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This paper uses a smooth transition autoregressive regression to estimate the adjustment speed of exchange rate in Singapore, a well‐managed small open economy in which exchange rate policy plays an important role in facilitating macroeconomic adjustment and controlling inflation. The result of our estimation suggests that the adjustment speed is faster than estimates reported in the literature. In addition, parallel with the long‐run neutrality and short‐run nonneutrality of monetary policy in large economies, we provide a pioneer discussion and empirical evidence of long‐run neutrality and short‐run nonneutrality of exchange rate policy in the small open economy. To our knowledge, we are the first group of researchers conducting rigorous study on this important issue for small open economies. Finally, we found evidence of the Harrold–Balassa–Samuelson (HBS) effect, and our results support Lothian and Taylor's argument that failure to include the effect in the estimation would lead to biased estimate in the adjustment speed. Thus, one should be cautious of the significant portion of past empirical studies that did not incorporate the HBS effect in their estimations. Future empirical studies should include the effect in the estimations and tests, or at least test for the absence of the effect before excluding it from the estimations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is the second most common fatal primary hepatobiliary malignant carcinoma, characterized by early invasion and extremely poor outcomes. It is therefore necessary to identify a novel biomarker to better diagnose CAA and predict its prognosis. Recently, emerging evidence has revealed that some lncRNAs play an important role in the tumorigenesis and progression of CAA. In order to support this search for novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for CAA, we conducted a meta-analysis to analyze the published association between lncRNA expression and its clinical value in CAA. Methods: Eligible studies were pooled and analyzed according to our inclusion and exclusion criteria after a comprehensive literature search. Stata 14.0 software was used to analyze the data from relevant studies and to construct a forest plot. Different effect sizes were selected for the meta-analysis. Results: In total, 24 publications were included in this meta-analysis. After review of their full-text, 16 articles studied the association between lncRNAs and clinicopathological characteristics, 2 discussing diagnosis and 16 discussing prognosis. Our results showed that overexpression of CCAT1 was significantly correlated with tumor stage (I + II vs III + IV) (OR, 4.99; 95% CI 2.77–8.99; P<0.001) and lymph node metastasis in CCA (OR, 4.75; 95% CI 2.65–8.52; P<0.001). Furthermore, elevated CCAT lncRNA family expression predicted a shorter overall survival (HR, 2.09; 95% CI 1.17–3.00; P<0.001), especially CCAT2. Upregulation of CCAT2 was also obviously associated with tumor stage in CCA (OR, 5.29; 95% CI 2.64–10.58; P=0.001). Conclusion: This is the first meta-analysis to assess the relationship between expression of lncRNAs and the clinical values of patients with CCA. lncRNAs can function as potential molecular biomarkers of the clinicopathology and prognosis of CCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study was to investigate the application of tumor abnormal protein (TAP) combined with transvaginal ultrasound in the diagnosis of early-stage endometrial cancer. A total of 248 patients with suspected endometrial cancer who were admitted to the Gynecology Department of the Second People's Hospital of Liaocheng from September 2013 to September 2015 were selected and randomly divided into the control (n=124) and the observation group (n=124). The control group received conventional ultrasound examination, while the observation, underwent TAP combined with conventional ultrasound examination. Differences in the definite diagnostic results of the two diagnostic methods and curettage were compared, and the application of TAP combined with transvaginal ultrasound in the diagnosis of early-stage endometrial cancer was studied. Among 248 patients receiving hysteroscopy and diagnostic curettage examination, there were 75 patients with early-stage endometrial cancer, and 173 benign patients. The total diagnostic accordance rate of conventional ultrasound for endometrial lesions was 87.90% (n=218), and the accordance rate for early-stage endometrial carcinoma was 90.67% (n=68); the total diagnostic accordance rate of TAP combined with vaginal ultrasound for endometrial lesions was 94.35% (n=234), and for early-stage endometrial cancer was 94.67% (n=71); of TAP combined with conventional ultrasound for endometrial lesions and endometrial cancer were higher than those of simple conventional ultrasound (P<0.05). The area under the curve (AUC) of conventional ultrasound in the diagnosis of endometrial cancer was 0.754 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.211-2.534]. The AUC of TAP combined with vaginal ultrasound in the diagnosis of endometrial cancer was 0.814 (95% CI: 0.517-0.932), and a comparison between the two groups was statistically significant (P=0.011). The accuracy rate of TAP combined with transvaginal ultrasound in the diagnosis of early-stage endometrial cancer is relatively high, and it is worthy promoting and applying in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bladder cancer is one of the most common urinary malignancies, and has a high recurrence rate and poor outcomes. In order to identify novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for bladder cancer, we conducted a meta-analysis to analyze the association between long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) expression and survival in bladder cancer.Materials and methods: We searched literature from databases using our inclusion and exclusion criteria. STATA 14.0 software was used to analyze the data from collected studies and to construct the forest plots. A different effect size was selected for each meta-analysis.Results: After selection, 30 articles were found to be eligible. The present meta-analysis contains data from 13 articles about clinicopathological characteristics, six articles about diagnosis, and 16 articles about prognosis. In the present study, we found that many lncRNAs could function as potential diagnostic and prognostic markers in bladder cancer. Among these findings, UCA1 was expected to be a diagnostic biomarker for bladder cancer, while the aberrant expression of HOTAIR and GAS5 was associated with poor disease-free survival/recurrence-free survival/disease-specific survival.Conclusion: Overall, the present study is the first meta-analysis to assess the association between expression of lncRNAs and clinical value in patients with bladder cancer. LncRNAs hold promise as novel diagnostic and prognostic markers in bladder cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]