E-Voting Solution for Romanian Parliament

Every year hundreds of millions of people vote in a variety of settings in many countries around the world. People vote in public elections to choose government leaders and also in private elections to determine the course of action for groups that people are organized in such as non-governmental organizations, unions, associations and corporations (shareholders). Voting is a widely spread, rather democratic, way of making decisions. More and more governments and private organizations realize that the use of new technologies such as the Internet can have beneficial impacts on elections - i.e. higher voter turnout and lower costs of conducting elections. The rules governing elections tend to be highly specialized to meet the specific needs of each type of organization. Most elections, however, require integrity, privacy and authentication.e-voting, elections, democracy, ngo, unions, government

Acculturation, Psychological Distress, and Family Adjustment Among Russian Immigrants in the United States

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of acculturation differences on psychological distress and family functioning in non-Jewish Russian immigrant families. Potential mediating effects of social support and parenting style and moderating effect of the child’s gender were investigated using regression analysis. The sample consisted of 80 Russian immigrant mother-child dyads residing in the northeast region of the U.S. The study included independent assessment of acculturation to American and Russian cultures. Results confirm the presence of associations between acculturative differences, psychological distress, and family problems. A mediational role of social support and parenting style on the impact of acculturation differences was not found; however, the child’s gender moderated the impact of acculturation differences on psychological distress. In addition, the child’s gender partially moderated the link between acculturation differences and greater mothers’ psychological distress. The findings suggest that acculturation differences have deleterious effects on mental health and family functioning of Russian immigrants

A Method and a Device for Diagnostics of the Functional State of Peripheral Vessels of the Upper Limbs

The article suggests a method and a device for diagnostics of the functional state of peripheral vessels of the upper limbs, which provide identification of angiospastic disorders with a lower probability of falsenegative result, allowing thereby the quality of diagnostics to be improved. The suggested approach is based on combined application of laser Doppler flowmetry and contact thermometry during an occlusion test. The obtained results can be used in various fields of medicine for the development of multifunctional noninvasive diagnostic systems for the diagnosis and prevention of diseases associated with changes in the functional state of peripheral vessels

Multimodal optical diagnostics of the microhaemodynamics in upper and lower limbs

The introduction of optical non-invasive diagnostic methods into clinical practice can substantially advance in the detection of early microcirculatory disorders in patients with different diseases. This paper is devoted to the development and application of the optical non-invasive diagnostic approach for the detection and evaluation of the severity of microcirculatory and metabolic disorders in rheumatic diseases and diabetes mellitus. The proposed methods include the joint use of laser Doppler flowmetry, absorption spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy in combination with functional tests. This technique showed the high diagnostic importance for the detection of disturbances in peripheral microhaemodynamics. These methods have been successfully tested as additional diagnostic techniques in the field of rheumatology and endocrinology. The sensitivity and specificity of the proposed diagnostic procedures have been evaluated.<br/

Analysis of skin blood microflow oscillations in patients with rheumatic diseases

Laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) has been applied for the assessment of variation in blood microflows in patients with rheumatic diseases and healthy volunteers. Oscillations of peripheral blood microcirculation observed by LDF have been analyzed utilizing a wavelet transform. A higher amplitude of blood microflow oscillations has been observed in a high frequency band (over 0.1 Hz) in patients with rheumatic diseases. Oscillations in the high frequency band decreased in healthy volunteers in response to the cold pressor test, whereas lower frequency pulsations prevailed in patients with rheumatic diseases. A higher perfusion rate at normal conditions was observed in patients, and a weaker response to cold stimulation was observed in healthy volunteers. Analysis of blood microflow oscillations has a high potential for evaluation of mechanisms of blood flow regulation and diagnosis of vascular abnormalities associated with rheumatic diseases

Genre typology of German town chronicles of the Late Medieval and Early Modern period

In Early New High German, a realignment and enrichment of the genre system of German literature language took place. A key role belonged in this period (that is, XV and XVI centuries) to the historiography, in the first place town chronicles. They developed, among other sources, out of the annals and other administrative writings and took their origin both in the need of upper social groups in legitimization of town structures and their general interest in history. Generally, there are two types of town chronicles, that is, official ones, which were written at the request of the town hall, and private ones. Legitimization, informing, didactic and even entertaining functions were proper to both types, but with different priority: whereas for the official chronicles, legitimization and documentation were the primary functions, for the private ones, informing and entertaining played main role. The chronicles were characterized by the syncretism and intertextuality, which means that they included charts, acts and other official documents (or their fragments) in their narrative structure. There was some difference between the authors and recipients of official chronicles, on the one hand, and these of private chronicles, on the other hand: whereas the authors of the first type were usually town scribes or highly-educated clerics, the private chronicles could also be written by ordinary citizens. Many official chronicles were initially intended for a limited circle of magistrates and not for a wide reception. For the language of town chronicles, a strong evaluative component was essential. The language of chronicles was based on the author's individual style and could vary in a wide range: from clear syntactical structures with predominance of hypotaxis and rich arsenal of stylistic means up to a plain parataxis with a simple enumeration of facts and events. Frequent use of adverbial modifiers with temporal meaning was typical. In the eyes of contemporaries, the chronicles were not exactly a genre, but rather a written history

Social Media in the Sexual Lives of African American and Latino Youth: Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Neighborhood

There has been significant interest in the role of social media in the lives of adolescents, particularly as it relates to sexual risk. Researchers have focused on understanding usage behaviors, quantifying effects of social media exposure and activity, and using social media to intervene. Much of this work has focused on college students and non-minority youth. In this paper, we examine the growing body of literature around social media use among US minority youth and its intersection with sexual risk behavior. We introduce the concept of the “digital neighborhood” and examine the intersection of social media and sexual health in two domains: 1) sexual content in social media and 2) evidence of social media effects on sexual behavior. Finally, we discuss the opportunities and challenges for researchers and practitioners engaging youth of color

Parametrization and Evaluation of Intermediate Level Obfuscator

Obfuscation is a technology that secures software artifacts from reverse engineering by making its cost prohibitively high. Intermediate level obfuscator implements the defensive mechanisms inside the software, and owing to high potency and resilience, can successfully secure the sensitive software components. This paper provides an analysis and parametrization of the obfuscator, as well as a method of fine-tuning and evaluating obfuscating transformations in terms of potency, resilience and cost. </jats:p

Interaction of oxidative stress and misfolded proteins in the mechanism of neurodegeneration

Aggregation of the misfolded proteins β-amyloid, tau, huntingtin, and α-synuclein is one of the most important steps in the pathology underlying a wide spectrum of neurodegenerative disorders, including the two most common ones—Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Activity and toxicity of these proteins depends on the stage and form of aggregates. Excessive production of free radicals, including reactive oxygen species which lead to oxidative stress, is proven to be involved in the mechanism of pathology in most of neurodegenerative disorders. Both reactive oxygen species and misfolded proteins play a physiological role in the brain, and only deregulation in redox state and aggregation of the proteins leads to pathology. Here, we review the role of misfolded proteins in the activation of ROS production from various sources in neurons and glia. We discuss if free radicals can influence structural changes of the key toxic intermediates and describe the putative mechanisms by which oxidative stress and oligomers may cause neuronal death