The effect of electroporation pulses on functioning of the heart

Electrochemotherapy is an effective antitumor treatment currently applied to cutaneous and subcutaneous tumors. Electrochemotherapy of tumors located close to the heart could lead to adverse effects, especially if electroporation pulses were delivered within the vulnerable period of the heart or if they coincided with arrhythmias of some types. We examined the influence of electroporation pulses on functioning of the heart of human patients by analyzing the electrocardiogram. We found no pathological morphological changes in the electrocardiogram; however, we demonstrated a transient RR interval decrease after application of electroporation pulses. Although no adverse effects due to electroporation have been reported so far, the probability for complications could increase in treatment of internal tumors, in tumor ablation by irreversible electroporation, and when using pulses of longer durations. We evaluated the performance of our algorithm for synchronization of electroporation pulse delivery with electrocardiogram. The application of this algorithm in clinical electroporation would increase the level of safety for the patient and suitability of electroporation for use in anatomical locations presently not accessible to existing electroporation devices and electrodes

Foreign Direct Investment, Domestic Investment and Green Growth in Nigeria: Any Spillovers?

Globally, investments in physical and human capital have been identified to foster real economic growth and development in any economy. Investments, which could be domestic or foreign, have been established in the literature as either complements or substitutes in varying scenarios. While domestic investments bring about endogenous growth processes, foreign investment, though may be exogenous to growth, has been identified to bring about productivity and ecological spillovers. In view of these competing–conflicting perspectives, this chapter examines the differential impacts of domestic and foreign investments on green growth in Nigeria during the period 1970-2017. The empirical evidence is based on Auto-regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Granger causality estimates. Also, the study articulates the prospects for growth sustainability via domestic or foreign investments in Nigeria. The results show that domestic investment increases CO2 emissions in the short run while foreign investment decreases CO2 emissions in the long run. When the dataset is decomposed into three sub-samples in the light of cycles of investments within the trend analysis, findings of the third sub-sample (i.e. 2001-2017) reveal that both types of investments decrease CO2 emissions in the long run while only domestic investment has a negative effect on CO2 emissions in the short run. This study therefore concludes that as short-run distortions even out in the long-run, FDI and domestic investments has prospects for sustainable development in Nigeria through green growth

FDI and productivity convergence in Central and Eastern Europe: an industry-level investigation

Productivity convergence, FDI, Transition economies, Absorptive capacity, Panel data, C23, F21, O33,

Foreign presence and efficiency in transition economies

FDI, DEA, Bootstrap, Transition economies, F21, C34, O33,