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The article discusses the authors' views about how to prove harm and recover damages in corruption-based litigation involving Major League Soccer and the bidding process for the 2022 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament. U.S. indictments against officials from the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) are examined, along with alleged corruption by then-soccer executive Mohamen Bin Hammam in 2010. Tortious interference claims and New York's statute of limitations are assessed.

This paper analyzes infant mortality in a unique and highly-detailed data set from Uruguay. A duration model is employed to estimate the relationships between infant mortality and socioeconomic status at the individual, household, and community level. Our results indicate that the most important predictors of infant survival in the first year of life are a full gestational period, mother's educational attainment, marital status (a proxy for family wealth), and the type of hospital used for delivery. We also find that the region where the mother resides (a proxy for community wealth), whether or not the delivery was a multiple delivery, and the gender of the infant are strong predictors of infant mortality in Uruguay. In light of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, the results presented in this paper suggest that policies designed to increase women's education and to decrease out-of-wedlock births can substantially improve infant health in less-developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives This study attempts to isolate instructor-specific measures that may be sources of grade inflation and to measure their relative importance. Methods We estimate a fixed-effects model, using by far the most extensive data set related to grade inflation ever assembled. Our data comprise 48,038 courses taught by 1,871 distinct instructors at a large public university over a two-decade period. Results Our results suggest that female faculty members are the most likely to inflate grades, while ethnicity has a lesser effect. Conclusions Characteristics of instructors, in particular gender, affect the degree of observed grade inflation, controlling for student- and department-specific effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study extends extant research on prenatal care and birthweight to the South American country of Uruguay. The data represent a population of poor women from a less-developed country with a health care system that provides both prenatal and obstetric care free of charge. We find a positive effect of increased prenatal care use on birthweight, with a small marginal effect that is similar to that found in studies using US data. The results highlight the usefulness of existing methodologies for estimating the effect of prenatal care on birthweight and the importance of extending these methodologies to data from developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Colleges and universities routinely use evaluation scores to assess the quality of an instructor's teaching for purposes of promotion and tenure and for merit-raise allocations. This article attempts to identify the determinants of these scores, and to suggest ways that departments' numerical rankings of instructors might be adjusted. Method. This article applies a feasible generalized least squares model to a panel of data from master's-level classes. Results. We find that instructors can “buy” better evaluation scores by inflating students' grade expectations. Also, the teaching experience of instructors has an impact on evaluation scores, but this effect is largely seen as an increase after tenure is granted. In addition, we find evidence of a bias against nonwhite faculty. Conclusion. Our results suggest that an adjustment to the usual departmental rankings may be in order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of risk factors on birthweight in the main maternity hospital in Uruguay, Centro Hospitalario Pereira Rossell. The data are provided by the Latin American Center for Perinatology and cover the years 1995 to 2004. The study finds that most of the included risk factors are significant predictors of both birthweight and the probability of a low-birthweight birth. As expected, risk factors that can be influenced by public policy (prenatal care usage, education, and smoking) have significant effects on birthweight outcomes; however, the results indicate that epidemiological risk factors that are less easily affected by public policy (previous low-birthweight births and short pregnancy interval) have similar effects o n birthweight outcomes. Thus, although it is important to increase prenatal care usage and maternal educational attainment and to decrease maternal smoking in order to improve birthweight outcomes in Uruguay, it is also important for policymakers to consider ways to reduce the occurrence of epidemiological risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work studies the health status of young Uruguayan population based on the Survey on Health and Social Networks, carried by Department of Economics of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the UdelaR, during the year 2004. Through an ordered probit model, the probability of having a very good, good or bad health status are estimated for young Uruguayans between 14 and 29 years of age, controlling for socioeconomic characteristics and risky behaviours. Results show that the probability of having a better health status positively depends on the education, physical activity, nutritional status, being a non-smoker, living in small cities, counting on social networks and living in a home with less relative privation. Marginal effects show that the variable chosen as an approach for the initial stock, is the most important factor in the determination of the current health status of the young. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the abortion decisions of Hispanic women who reside in the Texas counties that border Mexico. We hypothesize that ethnicity as well as geographic location may capture differences in assimilation to the U.S. culture that, ultimately, influence fertility-control decisions. We concentrate on the connection between the abortion decision and provider availability as measured by distance to the nearest abortion provider. Methods. The empirical model uses a logit specification to compare the abortion decisions of border Hispanics to both Hispanic and Anglo women residing in nonborder regions of Texas. The data consist of all births and abortions for women 20 years old and older for 1993 in Texas. Results. We find characteristic differences among the abortion decisions of Texas women by ethnicity and geographic location. In particular, Hispanics along the border region are quantitatively more responsive to variations in the availability of abortion providers, poverty rates, female employment rates, and urbanization. Conclusions. The abortion decisions of nonborder Hispanics appear to more closely resemble those of Anglo women rather than those of their Hispanic counterparts in the border region. Also, economic development in the Texas-Mexico border region is likely to have a significant impact on abortion and fertility rates in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College basketball seems to present minority athletes with educational opportunities which would be unavailable otherwise. These programs appear free of racial bias. However, customer discrimination can effect these programs by increasing the revenue-earning potential of white players, indicating that college basketball programs have economic incentives to discriminate against prospective black players. This study presents evidence of customer discrimination in college basketball. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cape fur seals Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus were harvested to extirpation on the Robberg Peninsula, Plettenberg Bay, on the south-east coast of South Africa, between the 17th and early 20th centuries. Seals returned to Robberg in small numbers during the early 1990s and their numbers subsequently increased. We studied the diet of this increasing population using faecal (scat) sampling to determine: the species composition and size of prey in the diet of Cape fur seals at Robberg; to explore temporal variation in the diet; and to investigate the potential for competition between seals and the fisheries around Plettenberg Bay. Of the 445 scats collected, 90% contained hard prey remains and 15 teleost prey species were represented in the 3 127 otoliths that could be identified. The seals’ most important prey species in terms of numerical abundance, frequency of occurrence and mass in the diet, were anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus, sardine Sardinops sagax, horse mackerel Trachurus capensis, sand tongue-fish Cynoglossus capensis and shallow-water hake Merluccius capensis (in decreasing order of importance for numerical abundance). The proportion of anchovy in the diet increased during the study period (2003–2008), whereas the proportion of sardine decreased. The estimated average annual consumption of sardine by seals was higher than the average annual catch made by purse-seine fisheries in this area, suggesting resource competition between seals and purse-seiners, especially in the light of continuing growth of seal numbers in the area. However, direct competition between seals and linefisheries appeared to be minimal. Scat sampling of Cape fur seals holds potential to serve a useful and cost effective indicator of temporal changes in sardine abundance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B Presenter: b Katherine Jackson MD | University of Rochester B Background: b Cachexia is a hallmark of advanced stage cancers, and has been repeatedly associated with poor prognosis and worse overall outcomes across malignancies. Patients with cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) often present with weight loss, but the incidence of sarcopenia and its effect on late stage CCA patient survival remains undescribed. Tissue acquired from mouse CCA tumors and littermate control livers were processed for histology, immunohistochemistry, RNA sequencing, mass cytometry, and RT-PCR. [Extracted from the article]

B Presenter: b Luis Ruffolo MD | University of Rochester B Background: b Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the third leading cause of cancer related mortality, with an all stage 5 year prognosis of just 8%. B Results: b Flow cytometry of human PDAC demonstrates penetration of Plexin B1 positive leukocytes, most notably CD14+, CD68+ tumor associated macrophages. [Extracted from the article]

B Presenter: b Nicholas Ullman MD | University of Rochester B Background: b Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is the second most common primary liver malignancy, with increasing incidence over the past decade. Bone marrow, spleen, peripheral blood, CCA tumors and normal livers from littermate controls were dissociated into single cell suspensions for immune phenotyping by flow cytometry analysis. [Extracted from the article]

Oral bioavailability of paclitaxel is very low, which is due to efficient transport of the drug by the intestinal drug efflux pump P-glycoprotein (P-gp). We have recently demonstrated that the oral bioavailability of paclitaxel can be increased at least 7-fold by co-administration of the P-gp blocker cyclosporin A (CsA). Now we tested the potent alternative orally applicable non-immunosuppressive P-gp blocker GF120918. Six patients received one course of oral paclitaxel of 120 mg/m[SUP2] in combination with 1000 mg oral GF120918 (GG918, GW0918). Patients received intravenous (i.v.) paclitaxel 175 mg/m[SUP2] as a 3-hour infusion during subsequent courses. The mean area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) of paclitaxel after oral drug administration in combination with GF120918 was 3.27 ± 1.67 μM.h. In our previously performed study of 120 mg/m[SUP2] oral paclitaxel in combination with CsA the mean AUC of paclitaxel was 2.55 ± 2.29 μM.h. After i.v. administration of paclitaxel the mean AUC was 15.92 ± 2.46 μM.h. The oral combination of paclitaxel with GF120918 was well tolerated. The increase in systemic exposure to paclitaxel in combination with GF120918 is of the same magnitude as in combination with CsA. GF120918 is a good and safe alternative for CsA and may enable chronic oral therapy with paclitaxel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]