The pathobiology of mammographic density

High mammographic density confers a significantly increased risk of breast cancer. As it is relatively common in the normal population the risk of cancer attributable to increased mammographic density could potentially account for an important percentage of total BCa cases. The underlying cause for high mammographic density and its association with increased BCa risk and progression is unknown. In this review we describe the work that has been done to define the histopathological characteristics of mammographic density. Mammograms define breast tissues with areas of high density due to an increased amount of radio-opaque tissue (stromal and epithelial cells) and also less areas of radiolucent fat. Histological work however can define the roles played by each cell type. We review the work that has been performed assessing changes in epithelial cells, stromal cells, the extracellular matrix, and immune infiltrate. To determine how these changes may be increasing breast cancer risk we also discuss the roles of each of the cell types in breast cancer initiation and progression.

Setting the research agenda in IHRM

Firstly, on behalf of the secretariat that has coordinated these meetings every two years since 1985, our thanks to the organising committee here at the University of Economics in Cracow, Poland, for hosting this conference. I was asked to offer comment on the research agenda. There are many famous names to refer to. Two Australian colleagues here today are Peter Dowling and Helen De Cieri, longtime stalwarts of the field of IHRM. I acknowledge their contributions over many years, along with Randy Schuler and Denise Welch, and Dennis Briscoe. Other names such as Rosalie Tung, Pawan Bhudwhar, Michael Morley, Paul Sparrow and Wayne Cascio are known to us all. Their books have become classics. One example is the 700 page benchmark 2012 work by Chris Brewster and Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Handbook of Research on Comparative Human Resource Management (Brewster & Mayrhofer, 2012). More recently, in a book published by Cambridge University press in 2014, Mustafa Özbilgin, Dimitria Groutsis and William Harvey offer students a very accessible overview of the basics in IHRM (Ozbilgin, Groutsis, & Harvey, 2014). As for a research agenda, there are excellent literature reviews to which I would refer you, such as those by people who over the years have been frequent participants at this conference (Tarique & Schuler, 2010), (Farndale, Scullion, & Sparrow, 2010), and (Scullion & Collings, 2011).

Protection of intellectual property in Islamic Shari'a and the development of the Libyan intellectual property system

This thesis introduces a theory of intellectual property (IP) law informed by Islamic Shari'a. The sources and objectives of Islamic Shari'a support the theoretical framework underpinning IP laws. However, they strongly emphasise the importance of development goals in intellectual property policy making. This thesis argues that an optimal IP system from an Islamic perspective shall not overprotect IP holders but should instead endeavor to empower people to access knowledge resources to enhance access to education, public health and economic opportunities. Taking Libya as a case study, this thesis makes recommendations for the improvement of IP law that have important broader implications for developing countries.

Integrated approach to optimize open-pit mine block sequencing

Critical stage in open-pit mining is to determine the optimal extraction sequence of blocks, which has significant impacts on mining profitability. In this paper, a more comprehensive block sequencing optimisation model is developed for the open-pit mines. In the model, material characteristics of blocks, grade control, excavator and block sequencing are investigated and integrated to maximise the short-term benefit of mining. Several case studies are modeled and solved by CPLEX MIP and CP engines. Numerical investigations are presented to illustrate and validate the proposed methodology.

Standardising and assessing digital images for use in clinical trials : a practical, reproducible method that blinds the assessor to treatment allocation

With the increasing availability of high quality digital cameras that are easily operated by the non-professional photographer, the utility of using digital images to assess endpoints in clinical research of skin lesions has growing acceptance. However, rigorous protocols and description of experiences for digital image collection and assessment are not readily available, particularly for research conducted in remote settings. We describe the development and evaluation of a protocol for digital image collection by the non-professional photographer in a remote setting research trial, together with a novel methodology for assessment of clinical outcomes by an expert panel blinded to treatment allocation.

Normative requirements for regulatory compliance: An abstract formal framework

By definition, regulatory rules (in legal context called norms) intend to achieve specific behaviour from business processes, and might be relevant to the whole or part of a business process. They can impose conditions on different aspects of process models, e.g., control-flow, data and resources etc. Based on the rules sets, norms can be classified into various classes and sub-classes according to their effects. This paper presents an abstract framework consisting of a list of norms and a generic compliance checking approach on the idea of (possible) execution of processes. The proposed framework is independent of any existing formalism, and provides a conceptually rich and exhaustive ontology and semantics of norms needed for business process compliance checking. The possible uses of the proposed framework include to compare different compliance management frameworks (CMFs).

No time for compliance

In the past few years several business process compliance framework based on temporal logic have been proposed. In this paper we investigate whether the use of temporal logic is suitable for the task at hand: namely to check whether the specifications of a business process are compatible with the formalisation of the norms regulating the business process. We provide an example inspired by real life norms where the use of linear temporal logic produces a result that is not compatible with the legal understanding of the norms in the example.

A methodology for extracting legal norms from regulatory documents

We present a methodology to extract legal norms from regulatory documents for their formalisation and later compliance checking. The need for the methodology is motivated from the shortcomings of existing approaches where the rule type and process aspects relevant to the rules are largely overlook. The methodology incorporates the well–known IF. . . THEN structure extended with the process aspect and rule type, and guides how to properly extract the conditions and logical structure of the legal rules for reasoning and modelling of obligations for compliance checking.

Permissions in Deontic Event-Calculus

Permissions are special case of deontic effects and play important role compliance. Essentially they are used to determine the obligations or prohibitions to contrary. A formal language e.g., temporal logic, event-calculus et., not able to represent permissions is doomed to be unable to represent most of the real-life legal norms. In this paper we address this issue and extend deontic-event-calculus (DEC) with new predicates for modelling permissions enabling it to elegantly capture the intuition of real-life cases of permissions.

Evaluating business process compliance management frameworks

This research contributes a formal framework to evaluate whether existing CMFs can model and reason about various types of normative requirements. The framework can be used to determine the level of coverage of concepts provided by CMFs, establish mappings between CMF languages and the semantics for the normative concepts and evaluate the suitability of a CMF for issuing a certification of compliance. The developed framework is independent of any specific formalism and it has been formally defined and validated through the examples of such mappings of CMFs.

Ambient air pollution exposure estimation for the global burden of disease 2013

Exposure to ambient air pollution is a major risk factor for global disease. Assessment of the impacts of air pollution on population health and the evaluation of trends relative to other major risk factors requires regularly updated, accurate, spatially resolved exposure estimates. We combined satellite-based estimates, chemical transport model (CTM) simulations and ground measurements from 79 different countries to produce new global estimates of annual average fine particle (PM2.5) and ozone concentrations at 0.1° × 0.1° spatial resolution for five-year intervals from 1990-2010 and the year 2013. These estimates were then applied to assess population-weighted mean concentrations for 1990 – 2013 for each of 188 countries. In 2013, 87% of the world’s population lived in areas exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guideline of 10 μg/m3 PM2.5 (annual average). Between 1990 and 2013, decreases in population-weighted mean concentrations of PM2.5 were evident in most high income countries, in contrast to increases estimated in South Asia, throughout much of Southeast Asia, and in China. Population-weighted mean concentrations of ozone increased in most countries from 1990 - 2013, with modest decreases in North America, parts of Europe, and several countries in Southeast Asia.

The global burden of injury: Incidence, mortality, disability-adjusted life years and time trends from the Global Burden of Disease study 2013

Background The Global Burden of Diseases (GBD), Injuries, and Risk Factors study used the disability-adjusted life year (DALY) to quantify the burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors. This paper provides an overview of injury estimates from the 2013 update of GBD, with detailed information on incidence, mortality, DALYs and rates of change from 1990 to 2013 for 26 causes of injury, globally, by region and by country. Methods Injury mortality was estimated using the extensive GBD mortality database, corrections for ill-defined cause of death and the cause of death ensemble modelling tool. Morbidity estimation was based on inpatient and outpatient data sets, 26 cause-of-injury and 47 nature-of-injury categories, and seven follow-up studies with patient-reported long-term outcome measures. Results In 2013, 973 million (uncertainty interval (UI) 942 to 993) people sustained injuries that warranted some type of healthcare and 4.8 million (UI 4.5 to 5.1) people died from injuries. Between 1990 and 2013 the global age-standardised injury DALY rate decreased by 31% (UI 26% to 35%). The rate of decline in DALY rates was significant for 22 cause-of-injury categories, including all the major injuries. Conclusions Injuries continue to be an important cause of morbidity and mortality in the developed and developing world. The decline in rates for almost all injuries is so prominent that it warrants a general statement that the world is becoming a safer place to live in. However, the patterns vary widely by cause, age, sex, region and time and there are still large improvements that need to be made.