Resale Price Maintenance for Books in Germany and the European Union: A Legal and Economic Analysis

Traditionally, in the German language area, the resale or end-sale price charged for new books in bookstores to the end customer has been a fixed or list price, observance of the list being enforced by the German Book Traders'''' Association (Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels). The association operates a complex system of rules governing book fairs, registration of copy rights, dispute resolution in the publishing industry, communication between authors, publishers, the book trade and the general public, training and continuous education of the more than 22,000 licensed booksellers and many others. Recently, the European Commission has rescinded a comfort letter and challenged the end price system operated in the German language area for more than a century. This move by the retiring commissioner for competition was, however, challenged in the commission''''s last meeting, and the issue has not yet been resolved. This paper, after an introduction, gives an in-depth review of the history and organisation of the German book trade. The end sale price maintenance rule is considered a part of a complex organisation governing this industry. Part two is devoted to the law and economics analysis, which is complicated by the problem lying at the heart of the battle over competencies, whether the end sale price maintenance is a matter primarily of competition or of cultural diversity. The paper concludes with a set of preliminary findings.business administration and economics ;

Observations of Pre-operative Teamwork and Communication During the Implementation of a City-Wide Surgical Safety Checklist

BACKGROUND: Use of the World Health Organization's (WHO) perioperative safety checklist has been shown in prior studies to reduce morbidity and mortality. In 2009, the Medical Society of Sedgwick County, Kansas, developed a modified version of the WHO checklist for city-wide implementation. This study evaluated how the checklist was used at a Wichita hospital. METHODS: An observational tool was developed to evaluate time-outs at the beginning of surgical procedures. A convenience sample of cases was evaluated across surgical specialties and procedures. Observations included: 1) when the time-out was done, 2) who led the time-out, 3) which items on the checklist were addressed, 4) how much time was spent, and 5) whether problems were identified or adverse events prevented. RESULTS: Data were collected from 121 observations. Only one of the surgical teams was observed to refer directly to the checklist posted in the OR to conduct their time out. The time-out was done before induction (3%), drape (19%), incision (77%), and after incision (1%). The process was led by the circulating nurse (92%), surgeon (7%), and circulating nurse and surgeon together (1%). The percent of completed checklist items was: patient identity (96%), procedure (96%), antibiotics (87%), site (80%), allergies (75%), position (70%), equipment (60%), DVT prevention (50%), images (40%), surgeon concerns (36%), and anesthesia provider concerns (34%). On average, seven (SD = 2.5) of 11 items on the checklist were addressed. Time spent ranged from less than one minute to five minutes; 78% took one minute or less. Problems were identified in 7% of cases. In one case, a wrong site surgery was prevented. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the intention to implement a city-wide surgical safety checklist, the checklist rarely was used in its entirety to conduct the observed time-outs in the subject hospital. Although the checklist was under-utilized, safety benefits were observed from the time-out process. These would likely be enhanced and extended by consistent use of a checklist

Genetic load and transgenic mitigating genes in transgenic Brassica rapa (field mustard) × Brassica napus (oilseed rape) hybrid populations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>One theoretical explanation for the relatively poor performance of <it>Brassica rapa </it>(weed) × <it>Brassica napus </it>(crop) transgenic hybrids suggests that hybridization imparts a negative genetic load. Consequently, in hybrids genetic load could overshadow any benefits of fitness enhancing transgenes and become the limiting factor in transgenic hybrid persistence. Two types of genetic load were analyzed in this study: random/linkage-derived genetic load, and directly incorporated genetic load using a transgenic mitigation (TM) strategy. In order to measure the effects of random genetic load, hybrid productivity (seed yield and biomass) was correlated with crop- and weed-specific AFLP genomic markers. This portion of the study was designed to answer whether or not weed × transgenic crop hybrids possessing more crop genes were less competitive than hybrids containing fewer crop genes. The effects of directly incorporated genetic load (TM) were analyzed through transgene persistence data. TM strategies are proposed to decrease transgene persistence if gene flow and subsequent transgene introgression to a wild host were to occur.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the absence of interspecific competition, transgenic weed × crop hybrids benefited from having more crop-specific alleles. There was a positive correlation between performance and number of <it>B. napus </it>crop-specific AFLP markers [seed yield vs. marker number (r = 0.54, P = 0.0003) and vegetative dry biomass vs. marker number (r = 0.44, P = 0.005)]. However under interspecific competition with wheat or more weed-like conditions (i.e. representing a situation where hybrid plants emerge as volunteer weeds in subsequent cropping systems), there was a positive correlation between the number of <it>B. rapa </it>weed-specific AFLP markers and seed yield (r = 0.70, P = 0.0001), although no such correlation was detected for vegetative biomass. When genetic load was directly incorporated into the hybrid genome, by inserting a fitness-mitigating dwarfing gene that that is beneficial for crops but deleterious for weeds (a transgene mitigation measure), there was a dramatic decrease in the number of transgenic hybrid progeny persisting in the population.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The effects of genetic load of crop and in some situations, weed alleles might be beneficial under certain environmental conditions. However, when genetic load was directly incorporated into transgenic events, e.g., using a TM construct, the number of transgenic hybrids and persistence in weedy genomic backgrounds was significantly decreased.</p

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Stroke genetics informs drug discovery and risk prediction across ancestries

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of stroke — the second leading cause of death worldwide — were conducted predominantly in populations of European ancestry1,2. Here, in cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of 110,182 patients who have had a stroke (five ancestries, 33% non-European) and 1,503,898 control individuals, we identify association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci: 60 in primary inverse-variance-weighted analyses and 29 in secondary meta-regression and multitrait analyses. On the basis of internal cross-ancestry validation and an independent follow-up in 89,084 additional cases of stroke (30% non-European) and 1,013,843 control individuals, 87% of the primary stroke risk loci and 60% of the secondary stroke risk loci were replicated (P < 0.05). Effect sizes were highly correlated across ancestries. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping, in silico mutagenesis analysis3, and transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide association analyses revealed putative causal genes (such as SH3PXD2A and FURIN) and variants (such as at GRK5 and NOS3). Using a three-pronged approach4, we provide genetic evidence for putative drug effects, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as possible targets, with drugs already under investigation for stroke for F11 and PROC. A polygenic score integrating cross-ancestry and ancestry-specific stroke GWASs with vascular-risk factor GWASs (integrative polygenic scores) strongly predicted ischaemic stroke in populations of European, East Asian and African ancestry5. Stroke genetic risk scores were predictive of ischaemic stroke independent of clinical risk factors in 52,600 clinical-trial participants with cardiometabolic disease. Our results provide insights to inform biology, reveal potential drug targets and derive genetic risk prediction tools across ancestries