Privatisation Methods and Economic Growth in Transition Economies

In low-income countries privatization, if implemented appropriately, may play an important role in generating growth. Using data recently available from Central and Eastern Europe, we therefore investigate the impact of alternative methods of privatization on economic growth. Our analysis suggests that the use of conventional privatization methods to match owners with firms can be inefficient in economies with underdeveloped capital markets, particularly if wealth is poorly correlated with managerial and entrepreneurial ability. In these circumstances mass privatization, with firms being given away or sold at a nominal price, may be the appropriate policy choice

Human immunodeficiency virus infection in Northern Ireland 1980-1989.

To 31st December 1989, 71 persons are known to have attended medical practitioners in Northern Ireland with a diagnosis of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Twenty-one of these persons have had the diagnosis of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and 11 have died. The distribution of reports in the "at risk" categories of homosexual/bisexual males, injecting drug users, heterosexual males and females was significantly different (p less than 0.001) from those reported in the United Kingdom as a whole. Of tests for HIV infection carried out in patients attending the genitourinary medicine department of the Royal Victoria Hospital between 1987-1989, 0.16% have been positive. The prognostic value of the T4 lymphocyte count at presentation for the subsequent development of AIDS was significant (p = 0.0011). The commonest AIDS indicator disease diagnosed was Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia which was seen in seven of the 21 patients (33%)

Simulation for the oblique impact of a lattice system

The oblique collision between an elastic disk and an elastic wall is numerically studied. We investigate the dependency of the tangential coefficient of restitution on the incident angle of impact. From the results of simulation, our model reproduces experimental results and can be explained by a phenomenological theory of the oblique impact.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Japa

Effect of kaolin clay on migrant alate aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in blueberry fields in the context of Blueberry scorch virus

The efficacy of kaolin clay (Surround® WP) in reducing the number of migrant aphids on blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum L. (Ericaceae) and the incidence of Blueberry scorch virus (BlScV) was determined. Two applications of kaolin clay reduced the number of alatae collected on treated ‘Berkeley’ plants by as much as a factor of eight between 4 June and 16 August. However, five of 100 test plants located near infected fields and exposed only to migrant alatae between 10 May and 16 August became infected with BlScV: three controls and two treated with kaolin clay. The work demonstrates the importance of migrant alatae in the spread of BlScV; 5% transmission is consistent with previous estimates of annual virus spread by winged and non-winged aphids. Three of the plants became infected between 10 and 27 May (one control and two treated with kaolin clay), indicating the importance of aphid flights in May for virus transmission. Rainfall removed much of the kaolin clay and this may have affected its efficacy. The aphid data demonstrated that migrant alatae are able to discriminate between untreated and kaolin—treated blueberry plants, and that Ericaphis fimbriata (Richards), which utilizes blueberry as a host, discriminates better than other migrant species. Water trap data do not necessarily reflect the total migrant aphid composition found on plants in the field. Plant growth was not affected by the kaolin clay, but the fruit had clay residues amongst the bracts of the calyx limiting the use of this product on producing fields to the period before fruit set. Kaolin clay may be best suited to protection of nursery stock, but further work is needed to improve efficacy during wet weather and determine optimal application frequency.Note: Use of trade names or trademarks does not imply endorsement of the companies or products named nor criticism of similar ones not named

Advanced Hodgkin lymphoma in the East of England: a 10-year comparative analysis of outcomes for real-world patients treated with ABVD or escalated-BEACOPP, aged less than 60 years, compared with 5-year extended follow-up from the RATHL trial

Treatment with ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine) or escalated(e)-BEACOPP (bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisolone) remains the international standard of care for advanced-stage classical Hodgkin lymphoma (HL). We performed a retrospective, multicentre analysis of 221 non-trial (“real-world”) patients, aged 16–59 years, diagnosed with advanced-stage HL in the Anglia Cancer Network between 2004 and 2014, treated with ABVD or eBEACOPP, and compared outcomes with 1088 patients in the Response-Adjusted Therapy for Advanced Hodgkin Lymphoma (RATHL) trial, aged 18–59 years, with median follow-up of 87.0 and 69.5 months, respectively. Real-world ABVD patients (n=177) had highly similar 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) compared with RATHL (PFS 79.2% vs 81.4%; OS 92.9% vs 95.2%), despite interim positron-emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/CT)-guided dose-escalation being predominantly restricted to trial patients. Real-world eBEACOPP patients (n=44) had superior PFS (95.5%) compared with real-world ABVD (HR 0.20, p=0.027) and RATHL (HR 0.21, p=0.015), and superior OS for higher-risk (international prognostic score ≥3 [IPS 3+]) patients compared with real-world IPS 3+ ABVD (100% vs 84.5%, p=0.045), but not IPS 3+ RATHL patients. Our data support a PFS, but not OS, advantage for patients with advanced-stage HL treated with eBEACOPP compared with ABVD and suggest higher-risk patients may benefit disproportionately from more intensive therapy. However, increased access to effective salvage therapies might minimise any OS benefit from reduced relapse rates after frontline therapy

Subjects with Molecularly Defined Familial Hypercholesterolemia or Familial Defective apoB-100 Are Not Being Adequately Treated

To study whether subjects with a molecular genetic diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) or familial defective apoB-100 (FDB) are being adequately treated.A questionnaire regarding medical history was sent to 2611 subjects who had been provided with a molecular genetic diagnosis of FH or FDB, and a blood sample was obtained for lipid measurements.956 (36.6%) of the 2611 subjects participated. The mean age for starting lipid-lowering therapy was 33.4 (±12.1) years. Among those below 18 years of age, only 20.4% were on lipid-lowering drugs, whereas 89.1% of those aged 18 and above were on lipid-lowering drugs. The mean levels of total serum cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol were 5.7 (±1.5) mmol/l and 3.9 (±1.3) mmol/l, respectively. Among those who were on lipid-lowering drugs, 29.0% and 12.2% had levels of LDL cholesterol below 3.0 mmol/l and 2.6 mmol/l, respectively. Only 47.3% of the 956 subjects were considered as being adequately treated largely due to a failure to titrate their drug regimens. From the use of cholesterol-years score, lipid-lowering therapy must start before the age of 20 in order to prevent the subjects from contracting premature coronary heart disease.The majority of FH/FDB subjects are being diagnosed late in life and are not being adequately treated. In order to prevent them from contracting premature coronary heart disease, it is key that levels of LDL cholesterol are normalized from a young age and that sufficient doses of lipid-lowering drugs are being used

The molecular epidemiology of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in six cities in Britain and Ireland

The authors sequenced the p17 coding regions of the gag gene from 211 patients infected either through injecting drug use (IDU) or by sexual intercourse between men from six cities in Scotland, N. England, N. Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. All sequences were of subtype 5. Phylogenetic analysis revealed substantial heterogeneity in the sequences from homosexual men. In contrast, sequence from over 80% of IDUs formed a relatively tight cluster, distinct both from those of published isolates and of the gay men. There was no large-scale clustering of sequences by city in either risk group, although a number of close associations between pairs of individuals were observed. From the known date of the HIV-1 epidemic among IDUs in Edinburgh, the rate of sequence divergence at synonymous sites is estimated to be about 0.8%. On this basis it has been estimated that the date of divergence of the sequences among homosexual men to be about 1975, which may correspond to the origin of the B subtype epidemic

Dispersive resonance bands within the space charge layer of metal- semiconductor junction

Based on measurements of angle resolved photoemission, we report that in the Pb/Ge(111)- \sqrt{3}x\sqrt{3} R30^\circ structure, in addition to three bands resembling Ge heavy hole (HH), light hole (LH), and split off (SO) bulk band edges, a fourth dispersive band resembling the non split off (NSO) band is found near the surface zone center. While three Ge bulk-like bands get distorted due to strong coupling between Pb and Ge, the NSO-like band gets weaker and disappears for larger thickness of Pb, which, when combined with ab initio calculations, indicates its localized nature within space charge layer. Our results are clearly important for designing electronics involved with metal-semiconductor contacts.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures, Phys. Rev. B 81, 245406 (2010

Role of friction in pattern formation in oscillated granular layers

Particles in granular flows are often modeled as frictionless (smooth) inelastic spheres; however, there exist no frictionless grains, just as there are no elastic grains. Our molecular dynamics simulations reveal that friction is essential for realistic modeling of vertically oscillated granular layers: simulations of frictionless particles yield patterns with an onset at a container acceleration about 30% smaller than that observed in experiments and simulations with friction. More importantly, even though square and hexagonal patterns form for a wide range of the oscillation parameters in experiments and in our simulations of frictional inelastic particles, only stripe patterns form in the simulations without friction, even if the inelasticity is increased to obtain as much dissipation as in frictional particles. We also consider the effect of particle friction on the shock wave that forms each time the granular layer strikes the container. While a shock wave still forms for frictionless particles, the height and time dependence of the hydrodynamic fields differ for the cases with and without friction.Comment: final version appeared in Phys. Rev.

Barcoding Bugs: DNA-Based Identification of the True Bugs (Insecta: Hemiptera: Heteroptera)

oxidase I (COI) gene, has been shown to provide an efficient method for the identification of species in a wide range of animal taxa. In order to assess the effectiveness of barcodes in the discrimination of Heteroptera, we examined 344 species belonging to 178 genera, drawn from specimens in the Canadian National Collection of Insects.Analysis of the COI gene revealed less than 2% intra-specific divergence in 90% of the taxa examined, while minimum interspecific distances exceeded 3% in 77% of congeneric species pairs. Instances where barcodes fail to distinguish species represented clusters of morphologically similar species, except one case of barcode identity between species in different genera. Several instances of deep intraspecific divergence were detected suggesting possible cryptic species.Although this analysis encompasses 0.8% of the described global fauna, our results indicate that DNA barcodes will aid the identification of Heteroptera. This advance will be useful in pest management, regulatory and environmental applications and will also reveal species that require further taxonomic research