Demutualization and its Problems

Over the last three decades cooperatives experienced acceleration of institutional innovation with the introduction of many variations to the reference model. It is certainly not surprising that coops changed their organizational structure over time to face the challenges of world. In the United States and in Canada they are commonly referred to as New generation cooperatives, in Italy and Spain as cooperative groups or network of cooperatives. One of the main feature of these new organizational structures is their attempt to take some advantages of the investor oriented firms (above all in capital raising activities) while retaining the mutual/cooperative status. Many of these changes have been undertaken to facilitate the growth of the enterprises both in domestic market and abroad. Due to the wideness of the phenomenon we could name the last three decades the age of hybridization. However in some cases the search for new structures went further and assumed the aspect of conversion of mutuals into stock firms. Our paper will deal with this latter part of the story, focusing on cooperatives that preferred conversion or demutualization to hybridization. The paper describes the chronology and the geography of demutualization and analyses the forces that drove it over the last decades. The main conclusion is that demutualization provided solutions for real problems, as hybridization did, however the choice between these two options seems to have been more a matter of ideology than of efficiency.

CSF lactate dehydrogenase activity in patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease exceeds that in other dementias

The diagnosis of Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease (CJD) is still made by exclusion of other dementias. We now evaluated lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) as a possible additional diagnostic tool. CSF LDH levels of patients with CJD ( n = 26) were compared with those in other dementias ( n = 28). LDH isoenzymes were determined in a subset ( n = 9). Total LDH and isoenzyme LDH-1 were significantly higher, whereas the fractions of LDH-2 and LDH-3 were significantly lower in CJD patients. We conclude that in addition to established CSF parameters, LDH and its isoenzymes might serve as a further help to discriminate between CJD and other dementias. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel

Kaon properties and cross sections in nuclear medium

Results for the $\pi + N \to \Lambda, \Sigma + K$ reactions in nuclear matter of Ref. nucl-th/0004011 are presented. To evaluate the in-medium modification of the reaction amplitude as a function of the baryonic density we introduce relativistic, mean-field potentials for the initial, final and intermediate mesonic and baryonic states in the resonance model. These vector and scalar potentials were calculated using the quark meson coupling model. Contrary to earlier work which has not allowed for the change of the cross section in medium, we find that the data for kaon production at SIS energies are consistent with a repulsive $K^+$-nucleus potential.Comment: 5 pages, 3 postscript figures included, uses iopart.cls and iopart10.clo (included), presented by K.T. at the 5th International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter, July 20 - 25, 2000, Berkeley, California, to be published in the proceedings, J. Phys. G. An explanation has been added in Sec. 3 with a new figur

Long-term (25-year) survival after renal homotransplantation - The world experience

A follow-up is provided for 64 patients treated with renal transplantation at the University of Colorado before 31 March 1964. The 25-year survival was 15/64 (23.4%) and 14 patients (22%) are still alive after 25 1/2 to 27 years. There are 9 other survivors in the world from this era, distributed in 4 American and 2 European centers. All of the 25-year survivors received their grafts from living related donors

Systematic review search strategies are poorly reported and not reproducible: a cross-sectional metaresearch study

Objectives: To determine the reproducibility of biomedical systematic review search strategies.Study Design and Setting: A cross-sectional reproducibility study was conducted on a random sample of 100 systematic reviews indexed in MEDLINE in November 2021. The primary outcome measure is the percentage of systematic reviews for which all database searches can be reproduced, operationalized as fulfilling six key Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses literature search extension (PRISMA-S) reporting guideline items and having all database searches reproduced within 10% of the number of original results. Key reporting guideline items included database name, multi-database searching, full search strategies, limits and restrictions, date(s) of searches, and total records.Results: The 100 systematic review articles contained 453 database searches. Only 22 (4.9%) database searches reported all six PRISMA-S items. Forty-seven (10.4%) database searches could be reproduced within 10% of the number of results from the original search; six searches differed by more than 1,000% between the originally reported number of results and the reproduction. Only one systematic review article provided the necessary search details to be fully reproducible.Conclusion: Systematic review search reporting is poor. To correct this will require a multifaceted response from authors, peer reviewers, journal editors, and database providers

Cosmic antiprotons as a probe for supersymmetric dark matter?

The flux of cosmic ray antiprotons from neutralino annihilations in the galactic halo is computed for a large sample of models in the MSSM (the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model). We also revisit the problem of estimating the background of low-energy cosmic ray induced secondary antiprotons, taking into account their subsequent interactions (and energy loss) and the presence of nuclei in the interstellar matter. We consider a two-zone diffusion model, with and without a galactic wind. We find that, given the uncertainties in the background predictions, there is no need for a primary (exotic) component to explain present data. However, allowing for a signal by playing with the uncertainties in the background estimate, we discuss the characteristic features of the supersymmetric models which give a satisfactory description of the data. We point out that in some cases the optimal kinetic energy to search for a signal from supersymmetric dark matter is above several GeV, rather than the traditional sub-GeV region. The large astrophysical uncertainties involved do not, one the other hand, allow the exclusion of any of the MSSM models we consider, on the basis of data. We present besides numerical results also convenient parameterizations of the antiproton yields of all `basic' two-body final states. We also give examples of the yield and differential energy spectrum for a set of supersymmetric models with high rates. We also remark that it is difficult to put a limit on the antiproton lifetime from present measurements, since the injection of antiprotons from neutralino annihilation can compensate the loss from decay.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, uses emulateapj.st

Prognosis research strategy (PROGRESS) 1: a framework for researching clinical outcomes.

The PROGRESS series (www.progress-partnership.org) sets out a framework of four interlinked prognosis research themes and provides examples from several disease fields to show why evidence from prognosis research is crucial to inform all points in the translation of biomedical and health related research into better patient outcomes. Recommendations are made in each of the four papers to improve current research standards What is prognosis research? Prognosis research seeks to understand and improve future outcomes in people with a given disease or health condition. However, there is increasing evidence that prognosis research standards need to be improved Why is prognosis research important? More people now live with disease and conditions that impair health than at any other time in history; prognosis research provides crucial evidence for translating findings from the laboratory to humans, and from clinical research to clinical practice This first article introduces the framework of four interlinked prognosis research themes and then focuses on the first of the themes - fundamental prognosis research, studies that aim to describe and explain future outcomes in relation to current diagnostic and treatment practices, often in relation to quality of care Fundamental prognosis research provides evidence informing healthcare and public health policy, the design and interpretation of randomised trials, and the impact of diagnostic tests on future outcome. It can inform new definitions of disease, may identify unanticipated benefits or harms of interventions, and clarify where new interventions are required to improve prognosis

Herd-level animal management factors associated with the occurrence of bovine neonatal pancytopenia in calves in a multicountry study

Since 2007, mortality associated with a previously unreported haemorrhagic disease has been observed in young calves in several European countries. The syndrome, which has been named ‘bovine neonatal pancytopenia’ (BNP), is characterised by thrombocytopenia, leukocytopenia and a panmyelophthisis. A herd-level case-control study was conducted in four BNP affected countries (Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands) to identify herd management risk factors for BNP occurrence. Data were collected using structured face-to-face and telephone interviews of farm managers and their local veterinarians. In total, 363 case farms and 887 control farms were included in a matched multivariable conditional logistic regression analysis. Case-control status was strongly associated with the odds of herd level use of the vaccine PregSure® BVD (PregSure, Pfizer Animal Health) (matched adjusted odds ratio (OR) 107.2; 95% CI: 41.0–280.1). This was also the case for the practices of feeding calves colostrum from the calf’s own dam (OR 2.0; 95% CI: 1.1–3.4) or feeding pooled colostrum (OR 4.1; 95% CI: 1.9–8.8). Given that the study had relatively high statistical power and represented a variety of cattle production and husbandry systems, it can be concluded with some confidence that no other herd level management factors are competent causes for a sufficient cause of BNP occurrence on herd level. It is suggested that genetic characteristics of the dams and BNP calves should be the focus of further investigations aimed at identifying the currently missing component causes that together with PregSure vaccination and colostrum feeding represent a sufficient cause for occurrence of BNP in calves