248 research outputs found
Reviving Antitrust Enforcement in the Airline Industry
The Department of Transportation (DOT) has broad but oft overlooked power to address antitrust issues among airlines through section 411 of the Federal Aviation Act. However, the DOTâs unwillingness to enforce antitrust more aggressively may be translating into higher fares and fees for airline travelers.
More aggressive antitrust enforcement is urgently needed. Recent research has revealed a widespread practice of common ownership in the airline industry, whereby investment firms own large portions of rival airline companies. Although this practice leads to higher prices and reduced competition, antitrust regulators, from the DOT to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, have declined to take action. This Note argues that the DOT has the clear legal authorityâand the responsibilityâunder section 411 to address common ownership among airlines by promulgating a rule that limits investorsâ ability to own large shares of multiple airlines. DOT regulation in this area could pave the way for more muscular antitrust regulation among industry-specific agencies
Creating Design || Creating Knowledge: Noumena and Phenomena in Contemporary Design Discourse
Knowledge Creation and Design Creation follow the same patterns in bringing forth new work. Through a series of richly illustrated examples, this talk unpacks the core behaviours that characterise design and knowledge creation
Death Panels and Difference Principles: A Rawlsian Analysis of the Affordable Care Act
When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law in
March 2010, it was supposed to usher in a new era of health care in the United States. From both Democrats and Republicans, we heard that it was going to change the way that Americans think of health insuranceâdepending on whom one talked to the ACA would finally create a just system of health care in America or usher in a Brave New World of socialized medicine and government takeovers. As the Affordable Care Act begins implementing its signature proposal this year, the so-called individual mandate, its provisions are starting to look more and more like reality. This paper will focus on the ethical ramifications of the Affordable Care Actâ specifically, I will examine how the different provisions included in the Affordable Care Act may or may not be justified under the liberal egalitarian system of justice created by John Rawls in the classic book, A Theory of Justice (later referred to as Theory). In my examination, I will
extensively use insights from Norman Danielsâ 2008 book, Just Health, which applies Rawlsâ system of justice to health and establishes a series of benchmarks for measuring the justness of health sector reforms. Indeed, the discussion and critique of Danielsâ theory forms another main focus of this paper, for it allows for a broader and more nuanced discussion of what comprises health justice.Bachelor of Art
On the Order Dimension of Convex Geometries
We study the order dimension of the lattice of closed sets for a convex
geometry. Further, we prove the existence of large convex geometries realized
by planar point sets that have very low order dimension. We show that the
planar point set of Erdos and Szekeres from 1961 which is a set of 2^(n-2)
points and contains no convex n-gon has order dimension n - 1 and any larger
set of points has order dimension strictly larger than n - 1.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure
A Framework for Generalising the Newton Method and Other Iterative Methods from Euclidean Space to Manifolds
The Newton iteration is a popular method for minimising a cost function on
Euclidean space. Various generalisations to cost functions defined on manifolds
appear in the literature. In each case, the convergence rate of the generalised
Newton iteration needed establishing from first principles. The present paper
presents a framework for generalising iterative methods from Euclidean space to
manifolds that ensures local convergence rates are preserved. It applies to any
(memoryless) iterative method computing a coordinate independent property of a
function (such as a zero or a local minimum). All possible Newton methods on
manifolds are believed to come under this framework. Changes of coordinates,
and not any Riemannian structure, are shown to play a natural role in lifting
the Newton method to a manifold. The framework also gives new insight into the
design of Newton methods in general.Comment: 36 page
Mixed Valvular Disease Following Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: Quantification and Systematic Differentiation Using Clinical Measurements and Image-Based PatientâSpecific In Silico Modeling
Background: Mixed valvular disease (MVD), mitral regurgitation (MR) from preâexisting disease in conjunction with paravalvular leak (PVL) following transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), is one of the most important stimuli for left ventricle (LV) dysfunction, associated with cardiac mortality. Despite the prevalence of MVD, the quantitative understanding of the interplay between preâexisting MVD, PVL, LV, and postâTAVR recovery is meager.
Methods and Results: We quantified the effects of MVD on valvularâventricular hemodynamics using an imageâbased patientâspecific computational framework in 72 MVD patients. Doppler pressure was reduced by TAVR (mean, 77%; N=72; P<0.05), but it was not always accompanied by improvements in LV workload. TAVR had no effect on LV workload in 22 patients, and LV workload postâTAVR significantly rose in 32 other patients. TAVR reduced LV workload in only 18 patients (25%). PVL significantly alters LV flow and increases shear stress on transcatheter aortic valve leaflets. It interacts with mitral inflow and elevates shear stresses on mitral valve and is one of the main contributors in worsening of MR postâTAVR. MR worsened in 32 patients postâTAVR and did not improve in 18 other patients.
Conclusions: PVL limits the benefit of TAVR by increasing LV load and worsening of MR and heart failure. PostâTAVR, most MVD patients (75% of N=72; P<0.05) showed no improvements or even worsening of LV workload, whereas the majority of patients with PVL, but without that preâexisting MR condition (60% of N=48; P<0.05), showed improvements in LV workload. MR and its exacerbation by PVL may hinder the success of TAVR
Assessment of inhibitory antibodies in patients with hereditary angioedema treated with plasma-derived C1 inhibitor
Background Limited data are available regarding C1 inhibitor (C1-INH) administration and antiâC1-INH antibodies.
Objective To assess the incidence of antibody formation during treatment with pasteurized, nanofiltered plasma-derived C1-INH (pnfC1-INH) in patients with hereditary angioedema with C1-INH deficiency (C1-INH-HAE) and the comparative efficacy of pnfC1-INH in patients with and without antibodies.
Methods In this multicenter, open-label study, patients with C1-INH-HAE (â„12 years of age) were given 20 IU/kg of pnfC1-INH per HAE attack that required treatment and followed up for 9 months. Blood samples were taken at baseline (day of first attack) and months 3, 6, and 9 and analyzed for inhibitory antiâC1-INH antibody (iC1-INH-Ab) and noninhibitory antiâC1-INH antibodies (niC1-INH-Abs).
Results The study included 46 patients (69.6% female; mean age, 38.9 years; all white) who received 221 on-site pnfC1-INH infusions; most patients received 6 or fewer infusions. No patient tested positive (titer â„1:50) for iC1-INH-Ab at any time during the study. Thirteen patients (28.2%) had detectable niC1-INH-Abs in 1 or more samples. Nine patients (19.6%) had detectable niC1-INH-Abs at baseline; 3 of these had no detectable antibodies after baseline. Of 10 patients (21.7%) with 1 or more detectable result for niC1-INH-Abs after baseline, 6 had detectable niC1-INH-Abs at baseline. Mean times to symptom relief onset and complete symptom resolution per patient were similar for those with or without antiâniC1-INH-Abs.
Conclusion Administration of pnfC1-INH was not associated with iC1-INH-Ab formation in this population. Noninhibitory antibodies were detected in some patients but fluctuated during the study independently of pnfC1-INH administration and appeared to have no effect on pnfC1-INH efficacy
Signal Enhancement for Magnetic Navigation Challenge Problem
Harnessing the magnetic field of the earth for navigation has shown promise
as a viable alternative to other navigation systems. A magnetic navigation
system collects its own magnetic field data using a magnetometer and uses
magnetic anomaly maps to determine the current location. The greatest challenge
with magnetic navigation arises when the magnetic field data from the
magnetometer on the navigation system encompass the magnetic field from not
just the earth, but also from the vehicle on which it is mounted. It is
difficult to separate the earth magnetic anomaly field magnitude, which is
crucial for navigation, from the total magnetic field magnitude reading from
the sensor. The purpose of this challenge problem is to decouple the earth and
aircraft magnetic signals in order to derive a clean signal from which to
perform magnetic navigation. Baseline testing on the dataset shows that the
earth magnetic field can be extracted from the total magnetic field using
machine learning (ML). The challenge is to remove the aircraft magnetic field
from the total magnetic field using a trained neural network. These challenges
offer an opportunity to construct an effective neural network for removing the
aircraft magnetic field from the dataset, using an ML algorithm integrated with
physics of magnetic navigation.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures. See
https://github.com/MIT-AI-Accelerator/MagNav.jl for accompanying data and
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