Abstract The morality of abortion is a longstanding controversy. One may wonder whether it even possible to make significant progress on an issue over which so much ink has already been spilled and there such polarizing disagreement (Boyle, 1994, Journal Medicine Philosophy 19:183–200). papers in this show that possible—there more be said about other crucial beginning-of-life issues. They do la...

Abstract Steel sheet pile walls are being widely used in civil engineering projects for support systems. Soil is not uniform in depth, sometimes may be exit loose or soft soil layer in various depth. This issue can cause different effects on ground surface displacements, forces and moments acting on sheet piles and struts during excavation procedure, compared with status that soil is uniform...

All the taxonomy databases constructed with the DNA databases of the international DNA data banks are powerful electronic dictionaries which aid in biological research by computer. The taxonomy databases are, however not consistently unified with a relational format. If we can achieve consistent unification of the taxonomy databases, it will be useful in comparing many research results, and inv...

AIM To identify independent predictors of hemodialysis treatment outcome among major cardiovascular risk factors and pre-existent cardiovascular diseases in maintenance hemodialysis patients with the end-stage renal disease. METHODS A total of 144 prevalent patients on maintenance hemodialysis at Rijeka University Hospital between 1998 and 2003 were included in the prospective clinical study....

Based on tamper-evident devices, i.e., a type of distinguishable, sealed envelopes, we put forward weak bit-commitment protocols which are UC-secure. These commitments are weak in that it is legitimate that a party could cheat. Unlike in several similar lines of work, in our case, the party is not obliged to cheat, but he has ability to cheat if and when needed. The empowered party is the sende...