Does Current Antitrust Regulation Provide Free Parking for eBay and PayPal in The Monopoly Game of Online Auction Sites and Person-To-Person Online Payment Systems?

EBay currently dominates the online auction market with a market share exceeding 90% in several prominent European countries. Until recently, eBay sellers were permitted to accept a wide array of payment options from buyers including wire transfers, money orders, and checks, as well as credit card payments through PayPal and other merchant accounts. However, pursuant to eBay\u27s paperless payment policy enacted on November 11, 2008, sellers may no longer accept personal checks, cashier\u27s checks, money orders, or wire transfers except in limited circumstances. In response to that policy as well as other alleged anticompetitive acts, a class action consolidated lawsuit has been filed against eBay and PayPal whereby the complaint alleged that eBay is a monopolist in the online auction market and has abused, and continues to abuse, its market dominance to maintain and increase its monopolist profits. This comment argues that eBay possesses monopolistic power in the online auction marketplace due to both its control of a predominate market share and the existence of trade barriers and has abused that market power by engaging in a variety of anticompetitive activities in violation of current antitrust laws. In the end, this comment concludes that some level of intervention into eBay\u27s current business practices such as injunctive relief is necessary to prevent further harm to competition in the online auction market and person-to-person online payment systems market

Chronicles of Oklahoma

Article examines the roots of the Jewish population of Oklahoma and the establishment of businesses amidst Oklahoma's boom-and-bust economy. Amy Hill Shevitz also predicts future developments for the Jewish community

Perturbative Couplings of Vector Multiplets in N=2N=2 Heterotic String Vacua

We study the low-energy effective Lagrangian of $N=2$ heterotic string vacua at the classical and quantum level. The couplings of the vector multiplets are uniquely determined at the tree level, while the loop corrections are severely constrained by the exact discrete symmetries of the string vacuum. We evaluate the general transformation law of the perturbative prepotential and determine its form for the toroidal compactifications of six-dimensional $N=1$ supersymmetric vacua.Comment: 44 pages, late

A systematic review of the effects of exercise interventions on body composition in HIV+ adults

Over the years, physical activity and exercise have been used to positively impact the health and quality of life of persons infected with HIV and, more recently, has been associated with a spectrum of body composition changes. The aim of this review was to examine the effects of various exercise interventions on body composition in HIV positive adults, using a search strategy of randomized, controlled trials (RCTs). A systematic review was performed by five independent reviewers using a predetermined protocol adapted from previous research for assessing the articles for inclusion, the extracted data, and methodological quality. Eight RCTs involving 430 (26% female) HIV positive adults performing exercise a minimum of thrice weekly for at least six weeks were finally selected: Four were progressive resistance training (PRT) studies, three were aerobic training (AT) studies, and one involved yoga. In the PRT studies, there were significant increases in three anthropometric measures, namely, body mass, sum of skinfolds and sum of limb girths. In the AT studies, significant decreases were found in seven anthropometric measures, namely, body mass index, waist-hip ratio, body mass, triceps skinfold, waist circumference and sum of skinfolds. With yoga, the changes were nonsignificant. Exercise contributes to improved body composition and, when applied safely, appears to be beneficial for adults living with HIV/AIDS. However, these findings should be interpreted cautiously due to the relatively few RCTs published to date. Future studies would benefit from increased attention to sample size, female participants, participant follow-up, complete statistical analysis and intention-to-treat analysis.Scopu

Association Between Nutritional Status and the Immune response in HIV + Patients under HAART: Protocol for a Systematic Review.

Over 850 million people worldwide and 200 million adults in Sub-Saharan Africa suffer from malnutrition. Countries most affected by HIV are also stricken by elevated rates of food insecurity and malnutrition. HIV infection and insufficient nutritional intake are part of a vicious cycle that contributes to immunodeficiency and negative health outcomes. However, the effect of the overlap between HIV infection and undernutrition on the immune response following antiretroviral initiation remains unclear. A possible explanation could be the lack of consensus concerning the definition and assessment of nutritional status. Our objectives are to investigate the existence of an association between undernutrition and immune response at antiretroviral treatment initiation and the following year in low- and middle-income countries where malnutrition is most prevalent. Our systematic review will identify studies originating from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) published from 1996 onwards, through searches in MEDLINE (PubMed interface), EMBASE (OVID interface), Cochrane Central (OVID interface) and grey literature. No language restrictions will be applied. We will seek out studies of any design investigating the association between the nutritional status (for example, undernourished versus well nourished) and the immune response, either in terms of CD4 count or immune failure, in seropositive patients initiating antiretroviral therapy or in their first year of treatment. Two reviewers will independently screen articles, extract data and assess scientific quality using standardized forms and published quality assessment tools tailored for each study design. Where feasible, pooled measures of association will be obtained through meta-analyses. Results will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement. This protocol has been registered in the PROSPERO database (registration number: CRD42014005961). Undernutrition and weight loss are prevalent amongst highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)-treated patients in LMICs and contribute to excess early mortality. A possible intermediate pathway could be poor immune reconstitution secondary to deficient nutritional status. In the face of limited access to second line treatments, raising HIV resistance and cut backs to HIV programs, it is crucial to identify the factors associated with suboptimal response and therapeutic failure in order to better customize the care strategies employed in LMICs

A comparison of approximate reasoning results using information uncertainty

An Approximate Reasoning (AR) model is a useful alternative to a probabilistic model when there is a need to draw conclusions from information that is qualitative. For certain systems, much of the information available is elicited from subject matter experts (SME). One such example is the risk of attack on a particular facility by a pernicious adversary. In this example there are several avenues of attack, i.e. scenarios, and AR can be used to model the risk of attack associated with each scenario. The qualitative information available and provided by the SME is comprised of linguistic values which are well suited for an AR model but meager for other modeling approaches. AR models can produce many competing results. Associated with each competing AR result is a vector of linguistic values and a respective degree of membership in each value. A suitable means to compare and segregate AR results would be an invaluable tool to analysts and decisions makers. A viable method would be to quantify the information uncertainty present in each AR result then use the measured quantity comparatively. One issue of concern for measuring the infornlation uncertainty involved with fuzzy uncertainty is that previously proposed approaches focus on the information uncertainty involved within the entire fuzzy set. This paper proposes extending measures of information uncertainty to AR results, which involve only one degree of membership for each fuzzy set included in the AR result. An approach to quantify the information uncertainty in the AR result is presented

Nutrition outcomes of HIV-infected malnourished adults treated with ready-to-use therapeutic food in sub-Saharan Africa: a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Among people living with HIV/AIDS, nutritional support is increasingly recognized as a critical part of the essential package of care, especially for patients in sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives of the study were to evaluate the outcomes of HIV-positive malnourished adults treated with ready-to-use therapeutic food and to identify factors associated with nutrition programme failure. METHODS: We present results from a retrospective cohort analysis of patients aged 15 years or older with a body mass index of less than 17 kg/m^2 enrolled in three HIV/AIDS care programmes in Africa between March 2006 and August 2008. Factors associated with nutrition programme failure (patients discharged uncured after six or more months of nutritional care, defaulting from nutritional care, remaining in nutritional care for six or more months, or dead) were investigated using multiple logistic regression. RESULTS: Overall, 1340 of 8685 (15.4%) HIV-positive adults were enrolled in the nutrition programme. At admission, median body mass index was 15.8 kg/m2 (IQR 14.9-16.4) and 12% received combination antiretroviral therapy (ART). After a median of four months of follow up (IQR 2.2-6.1), 524 of 1106 (47.4%) patients were considered cured. An overall total of 531 of 1106 (48.0%) patients failed nutrition therapy, 132 (11.9%) of whom died and 250 (22.6%) defaulted from care. Men (OR=1.5, 95% CI 1.2-2.0), patients with severe malnutrition at nutrition programme enrolment (OR=2.2, 95% CI 1.7-2.8), and those never started on ART (OR=4.5, 95% CI 2.7-7.7 for those eligible; OR=1.6, 95% CI 1.0-2.5 for those ineligible for ART at enrolment) were at increased risk of nutrition programme failure. Diagnosed tuberculosis at nutrition programme admission or during follow up, and presence of diarrhoeal disease or extensive candidiasis at admission, were unrelated to nutrition programme failure. CONCLUSIONS: Concomitant administration of ART and ready-to-use therapeutic food increases the chances of nutritional recovery in these high-risk patients. While adequate nutrition is necessary to treat malnourished HIV patients, development of improved strategies for the management of severely malnourished patients with HIV/AIDS are urgently needed

A New Conservative Remap Method for Discontinuous Numerical Fields

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