“Canada will not Stand Idly by ...”: Ukraine in the Foreign Policy of Canada

Ukraine has always had a special place in Canadian foreign policy. Currently, Canada is deeply engaged in supporting Ukraine to restore political and economic stability and to implement democratic reforms. The Government in Ottawa has condemned Russian aggressive policy and the illegal military occupation of Crimea and has taken a variety of steps and initiatives since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine in 2014 including imposing sanctions, economic and military assistance, and supporting of NATO measures

Mommies' Girls Get Dresses, Daddies' Boys Get Toys: Gender Preferences in Poland and their Implications

We examine the relationship of child gender with family and economic outcomes using a large dataset from the Polish Household Budgets' Survey (PHBS) for years 2003-2009. Apart from studying the effects of gender on family stability, fertility and mothers' labor market outcomes, we take advantage of the PHBS' detailed expenditure module to examine effects of gender on consumption patterns. We find that a first born daughter is significantly less likely to be living with her father compared to a first born son and that the probability of having the second child is negatively correlated with a first born daughter. Using the context of the collective model we provide interpretation of these results from the perspective of individual parental gender preferences. We also examine the potential effects of sample selection bias which may affect the results and may be important for other findings in the literature. Labor supply of mothers and overall child-related consumption is not affected by gender of the first child, but the pattern of expenditure significantly varies between those with first born sons and first born daughters. One possible interpretation of the findings is that Polish fathers have preferences for sons and Polish mothers have preferences for daughters. Expenditure patterns suggest potential early determination of gender roles – mommies' girls get dresses and daddies' boys get toys.gender preferences, fertility, child outcomes, family structure

A Monetary Union Requires a Banking Union. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 33/2014

This paper argues that a monetary union requires a banking union. While the USA developed both during a time span of two centuries, the EMU was created in the course of two decades and remains unfinished as the economic pillar is largely missing. The financial crisis and the Eurocrisis have shown that a genuine banking union is even more needed for the Eurozone than a budget or a fiscal union to let the euro survive

Swallow this: Childhood and Adolescent Exposure to Fast Food Restaurants, BMI, and Cognitive Ability

Using spatial and temporal variation in openings of fast food restaurants in Norway between 1980 and 2007, we study the effects of changes in the supply of high caloric nutrition on the health and cognitive ability of young adult males. Our results indicate that exposure to these establishments during childhood and adolescence increases BMI and has negative effects on cognition. Heterogeneity analysis does not reveal meaningful differences in the effects across groups, including for those with adverse prenatal health or high paternal BMI, an exception being that cognition is only affected by exposure at ages 0–12 and this effect is mediated by paternal education

Weak RSA Key Discovery on GPGPU

We address one of the weaknesses of the RSA ciphering systems \textit{i.e.} the existence of the private keys that are relatively easy to compromise by the attacker. The problem can be mitigated by the Internet services providers, but it requires some computational effort. We propose the proof of concept of the GPGPU-accelerated system that can help detect and eliminate users' weak keys.We have proposed the algorithms and developed the GPU-optimised program code that is now publicly available and substantially outperforms the tested CPU processor. The source code of the OpenSSL library was adapted for GPGPU, and the resulting code can perform both on the GPU and CPU processors. Additionally, we present the solution how to map a triangular grid into the GPU rectangular grid \textendash{} the basic dilemma in many problems that concern pair-wise analysis for the set of elements. Also, the comparison of two data caching methods on GPGPU leads to the interesting general conclusions. We present the results of the experiments of the performance analysis of the selected algorithms for the various RSA key length, configurations of GPU grid, and size of the tested key set

Radioiodine remnant ablation of differentiated thyroid cancer does not further increase oxidative damage to membrane lipids - early effect

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Radioiodine (¹³¹I) therapy is widely accepted as an essential part of therapeutic regimens in many cases of differentiated thyroid cancer. Radiation-induced oxidative damage to macromolecules is a well known phenomenon. Frequently examined process to evaluate oxidative damage to macromolecules is lipid peroxidation (LPO), resulting from oxidative damage to membrane lipids. The aim of the study was to examine serum LPO level in hypothyroid (after total thyroidectomy) cancer patients subjected to ablative activities of ¹³¹I.</p> <p>Materials and methods</p> <p>The study was carried out in 21 patients (18 females and 3 males, average age 52.4 ± 16.5 years) after total thyroidectomy for papillary (17 patients) or follicular (4 patients) thyroid carcinoma. Hypothyroidism was confirmed by increased TSH blood concentration (BRAHMS, Germany), measured before ¹³¹I therapy. Activity of 2.8 - 6.9 GBq of ¹³¹I was administered to the patients orally as sodium iodide (OBRI, Poland). Concentrations of malondialdehyde + 4-hydroxyalkenals (MDA + 4-HDA), as an index of LPO (LPO-586 kit, Calbiochem, USA), were measured in blood serum just before ¹³¹I administration (day "0") and on the days 1-4 after ¹³¹I therapy. Sera from 23 euthyroid patients served as controls. Correlations between LPO and TSH or ¹³¹I activity were calculated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Expectedly, serum LPO level, when measured before ¹³¹I therapy, was several times higher (p < 0.00001) in cancer patients than in healthy subjects, which is probably due to hypothyroidism caused by total thyroidectomy. However, we did not observe any differences between LPO levels after and before ¹³¹I therapy. LPO did not correlate with TSH concentration. In turn, negative correlation was found between ¹³¹I activity and LPO level on the day "2" after radioiodine treatment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Radioiodine remnant ablation of differentiated thyroid cancer does not further increase oxidative damage to membrane lipids, at least early, after therapy.</p