131,227 research outputs found
European Pharmaceutical Price Regulation, Firm Profitability, and R&D Spending
No full textEU countries closely regulate pharmaceutical prices whereas the U.S. does not. This paper shows how price constraints affect the profitability, stock returns, and R&D spending of EU and U.S. firms. Compared to EU firms, U.S. firms are more profitable, earn higher stock returns, and spend more on research and development (R&D). Some differences have increased over time. In 1986, EU pharmaceutical R&D exceeded U.S. R&D by about 24 percent, but by 2004, EU R&D trailed U.S. R&D by about 15 percent. During these 19 years, U.S. R&D spending grew at a real annual compound rate of 8.8 percent, while EU R&D spending grew at a real 5.4 percent rate. Results show that EU consumers enjoyed much lower pharmaceutical price inflation, however, at a cost of 46 fewer new medicines introduced by EU firms and 1680 fewer EU research jobs.
Futher sapononins and flavonoids from Astragalus verrucosus Moris
No full textFrom the aerial parts of Astragalus verrucosus Moris, a novel cycloartane-type triterpene glycoside, named astraverrucin VII, was isolated along with cycloaraloside D (peregrinoside II) and cycloaraloside C (astrailienin A). The flavonoid composition was investigated for the first time, and fifteen known flavonoids were isolated and identified. All structural elucidation were performed by spectral means. The chemiotaxonomic importance of these findings is discussed
Callus induction in pineapple (Ananas comosus L.) cv. Moris and Josapine.
No full textThe induction of callus from Meristemic Globular Bodies (MGB) of two pineapple cultivars, namely Moris and Josapine, under six concentration levels of auxin NAA and six concentration levels of 2,4-D in Murashige and Skoog solid media, was investigated. 2,4-D auxin treatments failed to induce calli in both cultivars. However, 53.71, 75.19 and 85.93 μM levels of auxin NAA caused calli induction in Moris while levels 32.22, 53.71 and 75.19 μM also induced calli Josapine. The percentage of MGB calli formation increased with increasing time of culturing. At 6 weeks of culturing, 83% of Moris MGB explants formed calli on 85.93 μM NAA, while 50% of Josapine MGB explants formed calli on 53.71 μM NAA. Calli cultures have been an essential tool in the in vitro selection of desirable plants under manipulated conditions and from in vitro mutations via somaclonal variation. More importantly, calli are increasingly used for the application of cellular level genetic modification techniques such as the Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, particle bombardment and protoplast isolation and fusion. In this study, auxin NAA successfully initiated and proliferated calli in Moris and Josapine globular meristemic cultures
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Alternative stable states in mountain forest ecosystems: the case of European larch (Larix decidua) forests in the western Alps
No full textEuropean larch (Larix decidua) forests of the western Alps form extensive cultural landscapes whose resilience to global changes is currently unknown. Resilience describes the capacity of ecological systems to maintain the same state, i.e., the same function, processes, structure, and composition despite disturbances, environmental changes and internal fluctuations. Our aim is to explore the resilience of larch forests to changes in climate and land use in the western Italian Alps. To do so, we examined whether larch forests can be described as an alternative stable state in mountain forest ecosystems. We used tree basal area data obtained from field forest inventories in combination with topography, forest structure, land use, and climate information. We applied three different probabilistic methods: frequency distributions, logistic regressions, and potential analyses to infer the resilience of larch forests relative to that of other forest types. We found patters indicative of alternative stable states: bimodality in the frequency distribution of the percent of larch basal area, and the presence of an unstable state, i.e., mixed larch forests, in the potential analyses. We also found: (1) high frequency of pure larch forests at high elevation, (2) the probability of pure larch forests increased mostly with elevation, and (3) pure larch forests were a stable state in the upper montane and subalpine belts. Our study shows that the resilience of larch forests may increase with elevation, most likely due to the altitudinal effect on climate. Under the same climate conditions, land use seems to be the main factor governing the dominance of larch forests. In fact, subalpine larch forests may be more resilient, and natural succession after land abandonment, e.g., towards Pinus cembra forests, seems slower than in montane larch forests. In contrast, in the upper montane belt only intense land use regimes characterized by open canopies and forest grazing may maintain larch forests. We conclude that similar approaches could be applied in other forest ecosystems to infer the resilience of tree species
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
No full textBoth spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
FIGURE 1 in Orobanche australis Moris ex Bertol. the correct name for O. thapsoides Lojac. (Orobanchaceae)
No full textFIGURE 1. Comparison of the flowers of the compared taxa drawn from the original material: a) Orobanche australis; b) O. canescens; c) O. pubescens; d) O. palaestina; e) O. amethystea (drawing by G. Domina).Published as part of Domina, Gianniantonio, Uhlich, Holger & Barone, Giulio, 2022, Orobanche australis Moris ex Bertol. the correct name for O. thapsoides Lojac. (Orobanchaceae), pp. 91-96 in Phytotaxa 531 (2) on page 94, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.531.2.1, http://zenodo.org/record/586906
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