Foreign Direct Investment and China's Bilateral Intra-Industry Trade With Japan and the US

This paper analyzes dynamic changes of China's intra-industry trade with its major trading partners, Japan and the US, from 1980 to 2004.It also investigates to what extent foreign direct investment promoted intra-industry trade.The empirical results show that, while shares of China's intra-industry trade with both Japan and U.S rose substantially, its intraindustry trade with Japan has reached 35 per cent of the overall trade, considerably larger than 10 per cent with the US.Sino-Japan intra-industry trade concentrated in the electrical and machinery sectors accounted for 52 per cent and 46 per cent of overall trade respectively.On the other hand, it is in the chemical and food sectors where intra-industry trade represented a relatively large proportion of Sino-US trade, 50 per cent and 30 per cent accordingly in each sector.In addition, the analysis indicates that Japanese direct investment in China performed a significant role in enhancing intra-industry trade between Japan and China.However, it found no evidence that the US direct investment in China contributed to the growth of the bilateral intra-industry trade between the two countries

Cognition and functioning in bipolar depression

Objectives: Depressive symptoms are associated with worse outcomes in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). However, scarce data are available regarding neurocognitive profiles across different areas of functioning among BD patients with moderate and severe depression. Our objective was to assess cognition and global functioning in a group of patients with bipolar depression. Methods: Data were available for 100 patients with bipolar depression (78% female) and 70 controls (64% female) paired by age and education level. Cognitive function was assessed with a neuropsychological test battery. Functioning was assessed with the Functioning Assessment Short Test. Results: In patients, severe depression was associated with poorer cognitive performance on measures of executive function. Patients with severe depression showed worse global functioning than those with moderate depression (z = 2.54, p = 0.011). In patients with severe depression, lower global functioning was associated with lower scores in working memory (r = -0.200, p = 0.010), and executive function (r = -0.210, p = 0.007; and r = 0.293, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Our findings suggest cognitive impairment and global functioning impairment are associated with the severity of depressive symptoms in bipolar depression. Intensive treatment of depressive symptoms in patients with BD is crucial to improve cognitive functioning and, consequently, functional outcomes

Communication in Psychiatric Coercive Treatment and Patients’ Decisional Capacity to Consent

An effective communication and the acquisition of a valid consent is central to a good and supporting doctor-patient relationship and a clinician’s ethical obligation in o order to respect patients’ autonomy, as well as their right to be involved in treatment decisions. However, often clinicians face several issues in performing this task, among which the most frequently reported are the fear of hurting the patient by communicating a bad diagnosis or not knowing how to manage the patient’s emotional reactions. In addition, there are vulnerable populations, such as those represented by psychiatric patients, who are at higher risk of decisional incapacity. Especially for those patients it is in fact particularly difficult for clinicians to find the proper balance between respecting the right of capable patients to make choices about their treatment and the right of incapable patients to be protected from the possible harmful consequences of their improper decisions. However, nor the presence of a severe psychiatric disorder nor a status of “involuntary hospitalized patient” have been reported to be a label for incapacity. Several tools have been developed to assist clinicians in patients’ decisional capacity evaluations, together with interventions aimed at enhancing informed consent acquisition in order to achieve a shared decision-making and lead the patient to become actively involved in his/her treatment decisions. Such approach would lead to a decrease in the perceived coercion, often reported in mental health care setting also from patients who are not involuntarily hospitalized, and to an increase in patients’ adherence to treatment