OBJECTIVE AND HYPOTHESIS To determine whether a temporal relationship exists between the advertising and sales of low-tar cigarettes. It was hypothesised that increases in the advertising of low-tar cigarettes would precede increases in sales for these cigarettes. METHODS The themes of cigarette advertisements were reviewed and coded for 20 low-tar cigarette brands advertised in 13 widely rea...

This paper uses a Threshold Autoregressive (TAR) model with exogenous variables to explain a change in regime in Brazilian nominal interest rates. By using an indicator of currency crises the model tries to explain the difference in the dynamics of nominal interest rates during and out of a currency crises. The paper then compares the performance of the nonlinear model to a modified Taylor Rule...

Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) has great potential as a future bio-energy resource in China. Thermogravimetry (TG) was used to investigate the thermal decomposition process of Chinese fir, including heartwood and sapwood. The Flynn-Wall-Ozawa and Coats-Redfern (modified) methods were used to determine the activation energy. A combination of TG and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry ...

Objectives: Little is known about the quality of life and clear cut radiographic grades of ankle arthritis in patients with indication for the total ankle replacement (TAR) comparing with patients without indication for TAR. This study was to compare the quality of life and radiographic grades of ankle arthritis in patients who had ankle arthritis with and without indication for TAR. Methods: F...

OBJECTIVE To assess the risk of lung cancer in smokers of medium tar filter cigarettes compared with smokers of low tar and very low tar filter cigarettes. DESIGN Analysis of the association between the tar rating of the brand of cigarette smoked in 1982 and mortality from lung cancer over the next six years. Multivariate proportional hazards analyses used to assess hazard ratios, with adjust...

This thesis consists of uncertainty and techno-economic studies of two different biofuels production pathways (catalytic pyrolysis and gasification). The objective of this paper is to obtain a side-by-side techno-economic comparison of in situ and ex situ catalytic pyrolysis, and gasification state-of-technology and target scenarios that addresses both sensitivity and uncertainty analysis in th...

trans activation of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) involves the viral trans-activator protein (Tat) and a cellular factor(s) encoded on human chromosome 12 (HuChr12) that targets the trans-activation response element (TAR) in the viral long terminal repeat. Because nascent TAR RNA is predicted to form a secondary structure that specifically binds cellular proteins, we investigated ...