The vulnerability and resiliency of childhood

Life is full of stressors, which have to be confronted efficiently to grow up. However, reaction to stressors is personalized, complex and coordinated. Vulnerable persons adjust poorly to stressors and express inappropriate responses, while resilient persons practice adaptive physiological and psychological responses. Promotion of resiliency is an intricated issue, which demands strategies at both macro and micro-level. Microlevel strategies are focused on the community, family and individual level, while macrolevel strategies formulate the principles. Nevertheless, prediction of vulnerability and resiliency is really a challenge, as different persons facing same stressors react differently. Some are growing as resilient and others as vulnerable. We aimed to discuss resiliency, vulnerability, importance in relation to health outcome, promotion of resiliency and controversies of vulnerability and resiliency

Glittering in the dark: Memory, culture, and critique in light of the history of information

An ethical and human-centered approach to Information Science requires rigorous, historically-informed analysis of both the resources that inform this discipline and the cultural role it inhabits. This session will present and discuss significant recent developments in the history and foundations of the field. ASIST has formally established a new volunteer administrative position of ASIST Curator. Kathryn La Barre, the newly-appointed Curator, will describe the role and responsibilities of this position and assess the state of Information Science history in relation to the conference themes. In two complementary reports: Michael Buckland will examine theoretical accounts of the materials made use of in Information Science; and Sachi Arafat will explain why Information Retrieval and Information Science should be integrated and rethought as a science of technology-mediated experience, and how this new kind of science relates to the pre-modern memory arts tradition

Effect of Information and Communication Technology Investment on the Profitability of the Jordanian Commercial Banks

The objective of this research paper is to evaluate the effect of investment in information and communication technologies on the profitability and performance of the Jordanian commercial banks, whether it helps to improve sales or it helps to reduce the overall operating expenses. To arrive at this objective, the researchers used Cobb-Douglas production function as a proxy to measure these effects. The researchers used two measures of profit: ROA and ROE as dependent variables for this purpose, depending on the annual reports of the sample Jordanian commercial banks as a source for the raw data that was used in the analysis for the period between 2006 to 2013. SPSS  was used as a statistical tool for the arrangement of data and mutable regression  was used as a statistical tool for the analysis. From the analysis of the study, the following conclusion was reached: there is a positive effect of investment in information and technologies on the profitability and performance of the sample Jordanian commercial banks used in this research. Keywords: Information and communication technology, Investment, Profitability, Commercial banks, Jordan.

Evaluasi Digital Library AMIK AKMI Baturaja Menggunakan HOT Fit Model

Perpustakaan merupakan sarana penunjang belajar bagi peserta didik di semua tingkatan pendidikan, untuk memberikan pelayanan yang baik bagi pengguna perpustakaan tentunya tidak terlepas dari peran teknologi informasi. Dengan menggunakan sistem informasi maka banyak kemudahan yang dapat dirasakan dan penggunaan sistem informasi harus dikembangkan sesuai dengan kebutuhan informasi yang dibutuhkan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengevaluasi digital library AMIK AKMI yang belum lama di implementasikan, metode yang digunakan adalah HOT(Human, Organization, thecnology) yang didalamnya terdapat beberapa faktor yaitu kualitas sistem, kualitas informasi, kualitas layanan, penggunaan sistem, kepuasan pengguna dan manfaat sistem. Dari hasil penelitian ini secara keseluruhan dapat diketahui bahwa hubungan antara ketiga variabel yakni Human, Organization dan Thecnology memiliki hubungan yang kuat, dan saling mempengaruhi antara variabel satu dengan variabel lainnya. Meski demikian masih dibutuhkan perbaikan dari beberapa hal yang menjadi kelemahan digital library AMIK AKMI untuk peningkatan kepuasan pengguna terhadap layanan yang diberikan melalui digital library

Between authoritarianism and democracy: Examining news media usage for political re-socialization and information acquisition in diasporic contexts

While political scholars study news media as agents of political learning, the processes of political re-socialization of a conflict-generated diaspora moving from authoritarian to democratic regimes pose significant theoretical challenges that remain insufficiently researched. To this end, this study investigates the importance of traditional and digital media sources from the homeland and host country in fostering refugees’ understanding of the democratic norms and values, and political opportunities offered by the receiving country. Furthermore, it investigates the role of online diaspora communities as agents for political re-socialization and tools for information acquisition about Arabic, Swiss and international politics. Sixty semi-structured interviews with Arabs from refugee origins in Switzerland were analysed. Findings show the influence of the early-life political socialization, received prior to forced migration, on the purposive consumption of media from various sources. As Facebook started to lose its value as a source of political information, participants shift to producing and consuming news distributed by strong ties on private WhatsApp groups as a counter-strategy to acquire trustworthy information. Further insights on the impact of perceived media credibility and individual trust in news on the consumption behaviour and political learning are discussed

The Trembling Hand Approach to Automata in Iterated Games

We consider two state automata playing infinitely iterated two players, two strategies game, where each move can be mis-implemented (or mis-perceived) with a small error probability, and compute the payoff matrix by means of a perturbation approach. Keywords: Alternating Prisoner's Dilemma, Perturbed Payoff, Repeated Games, Simultaneous Prisoner's Dilemma

COMPARATIVE BIOAVAILABILITY (BIOEQUIVALENCE) STUDY FOR FIXED DOSE COMBINATION TABLET CONTAINING AMLODIPINE, VALSARTAN, AND HYDROCHLOROTHIAZIDE USING A NEWLY DEVELOPED HPLC-MS/MS METHOD

Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the bioequivalence between a newly developed generic tablet containing fixed-dose combination of amlodipine besylate, valsartan and hydrochlorothiazide (10/160/25 mg), and the reference brand product Exforge HCT® tablet; using a newly developed HPLC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of these drugs in human plasma.Methods: The brand (reference) and the test (generic) products were administered to thirty-nine healthy subjects. A fasting, laboratory blind, single-dose, two-treatment, two-period, two-sequence, randomized crossover design was conducted with 14 d washout period between dosing. Serial blood samples were withdrawn from each subject immediately before dosing (zero time), and then at 0.33, 0.66, 1.0, 1.33, 1.66, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 6.5, 7.0, 7.5, 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.5, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 24, 48 and eventually at 72 h post dosing. Plasma samples were analyzed for simultaneous determination of amlodipine, valsartan and hydrochlorothiazide by a newly developed HPLC coupled with MS/MS detector. The linearity of the method was established for plasma concentration ranges of 0.2-12 ng/ml, 50-8000 ng/ml, and 2-250 ng/ml for amlodipine, valsartan, and hydrochlorothiazide, respectively.Results: Plasma concentration-time data of each individual were analyzed by non-compartmental method to measure the pharmacokinetics parameters; Cmax, Tmax, AUC0-t, AUC0-¥, lZ, T1/2. For amlodipine truncated AUC72hr was calculated. The 90% confidence interval for the pharmacokinetic parameters used for bioequivalence evaluation (Cmax and AUC) for amlodipine, valsartan, and hydrochlorothiazide were well within FDA acceptable ranges of 80-125%.Conclusion: It is concluded that the newly devolved generic product is bioequivalent with the brand product Exforge HCT® tablet. Thus, both products are clinically interchangeable.Keywords: Amlodipine, Valsartan, Hydrochlorothiazide, Pharmacokinetics, Bioequivalence, HPLC-MS/M

Numerical Prediction of Laminar Characteristics of Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer in Finned-Tube Heat Exchangers

This study is performed to determine the characteristics of fin and tube heat exchanger for the plain and wavy fin configurations considering in lined and staggered tube arrangements for laminar flow regime. This analysis has been conducted using Commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics Code ANSYS CFX-11. The results are expressed in terms of friction factor (f) and the Colburn factor (j) and efficiency index (j/f).The code was validated by comparing the results obtained with the previously investigated experimental data. The effects of different geometrical parameter such as Longitudinal pitch, Transverse Pitch, Fin Pitch, Wavy angle on the heat transfer and the pressure drop were investigated. This study reveals that the flow distinction between plain and wavy fin has a profound influence on the heat transfer and pressure drop performance. It was observed that, increasing the longitudinal and transverse pitch causes a decrease in the thermal and hydraulic performance of the heat exchanger for low Reynolds Number problem. The result for the fin pitch study indicated that decrease in the fin pitch causes a decrease in both heat transfer and friction characteristics significantly. Keywords: Friction factor, Colburn factor, Efficiency index, longitudinal pitch, transverse pitch, fin pitch

Carnosol induces ROS-mediated beclin1-independent autophagy and apoptosis in triple negative breast cancer

Background: In this study we investigated the in vitro and in vivo anticancer effect of carnosol, a naturally occurring polyphenol, in triple negative breast cancer.Results: We found that carnosol significantly inhibited the viability and colony growth induced G2 arrest in the triple negative MDA-MB-231. Blockade of the cell cycle was associated with increased p21/WAF1 expression and downregulation of p27. Interestingly, carnosol was found to induce beclin1-independent autophagy and apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 cells. The coexistence of both events, autophagy and apoptosis, was confirmed by electron micrography. Induction of autophagy was found to be an early event, detected within 3 h post-treatment, which subsequently led to apoptosis. Carnosol treatment also caused a dose-dependent increase in the levels of phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1 and 2 (pERK1/2). Moreover, we show that carnosol induced DNA damage, reduced the mitochondrial potential and triggered the activation of the intrinsic and extrinsic apoptotic pathway. Furthermore, we found that carnosol induced a dose-dependent generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and inhibition of ROS by tiron, a ROS scavenger, blocked the induction of autophagy and apoptosis and attenuated DNA damage. To our knowledge, this is the first report to identify the induction of autophagy by carnosol.Conclusion: In conclusion our findings provide strong evidence that carnosol may be an alternative therapeutic candidate against the aggressive form of breast cancer and hence deserves more exploration.Scopu