Municipal mortality due to thyroid cancer in Spain

BACKGROUND: Thyroid cancer is a tumor with a low but growing incidence in Spain. This study sought to depict its spatial municipal mortality pattern, using the classic model proposed by Besag, York and Mollié. METHODS: It was possible to compile and ascertain the posterior distribution of relative risk on the basis of a single Bayesian spatial model covering all of Spain's 8077 municipal areas. Maps were plotted depicting standardized mortality ratios, smoothed relative risk (RR) estimates, and the posterior probability that RR > 1. RESULTS: From 1989 to 1998 a total of 2,538 thyroid cancer deaths were registered in 1,041 municipalities. The highest relative risks were mostly situated in the Canary Islands, the province of Lugo, the east of La Coruña (Corunna) and western areas of Asturias and Orense. CONCLUSION: The observed mortality pattern coincides with areas in Spain where goiter has been declared endemic. The higher frequency in these same areas of undifferentiated, more aggressive carcinomas could be reflected in the mortality figures. Other unknown genetic or environmental factors could also play a role in the etiology of this tumor

A validation of security determinants model for cloud adoption in Saudi organisations’ context

Governments across the world are starting to make a dynamic shift to cloud computing so as to increase efficiency. Although, the cloud technology brings various benefits for government organisations, including flexibility and low cost, adopting it with the existing system is not an easy task. In this regard, the most significant challenge to any government agency is security concern. Our previous study focused to identify security factors that influence decision of government organisations to adopt cloud. This research enhances the previous work by investigating on the impact of various independent security related factors on the adopted security taxonomy based on critical ratio, standard error and significance levels. Data was collected from IT and security experts in the government organisations of Saudi Arabia. The Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) tool was used in this research for data analysis. Critical ratio reveals the importance of Security Benefits, Risks and Awareness Taxonomies on cloud adoption. Also, most of the exogenous variables had strong and positive relationships with their fellow exogenous variables. In future, this taxonomy model can also be applied for studying the adoption of new IT innovations whose IT architecture is similar to that of the cloud.N/