Fluctuations of company yearly profits versus scaled revenue: Fat tail distribution of Levy type

We analyze annual revenues and earnings data for the 500 largest-revenue U.S. companies during the period 1954-2007. We find that mean year profits are proportional to mean year revenues, exception made for few anomalous years, from which we postulate a linear relation between company expected mean profit and revenue. Mean annual revenues are used to scale both company profits and revenues. Annual profit fluctuations are obtained as difference between actual annual profit and its expected mean value, scaled by a power of the revenue to get a stationary behavior as a function of revenue. We find that profit fluctuations are broadly distributed having approximate power-law tails with a Levy-type exponent $\alpha \simeq 1.7$, from which we derive the associated break-even probability distribution. The predictions are compared with empirical data.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

The introduction of the Cancer Research UK Stratified Medicine Programme 2 (CRUK SMP2) in North East England; lessons learned and experience gained

Introduction: The CRUK SMP2 programme was set-up to evaluate the feasibility of performing large scale molecular analysis within the NHS on the (often small) diagnostic biopsies obtained in NSCLC. The results are used to allocate patients to an appropriate molecular therapy within the “umbrella” MATRIX trial. Newcastle opened SMP2 on 01/10/2014. Here we report our first year’s experience. Methods: NSCLC patients with PS 0–2 were consented onto the CRUK SMP2. Matched residual diagnostic tissue and blood were sent to All Wales Genetics Laboratory, Cardiff. Samples with >70ng DNA were assessed for 28 oncogenes using Next Genuine Sequencing on the Illumina SMP2 panel. Results: 116 patients were consented from 6/10/14–1/10/15 referred from 12 oncologists. The data on patient/sample flow is shown in Fig 1. Median survival was 161 days from consent. The 1st sample was sent to Cardiff on 28/1/15 as the Illumina panel was undergoing fi- nal validation. 50 samples have been sent; 11 had insufficient DNA; these samples had lower cell number (but with no impact of necrosis/tumour proportion); The most commonly altered gene was K-Ras (13 of 22 adenocarcinomas). Only 2 patients with results from >25 of the 28 genes had no tier 1 or 2 ie potentially treatable molecular abnormalities. The median time from consent to result was 109 days (range 45–250) with delays occurring throughout the pathway. Conclusion: Patients and oncologists are keen to be involved in molecular profiling; but patients need to be consented early to allow results to guide therapy. Prioritisation of samples is key. Not all samples are suitable for analysis due to small cell number or low tumour proportion. Molecular analysis may require extra resource in pathology, if it is to become standard of care. The first 4 patients to start treatment on MATRIX were enrolled from 27/8/15 in Newcastle. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest

The Compartmentalized Bacteria of the Planctomycetes-Verrucomicrobia-Chlamydiae Superphylum Have Membrane Coat-Like Proteins

Compartmentalized bacteria have proteins that are structurally related to eukaryotic membrane coats, and one of these proteins localizes at the membrane of vesicles formed inside bacterial cells

Assessment of microRNA-related SNP effects in the 3′ untranslated region of the IL22RA2 risk locus in multiple sclerosis

Abstract Recent large-scale association studies have identified over 100 MS risk loci. One of these MS risk variants is single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs17066096, located 14 kb downstream of IL22RA2. IL22RA2 represents a compelling MS candidate gene due to the role of IL-22 in autoimmunity; however, rs17066096 does not map into any known functional element. We assessed whether rs17066096 or a nearby proxy SNP may exert pathogenic effects by affecting microRNA-to-mRNA binding and thus IL22RA2 expression using comprehensive in silico predictions, in vitro reporter assays, and genotyping experiments in 6,722 individuals. In silico screening identified two predicted microRNA binding sites in the 3′UTR of IL22RA2 (for hsa-miR-2278 and hsamiR-411-5p) encompassing a SNP (rs28366) in moderate linkage disequilibrium with rs17066096 (r 2 =0.4). The binding of both microRNAs to the IL22RA2 3′UTR was confirmed in vitro, but their binding affinities were not significantly affected by rs28366. Association analyses revealed significant Electronic supplementary material The online version of this articl

Accounting flows : Income, funds and cash. Englewood Cliffs N.J., Prentice-Hall, (1965), 8, VIII - 167 P., tabb.

(Prentice?Hall Foundations of Finance SeriesSprouse (Robert T) G. 6