GeoNotes: A Location-based Information System for Public Spaces

The basic idea behind location-based information systems is to connect information pieces to positions in outdoor or indoor space. Through position technologies such as Global Positioning System (GPS), GSM positioning, Wireless LAN positioning o

Subsidies in Oligopoly Markets: A Welfare Comparison Between Symmetric and Asymmetric Costs

Oligopolistic industries generally produce less than is socially desirable. As a result, the use of production subsidies is often suggested as a means of raising production toward the efficient level in imperfectly competitive markets. In cases where firms are equally efficient in producing the good, the common prescription is a policy of uniform subsidization, as suggested by Besley (1989).(1) When firms in an industry differ in cost efficiency, however, uniform subsidization involves subsidizing inefficient firms in the same manner as efficient firms. Consequently, uniform policy may be undesirable from a social perspective, particularly when the price-cost margins of inefficient firms are small. In an oligopolistic industry comprising firms that differ in cost effectiveness, one might ideally like to subsidize only the most efficient firm(s) and perhaps tax or even exclude inefficient firms from the market. Yet, in many situations, treating rival firms in an industry differently is politically infeasible. It is therefore important to understand how the welfare implications of uniform policy in an asymmetric-cost industry diverge from the case of equal cost efficiency. Different welfare implications are likely to arise because changes in regulatory structure can affect market structure in an asymmetric-cost industry (see Dierickx, Matutes, and Neven 1988; Kimmel 1992). Several papers in the public finance literature have addressed the issue of tax incidence on the rivalry and profitability of firms in oligopoly markets. Katz and Rosen (1985) show, in a conjectural variations model with symmetric firms, that a uniform tax on production can lead to an outcome with larger after-tax profits for firms. This result is also supported by Dierickx, Matutes, and Neven (1988); Kimmel (1992); and Seade (1985) for the case when the cost efficiency of firms differs. However, these papers do not directly analyze the industry profit and social welfare effects of a change in the tax or subsidy program. This article identifies relevant implications for tax policy by comparing welfare changes in the asymmetric-cost case to a benchmark case of symmetric costs. It is shown that, relative to the symmetric-cost case, the welfare effect is smaller when demand is nonconvex in the asymmetric-cost case, while the opposite is true for the case of convex demand. The greater the cost asymmetry in the industry and the more collusive firm behavior, the greater is this difference in welfare impact

Economic outcomes in patients with chemotherapy-naive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer treated with enzalutamide or abiraterone acetate plus prednisone

Introduction: Prostate cancer (PC) is the second leading cause of cancer death among US men and accounts for considerable healthcare expenditures. We evaluated economic outcomes in men with chemotherapy-naı¨ve metastatic castration-resistant PC (mCRPC) treated with enzalutamide or abiraterone acetate plus prednisone (abiraterone). Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis on 3174 men (18 years or older) utilizing the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) database from 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2018. Men with mCRPC were included if they had at least one pharmacy claim for enzalutamide or abiraterone (first claim date = index date) following surgical or medical castration, had no chemotherapy treatment within 12 months prior to the index date, and had continuous VHA enrollment for at least 12 months pre- and post-index date. Men were followed until death, disenrollment, or end of study and were 1:1 propensity score matched (PSM). All-cause and PC-related resource use and costs per patient per month (PPPM) in the 12 months post index were compared between matched cohorts. Results: We identified 1229 men with mCRPC prescribed enzalutamide and 1945 prescribed abiraterone with mean ages of 74 and 73 years, respectively. After PSM, each cohort had 1160 patients. The enzalutamide cohort had fewer all-cause (2.51 vs 2.86; p\0.0001) and PC-related outpatient visits (0.86 vs 1.03; p\0.0001), with corresponding lower all-cause ($2588 vs$3115; p\0.0001) and PC-related ($1356 vs$1775; p\0.0001) PPPM outpatient costs compared with the abiraterone cohort. Allcause total costs (medical and pharmacy) PPPM ($8085 vs$9092; p = 0.0002) and PC-related total costs PPPM ($6321 vs$7280; p\0.0001) were significantly lower in the enzalutamide cohort compared with the abiraterone cohort. Conclusions: Enzalutamide-treated men with chemotherapy-naı ¨ve mCRPC had significantly lower resource utilization and healthcare costs compared with abiraterone-treated men. Plain Language Summary: Plain language summary available for this article.WOS:000516999800002Scopus - Affiliation ID: 60105072PMID: 32112280Science Citation Index ExpandedQ1 - Q2ArticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılan - EVETMayıs2020YÖK - 2019-2

Improved overall survival after implementation of targeted therapy for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma: Results from the Danish Renal Cancer Group (DARENCA) study-2

AbstractAimTo evaluate the implementation of targeted therapy on overall survival (OS) in a complete national cohort of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).MethodsAll Danish patients with mRCC referred for first line treatment with immunotherapy, TKIs or mTOR-inhibitors between 2006 and 2010 were included. Baseline and outcome data were collected retrospectively. Prognostics factors were identified using log-rank tests and Cox proportional hazard model. Differences in distributions were tested with the Chi-square test.Results1049 patients were referred; 744 patients received first line treatment. From 2006 to 2010 we observed a significant increase in the number of referred patients; a significant increase in treated patients (64% versus 75%, P=0.0188); a significant increase in first line targeted therapy (22% versus 75%, P<0.0001); a significant increase in second line treatment (20% versus 40%, P=0.0104), a significant increased median OS (11.5 versus 17.2 months, P=0.0435) whereas survival for untreated patients remained unchanged. Multivariate analysis validated known prognostic factors. Moreover, treatment start years 2008 (HR 0.74, 95% CI, 0.55–0.99; P=0.0415), 2009 (HR 0.72, 95% CI, 0.54–0.96; P=0.0277) and 2010 (HR 0.63, 95% CI, 0.47–0.86; P=0.0035) compared to 2006, and more than two treatment lines received for patients with performance status 0–1 (HR 0.76, 95% CI, 0.58–0.99; P=0.0397) and performance status 2–3 (HR 0.19, 95% CI, 0.06–0.60; P=0.0051) were significantly associated with longer OS.ConclusionThis retrospective study documents that the implementation of targeted therapy has resulted in significantly improved treatment rates and overall survival in a complete national cohort of treated mRCC patients

Single-arm studies involving patient-reported outcome data in oncology: a literature review on current practice

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are increasingly used in single-arm cancer studies. We reviewed 60 recent publications of single-arm studies of cancer treatment involving PRO data for current practice on design, analysis, reporting, and interpretation. We further examined their handling of potential bias and how they informed decision-making. Most studies (97%) analyzed PROs without stating a predefined research hypothesis. Thirteen studies (22%) used a PRO as a (co)primary endpoint. Definitions of PRO objectives, study population, endpoints, and strategies of handling missing data varied widely. Twenty-three studies (38%) compared the PRO data to external information, most often by using a clinically important difference value; one study used a historical control group. Appropriateness of methods to handle missingness and intercurrent events including death were seldom discussed. Most studies (85%) concluded that PRO results supported treatment. Conducting and reporting of PROs in cancer single-arm studies lacks standards, and a critical discussion of statistical methods and possible biases. These findings will guide the Setting International Standards in Analysing Patient-Reported Outcomes and Quality of Life Data in Cancer Clinical Trials-Innovative Medicines Initiative (SISAQOL-IMI) in developing recommendations for the use of PRO-measures in single arm studies

Pathfinding in radioactive environment : using Java

Today many people work in radioactive environments, like in nuclear power plants and areas for storing spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. Humans cannot perceive radioactivity, so to increase our awareness and avoid danger we need tools and devices for these purposes. IFE (Institute for Energy Technology), the Company that ordered this project, have a section that develops software to visualize, plan and simulate activities in such conditions. This paper describes the implementation of a tool to find the way from Node A to Node B in a graph that exposes the worker to a minimal radiation dose, a task that can be difficult to do by hand. The programming language used for this project was JAVA. The program uses a radiation calculator written by IFE, to get radiation levels in the area. The algorithm for the search is a Uniform Cost Search that guaranties the safest way in the graph. The GUI can draw the solution, and eases debug, testing and validating the algorithm. The code works and IFE approved the project and will evaluate if they are going to use it in their products

The Number of Firms and Production Capacity in Relation to Market Size.

Many oligopoly theories predict a positive correlation between market size and the equilibrium number of firms and some also imply that competition is more intense in larger markets. The authors test these predictions on a sample of driving schools in 250 Swedish regional markets by estimating the relation between the number of firms, production capacity, and market size. The number of firms increases less than proportionally with market size. Market size per capacity unit is smaller in large markets. Since firms produce a fairly homogenous good, the authors argue that this is evidence that profits per capita is decreasing in market size. Copyright 1999 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

The Survival of New Products

Product survival, multiproduct firms, duration model, beer market,

Modular and Transferable Machine Learning for Heat Management and Reuse in Edge Data Centers

This study investigates the use of transfer learning and modular design for adapting a pretrained model to optimize energy efficiency and heat reuse in edge data centers while meeting local conditions, such as alternative heat management and hardware configurations. A Physics-Informed Data-Driven Recurrent Neural Network (PIDD RNN) is trained on a small scale-model experiment of a six-server data center to control cooling fans and maintain the exhaust chamber temperature within safe limits. The model features a hierarchical regularizing structure that reduces the degrees of freedom by connecting parameters for related modules in the system. With a RMSE value of 1.69, the PIDD RNN outperforms both a conventional RNN (RMSE: 3.18), and a State Space Model (RMSE: 2.66). We investigate how this design facilitates transfer learning when the model is fine-tuned over a few epochs to small dataset from a second set-up with a server located in a wind tunnel. The transferred model outperforms a model trained from scratch over hundreds of epochs.Validerad;2023;Nivå 2;2023-03-20 (joosat);Licens fulltext: CC BY License</p