Western Caspian University (Azerbaijani: Qərbi Kaspi Universiteti) is a private university in Baku, Azerbaijan. Founded in 1991 by Husein Baghirov, it has six schools, 25 majors, 180 faculty and approximately 1500 students. The university took its name because it is modeled after Western universities in style of instruction and values, the latter in response to some of the corrupt practices under the Soviet system. Much of the instruction is conducted in English.In the late 1990s, the school partnered with American universities, such as Indiana University, to help set up its programs in business and law. Many of its partnerships were formed through the now defunct United States Information Agency. Currently, the school has ties with Indiana University, University of Kansas, Mississippi Valley State University, University of North Alabama and Delta State University.
The assessment of the capacity to consent to treatment for mental disorders remains a complex and contentious area of medico-legal practice in psychiatry around the world. In Canada, the definitive jurisprudential authority on the topic is the Supreme Court of Canada's landmark 6–3 ruling in Starson v. Swayze (Starson). Starson involved the case of an individual with psychosis, and the Court's interpretation of the ‘appreciation’ branch of the treatment capacity standard set out in the province of Ontario's Health Care Consent Act. While the majority opinion and its dissent shared a view on the relevance of lack of insight in dislodging the treatment capacity assumed under law, their application of this standard to the facts laid out in Starson differed significantly. Here, we revisit Starson as a case study to highlight the relevance of phenomenology to the treatment capacity test. Specifically, we posit that delusions introduce a logical tension in the law, considering the functional test for capacity as outlined in the HCCA and interpreted in Starson. Delusions may be seen to render capacity for their treatment under the current law logically incoherent. This work is thought to be of interest to those practicing in the fields of mental health and law, and to policymakers and other stakeholders involved in crafting capacity threshold tests in Canada and abroad.
Extreme weather events (EWE) may elevate HIV risk across Sub-Saharan Africa by worsening resource insecurities, yet limited research has included adolescent girls and young women (AGYW). We examined associations between EWE exposure, resource insecurities, and HIV vulnerabilities among AGYW in Kenya. We conducted a community-based cross-sectional survey with a purposive sample of AGYW aged 16–24 in Nairobi and Kisumu. We used latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify resource insecurity profiles based on food, water, and sanitation access; multinomial logistic regression to assess associations between past-year EWE exposure and profile membership; and multivariable regression to assess associations between profile membership and HIV vulnerabilities (transactional sex, intimate partner violence [IPV], adolescent sexual and reproductive health stigma [ASRH-S], sexual relationship power [SRP]). LPA categorized participants (n = 597; mean age: 20.13 years) into three profiles: mild, moderate, and severe insecurity. Multiple EWE exposure (vs. 1 EWE) was associated with increased odds of moderate (2–4 EWEs: Adjusted Relative Risk Ratio [aRRR]: 1.71, 95
Computed Tomography (CT) is a widely used imaging modality that employs X-rays and computational reconstruction to visualize internal anatomy. Although higher radiation doses produce higher-quality images, they also increase long-term cancer risk, motivating the use of low-dose protocols. However, low-dose CT data inherently suffer from elevated Poisson-Gaussian noise, necessitating effective denoising strategies. In myocardial CT perfusion (CTP) imaging, this challenge is compounded by residual cardiac motion, which misaligns consecutive time points and impairs accurate estimation of perfusion maps for diagnosing coronary artery disease. Traditional approaches typically treat these two problems, noise and motion, separately, denoising the reconstructed images first or applying the registration first. Such serial pipelines often degrade clinically significant features; e.g., denoising may destroy structural details essential for registration, while motion correction can distort subtle intensity cues needed for noise modelling. To overcome these limitations, we propose a unified deep learning framework that performs noise suppression and motion correction jointly for low-dose myocardial CTP. The method integrates two complementary components through a parallel ensemble strategy: (i) a modified Fast and Flexible Denoising Network (FFDNet) that incorporates noise-level maps to mitigate blended noise effectively, and (ii) a CNN-based registration model, extended with Time Enhancement Curve (TEC) correction and 4D physiological consistency constraints to estimate temporally coherent and anatomically plausible motion fields. By combining their outputs without iterative dependencies, the proposed framework produces motion-corrected and denoised CTP sequences in a single unified processing step, thereby better preserving myocardial structure and perfusion dynamics than conventional serial pipelines. The model has been evaluated using both reference-based (MSE, PSNR, SSIM, PCC, Noise Variance, TRE) and no-reference (NIQE, FID, KID, AUC) image quality metrics, supplemented by expert human assessment. Results demonstrate that jointly learning noise characteristics and motion patterns enables restoration of low-dose CTP images while minimizing feature corruption, thereby advancing the clinical utility of low-dose myocardial CTP imaging.
Many mergers and acquisitions (M&As) fail, and an emerging body of literature highlights the role of prejudice in derailing the M&A process. While prejudice is frequently observed in M&As, strategies to mitigate these biases remain underexplored. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study focuses on Chinese acquisitions in the UK and examines how managers from both the acquired and acquiring organizations navigate prejudice through emotional sensemaking. The findings demonstrate that emotional sensemaking plays a critical role in shaping the post-acquisition integration (PAI) process and its outcomes. Specifically, sensemaking supported by emotional intelligence facilitates the accommodation or reduction of prejudice, while emotionally unintelligent sensemaking tends to reinforce it. By focusing on the dynamic, interactive emotional exchanges between managers at the micro level, this study offers a fresh lens on the integration process beyond traditional strategic or structural explanations. The study contributes to the literature by advancing the understanding of micro-level emotional sensemaking in the PAI, emphasizing the dynamic, interactive nature of emotional sensemaking between acquirer and acquiree managers, and its impact on the integration process and outcomes. (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (M&As) (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (prejudice) (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (emotional sensemaking) (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (post-acquisition integration, PAI) (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic): (sic)(sic)(sic) (emotional intelligence) (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).
Improving our understanding of the effects of nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (N-GQDs) on raisin quality and yield is essential for developing innovative approaches in viticulture. However, knowledge about how N-GQDs applications during grape development and ripening stages influence raisin characteristics remains limited. We investigated the effects of three repeated treatments of 0 (Control), 0.10 and 0.25 g L⁻¹ N-GQDs on bunch and berry characteristics of raisins produced using traditional drying techniques from two cultivars: cv. Ekşi Kara (traditional, sun-dried) and cv. Gök Üzüm (shade-dried after dipping in a hot dipping solution). Cultivar genotype and N-GQDs concentration significantly influenced all measured parameters (p ≤ 0.05). Treatments were evaluated by analysing cluster and berry size, berry volume, skin thickness, °Brix, pH, titratable acidity (TA), total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant activity (AA), color, pedicel separation force, skin deformation force, and raisin yield. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed that the first two principal components explained 62.4
