• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.sup3
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• pp.269-273
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• 2016

Presently, the world population of the elderly is growing. By improving health hygiene and welfare indicators, mortality and birth rates decrease and life expectancy increases, making the present century the century of elderly. Aging is one of the main risk factors for development of cancer, which itself is the second cause of death in old people. This study was conducted to assess the prevalence of cancer in the elderly covered by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) insurance program and to obtain suitable programs for cancer screening and early detection, increase patient survival, improve elderly care and to reclaim the cost of treatment in comparison to the national and international statistics. This is a cross-sectional study conducted on all elderly patients diagnosed with malignancy based on their pathology reports. In this study, of the total 75,500 patients covered by IRIB insurance, 17.2% belonged to the elderly group, males accounting for 53.3%. The most common cancers in old men were prostatic cancer (61.3%), colon cancer (10.3%) cancer of the hematologic system, bladder cancer (9.6%), lung cancer (9.1%), thyroid cancer (3.9%) and brain tumors (1.3%). In the elderly women, the most common cancers were breast cancer (80.1%), colon cancer (5.1%), thyroid cancers (4.4%), bladder and hematologic system malignancies (3.6), lung cancer (2.9%) and brain tumors (0.7%). In addition, the prevalence of cancer was almost the same as national and international statistics. With the exception of non-melanoma skin cancer no difference was shown in prevalence of cancer between IRIB elderly patients and the other groups of cancer patients in Iran.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.977-980
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• 2013

Background: Endometrial cancer is common in western women, and the rates are very high; however in India, the rates are as low as 4.3 per 100,000 (Delhi). Objective: To estimate the survival of endometrial cancer patients based on age, education, family history, tobacco habit, number of pregnancies, clinical extent of disease and treatment received. Materials and Methods: The present retrospective study was carried out at the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH), Mumbai, India, between 1999-2002. 310 cases treated in TMH were considered as eligible entrants for the study. Five-year survival rates were estimated using actuarial and loss-adjusted (LAR) methods. Results: The proportions of patients dying above 50 years of age, non-residents and illiterates was higher than their counterparts. 54.8% of patients had some form of treatment before attending TMH. There were only 4.2% tobacco-chewers and only 6.1% had a family history of cancer. There were 25.8% who had 3-5 pregnancies (not living children) and 38.1% did not remember the pregnancy history. The 5-year overall survival rate was 92%. The five-year rates indicated better prognosis for those aged less than 50 years (97%), non-tobacco-chewers (94%), with no family history of cancer (93%), with localized disease (93%) and those treated with surgery either alone or as a combination treatment (95%). Conclusions: The present study showed that endometrial cancer patients with localized disease at diagnosis have a good outcome in India. A detailed study will help in understanding the prognostic indicators for survival especially with the newer treatment technologies now available.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.1-27
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• 2006

Recent migration is led by skilled labor, This paper performes a cross-country analysis to find the determinants of skilled migration using recently released Doquier and Marfouk(2005) data as dependent variable and economic indicators of nations as independent variables. Regression results show that the skilled migration to OECD countries are driven not only by income motive but also by structural factors, such as industrial structure and life expectancy, which have broader meanings in development. It is noteworthy that structural factors of a nation become more important as its income level rises. English seems to have positive effect on skilled migration. Some region-specific factors, proximity to USA of Caribbean countries and political instability of Gold Coast countreis, for example, are found. Middle-income countries seem to be the most vulnerable to the possible risk of brain drain.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2006

As the social responsibility of corporations becomes more important, recently, many corporations have made constant efforts to preserve natural environment. Environmental investments had been traditionally thought as cost factors and sources of negative effects on a firm's financial performances. In this study, we explore the relation of financial and environmental performances of Korean corporations. We use default probability as well as ROE as indicators of financial performances. We find that there is positive correlation between ROE and environmental performance, and negative correlation between default probability and environmental performance. This implies that Korean corporations should recognize environmental investment as means of improving corporate value.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.130-139
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• 2012

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the tire manufacturing work environments extensively and to identify workers' exposure to hazardous substances in various work processes. Methods: Personal air sampling was conducted to measure polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon disulfide, 1,3-butadiene, styrene, methyl isobutyl ketone, methylcyclohexane, formaldehyde, sulfur dioxide, and rubber fume in tire manufacturing plants using the National Institute for Occupational Safety Health Manual of Analytical Methods. Noise, carbon monoxide, and heat stress exposure were evaluated using direct reading instruments. Past concentrations of rubber fume were assessed using regression analysis of total particulate data from 2003 to 2007, after identifying the correlation between the concentration of total particulate and rubber fume. Results: Workers were exposed to rubber fume that exceeded 0.6 mg/$m^3$, the maximum exposure limit of the UK, in curing and production management processes. Forty-seven percent of workers were exposed to noise levels exceeding 85 dBA. Workers in the production management process were exposed to $28.1^{\circ}C$ (wet bulb globe temperature value, WBGT value) even when the outdoor atmosphere was $2.7^{\circ}C$ (WBGT value). Exposures to other substances were below the limit of detection or under a tenth of the threshold limit values given by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. Conclusion: To better classify exposure groups and to improve work environments, examining closely at rubber fume components and temperature as risk indicators in tire manufacturing is recommended.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.65-73
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• 2018

The dynamic capabilities of sensing market signals, creating new opportunities and reconfiguring resources and capabilities to new opportunities in a rapidly changing economic environment determines the competitiveness of the enterprise to create added value and survival. This study conceptualized a two-stage performance measurement framework based on the casual model of resource (input)-process-performance (output). We have developed a 'Process capability index' that reflect the dynamic capabilities factors as a key intermediary product linking resource inputs and performance outputs in enterprise performance measurement. The process capability index consists of four elements : manpower (level of human resource), operation productivity, structure and risk management. The DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) model was applied to the developed performance indicators to analyze the branch office performance of a telecom company. Process capability efficiency (stage 1) uses resource inputs to reach a certain level of process capabilities. In performance result efficiency (stage 2), the process capabilities are used to generate sales revenues and subscribers. The two-stage DEA model derives intermediate output values that optimize the individual stages simultaneously. Some branch offices in the telecom company have focused on process capability efficiency or some other branch offices focused on performance result efficiency. Positioning map using two-stage efficiency decomposition and benchmarking can help identify the sources of inefficiencies and visualize strategic directions for performance optimization. Applications of two-stage DEA in conjunction with the case study that are meaningfully used in performance measurement areas have been scarce. In particular, this paper has the contribution to present a new performance measurement model considering the organization theory, the dynamic capabilities.

• Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.140-147
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• 1999

It has been known for some time that elevated body iron could be a risk factor for coronary heart disease. The present study was conducted to determine body iron status and dietary iron intake of patients with myocardial infarction(MI). Seventy five patients from the Chunam area with their first MI history within he past 2 months were recruited. The serum iron concentration, total iron binding capacity(TIBC) and percent transferrin saturation(TS) were selected as indicators of body iron status. Twenty four hour recall was conducted by trained interviewers to asses the dietary intake. Most women (91.3%) showed waist to hip ratio(W/H) greater than 0.85 while 17.3% of men were assessed to have a tendency of abdominal obesity(W/H>0.95). The average BMI of women was 25.80 and that of men was 23.98. The average diet intake of participants was below the recommended dietary allowances (RDA) for most nutrients. He average dietary iron intake was 10.03 mg/day for all subjects while women's iron intake was significantly lower than men's. However, a great proportion of participants (77%) showed a tendency to have normal iron status. About 9% of the participants were assessed as iron deficient and 14% had an iron overload. The mean serum iron concentration was 125 g/dl ranging from 13.3 to 280.6 g/dl. Iron intake from animal sources were significantly associated with body iron status (r=0.257, p=0.026) when TIBC was used as an iron status indicator. When iron status was assessed with TS, it was directly associated with iron intake from animal sources(r=0.278, p=0.05) for he subjects in the normal iron status group. He results of the present study showed that the nutrient intake of Mi patients in Chunan was not quite adequate while iron status was mostly in the normal range. Further studies are needed to investigated whether there is a possible difference in iron metabolism of the MI patients.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.121-125
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• 2018

Purpose: Detecting laryngeal cartilages (triticeous and thyroid cartilages) on panoramic radiographs is important because they may be confused with carotid artery calcifications in the bifurcation region, which are a risk factor for stroke. This study assessed the efficiency of panoramic radiography in the diagnosis of calcified laryngeal cartilages using cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) as the reference standard. Materials and Methods: A total of 312 regions(142 bilateral, 10 left, 18 right) in 170 patients(140 males, 30 females) were examined. Panoramic radiographs were examined by an oral and maxillofacial radiologist with 11 years of experience. CBCT scans were reviewed by 2 other oral and maxillofacial radiologists. The kappa coefficient(${\kappa}$) was calculated to determine the level of intra-observer agreement and to determine the level of agreement between the 2 methods. Diagnostic indicators(sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and false positive and false negative rates) were also calculated. P values <.05 were considered to indicate statistical significance. Results: Eighty-two images were re-examined to determine the intra-observer agreement level, and the kappa coefficient was calculated as 0.709 (P<.05). Statistically significant and acceptable agreement was found between the panoramic and CBCT images (${\kappa}=0.684$ and P<.05). The sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic accuracy rate, the false positive rate, and the false negative rate of the panoramic radiographs were 85.4%, 83.5%, 84.6%, 16.5%, and 14.6%, respectively. Conclusion: In most cases, calcified laryngeal cartilages could be diagnosed on panoramic radiographs. However, due to variation in the calcifications, diagnosis may be difficult.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.41-57
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• 2009

Although financial information is a great influence upon determining of the group which use them, detection of management fraud and earning manipulation is a difficult task using normal audit procedures and corporate credit evaluation processes, due to the shortage of knowledge concerning the characteristics of management fraud, and the limitation of time and cost. These limitations suggest the need of systemic process for !he effective risk of earning manipulation for credit evaluators, external auditors, financial analysts, and regulators. Moot researches on management fraud have examined how various characteristics of the company's management features affect the occurrence of corporate fraud. This study examines financial characteristics of companies engaged in fraudulent financial reporting and suggests a model and system for detecting GAAP violations to improve reliability of accounting information and transparency of their management. Since the detection of management fraud has limited proven theory, this study used the detecting method of outlier(upper, and lower bound) financial ratio, as a real-field application. The strength of outlier detecting method is its use of easiness and understandability. In the suggested model, 14 variables of the 7 useful variable categories among the 76 financial ratio variables are examined through the distribution analysis as possible indicators of fraudulent financial statements accounts. The developed model from these variables show a 80.82% of hit ratio for the holdout sample. This model was developed as a financial outlier detecting system for a financial institution. External auditors, financial analysts, regulators, and other users of financial statements might use this model to pre-screen potential earnings manipulators in the credit evaluation system. Especially, this model will be helpful for the loan evaluators of financial institutes to decide more objective and effective credit ratings and to improve the quality of financial statements.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.287-303
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• 2018

Applications of energy harvesting from mechanical vibrations is becoming popular but the full potential of such applications is yet to be explored. This paper addresses this issue by considering an application of energy harvesting for the dual objective of serving as an indicator of structural health monitoring (SHM) and extent of control. Variation of harvested energy from an undamaged baseline is employed for this purpose and the concept is illustrated by implementing it for active vibrations of a pipe structure. Theoretical and experimental analyses are carried out to determine the energy harvesting potential from undamaged and damaged conditions. The use of energy harvesting as indicator for control is subsequently investigated, considering the effect of the introduction of a tuned mass damper (TMD). It is found that energy harvesting can be used for the detection and monitoring of the location and magnitude of damage occurring within a pipe structure. Additionally, the harvested energy acts as an indicator of the extent of reduction of vibration of pipes when a TMD is attached. This paper extends the range of applications of energy harvesting devices for the monitoring of built infrastructure and illustrates the vast potential of energy harvesters as smart sensors.