The Impact of Agricultural Conservation Easement on House Prices: A New Hedonic Price Model That Incorporates Spatial Autocorrelation and Spatial Heterogeneity

Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Value Chain Creation in Business Analytics

Firms are awash in big data and analytical technology as part of deriving values in the turbulent environment. The literature has somewhat reached a consensus that investments in technology only may not reap benefits from business analytics (BA). The main purpose of BA is not about how to install technical capabilities, but about how to make a process whereby a firm builds a value chain converting data into insights, leading to quality decisions. Drawing upon the theory of the information value chain, this study develops a BA value chain model and tests it with 268 data scientists. Results show that organizational resilience, absorptive capacity, and analytical IT capabilities are critical antecedents to analytical decision-making quality which in turn influences BA net benefits. Particularly, results illustrate that organizational resilience is a more significant variable impacting analytical decision-making quality than the influence of people and technology. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed

A call for the aggressive treatment of oligometastatic and oligo-recurrent non-small cell lung cancer.

Metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) carries a dismal prognosis. Clinical evidence suggests the existence of an intermediate, or oligometastatic, state when metastases are limited in number and/or location. In addition, following initial curative therapy, many patients present with limited metastatic disease, or oligo-recurrence. Metastasis-directed, anti-cancer therapies may benefit these patients. A growing evidence-base supports the use of hypofractionated, image-guided radiotherapy (HIGRT) for a variety of malignant conditions including inoperable stage I NSCLC and many metastatic sites. When surgical resection is not possible, HIGRT offers an effective alternative for local treatment of limited metastatic disease. Early studies have produced promising results when HIGRT was delivered to all known sites of disease in patients with oligometastatic/oligo-recurrent NSCLC. In a population of patients formerly considered rapidly terminal, these studies report five year overall survival rates of 13-22%. HIGRT for metastatic NSCLC warrants further study. We call for large, intergroup, and even international randomized trials incorporating HIGRT and other metastasis-directed therapies into the treatment of patients with oligometastatic/oligo-recurrent NSCLC

Safety and efficacy of vismodegib in patients aged ≥65 years with advanced basal cell carcinoma.

Because many patients with unresectable basal cell carcinoma (BCC) are aged ≥65 years, this study explores the efficacy and safety of vismodegib in these patients with locally advanced (la) or metastatic (m) basal cell carcinoma (BCC) in the ERIVANCE BCC trial and the expanded access study (EAS).We compared patients aged ≥65 years to patients aged <65 years taking vismodegib 150 mg/day, using descriptive statistics for response and safety. Patients aged ≥65 years (laBCC/mBCC) were enrolled in ERIVANCE BCC (33/14) and EAS (27/26). Investigator-assessed best overall response rate in patients ≥65 and <65 years was 46.7%/35.7% and 72.7%/52.6% (laBCC/mBCC), respectively, in ERIVANCE BCC and 45.8%/33.3% and 46.9%/28.6%, respectively, in EAS. These differences were not clinically meaningful. Safety was similar in both groups, although those aged ≥65 years had a higher percentage of grade 3-5 adverse events than those aged <65 years. Vismodegib demonstrated similar clinical activity and adverse events regardless of age

Naturalness of Ontology Concepts for Rating Aspects of the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web is expected to be the next generation of the WWW. Ontologies and agents are major ingredients of the Semantic Web. In (Lee and Geller 2005), we have argued that some existing ontologies make use of unnatural concepts. We stated that unnatural concepts make it difficult to use an ontology and they contradict the purpose of an ontology, which includes explanatory power for the purpose of sharing information. In this paper we elaborate what makes a concept unnatural. We also analyze existing ontologies to get numeric measures of how natural their concepts are

Trends in Cancer Incidence Rates in Georgia, 1982-2011

Background: Although data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End results (SEER)-affiliated cancer registry are accessible to the public, there is a shortage of published research describing cancer incidences for White, Black, and other residents in Georgia. The objective of this research is to provide an overview of the trends in incidence of cancer in Georgia. Methods: Incidence data were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) 9 program, supported by the National Cancer Institute, spanning the years 1982 to 2011. To assess trends over time, age-adjusted cancer incidence rates relative to the 2000 Standard US population and annual percent changes (APCs) were calculated using SEER*Stat software. Results: In Georgia, cancer incidence rates for women increased from 365.1 per 100,000 in 1982 to 404.2 per 100,000 in 2011, with an overall APC of 0.3% (95% confidence interval: 0.2 to 0.4), but, for men, cancer incidence rates showed a slight decline from 528.0 per 100,000 in 1982 to 513.7 per 100,000 in 2011 (APC of 0.2%, 95% CI: -0.6 to 0.1). For Black, White, and Other (Asian/Pacific Islanders/American Indians) females, there were increases in incidence in this period, with APC values of 0.6, 0.4, and 0.3, respectively. For all males and for Black and White males, there were overall decreases in incidence, with APC values of -0.2. For Other males, however, the APC value was -0.9. Conclusions: In Georgia, increases in cancer incidence rates occurred during 1982-2011 among the female population and within various racial groups in this population, but there was relative stability in incidence rates among the male population, except for Other males

Assessment of Thrust from Pressure Measurements of Supersonic Combustor

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77295/1/AIAA-2002-4016-606.pd

Hedgehog signaling is required at multiple stages of zebrafish tooth development

Background. The accessibility of the developing zebrafish pharyngeal dentition makes it an advantageous system in which to study many aspects of tooth development from early initiation to late morphogenesis. In mammals, hedgehog signaling is known to be essential for multiple stages of odontogenesis; however, potential roles for the pathway during initiation of tooth development or in later morphogenesis are incompletely understood. Results. We have identified mRNA expression of the hedgehog ligands shha and the receptors ptc1 and ptc2 during zebrafish pharyngeal tooth development. We looked for, but did not detect, tooth germ expression of the other known zebrafish hedgehog ligands shhb, dhh, ihha, or ihhb, suggesting that as in mammals, only Shh participates in zebrafish tooth development. Supporting this idea, we found that morphological and gene expression evidence of tooth initiation is eliminated in shha mutant embryos, and that morpholino antisense oligonucleotide knockdown of shha, but not shhb, function prevents mature tooth formation. Hedgehog pathway inhibition with the antagonist compound cyclopamine affected tooth formation at each stage in which we applied it: arresting development at early stages and disrupting mature tooth morphology when applied later. These results suggest that hedgehog signaling is required continuously during odontogenesis. In contrast, over-expression of shha had no effect on the developing dentition, possibly because shha is normally extensively expressed in the zebrafish pharyngeal region. Conclusion. We have identified previously unknown requirements for hedgehog signaling for early tooth initiation and later morphogenesis. The similarity of our results with data from mouse and other vertebrates suggests that despite gene duplication and changes in the location of where teeth form, the roles of hedgehog signaling in tooth development have been largely conserved during evolution. © 2010 Jackman et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd