Extended two-stage adaptive designswith three target responses forphase II clinical trials

We develop a nature-inspired stochastic population-based algorithm and call it discrete particle swarm optimization tofind extended two-stage adaptive optimal designs that allow three target response rates for the drug in a phase II trial.Our proposed designs include the celebrated Simon’s two-stage design and its extension that allows two target responserates to be specified for the drug. We show that discrete particle swarm optimization not only frequently outperformsgreedy algorithms, which are currently used to find such designs when there are only a few parameters; it is also capableof solving design problems posed here with more parameters that greedy algorithms cannot solve. In stage 1 of ourproposed designs, futility is quickly assessed and if there are sufficient responders to move to stage 2, one tests one ofthe three target response rates of the drug, subject to various user-specified testing error rates. Our designs aretherefore more flexible and interestingly, do not necessarily require larger expected sample size requirements thantwo-stage adaptive designs. Using a real adaptive trial for melanoma patients, we show our proposed design requires onehalf fewer subjects than the implemented design in the study

Agricultural Policy Reform and Structural Adjustment: Historical Evidence from Korean Experience

Korean agriculture has been facing several structural problems resulting from rapid structural changes since 1960's, some of which are preventing a smooth policy reform in accordance with the WTO regime. Political burden from rice monoculture, policy ineffectiveness from too large farm employment, and inflexibility in policy options from high dependency of farm household income on farm income are pointed out and discussed in detail.direct payment, market price support(MPS), producer support estimate(PSE), rice monoculture, two-tier price scheme, Agricultural and Food Policy,

The Degree of Decoupling of Direct Payments for Korea's Rice Industry

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Unintended complication of intracranial subdural hematoma after percutaneous epidural neuroplasty.

Percutaneous epidural neuroplasty (PEN) is a known interventional technique for the management of spinal pain. As with any procedures, PEN is associated with complications ranging from mild to more serious ones. We present a case of intracranial subdural hematoma after PEN requiring surgical evacuation. We review the relevant literature and discuss possible complications of PEN and patholophysiology of intracranial subdural hematoma after PEN