Conflict, displacement, and economic revival: the case of the internally displaced minority entrepreneurs in Pakistan

This article examines entreprise activities developed by internally displaced religious minorities (IDRM) and the role that social capital plays in supporting such activities. In particular, the paper examines how social capital is linked to micro enterprise development and the economic survival/revival of internally displaced religious minorities in Pakistan and why the link between entrepreneurship and social capital is critical for contexts with absent or poorly designed enterprise development policies. A three-staged, sequential research design was adopted, which comprised the analysis of secondary data on IDRM, face-to-face survey of entrepreneurs and interviews in two selected study sites. Our evidence shows how the role of social capital in supporting entrepreneurial activities is determined by socioeconomic inequalities as well as the characteristics of the formal enterprise support infrastructure, i.e. where formal institutions are weak, social capital is the main source of entrepreneurial support, with different types of social capital networks delivering different outcomes

A national register for surveillance of inherited disorders: beta thalassaemia in the United Kingdom

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate the value of a national register for surveillance of services for an inherited disorder. METHODS: Data from the United Kingdom Thalassaemia Register and the United Kingdom Register of Prenatal Diagnosis for Haemoglobin Disorders were combined in a database; these registers include all fetuses known to have been diagnosed with beta thalassaemia major, beta thalassaemia intermedia, or haemoglobin E/beta thalassaemia in the United Kingdom. Data were extracted to show outcomes (selective abortion or live birth) of all fetuses and the status of those born with a disorder (alive, dead, successful bone marrow transplant, or lost to follow-up) by parents' region of residence and ethnicity. FINDINGS: At the end of 1999 the register included 1074 patients, 807 of whom were alive and residing in the United Kingdom. A successful bone marrow transplant has been performed for 117 out of 581 (20%) patients born since 1975. Residents of Pakistani origin are now the main group at risk in the United Kingdom, replacing residents of Cypriot origin. This has led to a marked shift in the need for services from the south-east of England to the Midlands and the north of England. Despite the acceptability of prenatal diagnosis, the proportion of affected births remains 50% higher than would be expected, reflecting a widespread failure to deliver timely screening and counselling to carriers. Even though effective treatment is available the annual number of deaths is rising, indicating that better tolerated treatments are needed. CONCLUSION: A national diagnosis register is a powerful instrument for monitoring the treatment and prevention of inherited disorders and for highlighting correctable shortcomings. In view of the increasing possibilities for genetic screening there is a strong case for central funding for such databases within modern health services

A framework for reasoning on component composition

The main characteristics of component models is their strict structure enabling better code reuse. Correctness of component compo- sition is well understood formally but existing works do not allow for mechanised reasoning on composition and component reconfigurations, whereas a mechanical support would improve the confidence in the ex- isting results. This article presents the formalisation in Isabelle/HOL of a component model, focusing on the structure and on basic lemmas to handle component structure. Our objective in this paper is to present the basic constructs, and the corresponding lemmas allowing the proof of properties related to structure of component models and the handling of structure at runtime. We illustrate the expressiveness of our approach by presenting component semantics, and properties on reconfiguration primitives

A convex selective segmentation model based on a piece-wise constant metric guided edge detector function

The challenge of segmentation for noisy images, especially those that have light in their backgrounds, is still exists in many advanced state-of-the-art segmentation models. Furthermore, it is significantly difficult to segment such images. In this article, we provide a novel variational model for the simultaneous restoration and segmentation of noisy images that have intensity inhomogeneity and high contrast background illumination and light. The suggested concept combines the multi-phase segmentation technology with the statistical approach in terms of local region knowledge and details of circular regions that are, in fact, centered at every pixel to enable in-homogeneous image restoration. The suggested model is expressed as a fuzzy set and is resolved using the multiplier alternating direction minimization approach. Through several tests and numerical simulations with plausible assumptions, we have evaluated the accuracy and resilience of the proposed approach over various kinds of real and synthesized images in the existence of intensity inhomogeneity and light in the background. Additionally, the findings are contrasted with those from cutting-edge two-phase and multi-phase methods, proving the superiority of our proposed approach for images with noise, background light, and inhomogeneity

The Temporal Expression of Adipokines During Spinal Fusion

Background Context Adipokines are secreted by white adipose tissue and have been associated with fracture healing. Our goal was to report the temporal expression of adipokines during spinal fusion in an established rabbit model. Purpose Our goal was to report the temporal expression of adipokines during spinal fusion in an established rabbit model. Study Design The study design included a laboratory animal model. Methods New Zealand white rabbits were assigned to either sham surgery (n=2), unilateral posterior spinal fusion (n=14), or bilateral posterior spinal fusion (n=14). Rabbits were euthanized 1–6 and 10 weeks out from surgery. Fusion was evaluated by radiographs, manual palpation, and histology. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction on the bone fusion mass catalogued the gene expression of leptin, adiponectin, resistin, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) at each time point. Results were normalized to the internal control gene, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) (2^ΔCt), and control bone sites (2^ΔΔCt). Quantitative data were analyzed by two-factor analysis of variance (p\u3c.05). Results Manual palpation scores, radiograph scores, and histologic findings showed progression of boney fusion over time (p Conclusions Leptin expression is likely associated with the maturation phase of bone fusion. Adiponectin and resistin may play a role early on during the fusion process. Our results suggest that leptin expression may be upstream of VEGF expression during spinal fusion, and both appear to play an important role in bone spinal fusion

Modeling the effect of hot lots in semiconductor manufacturing systems

The presence of hot lots or high-priority jobs in semiconductor manufacturing systems is known to significantly affect the cycle time and throughput of the regular lots since the hot lots get priority at all stages of processing. In this paper, we present an efficient analytical model based on re-entrant lines and use an efficient, approximate analysis methodology for this model in order to predict the performance of a semiconductor manufacturing line in the presence of hot lots. The proposed method explicitly models scheduling policies and can be used for rapid performance analysis. Using the analytical method and also simulation, we analyze two re-entrant lines, including a full-scale model of a wafer fab, under various buffer priority scheduling policies. The numerical results show the severe effects hot lots can have on the performance characteristics of regular lots