Search results for: Life data analysis

Authors: Marialuisa Gennari, Giancarlo Tamanza, Ilaria Montanari

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Identity development in adolescence is characterized by many risks and challenges, and becomes even more complex by the situation of migration and deafness. In particular, the condition of the second generation of migrant adolescents involves the comparison between the family context in which everybody speaks a language and deals with a specific culture (usually parents’ and relatives’ original culture), the social context (school, peer groups, sports groups), where a foreign language is spoken and a new culture is faced, and finally in the context of the “deaf” world. It is a dialectic involving unsolved differences that have to be treated in a discontinuous process, which will give complex outcomes and chances depending on the process of elaboration of the themes of growth and development, culture and deafness. This paper aims to underline the problems and opportunities for each issue which immigrant deaf adolescents must deal with. In particular, it will highlight the importance of a multifactorial approach for the analysis of personal resources (both intra-psychic and relational); the level of integration of the family of origin in the migration context; the elaboration of the migration event, and finally, the tractability of the condition of deafness. Some psycho-educational support objectives will be also highlighted for the identity development of deaf immigrant adolescents, with particular emphasis on the construction of the adolescents’ useful abilities to decode complex emotions, to develop self-esteem and to get critical thoughts about the inevitable attempts to build their identity. Remarkably, and of importance, the construction of flexible settings which support adolescents in a supple, “decentralized” way in order to avoid the regressive defenses that do not allow for the development of an authentic self.

Keywords: Immigrant deaf adolescents, identity development, personal and social challenges, psycho-educational support.

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Authors: Elza Jurun, Damir Piplica, Tea Poklepović

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Numerous studies carried out in the developed  western democratic countries have shown that the ideological  framework of the governing party has a significant influence on the  monetary policy. The executive authority consisting of a left-wing  party gives a higher weight to unemployment suppression and central  bank implements a more expansionary monetary policy. On the other  hand, right-wing governing party considers the monetary stability to  be more important than unemployment suppression and in such a  political framework the main macroeconomic objective becomes the  inflation rate reduction. The political framework conditions in the  transition countries which are new European Union (EU) members  are still highly specific in relation to the other EU member countries.  In the focus of this paper is the question whether the same  monetary policy principles are valid in these transitional countries as  well as they apply in developed western democratic EU member  countries. The data base consists of inflation rate and unemployment  rate for 11 transitional EU member countries covering the period  from 2001 to 2012. The essential information for each of these 11  countries and for each year of the observed period is right or left  political orientation of the ruling party.  In this paper we use t-statistics to test our hypothesis that there are  differences in inflation and unemployment between right and left  political orientation of the governing party. To explore the influence  of different countries, through years and different political  orientations descriptive statistics is used. Inflation and unemployment  should be strongly negatively correlated through time, which is tested  using Pearson correlation coefficient.  Regarding the fact whether the governing authority is consisted  from left or right politically oriented parties, monetary authorities  will adjust its policy setting the higher priority on lower inflation or  unemployment reduction. 

Keywords: Inflation rate, monetary policy orientation, transition EU countries, unemployment rate.

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Authors: Amit Chhabra, Gurvinder Singh, Sandeep Singh Waraich, Bhavneet Sidhu, Gaurav Kumar

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Decrease in hardware costs and advances in computer networking technologies have led to increased interest in the use of large-scale parallel and distributed computing systems. One of the biggest issues in such systems is the development of effective techniques/algorithms for the distribution of the processes/load of a parallel program on multiple hosts to achieve goal(s) such as minimizing execution time, minimizing communication delays, maximizing resource utilization and maximizing throughput. Substantive research using queuing analysis and assuming job arrivals following a Poisson pattern, have shown that in a multi-host system the probability of one of the hosts being idle while other host has multiple jobs queued up can be very high. Such imbalances in system load suggest that performance can be improved by either transferring jobs from the currently heavily loaded hosts to the lightly loaded ones or distributing load evenly/fairly among the hosts .The algorithms known as load balancing algorithms, helps to achieve the above said goal(s). These algorithms come into two basic categories - static and dynamic. Whereas static load balancing algorithms (SLB) take decisions regarding assignment of tasks to processors based on the average estimated values of process execution times and communication delays at compile time, Dynamic load balancing algorithms (DLB) are adaptive to changing situations and take decisions at run time. The objective of this paper work is to identify qualitative parameters for the comparison of above said algorithms. In future this work can be extended to develop an experimental environment to study these Load balancing algorithms based on comparative parameters quantitatively.

Keywords: SLB, DLB, Host, Algorithm and Load.

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Authors: K. Gauthaman, T.S. Mohamed Saleem, V. Ravi, Sita Sharan Patel, S. Niranjali Devaraj

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The present study was designed to investigate the cardio protective role of chronic oral administration of alcoholic extract of Terminalia arjuna in in-vivo ischemic reperfusion injury and the induction of HSP72. Rabbits, divided into three groups, and were administered with the alcoholic extract of the bark powder of Terminalia arjuna (TAAE) by oral gavage [6.75mg/kg: (T1) and 9.75mg/kg: (T2), 6 days /week for 12 weeks]. In open-chest Ketamine pentobarbitone anaesthetized rabbits, the left anterior descending coronary artery was occluded for 15 min of ischemia followed by 60 min of reperfusion. In the vehicle-treated group, ischemic-reperfusion injury (IRI) was evidenced by depression of global hemodynamic function (MAP, HR, LVEDP, peak LV (+) & (- ) (dP/dt) along with depletion of HEP compounds. Oxidative stress in IRI was evidenced by, raised levels of myocardial TBARS and depletion of endogenous myocardial antioxidants GSH, SOD and catalase. Western blot analysis showed a single band corresponding to 72 kDa in homogenates of hearts from rabbits treated with both the doses. In the alcoholic extract of the bark powder of Terminalia arjuna treatment groups, both the doses had better recovery of myocardial hemodynamic function, with significant reduction in TBARS, and rise in SOD, GSH, catalase were observed. The results of the present study suggest that the alcoholic extract of the bark powder of Terminalia arjuna in rabbit induces myocardial HSP 72 and augments myocardial endogenous antioxidants, without causing any cellular injury and offered better cardioprotection against oxidative stress associated with myocardial IR injury.

Keywords: Antioxidants, HSP72, Ischemic reperfusion injury, Terminalia arjuna.

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Authors: Mohamed H. Khalifa, Fikry I. El-Shahawi, Nabil A. Mansour

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The cotton leafworm, Spodoptera littoralis (Boisduval) is a major insect pest of vegetables and cotton crops in Egypt, and exhibits different levels of tolerance to certain insecticides. Chlorantraniliprole has been registered recently in Egypt for control this insect. The susceptibilities of three S. littoralis populations collected from El Behaira governorate, north Egypt to chlorantraniliprole were determined by leaf-dipping technique on 4^th instar larvae. Obvious variation of toxicity was observed among the laboratory susceptible, and three field populations with LC₅₀ values ranged between 1.53 µg/ml and 6.22 µg/ml. However, all the three field populations were less susceptible to chlorantraniliprole than a laboratory susceptible population. The most tolerant populations were sampled from El Delengat (ED) Province where S. littoralis had been frequently challenged by insecticides. Certain enzyme activity assays were carried out to be correlated with the mechanism of the observed field population tolerance. All field populations showed significantly enhanced activities of detoxification enzymes compared with the susceptible strain. The regression analysis between chlorantraniliprole toxicities and enzyme activities revealed that the highest correlation is between α-esterase or β-esterase (α-β-EST) activity and collected field strains susceptibility, otherwise this correlation is not significant (P > 0.05). Synergism assays showed the ED and susceptible strains could be synergized by known detoxification inhibitors such as piperonyl butoxide (PBO), triphenyl phosphate (TPP) and diethyl-maleate (DEM) at different levels (1.01-8.76-fold and 1.09-2.94 fold, respectively), TPP showed the maximum synergism in both strains. The results show that there is a correlation between the enzyme activity and tolerance, and carboxylic-esterase (Car-EST) is likely the main detoxification mechanism responsible for tolerance of S. littoralis to chlorantraniliprole.

Keywords: Chlorantraniliprole, detoxification enzymes, Egypt, Spodoptera littoralis.

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Authors: Lan Wu

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China’s declared transformation towards a ‘new electricity system dominated by renewable energy’ requires a cleaner electricity consumption mix with high shares of renewable energy sourced-electricity (RES-E). Unfortunately, integration of RES-E into Chinese electricity markets remains a problem pending more robust legal support, evidenced by the curtailment of wind and solar power due to integration constraints. The upcoming Energy Law of the PRC (Energy Law) is expected to provide such long-awaiting support and coordinate the existing diverse sector-specific laws to deal with the weak implementation that dampening the delivery of their desired regulatory effects. However, in the shadow of the COVID-19 crisis, it remains uncertain how this new Energy Law brings synergies to RES-E integration, mindful of the significant impacts of the pandemic. Through the theoretical lens of the interplay between China’s electricity market reform and legislative development, this paper investigates whether there is a paradigm shift in Energy Law regarding renewable energy integration compared with the existing sector-specific energy laws. It examines the 2020 Draft for Comments on the Energy Law and analyses its relationship with sector-specific energy laws focusing on RES-E integration. The comparison is drawn upon five critical aspects of the RES-E integration issue, including the status of renewables, marketisation, incentive schemes, consumption mechanisms, access to power grids and dispatching. The analysis shows that it is reasonable to expect a more open and well-organised electricity market, enabling the absorption of high shares of RES-E. The present paper concludes that a period of prosperous development of RES-E in the post-COVID-19 era can be anticipated with the legal support by the upcoming Energy Law. It contributes to understanding the signals China is sending regarding the transition towards a cleaner energy future.

Keywords: energy law, energy transition, electricity market reform, renewable energy integration

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Authors: O. S. Ebrahim, K. O. Shawky, M. O. Ebrahim, P. K. Jain

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Induction Motor (IM) driving pump is the main consumer of electricity in a typical fluid transportation system (FTS). Changing the connection of the stator windings from delta to star at no load can achieve noticeable active and reactive energy savings. This paper proposes a supervisory hysteresis liquid-level control with three-state energy saving mode (ESM) for IM in FTS including storage tank. The IM pump drive comprises modified star/delta switch and hydromantic coupler. Three-state ESM is defined, along with the normal running, and named analog to computer ESMs as follows: Sleeping mode in which the motor runs at no load with delta stator connection, hibernate mode in which the motor runs at no load with a star connection, and motor shutdown is the third energy saver mode. A logic flow-chart is synthesized to select the motor state at no-load for best energetic cost reduction, considering the motor thermal capacity used. An artificial neural network (ANN) state estimator, based on the recurrent architecture, is constructed and learned in order to provide fault-tolerant capability for the supervisory controller. Sequential test of Wald is used for sensor fault detection. Theoretical analysis, preliminary experimental testing and, computer simulations are performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed control in terms of reliability, power quality and energy/coenergy cost reduction with the suggestion of power factor correction.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, ANN, Energy Saving Mode, ESM, Induction Motor, IM, star/delta switch, supervisory control, fluid transportation, reliability, power quality.

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Authors: Chigbogu G. Ozoegwu, Sam N. Omenyi

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The objective in this work is to generate and discuss the stability results of fully-immersed end-milling process with parameters; tool mass m=0.0431kg,tool natural frequency ω_n = 5700 rads^-1, damping factor ξ=0.002 and workpiece cutting coefficient C=3.5x10^7 Nm^-7/4. Different no of teeth is considered for the end-milling. Both 1-DOF and 2-DOF chatter models of the system are generated on the basis of non-linear force law. Chatter stability analysis is carried out using a modified form (generalized for both 1-DOF and 2-DOF models) of recently developed method called Full-discretization. The full-immersion three tooth end-milling together with higher toothed end-milling processes has secondary Hopf bifurcation lobes (SHBL’s) that exhibit one turning (minimum) point each. Each of such SHBL is demarcated by its minimum point into two portions; (i) the Lower Spindle Speed Portion (LSSP) in which bifurcations occur in the right half portion of the unit circle centred at the origin of the complex plane and (ii) the Higher Spindle Speed Portion (HSSP) in which bifurcations occur in the left half portion of the unit circle. Comments are made regarding why bifurcation lobes should generally get bigger and more visible with increase in spindle speed and why flip bifurcation lobes (FBL’s) could be invisible in the low-speed stability chart but visible in the high-speed stability chart of the fully-immersed three-tooth miller.

Keywords: Chatter, flip bifurcation, modified full-discretization map stability lobe, secondary Hopf bifurcation.

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Authors: Sharan Badiger, Prema T. Akkasaligar, Sandeep HM, Biradar MS

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Essential hypertension (HTN) usually clusters with other cardiovascular risk factors such as age, overweight, diabetes, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. The target organ damage (TOD) such as left ventricular hypertrophy, microalbuminuria (MA), acute coronary syndrome (ACS), stroke and cognitive dysfunction takes place early in course of hypertension. Though the prevalence of hypertension is high in India, the relationship between microalbuminuria and target organ damage in hypertension is not well studied. This study aim at detecting MA in essential hypertension and its relation to severity of HTN, duration of HTN, body mass index (BMI), age and TOD such as HTN retinopathy and acute coronary syndrome The present study was done in 100 patients of essential hypertension non diabetics admitted to B.L.D.E.University-s Sri B.M.Patil Medical College, Bijapur, from October 2008 to April 2011. The patients underwent detailed history and clinical examination. Early morning 5 ml of urine sample was collected & MA was estimated by immunoturbidometry method. The relationship of MA with the duration & severity of HTN, BMI, age, sex and TOD's like hypertensive retinopathy, ACS was assessed by univariate analysis. The prevalence of MA in this study was found to be 63 %. In that 42% were male & 21% were female. In this study a significant association between MA and the duration of hypertension (p = 0.036) & (OR =0.438). Longer the duration of hypertension, more possibility of microalbumin in urine. Also there was a significant association between severity of hypertension and MA (p=0.045) and (OR=0.093). MA was positive in 50 (79.4%) patients out of 63, whose blood pressure was >160/100 mm Hg. In this study a significant association between MA and the grades of hypertensive retinopathy (p =0.011) and acute coronary syndrome (p = 0.041) (OR =2.805). Gender and BMI did not pose high risk for MA in this study.The prevalence of MA in essential hypertension is high in this part of the community and MA will increase the risk of developing target organ damage.Early screening of patients with essential hypertension for MA and aggressive management of positive cases might reduce the burden of chronic kidney diseases and cardiovascular diseases in the community.

Keywords: Acute coronary syndrome, Essential hypertension, Microalbuminuria, Target organ damage

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah

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The manual system of voting has been the most widely used system of electing representatives around the globe, particularly in Africa. Due to the known numerous problems and challenges associated with the manual system of voting, many countries are migrating to the electronic voting system as a suitable and credible means of electing representatives over the manual paper-based system. This research paper therefore investigated the factors influencing adoption and use of an electronic voting system in Ghana. A total of 400 Questionnaire Instruments (QI) were administered to potential respondents in Ghana, of which 387 responded representing a response rate of 96.75%. The Technology Acceptance Model was used as the theoretical framework for the study. The research model was tested using a simple linear regression analysis with SPSS. A little of over 71.1% of the respondents recommended the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana to adopt an electronic voting system in the conduct of public elections in Ghana. The results indicated that all the six predictors such as perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived free and fair elections (PFFF), perceived credible elections (PCE), perceived system integrity (PSI) and citizens trust in the election management body (CTEM) were all positively significant in predicting the readiness of citizens to adopt and use an electronic voting system in Ghana. However, jointly, the hypotheses tested revealed that apart from Perceived Free and Fair Elections and Perceived Credible and Transparent Elections, all the other factors such as PU, Perceived System Integrity and Security and Citizen Trust in the Election Management Body were found to be significant predictors of the Willingness of Ghanaians to use an electronic voting system. All the six factors considered in this study jointly account for about 53.1% of the reasons determining the readiness to adopt and use an electronic voting system in Ghana. The implications of this research finding on elections in Ghana are discussed.

Keywords: Credible elections, democracy, Election Management Body (EMB), electronic voting, Ghana, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).

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Authors: I. Asanuma, T. Yamaguchi, J. Park, K. J. Mackin

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Fishery lights on the surface could be detected by the Day and Night Band (DNB) of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP). The DNB covers the spectral range of 500 to 900 nm and realized a higher sensitivity. The DNB has a difficulty of identification of fishing lights from lunar lights reflected by clouds, which affects observations for the half of the month. Fishery lights and lights of the surface are identified from lunar lights reflected by clouds by a method using the DNB and the infrared band, where the detection limits are defined as a function of the brightness temperature with a difference from the maximum temperature for each level of DNB radiance and with the contrast of DNB radiance against the background radiance. Fishery boats or structures on islands could be detected by the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on the polar orbit satellites using the reflected microwave by the surface reflecting targets. The SAR has a difficulty of tradeoff between spatial resolution and coverage while detecting the small targets like fishery boats. A distribution of fishery boats and island activities were detected by the scan-SAR narrow mode of Radarsat-2, which covers 300 km by 300 km with various combinations of polarizations. The fishing boats were detected as a single pixel of highly scattering targets with the scan-SAR narrow mode of which spatial resolution is 30 m. As the look angle dependent scattering signals exhibits the significant differences, the standard deviations of scattered signals for each look angles were taken into account as a threshold to identify the signal from fishing boats and structures on the island from background noise. It was difficult to validate the detected targets by DNB with SAR data because of time lag of observations for 6 hours between midnight by DNB and morning or evening by SAR. The temporal changes of island activities were detected as a change of mean intensity of DNB for circular area for a certain scale of activities. The increase of DNB mean intensity was corresponding to the beginning of dredging and the change of intensity indicated the ending of reclamation and following constructions of facilities.

Keywords: Day night band, fishery, SAR, South China Sea.

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Authors: Maad Kamal Al-Anni

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This study is about an algorithmic dependence of Artificial Neural Network on Multilayer Perceptron (MPL) pertaining to the classification and clustering presentations for Mobile Adhoc Network vulnerabilities. Moreover, mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is ubiquitous intelligent internetworking devices in which it has the ability to detect their environment using an autonomous system of mobile nodes that are connected via wireless links. Security affairs are the most important subject in MANET due to the easy penetrative scenarios occurred in such an auto configuration network. One of the powerful techniques used for inspecting the network packets is Intrusion Detection System (IDS); in this article, we are going to show the effectiveness of artificial neural networks used as a machine learning along with stochastic approach (information gain) to classify the malicious behaviors in simulated network with respect to different IDS techniques. The monitoring agent is responsible for detection inference engine, the audit data is collected from collecting agent by simulating the node attack and contrasted outputs with normal behaviors of the framework, whenever. In the event that there is any deviation from the ordinary behaviors then the monitoring agent is considered this event as an attack , in this article we are going to demonstrate the  signature-based IDS approach in a MANET by implementing the back propagation algorithm over ensemble-based Traffic Table (TT), thus the signature of malicious behaviors or undesirable activities are often significantly prognosticated and efficiently figured out, by increasing the parametric set-up of Back propagation algorithm during the experimental results which empirically shown its effectiveness  for the ratio of detection index up to 98.6 percentage. Consequently it is proved in empirical results in this article, the performance matrices are also being included in this article with Xgraph screen show by different through puts like Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), Through Put(TP), and Average Delay(AD).

Keywords: Mobile ad hoc network, MANET, intrusion detection system, back propagation algorithm, neural networks, traffic table, multilayer perceptron, feed-forward back-propagation, network simulator 2.

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Authors: Raquib Ahsan, Md. Mahir Asif, Md. Zahidul Alam

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A huge portion of old masonry buildings in Bangladesh are vulnerable to earthquake. In most of the cases these buildings contain unreinforced masonry wall which are most likely to be subjected to earthquake damages. Due to deterioration of mortar joint and aging, shear resistance of these unreinforced masonry walls dwindle. So, retrofitting of these old buildings has become an important issue. Among many researched and experimented techniques, ferrocement retrofitting can be a low cost technique in context of the economic condition of Bangladesh. This study aims at investigating the behavior of ferrocement retrofitted unconfined URM walls under different types of cyclic loading. Four 725 mm × 725 mm masonry wall units were prepared with bricks jointed by stretcher bond with 12.5 mm mortar between two adjacent layers of bricks. To compare the effectiveness of ferrocement retrofitting a particular type wire mesh was used in this experiment which is 20 gauge woven wire mesh with 12.5 mm × 12.5 mm square opening. After retrofitting with ferrocement these wall units were tested by applying cyclic deformation along the diagonals of the specimens. Then a comparative study was performed between the retrofitted specimens and control specimens for both partially reversed cyclic load condition and cyclic compression load condition. The experiment results show that ultimate load carrying capacities of ferrocement retrofitted specimens are 35% and 27% greater than the control specimen under partially reversed cyclic loading and cyclic compression respectively. And before failure the deformations of ferrocement retrofitted specimens are 43% and 33% greater than the control specimen under reversed cyclic loading and cyclic compression respectively. Therefore, the test results show that the ultimate load carrying capacity and ductility of ferrocement retrofitted specimens have improved.

Keywords: Cyclic compression, ferrocement, masonry wall, partially reversed cyclic load, retrofitting.

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Authors: Israa A. Qari

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Learning to request in a foreign language is a key ability within pragmatics language teaching. This paper examines how requests are taught in English Unlimited Book 3 (Cambridge University Press), an EFL textbook series employed by King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to teach advanced foundation year students English. The focus of analysis is the evaluation of the request linguistic strategies present in the textbook, frequency of the use of these strategies, and the contextual information provided on the use of these linguistic forms. The researcher collected all the linguistic forms which consisted of the request speech act and divided them into levels employing the CCSARP request coding manual. Findings demonstrated that simple and commonly employed request strategies are introduced. Looking closely at the exercises throughout the chapters, it was noticeable that the book exclusively employed the most direct form of requesting (the imperative) when giving learners instructions: e.g. listen, write, ask, answer, read, look, complete, choose, talk, think, etc. The book also made use of some other request strategies such as ‘hedged performatives’ and ‘query preparatory’. However, it was also found that many strategies were not dealt with in the book, specifically strategies with combined functions (e.g. possibility, ability). On a sociopragmatic level, a strong focus was found to exist on standard situations in which relations between the requester and requestee are clear. In general, contextual information was communicated implicitly only. The textbook did not seem to differentiate between formal and informal request contexts (register) which might consequently impel students to overgeneralize. The paper closes with some recommendations for textbook and curriculum designers. Findings are also contrasted with previous results from similar body of research on EFL requests.

Keywords: EFL, Requests, Saudi, speech acts, textbook evaluation.

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Authors: Gaurav Bhanjana, Ganga Ram Chaudhary, Sandeep Kumar, Neeraj Dilbaghi

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Main sources of endocrine disrupting compounds in the ecosystem are hormones, pesticides, phthalates, flame retardants, dioxins, personal-care products, coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), bisphenol A, and parabens. These endocrine disrupting compounds are responsible for learning disabilities, brain development problems, deformations of the body, cancer, reproductive abnormalities in females and decreased sperm count in human males. Although discharge of these chemical compounds into the environment cannot be stopped, yet their amount can be retarded through proper evaluation and detection techniques. The available techniques for determination of these endocrine disrupting compounds mainly include high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectroscopy (MS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). These techniques are accurate and reliable but have certain limitations like need of skilled personnel, time consuming, interference and requirement of pretreatment steps. Moreover, these techniques are laboratory bound and sample is required in large amount for analysis. In view of above facts, new methods for detection of endocrine disrupting compounds should be devised that promise high specificity, ultra sensitivity, cost effective, efficient and easy-to-operate procedure. Nowadays, electrochemical sensors/biosensors modified with nanomaterials are gaining high attention among researchers. Bioelement present in this system makes the developed sensors selective towards analyte of interest. Nanomaterials provide large surface area, high electron communication feature, enhanced catalytic activity and possibilities of chemical modifications. In most of the cases, nanomaterials also serve as an electron mediator or electrocatalyst for some analytes.

Keywords: Sensors, endocrine disruptors, nanoparticles, electrochemical, microscopy.

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Authors: Afia Shahid

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The writing of Samuel Beckett is associated with meaning in the meaninglessness and the production of what he calls ‘literature of unword’. The casual escape from the world of words in the form of silences and pauses, in his play Waiting for Godot, urges to ask question of their existence and ultimately leads to investigate the theory behind their use in the play. This paper proposes that these absences (silence and pause) in Beckett’s play force to think ‘beyond’ language. This paper asks how silence and pause in Beckett’s text speak for the emergence of poststructuralist text. It aims to identify the significant features of the philosophy of deconstruction in the play of Beckett to demystify the hostile complicity between literature and philosophy. With the interpretive paradigm of poststructuralism this research focuses on the text as a research data. It attempts to delineate the relationship between poststructuralist theoretical concerns and text of Beckett. Keeping in view the theoretical concerns of Poststructuralist theorist Jacques Derrida, the main concern of the discussion is directed towards the notion of ‘beyond’ language into the absences that are aimed at silencing the existing discourse with the ‘radical irony’ of this anti-formal art that contains its own denial and thus represents the idea of ceaseless questioning and radical contradiction in art and any text. This article asks how text of Beckett vibrates with loud silence and has disrupted language to demonstrate the emptiness of words and thus exploring the limitless void of absences. Beckett’s text resonates with silence and pause that is neither negation nor affirmation rather a poststructuralist’s suspension of reality that is ever changing with the undecidablity of all meanings. Within the theoretical notion of Derrida’s Différance this study interprets silence and pause in Beckett’s art. The silence and pause behave like Derrida’s Différance and have questioned their own existence in the text to deconstruct any definiteness and finality of reality to extend an undecidable threshold of poststructuralists that aims to evade the ‘labyrinth of language’.

Keywords: Différance, language, pause, poststructuralism, silence, text.

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Authors: Davide D’Aria, Paolo Falcone, Luigi Maggi, Aldo Cero, Giovanni Amoroso

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The paper presents a methodology for real-time structural health monitoring and geophysical applications. The key elements of the system are a high performance MIMO RADAR sensor, an optical camera and a dedicated set of software algorithms encompassing interferometry, tomography and photogrammetry. The MIMO Radar sensor proposed in this work, provides an extremely high sensitivity to displacements making the system able to react to tiny deformations (up to tens of microns) with a time scale which spans from milliseconds to hours. The MIMO feature of the system makes the system capable of providing a set of two-dimensional images of the observed scene, each mapped on the azimuth-range directions with noticeably resolution in both the dimensions and with an outstanding repetition rate. The back-scattered energy, which is distributed in the 3D space, is projected on a 2D plane, where each pixel has as coordinates the Line-Of-Sight distance and the cross-range azimuthal angle. At the same time, the high performing processing unit allows to sense the observed scene with remarkable refresh periods (up to milliseconds), thus opening the way for combined static and dynamic structural health monitoring. Thanks to the smart TX/RX antenna array layout, the MIMO data can be processed through a tomographic approach to reconstruct the three-dimensional map of the observed scene. This 3D point cloud is then accurately mapped on a 2D digital optical image through photogrammetric techniques, allowing for easy and straightforward interpretations of the measurements. Once the three-dimensional image is reconstructed, a 'repeat-pass' interferometric approach is exploited to provide the user of the system with high frequency three-dimensional motion/vibration estimation of each point of the reconstructed image. At this stage, the methodology leverages consolidated atmospheric correction algorithms to provide reliable displacement and vibration measurements.

Keywords: Interferometry, MIMO RADAR, SAR, tomography.

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Authors: Ljubica Dokić, Ivana Nikolić, Dragana Šoronja–Simović, Zita Šereš, Biljana Pajin, Nils Juul, Nikola Maravić

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The possibility of application the dietary fibers in production of crackers was observed in this work, as well as their influence on rheological and textural properties on the dough for crackers and influence on sensory properties of obtained crackers. Three different dietary fibers, oat, potato and pea fibers, replaced 10% of wheat flour. Long fermentation process and baking test method were used for crackers production. The changes of dough for crackers were observed by rheological methods of determination the viscoelastic dough properties and by textural measurements. Sensory quality of obtained crackers was described using quantity descriptive method (QDA) by trained members of descriptive panel. Additional analysis of crackers surface was performed by videometer. Based on rheological determination, viscoelastic properties of dough for crackers were reduced by application of dietary fibers. Manipulation of dough with 10% of potato fiber was disabled, thus the recipe modification included increase in water content at 35%. Dough compliance to constant stress for samples with dietary fibers decreased, due to more rigid and stiffer dough consistency compared to control sample. Also, hardness of dough for these samples increased and dough extensibility decreased. Sensory properties of final products, crackers, were reduced compared to control sample. Application of dietary fibers affected mostly hardness, structure and crispness of the crackers. Observed crackers were low marked for flavor and taste, due to influence of fibers specific aroma. The sample with 10% of potato fibers and increased water content was the most adaptable to applied stresses and to production process. Also this sample was close to control sample without dietary fibers by evaluation of sensory properties and by results of videometer method.

Keywords: Crackers, dietary fibers, rheology, sensory properties.

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Authors: Daniel Alati

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Recent high-profile terrorist events in Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe – the London Bridge attacks, the terrorist attacks in Nice, France and Barcelona, Spain, the 2014 Ottawa Parliament attacks and the 2017 attacks in Edmonton – have all raised levels of public and academic concern with so-called “lone-wolf” and “radicalized” terrorism. Similarly, several countries outside of the “Western” world have been dealing with radicalization to violent extremism for several years. Many South East Asian countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines have all had experience with what might be described as ISIS or extremist-inspired acts of terrorism. Indeed, it appears the greatest strength of groups such as ISIS has been their ability to spread a global message of violent extremism that has led to radicalization in markedly different jurisdictions throughout the world. These markedly different jurisdictions have responded with counter-radicalization strategies that warrant further comparative analysis. This paper utilizes an inter-disciplinary legal methodology. In doing so, it compares legal, political, cultural and historical aspects of the counter-radicalization strategies employed by Canada, the United Kingdom and several South East Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines). Whilst acknowledging significant legal and political differences between these jurisdictions, the paper engages in these analyses with an eye towards understanding which best practices might be shared between the jurisdictions. In doing so, it presents valuable findings of a comparative nature that are useful to both academic and practitioner audiences in several jurisdictions.

Keywords: Canada, United Kingdom, South East Asia, comparative law and politics, radicalization to violent extremism, terrorism.

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Authors: Johan Wall, Johan Fredin, Anders Jönsson, Göran Broman

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Designing modern machine tools is a complex task. A simulation tool to aid the design work, a virtual machine, has therefore been developed in earlier work. The virtual machine considers the interaction between the mechanics of the machine (including structural flexibility) and the control system. This paper exemplifies the usefulness of the virtual machine as a tool for product development. An optimisation study is conducted aiming at improving the existing design of a machine tool regarding weight and manufacturing accuracy at maintained manufacturing speed. The problem can be categorised as constrained multidisciplinary multiobjective multivariable optimisation. Parameters of the control and geometric quantities of the machine are used as design variables. This results in a mix of continuous and discrete variables and an optimisation approach using a genetic algorithm is therefore deployed. The accuracy objective is evaluated according to international standards. The complete systems model shows nondeterministic behaviour. A strategy to handle this based on statistical analysis is suggested. The weight of the main moving parts is reduced by more than 30 per cent and the manufacturing accuracy is improvement by more than 60 per cent compared to the original design, with no reduction in manufacturing speed. It is also shown that interaction effects exist between the mechanics and the control, i.e. this improvement would most likely not been possible with a conventional sequential design approach within the same time, cost and general resource frame. This indicates the potential of the virtual machine concept for contributing to improved efficiency of both complex products and the development process for such products. Companies incorporating such advanced simulation tools in their product development could thus improve its own competitiveness as well as contribute to improved resource efficiency of society at large.

Keywords: Machine tools, Mechatronics, Non-deterministic, Optimisation, Product development, Virtual machine

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Authors: Ke Zhao, Ballarat Colin Richardson, Jerry Courvisanos, John Crawford

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Climate change has profound consequences for the agriculture of south-eastern Australia and its climate-induced water shortage in the Murray-Darling Basin. Post Keynesian Economics (PKE) macro-dynamics, along with Kaleckian investment and growth theory, are used to develop an ecological-economic system dynamics model of this complex nonlinear river basin system. The Murray- Darling Basin Simulation Model (MDB-SM) uses the principles of PKE to incorporate the fundamental uncertainty of economic behaviors of farmers regarding the investments they make and the climate change they face, particularly as regards water ecosystem services. MDB-SM provides a framework for macroeconomic policies, especially for long-term fiscal policy and for policy directed at the sustainability of agricultural water, as measured by socio-economic well-being considerations, which include sustainable consumption and investment in the river basin. The model can also reproduce other ecological and economic aspects and, for certain parameters and initial values, exhibit endogenous business cycles and ecological sustainability with realistic characteristics. Most importantly, MDBSM provides a platform for the analysis of alternative economic policy scenarios. These results reveal the importance of understanding water ecosystem adaptation under climate change by integrating a PKE macroeconomic analytical framework with the system dynamics modelling approach. Once parameterised and supplied with historical initial values, MDB-SM should prove to be a practical tool to provide alternative long-term policy simulations of agricultural water and socio-economic well-being.

Keywords: Agricultural water, Macroeconomic dynamics, Modeling, Investment dynamics, Sustainability, Unemployment, Economics, Keynesian, Kaleckian.

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Authors: Tse-Yu Hsieh, Jyh-Jian Chen

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Since polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been invented, it has emerged as a powerful tool in genetic analysis. The PCR products are closely linked with thermal cycles. Therefore, to reduce the reaction time and make temperature distribution uniform in the reaction chamber, a novel oscillatory thermal cycler is designed. The sample is placed in a fixed chamber, and three constant isothermal zones are established and lined in the system. The sample is oscillated and contacted with three different isothermal zones to complete thermal cycles. This study presents the design of the geometric characteristics of the chamber. The commercial software CFD-ACE+TM is utilized to investigate the influences of various materials, heating times, chamber volumes, and moving speed of the chamber on the temperature distributions inside the chamber. The chamber moves at a specific velocity and the boundary conditions with time variations are related to the moving speed. Whereas the chamber moves, the boundary is specified at the conditions of the convection or the uniform temperature. The user subroutines compiled by the FORTRAN language are used to make the numerical results realistically. Results show that the reaction chamber with a rectangular prism is heated on six faces; the effects of various moving speeds of the chamber on the temperature distributions are examined. Regarding to the temperature profiles and the standard deviation of the temperature at the Y-cut cross section, the non-uniform temperature inside chamber is found as the moving speed is larger than 0.01 m/s. By reducing the heating faces to four, the standard deviation of the temperature of the reaction chamber is under 1.4×10-3K with the range of velocities between 0.0001 m/s and 1 m/s. The nature convective boundary conditions are set at all boundaries while the chamber moves between two heaters, the effects of various moving velocities of the chamber on the temperature distributions are negligible at the assigned time duration.

Keywords: Polymerase chain reaction, oscillatory thermal cycler, standard deviation of temperature, nature convective.

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Authors: S. Vijayakumar, M. Sasikala, T. S. Mohammed Saleem, Gurusharan, K. Gauthaman

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The main objective of our study is to collect data about the profile of the asthmatic patients in Assam and thereby have a comprehensive knowledge of the factors influencing the asthmatic patients of the state and their medication pattern. We developed a search strategy to find any publication about the community based survey asthma related and used. These to search the MEDLINE (1996 to current literature) CINAHL DOAJ pubmed databases using the key phrases, Asthma, Respiratory disorders, Drug therapy of Asthma, database decision support system and asthma. The appropriate literature was printed out from the online source and library (Journal) source. The study was conducted through a set of structured and non-structured questionnaires targeted on the asthmatic patients belonging to the rural and urban areas of Assam, during the month of Dec 2006 to July 2007, 138 cases were studied in Gauwathi Medical College & Hospital located in Bhangagarh, Assam in India. The demographic characteristics a factor in 138 patients with asthma with allergic rhinitis (cases) gives the detail profile of asthmatic patient-s distribution of Assam as classified on the basis of age and sex. It is evident from the study that male populations (66%) are more prone to asthma as compared to the females (34%).Another striking features that emerged from this survey is the maximum prevalence of asthma in the age group of 20- 30 years followed by infants belonging to the age group of 7 (0.05%) 0-10years among both male and female populations of Assam. The high incidence of asthma in the age group of 20-30 years may probably be due to the allergy arising out of sudden exposure to dust and pollen which the children face while playing and going to the school. The rural females in the age group of 30-40 years are more prone to asthma than urban females in the same age group may be due to sex differentiation among the tribal population of the state. Pharmacists should educate the asthmatics how to use inhalers considering growing menace of asthma in the state. Safer drugs should be produced in the form of aerosol so that easy administration by the asthmatic patients and physicians of the state is possible for curing asthma. The health centers should be more equipped with the medicines to cure asthma in the state like Assam.

Keywords: Asthma, Respiratory disease, Smoker.

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Authors: S. Behnam Malekzadeh, I. Kerr, T. Kaempffer, T. Harper, A Watson

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The Site C Hydroelectric dam is currently being constructed in north-eastern British Columbia on sub-horizontal sedimentary strata that dip approximately 15 meters from one bank of the Peace River to the other. More than 615 pressure sensors (Vibrating Wire Piezometers) have been installed on bedding planes (BPs) since construction began, with over 80 more planned before project completion. These pressure measurements are essential to monitor the stability of the rock foundation during and after construction and for dam safety purposes. BPs are identified by their clay gouge infilling, which varies in thickness from less than 1 to 20 mm and can be challenging to identify as the core drilling process often disturbs or washes away the gouge material. Without the use of depth predictions from nearby boreholes, stratigraphic markers, and downhole geophysical data, it is difficult to confidently identify BP targets for the sensors. In this paper, a Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) method was used to develop an empirical model called the Bedding Plane Elevation Prediction (BPEP) to help geologists and geotechnical engineers to predict geological features and BPs at new locations in a fast and accurate manner. To develop CBR, a database was developed based on 64 pressure sensors already installed on key bedding planes BP25, BP28, and BP31 on the Right Bank, including BP elevations and coordinates. 13 (20%) of the most recent cases were selected to validate and evaluate the accuracy of the developed model, while the similarity was defined as the distance between previous cases and recent cases to predict the depth of significant BPs. The average difference between actual BP elevations and predicted elevations for above BPs was ± 55 cm, while the actual results showed that 69% of predicted elevations were within ± 79 cm of actual BP elevations while 100% of predicted elevations for new cases were within ± 99 cm range. Eventually, the actual results will be used to develop the database and improve BPEP to perform as a learning machine to predict more accurate BP elevations for future sensor installations.

Keywords: Case-Based Reasoning, CBR, geological feature, geology, piezometer, pressure sensor, core logging, dam construction.

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Authors: Alexandru Epureanu, Virgil Teodor

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One of the main research directions in CAD/CAM machining area is the reducing of machining time. The feedrate scheduling is one of the advanced techniques that allows keeping constant the uncut chip area and as sequel to keep constant the main cutting force. They are two main ways for feedrate optimization. The first consists in the cutting force monitoring, which presumes to use complex equipment for the force measurement and after this, to set the feedrate regarding the cutting force variation. The second way is to optimize the feedrate by keeping constant the material removal rate regarding the cutting conditions. In this paper there is proposed a new approach using an extended database that replaces the system model. The feedrate scheduling is determined based on the identification of the reconfigurable machine tool, and the feed value determination regarding the uncut chip section area, the contact length between tool and blank and also regarding the geometrical roughness. The first stage consists in the blank and tool monitoring for the determination of actual profiles. The next stage is the determination of programmed tool path that allows obtaining the piece target profile. The graphic representation environment models the tool and blank regions and, after this, the tool model is positioned regarding the blank model according to the programmed tool path. For each of these positions the geometrical roughness value, the uncut chip area and the contact length between tool and blank are calculated. Each of these parameters are compared with the admissible values and according to the result the feed value is established. We can consider that this approach has the following advantages: in case of complex cutting processes the prediction of cutting force is possible; there is considered the real cutting profile which has deviations from the theoretical profile; the blank-tool contact length limitation is possible; it is possible to correct the programmed tool path so that the target profile can be obtained. Applying this method, there are obtained data sets which allow the feedrate scheduling so that the uncut chip area is constant and, as a result, the cutting force is constant, which allows to use more efficiently the machine tool and to obtain the reduction of machining time.

Keywords: Reconfigurable machine tool, system identification, uncut chip area, cutting conditions scheduling.

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Authors: Pooja Jain

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Art education is often ignored in syllabus of developing countries like India and in educational planning for development but now days Indian Art with a global recognition is becoming an integral part of the education at all levels. The term art, widely used in all parts of the modern world, carried varied significance in India as its meaning was continuously being extended, covering the many varieties of creative expression such as painting, sculpture, commercial art, design, poetry, music, dance, and architecture. Over the last 100 years Indian artists of all forms have evolved a wide variety of expressive styles. With the recommendations and initiatives by Government of India, Art Education has subsequently gained pace at the school level as a mandatory subject for all making a path way for students with a creative bend of mind. This paper investigates curriculum in various schools of the country at secondary and senior secondary levels along with some eminent institutions running the program. Findings depicted the role of art education and justified its importance primarily with commercial art being perceived to be essential for students learning skills for economic gain in their career ahead. With so many art colleges spread across India, emerging artists and designers are being trained and are creating art of infinite variety and style and have opened up many career avenues. Commercial Art being a plethora of artistic expressions has confidently come of age wherein a creative perception is mixed with an introspective imagination to bring out multi faceted career options with a significant future enveloped in art. Visual arts in education thus is an expanding field of result assured research.

Keywords: Modern art, commercial art, introspective imagination, career.

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Authors: Klementina Puto, Ermelinda Nexhipi, Evi Llaka

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Dairy by-products are a fairly good environment for microorganisms due to their composition for their growth. Microbial populations have a significant impact in the production of cheese, butter, yogurt, etc. in terms of their organoleptic quality and at the same time some also cause their breakdown. In this paper, the microbiological contamination of soft cheese, butter and yogurt produced in the country (domestic) and imported is assessed, as an indicator of hygiene with impact on public health. The study was extended during September 2018-June 2019 and was divided into three periods, September-December, January-March, and April-June. During this study, a total of 120 samples were analyzed, of which 60 samples of cheese and butter locally produced, and 60 samples of imported soft cheese and butter productions. The microbial indicators analyzed are Staphylococcus aureus and E. coli. Analyzes have been conducted at the Food Safety Laboratory (FSIV) in Tirana in accordance with EU Regulation 2073/2005. Sampling was performed according to the specific international standards for these products (ISO 6887 and ISO 8261). Sampling and transport of samples were done under sterile conditions. Also, coding of samples was done to preserve the anonymity of subjects. After the analysis, the country's soft cheese products compared to imports were more contaminated with S. aureus and E. coli. Meanwhile, the imported butter samples that were analyzed, resulted within norms compared to domestic ones. Based on the results, it was concluded that the microbial quality of samples of cheese, butter and yogurt analyzed remains a real problem for hygiene in Albania. The study will also serve business operators in Albania to improve their work to ensure good hygiene on the basis of the HACCP plan and to provide a guarantee of consumer health.

Keywords: Consumer, health, dairy, by-products, microbial.

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Authors: Simon B. N. Thompson

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Cortisol is essential to the regulation of the immune system and pathological yawning is a symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS). Electromyography activity (EMG) in the jaw muscles typically rises when the muscles are moved – extended or flexed; and yawning has been shown to be highly correlated with cortisol levels in healthy people as shown in the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis. It is likely that these elevated cortisol levels are also seen in people with MS. The possible link between EMG in the jaw muscles and rises in saliva cortisol levels during yawning were investigated in a randomized controlled trial of 60 volunteers aged 18-69 years who were exposed to conditions that were designed to elicit the yawning response. Saliva samples were collected at the start and after yawning, or at the end of the presentation of yawning-provoking stimuli, in the absence of a yawn, and EMG data was additionally collected during rest and yawning phases. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Yawning Susceptibility Scale, General Health Questionnaire, demographic, and health details were collected and the following exclusion criteria were adopted: chronic fatigue, diabetes, fibromyalgia, heart condition, high blood pressure, hormone replacement therapy, multiple sclerosis, and stroke. Significant differences were found between the saliva cortisol samples for the yawners, t (23) = -4.263, p = 0.000, as compared with the non-yawners between rest and poststimuli, which was non-significant. There were also significant differences between yawners and non-yawners for the EMG potentials with the yawners having higher rest and post-yawning potentials. Significant evidence was found to support the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis suggesting that rises in cortisol levels are associated with the yawning response. Further research is underway to explore the use of cortisol as a potential diagnostic tool as an assist to the early diagnosis of symptoms related to neurological disorders. Bournemouth University Research & Ethics approval granted: JC28/1/13-KA6/9/13. Professional code of conduct, confidentiality, and safety issues have been addressed and approved in the Ethics submission. Trials identification number: ISRCTN61942768. http://www.controlled-trials.com/isrctn/

Keywords: Cortisol, Electromyography, Neurology, Yawning.

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Authors: O. I. H. Dimitry, N. A. Mansour, A. L. G. Saad

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Natural sodium montmorillonite (NaMMT), Cloisite Na⁺ and two organophilic montmorillonites (OMMTs), Cloisites 20A and 15A were used. Polycaprolactone (PCL)/MMT composites containing 1, 3, 5, and 10 wt% of Cloisite Na⁺ and PCL/OMMT nanocomposites containing 5 and 10 wt% of Cloisites 20A and 15A were prepared via solution intercalation technique to study the influence of organic modifier loading on particle dispersion of PCL/ NaMMT composites. Thermal stabilities of the obtained composites were characterized by thermal analysis using the thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) which showed that in the presence of nitrogen flow the incorporation of 5 and 10 wt% of filler brings some decrease in PCL thermal stability in the sequence: Cloisite Na+>Cloisite 15A > Cloisite 20A, while in the presence of air flow these fillers scarcely influenced the thermoxidative stability of PCL by slightly accelerating the process. The interaction between PCL and silicate layers was studied by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy which confirmed moderate interactions between nanometric silicate layers and PCL segments. The electrical conductivity (σ) which describes the ionic mobility of the systems was studied as a function of temperature and showed that σ of PCL was enhanced on increasing the modifier loading at filler content of 5 wt%, especially at higher temperatures in the sequence: Cloisite Na⁺<Cloisite 20A<Cloisite 15A, and was then decreased to some extent with a further increase to 10 wt%. The activation energy E_σ obtained from the dependency of σ on temperature using Arrhenius equation was found to be lowest for the nanocomposite containing 5 wt% of Cloisite 15A. The dispersed behavior of clay in PCL matrix was evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses which revealed partial intercalated structures in PCL/NaMMT composites and semi-intercalated/semi-exfoliated structures in PCL/OMMT nanocomposites containing 5 wt% of Cloisite 20A or Cloisite 15A.

Keywords: Polycaprolactone, organoclay, nanocomposite, montmorillonite, electrical conductivity, activation energy, exfoliation, intercalation.

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Authors: Fawzi Irshaid, Kamal Mansi

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Thyroid dysfunction is one of the most frequently reported complications of chronic blood transfusion therapy in patients with beta-thalassemia major (BTM). However, the occurrence of thyroid dysfunction and its possible association with iron overload in BTM patients is still under debate. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the status of thyroid functions and iron overload in adolescent and young adult patients with BTM in Jordan population. Thirty six BTM patients aged 12-28 years and matched controls were included in this study. All patients have been receiving frequent blood transfusion to maintain pretransfusion hemoglobin concentration above 10 g dl-1 and deferoxamine at a dose of 45 mg kg-1 day-1 (8 h, 5-7 days/week) by subcutaneous infusion. Blood samples were drawn from patients and controls. The status of thyroid functions and iron overload was evaluated by measurements of serum free thyroxine (FT4), triiodothyronine (FT3), thyrotropin (TSH) and serum ferritin level. A number of some hematological and biochemical parameters were also measured. It was found that hematocrit, serum ferritin, hemoglobin, FT3 and zinc, copper mean values were significantly higher in the patients than in the controls (P< 0.05). On other hand, leukocyte, FT4 and TSH mean values were similar to that of the controls. In addition, our data also indicated that all of the above examined parameters were not significantly affected by the patient-s age and gender. Deferoxamine approach for removing excess iron from our BTM patient did not normalize the values of serum ferritin, copper and zinc, suggesting poor compliance with deferoxamine chelation therapy. Thus, we recommend the use of a combination of deferoxamine and deferiprone to reduce the risk of excess of iron in our patients. Furthermore, thyroid dysfunction appears to be a rare complication, because our patients showed normal mean levels for serum TSH and FT4. However, high mean levels of serum ferritin, zinc, copper might be seen as potential risk factors for initiation and development of thyroid dysfunctions and other diseases. Therefore, further studies must be carried out at yearly intervals with large sample number, to detect subclinical thyroid dysfunction cases.

Keywords: beta-thalassemia major, deferoxamine, iron overload, triiodothyronine, zinc.

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