Managing chronic widespread pain in primary care : a qualitative study of patient perspectives and implications for treatment delivery

Funding The MUSICIAN trial was supported by an award from Arthritis Research UK, Chesterfield, UK. Grant number: 17292. The funding body approved the design of the study. They played no role in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data or the writing of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Productivity and the Decision to Export: Micro Evidence from Taiwan and South Korea

While there is widespread empirical evidence indicating exporting producers have higher productivity than nonexporters, the mechanisms that generate this pattern are less clear. One view is that exporters acquire knowledge of new production methods, inputs, and product designs from their international contacts, and this learning results in higher productivity for exporters relative to their more insulated domestic counterparts. Alternatively, the higher productivity of exporters may simply reflect the self-selection of more efficient producers into a highly competitive export market. In this paper we use micro data collected in the manufacturing censuses in South Korea and Taiwan to study the linkages between a producer's total factor productivity and choice to participate in the export market. We find differences between the countries in the importance of selection and learning forces. In Taiwan, transitions of firms in and out of the export market reflect systematic variations in productivity as predicted by self-selection models. Firms with higher productivity, ex ante, tend to enter the export market and exporters with low productivity tend to exit. Moreover, in several industries, entry into the export market is followed by relative productivity improvements, a result consistent with learning-by-exporting forces. In South Korea, the evidence of self-selection on the basis of productivity is much weaker. In addition, unlike Taiwan, we find no significant productivity changes following entry or exit from the export market that are consistent with learning from exporting. Comparison of the two countries suggests that in Korea factors other than production efficiency play a more prominent role as determinants determinants of the export decision.

The Complementary Role of Exports and R&D Investments as Sources of Productivity Growth

This paper examines two potential channels of knowledge acquisition that underlie firm productivity growth in the Taiwanese electronics industry: participation in the export market and investments in R&D and/or worker training. We focus on the argument that a firm's own investments in R&D are necessary for the firm to assimilate knowledge or expertise gained from foreign contacts and thus are an important component of the process of learning-by-exporting. Firm-level panel data from 1986, 1991, and 1996 is used to investigate a firm's decision to invest in these two activities and to assess the effects of these investments on the firm's future total factor productivity. The empirical model consists of four equations. The firm's decisions to export and invest in R&D and/or worker training are modeled with a bivariate probit model that recognizes the interdependence of the decisions. We then estimate how participation in these investment activities alters the firm's future productivity trajectory while controlling for the potential selection bias introduced by endogenous firm exit. The primary empirical findings are that, on average, firms that export but do not invest in R&D and/or worker training have significantly higher future productivity than firms that do not participate in either activity. In addition, firms that export and invest in R&D and/or worker training have significantly higher future productivity than firms that only export. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that export experience is an important source of productivity growth for Taiwanese firms and that firm investments in R&D and worker training facilitate their ability to benefit from their exposure to the export market.

Deficiency in clonogenic endometrial mesenchymal stem cells in obese women with reproductive failure – a pilot study

The mechanisms of obesity associated reproductive complications remain poorly understood. Endometrial mesenchymal stem-cells are critical for cyclic renewal and uterine function. Recently, W5C5+ cells, with high clonogenicity, capable of producing endometrial stroma in vivo, have been described. We sought to investigate the abundance and cloning efficiency of W5C5+ and W5C5− endometrial cells in relation to Body Mass Index, age and reproductive outcome. Design W5C5+ and W5C5− cells were purified from mid-luteal endometrial biopsies (n = 54) by magnetic bead separation and subjected to in vitro colony-forming assays. Results First trimester pregnancy losses were significantly higher in obese subjects (n = 12) compared to overweight (n = 20) and subjects with normal Body Mass Index (n = 22) (P0.05). Conclusions Our observations suggest that the regenerative capacity and plasticity of the endometrium of obese women is suboptimal, which in turn may account for the increased risk of reproductive complications associated with obesity

Effects of dietary l-arginine supplementation to gilts during early gestation on foetal survival, growth and myofiber formation

The effects of l-arginine on porcine foetal development and myogenesis were determined. Twenty Swiss Large White gilts were randomly allocated to either the control (C) or l-arginine treatment (A). In addition to the standard gestation diet, A-sows received 26 g l-arginine daily from days 14 to 28 of gestation. At day 75 of pregnancy, sows were sacrificed and the number and weight of foetuses were recorded. From each litter, the lightest, heaviest and the ones with an average foetal weight (FtW) were selected. Primary (P), secondary (S) and total myofiber number as well as S/P ratio were determined in the semitendinosus (ST) and rhomboideus (RH) muscles. In A-sows, the number of viable foetuses (13.0 v. 9.3) and total FtW (4925 v. 3729 g) was greater (P ⩽ 0.04) than in C-sows. Compared to C-sow foetuses, the ST of A-sow foetuses had 7% more (17 699 v. 16 477; P = 0.04) P myofibers and the S/P ratio in both muscles was lower (ST = 20.3 v. 21.5; RH = 24.1 v. 27.1; P ⩽ 0.07). Regardless of the maternal diet, the S myofiber number and the S/P ratio in both muscles were greater (P ⩽ 0.01) in foetuses with a high FtW compared to low FtW. These data suggest that l-arginine supplemented to gilts during early gestation enhanced foetal survival and in the ST positively affected the primary phase of myofiber formatio

GeoSocial: exploring the usefulness of social media mining in the applied natural geohazard sciences

Obtaining real-time information about a geohazard event as it unfolds, such as a flood or earthquake, used to be largely limited to the professional media. Nowadays, obtaining news stories from social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr etc.), directly as they unfold, is becoming the ‘norm’ for many in society. The Haitian Earthquake in January 2010 and the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, provided some of the first natural hazard examples, to really demonstrate the power of social media over traditional news sources for obtaining, live information from which people and authorities could gain situational awareness

Firm-level evidence on productivity differentials, turnover, and exports in Taiwanese manufacturing

Recent dynamic models of firm entry and exit emphasise the relationship between a firm's productivity and the decision to enter or exit. If firm turnover is driven by productivity differentials then the reallocation of resources across firms at the micro level can have important implications for aggregate or industry-level productivity change. Using comprehensive firm-level panel data from the Taiwanese Census of Manufactures for the years 1981, 1986, and 1991, this paper documents the extent of firm turnover in both the domestic and export markets, uses index numbers to measure differences in total factor productivity between entering, exiting, and continuing firms, and quantifies the contribution of firm turnover to industry productivity improvements. We find significant differences in productivity across manufacturing firms and these differences are reflected in turnover patterns. Cohorts of new firms have lower average productivity than incumbents but are themselves a heterogeneous group. The more productive members of the group survive and, in many cases, their productivity converges to the productivity level of incumbents. Exiting firms are also less productive than survivors. Differences in productivity are also reflected in movements of firms in and out of the export market. Firms that remain exporters over multiple years have the highest productivity while beginning exporters, whether they are new firms or older firms, follow behind them. All are more productive on average than firms that exit the export market who, in turn, are more productive than firms that never exported. These patterns are consistent with the view that both the domestic and export market sort out high productivity from low productivity firms and that the export market is a tougher screen. Unlike the findings for most other countries, the differential productivity between entering and exiting firms is an important source of industry-level productivity improvements in the Taiwan manufacturing sector

Pareto versus lognormal: a maximum entropy test

It is commonly found that distributions that seem to be lognormal over a broad range change to a power-law (Pareto) distribution for the last few percentiles. The distributions of many physical, natural, and social events (earthquake size, species abundance, income and wealth, as well as file, city, and firm sizes) display this structure. We present a test for the occurrence of power-law tails in statistical distributions based on maximum entropy. This methodology allows one to identify the true data-generating processes even in the case when it is neither lognormal nor Pareto. The maximum entropy approach is then compared with other widely used methods and applied to different levels of aggregation of complex systems. Our results provide support for the theory that distributions with lognormal body and Pareto tail can be generated as mixtures of lognormally distributed units