Prognostic impact of peripheral blood white blood cell count (WBC) at the diagnosis of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) was evaluated in a population-based consecutive series of 2666 children aged 1-15 treated for ALL between 1992 and 2008 in the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). Ten-year event-free (pEFS(10 y)) survival and overall (pOS(10 y)) s...

An influential literature has used the aftermath of terrorist attacks to estimate large effects of police street deployment on crime. However, the elasticities obtained in these settings may not easily extrapolate to more standard circumstances. This paper exploits a natural experiment that aimed to increase police presence in more than 6,000 well-defined areas, by economically-realistic amount...

Successful infection and replication of bacteriophages is indicative of the presence of viable bacteria. We describe here the development of a bacteriophage replication assay for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by using mycobacteriophage D29. Optimization of phage inoculate and incubation times allowed highly sensitive detection of M. bovis BCG. Fewer than 10 CFU (100 CFU/ml) were d...

We explore the relationship between R. W. Shephard's input distance function (``Cost and Production Functions,'' Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1953) and D. G. Luenberger's benefit function (J. Math. Econ. 21 (1992a), 461 481). We point out that the latter can be recognized in a production context as a directional input distance function which can exhaustively characterize technologies in bo...

This paper compares two second-generation dynamic energy demand models, a translog Ž . Ž . TL and a general Leontief GL , in the study of price elasticities and factor substitutions of nine Swedish manufacturing industries: food, textiles, wood, paper, printing, chemicals, non-metallic minerals, base metals and machinery. Several model specifications are tested with likelihood ratio test. There...

The purposes of this paper are to develop a comprehensive understanding of how ‘learning organizations’ can be created and to provide a partial evaluation of the literature with a view to developing propositions for the future research agenda. To these ends, the paper analyzes the components of ‘learning organizations,’ deals with the barriers to organizational learning and several strategies f...