Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Internal Labor Markets: Too Many Theories, Too Few Facts

That firms employ internal labor markets, in which wages and careers are partly shielded from the vagaries of external labor markets, seems well accepted. Yet, Peter Doeringer and Michael Piore's (1985) seminal work on internal labor markets has had a rather limited impact on the economics profession. In contrast to textbooks on human-resource management, which have adopted their paradigm wholeheartedly, labor economics texts tend to pay only cursory attention to internal labor markets. The competitive model, in which wages reflect an individual's marginal product, remains the paradigm of choice. There are many reasons for this lackluster reception, including intellectual convenience. A more acceptable excuse is that while Doeringer and Piore's study, which was based on interviews with 75 companies, identified several key regularities (ports of entry, career ladders, etc.) that have come to shape our perception of internal labor markets, the book never presented a theory to explain these findings. With the advent of information economics and contract theory, models of internal labor markets-or at least selected features of these markets-have begun to emerge. The objective of these theories is to show that internal-labor-market outcomes can be construed as second-best solutions to contracting problems under incomplete information. For instance, tournament theory (Edward Lazear and Sherwin Rosen, 1981) sees the attachment of wages to jobs as part of an efficient incentive scheme. Michael Waldman (1984) explains the same phenomenon as an insurance arrangement against variations in individual productivity. Seniority rules in promotion and wagesetting can be understood as responses to problems of collusion or influence activities (Paul Milgrom and John Roberts, 1988). The list could be extended. At this point, there is hardly any feature of internal labor markets that cannot be given some logical explanation using the right combination of uncertainty, asymmetric information and opportunism. Doeringer and Piore (1985), in the preface to the second printing of their book, take exception with this line of theoretical research. They believe that internal labor markets are inherently a social (group) phenomenon and that something fundamental is missed by pursuing individualistic models. Be that as it may, we think there is another, more serious problem with the direction that this research has taken: too much of it relies on the old empirical stereotype. The original study was done 25 years ago and focused almost exclusively on blue-collar, male, unionized, manufacturing workers. One might rightly wonder how relevant these findings are in today's environment and whether they extend to white-collar work as most discussions seem to assume. Before proceeding with the theory, it is prudent to ask: do we have the facts right? In this paper we report on two recent case studies of individual firms that use personnel records to analyze wage and career paths of managerial workers: Lazear (1992) and Baker et al. (1994a,b). 1 Person-
The High Cost of Prescription Drugs in the United States: Origins and Prospects for Reform.

IMPORTANCE The increasing cost of prescription drugs in the United States has become a source of concern for patients, prescribers, payers, and policy makers. OBJECTIVES To review the origins and effects of high drug prices in the US market and to consider policy options that could contain the cost of prescription drugs. EVIDENCE We reviewed the peer-reviewed medical and health policy literature from January 2005 to July 2016 for articles addressing the sources of drug prices in the United States, the justifications and consequences of high prices, and possible solutions. FINDINGS Per capita prescription drug spending in the United States exceeds that in all other countries, largely driven by brand-name drug prices that have been increasing in recent years at rates far beyond the consumer price index. In 2013, per capita spending on prescription drugs was $858 compared with an average of $400 for 19 other industrialized nations. In the United States, prescription medications now comprise an estimated 17% of overall personal health care services. The most important factor that allows manufacturers to set high drug prices is market exclusivity, protected by monopoly rights awarded upon Food and Drug Administration approval and by patents. The availability of generic drugs after this exclusivity period is the main means of reducing prices in the United States, but access to them may be delayed by numerous business and legal strategies. The primary counterweight against excessive pricing during market exclusivity is the negotiating power of the payer, which is currently constrained by several factors, including the requirement that most government drug payment plans cover nearly all products. Another key contributor to drug spending is physician prescribing choices when comparable alternatives are available at different costs. Although prices are often justified by the high cost of drug development, there is no evidence of an association between research and development costs and prices; rather, prescription drugs are priced in the United States primarily on the basis of what the market will bear. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE High drug prices are the result of the approach the United States has taken to granting government-protected monopolies to drug manufacturers, combined with coverage requirements imposed on government-funded drug benefits. The most realistic short-term strategies to address high prices include enforcing more stringent requirements for the award and extension of exclusivity rights; enhancing competition by ensuring timely generic drug availability; providing greater opportunities for meaningful price negotiation by governmental payers; generating more evidence about comparative cost-effectiveness of therapeutic alternatives; and more effectively educating patients, prescribers, payers, and policy makers about these choices.
Fertility transition in Latin America.

The population of the Caribbean and Latin America Doubled to 441 million between 1960-1988. These regions, during the 1950's experienced increases in their growth rate (3%) fertility rate (5/woman); and the rates of gross domestic product (2.6% per capita). However, as they entered the 1960s, these regions experienced declines in fertility rates, mortality rates, and crude birth rates. Recent available data on these regions allows for the breakdown of countries into 1 of 4 groups: transition complete or nearly complete - with the total fertility rate (TFR) standing at 3 children/woman; advanced transition - with the TFR at 4 children or less/woman; intermediate transition - with the TFR at 5 children/woman; and delayed transition - with the TFR at 5-6 children/per woman. High fertility rates can in some way be attributed to age at marriage; in various countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, women are married at a young age. Despite the increased use of contraceptive methods (condoms, the Pill, sterilization and/or withdrawal), there exists very little knowledge of contraception. In some cases abortion is a last resort; however, in countries where abortions are legal, the termination of pregnancies are almost equal to births. In Latin America, there is a short duration of breast feeding; a relationship exists between socioeconomic status and breastfeeding. The duration of breastfeeding has increased in countries where the number of urban areas have increased. Governments should work to increase access to contraception as well as keeping them at a low cost.
THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS AND THEIR ROOTS IN SCIENCE*

IT was after some hesitation that I decided to take as my point of departure the present position of English philosophy. For I believe that the function of a scientist or of a philosopher is to solve scientific or philosophical problems, rather than to talk about what he or other philosophers are doing or might do. Even an unsuccessful attempt to solve a scientific or philosophical problem, if it is an honest and devoted attempt, appears to me more significant than any discussion of a question such as ' What is science ? ' or 'What is philosophy ? '. And even if we put this latter question, as we should, in the somewhat improved form 'What is the character of philosophical problems ? ', I for one should not bother much about it; I should feel that it has little weight if compared with even such a minor problem of philosophy, as, say, the question whether every discussion must always proceed from 'assumptions' or 'suppositions' which themselves are beyond argument. ' When describing' What is the character of philosophical problems ? ' as a somewhat improved form of ' What is philosophy ? ', I wished to hint at one of the reasons for the futility of the current controversy concerning the nature of philosophy-the naive belief that there is an entity such as 'philosophy', or perhaps 'philosophical activity', and that it has a certain character or 'nature '. The belief that there is such a thing as physics, or biology, or archaeology, and that these 'studies' or 'disciplines' are distinguishable by the subject matter which they investigate, appears to me to be a residue from the time when one believed that a theory had to proceed from a definition of its own subject matter.2 But subject matter, or kinds of things, or classes * The Chairman's address, delivered at the meeting of 28 April 1952, to the Philosophy of Science Group of the British Society for the History of Science. 1 call this a minor problem because I believe that it can easily be solved, by refuting the (' relativistic ') doctrine indicated in the text. 2 This view is part of what I have called 'essentialism'. Cf. for example my
Enzymatic oxidation of ethyl carbamate to vinyl carbamate and its role as an intermediate in the formation of 1,N6-ethenoadenosine.

The carcinogen ethyl carbamate has been postulated to be activated by oxidation to vinyl carbamate and then to an epoxide which can react with nucleic acids [Dahl, G.A. , Miller, J. A. , and Miller, E. C. (1978) Cancer Res. 38, 3793-3804]. To date, the enzymatic conversion of ethyl carbamate to vinyl carbamate had not been demonstrated. Recently, we obtained evidence that the same cytochrome P-450 enzyme (P-450 2E1) is involved in the oxidation of both ethyl carbamate and vinyl carbamate [Guengerich, F. P., Kim, D. -H. , and Iwasaki, M. (1991) Chem. Res. Toxicol. 4, 168-179]. When human liver microsomes were incubated with NADPH and ethyl carbamate, the products vinyl carbamate, 2-hydroxyethyl carbamate, and ethyl N-hydroxycarbamate were detected by use of (a) combined capillary gas chromatography/chemical ionization mass spectrometry or (b) high-performance liquid chromatography of radioactive materials. A Km of approximately 54 microM was estimated for the conversion of vinyl carbamate to 1,N6-ethenoadenosine (in the presence of adenosine), but when the reaction was done with ethyl carbamate as the substrate, the rate of product formation was nearly first order in ethyl carbamate concentration (Km greater than 2 mM) and the rate was considerably slower than in the case of vinyl carbamate. The model derived with these parameters predicts a steady-state level of 0.22 microM vinyl carbamate, consonant with the value of approximately 0.2 microM estimated experimentally. A large kinetic deuterium isotope effect (greater than 7) was observed for the formation of 1,N6-ethenoadenosine from ethyl carbamate, and high isotope effects (6-8) were also noted for the formation of vinyl carbamate and 2-hydroxyethyl carbamate. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Psychiatrists and their patients: Views on forms of dress and address

Background Dress styles and forms of address vary among psychiatrists. Method A semi-structured interview was administered to a sample of psychiatric in-patients, and a questionnaire was sent to junior and consultant psychiatrists, to identify preferences for dress styles and terms of address. Results Forty-nine (71%) of the inpatient sample participated. A preference was found for smart attire and white coats. Of the 69 (80%) doctors returning questionnaires, the majority supported smart dress as the most appropriate attire. Most patients preferred to be called by their first name while addressing doctors by title and surname. Junior doctors preferred to use first names when talking to patients while almost all consultants used title and surname. Doctors of all grades liked to be called by their title and surname. Conclusions Paying more attention to the way we present ourselves and interact at work may help to facilitate the therapeutic alliance.
A decision tree to help determine the best timing and antiretroviral strategy in HIV-infected patients

SUMMARY Optimal antiretroviral strategies for HIV-infected patients still need to be established. To this end a decision tree including different antiretroviral strategies that could be adopted for HIV-infected patients was built. A 10-year follow-up was simulated by using transitional probabilities estimated from a large cohort using a time-homogeneous Markov model. The desired outcome was for patients to maintain a CD4 cell count of >500 cells/mm3 without experiencing AIDS or death. For patients with a baseline HIV viral load ⩾5 log10 copies/ml, boosted protease inhibitor-based immediate highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) allowed them to spend 12% more time with CD4 ⩾500/mm3 than did delayed HAART (6·40 vs. 5·69 and 5·57 vs. 4·90 years for baseline CD4 ⩾500 and 350–499/mm3, respectively). In patients with a baseline HIV viral load ⩽3·5 log10 copies/ml, delayed HAART performed better than immediate HAART (6·43 vs. 6·26 and 5·95 vs. 5·18 for baseline CD4 ⩾500 and 350–499/mm3, respectively). Immediate HAART is beneficial in patients with a baseline HIV viral load ⩾5 log10 copies/ml, whereas deferred HAART appears to be the best option for patients with CD4 ⩾350/mm3 and baseline HIV viral load <3·5 log10 copies/ml.
Satellite exchange in the Baltimore Needle Exchange Program.

OBJECTIVE Our first objective was to develop an index of satellite exchange and then determine whether satellite exchangers (SEs) differed demographically or behaviorally from other injecting drug users (IDUs). Our second objective was to determine the degree that SEs contributed to needle exchange program (NEP) effectiveness. METHODS We collected data from approximately 5000 Baltimore Needle Exchange Program (BNEP) participants on the number of syringes acquired and returned over the two-year period February 1995 to February 1997. We then conducted one-way ANOVAs and logistic regressions to determine if SEs were different from other IDUs. RESULTS We classified 9.35% of the IDUs and SEs and showed that SEs reported levels of drug use and risk behavior similar to other BNEP participants. Although SEs represented less than 10% of all BNEP clients, they accounted for more than 64% of all needles distributed by the BNEP. We showed that SEs accessed more wide-ranging drug use networks than non-SE IDUs and thus can act as potential bridges for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention materials and messages to larger numbers of drug injectors. CONCLUSIONS SEs can be expressly targeted with specific prevention messages and encouraged to be "ambassadors" for HIV prevention messages. Efforts to curtail the activities of SEs may detract from the effectiveness of NEPs.
Design and Characterization of Modular Scaffolds for Tubulin Assembly*

Background: Stathmin-like domain (SLD) proteins from vertebrates bind two tubulin molecules. Results: SLDs that bind tubulin with a programmed stoichiometry are characterized. Conclusion: Rules are established to design (tubulin)x-SLD complexes, starting from a 1:1 stoichiometry. Significance: This work provides new insights into stathmin family member function. The SLDs produced will be useful tools to study interactions of microtubule regulators with tubulin. In cells, microtubule dynamics is regulated by stabilizing and destabilizing factors. Whereas proteins in both categories have been identified, their mechanism of action is rarely understood at the molecular level. This is due in part to the difficulties faced in structural approaches to obtain atomic models when tubulin is involved. Here, we design and characterize new stathmin-like domain (SLD) proteins that sequester tubulins in numbers different from two, the number of tubulins bound by stathmin or by the SLD of RB3, two stathmin family members that have been extensively studied. We established rules for the design of tight tubulin-SLD assemblies and applied them to complexes containing one to four tubulin heterodimers. Biochemical and structural experiments showed that the engineered SLDs behaved as expected. The new SLDs will be tools for structural studies of microtubule regulation. The larger complexes will be useful for cryo-electron microscopy, whereas crystallography or nuclear magnetic resonance will benefit from the 1:1 tubulin-SLD assembly. Finally, our results provide new insight into SLD function, suggesting that a major effect of these phosphorylatable proteins is the programmed release of sequestered tubulin for microtubule assembly at the specific cellular locations of members of the stathmin family.
Association Rule Mining in Big Data using MapReduce Approach in Hadoop

The concept of Association rule mining is an important task in data mining. In case of big data the large volume of data makes is impossible to generate rules at a faster pace. By making use of parallel execution in Hadoop using the MapReduce framework, the rules can be generated much faster and in an efficient way. The existing method transforms the input dataset into binomial representation before processing them using MapReduce. But binomial conversion is not user-friendly since it is complex in case of continuous values. In this paper, an improved and scalable algorithm is proposed for association rule mining that will convert the input dataset into key-value pairs instead of binomial. All the stages of proposed association rule mining algorithm are parallelized using MapReduce. The proposed algorithm works on high cardinality features and so no dimension detection is needed. KeywordHadoop; MapReduce; Association rule mining; Data mining; big data __________________________________________________________________________________________________
Monovalent ions modulate the flux through multiple folding pathways of an RNA pseudoknot

Significance The assembly mechanism of RNA, vital to describing its functions, depends on both the sequence and the metal ion concentration. How the latter influences the folding trajectories remains an important unsolved problem. Here, we examine the folding pathways of an RNA pseudoknot (PK) with key functional roles in transcription and translation, using a combination of experiments and simulations. We demonstrate that the PK, consisting of two hairpins with differing stabilities, folds by parallel pathways. Surprisingly, the flux between them is modulated by monovalent salt concentration. Our work shows that the order of assembly of PKs is determined by the relative stability of the hairpins, implying that the folding landscape can be controlled by sequence and ion concentration. The functions of RNA pseudoknots (PKs), which are minimal tertiary structural motifs and an integral part of several ribozymes and ribonucleoprotein complexes, are determined by their structure, stability, and dynamics. Therefore, it is important to elucidate the general principles governing their thermodynamics/folding mechanisms. Here, we combine laser temperature-jump experiments and coarse-grained simulations to determine the folding/unfolding pathways of VPK, a variant of the mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) PK involved in ribosomal frameshifting. Fluorescent nucleotide analogs (2-aminopurine and pyrrolocytidine) placed at different stem/loop positions in the PK serve as local probes allowing us to monitor the order of assembly of VPK that has two constituent hairpins with different intrinsic stabilities. We show that at 50 mM KCl, the dominant folding pathway populates only the more stable hairpin intermediate; as the salt concentration is increased, a parallel folding pathway emerges involving the less stable hairpin as an alternate intermediate. Notably, the flux between the pathways is modulated by the ionic strength. Our findings support the principle that the order of PK structure formation is determined by the relative stabilities of the hairpins, which can be altered by sequence variations or salt concentrations. The experimental results of salt effects on the partitioning between the two folding pathways are in remarkable agreement with simulations that were performed with no adjustable parameters. Our study not only unambiguously demonstrates that VPK folds by parallel pathways but also showcases the power of combining experiments and simulations for a more enriched description of RNA self-assembly.
The natural history of clinical prostate carcinoma

The burden of prostate carcinoma in the Western world continues to increase. The American Cancer Society estimates 334,500 new cases (recently revised to 209,900) and 41,800 deaths from prostate carcinoma will occur in the U.S. this year. This disease now accounts for 32% of cancers and 14% of cancer deaths in American men. The figures are similar in most Western countries, with the highest ageadjusted mortality rates in the Scandinavian countries. In the U.S. the number of new cases per year has risen úthreefold since 1990, largely due to the widespread use of prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing. Through 1992, the age-adjusted incidence rate was rising dramatically as well, far faster than the corresponding mortality rate. Together with the substantial economic burden on the health care delivery system posed by the detection and treatment of so many additional patients with prostate carcinoma, this wide discrepancy between incidence and mortality paved the way for intense debate regarding the clinical and biologic significance of early stage prostate carcinoma. The controversy arose largely because of the lack of firm data regarding the natural history of clinically localized prostate carcinoma and of controlled clinical trials documenting the efficacy of definitive treatment with either radical prostatectomy or irradiation therapy. The definitive resolution of these controversies will not likely come before the completion, a decade from now, of the randomized trials currently under way comparing various screening and treatment strategies for prostate carcinoma. In the meantime, studies documenting the natural history of early stage prostate carcinoma and characterizing its biologic potential through the use of serum and tissue markers can provide valuable information for patients and clinicians. Prostate carcinoma is a remarkably heterogeneous disease. Some tumors are very small, well-to-moderately differentiated, and confined to the prostate. Some of these maybe ‘‘indolent’’ carcinomas, similar to those found at autopsy, and are unlikely ever to cause Address for reprints: Peter T. Scardino, M.D., clinical disease or death unless left without intervention for decades. Scott Department of Urology, Baylor College of Others are larger or of higher grade or more extensive. These ‘‘cliniMedicine, 6560 Fannin, Suite 2100, Houston, cally important’’ carcinomas are much more likely to invade and TX 77030. metastasize within years, leading to the eventual death of the patient. The risk to life and health posed by early stage prostate carcinoma Received April 24, 1997; revision received May 13, 1997; accepted May 13, 1997. has been difficult to quantify because of the relatively slow growth