Reference pricing intends to reduce pharmaceutical expenditures by increasing demand elasticity and stimulating generic competition. We develop a novel model where a brand-name producer competes in prices with several generics producers in a market with brand-biased and brand-neutral consumers. Comparing with coinsurance, we show that reference pricing, contrary to policy makers' intentions, di...

This paper investigates time-consistent plans by incorporating the reference-dependent consumption model with endogenous labor supply. To what extent these plans can help the consumer overcome the double self-control problems of over-consumption and late-retirement is discussed. The consumption level and labor supply of the preferred personal equilibrium solution are compared with those of ex-a...

the lpsa gene, a late acting gene in the biosynthetic pathway of ergovaline, a suspected causative agent for fescue toxicosis in cattle, has been cloned from neotyphodium lolii, an endophytic fungus of lolium perenne. in this study, a similar gene was detected in several strains of endophytic neotyphodium spp. isolated from grass hosts endogenous to iran using direct and nested-pcr assays. exce...

Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is a rapid, reliable and widely used method of studying gene expression profiles that requires appropriate normalization for accurate and reliable results. Reference genes are usually used to normalize mRNA levels; however, the expression levels of these reference genes may vary between cell types, developmental stages, spec...

A collective choice problem essentially a bargaining problem without disagreement outcome is studied. An exteneded solution, which determines simultaneously a solution and a reference point, is characterized through a system of axioms. It is proved that the unique extended solution meeting Pareto-optimality, independence of irrelevant alternatives, symmetry, and scale invariance axioms maximize...

Human porphobilinogen deaminase (PBGD) is, reportedly, encoded by 2 distinct messenger RNAs (mRNAs) transcribing from a single gene. The ubiquitous form of the PBGD gene product is often used as an endogenous reference in gene expression studies because it is pseudogene free and has minimal transcriptional variability among tissues. A distinct erythroid-specific gene product has also been descr...

The risk of transmission of porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV) is one of the major safety issues in xenotransplantation. Human tetherin, recently described as an antiviral protein able to inhibit the release of enveloped viruses, and its porcine homologue were shown to inhibit PERV release from producer cells, establishing themselves as candidate molecules to suppress PERV production in porci...

Human porphobilinogen deaminase (PBGD) is, reportedly, encoded by 2 distinct messenger RNAs (mRNAs) transcribing from a single gene. The ubiquitous form of the PBGD gene product is often used as an endogenous reference in gene expression studies because it is pseudogene free and has minimal transcriptional variability among tissues. A distinct erythroid-specific gene product has also been descr...

Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) is the most reliable and accurate technique for analyses of gene expression. Endogenous reference genes are being used to normalize qPCR data even though their expression may vary under different conditions and in different tissues. Nonetheless, verification of expression of reference genes in selected studied tissue is essential in order to accurately assess t...