Malaysia will be an ageing population by 2030 as the number of those aged 60 years and above has increased drastically from 6.2 percent in 2000 and is expected to reach 13.6 percent by 2030. There are many challenges that will be faced due to the ageing population, one of which is the increasing cost of pensions in the future. In view of that, it is necessary to investigate the effect of actuarial assumptions on pension liabilities under the perspective of ageing. To estimate the pension liabilities, the Projected Unit Credit method is used in the study and commutation functions are employed in the process. Demographic risk and salary risk have been identified as major risks in analyzing pension liabilities in this study. The sensitivity analyses will be conducted in the study to investigate how the pension liabilities will be affected when these major risks changes. This study analyzes nine scenarios under assumptions in the actuarial model, namely age of retirement, rate of mortality and rate of salary growth. The result of this study indicates that the implied mortality experience and salary growth rate assumptions have a significant impact on pension liabilities.
Background: There is a clear debate about the role of bad oral habits (thumb-sucking and biting nails) and on oral health and the state of the dental caries, but there is no doubt that continuing these bad habits until advanced ages will lead to deep and difficult problems to solve. Objective: The purpose of study was to evaluate the effect of bad habits, include finger sucking and nail biting on dental caries among children aged from 6 to 10 years old. Subjects and methods: In Al-Hilla city, Iraq, a comparative study was conducted in which (200) primary school students aged between 6 to10 years old were involved. A questionnaire filled out by their parents was used to gather information related to the bad oral habit, and then all the stude
... Show MorePhytophagous stink bugs (Hemiptera, Pentatomidae) are economically important insect pests of fruit, vegetable, nut and field crops. This study was carried out during the season of 2013 in orchards within Erbil city, to follow the stink bug Mustha spinulosa (Lefebvre, 1831) seasonal fluctuation on some fruit trees: olive, plum, apricot, pear, apple and almond.
The stink bug reaches its maximum abundance throughout the second week of August (38.2/tree) coinciding with mean temperature and relative humidity of 33.40C and 28.14% respectively, and the highest total mean of the number of the insect was recorded on the olive trees (181.8/tree). The study reveals that the stink bug attacked 22 trees (fruit and forest) while it has not atta
Nowadays nanoparticles have widespread application in various industriesbecause of their special and unique features, there are many studies in sideeffects of nanomaterial. This study done by 40 white female mice withevery other day intraperitoneally injection of low and high doses of both ofZnO kg of body weight) and FeOnanoparticles (5 and 40 mg/kg). After a 15 days period, the mice weresacrificed and blood samples were collected for hormone analysis, andtissue samples for morphometric studies.Statistical Analysis shows significant differences in LH, Estrogen,Progesterone hormone levels between groups, while there are insignificantdifferences in Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) level between thegroups compared with its level in
... Show MoreThis study aimed to determine the effects of age, gender, and allergen type on serum immunoglobulin E (IgE) levels in asthma (AS) and allergic rhinitis (AR) patients. Sixty AS patients, 52 AR patients, and 61 controls were enrolled in the study. Sera of participants were assessed for total IgE level and specific IgE antibody against four allergen types (animal dander, grasses, mites, and molds). The results revealed that median level of total IgE was significantly increased in AS (218.9 IU/mL; p-value < 0.001) and AR (244.3 IU/mL; p-value < 0.001) patients compared to controls (167.1 IU/mL), while, there was no significant difference between AS and AR patients (p-value = 0.270). Logistic regression
... Show MoreSurface water samples from different locations within Tigris River's boundaries in Baghdad city have been analyzed for drinking purposes. Correlation coefficients among different parameters were determined. An attempt has been made to develop linear regression equations to predict the concentration of water quality constituents having significant correlation coefficients with electrical conductivity (EC). This study aims to find five regression models produced and validated using electrical conductivity as a predictor to predict total hardness (TH), calcium (Ca), chloride (Cl), sulfate (SO4), and total dissolved solids (TDS). The five models showed good/excellent prediction ability of the parameters mentioned
... Show MoreUsing orbit- motion limited theory, as the exact theory in calculating the ion and electron current in dusty plasma, the variations of charge number on a dust grain in Ar-plasma are studied by changing various charging parameters. Most of dependences of charge number on plasma parameters in this paper take into account the close packed effect.
Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (ESWL) is considered a standard treatment for nephrolith or kidney stones measuring less than 20 mm. Anatomical, machine-related, and stone factors play pivotal roles in treatment outcomes, the latter being the leading role. This paper examined the relationship between stone density on native CT scans and ESWL treatment to remove renal stones concerning several treatments. One hundred and twenty patients (64 males and 56 females) were enrolled and completed the study from April 2019 to September 2020. Inclusion criteria were a single renal pelvis stone of 5–20 mm to be treated for the first time in adult patients with no urinary or musculoskeletal anatomical abnormalities. We assessed patients
... Show MoreThe scientific and technological developments and their practical applications in all fields of life in general and in the education field in specific have led to the emergence of variables in the educational structure, teaching methods and in education in their modern form which is consistent in its entirety with the spirit of the age. We today live the age of knowledge increase full of wide ranging scientific and technological developments. Thus life demands human capabilities of a special kind able to develop and innovate. Here the increasing significance emerges for taking care of the human powers through educational systems much different from those current traditional systems. System
... Show MoreThis paper deals with the modeling of a preventive maintenance strategy applied to a single-unit system subject to random failures.
According to this policy, the system is subjected to imperfect periodic preventive maintenance restoring it to ‘as good as new’ with probability
p and leaving it at state ‘as bad as old’ with probability q. Imperfect repairs are performed following failures occurring between consecutive
preventive maintenance actions, i.e the times between failures follow a decreasing quasi-renewal process with parameter a. Considering the
average durations of the preventive and corrective maintenance actions a
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