A study of serum zinc, selenium and copper levels in carcinoma of esophagus patients

The association of serum trace elements like selenium, zinc and copper has been found in different types of cancer. This study was conducted to see the serum level of these three trace elements in cancer esophagus patients. Biopsy confirmed cancer esophagus, 24 patients (12 males, 12 females, mean age 54.5±11.65 year with 23 healthy subjects (16 males, 7 females, mean age 44 ±13.82 years) were included in this study. Both control and study group patients were of same socio-economic status and dietary habits. Serum zinc and copper level were estimated using standard absorption spectrometer technique and serum selenium by Hydride generation method. We observed significant low serum levels of zinc and selenium while high level of serum copper in carcinoma esophagus patients, as compared with normal healthy controls. This shows an association of serum selenium zinc and copper with cancer esophagus.     

Changes in serum seromucoid following compensatory hyperparathyroidism: A sequel to chronic fluoride ingestion

This study was conducted to find out the possible underlying mechanism of various manifestation of fluorosis, a disease caused by excess ingestion of fluoride. For this the fluoride belt of Jaipur district was selected. The parameters selected were serum Parathyroid hormone, the levels of which are directly affected by fluoride intake. The levels of serum seromucoid, serum and leucocyte ascorbic acid, serum sialic acid (SSA) reflects ground substance metabolism. The study was conducted on two hundred children, selected from four areas (50 from each area) consuming water containing 2.4, 4.6, 5.6 and 13.6 mg/l of fluoride. Drinking water fluoride and serum fluoride were measured by Ion selective electrode method. Serum parathyroid by RIA and all other parameters were measured spectrophotometrically. The results revealed an increase in levels of fluoride, parathyroid hormone and seromucoid in serum with increasing water fluoride concentrations. Serum Calcium and serum ascorbic acid were found in normal range, how ever leucocyte ascorbic acid were decreased. A high positive correlation among fluoride concentration in drinking water and serum parathyroid hormone (r=0.967), and, serum parathyroid hormone and serum seromucoid concentration (r=0.935) was also observed The results indicated that secondary hyperparathyroidism due to hypocalcemic stress caused by excess fluoride ingestion disturbs normal metabolism of ground substance in calcified tissues of the body reflected as altered levels of the components of ground substance in the serum.     

Interruptions in the workplace: A case study to reduce their effects

Collaboration is an important aspect for virtually all workplace environments. Workplaces often encourage and foster collaboration in a variety of ways with the purpose to collectively focus the group's attention on a specific problem and solve it as quickly and as efficiently as possible. While collaboration is generally viewed as a positive aspect of the workplace, the negative aspect—interruption—cannot be ignored. Interruptions are an important research area of human-computer interaction and with the growth of pervasive or ubiquitous computing on the rise, the number of interruptions we experience on a daily basis is also growing. It is for these reasons that interruption is and will continue to be a key issue in workplaces.This report presents the findings of a qualitative research project which explored interruptions in a mid-size software development company based in Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this research was to identify the types of interruptions (both on- and off-task) that occur during typical office software related activities, explore the contextual characteristics surrounding these interruptions, and identify methodologies that could be used to reduce the cost of interruptions and increase employee effectiveness and satisfaction.     

Digitally enabled service transformation in UK public sector: A case analysis of universal credit

The race against ‘Digital Darwinism’ in public sector had caused failures of several high profile large-scale Digitally Enabled Service Transformation (DEST) projects. While technical and managerial issues are often emphasised as the factors underpinning such failures, the vital role of key actors and the interplay between these actors and structures is underplayed when examining the causes of DEST failure. To enable a richer understanding of DEST, this paper proposes an analytical lens combining Institutional Theory (IT) and Structuration Theory (ST) to explore the case of ‘Universal Credit’, a very large and ambitious DEST project in the UK. Analysis reveals that the institutional actors and structures played significant roles in the transformation process. Albeit governing the actors’ actions, institutional structures are shaped through actions that are influenced by knowledge, power and norms. Hence, recognising and addressing these subliminal factors are critical to promote actions that can facilitate DEST success. The contributions of this case study are two-folds. Theoretically, it provides a distinctive conceptual approach to study DEST; and practically, the lessons help in signposting better managerial practices.     

Finding what is missing from a digital library: A case study in the Computer Science field

This article proposes a process to retrieve the URL of a document for which metadata records exist in a digital library catalog but a pointer to the full text of the document is not available. The process uses results from queries submitted to Web search engines for finding the URL of the corresponding full text or any related material. We present a comprehensive study of this process in different situations by investigating different query strategies applied to three general purpose search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) and two specialized ones (Scholar and CiteSeer), considering five user scenarios. Specifically, we have conducted experiments with metadata records taken from the Brazilian Digital Library of Computing (BDBComp) and The DBLP Computer Science Bibliography (DBLP). We found that Scholar was the most effective search engine for this task in all considered scenarios and that simple strategies for combining and re-ranking results from Scholar and Google significantly improve the retrieval quality. Moreover, we study the influence of the number of query results on the effectiveness of finding missing information as well as the coverage of the proposed scenarios.     

Accounting for change in national systems of innovation: A friendly critique based on the U.S. case

This paper advances a friendly critique of the national systems of innovation approach and offers some suggestions for its future development. I argue that the approach has difficulty accounting for bounded change in national systems. I review three recent changes in the U.S. innovation system - the Internet boom and bust of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the acceleration of productivity growth since the mid-1990s - in order to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the framework in this respect. Future research might be enriched, at least in the case of large national innovation systems, by absorbing concepts developed in other strands of institutionalist literature, such as “intercurrence” and “embeddedness”.     

Modified method for determination of serum beta-glucuronidase: A comparative study using P-nitrophenyl glucuronide and phenolphthalein glucuronide as substrate in gastrointestinal tract carcinomas

Serum beta-glucuronidase activity was estimated by our modified method using two substrates phenolphthalein glucuronide and p-nitrophenyl glucoronide in 49 healthy subjects and 94 patients with gastrointestinal tract (GIT) carcinoma. The correlation coefficient using the two substrates was found to be r=0.8383. The method of Gabor Szasz was modified wherein the incubation time was decreased from 5 hours to 2 hours and the incubation temperature was increased from 25°C to 37°C. The increase in beta-glucuronidase activity in GIT carcinoma appears to be a good biochemical marker in patients with such type of carcinomas, a finding not reported in literature to-date. The modified quantitative method used for estimation of beta-glucuronidase is reliable, accurate, simple and rapid.     

Service strategies of small cloud service providers: A case study of a small cloud service provider and its clients in Taiwan

Small enterprises play an important role in the technology innovation and economic development of most countries all over the world, particularly in Taiwan. Due to a lack of financial resources and expertise, small enterprises tend to find novel ways to utilize IT resources in order to reduce IT adoption costs, to achieve better flexibility, business agility and scalability, and to react faster to market demands. Whereas Taiwan has been promoting cloud computing to help Taiwanese enterprises adopt more effective information technologies, we found that the service strategies of small cloud service providers are individually differentiated in order to survive in the competitive cloud computing market. This paper reports a case study of a small e-learning service provider and its four clients in Taiwan. Some novel insights are revealed through this case study and recommendations are provided accordingly.