Profitable failure: antidepressant drugs and the triumph of flawed experiments

Drawing on an analysis of Irving Kirsch and colleagues? controversial 2008 article in PLoS [Public Library of Science] Medicine on the efficacy of SSRI antidepressant drugs such as Prozac, I examine flaws within the methodologies of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that have made it difficult for regulators, clinicians and patients to determine the therapeutic value of this class of drug. I then argue, drawing analogies to work by Pierre Bourdieu and Michael Power, that it is the very limitations of RCTs ? their inadequacies in producing reliable evidence of clinical effects ? that help to strengthen assumptions of their superiority as methodological tools. Finally, I suggest that the case of RCTs helps to explore the question of why failure is often useful in consolidating the authority of those who have presided over that failure, and why systems widely recognized to be ineffective tend to assume greater authority at the very moment when people speak of their malfunction

Global Optimization of Mixed-Integer Quadratically Constrained Quadratic Programs (MIQCQP) through Piecewise-Linear and Edge-Concave Relaxations

We propose a deterministic global optimization approach, whose novel contributions are rooted in the edge-concave and piecewise-linear underestimators, to address nonconvex mixed-integer quadratically-constrained quadratic programs (MIQCQP) to ε-global optimality. The facets of low-dimensional (n ≤ 3) edge-concave aggregations dominating the termwise relaxation of MIQCQP are introduced at every node of a branch-and-bound tree. Concave multivariable terms and sparsely distributed bilinear terms that do not participate in connected edge-concave aggregations are addressed through piecewise-linear relaxations. Extensive computational studies are presented for point packing problems, standard and generalized pooling problems, and examples from GLOBALLib (Meeraus, Globallib. http://www.gamsworld.org/global/globallib. htm). © 2012 Springer and Mathematical Optimization Society

Insurability and Regulatory Reform. Is the English flood insurance regime able to adapt to climate change?

Huber M. Insurability and Regulatory Reform. Is the English flood insurance regime able to adapt to climate change? The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice. 2004;29(2):169-182