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To evaluate the efficacy and safety of tamsulosin and Hachimijiogan or Ryutanshakanto in patients with lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia.A prospective, randomized, double-blind method was used to determine the efficacy and safety of the combination or placebo at baseline and 4, 8, and 12 weeks of study. The International Prostate Symptom Score, quality of life index, complete voiding diary, and National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index were studied. Uroflowmetery and postvoid residual urine volume were measured and compared. Laboratory tests including prostate-specific antigen were performed.In all groups, International Prostate Symptom Score and quality of life showed improvement, but no significant differences were shown among the groups. Prostate volume increased after treatment, and uroflowmetric parameters showed improvements after treatment without significance among the three groups. The total score of the National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index showed a significant improvement in all groups, without significant differences among the groups. Only the pain sub-score of the National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index showed a significant decrease in the tamsulosin with Ryutanshakanto group compared to the control group. A total of 11 adverse reactions occurred, but they were mild and not related to the study drugs.Ryutanshakanto can provide pain relief in patients with chronic prostatitis and chronic pelvic pain syndrome. If more research is conducted, Hachimijiogan and Ryutanshakanto may be applied as add-on treatments in patients with storage symptoms with alpha-blocker monotherapy.

Behavioral biases are more pronounced for individuals with lower cognitive abilities. This paper examines what connection if any there is between cognitive ability and bidding strategy in second price auctions. Despite truthful revelation being a weakly dominant strategy, previous experiments have consistently observed overbidding, which makes use of such auctions for inferring homegrown value problematic. Examining the effect of cognitive ability is important as it may help identify when one can reliably recover values from bids. The results indicate that more cognitively able subjects behave in closer accordance with theory, and that cognitive ability partially explains heterogeneity in bidding behavior.

This study investigated consumers' valuation of geographical indication (GI) and protected geographical indication (PGI)‐labeled rice in Bangkok using a non‐hypothetical experimental auction in a field setting. We also examined the effects of sequentially providing information about geographical indications on product valuation. The results suggest that consumers are willing to pay premiums for rice with geographical certifications, with the highest premium for the rice with both GI and PGI certifications. The provision of detailed information about the geographical indications further increases the premiums. However, consumers suffer a welfare loss under the current high market prices for rice with geographical certifications. A price reduction of approximately 10 percent would be needed to gain consumer welfare from the introduction of GI and PGI certification.

The current Korean rice‐grading system has a “no test” option that allows rice to not be graded in the market. This study examines Korean consumers’ valuation of a rice‐grading system without the “no test” option. We apply a nonhypothetical experimental auction to elicit consumers’ willingness to pay for each rice grade and identify the impact of the provision of additional grading information on product valuation. We then use contingent and inferred valuations to obtain consumers’ valuation of a mandatory rice‐grading system without the “no test” option. We find that Korean consumers are willing to pay an additional premium for each rice grade and that rice‐grading information is the most important factor that differentiates the rice products. Rice consumers in Korea also strongly prefer a mandatory rice‐grading system without the “no test” option. L'actuel systeme coreen de classement du riz comporte une option « exempt de test » qui permet au riz de ne pas etre classe pour le marche. Cet article examine l'evaluation par le consommateur d'un systeme de classement du riz sans option d'exemption de test. Nous appliquons une enchere experimentale reelle afin d'obtenir la volonte de payer du consommateur pour chaque categorie de riz et d'identifier l'impact d'informations supplementaires au sujet de la classification sur l'evaluation du produit. Nous utilisons ensuite les evaluations contingente et inferee pour obtenir l'evaluation par le consommateur d'un systeme de classification du riz sans l'option « exempt de test ». Nous constatons que les consommateurs coreens sont disposes a payer plus pour chaque categorie de riz et que les informations sur la classification du riz representent le plus important facteur de differenciation des produits de riz. Les consommateurs coreens de riz preferent aussi fortement le systeme de classification du riz ne comportant pas l'option « exempt de test ».

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) remains a devastating form of stroke, accounting for approximately 10% of all strokes in the US and 30% in Asia 1. Mortality after ICH approaches 40% in the short-term 2, with reported early mortality rates ranging from 24-51% 3, a rate that has not changed over several decades 4. Improved prediction of acute mortality after ICH could inform several aspects of clinical decision-making. A number of predictors of increased mortality after ICH have been identified. These include clinical measures such as elevated serum glucose and increased age, and radiological measures such as intraventricular spread and larger acute hematoma volume 5-7. Hematoma volume has been recognized as a particularly important biological marker after ICH and a powerful predictor of outcome 8-12, and indeed is a core component of ICH predictive scores 10-12. However, the numeric relationship between hematoma volume and mortality is informative but does not consider the spatial distribution of this correlation, i.e., whether the impact of an acute hematoma on mortality varies according to its specific location. An improved understanding of mortality after ICH might therefore be available from studying the relationship between hematoma location and mortality. At a gross level, it has long been appreciated that mortality after ICH differs when patients are subgrouped by site of ICH origin, for example, the prognosis with brainstem ICH is poorer than with lobar ICH 13. However, within each of these ICH subgroups, it remains to be determined whether there are specific brain regions where presence of ICH predicts a greater likelihood of early mortality. The current study examined this question in the broader examination of predictors of acute mortality. The main study hypothesis was that there are specific brain regions where occurrence of ICH is associated with a greater likelihood of early mortality. In patients with ischemic stroke, injury to bilateral parietal lobe 14 and bilateral insula 15,16 have been associated with increased mortality, and so a further hypothesis examined in the lobar ICH subgroup was that hematoma in these specific lobar locations would predict increased mortality. To determine whether the location of the acute hematoma is associated with differences in acute mortality, voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) 17 was performed on acute head CT scans from consecutive patients with ICH. VLSM statistically assesses clinical-radiological relationships on a voxel-wise basis in stereotaxic space. In VLSM, each voxel in stereotaxic space undergoes statistical analysis to determine if a clinical measure such as behavioral score or mortality rate differs between patients with and patients without a lesion affecting that voxel, with the output of a VLSM analysis being a statistical map that shows where in the brain occurrence of a lesion is associated with a difference in the clinical measure of interest. VLSM takes advantage of the natural variability in brain lesion size and location in order to make this determination. Correction for multiple comparisons can be done in various ways, with a common choice being use of the False Discovery Rate, which calculates the expected proportion of false positives among all reported supra-threshold voxels. VLSM builds upon older methods of lesion overlap by introducing spatial statistics, can identify novel brain areas of interest in contrast to analyses reliant on predefined regions of interest, and its voxel-based approach provides greater spatial resolution than simply describing regional patterns of injury 18. VLSM has proven useful in previous studies of ischemic stroke 19 but has not been previously applied to the study of ICH. The current study also provided an opportunity to contrast findings in two large ICH subgroups, those with lobar ICH and those with ICH originating in the basal ganglia, which have in common some aspects of acute disease presentation but differ in many other regards such as pathogenesis 1,20.

Background: Sporadic-onset ataxia is common in a tertiary care setting but a significant percentage remains unidentified despite extensive evaluation. Rare genetic ataxias, reported only in specific populations or families, may contribute to a percentage of sporadic ataxia. Methods: Patients with adult-onset sporadic ataxia, who tested negative for common genetic ataxias (SCA1, SCA2, SCA3, SCA6, SCA7, and/or Friedreich ataxia), were evaluated using a stratified screening approach for variants in 7 rare ataxia genes. Results: We screened patients for published mutations in SYNE1 (n = 80) and TGM6 (n = 118), copy number variations in LMNB1 (n = 40) and SETX (n = 11), sequence variants in SACS (n = 39) and PDYN (n = 119), and the pentanucleotide insertion of spinocerebellar ataxia type 31 (n = 101). Overall, we identified 1 patient with a LMNB1 duplication, 1 patient with a PDYN variant, and 1 compound SACS heterozygote, including a novel variant. Conclusions: The rare genetic ataxias examined here do not significantly contribute to sporadic cerebellar ataxia in our tertiary care population. © 2012 Movement Disorder Society

The major objective of this study is to estimate Korean food shoppers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for imported beef with traceability. We use an experimental elicitation method, the random nth price auction, to identify consumers’ valuation for traceable imported beef. We also analyse the effect of different types of information on these valuations. Results indicate that consumers are generally willing to pay a 39 per cent premium for the traceable imported beef over similar beef without traceability. Results also suggest that in contrast to the insignificant effect of positive information, negative and two-sided information about traceability significantly reduces WTP.