Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contribution among Antitrust Defendants: A Legal and Economic Analysis

F INTRODUCTION OR purposes of remedy, a private damages action under the federal antitrust laws is a tort action. Accordingly, when defendants are found to have conspired to fix prices, or to have engaged in other unlawful joint action, they are joint tortfeasors. At common law there was no contribution among joint tortfeasors. This meant that the plaintiff could proceed against a single wrongdoer, leaving the others to pay nothing. If he obtained a judgment against several wrongdoers, he could elect how much to collect from each one; a defendant who paid more than an equal or "fair" share of the judgment.had no recourse against either the plaintiff or the favored defendants. The common law rule was especially well established in the case of intentional tortfeasors, and although the rule has been modified by statute (and occasionally by judicial decision) in most states, intentional tortfeasors usually are excepted from the modification and thus have no right to contribution. Lately the application of the no-contribution rule to federal antitrust cases has been sharply challenged. The circuits have split on the question, and there is a movement in Congress to provide explicitly for a right of contribution in price-fixing cases. This article uses economics to analyze whether contribution would retard or advance the deterrent and compensatory objectives of antitrust law and encourage or discourage the settlement of antitrust suits. Part II is the economic analysis. Much of our analysis concerns the effects of contribution and no-contribution rules on settlement, because the strongest challenge to the traditional approach is its allegedly unfair effect on nonsettling defendants. Our analysis of the effect of different approaches to contribu-
Abnormal DNA methylation of the Oct‐4 enhancer region in cloned mouse embryos

Oct‐4 is essential for normal embryonic development, and abnormal Oct‐4 expression in cloned embryos contributes to cloning inefficiency. However, the causes of abnormal Oct‐4 expression in cloned embryos are not well understood. As DNA methylation in regulatory regions is known to control transcriptional activity, we investigated the methylation status of three transcriptional regulatory regions of the Oct‐4 gene in cloned mouse embryos—the distal enhancer (DE), the proximal enhancer (PE), and the promoter regions. We also investigated the level of Oct‐4 gene expression in cloned embryos. Immunochemistry revealed that 85% of cloned blastocysts expressed Oct‐4 in both trophectoderm and inner cell mass cells. DNA methylation analysis revealed that the PE region methylation was greater in cloned morulae than in normal morulae. However, the same region was less methylated in cloned blastocysts than in normal blastocysts. We found abnormal expression of de novo methyltransferase 3b in cloned blastocysts. These results indicate that cloned embryos have aberrant DNA methylation in the CpG sites of the PE region of Oct‐4, and this may contribute directly to abnormal expression of this gene in cloned embryos. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 76: 342–350, 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Housing Market and Current Account Imbalances in the International Economy

This paper presents a two-sector, two-country model showing that inflation in the housing market, a low personal savings rate, and a construction investment boom can contribute to a large current account deficit. In the model, demand by a group of households in the domestic country is constrained by the availability of collateral. This implies more procyclical debt capacity because constrained households can borrow against the increase in the value of their houses during an expansion. A higher degree of financial liberalization and development helps constrained households reach higher loan-to-value ratios, thus relaxing their borrowing constraints. The resulting higher net worth and lower need for savings imply a worsening current account.
Use of Internet and Electronic Resources for Medical Science Information: A Case Study

AbstractThe internet is also making substantial inroads in patient care and dissemination of health care information. It is changing the way health sciences professionals obtain information. They use the internet and electronic resources to do things like accessing medical records, providing remote patient care through telemedicine facilities, and accessing health care literature. Medicine is among many other sciences, an area in which the expansion of information is enormous and which is critically dependent on up to date information. These factors have influenced the implementation of problem based learning approach in the medical education. Numerous search tools are available to locate appropriate sources and without these search tools, the chance of finding relevant information on the Web would be slim. Even with the help of search tools, users must be able to sophisticated searching techniques and strategies of respective search tools in order to find relevant information. Results of the present stud.
Assessment of Medical Tourism Development in Korea for the Achievement of Competitive Advantages

Medical tourism is a rapidly growing industry in which people travel to other countries to receive medical treatments. In 2010, Korea attracted 81,789 foreign medical tourists who spent approximately US$100 million. The aims of this study are to analyze general trends in the medical tourism market, identify problems, or obstacles that affect the development of medical tourism in Korea, provide solutions to overcome these obstacles, and propose better policies. This study employed qualitative research methods, including content analysis of written publications and in-depth interviews. According to the results of the analysis of Korean medical tourism, the weaknesses of the system include insufficient promotion, the lack of a centralized administrative support system, the absence of differentiation strategies with respect to competing nations, an insufficient number of medical tourism professionals, and an inadequate legal system. In addition, this study identified threats that include competition from other countries offering medical tourism, the emergence of new competitors in East Asia, unexpected global crises, and international antagonism against Korea. This article discusses solutions addressing these weaknesses and threats and presents strategies that Korea can adopt to become one of the premier destinations for medical tourism.
Role of Respiratory Nitrate Reductase in Ability ofPseudomonas fluorescens YT101 To Colonize the Rhizosphere of Maize

ABSTRACT Selection of the denitrifying community by plant roots (i.e., increase in the denitrifier/total heterotroph ratio in the rhizosphere) has been reported by several authors. However, very few studies to evaluate the role of the denitrifying function itself in the selection of microorganisms in the rhizosphere have been performed. In the present study, we compared the rhizosphere survival of the denitrifyingPseudomonas fluorescens YT101 strain with that of its isogenic mutant deficient in the ability to synthesize the respiratory nitrate reductase, coinoculated in nonplanted or planted soil. We demonstrated that under nonlimiting nitrate conditions, the denitrifying wild-type strain had an advantage in the ability to colonize the rhizosphere of maize. Investigations of the effect of the inoculum characteristics (density of the total inoculum and relative proportions of mutant and wild-type strains) on the outcome of the selection demonstrated that the selective effect of the plant was expressed only during the phase of bacterial multiplication and that the intensity of selection was dependent on the magnitude of this phase. Moreover, application of the de Wit replacement series technique to our results suggests that the advantage of the wild-type strain was maximal when the ratio between the two strains in the inoculum was close to 1:1. This work constitutes the first direct demonstration that the presence of a functional structural gene encoding the respiratory nitrate reductase confers higher rhizosphere competence to a microorganism.
Skin potentials (SP) recorded from the extremities and genital regions in normal and impotent subjects

Abstract Skin potentials (SP) were evoked by peripheral nerve stimulation from the hands and feet of 41 and from the genital skin of 28 male, controls. The same methods were also applied in 10 functionally impotent cases, 32 diabetic impotent and 8 diabetic normopotent cases. The SP was easily obtained from all 3 sites in all normal subjects and in 10 functionally impotent cases. The SP recorded from the genital skin was either absent or abnormal in 53% of diabetic impotent cases with or without polyneuropathy, while the incidence of abnormalities encountered in the hand and/or foot recordings was 28%. In 8 diabetic normopotent cases the SP recorded from the genital and extremity skin were completely normal. SP recorded from the genital skin is a useful method of evaluating the autonomic‐sympathetic dysfunction causing impotence, especially in patients who may have autonomic disorders either located in lumbosacral spinal cord and its efferents, or generalized autonomic‐peripheral dysfunction.
Discount Brokerage in Residential Real Estate Markets

Transaction costs are thought to affect asset prices and market liquidity, but the direction and magnitude of these effects continue to be the subject of debate. In the single‐family residential market, discount brokers offer to list a house for a lower price and thus reduce the transaction costs associated with obtaining a match. In this article we obtain empirical estimates of the price and liquidity impact of a seller selecting a discount broker to market a single‐family residential property. The unique data set allows for the identification of residential properties that were listed by a discount brokerage firm. The empirical results confirm the predictions of our theoretical model. Using a sample of 318,221 listings and 243,625 sales, we find that houses listed by discount brokers sell at prices similar to non‐discount brokerage listings, but are less likely to sell, and when they do sell, take approximately three days longer to sell. The results indicate that lower transaction costs do not impact housing prices in this market, but that they are related to asset liquidity.
Periodic Pricing of Seasonal Products in Retailing

This paper studies intertemporal pricing policies when selling seasonal products in retail stores. We first present a continuous time model where a seller faces a stochastic arrival of customers with different valuations of the product. For this model, we characterize the optimal pricing policies as functions of time and inventory. We use this model as a benchmark against which we compare more realistic models that consider periodic pricing reviews. We show that the structure of the optimal pricing policies in this case is consistent with the procedures observed in practice; retail stores successively discount the product during the season and promote a liquidation sale at the end of the planning horizon. We also show that the loss experienced when implementing periodic pricing reviews instead of continuous policies is small when the appropriate number of reviews is chosen. Several interesting economic insights emerge from our analysis. For example, uncertainty in the demand for new products leads to higher prices, larger discounts, and more unsold inventory. Finally, we study the effect of announced discount policies on prices and profits. We show that stores that have adopted this type of strategy usually set prices such that with high probability the merchandise is sold during the first periods and the largest discounts rarely take place.
Cost of Capital Estimation and Capital Budgeting Practice in Australia

We use a sample survey to analyse the capital-budgeting practices of Australian listed companies. We find that NPV, IRR and Payback are the most popular evaluation techniques. Real options techniques have gained a toehold in capital budgeting but are not yet part of the mainstream. Discounting is typically by the weighted average cost of capital, assumed constant for the life of the project, and with the same discount rate across divisions. The WACC is usually based on target weights for debt and equity. The CAPM is widely used, while other asset pricing models are not. The discount rate is reviewed regularly and is updated as conditions change. In most companies, project analysis takes no account of the value of imputation tax credits. Australian corporate practice is generally consistent with the practice of Australian price regulators, except that regulators take into account the value of imputation tax credits when computing the cost of capital.
Acute bilateral cerebellar infarcts in the territory of posterior inferior cerebellar artery

Article abstract The authors report 12 patients with acute bilateral cerebellar infarcts in posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) territory. They found three topographic patterns: A) bilateral medial PICA in six patients; B) unilateral whole + contralateral medial PICA in four; and C) bilateral small multiple in two. Nine patients in Groups A and B had unilateral PICA or vertebral artery disease, and both patients in Group C had bilateral vertebral artery disease. These findings support that unilateral supply to both medial PICA territories may be the most relevant pathogenesis of this syndrome.
Financial Structure and Economic Development

The study of national financial systems was not one of Professor Paul Baran's preoccupations. Nevertheless, he did take a strong position on some financial matters, including, for example, the hazards of inflation for capitalism and the disutility of capitalist financial institutions for socialism. While these were, for him, marginal interests, we would nevertheless like to offer this essay in his memory.
Discrete Choice in Continuous Time: Implications of an Intertemporal Version of the IIA Property

This paper proposes a particular behavioral axiom to characterize the stochastic structure of static discrete choice models with serially correlated utilities. This assumption extends Luce's axiom; "Independence from Irrelevant Alternatives", to the intertemporal setting. Under general regularity conditions the implication of this assumption is that the individual choice process is a Markov chain with transition probabilities that have a particularly simple structure. It is also discussed how the framework can be extended to deal with structural state dependence.
Ulnar Neuropathy: Incidence, Outcome, and Risk Factors in Sedated or Anesthetized Patients

Background:Ulnar neuropathy is well-recognized as a potential complication of procedures performed on anesthetized patients. However, reported outcomes and risk factors for this problem are based on small series and anecdotes. Methods:We retrospectively reviewed the perioperative courses of 1,129,692 consecutive patients who underwent diagnostic and noncardiac surgical procedures with concurrent anesthetic management at the Mayo Clinic from 1957 through 1991 (inclusive). The medical diagnoses of patients who had these procedures were scanned for 26 diagnoses associated with neuropathy. Persistent neuropathy of an ulnar nerve was defined as a sensory or motor deficit of greater than 3 months' duration. Risk factors anecdotally associated with persistent neuropathy were analyzed by comparing patients with an ulnar neuropathy with control subjects in a 1:3 case-control study. Results:Persistent ulnar neuropathies were identified in 4l4 patients, a rate of 1 per 2,729 patients. Of these, 38 (9%) patients had bilateral neuropathies. Approximately equal numbers of the neuropathies included sensory loss only or mixed sensory and motor loss. Initial symptoms for most neuropathies were noted more than 24 h after the procedure. Factors associated with persistent ulnar neuropathy included male gender and a duration of hospitalization of more than 14 days (P < 0.01). Neuropathy was more likely to develop in very thin and obese patients than in patients with average body habitus. Neither the type of anesthetic technique nor the patient position was found to be associated with this neuropathy. Of the 382 patients who survived the 1st postoperative yr, 53% regained complete motor function and sensation and were asymptomatic. Of those with neuropathies persisting for more than 1 yr, most had moderate or greater disability from pain or weakness. Conclusions:These data suggest that perioperative ulnar neuropathies are associated with factors other than general anesthesia and intraoperatlve positioning. Men at the extremes of body habitus who have prolonged hospitalizations are particularly susceptible to development of ulnar neuropathies.
Dual-Mode Microring Reflection Filters

New high-order microring filter architectures based on the coupling between counterpropagating modes in the microring resonators are proposed and analyzed. The dual-mode nature of the resonators is exploited to maximize the spectral response order, thereby enabling novel reflection filters to be realized with a superior performance than conventional single-mode microring filters in terms of flat passband and steep skirt rolloff. Filter topologies for two general classes of devices, the serial and parallel reflection filters, will be presented along with general techniques for synthesizing their spectral responses. It is shown that a serial reflection filter consisting of N microring resonators can realize a filter response order of up to 2(N - 1), while the parallel reflection type can be used to realize ldquosuperflatrdquo filters, which exhibit a much flatter bandpass response than conventional maximally flat filters having the same number of cavities.
Labor Market Segmentation and the Union Wage Premium

Studies of the earnings of union workers have consistently shown that they earn considerably more than nonunion workers. This paper considers whether part of this observed union/nonunion differential is due to unions organizing high paying primary sector jobs. We extend our earlier work on the dual labor market in which we used an unknown regime switching regression to identify two labor market sectors --a high wage primary sector and a low wage secondary sector. Here we estimate a model where worker's wages are determined by one of three wage equations: a union wage equation, a nonunion primary equation or a nonunion secondary equation. If individuals are in the union sector their sector is treated as known. If they are not then their sector is treated as unknown. Parameter estimates for this model suggest that union/nonunion differences are very large for average workers even when comparing union and nonunion primary workers. We continue to find distinct primary and secondary sectors with wage equations similar to those that would be expected from the dual market perspective. Since it appears that union workers may be receiving large wage premiums it seems likely that there is non-price rationing of union jobs. If there is, our finding inprevious papers of non-price rationing of primary sector jobs may have been due only to the rationing of union jobs. We test for the existence of non-price rationing of nonunion primary sector employment in this three sector model and continue to find evidence that at least black workers find it difficult to secure primary sector employment.
The effectiveness of management accounting systems: Evidence from functional managers in a developing country

Purpose - This study aims to examine the availability and effectiveness of management accounting systems (MAS) for functional managers located in an African developing country (Mauritius). Design/methodology/approach - Based on the MAS dimensions defined by Chenhall and Morris, a contingency-based “intervening” model is proposed whereby available MAS play a significant intervening role between task uncertainty (TU) and decentralization (DEC) on managerial performance. Using survey data from production and marketing managers in manufacturing companies and regression-path analysis, the MAS dimensions (scope, aggregation, integration, and timeliness) are collectively analyzed in relation to the situational variables and managerial performance. Findings - A significant positive relationship was observed between all MAS characteristics and managerial performance. However, only DEC proved to be a contextual variable of interest, in that DEC policies appear effective only via the availability of broader scope, timely, highly aggregated and highly integrated MAS. The absence of findings for TU is suggestive of an “uncertainty paradox,” previously referred to in the literature, and is indicative of the need to re-consider TU as an element of “technology” rather than “uncertainty. ” Research limitations/implications - This study focused only on manufacturing companies and its findings may not be applicable to other organizational contexts, e.g. service enterprises. Originality/value - This study focuses on actual availability of MAS as perceived by users in manufacturing companies rather than on studies which rely on accountants' perceptions, on hypothetical “usefulness” perceptions of MAS or on the sole use of the scope dimension.
More Evidence on the Effect of Higher Unemployment on the Canadian Size Distribution of Income

This paper provides evidence that cyclical unemployment is associated with increased income inequality in Canada. The empirical results reinforce the recent findings of Erksoy (1981-1987). Erksoy used a dynamic micro-simulation to model the period from 1981 to 1987. In contrast to his work, my paper takes a macroeconomic perspective and uses an income share model. I examine the period from 1981 to 1992 using data from the "Survey of Consumer Finances. " It is striking that two such different approaches reach the same conclusion.
REDUCTION IN INFORMATION ASYMMETRY AND CREDIT ACCESS FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES

type="main" xml:lang="en"> We examine the relation between the quality, quantity, completeness, and timeliness of the information loan managers obtain from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the amount of short-term credit provided to them by looking at 828 loan–manager–SME relationships in Italy. The result suggests that a reduction in information asymmetry is associated with a greater amount of credit. Moreover, the reduction in information asymmetry has a relevant economic impact on the amount of short-term credit obtained: the amount of credit provided increases by 12% when asymmetry reduces by one notch. Our results are robust to alternative specifications and to endogeneity.
Research Strategy in the Study of Memory: Fads, Fallacies, and the Search for the “Coordinates of Truth”

This article presents an evaluation of research strategy in the psychology of memory. To the extent that a strategy can be discerned, it appears less than optimal in several respects. It relates only weakly to subjective experience, it does not clearly differentiate between structure and strategy, and it is oriented more toward remembering which words were in a list than to the diverse functions that memory serves. This last limitation fosters assumptions about memory that are false: that encoding and retrieval are distinct modes of operation; that the effects of repetition, duration, and recency are interchangeable; and that memory is ahistorical. Theories that parsimoniously explain data from single tasks will never generalize to memory as a whole because their core assumptions are too limited. Instead, memory theory should be based on a broad variety of evidence. Using findings from several memory tasks and observations of everyday memory, I suggest some ways in which involuntary reminding plays a central role in cognition. The evolutionary purpose of memory may have been the construction and maintenance—through reminding—of a spatio-temporal model of the environment. I conclude by recommending ways in which efficiency of the field’s research strategy might be improved.