Background: b-Thalassemia major is a serious medical problem.Growth retardation is commonly seen in poly-transfused b-thalassemia patients. The exact mechanism of short stature in childrenwith thalassemia major is not well understood, however, it isbelieved to be multi-factorial.Objective: To study the growth state and its relationship to growthhormone (GH) deficiency in b-thalassemia patients....

Let Γ be a group and rn(Γ) the number of its n-dimensional irreducible complex representations. We define and study the associated representation zeta function ZΓ(s) = ∞ ∑ n=1 rn(Γ)n . When Γ is an arithmetic group satisfying the congruence subgroup property then ZΓ(s) has an “Euler factorization”. The “factor at infinity” is sometimes called the “Witten zeta function” counting the rational rep...