New York University

About: New York University is a education organization based out in New York, New York, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 72380 authors who have published 165545 publications receiving 8334030 citations. The organization is also known as: NYU & University of the City of New York.

OCEANS: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Phase III Trial of Chemotherapy With or Without Bevacizumab in Patients With Platinum-Sensitive Recurrent Epithelial Ovarian, Primary Peritoneal, or Fallopian Tube Cancer

Abstract: Purpose This randomized, multicenter, blinded, placebo-controlled phase III trial tested the efficacy and safety of bevacizumab (BV) with gemcitabine and carboplatin (GC) compared with GC in platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian, primary peritoneal, or fallopian tube cancer (ROC). Patients and Methods Patients with platinum-sensitive ROC (recurrence 6 months after front-line platinum-based therapy) and measurable disease were randomly assigned to GC plus either BV or placebo (PL) for six to 10 cycles. BV or PL, respectively, was then continued until disease progression. The primary end point was progression-free survival (PFS) by RECIST; secondary end points were objective response rate, duration of response (DOR), overall survival, and safety. Results Overall, 484 patients were randomly assigned. PFS for the BV arm was superior to that for the PL arm (hazard ratio [HR], 0.484; 95% CI, 0.388 to 0.605; log-rank P .0001); median PFS was 12.4 v 8.4 months, respectively. The objective response rate (78.5% v 57.4%; P .0001) and DOR (10.4 v 7.4 months; HR, 0.534; 95% CI, 0.408 to 0.698) were significantly improved with the addition of BV. No new safety concerns were noted. Grade 3 or higher hypertension (17.4% v 1%) and proteinuria (8.5% v 1%) occurred more frequently in the BV arm. The rates of neutropenia and febrile neutropenia were similar in both arms. Two patients in the BV arm experienced GI perforation after study treatment discontinuation.

MicroRNAs direct rapid deadenylation of mRNA.

Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are ubiquitous regulators of eukaryotic gene expression. In addition to repressing translation, miRNAs can down-regulate the concentration of mRNAs that contain elements to which they are imperfectly complementary. Using miR-125b and let-7 as representative miRNAs, we show that in mammalian cells this reduction in message abundance is a consequence of accelerated deadenylation, which leads to rapid mRNA decay. The ability of miRNAs to expedite poly(A) removal does not result from decreased translation; nor does translational repression by miRNAs require a poly(A) tail, a 3′ histone stem-loop being an effective substitute. These findings suggest that miRNAs use two distinct posttranscriptional mechanisms to down-regulate gene expression.

The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry

Abstract: Technological change and deregulation have caused a major restructuring of the telecommunications equipment industry over the last two decades. We estimate the parameters of a production function for the equipment industry and then use those estimates to analyze the evolution of plant level productivity over this period. The restructuring involved significant entry and exit and large changes in the sizes of incumbents. Since firms' choices on whether to liquidate and on the quantities of inputs demanded should they continue depend on their productivity, we use an equilibrium model to suggest an estimation algorithm that takes into account the relationship between productivity on the one hand. and both input demand and survival on the other. A fully parametric version of the estimation algorithm would be both computationally burdensome and require a host of auxiliary assumptions. So we develop a semi parametric technique which is both consistent with a quite general version of the theoretical framework and easy to use. The algorithm produces markedly different estimates of both production function parameters and of productivity movements than traditional estimation procedures. We find an increase in the rate of industry productivity growth after deregulation. This in spite of the fact there was no increase in the average of the plants' rates of productivity growth, and there was actually a fall in our index of the efficiency of the allocation of variable factors conditional on the existing distribution of fixed factors. Deregulation was, however, followed by a reallocation of capital towards more productive establishments (by a down sizing, often shutdown. of unproductive plants and by disproportionate growth of productive establishments) which more than offset the other factors' negative impacts on aggregate productivity.