Corruption and Doing Business in Emerging Markets

Corruption is a serious international problem with many damaging effects particularly in emerging market countries. We investigated to what degree overregulation and inadequate legal institutions contributed to corruption of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in emerging markets. Unlike other studies, we used data from the World Bank?s Doing Business annual series which provides indicators of the regulatory and legal environments facing SME. We had three major research questions. (1) Which government obstacles to conducting business in the form of overregulation and inadequate legal institutions contribute most to corruption? (2) Which are more closely linked to corruption, excessive regulations or weak legal institutions? (3) Which of the components, from which the World Bank?s indicators are derived, have the largest impact on corruption? We regressed Transparency International?s Corruption Perception Index on the nine World Bank indicators and five control variables for 51 emerging market countries from 2007 to 2015. This study concludes that all five regulation indicators, but only one of four legal indicators, contributed to corruption. While past studies have linked regulation and corruption, our contribution was identifying specifically which of the World Bank?s measures of the regulatory and legal environment cause corruption. In addition, our results also corroborate those of previous studies regarding our five control variables. Policy wise the World Bank has long advocated reducing regulations to improve SME operating efficiency. Our results further support such a policy because of its important additional benefit of reducing corruption and its many toxic effects

Delayed dislocation following metal-on-polyethylene hip replacement due to “silent” trunnion corrosion

AimsWe present a case series of ten metal-on-polyethylene total hip arthroplasties (MoP THAs) with delayed dislocation associated with unrecognised adverse local tissue reaction due to corrosion at the trunnion and pseudotumour formation.MethodsThe diagnosis was not suspected in nine of the ten patients (six female/four male; mean age 66 years), despite treatment in a specialist unit (mean time from index surgery to revision was 58 months, 36 to 84). It was identified at revision surgery and subsequently confirmed by histological examination of resected tissue. Pre-operative assessment and culture results ruled out infection. A variety of treatment strategies were used, including resection of the pseudotumour and efforts to avoid recurrent dislocation.ResultsThe rate of complications was high and included three deep infections, two patients with recurrent dislocation, and one recurrent pseudotumour.ConclusionThis series (mean follow-up of 76 months following index procedure and 19 months following revision THA) demonstrates that pseudotumour is an infrequent but important contributor to delayed instability following MoP THA. It is easy to overlook in the differential diagnosis, especially if the alignment of the components is less than optimal, leading to an assumption that malalignment is the cause of the dislocation. The instability is likely to be multifactorial and the revision surgery is complex. Take home message: Due to the high complication rate associated with revision in this cohort, the diagnosis should be borne in mind when counselling patients regarding the risks of revision surgery. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2016;98-B:187–93.</jats:sec

Bourbon Virus in Wild and Domestic Animals, Missouri, USA, 2012–2013

Bourbon virus (BRBV) was first isolated from a febrile patient with a history of tick bites in Bourbon County, Kansas, USA; the patient later died from severe illness in 2014 (1). Several additional human BRBV infections were reported subsequently from the midwestern and southern United States (2). BRBV belongs to the family Orthomyxoviridae, genus Thogotovirus, which is distributed worldwide and includes Araguari, Aransas Bay, Dhori, Jos, Thogoto, and Upolu viruses (1,3). Thogoto and Dhori viruses have been associated with human disease (4–6). Viruses within the genus Thogotovirus have been associated with hard or soft ticks (7). Recent studies suggest that the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is involved with BRBV transmission (2,3,8). These ticks feed primarily on mammals, which might play a role in BRBV ecolog

Inverse Association of Esophageal Eosinophilia With Helicobacter pylori Based on Analysis of a US Pathology Database

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is of increasing prevalence and thought to result from allergic processes. Helicobacter pylori has been inversely associated with allergic diseases, but there is no known relationship between H. pylori, EoE and esophageal eosinophilia. We investigated the association between esophageal eosinophilia and H. pylori infection

IFPA meeting 2018 workshop report II: Abnormally invasive placenta; inflammation and infection; preeclampsia; gestational trophoblastic disease and drug delivery

Workshops are an important part of the IFPA annual meeting as they allow for discussion of specialized topics. At IFPA meeting 2018 there were nine themed workshops, five of which are summarised in this report. These workshops discussed new perspectives and knowledge in the following areas of research: 1) preeclampsia; 2) abnormally invasive placenta; 3) placental infection; 4) gestational trophoblastic disease; 4) drug delivery to treat placental dysfunction

X-chromosome and kidney function:evidence from a multi-trait genetic analysis of 908,697 individuals reveals sex-specific and sex-differential findings in genes regulated by androgen response elements

X-chromosomal genetic variants are understudied but can yield valuable insights into sexually dimorphic human traits and diseases. We performed a sex-stratified cross-ancestry X-chromosome-wide association meta-analysis of seven kidney-related traits (n = 908,697), identifying 23 loci genome-wide significantly associated with two of the traits: 7 for uric acid and 16 for estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), including four novel eGFR loci containing the functionally plausible prioritized genes ACSL4, CLDN2, TSPAN6 and the female-specific DRP2. Further, we identified five novel sex-interactions, comprising male-specific effects at FAM9B and AR/EDA2R, and three sex-differential findings with larger genetic effect sizes in males at DCAF12L1 and MST4 and larger effect sizes in females at HPRT1. All prioritized genes in loci showing significant sex-interactions were located next to androgen response elements (ARE). Five ARE genes showed sex-differential expressions. This study contributes new insights into sex-dimorphisms of kidney traits along with new prioritized gene targets for further molecular research.</p

"The End of Immortality!" Eternal Life and the Makropulos Debate

Responding to a well-known essay by Bernard Williams, philosophers (and a few theologians) have engaged in what I call “the Makropulos debate,” a debate over whether immortality—“living forever”—would be desirable for beings like us. Lacking a firm conceptual grounding in the religious contexts from which terms such as “immortality” and “eternal life” gain much of their sense, the debate has consisted chiefly in a battle of speculative fantasies. Having presented my four main reasons for this assessment, I examine an alternative and neglected conception, the idea of eternal life as a present possession, derived in large part from Johannine Christianity. Without claiming to argue for the truth of this conception, I present its investigation as exemplifying a conceptually fruitful direction of inquiry into immortality or eternal life, one which takes seriously the religious and ethical surroundings of these concepts

Magna Carta, the Rule of Law and the Limits on Government

This paper surveys the legal tradition that links Magna Carta with the modern concepts of the rule of law and the limits on government. It documents that the original understanding of the rule of law included substantive commitments to individual freedom and limited government. Then, it attempts at explaining how and why such commitments were lost to a formalist interpretation of the rule of law from 1848 to 1939. The paper concludes by arguing how a revival of the substantive commitments of the rule of law is central in a project of reshaping modern states

The Somatic Genomic Landscape of Glioblastoma

We describe the landscape of somatic genomic alterations based on multi-dimensional and comprehensive characterization of more than 500 glioblastoma tumors (GBMs). We identify several novel mutated genes as well as complex rearrangements of signature receptors including EGFR and PDGFRA. TERT promoter mutations are shown to correlate with elevated mRNA expression, supporting a role in telomerase reactivation. Correlative analyses confirm that the survival advantage of the proneural subtype is conferred by the G-CIMP phenotype, and MGMT DNA methylation may be a predictive biomarker for treatment response only in classical subtype GBM. Integrative analysis of genomic and proteomic profiles challenges the notion of therapeutic inhibition of a pathway as an alternative to inhibition of the target itself. These data will facilitate the discovery of therapeutic and diagnostic target candidates, the validation of research and clinical observations and the generation of unanticipated hypotheses that can advance our molecular understanding of this lethal cancer