05. A Cognitive Analysis of the Trump Administration\u27s Implementation of Executive Order 13769

Issued on January 27, 2017, Executive Order 13769: PROTECTING THE NATION FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES caused mass panic and mass protests overnight. The executive order first introduced by Donald J. Trump during his candidacy for president in 2016 was a cornerstone of the future President’s campaign. The 21st century has introduced a broad range of American presidents and administrations who have introduced foreign policy initiatives ideal for analysis through the cognitive and the personified state perspectives. Initiatives that would have otherwise been deemed irrational or unsuccessful through other schools of thought have been explained by the cognitive perspective by focusing on the person or persons behind the policy. This research study analyzes the formulation and implementation/re-implementation of E.O. 13769 by focusing on the personified state through President Trump and the cognitive perspective to suggest the success of E.O. 13769 ratification was not based on the efficacy of the policy but rather persistence of the Trump administration. Keywords: Executive Order 13769, travel ban, Muslim ban, Trump Administratio

Institut za medicinska istraživanja i medicinu rada: Izvještaj o radu u 2005.

The field of digital forensics has emerged as one of the fastest changing and most rapidly developing investigative specialisations in a wide range of criminal and civil cases. Increasingly there is a requirement from the various legal and judicial authorities throughout the world, that any digital evidence presented in criminal and civil cases should meet requirements regarding the acceptance and admissibility of digital evidence, e.g., Daubert or Frye in the US. There is also increasing expectation that digital forensics labs are accredited to ISO 17025 or the US equivalent ASCLD-Lab International requirements. On the one hand, these standards cover general requirements and are not geared specifically towards digital forensics. On the other hand, digital forensics labs are mostly left with costly piece-meal efforts in order to try and address such pressing legal and regulatory requirements. In this paper, we address these issues by proposing DF-C2M2, a capability maturity model that enables organisations to evaluate the maturity of their digital forensics capabilities and identify roadmaps for improving it in accordance with business or regulatory requirements. The model has been developed through consultations and interviews with digital forensics experts. The model has been evaluated by using it to assess the digital forensics capability maturity of a lab in a law enforcement agency

Performance model of Shams I solar power plant

Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.A study of Shams I solar power plant in Abu Dhabi has been conducted to generate a performance model via a spreadsheet. The plant consists of 192 loops containing single-axis parabolic trough collectors. These collectors track the sun and focus sunlight onto a Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) flowing in an absorber running in their focal line. That causes the temperature of the HTF to rise, which then heats the water flowing in a separate loop. This results in the formulation of vapor that is sent to a turbine. A generator is connected to the shaft of the turbine and it generates electricity due to the rotation of the shaft (caused by the expanding steam) [1]. The spreadsheet computes the annual output of the plant in1-hour increments. Input data columns include: solar radiation, ambient temperature, humidity, wind speed, time of day, day of year, and other geographical and optical constants.dc201

Imaging Reality: A review of COVID-19 Pandemic

Recently, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been the main universal health concern and the most important challenge to the world. This disease affects all age groups, genders and, races. Due to lack of definitive medication detection of the disease in an early stage and prevention of its transmission plays an important role in its control. Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) and chest computed tomography (CT) are the most common diagnostic methods for COVID-19. Besides a review on the general founding of the COVID-19 pandemic, we tried to collect a hand on report focusing on radiological knowledge and its applications, limitations, and instructions

Complete Versus Incomplete Surgical Resection in Intramedullary Astrocytoma: Systematic Review with Individual Patient Data Meta-Analysis

Study Design: Systematic review Background: Considering the infiltrative nature of intramedullary astrocytoma, the goal of surgery is to have a better patient related outcome. Objective: To compare the overall survival (OS) and neurologic outcomes of complete vs incomplete surgical resection for patients with intramedullary astrocytoma. Methods: A comprehensive search of MEDLINE, CENTRAL and EMBASE was conducted by two independent reviewers. Individual patient data (IPD) analysis and multivariate Cox Proportional Hazard Model was developed to measure the effect of surgical strategies on OS, post-operative neurological improvement (PNI), and neurological improvement in the last follow up (FNI). Results: We included 1079 patients from 35 studies. Individual patient data of 228 patients (13 articles) was incorporated into the integrative IPD analysis. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed complete resection (CR) significantly improved OS in comparison with the incomplete resection (IR) (log-rank test, P =.004). In the multivariate IPD analysis, three prognostic factors had significant effect on the OS: (1) Extent of Resection, (2) pathology grade, and (3) adjuvant therapy. We observed an upward trend in the popularity of chemotherapy, but CR, IR, and radiotherapy had relatively stable trends during three decades. Conclusion: Our study shows that CR can improve OS when compared to IR. Patients with spinal cord astrocytoma undergoing CR had similar PNI and FNI compared to IR. Therefore, CR should be the primary goal of surgery, but intraoperative decisions on the extent of resection should be relied on to prevent neurologic adverse events. Due to significant effect of adjuvant therapy on OS, PNI and FNI, it could be considered as the routine treatment strategy for spinal cord astrocytoma

Complete Versus Incomplete Surgical Resection in Intramedullary Ependymomas: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Study Design: Systematic review. Objective: To compare outcomes of complete versus incomplete resection in primary intramedullary spinal cord ependymoma. Methods: A comprehensive search of the MEDLINE, CENTRAL, and Embase databases was conducted by 2 independent investigators. Random-effect meta-analysis and meta-regression with seven covariates were performed to evaluate the reason for the heterogeneity among studies. We also used individual patient data in the integrative analysis to compare complete and incomplete resection based on 4 outcomes: progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), postoperative neurological improvement (PNI), and follow-up neurological improvement (FNI). Results: A total of 23 studies were identified, including 407 cases. Significant heterogeneity among included studies was observed in risk estimates (I2 for PFS, FNI, and PNI were 49.5%, 78.3%, and 87.2%, respectively). The mean follow-up time across cases was 48.6 ± 2.35 months. Cox proportional multivariable analysis revealed that the complete resection can prolong PFS (model, hazard ratio = 0.18, CI 0.05-0.54, P =.004,) and improve the FNI (binary logistic regression, adjusted odds ratio = 16.5, CI 1.6-171, P =.019). However, PNI and OS were similar in patients with incomplete resected spinal cord ependymoma compared with complete resection (binary logistic regression respectively and Cox multivariable analysis, P >.5). Conclusion: The data presented in this study showed that OS was not significantly affected by the degree of surgery. However, complete resection of intramedullary ependymomas provides the optimal outcomes with longer PFS and better long-term neurological outcomes than incomplete resection

Complete versus incomplete surgical resection in intramedullary astrocytoma: systematic review with individual patient data meta-analysis

Study Design Systematic review Background: Considering the infiltrative nature of intramedullary astrocytoma, the goal of surgery is to have a better patient related outcome. Objective To compare the overall survival (OS) and neurologic outcomes of complete vs incomplete surgical resection for patients with intramedullary astrocytoma. Methods A comprehensive search of MEDLINE, CENTRAL and EMBASE was conducted by two independent reviewers. Individual patient data (IPD) analysis and multivariate Cox Proportional Hazard Model was developed to measure the effect of surgical strategies on OS, post-operative neurological improvement (PNI), and neurological improvement in the last follow up (FNI). Results We included 1079 patients from 35 studies. Individual patient data of 228 patients (13 articles) was incorporated into the integrative IPD analysis. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed complete resection (CR) significantly improved OS in comparison with the incomplete resection (IR) (log-rank test, P = .004). In the multivariate IPD analysis, three prognostic factors had significant effect on the OS: (1) Extent of Resection, (2) pathology grade, and (3) adjuvant therapy. We observed an upward trend in the popularity of chemotherapy, but CR, IR, and radiotherapy had relatively stable trends during three decades. Conclusion Our study shows that CR can improve OS when compared to IR. Patients with spinal cord astrocytoma undergoing CR had similar PNI and FNI compared to IR. Therefore, CR should be the primary goal of surgery, but intraoperative decisions on the extent of resection should be relied on to prevent neurologic adverse events. Due to significant effect of adjuvant therapy on OS, PNI and FNI, it could be considered as the routine treatment strategy for spinal cord astrocytoma

Synergistic Antimicrobial Metal Oxide-Doped Phosphate Glasses; a Potential Strategy to Reduce Antimicrobial Resistance and Host Cell Toxicity

The emergence of antimicrobial resistant strains bacteria and a decline in the discovery of new antibiotics has led to the idea of combining various antimicrobials to treat resistant strains and/or polymicrobial infections. Metal oxide-doped glasses have been extensively investigated for their antimicrobial potential; however to date, most experiments have focused on single metal species in isolation. The present study investigates the antimicrobial potential of sodium calcium phosphates (P2O5)50(Na2O)20(CaO)30–X(MO)X, where M is cobalt, copper, or zinc as single species. In addition, this work studied the effect of co-doping glasses containing two different metal ions (Co + Cu, Co + Zn, and Cu + Zn). The antimicrobial efficacy of all glasses was tested against Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) bacterial strains, as well as a fungal strain (Candida albicans). Minimum inhibitory and bactericidal concentrations and time kill/synergy assays were used to assess the antimicrobial activity. An enhanced antimicrobial effect, at 5 mg/mL concentration, was exhibited by cobalt, copper, and zinc oxide glasses alone and in combinations. A synergistic antimicrobial effect was observed by Cu + Co and Cu + Zn against E. coli and Cu + Zn against S. aureus