Ernst Freund as Precursor of the Rational Study of Corporate Law

Gindis, David, Ernst Freund as Precursor of the Rational Study of Corporate Law (October 27, 2017). Journal of Institutional Economics, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2905547, doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2905547The rise of large business corporations in the late 19th century compelled many American observers to admit that the nature of the corporation had yet to be understood. Published in this context, Ernst Freund's little-known The Legal Nature of Corporations (1897) was an original attempt to come to terms with a new legal and economic reality. But it can also be described, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, as the earliest example of the rational study of corporate law. The paper shows that Freund had the intuitions of an institutional economist, and engaged in what today would be called comparative institutional analysis. Remarkably, his argument that the corporate form secures property against insider defection and against outsiders anticipated recent work on entity shielding and capital lock-in, and can be read as an early contribution to what today would be called the theory of the firm.Peer reviewe

Cloquet Forestry Center Continuous Forest Inventory (1959-2014)

The Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC) is a field research and instructional station administrated by the University of Minnesota. This report compiles CFC Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) results from the summer 2014 re-measurement of 402 permanent field plots. These plots serve both research and forest management on the CFC. The individual plots are 1/7 acre in size and were installed and first measured in 1959. The plots have been subsequently remeasured in 1964, 1969, 1976, 1982, 1990, 2000 and in 2014. Three more plots were also added in 2014 (totaling 405) on newly acquired acreage. The report also describes changes in the forest since 2000 and longer-term trends. Summaries provided include 2014 number of trees, basal area, volume and biomass per acre by covertype, and acreage by age class distributions. Longer-term trends from 1959 are also described. The report also details the inventory design and associated details for the permanent plots, including measurement technologies. Data collection and analysis procedures were developed using Microsoft Access and the R statistical analysis package. Access to the compiled data and preliminary analysis is also described.The CFC-CFI database contains field inventory results and analysis from ongoing inventory efforts at the University of Minnesota's Cloquet Forestry Center (1959-2014). Data entry functionality has been disabled for the distributed version. Instructions for using the Access database forms, tables and queries are included in the appendices of the referenced report.University of Minnesota Board of RegentsMinnesota Agricultural Experiment Station (MAES Project MIN 42-019)University of Minnesota Grant-in-Aid program in the Office of the Vice President for ResearchInteragency Information CooperativeDepartment of Forest Resource

Bifunctional PD-1 x alpha CD3 x alpha CD33 fusion protein reverses adaptive immune escape in acute myeloid leukemia.

The CD33-targeting bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) AMG 330 proved to be highly efficient in mediating cytolysis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells in vitro and in mouse models. Yet, T-cell activation is correlated with upregulation of programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) and other inhibitory checkpoints on AML cells that confer adaptive immune resistance. PD-1 and PD-L1 blocking agents may counteract T-cell dysfunction, however, at the expense of broadly distributed immune-related adverse events (irAEs). We developed a bifunctional checkpoint inhibitory T cell-engaging (CiTE) antibody that combines T-cell redirection to CD33 on AML cells with locally restricted immune checkpoint blockade. This is accomplished by fusing the extracellular domain of PD-1 (PD-1(ex)), which naturally holds a low affinity to PD-L1, to an alpha CD3. alpha CD33 BiTE-like scaffold. By a synergistic effect of checkpoint blockade and avidity-dependent binding, the PD-1(ex) attachment increases T-cell activation (3.3-fold elevation of interferon-g) and leads to efficient and highly selective cytotoxicity against CD33(+)PD-L1(+) cell lines (50% effective concentration 5 2.3-26.9 pM) as well as patient-derived AML cells (n = 8). In a murine xenograft model, the CiTE induces complete AML eradication without initial signs of irAEs as measured by body weight loss. We conclude that our molecule preferentially targets AML cells, whereas high-affinity blockers, such as clinically approved anticancer agents, also address PD-L1(+) non-AML cells. By combining the high efficacy of T-cell engagers with immune checkpoint blockade in a single molecule, we expect to minimize irAEs associated with the systemic application of immune checkpoint inhibitors and suggest high therapeutic potential, particularly for patients with relapsed/refractory AML