A Meta-analysis of Therapeutic Effect of Thalidomide on Ankylosing Spondylitis

Objective: To study the therapeutic effect of thalidomide on ankylosing spondylitis (AS) by meta-analysis. Methods: Personal digital library, Cochrane library, and China Biology Medicine disc (CMBdisc), as well as relevant pharmaceutical and medical journals, were collected and reviewed. After the analysis of characteristics of the selected document and the evaluation of the risk of bias, the therapeutic effect of thalidomide on ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and its influence on related indexes were analyzed by literature data. Results: The meta-analysis results of 8 pieces of literature showed that the total effective rate of thalidomide in the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) was significantly improved, compared with conventional treatment or sulfasalazine (SASP) treatment (P＜0.05). Furthermore, the time of morning stiffness, BASDAI score, C-reactive protein (CRP) level, and other related symptoms and indexes were significantly optimized (P＜0.05). Conclusion: By rational utilization of thalidomide in the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis (AS), related symptoms and indexes of patients can be effectively improved, the total effective rate of the treatment was significantly improved and the safety of the treatment can be guaranteed

Applications of Agent-Based Methods in Multi-Energy Systems—A Systematic Literature Review

The need for a greener and more sustainable energy system evokes a need for more extensive energy system transition research. The penetration of distributed energy resources and Internet of Things technologies facilitate energy system transition towards the next generation of energy system concepts. The next generation of energy system concepts include “integrated energy system”, “multi-energy system”, or “smart energy system”. These concepts reveal that future energy systems can integrate multiple energy carriers with autonomous intelligent decision making. There are noticeable trends in using the agent-based method in research of energy systems, including multi-energy system transition simulation with agent-based modeling (ABM) and multi-energy system management with multi-agent system (MAS) modeling. The need for a comprehensive review of the applications of the agent-based method motivates this review article. Thus, this article aims to systematically review the ABM and MAS applications in multi-energy systems with publications from 2007 to the end of 2021. The articles were sorted into MAS and ABM applications based on the details of agent implementations. MAS application papers in building energy systems, district energy systems, and regional energy systems are reviewed with regard to energy carriers, agent control architecture, optimization algorithms, and agent development environments. ABM application papers in behavior simulation and policy-making are reviewed with regard to the agent decision-making details and model objectives. In addition, the potential future research directions in reinforcement learning implementation and agent control synchronization are highlighted. The review shows that the agent-based method has great potential to contribute to energy transition studies with its plug-and-play ability and distributed decision-making process

Dividend policy prior and after the NASDAQ bubble: An Empirical Investigation of 188 firms in the S&P Index

Abstract This dissertation aims to investigate the dividend payments before and after the NASDAQ internet bubble of a sample of 188 listed firms on the S&P 500 index in the USA from 1995 to 2005. Because most firms reduce dividend payment in distress period as prior researches suggested, this dissertation focuses on exploring the factors that influence the probability of dividend reduction decisions from 2000 to 2005. A liner probability model is undertaken. Several potential factors that affect the firms’ decision to cut dividend are chosen: earnings, profitability, investment opportunity, binding debt covenant and firm size. Most results are consistent with prior empirical evidence except that firm size is found to have the mixing results relating to firms’ decision to cut dividends. In addition, this dissertation attempts to test the information content of dividends Hypothesis (ICH) and the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) by investigating the stock price reaction to dividend announcements in 2000. The results indicate a significant market adjusted abnormal return associating with dividend announcements that provides the support for signaling theory and also suggests that the US stock market is inefficient with regard to the semi-strong form EMH

Meta-analysis of effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine or its combination with Western medicine in the treatment of triple negative breast cancer

Purpose: To assess the efficacy and side effects of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in the management of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Methods: Full text data on randomized controlled trial (RCT) of TNBC treated with TCM or its combination with Western Medicine (WM) were retrieved from the Chinese biomedical literature database, Chinese periodicals, Chinese Science-Technology periodicals and VP and PubMed. The qualities of the RCTs were evaluated. Revman 5.3 was used to conduct the meta-analysis. Results: A total of 16 RCTs involving 1186 patients were included. Analysis of these RCTs showed significant differences in total effectiveness between WM and TCM or combination of TCM with WM {(OR = 2.63, 95 % CI = 1.37, 5.03), test of the combined effect (Z = 2.91, p ˂ 0.005)}. Conclusion: The results show that TCM is effective in the treatment TNB