Parasympathetic Reactivity in Fibromyalgia and Temporomandibular Disorder: Associations With Sleep Problems, Symptom Severity, and Functional Impairment

Despite evidence of autonomic disturbances in chronic multi-symptom illnesses such as temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) and fibromyalgia (FM), additional work is needed to characterize the role of parasympathetic reactivity in these disorders. Given the high levels of comorbidity with psychiatric disorders characterized by stronger parasympathetic reductions than controls in safe contexts (leading to higher arousal), it was hypothesized that individuals with TMD and FM would respond similarly. In this preliminary investigation, 43 women with TMD (n = 17), TMD + FM (n = 11), or neither (controls; n = 15) completed a baseline assessment of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; a measure of parasympathetic activity) followed by ongoing parasympathetic assessment during a questionnaire period. As predicted, patients showed greater parasympathetic decline in response to the questionnaire period, suggesting an autonomic stance that supports defensive rather than engagement behaviors. Individual differences in parasympathetic reduction during the questionnaire period were related to a variety of physical and psychosocial variables. Although this study has a number of key limitations, including a convenience sampling approach and the small group sizes, if replicated in larger samples, the findings would have important implications for the treatment of patients with these disorders

Prostate-specific antigen testing accuracy in community practice

BACKGROUND: Most data on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing come from urologic cohorts comprised of volunteers for screening programs. We evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of PSA testing for detecting prostate cancer in community practice. METHODS: PSA testing results were compared with a reference standard of prostate biopsy. Subjects were 2,620 men 40 years and older undergoing (PSA) testing and biopsy from 1/1/95 through 12/31/98 in the Albuquerque, New Mexico metropolitan area. Diagnostic measures included the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve, sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratios. RESULTS: Cancer was detected in 930 subjects (35%). The area under the ROC curve was 0.67 and the PSA cutpoint of 4 ng/ml had a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 33%. The likelihood ratio for a positive test (LR+) was 1.28 and 0.42 for a negative test (LR-). PSA testing was most sensitive (90%) but least specific (27%) in older men. Age-specific reference ranges improved specificity in older men (49%) but decreased sensitivity (70%), with an LR+ of 1.38. Lowering the PSA cutpoint to 2 ng/ml resulted in a sensitivity of 95%, a specificity of 20%, and an LR+ of 1.19. CONCLUSIONS: PSA testing had fair discriminating power for detecting prostate cancer in community practice. The PSA cutpoint of 4 ng/ml was sensitive but relatively non-specific and associated likelihood ratios only moderately revised probabilities for cancer. Using age-specific reference ranges and a PSA cutpoint below 4 ng/ml improved test specificity and sensitivity, respectively, but did not improve the overall accuracy of PSA testing

Consequences of omitting advertising in demand estimation: an application to theatrical movies

Abstract Given the difficulties of properly estimating demand in the presence of advertising, advertising has often been omitted. This paper uses a Monte Carlo experiment of price-and-ad-setters to show that the omission of advertising can cause substantial biases in estimation, even in markets with relatively low ad-sales ratios and when advertising appears to be statistically insignificant. I then validate the appropriateness of these Monte Carlo simulations with respect to advertising with an analysis of domestic theatrical movies. Results using actual movie data when advertising is omitted and included mimic those of the simulations. Omitting advertising from this context overstates the impact of theaters by 25% and substantially understates the impact of starring cast members (by 80%). Keywords: Advertising, motion pictures, differentiated products Despite being an active research area from the 1940s through the 1960s, the estimation of advertising's impact on demand and resulting strategic implications has not received much attention from economists in the last thirty years. Much of this lack of attention can perhaps be attributed to Consequently, controlling for unobserved product characteristics absorbs these relatively constant levels of advertising, and insufficient variation remains for the demand analysis, leaving statistically insignificant advertising estimates. Ignoring advertising, however, may itself have negative impacts, as I show in this paper that its omission can substantially distort estimation results even when instruments are used for all other endogenous variables

—The Day After Tomorrow: Longer Run Issues in Theatrical Exhibition

No abstract available.motion picture industry, entertainment industry, file sharing and piracy

Retailer entry conditions and wholesaler conduct: The theatrical distribution of motion pictures

I add to the empirical literature on vertical contracting and wholesaler conduct by using retailer entry conditions to infer unobserved choice variables and equilibrium responses to prices and advertising. After estimating the US demand for theatrical motion pictures from 1990-96, I apply these techniques to compare observed outcomes to predictions under various distributor-conduct hypotheses. While several caveats apply, results indicate that the hypothesis of competition among distributors fails to describe advertising levels or aggregate payments of theaters to studios. The hypothesis of some collusion among distributors, however, matches the data fairly well.

Money isn't everything: linking college choice to winning prizes and professorships

We expand upon the literature that considers how characteristics of undergraduate schools affect nonincome outcomes by considering Nobel Prize winners and full professors at top 25 universities. We introduce National Merit Scholars (NMS) as a percentage of 1960-1961 class as a time-appropriate measure of student quality and show how this measure largely matches up with prior expectations and observed outcomes. We conclude with the discussion of the convex relation between NMS and these professional outcomes.

The Political Economy of Numbers: On the Application of Benford's Law to International Macroeconomic Statistics

In this paper we present a technique for assessing data quality based on conformity with Benford's Law, which states that the first digits of numbers generated from natural phenomena do not occur with equal frequency. If data do not conform to the Benford distribution, then questions arise about the process that generated it. Because neutral transformations should preserve conformity to Benford's Law, any macroeconomic adjustment that destroys this conformity should make those calculations suspect.Benford's Law is applied to one of the most commonly used data sets in economics: international macroeconomic statistics. We find that the World Bank international GDP data and purchasing power parity (PPP) corrected Penn World tables for OECD countries conform well to Benford's Law. But some subsets of the data particularly GDP figures from the developing world -- show non-conformity consistent with deliberate manipulation of the underlying series. The test also flags potential problems with a variety of standard macro transformations of the data.