The role of Old Believers enterprises : evidence from the nineteenth century Moscow textile industry

The early accumulation of capital and the pioneering of capitalist enterprise have been undertaken in many countries by heterodox religious communities. The role of the Old Believers (further OB) in the early development of Russian industry and trade was noted by many economic historians (Blackwell, 1965; Gerschenkron, 1970; Beliajeff, 1979; Stadnikov, 2002; Kerov, 2004; Raskov, 2012); however, empirical and statistical research on the topic is still scarce. Therefore one of our goals is to analyze the role of the OB entrepreneurship in a dynamic dimension using statistical data. Taking advantage of official censuses of 1850, 1857 and, what is more important, 15 archive sources for confessional data for 1808 - 1905 and 7 industrial reports, we analyze the role of the OB firms in the Moscow textile industry for the period of 1832 - 1890. We find that the share of the OB firms in turnover and employment was over-proportionate prior to 1879, which hints at a higher propensity to entrepreneurship. The turnover per worker of the OB firms was significantly higher only in the wool sub-sector. Additionally, the OB firms tended to employ more labor. We capture the continuous process of the rise and fall of the OB entrepreneurship, especially in cotton-paper and wool weaving sub-sectors. Bearing in mind cyclical waves of repressions against the OB, we can state, that the performance of their firms was impressing. We discuss the Weber thesis and the Petty-Gerschenkron argument, and state that various factors contributed to their success: working ethics and minority status; social capital, networking and access to interest free financing; own informal institutions and reputation mechanisms; human capital and literacy

Marxism before Marxism: Nikolaj Sieber and the birth of Russian social-democracy

The Swiss-Russian economist Nikolaj Sieber was one of the first who wrote about Marx in Russia. In this article we reconstruct the development of his thought by mobilising evidence about the intellectual and political context he lived in. We document his involvement within the Ukrainian national movement of the 1870s and argue that this closeness was consistent with his take on the capitalist evolution of the Russian Empire. We discuss his importance in the Russian debates on the future of the peasant commune and of Russia and conclude that his interpretation of Marx and capitalism was crucial for the development of the Russian social-democratic party

Upregulated expression of human neutrophil peptides 1, 2 and 3 (HNP 1-3) in colon cancer serum and tumours: a biomarker study

BACKGROUND: Molecular markers for localized colon tumours and for prognosis following therapy are needed. Proteomics research is currently producing numerous biomarker studies with clinical potential. We investigate the protein composition of plasma and of tumour extracts with the aim of identifying biomarkers for colon cancer. METHODS: By Surface Enhanced Laser Desorption/Ionisation – Time Of Flight / Mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF/MS) we compare the protein profiles of colon cancer serum with serum from healthy individuals and the protein profiles of colon tumours with normal colon tissue. By size exclusion chromatography, we investigate the binding of HNP 1-3 to high mass plasma proteins. By microflow we investigate the effect of HNP 1-3 on mammalian cells. RESULTS: Human Neutrophil Peptides -1, -2 and -3 (HNP 1-3), also known as alfa-defensin-1, -2 and -3, are present in elevated concentrations in serum from colon cancer patients and in protein extracts from colon tumours. A fraction of HNP 1-3 in serum is bound to unidentified high mass plasma proteins. HNP 1-3 purified from colon tumours are lethal to mammalian cells. CONCLUSIONS: HNP 1-3 may serve as blood markers for colon cancer in combination with other diagnostic tools. We propose that HNP 1-3 are carried into the bloodstream by attaching to high mass plasma proteins in the tumour microenvironment. We discuss the effect of HNP 1-3 on tumour progression

Use of Patient-Derived Organoids as a Treatment Selection Model for Colorectal Cancer:A Narrative Review

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common type of cancer globally. Despite successful treatment, it has a 40% chance of recurrence within five years after surgery. While neoadjuvant chemotherapy is offered for stage IV cancers, it comes with a risk of resistance and disease progression. CRC tumors vary biologically, recur frequently, and pose a significant risk for cancer-related mortality, making it increasingly relevant to develop methods to study personalized treatment. A tumor organoid is a miniature, multicellular, and 3D replica of a tumor in vitro that retains its characteristics. Here, we discuss the current methods of culturing organoids and the correlation of drug response in organoids with clinical responses in patients. This helps us to determine whether organoids can be used for treatment selection in a clinical setting. Based on the studies included, there was a strong correlation between treatment responses of organoids and clinical treatment responses. ABSTRACT: Surgical resection is the mainstay in intended curative treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC) and may be accompanied by adjuvant chemotherapy. However, 40% of the patients experience recurrence within five years of treatment, highlighting the importance of improved, personalized treatment options. Monolayer cell cultures and murine models, which are generally used to study the biology of CRC, are associated with certain drawbacks; hence, the use of organoids has been emerging. Organoids obtained from tumors display similar genotypic and phenotypic characteristics, making them ideal for investigating individualized treatment strategies and for integration as a core platform to be used in prediction models. Here, we review studies correlating the clinical response in patients with CRC with the therapeutic response in patient-derived organoids (PDO), as well as the limitations and potentials of this model. The studies outlined in this review reported strong associations between treatment responses in the PDO model and clinical treatment responses. However, as PDOs lack the tumor microenvironment, they do not genuinely account for certain crucial characteristics that influence therapeutic response. To this end, we reviewed studies investigating PDOs co-cultured with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. This model is a promising method allowing evaluation of patient-specific tumors and selection of personalized therapies. Standardized methodologies must be implemented to reach a “gold standard” for validating the use of this model in larger cohorts of patients. The introduction of this approach to a clinical scenario directing neoadjuvant treatment and in other curative and palliative treatment strategies holds incredible potential for improving personalized treatment and its outcomes

Socialist Agrarian Utopia in the 1920s: Chayanov

The specific focus of this paper is to re-examine two agrarian utopias of Alexander Chayanov (1888–1937): mostly The Journey of my Brother Alexei to the Land of the Peasant Utopia (1920) and partly the scientific prediction of the future development of agriculture The Possibilities of Agriculture (1928), in the context of the discussion of socialism and in particular Chayanov’s theory of non-capitalist economic systems (1924). The manifestation of peasant socialism that he envisages, with a form of economic organization that is based on total cooperation and inspired by the criticism of extreme coercion related to proletarian socialism (alongside his thoughts on the new paths to the large-scale collective organization of agriculture), provides us with new insights into Chayanov’s economic thinking. The paper discusses the role of the family in Chayanov’s peasant utopia. The answers to “uncomfortable” theoretical questions about the worker’s incentives, the use of coercion and the emergence of a new elite appearing under socialism are central to Chayanov’s theory of non-capitalist development. The partial comparison of scientific and peasant utopias shows different perspective to various issues and questions. In a broader context, the paper aims to show that utopias deserve a special attention in the history of economic thought and in the study of Chaynov’s legacy

Machine Learning for Radar in Health Applications : Using machine learning with multiple radars to enhance fall detection

Two mm-wave frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radars were combined with a recurrent neural network (RNN) to perform fall detection. The purpose was to find methods to implement a multi-radar setup for healthcare monitoring and to study the resulting models’ resilience to interference and other obstacles, such as re-arranging the radars in the room. Single-board computers (SBCs) controlled the radars to record and transfer data over Ethernet to a PC. The Ethernet connection also allowed synchronization with the network time protocol (NTP), which was necessary to put the data from the two sensors in correspondence. The proposed RNN used two bidirectional long-short term memory (Bi-LSTM) layers with L2-regularization and dropout layers. It had an overall accuracy of 95.15% and 98.11% recall with a test set. Performance in live testing varied with different arrangements, with an accuracy of 98% with the radars along the same wall, 94% with the radars diagonally, and 90% with an alternative arrangement that the RNN model had not seen during training. However, the latter arrangement resulted in a recall of 95.7%, with false alarms reducing the overall performance. In conclusion, the model performed adequately for fall detection, even with different radar arrangements but could still be sensitive to interference.Två millimetervågs-radarsystem av typen frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) kombinerades för att med hjälp av ett recurrent neural network (RNN) utföra falldetektering. Syftet var att finna metoder för att implementera en multiradarplatform för hälsoövervakning samt att studera de resulterande modellernas tolerans mot interferens och andra hinder så som att radarsystemen placeras på olika sätt i rummet. Enkortsdatorer kontrollerade radarsystemen för att kunna spela in och överföra data över Ethernet till en PC. Ethernetanslutningen möjliggjorde även synkronisering över network time protocol (NTP), vilket var nödvändigt för att sammanlänka datan från de båda sensorerna. Det föreslagna RNN:et använde två dubbelriktade (bidirectional) long-short term memory (Bi-LSTM) lager med L2-regularisering och dropout-lager. Det hade en total noggrannhet på 95.15% och 98.11% recall med ett test-set. Prestandan vid testning i drift varierade beroende på olika uppställningar av radarmodulerna, med en noggrannhet på 98% då de placerades längs samma vägg, 94% då de placerades diagonalt och 90% vid en alternativ uppställning som RNN-modellen inte hade sett när den tränades. Det senare resulterade dock i 95.7% recall, där falsklarm var den främsta felkällan. Sammanfattningsvis presterade modellen bra för falldetektering, även med olika uppställningar, men den verkar fortfarande vara känslig för interferens