Fiscal decentralisation and the size of government: a review of the empirical literature

Within the public choice framework, it has been argued that decentralised authority over the provision and financing of certain public goods and services induces competitive pressure among different governmental units and consequently reduces the size of government. However, in many countries, fiscal decentralisation seems to have occurred almost exclusively through devolution of expenditure activities, without the accompanying devolution of the tax authority. We address this issue in detail, and discuss the repercussions of the resulting vertical fiscal imbalance on the total size of government. We also discuss alternative, demand-side channels of the influence of fiscal decentralisation on the size of government. In the empirical literature that we review, little consensus on the relationship between fiscal decentralisation and the size of government is reached.the size of government, fiscal decentralisation, intergovernmental grants,sub-national expenditures, sub-national own-source revenues

Golem

The Carl and Dorothy Bennett Center for Judaic Studies… Daniel Pearl World Music Days Concert… Golem: A Klezmer rock band featuring Yiddish and Eastern European music with a contemporary edge.https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/bennettcenter-posters/1314/thumbnail.jp

Successful resection of hepatocellular cancer not amenable to Milan criteria and durable complete remission induced by systemic polichemotherapy after development of metastases – should we think about revising the current treatment guidelines in selected patients?

OBJECTIVES: To refresh clinical diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas in patients presenting with hepatocellular cancer (HCC) and to report a rare success of systemic polichemotherapy in metastatic HCC. METHODS: Case report of a patient with successfully resected HCC although initially deemed inoperable according to current guidelines, and who was successfully treated by systemic polichemotherapy after development of metastatic disease, resulting in a sustained complete remission. RESULTS: We describe a 71-year-old female with HCC initially treated by atypical liver resection, although not amenable to initial surgery according to current treatment guidelines, which resulted in 6 months disease-free interval. After development of pulmonary metastases, the patient was treated by systemic polichemotherapy, due to local unavailability of novel biologic agents. After 3 months of chemotherapy biochemical remission was confirmed, and after 10 months of active treatment complete radiological remission was verified according to Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) criteria, now exceeding 9 months in duration. CONCLUSION: There is an increasing body of evidence that criteria for surgical interventions in HCC should be revised and expanded, and our case is an example of such an approach. Although novel biologic therapies are not widely available in all regions of the world due to their cost, currently there are no hard recommendations for use of chemotherapy in such areas. Since this is a large problem in clinical practice, we conclude that chemotherapy should be offered to selected patients of good performance status if novel agents are unavailable

Radiofrequency ablation as locoregional therapy for unresectable hepatic malignancies: initial results in 24 patients with 5-years follow-up

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is one treatment modality for unresectable liver metastases. Patients with hepatic malignancies (n = 24) underwent elective RFA. All tumors were ablated with a curative intent, with a margin of 1 cm, in a single session of RFA. The median diameter of tumor was 3.1 cm (range 1.7-6.9 cm). Studied patients were not candidates for resection due to multifocal hepatic disease, extrahepatic disease, proximity to major vascular structures or presence of cirrhosis with functional hepatic reserve inadequate to tolerate major hepatic resection. Complete tumor necrosis was achieved in 87.5% and tumor recurred in 3 patients (12.5%) with lesions larger than 5 cm. Distant intrahepatic recurrence was diagnosed in another 4 (16.7%). Distant metastases were found in 7 (29.2%) patients. Four of these 7 patients had also distant intrahepatic recurrence of disease. Two and 5-years survival rates were 41.7% (10 patients) and 8.3% (2 patients) respectively. RFA is safe and effective option for patients with unresectable hepatic malignancies smaller than 5 cm without distant metastatic disease. RF ablation resulted in complete tumor necrosis in 87.5% with 2 and 5-years survival rates much higher than with chemotherapy alone or only supportive therapy, when survival is measured in weeks or months. If RFA is unavailable, percutaneous ethanol injection therapy can be done but with inferior survival rates

Human Endogenous Retrovirus (HERV) Insertional Polymorphisms

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are the result of ancient germ cell infections of human germ cells by exogenous retroviruses. HERVs belong to the long terminal repeat (LTR) group of retrotransposons that comprise ~8% of the human genome. The majority of the HERVs documented have been truncated and/or incurred lethal mutations and no longer encode functional genes; however a very small number of HERVs seem to maintain functional in making new copies by retrotranspositon as suggested by the identification of a handful of polymorphic HERV insertions in human populations. The objectives of this study were to identify novel insertion of HERVs via analysis of personal genomic data and survey the polymorphism levels of new and known HERV insertions in the human genome. Specifically, this study involves the experimental validation of polymorphic HERV insertion candidates predicted by personal genome-based computation prediction and survey the polymorphism level within the human population based on a set of 30 diverse human DNA samples. Based on computational analysis of a limited number of personal genome sequences, PCR genotyping aided in the identification of 15 dimorphic, 2 trimorphic and 5 fixed full-length HERV-K insertions not previously investigated. These results suggest that the proliferation rate of HERVKs, perhaps also other ERVs, in the human genome may be much higher than we previously appreciated and the recently inserted HERVs exhibit a high level of instability. Throughout this study we have observed the frequent presence of additional forms of genotypes for these HERV insertions, and we propose for the first time the establishment of new genotype reporting nomenclature to reflect all possible combinations of the pre-integration site, solo-LTR and full-length HERV alleles

Implementing Medical Business Processes Integrating Server Technologies

In this paper we describe a BPM solution implemented by integrating server technologies in a SOA manner. Our solution empowers healthcare workers to more efficiently and effectively create clinical forms and contribute in clinical business processes. The clinical forms are XML documents created either using a special editor or web forms. Shared access and document management facilities are supported via the SharePoint services while business processes management is driven by the BizTalk server. The integration between servers and components is realized via Web Services, adapters, and event handlers. The core logic behind business processes is implemented via BEPL constructs that obtain clinical forms, perform the requested data transformations, store data into the database, and push forms further into business processes. Event handlers receive forms from processes and, according to the routing information, deliver them to recipients. Web services provide SOA glue and lookups

Correlation of oil companies’ stock value in the function of oil price and market indexes during the period of unconventional reservoirs exploitation : master’s thesis

Kriza u naftnoj industriji i veliki pad cijene u razdoblju nakon 2013. godine doveo je naftne tvrtke u nepovoljan financijski položaj. Vrijednosti naftnih tvrtki, likvidnost i profitabilnost su počele opadati, a dugovi rasti. Ovim radom je obuhvaćena analiza američkih naftnih tvrtki, aktivnih većinom na nekonvencionalnim ležištima, i njihove ovisnosti o tržištu u osmogodišnjem vremenskom razdoblju. Napravljene su korelacije vrijednosti cijena dionica naftnih tvrtki u funkciji cijene nafte, plina te burzovnih indeksa S&P 500 te Dow Jones Oil & Gas Producers. Ustanovljen je trend rasta duga kod svih tvrtki, neovisno o njihovoj veličini kao i njihovo različito snalaženje u kompleksnoj situaciji u kojoj su se našle posljednjih godina.Crisis in the oil industry combined with the low oil prices left oil companies in an unfavorable position. The value of oil companies started to decrease, same as their liquidity and profitability while their debt started to increase. This thesis contains analysis of American oil companies and their heavy dependence on market during the period of eight years. Correlations of oil companies’ stock values have been made, in the function of oil and gas price and the price of market indexes S&P 500 and Dow Jones Oil & Gas Producers. Debt growth trend has been recognized among all the analyzed companies, regardless of their size. According to their structure, vertically integrated companies deal much better with the complex situation that has been present for the last few years, in comparison with smaller E&P companies

Correlation of oil companies’ stock value in the function of oil price and market indexes during the period of unconventional reservoirs exploitation : master’s thesis

Kriza u naftnoj industriji i veliki pad cijene u razdoblju nakon 2013. godine doveo je naftne tvrtke u nepovoljan financijski položaj. Vrijednosti naftnih tvrtki, likvidnost i profitabilnost su počele opadati, a dugovi rasti. Ovim radom je obuhvaćena analiza američkih naftnih tvrtki, aktivnih većinom na nekonvencionalnim ležištima, i njihove ovisnosti o tržištu u osmogodišnjem vremenskom razdoblju. Napravljene su korelacije vrijednosti cijena dionica naftnih tvrtki u funkciji cijene nafte, plina te burzovnih indeksa S&P 500 te Dow Jones Oil & Gas Producers. Ustanovljen je trend rasta duga kod svih tvrtki, neovisno o njihovoj veličini kao i njihovo različito snalaženje u kompleksnoj situaciji u kojoj su se našle posljednjih godina.Crisis in the oil industry combined with the low oil prices left oil companies in an unfavorable position. The value of oil companies started to decrease, same as their liquidity and profitability while their debt started to increase. This thesis contains analysis of American oil companies and their heavy dependence on market during the period of eight years. Correlations of oil companies’ stock values have been made, in the function of oil and gas price and the price of market indexes S&P 500 and Dow Jones Oil & Gas Producers. Debt growth trend has been recognized among all the analyzed companies, regardless of their size. According to their structure, vertically integrated companies deal much better with the complex situation that has been present for the last few years, in comparison with smaller E&P companies