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We study the financial and labor market impacts of bad credit reports. Using difference-in-differences variation from the staggered removal of bankruptcy flags, we show that bankruptcy flag removal leads to economically large increases in credit limits and borrowing. Using administrative tax records linked to personal bankruptcy records, we estimate economically small effects of flag removal on employment and earnings outcomes. We rationalize these contrasting results by showing that, conditional on basic observables, \"hidden\" bankruptcy flags are strongly correlated with adverse credit market outcomes but have no predictive power for measures of job performance.

The Bartik instrument is formed by interacting local industry shares and national industry growth rates. We show that the typical use of a Bartik instrument assumes a pooled exposure research design, where the shares measure differential exposure to common shocks, and identification is based on exogeneity of the shares. Next, we show how the Bartik instrument weights each of the exposure designs. Finally, we discuss how to assess the plausibility of the research design. We illustrate our results through two applications: estimating the elasticity of labor supply, and estimating the elasticity of substitution between immigrants and natives.

Zebrafish are becoming increasingly popular as an organism in which to model human disease and to study the effects of small molecules on complex physiological and pathological processes. Since larvae are no more than a few millimetres in length, and can live in volumes as small as 100 microliters, they are particularly amenable to high-throughput and high content compound screening in 96 well plate format. There is a growing literature providing evidence that many compounds show similar pharmacological effects in zebrafish as they do in mammals, and in particular humans. However, a major question regarding their utility for small molecule screening for neurological conditions is whether a molecule will reach its target site within the central nervous system. Studies have shown that Claudin-5 and ZO-1, tight-junction proteins which are essential for blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity in mammals, can be detected in some cerebral vessels in zebrafish from 3 days post-fertilisation (d.p.f.) onwards and this timing coincides with the retention of dyes, immunoreactive tracers and fluorescent markers within some but not all cerebral vessels. Whilst these findings demonstrate that features of a BBB are first present at 3 d.p.f., it is not clear how quickly the zebrafish BBB matures or how closely the barrier resembles that of mammals. Here, we have combined anatomical analysis by transmission electron microscopy, functional investigation using fluorescent markers and compound uptake using liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry to demonstrate that maturation of the zebrafish BBB occurs between 3 d.p.f. and 10 d.p.f. and that this barrier shares both structural and functional similarities with that of mammals.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the nature of complaints from patients with functional neurological disorders and understand the reaction of UK neurology consultants to receiving complaints from this patient group.MethodsA voluntary anonymised online retrospective survey was advertised to UK consultant neurologists. Questions asked about the nature of the complaint, how it was dealt with, how it affected their emotional wellbeing, attitude to work, and whether it influenced their clinical practice. The frequency of total responses was analysed. Respondents were given opportunities to add comments.ResultsResponses from 58 clinicians were included. The majority of complaints stemmed from patients not agreeing with their diagnosis. Respondents felt that complaints from patients with functional disorders tended to be more involved and personal than other complaints. Lack of awareness about functional conditions among non-specialists was also a common theme. For many respondents, the complaint adversely affected their emotional wellbeing. Following the complaint, defensive practice was more common, and working patterns were altered.ConclusionsComplaints from patients with functional neurological disorders appear more difficult to resolve than other complaints, and clinicians who deal with them often become the ‘second victim’ in the process leading to potentially adverse effects on patient care. Strategies to tackle these issues are discussed.

There is a large and growing literature on peer effects in economics. In the current article, we focus on a Manski-type linear-in-means model that has proved to be popular in empirical work. We critically examine some aspects of the statistical model that may be restrictive in empirical analyses. Specifically, we focus on three aspects. First, we examine the endogeneity of the network or peer groups. Second, we investigate simultaneously alternative definitions of links and the possibility of peer effects arising through multiple networks. Third, we highlight the representation of the traditional linear-in-means model as an autoregressive model, and contrast it with an alternative moving-average model, where the correlation between unconnected individuals who are indirectly connected is limited. Using data on friendship networks from the Add Health dataset, we illustrate the empirical relevance of these ideas.

Magnetic fields, while ubiquitous in many astrophysical environments, are challenging to measure observationally. Based on the properties of anisotropy of eddies in magnetized turbulence, the velocity gradient technique is a method synergistic to dust polarimetry that is capable of tracing plane-of-the-sky magnetic fields, measuring the magnetization of interstellar media and estimating the fraction of gravitational collapsing gas in molecular clouds using spectral line observations. Here, we apply this technique to five low-mass star-forming molecular clouds in the Gould Belt and compare the results to the magnetic field orientation obtained from polarized dust emission. We find that the estimates of magnetic field orientations and magnetization for both methods are statistically similar. We estimate the fraction of collapsing gas in the selected clouds. By using the velocity gradient technique, we also present the plane-of-the-sky magnetic field orientation and magnetization of the Smith Cloud, for which dust polarimetry data are unavailable.The velocity gradient technique is used to measure the magnetic field orientations and magnetization of five low-mass star-forming molecular clouds, also finding that collapsing regions constitute a small fraction of the volume in these clouds.

Older adults remain significantly underrepresented in clinical trials. This is concerning because age‐associated physiological changes can alter drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. This paper examines the status of older adult representation in clinical trials, analyzes contributing factors, and discusses initiatives to address gaps. Data were collected from studies completed between 2010 and 2025 using ClinicalTrials.gov to assess age‐related inclusion/exclusion criteria. Further, two surveys of pharmaceutical companies were initially conducted to assess age ranges of randomized patients in pivotal trials, what clinical pharmacology approaches were applied to potentially support dosing in older adult patients, whether exclusion criteria disproportionally excluded older patients, reasons older adult patients were not randomized, and whether older patients more often discontinued trials prematurely. Exclusion criterion based on an age cut‐off was rarely applied. Pharmacokinetic analyses were performed for most trials, but only one age‐related dosing recommendation was reported out of 29 products. In a survey of 41 clinical studies, exclusion criteria showed no bias toward exclusion of patients > 80 years. Reasons for not randomizing older patients were diverse and trial dependent. Subjective reasons for non‐randomization at higher frequencies in older patients were patient wish and doctor advice. Discontinuation rate did not reveal a clear age‐related trend. When comparing trial age composition to disease prevalence by age, a mismatch was evident with fewer than expected older patients enrolled. This research identifies the gap between trial participation and disease prevalence by age groups, offering insights for sponsor companies to enhance older adults' inclusion in clinical research.

ABSTRACT We have developed a new millimeter wave receiver system with input optics that support simultaneous observations in four bands of 22, 43, 86, and 129 GHz to facilitate calibrating tropospheric phase fluctuations for millimeter-wave VLBI observations. In order to make simultaneous observations in four bands pointing at the same position in sky, it is crucial that errors among the beams from any misalignments should be kept small. After doing the beam alignment in the laboratory, on-site test observations were carried out so as to evaluate the performance. The result is that the beam centers of the four bands with reference to the 86 GHz beam center were aligned within 2″ over most of the elevation range of the Korean VLBI Network (KVN) 21 m telescope. Measured telescope aperture efficiencies including the multiband receiver optics are 65% at 22 GHz, 62% at 43 GHz, 57% at 86 GHz, and 38% at 129 GHz. Through this novel optics covering wide RF bandwidth effectively, we can simultaneously observe the SiO maser transitions at 43, 86, and 129 GHz and in addition the water maser line at 22 GHz.

Objective The standard therapy for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is sorafenib, with most patients experiencing disease progression within 6 months. Label-retaining cancer cells (LRCC) represent a novel subpopulation of cancer stem cells (CSC). The objective was to test whether LRCC are resistant to sorafenib. Methods We tested human HCC derived LRCC and non-LRCC before and after treatment with sorafenib. Results LRCC derived from human HCC are relatively resistant to sorafenib. The proportion of LRCC in HCC cell lines is increased after sorafenib while the general population of cancer cells undergoes growth suppression. We show that LRCC demonstrate improved viability and toxicity profiles, and reduced apoptosis, over non-LRCC. We show that after treatment with sorafenib, LRCC upregulate the CSC marker aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 family, wingless-type MMTV-integration-site family, cell survival and proliferation genes, and downregulate apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, cell adhesion and stem cells differentiation genes. This phenomenon was accompanied by non-uniform activation of specific isoforms of the sorafenib target proteins extracellular-signal-regulated kinases and v-akt-murine-thymoma-viral-oncogene homologue (AKT) in LRCC but not in non-LRCC. A molecular pathway map for sorafenib treated LRCC is proposed. Conclusions Our results suggest that HCC derived LRCC are relatively resistant to sorafenib. Since LRCC can generate tumours with as few as 10 cells, our data suggest a potential role for these cells in disease recurrence. Further investigation of this phenomenon might provide novel insights into cancer biology, cancer recurrence and drug resistance with important implications for the development of novel cancer therapies based on targeting LRCC.

During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, many health professionals used social media to promote preventative health behaviors. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of the effect of a Facebook advertising campaign consisting of short videos recorded by doctors and nurses to encourage users to stay at home for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays ( NCT04644328 and AEARCTR-0006821 ). We randomly assigned counties to high intensity ( n  = 410 (386) at Thanksgiving (Christmas)) or low intensity ( n  = 410 (381)). The intervention was delivered to a large fraction of Facebook subscribers in 75% and 25% of randomly assigned zip codes in high- and low-intensity counties, respectively. In total, 6,998 (6,716) zip codes were included, and 11,954,109 (23,302,290) users were reached at Thanksgiving (Christmas). The first two primary outcomes were holiday travel and fraction leaving home, both measured using mobile phone location data of Facebook users. Average distance traveled in high-intensity counties decreased by −0.993 percentage points (95% confidence interval (CI): –1.616, −0.371; P = 0.002) for the 3 days before each holiday compared to low-intensity counties. The fraction of people who left home on the holiday was not significantly affected (adjusted difference: 0.030; 95% CI: −0.361, 0.420; P = 0.881). The third primary outcome was COVID-19 infections recorded at the zip code level in the 2-week period starting 5 days after the holiday. Infections declined by 3.5% (adjusted 95% CI: −6.2%, −0.7%; P = 0.013) in intervention compared to control zip codes. Social media messages recorded by health professionals before the winter holidays in the United States led to a significant reduction in holiday travel and subsequent COVID-19 infections. A new cluster randomized controlled trial conducted in 13 American states demonstrates that a social media advertising campaign using videos of healthcare professionals to encourage users to stay at home over the holiday season was effective in reducing travel and subsequent spread of COVID-19.