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While much research has been conducted in the United States on the use of loan loss provisions (LLPs) as a mechanism for managing earnings, managing capital, and as a tool for signaling future earnings strategies, there is a paucity of research in Europe. In this research, we replicate methodology used by Ahmed, Takeda and Thomas (1998) and examine the relative importance of key factors affecting the LLP decisions of Spanish depository institutions. Among others, we focus on the role of organizational structure. We speci?cally examine if and how LLPs are used prior to and after the implementation of capital adequacy regulations in the Spanish depository industry in 1992. Our results indicate that while LLPs were not used as a tool for managing capital after the new regulation came into effect, banks have now adopted a more aggressive earnings management strategy. This appears to be because the capital adequacy regulation of 1992 removed any capital constraint that hitherto acted as a disincentive to aggressive earnings management. Commercial banks appeared to adopt a more aggressive earnings management as well as capital management strategy than savings banks in the post regulatory era. Finally, we did not ?nd evidence that LLPs were used as a signaling tool by Spanish banks to portray their intentions about future earnings.

Elliptic curves are algebraic curves that have been studied by many mathematicians since the seventeenth century. In 1985, Neal Koblitz and Victor Miller independently proposed public key cryptosystems using the group of points on an elliptic curve. The elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC) was thus created. Since then, numerous researchers and developers have spent years researching the strength of ECC and improving techniques for its implementation. Secure applications in smart cards present implementation challenges particular to the platform’s memory, bandwidth, and computation constraints. ECC’s unique properties make it especially well suited to smart card applications. This paper describes the Elliptic Curve Cryptography algorithm and its security over RSA algorithm.

In this work, the experimental and theoretical spectra of 2-(trifluoroacetyle)acetophenone (2TFAAP) are studied and FT-IR and FT-Raman spectra of title molecule have been recorded in the region 4000–400cm?1 and 3500–¬100cm?1, respectively. The structural and spectroscopic data of the molecule in the ground state have been calculated by using Hartree-Fock and density functional theory method with the B3LYP/6-31G basis sets. The vibrational frequencies are calculated and scaled values are compared with the experimental FT-IR and FT-Raman spectra. The DFT (B3LYP/6-31G) calculations are more reliable than the ab initio HF/6-31G calculations for the vibrational study of (2TFAAP). The optimized geometric parameters (bond lengths and bond angles) are compared with experimental values of the molecule. Stability of the molecule was analyzed using NBO analysis. Thermal properties of the molecule have been calculated for various range of temperature and HOMO-LUHO energies also calculated, it shows that the charge transfer occurs within the molecule.

Cholangiocarcinomas are rare tumors that develop in the bile duct. Their incidence worldwide is <1 out of 100,000 persons per year. Frequent metastatic sites of biliary cancer are the liver, peritoneum, intra-abdominal lymph nodes, and lungs , however , bladder metastasis was never described in the English literature. Here, we present an exceptional case of a 60 year-old male patient with a history of cholangiocarcionoma traited with surgeries and admitted after 2 years to the emergency with hematuria. The investigations with radiological tomography and cystoscopy with transurethral resection confirms a bladder metastasis of cholangiocarcinoma. Our patient was treated with a bladder hemostatic radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy with cisplatin and gemcitabine (cisplatin at a dose of 30 mg/m2 and gemcitabine at 1,000 mg/m2 on days 1 and 8, respectively, every 3 weeks). The prognosis for patients with cholangiocarcinoma is quite poor; the median survival for patients with unresectable cholangiocarcinoma is <1 year.

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular apicomplexan parasite that can infect a wide range of warm-blooded animals including humans. In humans and other intermediate hosts, toxoplasma develops into chronic infection that cannot be eliminated by host’s immune response or by currently used drugs. In most cases, chronic infections are largely asymptomatic unless the host becomes immune compromised. Thus, toxoplasma is a global health problem and the situation has become more precarious due to the advent of HIV infections and poor toleration of drugs used to treat toxoplasma infection, having severe side effects and also resistance have been developed to the current generation of drugs. The emergence of these drug resistant varieties of T. gondii has led to a search for novel drug target. Threonine synthase is one such protein. It is a member of Serine / Threonine protein family which is a very important metabolic enzyme especially in signal transduction mechanisms of a cell. It is an active part of Glycine, Serine, Threonine Metabolism, Vitamin B6 Metabolism pathways. The PDB and Modebase 3D structure of Threonine synthase was not available; therefore homology model of Threonine synthase was constructed using MODELLER and model was validated using PROCHECK and Verify3D programs and SAVS and PROSA server to obtain a stable structure. The model was further explored for the molecular dynamics simulation study with GROMACS. Binding site was characterized by CASTp and PASS. Virtual screening of Threonine synthase was performed, against the NCI diversity subset II molecules (retrieved from ZINC database), through molecular docking studies using Autodock- vina. The Python scripts in MGL tools package were used to analyze the docking results. The top ten ligands were selected based on AutoDock energy score. Further the Complexes were analyzed for their interaction through LIGPLOT. On the basis of Complex scoring and binding ability it is deciphered that these top ten NCI diversity set II compounds could be promising inhibitors for T. gondii using, Threonine synthase as drug target, yet pharmacological studies have to confirm it.

The algorithm of the JPEG image compression based on DCT and IDCT was developed and implemented . The proposed algorithm can cope with the problem of impairing dependency of noised digital image. The result indicates that the algorithm is an effective way for grayscale image compression and the image rebuilt is acceptable. The practical experiments were done with MATLAB7.0. The algorithm doing experiments with MATLAB is simple and with little error, and it can improve the efficiency and precision of the image compression greatly.

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy is an inherited disorder that affects the muscle of the heart or the Myocardium. This condition results from a mutation to several genes that affects the production of cardiomyocytes proteins and therefore lead to an abnormal thickening and enlargement of the heart walls. That myocardial thickening induces rigidity and stiffness that reduces the heart efficiency of contractility and narrows the capacity of its cavities. Nonetheless it can cause an irreversible damage to the myocardial tissue producing a scar tissue that interferes with the heart electric activity and rhythm which may end with a life-threatening arrhythmia and death.

Static analysis means examining a program code and overcoming all possible errors that tend to occur at run-time. Static analysis tools are efficient in finding bugs and correction of defects that arise due to improper functioning of the code, before the actual execution of the code [10]. In recent times, technology has facilitated us with new tools that do deeper and more efficient code analysis and have a higher defect detection rate along with low fake warning ratio. This paper aims to deal with buffer overrun anomalies occurring in many areas of source code in Java.

Menstrual cycle is an integral part of women’s fertility period. Although having a minor pain during menstruation is normal, severe pain could not be considered normal. During years of adolescence and youth having severe menstruation pains is the main reason for absence of women from work and school, thus it is important to pay attention to its reasons and solutions for reducing it. The current research general aim is comparing the effect of 12-week Kegel exercises and stretching exercises on pain and quality of life of females aging 18 to 25 suffering from primary dysmenorrhea. In this research which was a quasi-experimental study, 60 individuals (20.21 years±1.85) from single girls of Bandar Abbas who visited clinics because of severe pain of menstruation from 2012 to 2013 were chosen through completing Evaluation Form of Primary Dysmenorrhea, Visual Analogue Scale (NRS) and McGill Pain Questionnaire and they were randomly divided in to two groups of experimental group (Kegel exercises and stretching exercises) and control group. Exercises were 12 weeks long, 3 sessions per week, 2 times a day and each time for 10 to 15 minutes, and also after 12 weeks again the McGill Pain Questionnaire was distributed among 3 groups. Analysis results of repeating the measurements showed that Kegel exercise and stretching exercise are effective on reducing the severity and duration of menstrual pain. Also results showed that the effect of Kegel exercises on reducing severity and duration of menstrual pain is more than the stretching exercises. Based on these results, Kegel exercise and stretching exercise result in reducing the severity and duration of pain of primary dysmenorrhea. Thus perhaps it is possible to use Kegel exercises and stretching exercises for treatment of primary dysmenorrhea.

In this paper, the synthesis of 2-alkenylthieno[3,2-b]thiophene by direct [Pd]-[Cu]-[Ag] catalyzed C-H activation of thieno[3,2-b]thiophene with various alkenes was described. The structures of products 3a-f as well as the site-selectivity of the Heck-type cross-coupling reaction were clarified by NMR and MS analyses.