Cytokines are known to have both stimulatory and inhibitory effects on breast cancer growth depending on their relative concentrations and the presence of other modulating factors in the tumour microenvironment. Certain cytokines appear to prevent an effective immune response being mounted, permitting cancer growth, whereas others promote the immune system's anti-tumour capability. Furthermore,...

Many large organizations are increasingly outsourcing their IT functions. Factors like lower costs, improved productivity, higher quality, higher customer satisfaction, and ability to focus on core areas are some of the benefits of outsourcing. However, there are many challenges and risks associated with IT outsourcing. In this article, we identify the main risk factors and best practices in gl...

An analysis of a recently proposed cryptosystem based on chaotic oscillators and feedback inversion is presented. It is shown how the cryptosystem can be broken when Duffing’s oscillator is considered. Some implementation problems of the system are also discussed.

We develop a public key cryptosystem based on invariants of diagonalizable groups. Theoretical results about degrees of invariants, which are related to the security of such cryptosystem, are derived. Further, we derive results on invariants of superanalogs of tori.

We present our experience from implementing the public-key cryptosystem of González, Boyd and Dawson. We discuss different computational methods and compare their relative efficiency experimentally. We also compare the efficiency of this cryptosystem with that of the ElGamal cipher.

Ongoing climate change may undermine the effectiveness of protected area networks in preserving the set of biotic components and ecological processes they harbor, thereby jeopardizing their conservation capacity into the future. Metrics of climate change, particularly rates and spatial patterns of climatic alteration, can help assess potential threats. Here, we perform a continent-wide climate ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Our aim was to evaluate the risk of subsequent stroke development after retinal artery occlusion (RAO). METHODS National registry data were collected from the Korean National Health Insurance Service, comprised 1 025 340 random subjects. Patients diagnosed with RAO in 2002 and 2003 were excluded. The RAO group was composed of patients with an initial diagnosis of either...

BACKGROUND Radial artery occlusion (RAO) may occur posttransradial intervention and limits the radial artery as a future access site, thus precluding its use as an arterial conduit. In this study, we investigate the incidence and factors influencing the RAO in the current literature. METHODS AND RESULTS We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE for studies of RAO in transradial access. Relevant studies ...

The Norm Activation Model (NAM; Schwartz, 1977) is a vested model that explains altruistic and environmentally friendly behaviour. Although research states that anticipated pride and guilt are associated with the NAM, these associations are not yet fully understood. The current study provides an overview of the literature that refers to anticipated pride and guilt within the NAM. Moreover, we a...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the incremental delivery cost of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination of young adolescent girls in Peru, Uganda and Viet Nam. METHODS Data were collected from a sample of facilities that participated in five demonstration projects for hpv vaccine delivery: school-based delivery was used in Peru, Uganda and Viet Nam; health-centre-based delivery was also used in Viet Na...