Knowledge Transfer and Use as Predictors of Law Firm Performance

There has been observed low practice of conscious knowledge management among Nigerian law firms and there is no evidence on how knowledge transfer and use predict their performance. Hence, this study examined knowledge transfer and use as predictors of Nigerian law firm performance. The study adopts descriptive survey research design and web-based questionnaire as instrument for data collection. There was total response of 205 from the survey. It was found that Nigerian lawyers transfer knowledge through platforms such as meetings, training, workshops/seminars and collaboration. Results show that Nigerian lawyers use knowledge to improve innovative thinking, enhance performance, maximize financial performance and improve client’s satisfaction. Results show that there is statistically significant relationship between knowledge transfer and law firm’s performance. Results show that knowledge transfer and use will significantly predict law firm’s performance. This study provides fresh insights that knowledge transfer and use are veritable mechanisms to improve law firms’ performance.

Dependence of the integral characteristics of a nematic light modulator on the physical parameters of a liquid crystal

In the present work, the effect of physical constants of an LC material on the integral characteristics of a modulator operating in a waveguide mode in an LC structure with a twist angle of 270 and antisymmetric boundary conditions in the working cell was studied using the method of computer simulation. It is shown that, under antisymmetric boundary conditions, the small value of the total response time of the LC modulator is due to the absence of a “backflow” in the LC cell and the role of only half of the LC working gap thickness in the dynamics of switching between two states in such a device. In addition, it was found that in order to simultaneously achieve high contrast ratios and a short total response time of the device, it is necessary to choose an LC material with a high value of its dielectric anisotropy. In this case, there is an optimal set of elasticity constants for the LC material, which simultaneously realizes a high contrast ratio and a short total response time of the modulator.

First Follow up Response Evaluation of Conventional vs Drug Eluting Bead Transarterial Chemo Embolization: A Comparative Study at Tertiary Care Radiology Centre, Rawalpindi

Objective: To compare treatment with drug eluting beads Transarterial Chemoembolization (DEB TACE) vsConventional Transarterial chemoembolization (cTACE) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients at firstfollow up.Study Design: Comparative Interventional Study.Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in the department of Radiology CMH Rawalpindiand Armed Forces Institute of Radiology and Imaging (AFIRI), Rawalpindi from July 2015 to May 2019.Materials and Methods: 254 patients were included in the study. Conventional TACE was done on 176 patientsand DEB TACE was done on 78 patients. All patients were called for follow up after 06 weeks. First responseevaluation of treated lesions in these patients was seen on triphasic CT liver after 06 weeks of TACE therapy.Results: On first follow up, out of 176 patients with cTACE, 'Total response' was seen in 90(51.1%) patients,'Partial response' in 76 patients (43.1%),'No response' in 04(2.27%) patients.' Progressive disease' was seen in06(3.4%) patients.DEB TACE was done in 78 patients. Out of these, 27 (34.6%) patients showed 'Total response'. 50(64.1%)patients showed 'Partial response', 'Progressive disease' was seen in one patient (.02%).Conclusion: The findings of this study have shown that c TACE has a better outcome regarding first responseevaluation. 'No response' to treatment was not seen in any patient with DEB TACE.

Role of Lateral Inhibition on Visual Number Sense

Lateral inhibition is a basic principle of information processing and widely exists in the human and animal nervous systems. Lateral inhibition is also involved in processing visual information because it travels through the retina, primary visual cortex, and visual nervous system. This finding suggests that lateral inhibition is associated with visual number sense in humans and animals. Here, we show a number-sensing neural network model based on lateral inhibition. The model can reproduce the size and distance effects of the output response of human and animal number-sensing neurons when the network connection weights are set randomly without adjustment. The number sense of the model disappears when lateral inhibition is removed. Our study shows that the first effect of lateral inhibition is to strengthen the linear correlation between the total response intensity of the input layer and the number of objects. The second one is to allow the output cells to prefer different numbers. Results indicate that lateral inhibition plays an indispensable role in untrained spontaneous number sense.

A Comparison of Motives by Gender and Age Categories for Training at Norwegian Fitness Centres

Examining participatory motives clarifies what engages and keeps individuals participating in exercise. The popularity of training at fitness centres has greatly increased over the last two decades, but individual determinants for motivation remain uncertain. This study compared motives between gender and age categories in training and performing physical activity at Norwegian fitness centres. To compare motives, a survey utilising a standardised questionnaire (MPAM-R) was conducted at six different Norwegian fitness centres. It was hypothesised that the intrinsic motive socialisation and extrinsic motive fitness would be more important among the older age categories for both genders, while the extrinsic motive appearance and intrinsic motive enjoyment would be more important among younger age groups. A total response of 183 men and 150 women, aged 14–80 years, was divided into seven categories based on their age and included in the statistical analysis. The main findings after conducting a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures, were that the most important motive for training at fitness centres was increasing fitness, followed by enjoyment, competence, vitality and appearance. The social motive was rated the lowest. Women rated fitness and enjoyment higher compared to men, and men rated the motive for appearance higher than women, but this decreased with age in both genders. With increasing age, the importance of enjoyment and competence decreased in men, while women seemed to place increased importance on vitality with age. The importance of the social motive decreased first as age increased, but then increased again in the age group 41–50 years and older. It was concluded that the motives for participating in exercise at fitness centres was dependent on individual characteristics and that motives about training at fitness centres differed by gender and changed with age.

A collaborative approach for national cybersecurity incident management

Purpose Collaborative-based national cybersecurity incident management benefits from the huge size of incident information, large-scale information security devices and aggregation of security skills. However, no existing collaborative approach has been able to cater for multiple regulators, divergent incident views and incident reputation trust issues that national cybersecurity incident management presents. This paper aims to propose a collaborative approach to handle these issues cost-effectively. Design/methodology/approach A collaborative-based national cybersecurity incident management architecture based on ITU-T X.1056 security incident management framework is proposed. It is composed of the cooperative regulatory unit with cooperative and third-party management strategies and an execution unit, with incident handling and response strategies. Novel collaborative incident prioritization and mitigation planning models that are fit for incident handling in national cybersecurity incident management are proposed. Findings Use case depicting how the collaborative-based national cybersecurity incident management would function within a typical information and communication technology ecosystem is illustrated. The proposed collaborative approach is evaluated based on the performances of an experimental cyber-incident management system against two multistage attack scenarios. The results show that the proposed approach is more reliable compared to the existing ones based on descriptive statistics. Originality/value The approach produces better incident impact scores and rankings than standard tools. The approach reduces the total response costs by 8.33% and false positive rate by 97.20% for the first attack scenario, while it reduces the total response costs by 26.67% and false positive rate by 78.83% for the second attack scenario.

Factors on survival for patients of EGFR mutation advanced lung adenocarcinoma with EGFR-TKIs combined with radiotherapy: Real-world data from single center.

e21126 Background: The aim was to retrospectively evaluate survival and prognostic factors for patients of advanced lung adenocarcinoma with EGFR mutation by a real world data. Methods: From Jan, 2015 to Dec, 2020, lung adenocarcinoma with EGFR positive mutation, advanced (clinical stage III-IV), without surgery, received EGFR-TKIs and radiotherapy (RT) were enrolled. OS and PFS were calculated. Results: 238 patients were included, 101 in males and 137 in females; the median ages was 61. The RT was performed at the time of no-PD in 71 and PD in 167 cases. The median dose of RT was 50 Gy. The rate of acute AE during RT was 36.1% in grade 1-2 and 4.8% in grade 3-4. The follow-up ended at 30, Dec, 2020. The 1-, 2-, 3-years OS,PFS1and PFS2 were 84.4%,59.7%, 38.7%, 52.0%,29.4%, 16.3%, 86.6%, 64.6%, 45.6%. mOS, mPFS1and mPFS2 were 30.3, 14.1, 33.6 months, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed the independent factors for OS were ages (median were 34.0 and 24.9 months for ≤65 and > 65) and clinical stage (median were 22.8, 34.8 and 27.4 months for stage III (33), IVA (84) and IVB (121 cases), respectively), chemotherapy (CT) (median were 27.4, 28.1, 32.5, 44.3 months for TKIs alone(120), TKIs concurrent CT (43), TKIs sequential CT (32), CT sequential TKIs (43 cases), respectively) and total response (the medians were 32.5, 27.2, 33.3 months for CR(7)+PR(107), SD(70) and PD(54 cases), respectively); Independent factors: PFS1 was the time of RT at no-PD and PD (the median were 17.8 and13.2 months), chemotherapy, (the median were 16.1, 12.1, 11.0, 13.5 for TKIs alone, TKIs concurrent CT, TKIs sequential CT, CT sequential TKIs), and total response (the medians were 18.8, 11.7, 10.9 months for CR+PR, SD and PD); PFS2 was the total response (the medians were 58.3, 21.6, 20.9 months for CR+PR, SD and PD, respectively). Univariate analysis also showed doses of RT (the median was 12.3 months for < 50 Gy and 15.5 months for ≥ 50 Gy, p = 0.018) was associated with PFS1, the first-line drugs of TKIs (the median were 39.1, 35.0, 25.6 and 38.6 months for Gefitinib (89), Icotinib (109), Erlotinib (29) and others (11 cases), respectively, p = 0.044) and chemotherapy (the medians were 45.6, 30.6, 18.7, 41.4 months for TKIs alone, TKIs concurrent CT, TKIs sequential CT, CT sequential TKIs, respectively, p = 0.007) were related with PFS2; but the type of EGFR mutation (94 in 19 exon, 118 in 21 exon and 26 cases in others) was not related with survival. Conclusions: EGFR-TKIs combined RT was tolerable and efficient for patients of advanced lung adenocarcinoma with EGFR mutation. TKIs add RT at the time of no-PD could improve PFS1. CT sequential TKIs was probably in favour of OS, even PFS. The better total response (CR+PR) was associated with longer OS, PFS1 and PFS2. But the result need to be proved furtherly.