Determination of oxidative stress levels and some antioxidant enzyme activities in prostate cancer

In this study, the antioxidant enzyme activities such as (SOD, GSH, and CAT) and malondialdehyde (MDA) level which is the end product of lipid peroxidation, were determined from the serum samples taken from patients diagnosed with prostate cancer Van Yuzuncu Y?l University Medical Faculty of Educational Research and Training Hospital and ?stanbul Bagcilar Education Research Hospital. The SOD, GSH, and CAT activity of patient groups was found significantly lower than the healthy control group in patients with prostate cancer (p?相似文献   

Gender relations,transnational ties and rituals among Bosnian refugees

In this article I show how Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) refugees reproduce, contest and construct their ethnic and religious identities. Using ‘ritual’ in a broad sense to refer to everyday routinized activities and practices that characterize family hierarchies and gender relations, as well as more easily identifiable religious rituals, I show that rituals assert belonging to a community and an identity, but are also, in the process of construction and contestation, selectively evoked and ignored. ‘The Other’ constructed through certain rituals is not merely the non–Muslim Bosnian (Serbs and Croats), but also, for refugees, other Bosnian Muslims who stayed behind. Moreover, engagement in secular and religious rituals, and the wider issue of identity constructions cannot be understood fully without exploring the dynamics between refugees and people who have remained in Bosnia. Competing constituencies claiming ‘Bosnianness’ and ‘Muslimness’ can be found across national boundaries and complicate the attempt to construct a community of believers or nationals, or both.     

Dealing with Toxicity in the Risk Society: The Case of the Hamilton,Ontario Plastics Recycling Fire*

Une perspective de la construction sociale sert de cadre a l'analyse des controverses sur la gestion des risques qui ont été provoquées à la suite d'un incendie majeur dans une usine de recyclage de matières plastiques à Hamilton, en Ontario. En mettant l'accent sur les processus de réclamation au c?ur de l'interaction entre les représen‐tants du gouvernement, les acteurs environnementaux, les experts techniques et les résidants, il a été révélé qu'un accent trop limité aux questions d'ordre technique avait mené a l'exclusion des préoccupations fondées sur la rationalité culturelle ayant ainsi entraine un cadre d'interaction très litigieux divisant profondément. Les conséquences des conclusions empiriques de la thése de la société des risques ainsi que de la théorie sur la communication des risques sont explorées. A social construction perspective is applied in the analysis of the risk management controversies that arose in response to a large toxic fire that occurred at a Hamilton, Ontario plastics recycling facility. By focussing on the claimsmaking processes involved in the interaction of government officials, environmental movement actors, technical experts, and residents, it was found that an overly narrow focus on technical matters led to the exclusion of lay concerns based on cultural rationality, thereby resulting in a very contentious and divisive setting for interaction. Implications of the empirical findings for the risk society thesis and risk communication theory are explored.     

The Assessment of Probability Distributions from Expert Opinions with an Application to Seismic Fragility Curves

A method is developed for estimating a probability distribution using estimates of its percentiles provided by experts. The analyst's judgment concerning the credibility of these expert opinions is quantified in the likelihood function of Bayes'Theorem. The model considers explicitly the random variability of each expert estimate, the dependencies among the estimates of each expert, the dependencies among experts, and potential systematic biases. The relation between the results of the formal methods of this paper and methods used in practice is explored. A series of sensitivity studies provides insights into the significance of the parameters of the model. The methodology is applied to the problem of estimation of seismic fragility curves (i.e., the conditional probability of equipment failure given a seismically induced stress).     

A multivariate version of Gini's rank association coefficient

In this paper, we introduce a multivariate generalization of the population version of Gini's rank association coefficient, giving a response to this open question posed in [4]. We also study some properties of this version, present the corresponding results for the sample statistic, and provide several examples.     

Analysis of incomplete durations with application to contraceptive use

Models for analysing incomplete durations obtained from cross-sectional surveys are presented. The aim of the paper is to develop a framework for analysing the incomplete duration of episodes in progress at the time of the survey by formulating generalized linear models and fitting and assessing them by using standard statistical packages. The maximum quasi-likelihood method is used for model fitting. The choice of the distribution and the diagnostic procedures are discussed. Simulated data from two distributions (the Weibull and log-logistic distributions) are used to evaluate the methodology developed and to assess model misspecifications. A data set on the current use of the contraceptive pill from a cross-sectional survey in Egypt is analysed.     

Selective Maintenance in System Reliability with Random Costs of Repairing and Replacing the Components

In this paper we consider the problem of determining the optimum number of repairable and replaceable components to maximize a system's reliability when both, the cost of repairing the components and the cost of replacement of components by new ones, are random. We formulate it as a problem of non-linear stochastic programming. The solution is obtained through Chance Constrained programming. We also consider the problem of finding the optimal maintenance cost for a given reliability requirement of the system. The solution is then obtained by using Modified E-model. A numerical example is solved for both the formulations.     

A Combined Nonlinear Programming Model and Kibria Method for Choosing Ridge Parameter Regression

Ridge regression solves multicollinearity problems by introducing a biasing parameter that is called ridge parameter; it shrinks the estimates as well as their standard errors in order to reach acceptable results. Many methods are available for estimating a ridge parameter. This article has considered some of these methods and also proposed a combined nonlinear programming model and Kibria method. A simulation study has been made to evaluate the performance of the proposed estimators based on the minimum mean squared error criterion. The simulation study indicates that under certain conditions the proposed estimators outperform the least squares (LS) estimators and other popular existing estimators. Moreover, the new proposed model is applied on dataset that suffers also from the presence of heteroscedastic errors.     

Robust estimation methods for exponential data: a monte-carlo comparison

We compare the performance of seven robust estimators for the parameter of an exponential distribution. These include the debiased median and two optimally-weighted one-sided trimmed means. We also introduce four new estimators: the Transform, Bayes, Scaled and Bicube estimators. We make the Monte Carlo comparisons for three sample sizes and six situations. We evaluate the comparisons in terms of a new performance measure, Mean Absolute Differential Error (MADE), and a premium/protection interpretation of MADE. We organize the comparisons to enhance statistical power by making maximal use of common random deviates. The Transform estimator provides the best performance as judged by MADE. The singly-trimmed mean and Transform method define the efficient frontier of premium/protection.     

Circular First- and Second-Order Balanced Repeated Measurements Designs

Sharma (1977 Sharma , V. K. ( 1977 ). Change-over designs with complete balance for first and second order residual effect . Canad. J. Statist. 5 : 121 – 132 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Aggarwal et al. (2006 Aggarwal , M. L. , Deng , L.-Y. , Jha , M. K. ( 2006 ). Balanced residual treatment effects designs of first and second order . Statist. Probab. Lett. 76 : 597 – 600 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) considered non circular construction of first- and second-order balanced repeated measurements designs. Sharma et al. (2002 Sharma , V. K. , Varghese , C. , Jaggi , S. ( 2002 ). On optimality of change-over designs balanced for first and second order residual effects . Metron 60 : 153 – 162 . [Google Scholar]) constructed circular first- and second-order balanced repeated measurements designs only for a class with parameters (v, p = 3n, n = v ²) and also showed its universal optimality. In this article, we consider circular construction of first- and second-order balanced repeated measurements designs and strongly balanced repeated measurements designs by using the method of cyclic shifts. Some new circular designs with parameters (v, p, n) for cases p = v, p < v and p > v are given.