Censorship: the Key to Lock-In?

Markets for information and entertainment are frequently characterized by increasing returns to scale in production and distribution. This implies that incumbent technologies enjoy an advantage over newcomer technologies; such markets can become locked into an inferior technology. Governments often heavily influence media markets through both direct ownership and censorship. I present a dynamic model with heterogeneity among consumers and firms in order to analyze the role of censorship in media markets. I assume there is a negative consumption externality across consumers and a negative cost spillover which an incumbent producer imposes on a newcomer. In a decentralized equilibrium, there is over-production of media from the incumbent technology. This reduces consumer utility and engenders lock-in of the inferior incumbent technology. I model censorship as a tax on information produced under the incumbent technology. A central planner who censors incumbent media can improve upon the decentralized equilibrium by reducing negative consumption externalities and unlocking the superior technology. I also show that censorship is only Pareto optimal when coupled with lump-sum transfers across consumers.

Court Decisions and Equity Markets: Estimating the Value of Copyright Protection

We use a novel database on U. S. federal court decisions to measure the changes in the state of copyright protection in both statute and case law. We combine an index of copyright breadth derived from this database with a quarterly panel of firms in creative industries over the years 1986-1998. Using this data, we measure the impact of changes in the breadth of copyright on the market valuation of firm equity. We maintain the assumption that equity markets will incorporate the value of copyright innovations into the price of equity. After controlling for a variety of fundamental determinants of ¯rm-level excess returns to equity, we find that a court case broadening copyright is associated with a statistically significant 23-45 basis points increase in a firm's excess return. Our results obtain across both 4-5 year sub-samples and the size distribution of firms.

The effectiveness of web-based interventions designed to decrease alcohol consumption – a systematic review

OBJECTIVE To review the published literature on the effectiveness of web-based interventions designed to decrease consumption of alcohol and/or prevent alcohol abuse. METHOD Relevant articles published up to, and including, May 2006 were identified through electronic searches of Medline, PsycInfo, Embase, Cochrane Library, ASSIA, Web of Science and Science Direct. Reference lists of all articles identified for inclusion were checked for articles of relevance. An article was included if its stated or implied purpose was to evaluate a web-based intervention designed to decrease consumption of alcohol and/or to prevent alcohol abuse. Studies were reliably selected and quality-assessed, and data were independently extracted and interpreted by two authors. RESULTS Initial searches identified 191 articles of which 10 were eligible for inclusion. Of these, five provided a process evaluation only, with the remaining five providing some pre-to post-intervention measure of effectiveness. In general the percentage quality criteria met was relatively low and only one of the 10 articles selected was a randomized control trial. CONCLUSION The current review provides inconsistent evidence on the effectiveness of eIectronic screening and brief intervention (eSBI) for alcohol use. Process research suggests that web-based interventions are generally well received. However further controlled trials are needed to fully investigate their efficacy, to determine which elements are keys to outcome and to understand if different elements are required in order to engage low- and high-risk drinkers

Differential Expression of Extracellular Matrix-Mediated Pathways in Single-Suture Craniosynostosis

Craniosynostosis is a disease defined by premature fusion of one or more cranial sutures. The mechanistic pathology of single-suture craniosynostosis is complex and while a number of genetic biomarkers and environmental predispositions have been identified, in many cases the causes remain controversial and inconclusive. In this study, gene expression data from 199 patients with isolated sagittal (n = 100), unilateral coronal (n = 50), and metopic (n = 49) synostosis are compared against both a control population (n = 50), as well as each other. After controlling for variables contributing to potential bias, FGF7, SFRP4, and VCAM1 emerged as genes associated with single-suture craniosynostosis due to their significantly large changes in gene expression compared to the control population. Pathway analysis implicated focal adhesion and extracellular matrix (ECM)-receptor interaction as differentially regulated gene networks when comparing all cases of single-suture synostosis and controls. Lastly, overall gene expression was found to be highly conserved between coronal and metopic cases, as evidenced by the fact that WNT2 and IGFBP2 were the only genes differentially regulated to a significantly large extent in a direct comparison. The identification of genes and gene networks associated with Fgf/Igf/Wnt signaling and ECM-mediated focal adhesion not only support the involvement of biomarkers previously reported to be related to craniosynostosis, but also introduce novel transcripts and pathways that may play critical roles in its pathogenesis

The feasibility and effectiveness of a web-based personalised feedback and social norms alcohol intervention in UK university students: A randomised control trial

OBJECTIVE Alcohol misuse amongst University students is a serious concern, and research has started to investigate the feasibility of using e-health interventions. This study aimed to establish the effectiveness of an electronic web-based personalised feedback intervention through the use of a randomised control trial (RCT). METHODS 506 participants were stratified by gender, age group, year of study, self-reported weekly consumption of alcohol and randomly assigned to either a control or intervention condition. Intervention participants received electronic personalised feedback and social norms information on their drinking behaviour which they could access by logging onto the website at any time during the 12-week period. CAGE score, average number of alcoholic drinks consumed per drinking occasion, and alcohol consumption over the last week were collected from participants at pre- and post-survey. RESULTS A significant difference in pre- to post-survey mean difference of alcohol consumed per occasion was found, with those in the intervention condition displaying a larger mean decrease when compared to controls. No intervention effect was found for units of alcohol consumed per week or for CAGE scores. Sixty-three percent of intervention participants agreed that the feedback provided was useful. Those intervention participants who were above the CAGE cut off were more likely to report that the website would make them think more about the amount they drank. CONCLUSIONS Delivering an electronic personalised feedback intervention to students via the World Wide Web is a feasible and potentially effective method of reducing student alcohol intake. Further research is needed to replicate this outcome, evaluate maintenance of any changes, and investigate the process of interaction with web-based interventions

I had no other choice but to catch it too : the roles of family history and experiences with diabetes in illness representations.

BACKGROUND: A family history of diabetes and family members\u27 experiences with diabetes may influence individuals\u27 beliefs and expectations about their own diabetes. No qualitative studies have explored the relationship between family history and experiences and individuals\u27 diabetes illness representations. METHODS: Secondary data analysis of 89 exploratory, semi-structured interviews with adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes seeking care in an urban health system. Participants had a recent diabetes-related ED visit/hospitalization or hemoglobin A1c \u3e 7.5%. Interviews were conducted until thematic saturation was achieved. Demographic data were collected via self-report and electronic medical record review. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded using a conventional content analysis approach. References to family history and family members\u27 experiences with diabetes were analyzed using selected domains of Leventhal\u27s Common Sense Model of Self-Regulation. RESULTS: Participants cited both genetic and behavioral family history as a major cause of their diabetes. Stories of relatives\u27 diabetes complications and death figured prominently in their discussion of consequences; however, participants felt controllability over diabetes through diet, physical activity, and other self-care behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Findings supported an important role of family diabetes history and experience in development of diabetes illness representations. Further research is needed to expand our understanding of the relationships between these perceptions, self-management behaviors, and outcomes. Family practice providers, diabetes educators and other team members should consider expanding assessment of current family structure and support to also include an exploration of family history with diabetes, including which family members had diabetes, their self-care behaviors, and their outcomes, and how this history fits into the patient\u27s illness representations

Locus Reference Genomic sequences: an improved basis for describing human DNA variants

As our knowledge of the complexity of gene architecture grows, and we increase our understanding of the subtleties of gene expression, the process of accurately describing disease-causing gene variants has become increasingly problematic. In part, this is due to current reference DNA sequence formats that do not fully meet present needs. Here we present the Locus Reference Genomic (LRG) sequence format, which has been designed for the specific purpose of gene variant reporting. The format builds on the successful National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) RefSeqGene project and provides a single-file record containing a uniquely stable reference DNA sequence along with all relevant transcript and protein sequences essential to the description of gene variants. In principle, LRGs can be created for any organism, not just human. In addition, we recognize the need to respect legacy numbering systems for exons and amino acids and the LRG format takes account of these. We hope that widespread adoption of LRGs - which will be created and maintained by the NCBI and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) - along with consistent use of the Human Genome Variation Society (HGVS)-approved variant nomenclature will reduce errors in the reporting of variants in the literature and improve communication about variants affecting human health. Further information can be found on the LRG web site: http://www.lrg-sequence.org

PICS-Ord: unlimited coding of ambiguous regions by pairwise identity and cost scores ordination

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We present a novel method to encode ambiguously aligned regions in fixed multiple sequence alignments by 'Pairwise Identity and Cost Scores Ordination' (PICS-Ord). The method works via ordination of sequence identity or cost scores matrices by means of Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA). After identification of ambiguous regions, the method computes pairwise distances as sequence identities or cost scores, ordinates the resulting distance matrix by means of PCoA, and encodes the principal coordinates as ordered integers. Three biological and 100 simulated datasets were used to assess the performance of the new method.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Including ambiguous regions coded by means of PICS-Ord increased topological accuracy, resolution, and bootstrap support in real biological and simulated datasets compared to the alternative of excluding such regions from the analysis a priori. In terms of accuracy, PICS-Ord performs equal to or better than previously available methods of ambiguous region coding (e.g., INAASE), with the advantage of a practically unlimited alignment size and increased analytical speed and the possibility of PICS-Ord scores to be analyzed together with DNA data in a partitioned maximum likelihood model.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Advantages of PICS-Ord over step matrix-based ambiguous region coding with INAASE include a practically unlimited number of OTUs and seamless integration of PICS-Ord codes into phylogenetic datasets, as well as the increased speed of phylogenetic analysis. Contrary to word- and frequency-based methods, PICS-Ord maintains the advantage of pairwise sequence alignment to derive distances, and the method is flexible with respect to the calculation of distance scores. In addition to distance and maximum parsimony, PICS-Ord codes can be analyzed in a Bayesian or maximum likelihood framework. RAxML (version 7.2.6 or higher that was developed for this study) allows up to 32-state ordered or unordered characters. A GTR, MK, or ORDERED model can be applied to analyse the PICS-Ord codes partition, with GTR performing slightly better than MK and ORDERED.</p> <p>Availability</p> <p>An implementation of the PICS-Ord algorithm is available from <url>http://scit.us/projects/ngila/wiki/PICS-Ord</url>. It requires both the statistical software, R <url>http://www.r-project.org</url> and the alignment software Ngila <url>http://scit.us/projects/ngila</url>.</p

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe