Some applications of national income accounting with special reference to China

The present study has been the result of my Ph.D. research on China's national income accounting begun in 1960 at Edinburgh. Initially I had hoped to estimate China's national income for the period 1958-62 based on the conventional national income accounting system. Owing to lack of statistical data, the project was virtually abandoned after two years most of which period had been spent on going through the original Chinese sources as well their English translations available to me in the United Kingdom and, at the same time, hopefully waiting for release of more relevant statistical information in one form or the other by the Chinese on the mainland. Th result of those two years/ of ground work eventually took the form of a very crude estimation of China's national income aggregates for the period 1960-62, which is now incorporated as part of the present study. The work on the study in its present form, which involves a change from construction of a set of national income accounts to applications of national income accounting began in 1962 and the problem of non-availability of non-Chinese national income series has been made easier through passage of time, for the Chinese national income studios by T. C. Liu and K. C. Yeh on behalf of the RAND Corporation and also by Y. L. Wu and associates on behalf of the Stanford Research Institute were available to me in 1964, which provide the necessary empirical data to strengthen the application aspects.Research on the Chinese economy may sometimes be fascinating but the amount of ground work which needs to be done can also be tedious, frustrating, and time-consuming for any one individual without any assistance. The output is usually extremely low in relation to the effort put in

Effect of piperacillin-tazobactam vs meropenem on 30-day mortality for patients with e coli or Klebsiella pneumoniae bloodstream infection and ceftriaxone resistance: A randomized clinical trial

IMPORTANCE Extended-spectrum β-lactamases mediate resistance to third-generation cephalosporins (eg, ceftriaxone) in Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Significant infections caused by these strains are usually treated with carbapenems, potentially selecting for carbapenem resistance. Piperacillin-tazobactam may be an effective “carbapenem-sparing” option to treat extended-spectrum β-lactamase producers. OBJECTIVES To determine whether definitive therapy with piperacillin-tazobactam is noninferior to meropenem (a carbapenem) in patients with bloodstream infection caused by ceftriaxone-nonsusceptible E coli or K pneumoniae. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Noninferiority, parallel group, randomized clinical trial included hospitalized patients enrolled from 26 sites in 9 countries from February 2014 to July 2017. Adult patients were eligible if they had at least 1 positive blood culture with E coli or Klebsiella spp testing nonsusceptible to ceftriaxone but susceptible to piperacillin-tazobactam. Of 1646 patients screened, 391 were included in the study. INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to intravenous piperacillin-tazobactam, 4.5 g, every 6 hours (n = 188 participants) or meropenem, 1 g, every 8 hours (n = 191 participants) for a minimum of 4 days, up to a maximum of 14 days, with the total duration determined by the treating clinician. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was all-cause mortality at 30 days after randomization. A noninferiority margin of 5% was used. RESULTS Among 379 patients (mean age, 66.5 years; 47.8% women) who were randomized appropriately, received at least 1 dose of study drug, and were included in the primary analysis population, 378 (99.7%) completed the trial and were assessed for the primary outcome. A total of 23 of 187 patients (12.3%) randomized to piperacillin-tazobactam met the primary outcome of mortality at 30 days compared with 7 of 191 (3.7%) randomized to meropenem (risk difference, 8.6% [1-sided 97.5% CI, − to 14.5%]; P = .90 for noninferiority). Effects were consistent in an analysis of the per-protocol population. Nonfatal serious adverse events occurred in 5 of 188 patients (2.7%) in the piperacillin-tazobactam group and 3 of 191 (1.6%) in the meropenem group. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Among patients with E coli or K pneumoniae bloodstream infection and ceftriaxone resistance, definitive treatment with piperacillin-tazobactam compared with meropenem did not result in a noninferior 30-day mortality. These findings do not support use of piperacillin-tazobactam in this setting.</p