To fuse or not to fuse? Assessing the case for convergent disciplines on goods and services trade

Think piece by Pierre Sauvé for the E15 Initiative on Strengthening the Global Trade System In his latest essay for the ICTSD-World Economic Forum E15 initiative on Strengthening the Global Trade and Investment System for Sustainable Development, WTI Director of External Programmes and Academic Partnerships and faculty member Pierre Sauvé explores the case for fusing the law of goods with that of services in a world of global value chains. The paper does so by directing attention to the questions of whether the current architectures of multilateral and preferential trade governance are compatible with a world of trade in tasks; whether the existing rules offer globally active firms a coherent structure for doing business in a predictable environment; whether it is feasible to redesign the structure and content of existing trade rules to align them to the reality of production fragmentation; and what steps can be envisaged to better align policy and realities in the marketplace if the prospects for restructuring appear unfavourable. The paper argues that fusing trade disciplines for goods and services is neither needed nor feasible and may actually deflect attention from a number of worthwhile policy initiatives where more realistic (if never easily secured) prospects of generic rule-making may well exist

To fuse or not to fuse : the elderly patient with lumbar stenosis and low-grade spondylolisthesis. Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

Open Access via the Elsevier R&P Agreement Acknowledgements AA: primary reviewer, literature review, data-analysis and drafting manuscript. FB: literature review, data-analysis and drafting manuscript. LB: critical appraisal, drafting manuscript. JF: critical appraisal, drafting manuscript. CM: critical appraisal, drafting manuscript. MR: literature review, data-analysis and drafting manuscript. IC: second reviewer, drafting manuscript. TS: supervision, critical revision. SB: supervision, senior reviewer for systematic review, critical revision. PKM: supervision, senior reviewer for systematic review, critical revision. PKM is the guarantor.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Cholesterol dependent macropinocytosis and endosomal escape control the transfection efficiency of lipoplexes in CHO Living Cells

Here we investigate the cellular uptake mechanism and final intracellular fate of two cationic liposome formulations characterized by similar physicochemical properties but very different lipid composition and efficiency for intracellular delivery of DNA. The first formulation is made of cationic lipid 1,2-dioleoyl-3-trimethylammonium-propane (DOTAP) and the zwitterionic helper dioleoylphosphocholine (DOPC), while the second one is made of the cationic 3 beta-[N-(N,N-dimethylaminoethane)-carbamoyl] cholesterol (DC-Chol) and the zwitterionic lipid dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE). Combining pharmacological and imaging approaches we show that both DOTAP-DOPC/DNA and DC-Chol-DOPE/DNA lipoplexes are taken up in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) living cells mainly through fluid-phase macropinocytosis. Our results also indicate that lipoplex macropinocytosis is a cholesterol-sensitive uptake mechanism. On the other side, both clathrin-mediated and caveolae-mediated endocytosis play a minor role, if any, in the cell uptake. Colocalization of fluorescently tagged lipoplexes and Lysosensor, a primary lysosome marker, reveals that poorly efficient DOTAP-DOPC/DNA lipoplexes are largely degraded in the lysosomes, while efficient DC-Chol-DOPE/DNA systems can efficiently escape from endosomal compartments

Posterior lumber interbody fusion with pedicle screw fixation for the management of spondylolisthesis: An analysis of 40 cases

Spondylolisthesis is forward slipping of upper vertebra in relations to its lower one, commonest is L4-L5. The ideal surgical treatment of spondylolisthesis is still controversial. Posterior lumber interbody fusion with pedicle fixation is one of treatment choices for the lumber spondylolisthesis. Forty patients who operated through posterior lumber interbody fusion and pedicle screw fixation by single surgeon was included from January 2012 to March 2015. Periodical follow-up was done both clinically and radiologically up to 6 months. Patient outcome was completed based on pain relief graphic rating scale and Oswestry disability index. In our series, the excellent outcome were 25 patients (62.5%), good were 12 patients (30%), and fair were 3 patients (7.5%). There were no poor outcome and no new neurological deficit. This study concludes that posterior lumber inter-body fusion with pedicle is an effective treatment for the lumber spondylolisthesis. It helps to maintain the biomechanics, associated with less complication and improve the quality of life of patient

The Software Heritage Filesystem (SwhFS): Integrating Source Code Archival with Development

We introduce the Software Heritage filesystem (SwhFS), a user-space filesystem that integrates large-scale open source software archival with development workflows. SwhFS provides a POSIX filesystem view of Software Heritage, the largest public archive of software source code and version control system (VCS) development history.Using SwhFS, developers can quickly "checkout" any of the 2 billion commits archived by Software Heritage, even after they disappear from their previous known location and without incurring the performance cost of repository cloning. SwhFS works across unrelated repositories and different VCS technologies. Other source code artifacts archived by Software Heritage-individual source code files and trees, releases, and branches-can also be accessed using common programming tools and custom scripts, as if they were locally available.A screencast of SwhFS is available online at dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4531411

Scalability study of database-backed file systems for High Throughput Computing

The purpose of this project is to study the read performance of transparent database-backed file systems, a meld between two technologies with seemingly similar purposes, in relation to conventional file systems. Systems such as the ARC middleware relies on reading several millions of files every day, and as the number of files increases, the performance suffers. To study the capabilities of a database-backed file system, a candidate is chosen and put into test. The candidate, ultimately being Database File System (DBFS), is Oracle Database using FUSE to create a transparent file system interface. DBFS is put into test by storing millions of small files in its datafile and executing a scanning process of the ARC software. With the performance data gathered from these tests, it was concluded that DBFS, while performing well on an HDD when compared to ext4 in terms of scalability and read performance, is simply outperformed by XFS with small (from 50 000 files) and large (up to 1 600 000 files) directories