Understanding the NSAID related risk of vascular events

Concern is growing about an increased risk of thrombotic events (including myocardial infarction and stroke) during the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), in particular the so called selective cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX 2) inhibitors. Although clinical trials give conflicting results with respect to the incidence of vascular events, increasing evidence shows that a class effect might exist for selective COX 2 inhibitors. Even before the massive introduction of selective COX 2 inhibitors, observational studies showed that the use of NSAIDs causes congestive heart failure in elderly patients.1,2 Conversely, the discontinuation of NSAIDs has also been associated with increased risk of myocardial infarction, especially in the first several weeks after stopping chronic NSAID treatment.3Many different mechanisms could explain the different effects of classic NSAIDs and selective COX 2 inhibitors in relation to thrombotic vascular events. In this review we link biochemical facts concerning NSAIDs and COX inhibitors with data from clinical trials

Big Data Ethics

Big Data ethics involves adherence to the concepts of right and wrong behavior regarding data, especially personal data. Big Data ethics focuses on structured or unstructured data collectors and disseminators. Big Data ethics is supported, at EU level, by extensive documentation, which seeks to find concrete solutions to maximize the value of Big Data without sacrificing fundamental human rights. The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) supports the right to privacy and the right to the protection of personal data in the respect of human dignity. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30867.4304

THE “HONORABLE” WOMAN: GENDER, HONOR, AND PRIVILEGE IN THE CIVIL WAR SOUTH

When past wars are discussed or taught in a mainstream setting, the focus is often on the soldiers, the battles, and the generals that led them. The topic of the people who passively lived through them is rarely included in the narrative and when it is, it usually pertains to the people on the winning side. During the Civil War, the Southern women made tremendous contributions on the home front. Although social construction of southern honor paved the way for patriotic expressions, as the war went on many women found themselves discarding these honorable gestures in favor of self-preservation. The ideology of Southern honor set social expectations for behavior. For men, honor was linked to the patriotic act of volunteering for military service and sacrificing one’s life for the cause. Women expressed honor in a variety of ways on the home front and, specifically for this study, took on domestic duties that they were unaccustomed to as a result of their class. The intention of my research is to demonstrate how women from various classes of the American Civil War South reacted to the war through the lens of a woman’s perceived societal duty as it pertained to the concept of southern honor. External sources such as peer pressure, government officials and media served to remind these women of what was expected of them. In turn, I will explore how women deviated from these social values as the war progressed

A Comparative View of Terrorist Acts and Legislative Measures Countering this Phenomenon in Albania and the United States of America

Terrorist acts have been a worrisome phenomenon for all nations. Paradoxically, although states have been conscious about the danger of this phenomenon, there is no definition of terrorist acts so far. States have been skeptical and they have not agreed that the judgment of these criminal offences be performed by international jurisdictions, thus opting for the domestic jurisdiction. Nevertheless, states have lacked the willingness to establish joint criminal policies and find efficacious means to combat these terrorist acts. One of these efficacious means has been the seizure and confiscation of licit and illicit assets possessed by terrorist groups. This is the focus of this short study, which will be inclusive by viewing this topic under the general framework of international acts, our domestic legislation, as well as the American one. This paper aims at presenting the legislative measures taken by the Albanian state to meet international requirements. It endeavors to provide arguments why all licit and illicit assets associated with terrorist acts are seized and confiscated. Special attention is paid to the way these assets are administered. Moreover, this study tries to analyze the achievements and problems in Albania, as well as provide conclusions and recommendations

Big Data Ethics in Research

The main problems faced by scientists in working with Big Data sets, highlighting the main ethical issues, taking into account the legislation of the European Union. After a brief Introduction to Big Data, the Technology section presents specific research applications. There is an approach to the main philosophical issues in Philosophical Aspects, and Legal Aspects with specific ethical issues in the EU Regulation on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (Data Protection Directive - General Data Protection Regulation, "GDPR"). The Ethics Issues section details the specific aspects of Big Data. After a brief section of Big Data Research, I finalize my work with the presentation of Conclusions on research ethics in working with Big Data. CONTENTS: Abstract 1. Introduction - 1.1 Definitions - 1.2 Big Data dimensions 2. Technology - 2.1 Applications - - 2.1.1 In research 3. Philosophical aspects 4. Legal aspects - 4.1 GDPR - - Stages of processing of personal data - - Principles of data processing - - Privacy policy and transparency - - Purposes of data processing - - Design and implicit confidentiality - - The (legal) paradox of Big Data 5. Ethical issues - Ethics in research - Awareness - Consent - Control - Transparency - Trust - Ownership - Surveillance and security - Digital identity - Tailored reality - De-identification - Digital inequality - Privacy 6. Big Data research Conclusions Bibliography DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11054.4640

Understanding the Impact of the Counter-Terror Agenda on Humanitarian Action

The paper reflects on the impact of the counter-terror agenda on humanitarian actions. It explores the socio-political and legal implications and constraints that Non-Governmental Organisations incur when managing humanitarian projects in critical environments such as Somalia where, an important famine stroke in 2011 as consequence of the counter-terror agenda, insecurity and politicization. In the case of Somalia, Al-Shabaab, a group well-known to the international authority as affiliated to Al-Qaeda was in charge of the area in which the famine stroke. The dilemma to consider in this paper is  paper is related to the binomial situation between the people in need and the counter-terrorism strategy against Al-Shabaab.The paper outlines three issues that the humanitarian actors incur, namely structural, operational and of internal nature. These three issues undermines the relationship between the Humanitarian actors and the donors as well as between humanitarian actors and their recipients. At the end, the relationship continues to be highly controversial.

A Conceptual Model and Typology for Information Systems Controls

Controls are widely used in business and are often related to information technology (IT) because IT systems are used to implement business controls and because the introduction of IT entails additional control concerns. Thus, control aspects should be part of information systems analysis and design. Furthermore, information systems need to be examined for completeness and correctness of their controls. However, despite the importance of IT controls, no general, well formalized framework is available to guide the analysis of controls requirements, the design of controls in systems, and the audit of existing systems. This paper presents a conceptual framework of controls based on an ontological foundation and an extended typology of IT controls. The framework can be used to analyze IT control issues and manage IT control assets. An initial evaluation of the typology using a published control framework and an example indicates its potential usefulness

Social Transitions in Maltese Society

The collection of papers in this book focus on the issue of citizenship as it is played out in the Maltese Islands in the first decade of the twenty first century. The Maltese Islands in 2005 consisted of 410,290 people, 50.3 percent being female: of these, 96.2 percent were Maltese citizens (National Statistics Office, 2007, p. vi). Citizenship for all these individuals means different things, as social factors such as gender, age, disability, sexuality, religion, social class, nationality, race or ethnicity interact and intersect with the everyday experiences and vagaries in the histories of the persons involved.peer-reviewe

Migration Policy of the Regions of the Republic of Kazakhstan: Socio-political Mechanisms of Easing the Interethnic Tension

A change in the ethnic structure of the population is observed in the Republic of Kazakhstan, which is described by ethnic and cultural diversity. The current situation in the Republic of Kazakhstan has been analysed based on the author's methodology for the quantitative assessment of interethnic tension. The author outlined a set of measures to stabilise interethnic relations, strengthen mutual understanding between citizens of various nationalities, and prevent interethnic conflicts in the Republic of Kazakhstan. &nbsp

Military Counterterrorism Measures, Civil–Military Relations, and Democracy: The Cases of Turkey and the United States

This study examines how military counter-terrorism (CT) measures affect the quality of democracy by altering civil-military relations (CMR) and focuses on civil-military relations as the main causal mechanism. We argue that the use of a military approach in counter-terrorism jeopardizes democracy at the societal level by increasing the belief that only the military is equipped to deal with the threat at hand. Therefore, erosions of civil liberties are tolerated in exchange for security. Second, we argue that military CT measures change the balance between the military and executive powers in procedural and liberal democracies. While the military’s executive power increases in procedural democracies, the civilian ruler’s control of the military power increases in liberal ones. Case studies of the U.S. and Turkey show that a military counter-terrorism approach affects CMR in these countries, which generate a similar tradeoff between security and the quality of democracy, albeit via different causal mechanisms. While that tradeoff is less severe in the U.S., Turkey is more vulnerable to erosion of democracy