When I was young, computers could only be accessed within well defined institutions (like university computer centers), with approved software. But then personal computers became available, and pretty soon we were all computing promiscuously, at home and in the office, with third party software (unless we were Apple users, in which case we still used approved software). And computing wasn't just for data and work anymore, it was also for fun, something you could do spontaneously.
The internet only accelerated things. Old barriers broke down.
Then came viruses. Strange software wasn't safe anymore, you could catch something that could really harm you. And you could pass it on to your correspondents and collaborators if you were infected. You had to be careful with whom you traded bits and bytes.
Today Apple is back in vogue; iPhone apps are approved software. We all have virus scanners, and our IT checkups may now include routine tests for infection. Our junk mail filters try to protect us from inappropriate contact. We practice safe computing.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Misc. kidney exchange
A press release from Georgetown University Hospital reports that half of their kidney transplants now arise from kidney exchange: Transplant Numbers Show New Kidney Exchange Program Increased the Rate of Kidney Transplants at Georgetown Two-Fold Since 2008
I recently returned from talking about kidney exchange in Milan. Eliana La Ferrara of Bocconi U. points out the following news story summarizing the current situation (in Italian): Fazio: sì alla donazione d'organi da parte di «samaritani» . It says that the transplant law in Italy has recently been changed to allow live donations by donors who are not close relatives, and it seems to suggest that the first transplants allowed under the new law should be two-way kidney exchanges. It also notes that the waiting list for kidney transplants in Italy recently had about 9,000 people on it, and that in 2009 there were about 1,700 transplants, of which only a few dozen were from living donors.
An Australian parliamentarian, Catherine King, writes about the first kidney exchange in the Australian Paired Kidney Exchange (AKX) program:
The American Medical News writes about the pilot National Kidney Paired Donation program in the U.S.:
Kidney exchange program makes 1st matches: The United Network for Organ Sharing brings together incompatible donor-recipient pairs through a national pool. Mike Rees and I are both briefly quoted on some of the obstacles that still need to be overcome to make that program a success on a large scale.
Scripps News service carries a story about the pilot National Kidney Paired Donation program, emphasizing the role played by CMU's Tuomas Sandholm: Computer algorithm matches unrelated donors, kidneys
In Canada, they are asking Who should travel in kidney exchange programs: the donor, or the organ?
Marie-Chantal Fortin, Bryn Williams-Jones , Open Medicine, Vol 5, No 1 (2011)
"In 2009 the Canadian Blood services launched the Living Donor Paired Exchange Registry. This program circumvents the obstacle presented by blood-group or immunologic incompatibility between a living potential donor and his or her intended recipient. At the beginning, only 3 provinces joined the program, but as of October 2010 all Canadian provinces are participants. Up to now, participating donors have travelled to recipients’ transplant centres. We might question whether, in a country such as Canada, the donor or the organ should travel. In this article, we review the arguments for donor travel and the arguments for shipping the kidney."
Preliminary, still partial evidence from the U.S. suggests It's Okay to Ship Live-Donor Kidneys
"Transporting live-donor kidneys, sometimes over great distances, does not appear to have a negative effect on transplantation outcomes, researchers found."
And here's a gated link to the paper in the AJT:
Transporting Live Donor Kidneys for Kidney Paired Donation: Initial National Results, D. L. Segev1,2,*, J. L. Veale3, J. C. Berger1, J. M. Hiller1, R. L. Hanto4, D. B. Leeser5, S. R. Geffner6, S. Shenoy7, W. I. Bry8, S. Katznelson8, M. L. Melcher9, M. A. Rees10, E. N. S. Samara11, A. K. Israni12, M. Cooper13, R. J. Montgomery1, L. Malinzak14, J. Whiting15, D. Baran16, J. I. Tchervenkov16, J. P. Roberts17, J. Rogers18, D. A. Axelrod19, C. E. Simpkins1, R. A. Montgomery1
Article first published online: 10 JAN 2011
I recently returned from talking about kidney exchange in Milan. Eliana La Ferrara of Bocconi U. points out the following news story summarizing the current situation (in Italian): Fazio: sì alla donazione d'organi da parte di «samaritani» . It says that the transplant law in Italy has recently been changed to allow live donations by donors who are not close relatives, and it seems to suggest that the first transplants allowed under the new law should be two-way kidney exchanges. It also notes that the waiting list for kidney transplants in Italy recently had about 9,000 people on it, and that in 2009 there were about 1,700 transplants, of which only a few dozen were from living donors.
An Australian parliamentarian, Catherine King, writes about the first kidney exchange in the Australian Paired Kidney Exchange (AKX) program:
The American Medical News writes about the pilot National Kidney Paired Donation program in the U.S.:
Kidney exchange program makes 1st matches: The United Network for Organ Sharing brings together incompatible donor-recipient pairs through a national pool. Mike Rees and I are both briefly quoted on some of the obstacles that still need to be overcome to make that program a success on a large scale.
Scripps News service carries a story about the pilot National Kidney Paired Donation program, emphasizing the role played by CMU's Tuomas Sandholm: Computer algorithm matches unrelated donors, kidneys
In Canada, they are asking Who should travel in kidney exchange programs: the donor, or the organ?
Marie-Chantal Fortin, Bryn Williams-Jones , Open Medicine, Vol 5, No 1 (2011)
"In 2009 the Canadian Blood services launched the Living Donor Paired Exchange Registry. This program circumvents the obstacle presented by blood-group or immunologic incompatibility between a living potential donor and his or her intended recipient. At the beginning, only 3 provinces joined the program, but as of October 2010 all Canadian provinces are participants. Up to now, participating donors have travelled to recipients’ transplant centres. We might question whether, in a country such as Canada, the donor or the organ should travel. In this article, we review the arguments for donor travel and the arguments for shipping the kidney."
Preliminary, still partial evidence from the U.S. suggests It's Okay to Ship Live-Donor Kidneys
"Transporting live-donor kidneys, sometimes over great distances, does not appear to have a negative effect on transplantation outcomes, researchers found."
And here's a gated link to the paper in the AJT:
Transporting Live Donor Kidneys for Kidney Paired Donation: Initial National Results, D. L. Segev1,2,*, J. L. Veale3, J. C. Berger1, J. M. Hiller1, R. L. Hanto4, D. B. Leeser5, S. R. Geffner6, S. Shenoy7, W. I. Bry8, S. Katznelson8, M. L. Melcher9, M. A. Rees10, E. N. S. Samara11, A. K. Israni12, M. Cooper13, R. J. Montgomery1, L. Malinzak14, J. Whiting15, D. Baran16, J. I. Tchervenkov16, J. P. Roberts17, J. Rogers18, D. A. Axelrod19, C. E. Simpkins1, R. A. Montgomery1
Article first published online: 10 JAN 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Will reputation and crowd sourcing facilitate alternative forms of peer review?
That's the question raised in a (gated) article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a proposal to publish papers online, and then have them subject to comment: 'Facebook of Science' Seeks to Reshape Peer Review
"Mr. Tracz plans to turn his latest Internet experiment, a large network of leading scientists called the Faculty of 1000, into what some call "the Facebook of science" and a force that will change the nature of peer review. His vision is to transform papers from one-shot events owned by publishers into evolving discussions among those researchers, authors, and readers.
...
"The core function of F1000 is to allow members to highlight any newly published paper that they consider interesting and give it a points rating of six (recommended), eight (must read), or 10 (exceptional). Many members give network access to a junior colleague who helps them rate publications.
"Members say in a sentence or two why they find the paper interesting. Readers then are able to attach their own comments to the F1000 site. (Authors can appeal comments they consider unreasonable.)
...
"For Mr. Tracz, this objective leads inevitably back to the more grandiose goal of upending the existing publishing system. "There are two big issues, for science and for publishing," he says. "One is peer review, and one is the publishing of data." While many researchers and publishers consider prepublication peer review to be, at worst, a necessary evil, Mr. Tracz is scathing about its weaknesses. "Except for a tiny little part at the top, where it is done seriously, peer review has become a joke. It is not done properly, it delays publication unnecessarily, it is open to abuse, and is being abused. It is seriously sick, and it has been for a while."
"Mr. Tracz plans to turn his latest Internet experiment, a large network of leading scientists called the Faculty of 1000, into what some call "the Facebook of science" and a force that will change the nature of peer review. His vision is to transform papers from one-shot events owned by publishers into evolving discussions among those researchers, authors, and readers.
...
"The core function of F1000 is to allow members to highlight any newly published paper that they consider interesting and give it a points rating of six (recommended), eight (must read), or 10 (exceptional). Many members give network access to a junior colleague who helps them rate publications.
"Members say in a sentence or two why they find the paper interesting. Readers then are able to attach their own comments to the F1000 site. (Authors can appeal comments they consider unreasonable.)
...
"For Mr. Tracz, this objective leads inevitably back to the more grandiose goal of upending the existing publishing system. "There are two big issues, for science and for publishing," he says. "One is peer review, and one is the publishing of data." While many researchers and publishers consider prepublication peer review to be, at worst, a necessary evil, Mr. Tracz is scathing about its weaknesses. "Except for a tiny little part at the top, where it is done seriously, peer review has become a joke. It is not done properly, it delays publication unnecessarily, it is open to abuse, and is being abused. It is seriously sick, and it has been for a while."
Friday, February 11, 2011
Experiments in Industrial Organization
Hans-Theo Normann and Bradley Ruffle have edited a special issue of the International Journal of Industrial Organization on Experiments in Industrial Organization
Buyer confusion and market prices ► Sellers make it hard for buyers to assess the quality of their goods ► As a result buyers are confused about the relative quality of different goods ► This allows sellers to increase their prices.
| Introduction to the special issue on experiments in industrial organization Pages 1-3 Hans-Theo Normann, Bradley Ruffle | ||||
PDF (131 K)
| An experimental study of exclusive contracts Original Research Article Pages 4-13 Angela M. Smith | ||||
| Buyer confusion and market prices Original Research Article Pages 14-22 Kenan Kalaycı, Jan Potters | ||||
Research highlights
| Information value and externalities in reputation building Original Research Article Pages 23-33 Gary E. Bolton, Axel Ockenfels, Felix Ebeling | ||||
| Auctions with toeholds: An experimental study of company takeovers Original Research Article Pages 34-45 Sotiris Georganas, Rosemarie Nagel | ||||
| An experimental test of automatic mitigation of wholesale electricity prices Original Research Article Pages 46-53 Daniel L. Shawhan, Kent D. Messer, William D. Schulze, Richard E. Schuler | ||||
| Auctions with resale when private values are uncertain: Evidence from the lab and field Original Research Article Pages 54-64 Andreas Lange, John A. List, Michael K. Price | ||||
| Is there a U-shaped relation between competition and investment? Original Research Article Pages 65-73 Dario Sacco, Armin Schmutzler | ||||
| An experiment on spatial competition with endogenous pricing Original Research Article Pages 74-83 Iván Barreda-Tarrazona, Aurora García-Gallego, Nikolaos Georgantzís, Joaquín Andaluz-Funcia, Agustín Gil-Sanz | ||||
| Fighting collusion in auctions: An experimental investigation Original Research Article Pages 84-96 Audrey Hu, Theo Offerman, Sander Onderstal | ||||
| Can real-effort investments inhibit the convergence of experimental markets? Original Research Article Pages 97-103 Timothy N. Cason, Lata Gangadharan, Nikos Nikiforakis | ||||
| Group identity in markets Original Research Article Pages 104-115 Sherry Xin Li, Kutsal Dogan, Ernan Haruvy | ||||
| Rent seeking in groups Original Research Article Pages 116-125 T.K. Ahn, R. Mark Isaac, Timothy C. Salmon | ||||
| Cartel formation and pricing: The effect of managerial decision-making rules Original Research Article Pages 126-133 Joris Gillet, Arthur Schram, Joep Sonnemans | ||||
| Price dynamics and collusion under short-run price commitments Original Research Article Pages 134-153 Kasper Leufkens, Ronald Peeters | ||||
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