MicroRNAs in B cell development and malignancy

MicroRNAs are small RNA molecules that regulate gene expression and play critical roles in B cell development and malignancy. miRNA expression is important globally, as B cell specific knockouts of Dicer show profound defects in B cell development; and is also critical at the level of specific miRNAs. In this review, we discuss miRNAs that are involved in normal B cell development in the bone marrow and during B cell activation and terminal differentiation in the periphery. Next, we turn to miRNAs that are dysregulated during diseases of B cells, including malignant diseases and autoimmunity. Further study of miRNAs and their targets will lead to a better understanding of B cell development, and should also lead to the development of novel therapeutic strategies against B cell diseases

A Market Experiment on Trade Promotion Budget and Allocation

We design a market experiment to examine how firm size and ability to choose trade promotion types influence trade promotion budget, its allocation and channel profits. Our experimental results show that larger manufacturers offer smaller trade promotion budgets. Manufacturers with ability to influence the allocation decision favor scan-backs while retailers favor off-invoices. Trade promotion decisions affect profit sharing within the channel but not total channel profit. We validate these findings with an econometric analysis of survey data from supermarket executives. Overall, our results suggest that market experiments can shed light on trade promotion outcomes for which industry data are sparse.trade promotion, market experiments, Marketing,

R-PEKS: RBAC Enabled PEKS for Secure Access of Cloud Data

In the recent past, few works have been done by combining attribute-based access control with multi-user PEKS, i.e., public key encryption with keyword search. Such attribute enabled searchable encryption is most suitable for applications where the changing of privileges is done once in a while. However, to date, no efficient and secure scheme is available in the literature that is suitable for these applications where changing privileges are done frequently. In this paper our contributions are twofold. Firstly, we propose a new PEKS scheme for string search, which, unlike the previous constructions, is free from bi-linear mapping and is efficient by 97% compared to PEKS for string search proposed by Ray et.al in TrustCom 2017. Secondly, we introduce role based access control (RBAC) to multi-user PEKS, where an arbitrary group of users can search and access the encrypted files depending upon roles. We termed this integrated scheme as R-PEKS. The efficiency of R-PEKS over the PEKS scheme is up to 90%. We provide formal security proofs for the different components of R-PEKS and validate these schemes using a commercial dataset

Intergovernmental fiscal relations and poverty alleviation in Viet Nam

A successful poverty alleviation strategy has four distinct elements: 1) identifying who the poor are, where they are located, and what they do; 2) analyzing why they are poor; 3) developing policies to improve their standards of living; and 4) supplementing income-improving policies with direct"safety net"policies to increase the poor's short-term consumption etitlements. The precise mixture of"capacity-improving"investments and"safety net"policies appropriate for any country will depend on the country's income level, the extent and nature of its poverty problem, and many other factors. The strategy chosen must be implemented effectively. Spending and revenue decisions need to be more decentralized to ensure that the poverty alleviation policies adopted reflect the preferences, needs, and fiscal abilities of different regions of the country. The nature of that decentralization depends on the country. Pro-poor services throughout Viet Nam are underfunded. This problem is particularly acute in the poorer areas. Improvements in the system of intergovernmental finances could help ensure that each level of government, even in the poorer provinces, is adequately funded - and provided with sufficient expenditure and revenue raising autonomy - to support local investments and their operation and maintenance. Since poor provinces are less able to mobilize additional local revenues to support services, well-designed intergovernmental transfers are particularly important. Provinces must play a greater role both in raising revenues and in allocating expenditures, with incentives built in to ensure that they do so responsibly and efficiently. Local governments must - if they are tobe held accountable for their actions - have some responsibility for determining local tax rates. This will allow them to vary rates to collect more revenues to finance higher levels of public services if they so choose, and at the same time allow the central government to design its transfers in such a way as to ensure that local fiscal efforts are not discouraged by the receipt of such transfers. Richer provinces will tend to collect greater revenues. When transfers are needed to finance local spending in poorer areas, they should provide incentives for local revenue mobilization and allow for some degree of equalization. Services deemed of national importance (for example, a minimum level of education, health care, and social relief) can be promoted by designing specific-purpose transfers. These services must be identified and varying matching requirements established for different provinces depending on such factors as their own revenue base and the cost of providing services in that province.Municipal Financial Management,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Decentralization,National Governance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Health Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform