Climate change, population ageing and public spending: Evidence on individual preferences

Economic theory, as well as empirical research, suggest that elderly people prefer public spending on policies yielding short-term benefits. This might be bad news for policies aimed at combating climate change: while the unavoidable costs of these policies arise today, the expected benefits occur in the distant future. Drawing on data from over 12,000 households and using the ordered logit and the generalized ordered logit model, we analyze whether attitudes towards climate change and climate policies, as well as public spending preferences, differ with respect to age. Our estimates show that elderly people are less concerned about climate change, but more concerned about other global challenges. Furthermore, they are less likely to support climate-friendly policies, such as the subsidization of renewables, and allocate less public resources to environmental policies. Thus, our results suggest that the ongoing demographic change in industrialized countries may undermine climate policies

Treatment as required versus regular monthly treatment in the management of neovascular age-related macular degeneration: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: To investigate whether treatment as required ‘pro re nata’ (PRN) versus regular monthly treatment regimens lead to differences in outcomes in neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). Regular monthly administration of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors is an established gold standard treatment, but this approach is costly. Replacement of monthly by PRN treatment can only be justified if there is no difference in patient relevant outcomes. Methods: Systematic review and meta-analysis. The intervention was PRN treatment and the comparator was monthly treatment with VEGF-inhibitors. Four bibliographic databases were searched for randomised controlled trials comparing both treatment regimens directly (head-to-head studies). The last literature search was conducted in December 2014. Risk of bias assessment was performed after the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Findings: We included 3 head-to-head studies (6 reports) involving more than 2000 patients. After 2 years, the weighted mean difference in best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 1.9 (95% CI 0.5 to 3.3) ETDRS letters in favour of monthly treatment. Systemic adverse events were higher in PRN treated patients, but these differences were not statistically significant. After 2 years, the total number of intravitreal injections required by the patients in the PRN arms were 8.4 (95% CI 7.9 to 8.9) fewer than those having monthly treatment. The studies were considered to have a moderate risk of bias. Conclusions: PRN treatment resulted in minor but statistically significant decrease in mean BCVA which may not be clinically meaningful. There is a small increase in risk of systemic adverse events for PRN treated patients. Overall, the results indicate that an individualized treatment approach with anti-VEGF using visual acuity and OCT-guided re-treatment criteria may be appropriate for most patients with nAMD

Supervising projects you don’t (fully) understand: lessons for effective project governance by steering committees

Strategically important projects involve high stakes, uncertainty, and stakeholder complexity, with contingencies and risks typically surfacing repeatedly as the project evolves. This is challenging not only for the project team (PT) but also in particular for the steering committee (SC), the top management oversight structure typically used to align a project with the organization’s strategic goals. This article explores how senior executives on SCs can exercise leadership and effective oversight of strategic projects, although they have only limited time and often incomplete expertise. The SC can keep a project aligned, even with limited time, through focused understanding of the key logic and drivers of the project. The SC needs to manage the surprises and crises that inevitably arise in a difficult project through proactive analysis that goes to the bottom of the problem and by working with the PT to generate solutions

Direct health costs of environmental tobacco smoke exposure and indirect health benefits due to smoking ban introduction

Background: Introducing comprehensive smoke-free policies to public places is expected to reduce health costs. This includes prevented health damages by avoiding environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure as well as indirect health benefits from reduced tobacco consumption. Methods: The aim of this study was to estimate direct health costs of ETS exposure in public places and indirect health benefits from reduced tobacco consumption. We calculated attributable hospital days and years of life lost (YLL), based on the observed passive smoking and disease rates in Switzerland. The exposure-response associations of all relevant health outcomes were derived by meta-analysis from prospective cohort studies in order to calculate the direct health costs. To assess the indirect health benefits, a meta-analysis of smoking ban studies on hospital admissions for acute myocardial infarction was conducted. Results: ETS exposure in public places in Switzerland causes 32 000 preventable hospital days (95% CI: 10 000-61 000), 3000 YLL (95% CI: 1000-5000), corresponding to health costs of 330 Mio CHF. The number of hospital days for ischaemic heart disease attributable to passive smoking is much larger if derived from smoking ban studies (41 000) than from prospective cohort studies (3200), resulting in additional health costs of 89 Mio CHF, which are attributed to the indirect health benefits of a smoking ban introduction. Conclusion: The example of smoking ban studies on ischaemic heart disease hospitalization rates suggests that total health costs that can be prevented with smoking bans are considerably larger than the costs arising from the direct health impact of ETS exposure in public place

Observing Long Colour Flux Tubes in SU(2) Lattice Gauge Theory

We present results of a high statistics study of the chromo field distribution between static quarks in SU(2) gauge theory on lattices of volumes 16^4, 32^4, and 48^3*64, with physical extent ranging from 1.3 fm up to 2.7 fm at beta=2.5, beta=2.635, and beta=2.74. We establish string formation over physical distances as large as 2 fm. The results are tested against Michael's sum rules. A detailed investigation of the transverse action and energy flux tube profiles is provided. As a by-product, we obtain the static lattice potential in unpreceded accuracy.Comment: 66 pages, 29 figures, uuencoded latex file with epsfigures (450 K), supplementary full colour figures are available via ftp, CERN-TH.7413/94 (extended version

Neurotransmitter signaling regulates distinct phases of multimodal human interneuron migration

Inhibitory GABAergic interneurons migrate over long distances from their extracortical origin into the developing cortex. In humans, this process is uniquely slow and prolonged, and it is unclear whether guidance cues unique to humans govern the various phases of this complex developmental process. Here, we use fused cerebral organoids to identify key roles of neurotransmitter signaling pathways in guiding the migratory behavior of human cortical interneurons. We use scRNAseq to reveal expression of GABA, glutamate, glycine, and serotonin receptors along distinct maturation trajectories across interneuron migration. We develop an image analysis software package, TrackPal, to simultaneously assess 48 parameters for entire migration tracks of individual cells. By chemical screening, we show that different modes of interneuron migration depend on distinct neurotransmitter signaling pathways, linking transcriptional maturation of interneurons with their migratory behavior. Altogether, our study provides a comprehensive quantitative analysis of human interneuron migration and its functional modulation by neurotransmitter signaling

Cul3 regulates cytoskeleton protein homeostasis and cell migration during a critical window of brain development

De novo loss of function mutations in the ubiquitin ligase-encoding gene Cullin3 lead to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In mouse, constitutive haploinsufficiency leads to motor coordination deficits as well as ASD-relevant social and cognitive impairments. However, induction of Cul3 haploinsufficiency later in life does not lead to ASD-relevant behaviors, pointing to an important role of Cul3 during a critical developmental window. Here we show that Cul3 is essential to regulate neuronal migration and, therefore, constitutive Cul3 heterozygous mutant mice display cortical lamination abnormalities. At the molecular level, we found that Cul3 controls neuronal migration by tightly regulating the amount of Plastin3 (Pls3), a previously unrecognized player of neural migration. Furthermore, we found that Pls3 cell-autonomously regulates cell migration by regulating actin cytoskeleton organization, and its levels are inversely proportional to neural migration speed. Finally, we provide evidence that cellular phenotypes associated with autism-linked gene haploinsufficiency can be rescued by transcriptional activation of the intact allele in vitro, offering a proof of concept for a potential therapeutic approach for ASDs

ARC-TEC : acquisition, representation and compilation of technical knowledge

A global description of an expert system shell for the domain of mechanical engineering is presented. The ARC-TEC project constitutes an AI approach to realize the CIM idea. Along with conceptual solutions, it provides a continuous sequence of software tools for the acquisition, representation and compilation of technical knowledge. The shell combines the KADS knowledge-acquisition methodology, the KL-ONE representation theory and the WAM compilation technology. For its evaluation a prototypical expert system for production planning is developed. A central part of the system is a knowledge base formalizing the relevant aspects of common sense in mechanical engineering. Thus, ARC-TEC is less general than the CYC project but broader than specific expert systems for planning or diagnosis