship between neoliberal capitalism and subjectivity. I argue that the neoliberalisation of subjectivity and everyday life is central to neoliberalism's embeddedness. I offer a critical account of what Wendy Brown describes as the neoliberal production of subjects. As I will claim, the production of neoliberal subjects is in part the consequence of applying economic categories and market-like principles and practices to all aspects of human life. To clarify the relationship between neoliberalism and subjectivity, I examine the notion of human capital, which has been pivotal to articulations of neoliberal selfhood. I also critically assess a range of management literature and practices that promote the optimisation of the neoliberal subject's human capital. Additionally, I contend that neoliberal discourse and practices shape our working lives, both in and outside of formal work settings. My aim is to elucidate the economic and social conditions and the ideological field that have brought about the imperfect yet extensive neoliberalisation of selfhood.


In this conceptual article we invite multilingual researchers to consider the concept of translanguaging through the lens of human capital theory. Our thinking about the interconnections among human capital, multilingualism, and translanguaging is motivated by our research in border colonias and other minoritized communities in South Texas, and we begin by describing these globalized Mexican diaspora communities located on the U.S.-Mexico border. We provide a brief overview of translanguaging by connecting this concept to similar terms used in related disciplines of interest to multilingualism research. We discuss how human capital has been used in educational research before outlining six forms of capital that offer potential for understanding how multilingualism can be fostered in and out of schools. We conclude with suggestions for empirical research on multilingual literacies and translanguaging.


A real-time per-clock-cycle energy measurement technique is presented for power analysis and the reduction of energy consumption of synchronous state machines. This technique guarantees accuracy with a sampling rate of twice the clock frequency under spiky current draw conditions common in digital systems. In addition, it acquires the energy consumption profile in real-time, and therefore does not require repeated operation of the target system.


This article advocates for a new perspective on Caribbean performance traditions by adopting an Afro-Iberian perspective. It argues that we are able to acquire a better understanding of the historical development of some of the most enigmatic Caribbean performances, including Jankunu, by taking into consideration that many of those who built the foundations of Afro-Caribbean culture had already adopted cultural and religious elements rooted in Iberian traditions before their arrival in the Americas. A comparative analysis demonstrates a series of parallels between early witness accounts of Jankunu and Iberian calenda traditions. In order to explain this, the article points to Iberian dominance in the early-modern Atlantic and, in particular, Portuguese influences in Africa. It highlights the importance of confraternities and argues that it was in the context of African variants of these mutual-aid and burial societies that elements rooted in Iberian traditions entered Afro-Caribbean culture.


What explains Germany's superb export performance? Is Germany's export behaviour very distinct compared to other European countries? The authors explore the organisational responses to competition of 14,000 exporting firms in seven European countries. The paper examines the export business model of the median exporter and of the top one percent exporters in each country, accounting for 20 percent to 55 percent of total exports.

What do these firms do to become superstars? The authors find, first, that the export market share of the median exporter in each of the countries to the world more than tripled (in some cases the export market share increases tenfold) for firms that combine decentralised management with offshoring of production to low-wage countries. Exporters which abstain from any organisational adjustment do very badly. Decentralised management provides incentives for workers for product improvements allowing exporters to compete on quality. Offshoring production to low-wage countries reduces costs allowing exporters to compete on price. Second, we find that Germany is the leading quality exporter in Europe followed by Austria and Spain. Among the top 10 percent of exporters there is no single firm with low quality in Germany and Austria, which suggest that decentralised management has provided incentives for quality in these countries. Third, Germany's exports are less vulnerable to price increases, while exports from France and Italy respond strongly to price changes, and thus costs reductions via offshoring benefits these countries most.


Most public key cryptosystems used in practice are based on integer factorization or discrete logarithms (in finite fields or elliptic curves). However, these systems suffer from two potential drawbacks. First, they must use large keys to maintain security, resulting in decreased efficiency. Second, if large enough quantum computers can be built, Shor's algorithm will render them completely insecure. Multivariate public key cryptosystems (MPKC) are one possible alternative. MPKC makes use of the fact that solving multivariate polynomial systems over a finite field is an NP-complete problem, for which it is not known whether there is a polynomial algorithm on quantum computers. The main goal of this work is to show how to use new mathematical structures, specifically polynomial identities from algebraic geometry, to construct new multivariate public key cryptosystems. We begin with a basic overview of MPKC and present several significant cryptosystems that have been proposed. We also examine in detail some of the most powerful attacks against MPKCs. We propose a new framework for constructing multivariate public key cryptosystems and consider several strategies for constructing polynomial identities that can be utilized by the framework. In particular, we have discovered several new families of polynomial identities. Finally, we propose our new cryptosystem and give parameters for which it is secure against known attacks on MPKCs.


The Internet offers cities new opportunities to communicate with their constituents at a time when metropolitan areas struggle with their community identity and cohesion. This study examined how official websites of the core cities in the 50 largest (by population) United States metropolitan areas represented their cities to the public as a whole, as well as how the cities communicated with their residents and visitors via these websites. A research paradigm was proposed to serve as the conceptual framework for empirical exploration, based on Musso, Weare, and Hale's (2000) dualistic model, by expanding it to include a "mass communication" model. Study findings revealed that the vast majorities of all sample sites contained high frequencies of information links to reflect all major communication functions.


During embryogenesis, epicardial cells undergo epithelial-mesenchymal transformation (EMT), invade the myocardium, and differentiate into components of the coronary vasculature, including smooth muscle cells. We tested the hypothesis that transforming growth factor-beta (TGFbeta) stimulates EMT and smooth muscle differentiation of epicardial cells. In epicardial explants, TGFbeta1 and TGFbeta2 induce loss of epithelial morphology, cytokeratin, and membrane-associated Zonula Occludens-1 and increase the smooth muscle markers calponin and caldesmon. Inhibition of activin receptor-like kinase (ALK) 5 blocks these effects, whereas constitutively active (ca) ALK5 increases cell invasion by 42%. Overexpression of Smad 3 did not mimic the effects of caALK5. Inhibition of p160 rho kinase or p38 MAP kinase prevented the loss of epithelial morphology in response to TGFbeta, whereas only inhibition of p160 rho kinase blocked TGFbeta-stimulated caldesmon expression. These data demonstrate that TGFbeta stimulates loss of epithelial character and smooth muscle differentiation in epicardial cells by means of a mechanism that requires ALK5 and p160 rho kinase.


Abstract Classroom assessment has become a cornerstone of today's standards-based system of education. However, recent policy developments, professional standards, and variable assessment education have led to significant variability in teachers' approaches to assessment. The primary purpose of this research was to use a new instrument predicated on recently published classroom assessment standards – the Approaches to Classroom Assessment Inventory – to measure teachers' (a) approaches to assessment, (b) perceived skill in current assessment tasks and responsibilities, and (c) professional learning preferences and priorities. Based on 404 teachers from across North America, this study contributes initial evidence of how teachers approach classroom assessment with respect to four dimensions: Assessment Purposes, Assessment Processes, Assessment Fairness and Measurement Theory. Results from this study point to significant differences based on career stage and previous assessment education. The study concludes with four key implications for assessment research and practice.


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The recent flows of migrants, whatever the reason that has driven many non-European citizens to reach the European Union, has questioned various aspects in relation to migration. Among them there is the theme of the integration of migrants in the States of arrival and of stay, despite of their legal status (refugees, asylum seekers or economic migrants in regular position). The article aims to analyse the nature of the European Union action on Integration: what is the legal basis, is it a EU Policy or an EU Action? Furthermore, it focuses on the rights recognised by the Treaties and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to the concerned third country nationals and on their obligations.


A prototype for multi-mode linear ultrasonic motor has been proposed and designed. It is designed using a combination of the first longitudinal and the first bending mode. The piezoelectric ceramics convert energy using the longitudinal d33 effect which allows an improved reliability, large vibration amplitudes and excellent piezoelectric coupling. The normal direction motion of the driving element is excited by the first longitudinal mode. The tangential direction motion of the driving element is excited by the first bending mode. The resulting displacement of the driving element is transmitted by the frictional force between the vibrator and the rail in a linear motion. The analysis on the modals of the composite vibrator by using the ANSYS finite element software has been presented in this paper. Finally, the vibrator structure of the motor and the motor's own structures are designed. The basic design is discussed and simulations are compared with the experimental results, the results show that the motor characteristics can be optimized for a particular task by choosing the appropriate operating parameters such as exciting voltage, exciting frequency and normal force.


When exploring contributions to political debates in late eighteenth-century England, scholars have typically favoured non-serialized publications, most commonly the pamphlet, thus neglecting the many contributions appearing in the periodical press. This article redresses this oversight by exploring both the shortcomings and the advantages of the newspaper as a medium for political debate in this period. Based on a close reading of leading London newspapers from the politically turbulent years of 1791–95, this article explores the following questions: What advantages did the newspaper have over stand-alone publications such as the political pamphlet? What type of audience were writers of political newspaper commentary trying to reach, and what barriers did they encounter when attempting to do so? Why did the newspaper supplant the non-serialized pamphlet as the leading medium for political debate towards the end of the eighteenth century?


Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with excessive cell death causing selective loss of dopaminergic neurons. Dysfunction of the Ubiquitin Proteasome System (UPS) is associated with the pathophysiology of PD. Mutations in Parkin which impair its E3-ligase activity play a major role in the pathogenesis of inherited PD. ARTS (Sept4_i2) is a mitochondrial protein, which initiates caspase activation upstream of cytochrome c release in the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. Here we show that Parkin serves as an E3-ubiquitin ligase to restrict the levels of ARTS through UPS-mediated degradation. Though Parkin binds equally to ARTS and Sept4_i1 (H5/PNUTL2), the non-apoptotic splice variant of Sept4, Parkin ubiquitinates and degrades only ARTS. Thus, the effect of Parkin on ARTS is specific and probably related to its pro-apoptotic function. High levels of ARTS are sufficient to promote apoptosis in cultured neuronal cells, and rat brains treated with 6-OHDA reveal high levels of ARTS. However, over-expression of Parkin can protect cells from ARTS-induced apoptosis. Furthermore, Parkin loss-of-function experiments reveal that reduction of Parkin causes increased levels of ARTS and apoptosis. We propose that in brain cells in which the E3-ligase activity of Parkin is compromised, ARTS levels increase and facilitate apoptosis. Thus, ARTS is a novel substrate of Parkin. These observations link Parkin directly to a pro-apoptotic protein and reveal a novel connection between Parkin, apoptosis, and PD.


Introduction. Orally administered preparations from the Trametes versicolor (Tv) mushroom have been hypothesized to improve immune response in women with breast cancer after standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Methods. A phase I, two-center, dose escalation study was done to determine the maximum tolerated dose of a Tv preparation when taken daily in divided doses for 6 weeks after recent completion of radiotherapy. Eleven participants were recruited and nine women completed the study. Each cohort was comprised of three participants given one of three doses of Tv (3, 6, or 9 grams). Immune data was collected pre- and postradiation, at 3 on-treatment time points and after a 3-week washout. Results. Nine adverse events were reported (7 mild, 1 moderate, and 1 severe), suggesting that Tv was well tolerated. Immunological results indicated trends in (1) increased lymphocyte counts at 6 and 9 grams/day; (2) increased natural killer cell functional activity at 6 grams/day; (3) dose-related increases in CD8+ T cells and CD19+ B cells , but not CD4+ T cells or CD16+56+ NK cells. Conclusion. These findings show that up to 9 grams/day of a Tv preparation is safe and tolerable in women with breast cancer in the postprimary treatment setting. This Tv preparation may improve immune status in immunocompromised breast cancer patients following standard primary oncologic treatment.


Shrinkage compensating by the expansion generated by the hydration of expansive additive is one of the important measures to improve the dimensional stability of cement-based materials. Due to the slow hydration of MgO, it may cause delayed expansion in cement and thus has been used as an expansive additive to compensate thermal shrinkage at late age in mass concrete. The relationship among the microstructure, activity and expansion properties of MgO-type expansive additive (MEA) has not been clearly demonstrated, though many researches have been focused on its expansion mechanism and expansion properties. So the industrial production and application of MEA depend much on empirical methods. Three different types of MEA are produced by calcining magnesite at 900°C, 1100°C, and 1300 °Cfor 1h in an electrical furnace. The specific surface area, activity, inner pore structure, microtopography and expansion properties of the MEA have been investigated. Results show the effect of calcination temperatures on the expansion properties of MEA results from the changes in its microstructure, specific area, and thus the activity. High calcination temperature causes growth in MgO grain, decrease in specific area and surface defects of MgO, and hence the reduction of the activity value, inducing slow hydration rate and thus delayed expansion. This study will provide a platform for well understanding various activity and expansion properties of MEA produced under different temperatures.


Factor models of the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Validation with coronary patients and a critique of Ward's model. The objective of this study was to validate in a sample of 205 coronary patients a factor model for the BDI-II, especially a model that would allow for modeling of depressive symptoms after explicitly removing bias related to somatic symptoms of depression that would overlap those of heart disease. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses for ordinal data were conducted. A one-factor model, six correlated two-factor models and, derivatives thereof, seven models with a single General Depression factor and two uncorrelated factors, were analyzed. Exploratory analysis extracted two factors, Somatic-affective and Cognitive. Confirmatory factor analyses showed the worst fit for the one-factor model. Two-factor models were surpassed in goodness of fit by the models of general-factor and group factors. Among these, the General, Somatic-affective and Cognitive (G-Sa-C) model of Beck with students is noteworthy. The reduced General, Somatic and Cognitive (G-S-C) model of Ward showed the worst goodness of fit. Our model surpasses the cutoff criteria of all fit indexes. We conclude that the inclusion of a general-factor and group factors in all the models surpasses the results of G-S-C model and, therefore, questions it. The G-Sa-C model is strengthened.


Purpose: The proteasome inhibitor bortezomib inhibited cell growth and angiogenesis in neuroblastoma. Bortezomib has been shown to induce synergistic activity when combined with other antineoplastic agents. Here we have investigated the antitumor activity of bortezomib in combination with fenretinide, a synthetic retinoid, against neuroblastoma cells. Experimental Design: Different neuroblastoma cell lines were tested for sensitivity to bortezomib and fenretinide, given alone or in different dose-dependent and time-dependent combination schedules. Cell proliferation, cell viability, and apoptosis were evaluated by measuring 3H-thymidine incorporation, trypan blue staining, DNA fragmentation, and western blot analysis. Angiogenesis was assessed by the chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane assay. An orthotopic neuroblastoma mouse model was used to examine in vivo sensitivity. Results: Each compound alone was able to induce a dose-dependent inhibition of cell proliferation, with a significant enhanced antiproliferative effect for the drugs used in combination. This inhibition was characterized by marked G2-M and G1 cell cycle arrest with nearly complete depletion of S phase. Bortezomib and fenretinide in association triggered an increased apoptosis through activation of specific genes of the endoplasmic reticulum stress compared with either drug tested alone. Tumor-bearing mice treated with bortezomib plus fenretinide lived statistically significantly longer than mice treated with each drug alone. Histologic evaluation and chorioallantoic membrane analysis of primary tumors showed that the combined therapeutic activity of bortezomib and fenretinide rested upon antitumor and antiangiogenic mechanisms. Conclusions: These findings provide the rationale for the development of a new therapeutic strategy for neuroblastoma based on this pharmacologic combination.


How will future changes in precipitation affect irrigation demand and supply in India? This paper provides econometric evidence for the demand side of the analysis by examining the relationship between monsoon changes and irrigation variability for one of the world's most water stressed countries, India. Using detailed crop-wise agriculture and weather data spanning 35 years, the econometric model isolates the historical impact of the distribution and total supply of monsoon precipitation on irrigation demand via the use of irrigated area for crops grown in the dry(Rabi) and wet(Kharif) seasons. We find differential impacts of the monsoon by crop, by season and by source of irrigation. In general, for crops grown in the wet season, irrigation is sensitive to both distribution and total monsoon rainfall but not to ground or surface water availability. For crops grown in the dry season, total monsoon rainfall matters most, and its effect is sensitive to groundwater availability. Over the historic period of analysis, the effect of the monsoon on irrigation has remained relatively stable. The econometric analysis, when combined with a process based hydrology model that accounts for the supply side response of water availability, can help quantify the (un)sustainable water use trajectory that different regions within India will face.


In this paper, we present Extreme Bandwidth Extension Network (EBEN), a Generative Adversarial network (GAN) that enhances audio measured with body-conduction microphones. This type of capture equipment suppresses ambient noise at the expense of speech bandwidth, thereby requiring signal enhancement techniques to recover the wideband speech signal. EBEN leverages a multiband decomposition of the raw captured speech to decrease the data time-domain dimensions, and give better control over the full-band signal. This multiband representation is fed to a U-Net-like model, which adopts a combination of feature and adversarial losses to recover an enhanced audio signal. We also benefit from this original representation in the proposed discriminator architecture. Our approach can achieve state-of-the-art results with a lightweight generator and real-time compatible operation.


A simple, sensitive and specific thin layer chromatography
 densitometric method has been developed for the simultaneous
 quantification of vincristine and vinblastine in the leaves of catharanthus
 roseus. The method involved simultaneous estimation of vincristine and
 vinblastine after resolving it by High Performance TLC on silica gel plate
 with toluene-methanol-diethylamine (8.75: 0.75: 0.5 v/v/v) as the mobile
 phase. The method was validated as per the ICH guidelines for precision
 (inter-day, intra-day, inter-system), robustness, accuracy, LOD and LOQ.
 The relationship between the concentration of standard solutions and the
 peak response was linear within the concentration range of 100ng/spot to
 4000ng/spot for vincristine and 200ng/spot to 4000ng/spot for vinblastine.
 The method precision was found to be 0.77-1.78 (%RSD) and 1.24-2.13 (%
 RSD) for vincristine and vinblastine, respectively. Accuracy of the method
 was checked by recovery study conducted at three different levels and
 the average percentage recovery was found to be 100.21 % for vincristine
 and 99.99 % for vinblastine, respectively. The HPTLC method for the
 simultaneous quantification of vincristine and vinblastine was found to be
 simple, precise, specific, sensitive and accurate and can be used for
 routine analysis and quality control of raw material of C. roseus. and
 several unani and ayurvedic formulations containing as an ingredient.


Abstract proposal for CAA 2012 Vocabularies Session (Code: Data2) The use of standardized vocabularies in archaeology: full day session and workshop ----- Experiences with SKOS from the STAR and STELLAR Projects Ceri Binding, Phil Carlisle, Keith May, Doug Tudhope, Andreas Vlachidis (University of Glamorgan and English Heritage) The proposed full paper describes the experiences from the AHRC funded STAR and STELLAR projects (2007-2011) with SKOS. These projects have made extensive use of SKOS: http://hypermedia.research.glam.ac.uk/kos/STAR/ http://hypermedia.research.glam.ac.uk/kos/stellar/ The techniques used to representing English Heritage (National Monuments Record) Thesauri in RDF SKOS format will be described. The web services and user interface widgets developed to provide access to the thesauri will be explained, along with the various uses made of the thesauri within the projects. These include their use for semantic concept based search, semantic alignment of free text type fields with the thesauri, query expansion, SKOS thesauri in complementary use with the CIDOC CRM ontology, and as resources for natural language processing applications that extract conceptual entities from archaeological grey literature. The EH thesauri converted include Monument Types, Archaeological Objects, Evidence, Building Materials, Environmental Sciences, Timelines. SKOS based terminology services and widgets will be demonstrated, along with different applications. Validation options will be considered. http://hypermedia.research.glam.ac.uk/resources/terminology/ The development of a STELLAR project tool facilitating the representation of thesauri in SKOS format and allowing the potential expression of the resulting thesauri as linked data will be presented. Issues arising from the work will be discussed and alternative approaches compared. Discussion will include experience with XSL transformation methods versus a custom application for transformation. The critical issue of how to handle non-standard features will be addressed and opened for general discussion. The issue of mapping between different SKOS based glossaries and thesauri will be discussed. Contact: Douglas Tudhope ( firstname.lastname@example.com )


PURPOSE
To retrospectively correlate high-risk proliferative breast lesions (radial scar, atypical lobular hyperplasia, lobular carcinoma in situ and papillary lesions) diagnosed on core biopsy with the definitive histopathological diagnosis obtained after surgical excision or with the follow-up, in order to assess the role of core biopsy in such lesions. To discuss the management of the patient after a core biopsy diagnosis of high-risk proliferative breast lesion.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
We evaluated 74 out of 1776 core biopsies consecutively performed on 67 patients. The histopathologic findings were as follows: 11 radial scars (RS), 3 atypical lobular hyperplasias (ALH), 3 lobular carcinomas in situ (LCIS), 57 benign papillary lesions. All patients underwent bilateral mammography, whole-breast ultrasound with a linear-array broadband transducer, and core biopsy with a 14 Gauge needle and a mean number of samples of 5 (range 4-7). Sixty-two of 67 patients, for a total of 69/74 lesions, underwent surgical biopsy despite benign histopathologic findings, mostly because of highly suspicious imaging for malignancy (BIRADS 4-5), whereas 5 patients refused surgery and have been followed up for a least 18 months and are still being followed up (2 with RS, 1 with ADH and 2 with papillary lesions).

RESULTS
Among the core biopsied lesions with a diagnosis of RS (n = 11) pathology revealed one ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) (this case was characterized by granular microcalcifications on mammography and by a mass with irregular margins on ultrasound). Also in the group of ADH (n = 3) pathology revealed one DCIS (lesion not visible on mammography but depicted as a suspicious mass on US). In the group of LCIS (n = 3) pathologists found an invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC). Among the benign papillary lesions (n = 57) histopathologic analysis of the surgical specimen revealed 7 malignant lesions (4 papillary carcinomas and 3 DCIS), whose mammographic and ultrasound findings were indistinguishable from benign lesions. Altogether there were 10 false negative results (underestimation) out of 74 core biopsies with a diagnosis of high-risk proliferative breast lesions.

CONCLUSION
The high rate of histological underestimation after core biopsy (10/74) (13.5%) demands a very careful management of patents with a core biopsy diagnosis of high-risk proliferative breast lesions, especially in the case of RS, lobular neoplasia and papillary lesions. However, the high imaging suspicion for malignancy prompts surgery. It is possible to assume that, when there is a low imaging suspicion for malignancy, when enough tissue has been sampled for pathology and no atypia is found within the lesions, surgery is not mandatory but a very careful follow-up is recommended. We must underline that there is no agreement regarding the quantity of tissue to sample. Vacuum-assisted biopsy may lead to better results, although there is as yet no proof that it can actually replace surgery in this group of lesions, since it seems only to reduce but not abolish the histological underestimation.


Abstract. This paper presents an algebraic strategy for formulating the configuration transformation of a special class of reconfigurable cube mechanism (RCM) made by 23 cyclically connected sub-cubes. The RCM studied here is kinematically equivalent to a spatial eight-bar linkage having eight transformable configurations. In this paper, the reconfiguration characteristics of the RCM are figured out first. Then, the initial configuration of the RCM is described by a joint-screw matrix, from which all the consecutive joint-screw matrices that represent the configuration transformation of the RCM can be derived. An illustrative example is provided to determine the eight joint-screw matrices of an RCM at an initial configuration. This reconfiguration formulation is further applied to enumerate all feasible topological configurations of such a special reconfigurable mechanism. The results show that, for such a special kind of reconfigurable cube mechanisms, there is only one feasible initial topological configuration for the RCM to perform a complete cycle of reconfiguration.


Abstract Aim: Given the paucity of data on the use of internet and quality of life (QoL), this literature review aimed to identify the motivations and barriers for internet use and the impact on QoL on older adults using the internet. Background: Even though older adults are increasingly using information technology, the numbers remain quite small globally. Currently published research primarily focuses on the various ways and methods of information technology use by older adults and the factors influencing use rather than on the impact of information technology on QoL of older adults. Methods: The studies included in this literature review were searched in three databases: WEB of Science, GoogleScholar and PubMed. English language articles were searched using the terms 'older', 'elderly', 'senior', 'well-being', 'life satisfaction', 'quality of life', 'internet' and "computer". Findings: The review demonstrated the association of internet use on QoL in older adults. The majority of the studies substantiate the advantages of internet use by older adults including the ability to communicate with family and friends, maintain a wide social network, have access to information and participate in online leisure activities. There are some studies, though less in number, which did not find a relationship between well-being and use of internet by older adults. The policy implications of this review advocate a multidimensional strategy to support internet use by the older people incorporating internet training and education, financial issues, technical support and access needs to be developed.


Chemicals in indoor air, either emitted from a source or from a reaction, have been suggested to cause ill health in buildings. However, no clear correlations between exposure and health effects have been made. In this thesis we studied the reaction between monoterpenes, a group of biogenic unsaturated C10 hydrocarbons, and ozone. Ozonolysis of monoterpenes was used as model reactions for unsaturated compounds in ambient air. Also the products formed from these reactions have been suggested as important participants in the occurrence of discomfort and ill health in buildings. To enable a reliable and sensitive measurement of ppb-ppt levels of monoterpenes and the formed products in the presence of ozone an evaluation of available scrubber materials was made. Potassium iodide was shown to remove ambient levels of ozone and have a recovery of >95% for all monoterpenes and formed products included in the investigation. Experimental conditions showed to have a large impact on the initial steps of the ozonolysis, and also on the composition of the formed products. We showed that water plays an important and complex role both in the initial stage of ozonolysis of ∆3-carene and in the formation and composition of products from the ozonolysis of ∆-pinene. The use of experimental design facilitated the evaluation of the investigated reactions. We showed that the formation of OH radicals could be studied using multiple linear regression models and that the presence or absence of OH radicals had a profound impact on the formation of many of the formed products. We also made an observation of the lack of formed OH radicals in the ozonolysis of limonene and discussed probable causes of this observation. Despite the short reaction times and the ambient levels of ozone and monoterpenes used in our experiments we showed that a number of oxidation products were formed, and that the reaction rate is significantly increased in a ventilation system. This formation is underestimated by theoretical calculations and leads to high amounts of known irritants in the indoor air. We showed that theoretical calculations underestimate the formation of these oxidation products 3-13 times, depending on ventilation system and monoterpene.


The purported solution to international mobile roaming charges agreed by negotiators of the Trans-Pacific Partnership ('TPP') has been hailed as one of the key achievements of the Telecommunications Chapter, and the treaty more broadly, especially within Australia. Apparent market failure in respect of wholesale roaming rates has posed a challenge that Australia and New Zealand, as well as the European Union and other countries, have been grappling with for several years. The TPP solution is said to hold the key to substantial benefits for both individual travellers and businesses in TPP countries through the lowering of roaming rates. Yet a close examination of the detailed roaming provisions in the TPP raises a number of questions about their interpretation, implementation and broader significance. Technological and commercial developments may mean that roaming charges fall and alternatives to roaming become more pervasive and more effective, rendering the TPP provisions superfluous. The complexity of the provisions and ambiguities in their drafting will in any case make it difficult for them to be applied in a consistent way across TPP countries. While the TPP may deliver some improvements to transparency and cooperation, the substantive mechanisms for reciprocal lowering of roaming rates in the agreed treaty text may offer little reason to get excited. Moreover, the allowance for preferential treatment of particular TPP countries or their suppliers might not withstand a legal challenge in the context of a World Trade Organization dispute.


This paper describes and evaluates the application of three local learning algorithms-nearest-neighbor, weighted-average, and locally-weighted polynomial regression-for the prediction of run-specific resource-usage on the basis of run-time input parameters supplied to tools. A two-level knowledge base allows the learning algorithms to track short-term fluctuations in the performances of computing systems, and the use of instance editing techniques improves the scalability of the performance-modeling system. The learning algorithms assist PUNCH, a network-computing system at Purdue University, in emulating an ideal user in terms of its resource management and usage policies.


Increasing the driving range of an electric vehicle can be achieved by applying regenerative braking. In this paper, how much regenerative braking affects the vehicle will be discussed. The vehicle prototype on this study is Gang Car Electric, a conversion from internal combustion engine car type. The regenerative braking configuration enables the feedback energy active as soon as the throttle pedal being released and emulate engine retarding function of conventional car. With that goal, we still want the vehicle to be able to cruise in a constant speed on the cruise mode. The proposed configuration is included in this paper.


The pre-ictal epileptiform discharges can hardly be distinguished from the scalp Electroencephalogram (EEG). However, detecting them from the intracranial EEG is much easier. On the other hand, the drawback of using intracranial EEG is the invasive insertion of electrodes into the brain's tissue. Furthermore, for recording these signals patients have to be in hospital under anaesthesia. Conversely, scalp EEG can be recorded easily from normal people as well as patient awaiting surgery under much simpler circumstances. In this work the focus is on extraction of pre-ictal epileptiform discharges from scalp EEG by developing a suitable blind source separation (BSS) algorithm.
The first proposed method is based on creating a template from intracranial data, which is then used in the form of a constraint in a BSS algorithm. To generate a suitable template, the segments during which the brain discharges are labelled are used to generate the necessary templates. Approximate entropy (ApEn) is used for detecting these segments using chaoticity measurement. Constrained BSS using independent component analysis (ICA) is then applied to the scalp data to extract the desired source and to evaluate its effect on scalp electrodes. The effectiveness of such a constrained approach has been demonstrated by comparing its outcome with that of the unconstrained method. Such a BSS model can be later directly used to separate the desired components from the scalp EEG only.
Exploiting sparsity is known to be very beneficial in BSS. Even if data is not sparse in its current domain, it can be modelled as sparse linear combinations of atoms of a chosen dictionary. This brings up the idea of having a dictionary of the waveforms for almost all possible epileptic discharges. This is a generalisation of the previous method by increasing the number of template from one template to a number of them. The suitable combination of atoms which would best approximate the source of interest are determined. This forms the basis of the second part of the work. The results of applying this method have been compared with that of the conventional BSS.
In the final part of the work, the dictionary is partly pre-specified based on chirplet modelling of various kinds of real epileptic discharges, and partly learned using a dictionary learning algorithm. The learned part is added to account for other sources which are are present in the EEG as well as the desired epileptic discharges. The dictionary which includes a fixed and a variable (i.e. learned) part, is incorporated into a source separation framework to extract the closest source to the source of interest from the mixtures. Experiments on synthetic mixtures of real data consisting of epileptic discharges, and on real scalp recordings are used to evaluate the proposed methods, and the results are compared with those of traditional BSS algorithms. In addition, the importance and significance of the method has been tested for a number of cases to validate it for clinical purposes. The detection rate of the proposed method is compared to the clinician's scorings from scalp EEG, which shows a significant improvement. Applying the proposed method helps reduce the number of invasive brain insertions for recording purposes prior to surgery.


Among the human diseases caused by etiological agents transmitted by ticks in Brazil, the most prevalent and public health interest is that one caused by species of Rickettsia— Spotted Fever (SF). We applied the concept "One World, One Health" to achieve a proper understanding of SF and determine risk scenarios for human infection by pathogenic Rickettsia in the state of Rio de Janeiro (RJ). Multi-criteria decision analysis and spatial statistics were performed on data encompassing epidemiology, health care, biotic determents, and socioeconomic and demographic variables. The construction of multi-criteria descriptors used 33 indicators ordered in 12 sub criteria of 5 major categories: public health, environmental health, acarology, veterinary health, and microbiology. SF happened nonrandomly in RJ and the risk was heterogeneous in the weight of indicators contribution mainly associated with the criteria acarology (35.11%), microbiology (33.25%), and veterinary medicine (23.96%). Spatially, and according to the PROMETHEE algorithm, ticks from Amblyomma sculptum class and dogs are determinants for the occurrence of human cases of SF in RJ. To define indicators of SF and plan health actions, the "One World, One Health" concept proved to be applicable at three levels: (i) the local or possible areas of infection, (ii) the population or municipality, and (iii) the ecosystem or state. The model of study is flexible according to the reality of the endemic areas and also demonstrates its applicability from a national to a local (home) scale.


Abstract Over the last decades, levels of sulphur deposition from air pollution have been substantially reduced in Norway, whereas levels of nitrogen deposition have been stable or somewhat increased. In parallel, a clear trend of increasing annual temperatures, as well as precipitation, is evident. Human impact on natural ecosystems is predicted to reduce biodiversity at regional scales through facilitating a few generalist species at the expense of species with narrow habitat requirements. In this study, we investigate changes in community composition and the abundance of dominant lichen species on birch in subalpine forests over a 15-year period. The study is based on repeated measurements in five monitoring sites in Norway, representing regional gradients in temperature and precipitation as well as in deposition of nitrogen and sulphur compounds. Two dominant species are studied in particular; the generalist Hypogymnia physodes and the subalpine birch specialist Melanelia olivacea. The largest change in species composition was found in the site with the biggest reduction in sulphur deposition during the 15-year period, whereas the site with low precipitation and low pollution loads had small changes in species composition. The abundance of the generalist H. physodes increased in all sites and the specialist M. olivacea decreased in abundance, especially in sites with both high precipitation and heavy nitrogen deposition. Our study thus suggests that a warmer, humid climate is beneficial for the generalist H. physodes.


Section 7606 of the Farm Bill authorizes the production of industrial hemp for research and pilot program purposes. Currently 24 states have laws or statutes that have paved the way for industrial hemp production; however, only four states are in the South. Although previous research has suggested that there are 25,000 legal uses for industrial hemp, there is a lack of timely information regarding the political (social acceptability) and legal and economic feasibility of hemp production for Southern states. The purpose of this poster is to: 1) conduct an extensive literature review to summarize existing legal, political and economic considerations; and 2) identify the primary legal, political and economic challenges and opportunities for hemp production in the South. It is expected that this information will be helpful to policy makers, agricultural producers and the public by providing information about consumer acceptance, cost of production, best management practices and how the crop fits into crop rotations. As with many new industries, siting of processing locations will be a function of where the crop will be grown. Such regions are likely those where competition for land use is least. Such analyses are only possible with the types of information collected here.


The global emergence of the recently discovered COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019; SARS-CoV-2) has already shown its devastating effects on almost the entire world by causing huge numbers of death cases and rupturing the whole economy as well as social communication. South Asia, a region that comprises mostly of least developed and developing countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) with overpopulation, illiteracy, poverty, lack of awareness, lack of hygiene, inadequate health care facilities, is still struggling to fight against this virus and facing the consequences with over 8.5 million confirmed cases including 130,636 deaths till the 20 th October. Prompt and proper protective measures, good health care systems, and conscious people are the keys to reducing the severe impacts of this pandemic situation, and most of the countries in this region lack all of this. Considering this, it will not be a surprise if the pandemic takes its full shape in these countries and recent evidence also suggest that the situation is already on its way to reach the peak. However, the pandemic nature in South Asia also demonstrates that strict measures by the government and co-operation from the people can protect a country from the impacts of the virus, whereas lack of these can lead to the next heat point. This review demonstrates and compares the impact of COVID-19 in the mass population of South Asia which could support the government and scientific community to take proper protective measures against this global pandemic and better prepare the community for future challenges. Moreover, good health care systems, public health infrastructure, and up to date information on COVID-19 outbreaks in this region will help to combat this pandemic and create more sustainable and resilient healthy societies in South Asia.


Recently a series of theoretical and experimental papers on free-space propagation of pulsed Laguerre-Gaussian and Bessel beams was published, which reached contradictory and controversial results about group velocities of such pulses. Depending on the measurement scheme, the group velocity can be defined differently. We analyze how different versions of group velocity are related to the measurable travel time (time of flight) of the pulse between input (source) and output (detecting) planes. The analysis is tested on a theoretical model—the Bessel-Gauss pulse whose propagation path exhibits both subluminal and superluminal regions. Our main conclusion from resolving the contradictions in the literature is that different versions of group velocity are appropriate, depending on whether or not the beam is hollow and how the pulse is recorded in the output plane—integrally or with spatial resolution.


growth and either normal (small for gestational age or SGA) or abnormal (intrauterine growth restricted or IUGR) Doppler studies in the umbilical artery (UA). Pulsatility index (PI) of the AoI was calculated in all groups at the moment of diagnosis. Results: AoI PI was directly related to the severity of the placental insufficiency. Mean UA and AoI PI values, gestational age at delivery and birth weight in both control and study groups are compared in the table. Among the IUGR fetuses the cases showing retrograde net blood flow in the AoI had a 62.5% (5/8) perinatal mortality rate.


: The obesity-Cerebral-Ocular Syndrome is an uncommon disorder which closely resembles the Laurence-Moon-Biedl-Syndrome. It is also one of several disorders in which obesity, mental retardation and ocular abnormalities are associated. The article presents a case study followed up over 18 years and emphasises the importance of ophthalmic review in preserving visual function.


Summary Immune complexes have been shown to occur frequently during rheumatoid arthritis. They have been found In blood, in the synovium and in other extravascular lesions. The recent development of methods for the quantitation of immune complexes provided new tools to evaluate the possible role of immune complexes in rheumatoid arthritis. Immune complexes which appear in synovial fluid are in higher concentration than in serum and have particular physicochemical properties. They likely result from a local formation In the synovium and seem to be directly involved in the generation of the local Inflammation. High levels of circulating immune complexes are usually associated with the development of extra-articular vascular lesions.


We develop a series of publicly available interactive web-based modules and instructor materials to help students learn econometric concepts ranging from sampling distributions to omitted variable bias. The pedagogical literature supports using simulations to help students understand abstract statistical concepts but also cautions that ill-designed simulations may be ineffective. Most simulation tools currently available constrain users' parameter choices, require excessive programming infrastructure, or lack real-world economics examples. Our modules allow students to experiment with inputs like sample size, number of replications, and underlying population distributions; students then see the impacts of their choices displayed visually in tables, histograms, and scatter plots. The modules can be used in classroom demonstrations or group activities in computer labs but also have sufficient instructions to allow independent exploration.


Tetraploid emmer wheat [(Triticum dicoccum (Schrank) Schuebl] has become a more attractive crop for growing in marginal areas and for the organic farming system. As it provides a lower yield rate and has a specific quality, it is an exclusive food crop. Therefore, the proportion and nutritive quality of particular essential amino acids (threonine, valine, isoleucine, leucine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, lysine, methionine) and the total protein content were studied and evaluated in three-year trials carried out in two different localities. Furthermore, old and modern bread wheat varieties were compared. Results of our research confirmed a high crude protein content in grains of all the landraces of the emmer wheat. The emmer wheat variety contained 5% more crude protein in grain than the control bread wheat. The proportion of particular essential amino acids in the crude protein was same in all the studied and evaluated varieties. Lysine has become the first limiting amino acid in all the varieties. The chemical score varied slightly between 0.37 and 0.39. It means that a human being is not able to use more than 37–39% of the essential amino acids. The total proportion of the amino acids in grains was higher in emmer wheat landraces. Such a high proportion of the amino acids has been provoked by an enhanced protein content in grain. Therefore, the grains and products of the emmer wheat are a valuable dietetic material. As digestibility of the amino acids is the same in the case of the emmer wheat landraces and bread wheat varieties, a higher amount of amino acids is, nevertheless, absorbed from the food (if the number of grains is identical). Above-mentioned characteristics of the emmer wheat make it as a prospective crop for the production of healthy food products.


There has been intense debate on the appropriatenes s of interventions in sovereign states. This has re sulted in a divide which has pitched those in favour against th ose against intervention. In a concerted effort to resolve the differences and enhance the protection of civilian populations in times of conflict, the World leaders in 2005 adopted the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect ( R2P) which seeks to reconceptualise/redefine interv ention and sovereignty as that of responsibility or duty to de fend a population. The first resort to R2P by the U nited Nations Security Council (UNSC) was in its resolution 1973 which was aimed at protecting the civilian populati on caught-up in the violence that erupted in Libya in 2011. The UNSC resolution 1973 and its implementation in the 2011 Libyan crisis has been a test case for the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect. It is there fore important to use it as a case study in determining if humanit arian intervention in sovereign state is possible w ithout undermining the sovereignty of the state; the possi bility of intervening state(s) using R2P as a platf orm to promote self-interest; and finally, the continued p erpetuation of unprecedented human right abuses, war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity under the covering of sovereignty. The research examines recent NATO led intervention in Libya with a view of ascertaining its intent and appropriateness, traces the origin and pillars of R 2P then, further examines its implementation in the 2011 Libyan crisis with the objectives of determining it s appropriateness and its level of success if indee d it was successful. Finally, the research examines if polit ics in the Security Council enhances or impedes the implementation of R2P and what the future holds for the doctrine. The work in its propositions assumed that the members of the UNSC advance their national interest in implementing R2P and that the UNSC's prompt intervention in Libya was driven by a regime change agenda. The methodology adopted in gathering and analysing data in this work is the historical metho dology and the secondary sources of data collection were employed. In conclusion, this work supports the recourse to t he doctrine of Responsibility to protect in the 201 1 Libyan crisis as it adjudges it appropriate. It also adopt s as necessary the NATO's rise to the challenge of implementing the Security Council Resolution 1973. The work argues that the intervention in Libya was a success as the protection of the civilian population from impeding mass slaughter in the hands of the Ghaddafi-led re gime was averted. The research also submits that the United Nations Security Council did not engage in the form of politics that could have endangered the continued r elevance of the doctrine of R2P. In its final recom mendations, this research advises that R2P as was approved in 2 005 is appropriate though with a little fine-tuning in the basic strategy of military engagement in conflict area. I t urges the International community to ensure its c ontinued existence and relevance therefore the adoption and implementation of the Responsibility to Protect mus t be devoid of all forms of United Nations politics. The protection of civilian population in any crisis mu st be done primarily with humanitarian interest in focus.


The construction industry consists of various and massive architectural information as an architectural process includes a variety of design stages with cooperation of many disciplines. A Building Information Modeling (BIM) serves as a shared knowledge resource for information about a facility forming a reliable basis for decisions during its life-cycle from inception onward. building SMART has developed Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard for interoperability of BIM based information. Several software tools are already IFC-compliant. However, there are a lot of problems related to efficient interoperability of software owing to the lack of guide regarding the software usage and insufficiency IFC interfaces of software. The purpose of this study is to suggest efficient IFC support interface development methodologies of existing IFC certified software. The scope of this study is interoperability test for open BIM based quality assurance. To achieve this purpose, the authors have classified subject of open BIM based quality assurance and investigated IFC certification process and certified software. In addition, the authors have exported and imported via IFC files using different IFC interfaces in the software for interoperability of architectural objects and their properties. Finally, the authors have suggested IFC support interface development methodologies and hereafter direction for efficient interoperability of IFC certified software based on open BIM.


In Turkey, a number of watershed-based development and application projects have been under consideration and are at various phases of development. Watersheds are gaining critical roles for sustainable development programs all over the world. In this respect, it will be useful to look at the entire watershed boundaries of Turkey. The list taken from State Hydrolics Works of Turkey (DSI), contains 26 watersheds. In this communication we review the very basic information about Turkish Watersheds and discuss some criteria about their classification based on EU Land-Water-MED Program.


This work aims to compare the drilling fluid invasion and oil backflow in sandstone and carbonate samples in order to evaluate the influence of kind of rock in the formation damage and its interaction with the drilling tested fluid.The tests were performed in sandstone and carbonate samples with similar gas absolute permeabilities and under a protocol test in steps that included preparation, characterization, multiphase flow, drilling fluid invasion and oil backflow.During the work it was observed that carbonate samples were less water wet than sandstone samples. From the obtained results for longer samples was possible to follow the advancing front of the invading fluid with pressure observations along the core. The dynamic flow permitted to conclude that invasion in carbonate samples was faster than in sandstone. It was also observed that in carbonate samples the backflow presented a higher and faster productivity return when compared with sandstone results.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Objective: To assess the time course of brain atrophy and the difference across clinical subtypes in multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: The percent brain volume change (PBVC) was computed on existing longitudinal (2 time points) T1-weighted MRI from untreated (trial and nontrial) patients with MS. Patients (n = 963) were classified as clinically isolated syndromes suggestive of MS (CIS, 16%), relapsing-remitting (RR, 60%), secondary progressive (SP, 15%), and primary progressive (9%) MS. The median length of follow-up was 14 months (range 12–68). Results: There was marked heterogeneity of the annualized PBVC (PBVC/y) across MS subtypes (p = 0.003), with higher PBVC/y in SP than in CIS (p = 0.003). However, this heterogeneity disappeared when data were corrected for the baseline normalized brain volume. When the MS population was divided into trial and nontrial subjects, the heterogeneity of PBVC/y across MS subtypes was present only in the second group, due to the higher PBVC/y values found in trial data in CIS (p = 0.01) and RR (p < 0.001). The estimation of the sample sizes required for demonstrating a reduction of brain atrophy in patients in a placebo-controlled trial showed that this was larger in patients with early MS than in those with the progressive forms of the disease. Conclusions: This first large study in untreated patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) with different disease subtypes shows that brain atrophy proceeds relentlessly throughout the course of MS, with a rate that seems largely independent of the MS subtype, when adjusting for baseline brain volume.


The objective of this study is to determine if readily available finance and macro-economic variables can explain which years have favored market timing strategies versus which years favored buy and hold investing, in order to help traders determine when to allocate funds from passive to active investment strategies. We find that when real GDP growth rates, inflation rates, and PE ratios were low or negative, and when dividend yields were high, market timing strategies were favorable across 44 country market indexes from 1995–2008. These results are robust to country level of development, negative market return years, and other control variables. The conditions for pursuing market timing strategies were time-variant and detectable with macro-economic and finance variables. We introduce and test a new metric, Market Timing–Buy and Hold (MTBH), which measures the conditions of pursuing market timing strategies relative to buy and hold investing. The MTBH metric is an ex post measure that allows one to examine when it has been advantageous to switch from buy and hold investing to a market timing strategy using macro-economic and financial variables.


Diabetes mellitus is a group of physiological dysfunctions characterised by increased blood glucose level resulting directly from insulin resistance or impaired insulin secretion leading to micro and macrovascular complications. The oral complications of diabetes mellitus includes increased incidence of dental caries, dry mouth, burning mouth syndrome and periodontitis. Assessment of blood glucose levels is essential prior to any specialised procedure to avert any European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine ISSN 2515-8260 Volume 08, Issue 03, 2021 3301 further oral and systemic complications. Screening of diabetes mellitus condition has become a necessity in developing countries and study of this nature will have enormous public health impact. The aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in patients visiting different outpatient departments of private dental college hospital, Chennai. All the cases referred from the month of June 2019 to March 2020 for random blood sugar tests were chosen for the study. Data was collected from the dental hospital record system. Result data was tabulated in excel and imported to SPSS for correlation and association. P<0.05 was considered to be the level of statistical significance in this study. Within the limits of the present study, diabetes mellitus prevalence in random blood sugar tested patients is 33.3 % with a higher male incidence and more prevalent among the age group of 41 to 60 years. Knowledge about the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in the patients visiting dental hospital will be helpful to the clinician to prevent any further complications before any specialised


Over the last decades, bilateral trade agreements (BTAs) have increased considerably in number and economic relevance. Notably, such agreements substantially affect global trade, since the reorganization of flows of goods and services has prominent impacts on the contracting countries' economies, but also on other parties that are (directly or indirectly) engaged in trade with these countries. Here, we empirically study the effect of BTAs on the input-output linkages between the contractual parties' national economic sectors by defining a new measure of Trade Interconnectedness (TI), which describes the relative importance of direct and indirect production linkages between the two countries in the international trade network. By analyzing its time evolution for each pair of trade agreement partners, we demonstrate that while most BTAs are succeeded by an increase in TI between the contractors, there are some notable exceptions. In particular, comparing the trade profiles of China and the United States (US), we find indications that both countries have been pursuing fundamentally different objectives and strategies related to the negotiation of BTAs.


Species: Quercus species; No of rings: 44; Age not determined; Pith: not applicable; Heartwood: absent; Sapwood: absent; Number of sapwood rings: 0; Last ring under bark: absent


In this study, a first order investigation of the issue of resource allocation between circuit voice, packet data and packet voice was completed. The study was done with reference to the GSM / GPRS air interface. To study the allocation of resources, suitable traffic source models were developed to represent the nature of the traffic offered to the base station subsystem. Circuit voice and packet data were represented using Markovian arrivals and exponentially distributed holding times. Voice over IP was modelled using a two-state Markov modulated Poisson process. The base station subsystem was modelled as a continuous time controller with eight channels (one GSM / GPRS TDMA frame). The radio propagation environment was considered by means of a large-scale propagation model, which would merely alter the load presented to the developed simulator package. From the results of the simulations, it was found that insufficient data resources lead to similar packet delay regardless of the packet size. It was found that if capacity on demand is used, then the data resources could equal the load. In the case of sufficient data channels, with capacity on demand, additional channels have a greater effect on average delay than the probability of it occurring. Prioritisation of VoIP packets did not significantly alter the probability of delay but affected the average packet delay. Packet size had a greater effect on average delay than the probability of delay. In the case of all eight channels being used for VoIP and data, the combined load should not exceed seven erlang, indicating that a higher voice load could be supported with VoIP than with circuit switched voice.


The verification problem for action logic programs with non-terminating behaviour is in general undecidable. In this paper, we consider a restricted setting in which the problem becomes decidable. On the one hand, we abstract from the actual execution sequences of a non-terminating program by considering infinite sequences of actions defined by a Büchi automaton. On the other hand, we assume that the logic underlying our action formalism is a decidable description logic rather than full first-order predicate logic.


The majority of real-world applications of digital signatures use timestamping to ensure non-repudiation in face of possible key revocations. This observation led Buldas, Laanoja, and Truu to a server-assisted digital signature scheme built around cryptographic timestamping. In this paper, we report on the machine-checked proofs of existential unforgeability under the chosen-message attack (EUF-CMA) of some variations of BLT digital signature scheme. The proofs are developed and verified using the EasyCrypt framework, which provides interactive theorem proving supported by the state-of-the-art SMT solvers.


With the rapid development of online ride-hailing services, people have increasingly relied on platforms providing these services to travel. The corresponding companies need to accurately obtain passengers' travel demand to allocate orders and drivers to regions. Therefore, traffic demand prediction is a critical problem of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Origin-Destination Matrix Prediction (ODMP) is a challenging extension of traffic demand prediction that needs to consider the temporal and spatial dependence of traffic data and predict the relationship between origin and destination of passengers' demand. In this paper, we proposed a method to convert order paths of passenger demand to the hexagon-based path graph. The path graph shows the origin and the destination of the paths of a period. Specifically, considering that traffic flows are time-varying, we generate different hexagon-based path graphs for different time periods. Then, we propose a Hexagon-based Dynamic-Graph Convolutional Network (Hex D-GCN) to make the GCN suitable for dynamic graphs, in which graph connections are different in time series. Furthermore, We evaluate our model on the Didi Chuxing KDD CUP 2020 dataset and get the state-of-art performance. It is shown that our method combines the spatial correlation and temporal correlation well and also captures the passenger's demand pattern.


The focus of this paper is based on the 'affinities' that exist between various ethnic groups (including long-established non-migrant communities). The research is concerned with what we have in common across groups, examining and comparing the values (concepts or beliefs that guide our behaviour and actions) people define as important for themselves, as individuals and members of ethnic groups or communities. In many western democracies there is concern that some ethnic groups are not integrating because their cultures or values are 'too different' from the mainstream. Generally, the 'common values' expressed are those of the receiving society, such as in the 'Australian Value Statement' or 'the importance of British values' publicly noted by three British Prime Ministers since 9/11. In this paper I will examine solidarity as a theoretical problem: its meaning, its contexts and foundations and will then systematically consider the relationship between affinities and difference. Based on findings from research conducted in Sydney, my analysis indicates that in everyday life in the multi-ethnic neighbourhood there are significant affinities (similarities in values and practices between ethnic and religious groups) that far outweigh differences; and that these affinities provide the basis of connectivity that sustain social, local and ethnic sense of belonging. I conclude by considering that the differences between generations might be greater than differences between ethnic groups; and that the hierarchization of values can set up unequal power relations in the process of cultural production and solidarity.


We study the problem of space and time efficient evaluation of a nonparametric estimator that approximates an unknown density. In the regime where consistent estimation is possible, we use a piecewise multivariate polynomial interpolation scheme to give a computationally efficient construction that converts the original estimator to a new estimator that can be queried efficiently and has low space requirements, all without adversely deteriorating the original approximation quality. Our result gives a new statistical perspective on the problem of fast evaluation of kernel density estimators in the presence of underlying smoothness. As a corollary, we give a succinct derivation of a classical result of Kolmogorov---Tikhomirov on the metric entropy of Holder classes of smooth functions.


This paper reports a molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) based fluorescence sensor which is synthesized by grafting MIP layers on the surface of ZnO nanorods embedded γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles via activators regenerated by electron transfer atom transfer radical polymerization (ARGET ATRP). Methacrylic acid (MAA, functional monomer), 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl mathacrylate (MPS) modified γ-Fe2O3 (γ-Fe2O3/MPS, assistant magnetic monomer) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA, cross-linking monomer) were co-polymerized in anisole at 313 K in the presence of sulfamethazine as a template molecule. Sulfamethazine was then solvent-extracted to obtain ZnO-grafted molecularly imprinted polymers (ZnO-MIPs). ZnO-MIPs were characterized by FE-SEM, TEM, FT-IR, TGA/DSC, VSM, fluorescence spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. It was observed that sulfamethazine can quench the luminescence of ZnO-MIPs in a concentration-dependent manner that can be described by a Stern–Volmer-type equation. ZnO-MIPs were used to determine sulfamethazine in a spiked pork sample with good recognition ability. This study therefore demonstrates the potential application in the recognition and separation of antibiotics based on molecularly imprinted polymers.


The addition of organometallic reagents to ketones constitutes one of the most straightforward synthetic approaches to tertiary alcohols. However, due to the absence of a well-behaved class of cyclopropanone surrogates accessible in enantioenriched form, such a trivial synthetic disconnection has received very little attention in the literature for the formation of tertiary cyclopropanols. In this work, we report a simple and high-yielding synthesis of 1-substituted cyclopropanols via the addition of diverse organometallic reagents to 1-phenylsulfonylcyclopropanols, acting here as in situ precursors of the corresponding cyclopropanones. The transformation is shown to be amenable to sp-, sp2-, or sp3-hybridized organometallic C-nucleophiles under mild conditions, and the use of enantioenriched substrates led to highly diastereoselective additions and the formation of optically active cyclopropanols.


The surface morphology of film material directly affects its physical performance. It is of great significance for finding out its prospective physical performance to characterize the surface morphology of film material. It is hard to characterize them with some conventional methods. The surface morphology of film material was described from the fractal point of view, and the dimension was correlated with the resistivity of material. The [100]-orientated diamond film was primarily investigated. The results show that the greater the crystal grain is, the more uniform and regular the orientation is; and the more compact the arrangement is, the greater the fractal box dimension is. Moreover, when fractal box dimensions were within a certain range approximately from 2.92 to 2.97, it presents positively correlative relation with the logarithm of resistivity, Log(ρ), which resembles the Logistic curve. However, when the other dimensions are beyond the range mentioned above, resistivity doesn't change with the increase in dimensions of fractal. This study will conduce to illustrating the relationship between the structure of crystal exemplified by arrangement and physical performance as well as material preparation.


Prentice Hall's Masters Series in Criminology brings the work of true masters to life for a new audience of readers, presenting brief and accessible introductions to crime and criminology topics from some of the leading scholars in criminology today. All authors in the series are true academic pioneers, and each book in the series pulls from the authors' decades of research and writing in their fields. The first and only series of its kind, Prentice Hall's Masters Series in Criminology introduces readers to the scholars and issues that are at the core of modern criminology.


The effect of low light intensity (LI) on the period from sprouting to earing was studied in 12 cultivars of the spring common wheat under controlled conditions. Differences between cultivars with respect to their responses to LI (RLIs) were found both for those that were photoperiod-sensitive and those that were almost photoperiod-neutral. Specifically, a prolonged photoperiod and a low LI differently increased the period from sprouting to earling in different cultivars. Genetic analysis of the RLI demonstrated, for the first time, that the weak response was incompletely dominant in F1. The results of genetic analysis agree with the hypothesis that the cultivars Pitic 62 and Novosibirskaya 22 differ in alleles of two loci controlling the RLI in wheat.


Nowadays, issues such as increasing competitive pressures, technological complexity and specializing of tasks, high level of costs make organizations to review their management frameworks and turn to new strategies to achieve a competitive advantage in the current business world. One of these strategies is to focus on the main competences and consign most activities to internal sources of organization (out sourcing). To chive this, banks world outsource in order to offer better services to customers, reduce costs level, improve the quality of services and enhance their performance, have more flexibility against market's inconsistency and to achieve new skills and technologies and also to focus on key potentials. Despite the fact that outsourcing of main activities conduce to various benefits for an organization, but it includes different risks that needs effective and crucial management. This article intends to detect those risks and study their effects on banks outsourcing process, in which the dependent variable is business process outsourcing and independent variable is the risk. To study the effects of these risks on outsourcing, the researcher applies correlation coefficient and regression analysis.


The emergence of video games has led to widespread inventions to enhance the reality of the experience. As a result, Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) was developed to create virtual experiences and attract a variety of players of video games. This paper will discuss video games in the context of Human-A.I. interaction and the importance of human coordination in video games. Unprecedented errors have been a common challenge in this relationship. An excellent example of these algorithms include population-based training and self-play, which have gained a lot of interest in video games. A.I. technology has surpassed human ability because they are simply activities that are complicated and risky. In some cases, the integration of A.I. relieves human beings from actively participating in the collaboration process. The development of direct policy learning made behavioral cloning more superior. In both technologies, the expert gives demonstrations based on a given policy in the system. Human beings have a challenge of understanding specific coordination protocols that can be well outlined by converging with similar agents. For example, the video game commonly known as Overcooked uses a model similar to human play even though it needs a complicated coordination. Artificial intelligence will also be addressed as agents for the purpose of this paper.


Background: Skin aging is the most worrisome problem in women. Preventing skin damage can be done in various ways including using ionthophoresis, massage and adding vitamin C serum. The purpose of this study was to determine the difference in the effect of giving Ionthophoresis with vitamin C serum and massage with vitamin C serum on the elasticity of women's facial skin.
Methods: The type of research usedquasi experimental two group pre and post test designcarried out in September – October 2021 in 2021 on local women in Tohudan Colomadu Village.In this study, the research subjects were given treatment with a frequency of 2 times a week for 2 weeks. Sivided into 2 treatment groups, namely, group I was given Ionthophoresis with Vitamin C Serum, group 2 was given massage with Vitamin C Serum. The measuring instrument used was a skin analyzer.
Results: Test the difference in elasticity values of Group I and Group 2 with the Independent Samples Test, the results obtained p value = 0.015, which means that there is a significant difference in the administration of Ionthophoresis and Massage with the addition of Vitamin C Serum on facial skin elasticity in women.
Conclusion: Giving Ionthophoresis with Vitamin C Serum is more effective than massage with the addition of Vitamin C Serum on facial skin elasticity in women.It is recommended that the administration of vitamin C serum with the iontophoresis method be one of the interventions that can be used to increase facial skin elasticity.


A method based on neural-network is developed and applied to analyze the DSPSL filter design. Through the neural network analysis of nonlinear circuits, it can enhance the efficiency of electro-magnetic (EM) analysis techniques for DSPSL filter design. Quasi-Newton method is adopted, which has shorter training period and the faster convergence. A good agreement between ANN results and EM simulations verifies the validity of this proposed MLPNN model.


As a substitute for traditional systemic administration, many topical treatments have lately evolved. Transdermal drug delivery systems (TDDSs) are the most appealing of these methods due to their low rate of failure, simplicity of distribution, superior efficiency and preference amongst users. TDDS has the potential to be useful not just in medicines, but also in the skincare sector, particularly cosmetics. Since this approach means the development of local administration, it can minimize local drug level accumulation and inappropriate drug distribution to regions not primarily tailored by the medication. Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is becoming the preferred choice against which subsequent antiplatelet medicines are measured in terms of lowering the cardiovascular risk while remaining inexpensive. Along with its substantial presystemic metabolism, orally administered acetylsalicylic acid has the potential of gastrointestinal negative impacts albeit at modest dosages and necessitates regular administration. Transdermal administration avoids the gut and would be more practical and healthier for aspirin usage, particularly during repeated doses. The present review highlights general aspects of aspirin primed as a TDDS as an appropriate topical preparation.


We report results of two-dimensional electrostatic modeling for (top-contact) organic field effect transistors, focusing on the formation of the conductive channel. The effect on channel formation of the choice of the source and drain contact metal is investigated. High work function metal (e.g., gold) source and drain contacts produce a conducting p-type region near these contacts. In contrast, low work function metal source and drain contacts (e.g., magnesium) lead to depleted regions. In the center of the device, between the source and drain contacts, the channel carrier density at a fixed gate bias is determined by the work function of the gate contact material, and is essentially independent of the metal used to form the source and drain contacts. The dependence of the transistor threshold voltage on the gate contact metal work function and the device implications of the spatial variation of the induced charge density are discussed.


In this thesis we examine some of the central problems in the theory of computational complexity, like the trade-offs between time and memory, the power of nondeterminism and parallelism, and the speed gained by adding new operations to random access machines. Our main result is the cahracterization of the power of multiplication in random access acceptors: we show, in Chapter 3, that for such models nondeterministic and deterministic computations are polynomially related and that there is a polynomial relationship between the amount of time required for acceptance by random access machines with multiplication, and the amount of tape required by Turing machines. Thus, the additional power gained by using multiplication is the same as that of memory over time (if any). We derive similar results for some other interesting instruction sets. We also have some results for probabilistic and nondeterministic computations: we define threshold machines and show how probabilistic Turing machines may simulate them, and exhibit a set of complete problems for threshold machines. For nondeterministic computations, we present a hierarchy of the elementary recursive languages obtained by polynomially bounded quantification over objects of higher and higher type, which represent nondeterministic time bounded computations with larger and larger bounds. Finally, we discuss some deterministic computations, and conclude with a look at some open problems.


Evolution is one of the major omnipresent powers in the universe that has been studied for about two centuries. Recent scientific and technical developments make it possible to make the transition from passively understanding to actively using evolutionary processes. Today this is possible in Evolutionary Computing, where human experimenters can design and manipulate all com- ponents of evolutionary processes in digital spaces. We argue that in the near future it will be possible to imple- ment artificial evolutionary processes outside such imagi- nary spaces and make them physically embodied. In other words, we envision the ''Evolution of Things'', rather than just the evolution of digital objects, leading to a new field of Embodied Artificial Evolution (EAE). The main objec- tive of this paper is to present a unifying vision in order to aid the development of this high potential research area. To this end, we introduce the notion of EAE, discuss a few examples and applications, and elaborate on the expected benefits as well as the grand challenges this developing field will have to address.


The analysis and visualization of flows is a central problem in visualization. Topology-based methods have gained increasing interest in recent years. This article describes a method for the detection of closed streamlines in flows. It is based on a special treatment of cases where a streamline reenters a cell to prevent infinite cycling during streamline calculation. The algorithm checks for possible exits of a loop of crossed edges and detects structurally stable closed streamlines. These global features are not detected by conventional topology and feature detection algorithms.


December and all were in the City Hospital alone. Five of these patients died within the next two months. During the same period there were three patients in whom the initial antibody titre was high (256 or greater) and who died within a few days of the onset of symptoms. An additional four patients (one asymptomatic) were subsequently found to have high initial titres that remained raised, and of these only one survived a further nine months, by which time his respiratory syncytial virus titre had fallen to a quarter of its original level. Isolation of the virus was achieved in only one case. During the same study we detected small epidemics of influenza A and B and in comparison the cases of respiratory syncytial virus tended to have a more prolonged illness; wheezing was a frequent feature, while sore throat was not. None of the cases with only viral infection had either clinical or radiological evidence of pneumonia (this contrasts with 87 out of 192 reported to the Public Health Laboratory Service (26 November, p 1618), though two patients who had proved additional bacterial infection did have signs and radiological evidence of consolidation. This outbreak of respiratory syncytial virus infection was confined to one hospital and all the proved cases occurred within a four week period. A repeat prospective study carried out over the winter of 1982-3 showed only one case of respiratory syncytial virus infection (this patient died) and 10 cases of proved influenza A. We conclude that respiratory syncytial virus infections in the elderly are associated with appreciable morbidity and mortality.


The direct-drive Permanent Magnet Linear Generator (PMLG)-based Ocean Wave Energy Converter (OWEC) generates variable AC voltage, which cannot be directly utilized by the load. This paper presents a two-stage methodology to convert variable AC voltage to a constant amplitude AC voltage. First, a standard rectifier is used to convert variable AC voltage into variable DC voltage. After that, a cascaded buck–boost inverter is employed to achieve the constant frequency AC voltage. Systematic design and circuit analysis, along with working principle and voltage control strategy, are presented. A small scale laboratory prototype of PMLG associated with buck–boost inverter is developed to validate the proposed concept.


Background:
 Optimal secondary stroke prevention for patients with cryptogenic stroke (CS) or transient ischemic attack (TIA) and patent foramen ovale (PFO) is not established. Observational studies imply a benefit for PFO closure over conventional medical management. Data from randomized trials are more equivocal or pending. Most studies report short term follow-up that will miss late adverse events (AEs).

 Methods:
 A systematic review was conducted of the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database for all septal closure device reports of late (>30 days) AEs between 1/1/00-9/10/11. Search terms were brand names of closure devices used in PFOs. To exclude patients not treated for a PFO, cases were those for whom 1) the narrative clearly described PFO as the target lesion, or 2) the device was designed only for PFO closure. Data extracted were device type, indication for closure, time from implantation to AE, and explantation. We collected clinical (e.g. stroke) and device-related (e.g. thrombus on device) AEs.

 Results:
 We reviewed 1250 reports - 50 (4%) met inclusion criteria. Devices were CardioSEAL (n=28), Gore Helex (n=11) and Amplatzer PFO or ASD Occluders (n=11). Clinical AEs were stroke/TIA or systemic embolism (n=20), arrhythmia/palpitations (n=6), pericardial effusion (n=3), visual symptoms (n=3), chest pain (n=2), asymptomatic (n=7), and unknown/other (n=18). Device AEs were thrombus (n=24), residual shunt (n=8), embolization (n=7), erosion (n=3), infection (n=2), fracture (n=1), and unknown/other (n=8). AEs led to device explantation in 28 patients. The range of time between device placement and AE was 30 days to 6 years; 23 reports (46%) were >1 year.

 Conclusion:
 The most common late clinical AE for device PFO closure was embolization and most common device event was thrombus. Nearly half of reported devices were explanted. These data cannot produce AE incidence rates because the number of implanted devices is unknown. We are also unable to determine the comparative safety of devices. However, the data emphasize that late AEs should be included when calculating the overall risk with the possible benefits of PFO closure.


BACKGROUND
Spirometry is a very useful clinical test to evaluate pulmonary function in asthmatic patients. However, pulmonary function could be affected by the sex, time of clinical evolution, lung age (LA) and chronological age (CA).

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate LA/CA as index of clinical improvement or severity in asthmatic patients.

MATERIAL AND METHOD
A prospective study was done where asthma severity was evaluated according to GINA classification. Spirometry was performed at the beginning of this study, at 46, 96, 192 days and after 10 months. Statistical analysis was performed using t test, two-way ANOVA test, correlation and multiple regression models as well as ROC curves were also performed, a p<0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS
Seventy asthmatic patients were included (22 male and 48 female), mean CA was 35-years; mean LA was 48-years with a LA/CA index=1.4, time of clinical evolution was 13 years. A LA/CA index=1 (range 0.5 to 0.9) was observed in asymptomatic patients. LA/CA index over 1 were related with airway inflammation, and a LA/CA index higher than 2 correlated with GINA step 3. Interestingly when we analyzed CA and LA, we observed in female group a higher than 10 years difference between CA and LA (GINA step 2 and 3); while in male we observed (GINA step 1, step 2 and step 3). LA/CA index less than or equal to 1 was considered normal.

CONCLUSIONS
LA/CA index could be used as clinical indicator of clinical improvement or severity in asthma patients in both, male and female, with excellent correlation of pulmonary function and age.


INTRODUCTION
The high blood lead level induces oxidative stress and alters the antioxidant status of battery manufacturing workers. Supplementation of vitamin C is beneficial to reduce the oxidative stress and to improve the antioxidant status of these workers.

AIM
The main aim of this study was to observe the changes in blood lead levels, oxidative stress i.e. serum lipid peroxide and antioxidant status parameters such as erythrocyte superoxide dismutase and catalase and serum nitrite after the vitamin C supplementation in battery manufacturing workers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This study included 36 battery manufacturing workers from Western Maharashtra, India, having age between 20-60 years. All study group subjects were provided vitamin C tablets (500 mg/day for one month) and a blood sample of 10 ml each was drawn by puncturing the anterior cubital vein before and after vitamin C supplementation. The biochemical parameters were estimated by using the standard methods.

RESULTS
Blood lead levels were not significantly altered, however, serum lipid peroxide (p<0.001, -15.56%) and serum nitrite (p<0.001, -21.37%) levels showed significant decrease and antioxidant status parameters such as erythrocyte superoxide dismutase (p<0.001, 38.02%) and catalase (p<0.001, 32.36%) revealed significant increase in battery manufacturing workers after the supplementation of vitamin C.

CONCLUSION
One month vitamin C supplementation in battery manufacturing workers is not beneficial to decrease the blood lead levels. However, it is helpful to reduce the lipid peroxidation and nitrite formation and enhances the erythrocytes superoxide dismutase and catalase activity.


Despite the wide-spread utilization of the case study method in Information Systems (IS), some researchers are still puzzled by the question of "how can you generalize from a single case?" Some researchers believe that findings derived from a single case study have little basis for generalizability beyond the immediate context and, therefore, cannot be used for predicting events in other contexts. According to Imre Lakatos, one of the most prominent philosophers of science of modern times, the ability to predict novel facts is what distinguishes science from pseudoscience. Hence, our main objective with this paper is to reflect whether the findings derived from the case study method can be regarded as scientific or not.