Off-Label Biologic Regimens in Psoriasis: A Systematic Review of Efficacy and Safety of Dose Escalation, Reduction, and Interrupted Biologic Therapy

Objectives: While off-label dosing of biologic treatments may be necessary in selected psoriasis patients, no systematic review exists to date that synthesizes the efficacy and safety of these off-label dosing regimens. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate efficacy and safety of off-label dosing regimens (dose escalation, dose reduction, and interrupted treatment) with etanercept, adalimumab, infliximab, ustekinumab, and alefacept for psoriasis treatment

Beyond Market Failures: The Market Creating and Shaping Roles of State Investment Banks

Recent decades witnessed a trend whereby private markets retreated from financing the real economy, while, simultaneously, the real economy itself became increasingly financialized. This trend resulted in public finance becoming more important for investments in capital development, technical change, and innovation. Within this context, this paper focuses on the roles played by a particular source of public finance: state investment banks (SIBs). It develops a conceptual typology of the different roles that SIBs play in the economy, which together show the market creation/shaping process of SIBs rather than their mere "market fixing" roles. This paper discusses four types of investments, both theoretically and empirically: countercyclical, developmental, venture capitalist, and challenge led. To develop the typology, we first discuss how standard market failure theory justifies the roles of SIBs, the diagnostics and evaluation toolbox associated with it, and resulting criticisms centered on notions of "government failures." We then show the limitations of this approach based on insights from Keynes, Schumpeter, Minsky, and Polanyi, as well as other authors from the evolutionary economics tradition, which help us move toward a framework for public investments that is more about market creating/shaping than market fixing. As frameworks lead to evaluation tools, we use this new lens to discuss the increasingly targeted investments that SIBs are making, and to shed new light on the usual criticisms that are made about such directed activity (e.g., crowding out and picking winners). The paper ends with a proposal of directions for future research

The nature of economic development and the economic development of nature

Contemporary models of growth and development are founded on a category error: they ignore nature as a form of productive capital. Using as backdrop two recent books on the Indian economy that are representative of the prevailing orthodoxy, I review and in part extend an emerging literature that integrates development and environmental thinking. Contributors to the literature have reworked the economics of the household, communities, and other non-market institutions, reframed national accounting, reconstructed the theory of macro-economic development and public and trade policy, and revised the theory of collective action. In this paper I focus on a small part of the literature: economic evaluation. I develop the notion of sustainable development and construct a unified language for sustainability and policy analyses. I show that by economic growth we should mean growth in wealth - which is the social worth of an economy's entire set of capital assets - not growth in GDP nor the many ad hoc indicators of human development that have been proposed in recent years. The concept of wealth invites us to extend the notion of capital assets and the idea of investment well beyond conventional usage. I also show that by sustainable development we should mean development in which wealth (per head) adjusted for its distribution does not decline. This has radical implications for the way national accounts are prepared and interpreted. I then provide an account of a recent publication that has put the theory to work by studying the composition of wealth accumulation in contemporary India. Although much attention was given by the study's authors to the measurement of natural capital, due to a paucity of data the value of natural capital is acknowledged by them to be under-estimated, in all probability by a large margin. The study reveals that the entire architecture of contemporary development thinking is stacked against nature. These are still early days in the measurement of the wealth of nations, but both theory and the few empirical studies we now have at our disposal should substantially alter the way we interpret the progress and regress of nations

Genetic tool development in marine protists: emerging model organisms for experimental cell biology

Abstract: Diverse microbial ecosystems underpin life in the sea. Among these microbes are many unicellular eukaryotes that span the diversity of the eukaryotic tree of life. However, genetic tractability has been limited to a few species, which do not represent eukaryotic diversity or environmentally relevant taxa. Here, we report on the development of genetic tools in a range of protists primarily from marine environments. We present evidence for foreign DNA delivery and expression in 13 species never before transformed and for advancement of tools for eight other species, as well as potential reasons for why transformation of yet another 17 species tested was not achieved. Our resource in genetic manipulation will provide insights into the ancestral eukaryotic lifeforms, general eukaryote cell biology, protein diversification and the evolution of cellular pathways

Genetic tool development in marine protists: emerging model organisms for experimental cell biology

Abstract: Diverse microbial ecosystems underpin life in the sea. Among these microbes are many unicellular eukaryotes that span the diversity of the eukaryotic tree of life. However, genetic tractability has been limited to a few species, which do not represent eukaryotic diversity or environmentally relevant taxa. Here, we report on the development of genetic tools in a range of protists primarily from marine environments. We present evidence for foreign DNA delivery and expression in 13 species never before transformed and for advancement of tools for eight other species, as well as potential reasons for why transformation of yet another 17 species tested was not achieved. Our resource in genetic manipulation will provide insights into the ancestral eukaryotic lifeforms, general eukaryote cell biology, protein diversification and the evolution of cellular pathways

Publisher Correction: Genetic tool development in marine protists: emerging model organisms for experimental cell biology.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper

Milk composition and lactational output in the greater spear-nosed bat, Phyllostomus hastatus

Growth rates of mammalian young are closely linked to the ability of the mother to provide nutrients; thus, milk composition and yield provide a direct measure of maternal investment during lactation in many mammals. We studied changes in milk composition and output throughout lactation in a free-ranging population of the omnivorous bat, Phyllostomus hastatus . Fat and dry matter of milk increased from 9 to 21% and from 21 to 35% of wet mass, respectively, throughout lactation. Energy increased from 6 to 9 kJ · g −1 wet mass, primarily due to the increase in fat concentration. Total sugar levels decreased slightly but non-significantly. Mean sugar level was 4.0% of wet mass. Protein concentration increased from 6 to 11% of wet mass at peak lactation and then decreased as pups approached weaning age. Total milk energy output until pups began to forage was 3609 kJ. Milk levels of Mg, Fe, Ca, K, and Na averaged 0.55 ± 0.26, 0.23 ± 0.2, 8.75 ± 4.17, 5.42 ± 2.11, and 9.87 ± 4.3 mg · g −1 dry matter, respectively. Of the minerals studied, calcium appears to be most limiting in this species. The high degree of variability in foraging time, milk composition and milk yield between individuals at the same stage of lactation could potentially yield high variance in reproductive success among females of this polygynous species.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42183/1/360-167-5-389_71670389.pd