Doing Good or Avoiding Evil? An Explorative Study of Depositors’ Reasons for Choosing Social Banks in the Pre and Post Crisis Eras

The global financial crisis is expected to be of great relevance for social banks’ growth of deposits. However, it is still unclear why depositors choose social banks in general, and how the global financial crisis has affected depositors’ choice of social banks. The present paper thus explores a comprehensive set of reasons for choosing social banks, the individual relevance of reasons, as well as differences before and after the global financial crisis. Data was collected through a survey of five social banks, interviews with nine industry experts, and an online survey with 108 social and 413 conventional depositors. Using content analysis, a multi-level system of reasons for choosing social banks was identified, which refers to the social banks’ “good” and conventional banks’ “evil” characteristics. Based on a frequency analysis of codings per category, reasons with potential superior relevance for depositors’ decision-making were explored. A comparison with reasons for choosing conventional banks imply that depositors’ reasons for choosing social banks differ from those for choosing conventional banks in general. The results also indicate that the global financial crisis might have helped social banks’ growth by attracting new customer target groups, who chose social banks because of conventional banks’ “evil” characteristics

Estenose arterial nos transplantes renais

OBJETIVO: Relacionar a influência dos dois tipos de anastomoses arteriais empregadas (término-terminal e término-lateral), da idade do receptor, do rim de doador vivo ou cadáver e do uso de remendo aórtico ("patch") quanto à presença ou não de estenose da artéria renal e, avaliar o tratamento destas estenoses. MÉTODO: Estudo retrospectivo de 278 pacientes submetidos a transplante renal no Hospital Universitário Clementino Fraga Filho (HUCFF), de maio de 1989 a maio de 2001. RESULTADOS: Não se mostrou relação entre as variáveis estudadas com a presença ou não de estenose da artéria renal. A estenose da artéria renal foi detectada em oito casos, que foram tratados, com sucesso, mediante angioplastia transluminal percutânea (ATP), com implante primário de "stent" (n = 7) ou sem implante de "stent" (n = 1). CONCLUSÕES: As variáveis estudadas não influenciaram no aparecimento da estenose da artéria renal e o tratamento endovascular foi efetivo na correção destas lesões estenóticas

Clinical significance of alloantibodies in hand transplantation - a multicenter study.

BACKGROUND: Donor-specific antibodies (DSA) have a strong negative correlation with long-term survival in solid organ transplantation. Although the clinical significance of DSA and antibody-mediated rejection (AMR) in upper extremity transplantation (UET) remains to be established, a growing number of single-center reports indicate their presence and potential clinical impact. METHODS: We present a multicenter study assessing the occurrence and significance of alloantibodies in UET in reference to immunological parameters and functional outcome. RESULTS: Our study revealed a high prevalence and early development of de novo DSA and non-DSA (43%, the majority detected within the first three post operative years). HLA class II mismatch correlated with antibody development, which in turn significantly correlated with the incidence of acute cellular rejection. Cellular rejections preceded antibody development in almost all cases. A strong correlation between DSA and graft survival or function cannot be statistically established at this early stage but a correlation with a lesser outcome seems to emerge. CONCLUSIONS: While the phenotype and true clinical effect of AMR remain to be better defined, the high prevalence of DSA and the correlation with acute rejection highlight the need for optimizing immunosuppression, close monitoring and the relevance of an HLA class II match in UET recipients