Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Capecitabine as third line therapy in patients with advanced colorectal cancer1

This study sought to determine whether third line therapy with capecitabine (cap.) could provide any clinical benefit in patients with advanced colorectal cancer who have progressed on 5-Fu combination therapy with both irinotecan and oxaliplatin. Twenty patients who were pretreated with and had progressed on irinotecan+Nordic FLv (5-Fu/leukovorin) and oxaliplatin+c.i. 5-Fu/leukovorin were studied. Cap. was administered at 1000–1250 mg/m2 bid d1-14 q 3 w. Time to progression (TTP) (either radiological or clinical) and overall survival (OS) were estimated with the Kaplan-Meier actuarial method. The median number of administered cap. courses was four. No radiological or biochemical responses were observed. Three patients were classified as having stable disease at three months. Two of these patients had, however, minor radiological progression and a ≥100% increase in CEA compared to base line. Seventeen patients were classified as having progressive disease during the first three months period. Median TTP and OS were 2.8 months and 6.1 months, respectively. A response rate of ≥15% for third line cap. in metastatic CRC can be ruled out. Median PFS was limited in the study population. This observation and the few cases with SD at three months, lead us to believe that little or no clinical benefit can be expected from single drug cap. in patients with irinotecan- and oxaliplatin-combination resistant advanced colorectal cancer.
Antitrust and the Economics of Federalism

THERE is an uneasy coexistence between federal antitrust laws and state regulatory regimes. Regulation displaces competition. Displacement is the purpose, indeed the definition, of regulation. Limitations on the number of taxicabs, licensing of barbers and dentists, health and safety codes, zoning laws, and price supports for milk depend on a belief that competitive markets should be replaced with something else. Sometimes legislation may be justified as necessary to correct "imperfections" in markets, but in most cases legislation is designed to defeat the market altogether. Although state and local legislatures may say that their schemes are better than the markets they replace, many scholars believe, and much evidence shows, that regulatory laws owe more to interest group politics than to legislators' concern for the welfare of society at large. ' The state and local laws reduce allocative efficiency and
International Competitiveness of the Antebellum American Cotton Textile Industry

Although the American cotton textile industry was heavily protected, most commentators, following Frank Taussig's lead, have concluded that indigenous technological advance made large branches of the industry internationally competitive by the 1830s. The prices of equivalent fabrics in Britain and America in the late 1840s and 1850s challenge that conclusion. “Domestic” fabrics, in which American mills had supposedly become competitive, cost 20 percent more in America. Critical reexamination of other evidence—cost comparisons from the 1830s and American exports—supports the conclusion that an unprotected American industry could not have competed.
Cell-free released components of Streptococcus sanguis inhibit human platelet aggregation

To study the role of surface components in the selective binding and aggregation of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) by strains of viridans streptococci, we treated the binding, aggregation strain Streptococcus sanguis I 2017-78 by sonication or trypsinization. Morphologically identifiable electron-dense fibrils were released from the cell wall, apparently from an inner electron-dense layer, under conditions that left cells intact. These controlled conditions were determined to cause submaximal loss in adhesion to platelet ghosts and PRP aggregation by treated, washed S. sanguis. Soluble components were recovered from the controlled sonic or L-(tosylamido 2-phenyl)ethyl chloromethyl ketone-trypsin treatments. Each showed dose-response inhibition of aggregation when preincubated with PRP before challenge with fresh, untreated S. sanguis. The time to onset of PRP aggregation was inhibited by 50% with 0.2 mg of TPCK-trypsin peptides or 1.0 mg of the sonicate per ml per 2 X 10(8) platelets. Components of both preparations were immunologically cross-reactive, but lipoteichoic acid was not a major antigen of either. By weight, the TPCK-trypsin peptides were virtually all protein; the sonicate residues identified were about 50% protein and 7% hexose. Each was a complex mixture of components as shown by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. More than 8 TPCK-trypsin peptides and 16 sonicate components were so identified. In contrast, at least four or five components from either preparation were recognized as surface determinants by a rabbit antiserum to whole homologous microbes. Platelet-binding ligands of S. sanguis could be among these determinants.
The Influence of Monetary and Fiscal Policies on the Capital Market: A Vector Autoregressive (VAR) Model

The study investigates the influence of the Jordanian monetary and fiscal policies on Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) performance using the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) approach. Market capitalization (MC), money supply (M1), and government expenditure (GE) were used as proxies for ASE performance, monetary policy, and fiscal policy, respectively. The analysis was undertaken with annual data spanning over twenty-seven years in logarithms form 1978 till 2004. Moreover, Dickey-Fuller and Johansen Cointegartion tests have been applied for testing stationarity and whether the variables have long relationship. Empirical results are consistent with previous literature, especially those related to emerging markets. The results show that these variables were not stationary in their levels and do not have long relationships. However, the second difference for MC and the first difference for GE and M1 were stationary. In addition, two main tools were used to investigate whether the variables have short-term relationships, namely impulse response analysis, and variance decomposition tests. For confirming the argument concerning the direction of the relationships among variables, Granger causality test was applied. Variance decomposition results showed that MC significantly influenced by M1 whereas GE had much less influence, since M1 and GE explain was 11% and 3%, respectively of the forecast error variance of MC. In addition, results show that stock market is responding to its own shocks since MC explained 87% of its forecast error variance in a ten-years period. The impulse response test shows that any shock to the M1 had a significant effect on the MC after almost two years, whereas GE shock had a marginal effect on the MC after three years. The response of the MC to its own-shocks was highly significant. Granger causality test showed that M1 has a significant effect on MC, while GE was not. Key Words: Capital Market, Market Capitalization, Monetary Policy, Fiscal Policy, VAR.
An Extended Flux Model-Based Rotor Position Estimator for Sensorless Control of Salient-Pole Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Machines

Starting from the classical dynamic model of salient-pole permanent-magnet synchronous machines (PMSMs) expressed in the stationary reference frame, this paper presents a mathematical model reconstruction process for salient-pole PMSMs, from which an extended flux-based machine model is derived. Compared with the commonly used extended electromotive force-based model, the extended flux-based model has notable advantages of simpler model structure and less sensitive to the variations of machine parameters and operating conditions. A new extended flux model-based rotor position estimator is then proposed for sensorless control of salient-pole PMSMs by utilizing a sliding-mode observer with a dynamic position compensator. The latter improves the dynamic performance and low-speed operating capability of the sensorless control system. Both simulation and experimental results are provided to validate the proposed rotor position estimator and the sensorless control system for salient-pole PMSMs.
Is Action Planning Helpful for Smoking Cessation? Assessing the Effects of Action Planning in a Web-Based Computer-Tailored Intervention

Background and objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the efficacy of a web-assisted computer-tailored smoking cessation intervention, an action planning (AP) intervention in which potential quitters were encouraged to form action plans (e.g., plan a quit date) and execute them (e.g., remove ashtrays). We also investigated whether the AP intervention resulted in more AP and plan execution than a similar, control intervention without the supplementary AP component. Methods: In a randomized controlled trial, the AP intervention (N = 977) was compared with the control intervention (N = 1,005) in terms of self-reported continued abstinence (CA) and point prevalence abstinence (PPA) six months after baseline. AP, plan execution, and opinion of the intervention were measured one month after baseline. Results: Complete-case logistic regression analysis showed that the AP intervention had a significant effect on CA (OR = 2.01; CI 1.08–3.84, p = .02), whereas intention-to-treat analysis showed a borderline significant effect (OR = 1.68; CI .96–2.92, p = .07). Sixteen percent of the experimental group achieved CA compared to 10% of the control group. The AP intervention had no effect on PPA. The experimental group also showed significantly more AP and plan execution at one month. Execution of plans was associated with smoking cessation. Conclusions: The effects of the AP intervention on CA, AP, and execution of plans were encouraging. The potential for widespread use of web-based interventions means that even small behavioral effects may have an impact on public health. We recommend that the intervention be intensified and improved.
Aid and Corruption: Do Donors Use Development Assistance to Provide the 'Right' Incentives?

In this paper, we focus on the determinants of the relationship between aid and corruption. We propose a static principal-agent model where a donor faces the problem of giving aid to a recipient country in which the phenomenon of corruption is widely spread. We distinguish among two different types of corruption: one, that we call endemic, that depends on the political and institutional environment of the recipient; the other, that we call aid related, is the consequence of moral hazard arising from the ability of corrupt burocracies to divert resources from their intended use. Through the design of appropriate contracts, donors can act only on the second type of corruption, contributing to reduce the entity of the phenomenon. We use the restrictions implied by our theoretical framework to test a model of aid allocation. For the majority of the donors (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the UK), we find some indication that efficiency considerations are taken into account in allocating aid. For some of them (Germany, Italy and the Netherlands), however, strategic/economic considerations are important, while the UK is also motivated by purely altruistic concerns. According to our model, Denmark and Japan are mainly driven by recipient needs, while the USA, and to a lesser extent France, allocate aid mainly on the basis of strategic/economic interests.
A locational analysis of growth and change in American metropolitan areas

This article examines the process of growth and change within the American constellation of metropolitan areas. It begins with the premise that regional development happens in two interconnected ways: via demand-induced growth, which is driven by economic opportunity, and supply-induced growth, which is driven by personal preference. The nature and spatial outcome of these mechanisms are investigated by estimating a series of three-equation regional adjustment models wherein changes in population density, employment density, and the average annual wage are endogenously determined. In order to account for spatial dependence in the development process, each model is specified with spatial lags of its three dependent variables and is estimated using a spatial two-stage least squares technique. The results of the analysis illustrate the evolving nature of metropolitan growth and yield insight into the land use patterns that it produces. Copyright (c) 2008 the author(s). Journal compilation (c) 2008 RSAI.
Modulation of impulsivity and reward sensitivity in intertemporal choice by striatal and midbrain dopamine synthesis in healthy adults.

Converging evidence links individual differences in mesolimbic and mesocortical dopamine (DA) to variation in the tendency to choose immediate rewards ("Now") over larger, delayed rewards ("Later"), or "Now bias. " However, to date, no study of healthy young adults has evaluated the relationship between Now bias and DA with positron emission tomography (PET). Sixteen healthy adults (ages 24-34 yr; 50% women) completed a delay-discounting task that quantified aspects of intertemporal reward choice, including Now bias and reward magnitude sensitivity. Participants also underwent PET scanning with 6-[(18)F]fluoro-l-m-tyrosine (FMT), a radiotracer that measures DA synthesis capacity. Lower putamen FMT signal predicted elevated Now bias, a more rapidly declining discount rate with increasing delay time, and reduced willingness to accept low-interest-rate delayed rewards. In contrast, lower FMT signal in the midbrain predicted greater sensitivity to increasing magnitude of the Later reward. These data demonstrate that intertemporal reward choice in healthy humans varies with region-specific measures of DA processing, with regionally distinct associations with sensitivity to delay and to reward magnitude.
Effects of allogeneic leukocytes in blood transfusions during cardiac surgery on inflammatory mediators and postoperative complications*

Objective: To investigate whether the higher prevalence of postoperative complications in cardiac surgery after transfusion of leukocyte-containing red blood cells can be related to inflammatory mediators. Design: Analysis of inflammatory markers interleukin-6, interleukin-10, interleukin-12, and procalcitonin in patients participating in a randomized trial comparing leukocyte-depleted with leukocyte-containing, buffy-coat-depleted red blood cells. Setting: Two university-affiliated hospitals in the Netherlands. Subjects: A total of 346 patients undergoing cardiac valve surgery with a complete series of pre- and postoperative blood samples. Measurements and Main Results: There were no differences in the cytokines and procalcitonin concentrations between both study arms when the patients arrived in the intensive care unit. In subgroups, patients who received zero to three red blood cell transfusions showed similar cytokine concentrations in both study arms, whereas patients with ≥4 red blood cell transfusions had significantly higher interleukin-6 concentrations in the leukocyte-containing, buffy-coat-depleted red blood cell group. Patients who developed postoperative infections and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome showed, respectively, increased concentrations of interleukin-6 and interleukin-12 in the leukocyte-containing, buffy-coat-depleted, red blood cell group. The interaction tests in these subgroups showed significantly different reaction patterns in the leukocyte-containing, buffy-coat-depleted red blood cell group compared with leukocyte-depleted red blood cell group for interleukin-6 and interleukin-12. Multivariate analysis showed a high interleukin-6 concentration with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and both high interleukin-6 and interleukin-10 concentrations with hospital mortality. Conclusions: Allogeneic leukocyte-containing blood transfusions compared with leukocyte-depleted blood transfusions induce dose-dependent significantly higher concentrations of proinflammatory mediators in the immediate postoperative period after cardiac surgery. High concentrations of interleukin-6 are strong predictors for development of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, whereas both interleukin-6 and interleukin-10 are associated with hospital mortality. These findings suggest that leukocyte-containing red blood cells interfere with the balance between postoperative proinflammatory response, which may further affect the development of complications after cardiac surgery.
Marshall’s Scale Economies and Jacobs’ Externality in Korea: the Role of Age, Size and the Legal Form of Organisation of Establishments

This paper revisits the concept of agglomeration economies by estimating the effects of localisation, urbanisation and local competition on labour productivity using establishment-level data in Korean manufacturing industries. It is found that, when an establishment locates in a more localised/specialised, more urbanised/diversified and more competitive area, its workers become more productive due to external benefits from agglomeration. Issues of self-selection bias and omitted variable bias are addressed by instrumenting the variables measuring localisation economies and controlling for the fixed effects of establishments/location and industries/year. However, the external effects from the spatial proximity of other establishments vary across the categories of industry type, age, size and legal form of organisation of establishments. Establishments in traditional heavy manufacturing industries receive more external benefits in a less diversified area, while those in transport equipment manufacturing industries enjoy the largest benefits from localisation. Externalities exist for establishments aged between 2 and 7 years, having at least 10 workers, being corporate and having multiplants (or not being headquarters). Establishments in relatively young industries rely more on diversified environments, while establishments in relatively old industries receive greater external benefits in the same industry cluster. This result supports the product life-cycle location theory of Duranton and Puga.
Global Financial Safety Nets: Where Do We Go from Here?

An analysis of the performance of the global financial safety net during the 2008-2009 crisis, and an evaluation of its new components, indicates that, from an emerging markets perspective, the net remains full of holes despite recent stitches. This paper therefore proposes an effective and workable international lender of last resort (ILLR) for systemic liquidity crises based on: i) an automatic trigger to access the facility; ii) unilateral country prequalification to the facility during Article IV consultations; and iii) liquidity funded by the world’s “issuers of last resort. ” These principles would support a reliable and broad-based ILLR without the carrying costs associated with inefficient reserve hoarding, which would actually work as an effective preventive facility with minimal room for moral hazard.
The Missing Food Problem: How Low Agricultural Imports Contribute to International Income and Productivity Differences

This paper finds an important relationship between the international food trade and cross-country income and productivity differences. Poor countries have low labour productivity in agriculture relative to other sectors, yet predominantly consume domestically-produced food. To understand these observations, I describe and exploit a general equilibrium model of international trade to: (1) measure sectoral productivity and trade costs across countries; and (2) quantify the impact of low poor-country food imports on international income and productivity gaps. Specifically, I expand on Yi and Zhang [2010] and modify an Eaton-Kortum trade model to incorporate multiple sectors, non-homothetic preferences, and labour mobility costs. With this model, I estimate PPP-adjusted productivity from observed bilateral trade data, avoiding problematic price and employment data in poor countries that direct output-per-worker estimates require. I find reasonable trade barriers and labour mobility costs account for the low poor-country imports despite their low productivity. Through various counterfactual experiments, I quantify how easing import barriers and labour mobility costs increases imports and within-agriculture specialization, shuts down low productivity domestic food producers, and lowers the gap between rich and poor countries. I also find an interaction between domestic labour-market distortions and trade barriers not found in the existing dual-economy literature, which largely abstracts from open-economy considerations. Overall, I account for one-third of the aggregate labour productivity gap between rich and poor countries and for nearly half the gap in agriculture.
The Ecological Effects of Fishing and Implications for Coastal Management in San Miguel Bay, the Philippines

This article uses ecological theory to explore the interactions between fishing and the ecosystem and to examine the implications for fisheries assessment and management in San Miguel Bay, the Philippines. The fishery is modeled using a trophodynamic multispecies model, Ecopath with Ecosim. The impacts of fishing by a multisector fishery on a multispecies resource were dynamically explored under top-down and bottom-up trophic hypotheses. The results demonstrated that the interplay of fishing mortality, species interactions and flow dynamics can have profound implications for fisheries assessment and management. Top-down control is more precautionary than bottom-up control. The uncertainties concerning the resource dynamics were explored using an adaptive management approach. Four models of the San Miguel Bay were analyzed: top-down, bottom-up, immigration plus top-down and immigration plus bottom-up. Results showed that there was no value in learning more about the uncertainty or distinguishing between the different resource models. It was concluded that although an active experimental adaptive management was not worthwhile, adaptive management, using feedback information from the response of the resource to management actions, was recommended.
Seeing Skin in Reduced Coordinates

We present a skin tracking and reconstruction method that uses a monocular camera and a depth sensor to recover skin sliding motions on the surface of a deforming object. Such depth cameras are widely available. Our key idea is to use a reduced coordinate framework that implicitly constrains skin to conform to the shape of the underlying object when it slides. The skin configuration in 3D can then be efficiently reconstructed by tracking two dimensional skin features in video. This representation is well suited for tracking subtle skin movements in the upper face and on the hand. The reconstructed skin motions have many uses, including synthesizing and retargeting animations, recognizing facial expressions, and for learning datadriven models of skin movement. In our face tracking examples, we recover subtle but important details of skin movement around the eyes. We validated the algorithm using a hand gesture sequence with known skin motion, recovering skin sliding motion with a low reconstruction error.
On comparing in vivo intracranial recordings in non-human primates to predictions of optimized transcranial electrical stimulation

Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) can be optimized to achieve maximal current flow at desired brain regions. The aim of this study was to characterize electric field magnitudes generated by tES optimization and to compare them to experimentally induced values as determined by data from intracranial electrodes. Local field potentials were recorded from two monkeys with implanted multi-site intracranial Utah arrays during transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and the neural effect predictions obtained from optimized electrode placement were assessed. Comparative data between the two sites of intracranial recordings during tDCS partially validated the predictions of our tES optimization algorithms.