Five types of methods are used for assessing the extent of hunger and malnutrition, each having different applications and comparative advantages in terms of uses for advocacy, policy analysis and decisions, and research. Three of these, the FAO method, household income and expenditure surveys (HIES) and food intake surveys (FIS), estimate dietary intake and try to relate this to energy needs, of which physical activity is the largest single component yet the least measurable. The fourth assesses perceptions of hunger and behavioural response (qualitative methods), and the fifth measures physical effects on growth and thinness (anthropometry). Not only is there no absolute measure (or "gold standard"), but these methods assess different aspects of hunger and dimensions of its effects on health, suffering, behaviour and economics. None the less, triangulating on trends in "hunger" is a reasonable goal and is the underlying intent of the internationally agreed upon obligation to accelerate the reduction in the numbers of people affected.
The latest statistics shows that cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in the United States. However, advances in nanotechnology and its applications in biomedical science and engineering over the past two decades have enabled numerous innovative and more effective cancer diagnosis and treatment modalities. Treatment by traditional surgical resection procedures are a surgeon’s standard approach for removal of well-defined primary tumors in non-vital regions. This technique is extremely invasive and usually associated with high morbidity. In contrast, thermal therapies employing a variety of heat sources including laser, focused ultrasound, and microwaves have benefits over conventional cancer treatment alternatives. These treatment therapies are minimally invasive and can provide an alternative option to treat solid tumors embedded in vital regions.
Technological advancements, such as actively cooled applicators and high power diode lasers, have made laser-induced thermal therapy more efficient, economical and safer than other thermal therapeutic modalities. Some advantages include that laser-induced thermal therapy can be used to treat tumors faster than other modalities and have more control over perfusion effects. Additionally, lasers do not require a complicated setup that involves grounding pads and can be incorporated safely into any imaging environment, including MRI, with minimal induced image artifacts. The interaction between multiple probes for treating larger tumors faster is synergistic and fully compatible with MRI for online monitoring.
Recent surveys of major thrifts and mortgage bankers (see, for example, Inside Mortgage Finance) indicate that, while there are many different indices underlying adjustable rate mortgages in the U.S., four indices dominate the market:
The results of the Ott [18] ARM duration study, and numerous recent studies of the time series properties of EDCOFI, suggest that only the first of these indices adjusts instantaneously to changes in contemporaneous Treasury rates. The others adjust with a lag. Ott [18] uses a classical duration approach to show that this lag can have a significant impact on the interest rate sensitivity of ARMs. However, without explicitly modeling term structure dynamics, he cannot address the impact of mortgage prepayment, or additional common contract features such as interest rate caps. On the other hand, most recent ARM valuation models, using a contingent claims approach with a richer specification of interest rate dynamics, can analyze the impact of interest rate caps and prepayment, but they ignore the lag in the adjustment of the ARM coupon to the contemporaneous term structure (see, for example, Kau et al. [10], Schwartz and Torous [23], and McConnell and Singh [13]). No previous study simultaneously analyzes the interacting effects of both the time series properties of the index and prepayment/interest rate caps on the interest rate risk of ARMs.
