复方守宫散辅助治疗晚期结直肠恶性肿瘤的疗效观察

目的 基于倾向性评分匹配法探讨复方守宫散辅助治疗晚期结直肠恶性肿瘤的疗效。方法 采用倾向性评分匹配法,将匹配成功的70例患者分为对照组（化学治疗）和观察组（复方守宫散联合化学治疗）,每组35例;比较两组患者瘤体客观疗效［客观缓解率（objective response rate,ORR）,疾病控制率（disease control rate,DCR）］、生活质量评分、免疫功能指标、安全性指标,并对生存期进行分析。结果 观察组ORR、DCR优于对照组（P＜0.05）;观察组患者治疗后功能维度（躯体功能、角色功能、情绪功能、认知功能、社会功能）,症状领域（疲劳、疼痛、恶心呕吐）评分改善程度显著优于对照组（P＜0.05）;观察组患者血清CD4+T细胞、CD8+T细胞、自然杀伤细胞水平,CD4+/CD8+均显著高于对照组（P＜0.05）;治疗组患者总不良反应发生率显著低于对照组（P＜0.05）;观察组的中位无进展生存期显著高于对照组（P＜0.05）,中位总生存期高于对照组（P＞0.05）。结论 相较于单纯化学治疗,复方守宫散与化学治疗联合应用能显著提高疗效,增强机体免疫力,改善晚期结直肠癌患者生活质量,降低化学治疗的毒性及不良反应,在一定程度上延长患者生存时间。     

欧洲共同体指令的直接效力

在欧洲共同体的所有二级立法渊源中,指令的法律效力是一个颇具争议的问题,尤其是指令在各成员国中是否具有直接效力,更是引起了诸多纷争,而《欧洲共同体条约》和《欧洲原子能共同体条约》均未对此做出规定.以欧洲法院的相关案例法为主线,对其提出的指令的纵向直接效力、协调一致解释及附带横向直接效力原则逐一进行了评析,最后得出结论:为切实有效实现欧洲共同体指令所追求的目标,欧洲法院应当重新定义其提出的指令的直接效力原则;其中,最具有关键性意义的是,应当赋予指令在自然人和法人等私人之间的横向直接效力的职能.     

The Rise of Citizen Groups within the Administration and Parliament in Switzerland

This research note presents three newly interconnected and expanded datasets on interest groups’ (IGs) access to the Swiss political decision‐making process: (1) extra‐parliamentary committee seats occupied by IGs (1980, 2000, 2010), (2) parliamentary (committee) seats occupied by IG representatives (1992‐2015), and (3) consultation replies submitted by IGs (2008‐11). We show that the Swiss system of interest intermediation adapted to the multiplication and organizational consolidation of citizen groups, which defend non‐producer interests and do not provide selective benefits to their members (e.g. environmental groups). The share of access granted to citizen groups has increased in both the administration and parliament, across all federal departments and most legislative committees. Moreover, citizen groups benefit from a larger share of access in the recently revitalized parliament, compared to the administration. This suggests that economic groups’ decline in power is also related to the rise of citizen groups.     

Institutional reform and public attitudes toward EU decision making

In the face of the discourse about the democratic deficit and declining public support for the European Union (EU), institutionalist scholars have examined the roles of institutions in EU decision making and in particular the implications of the empowered European Parliament. Almost in isolation from this literature, prior research on public attitudes toward the EU has largely adopted utilitarian, identity and informational accounts that focus on individual-level attributes. By combining the insights from the institutional and behavioural literature, this article reports on a novel cross-national conjoint experiment designed to investigate multidimensionality of public attitudes by taking into account the specific roles of institutions and distinct stages in EU decision making. Analysing data from a large-scale experimental survey in 13 EU member states, the findings demonstrate how and to what extent the institutional design of EU decision making shapes public support. In particular, the study finds a general pattern of public consensus about preferred institutional reform regarding powers of proposal, adoption and voting among European citizens in different countries, but notable dissent about sanctioning powers. The results show that utilitarian and partisan considerations matter primarily for the sanctioning dimension in which many respondents in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Sweden prefer national courts to the Court of Justice of the EU.     

Fiscal Decentralization Policies in the EU: A Comparative Analysis through a Club Convergence Analysis

Abstract

We study the degree of convergence or divergence in fiscal decentralization in the European Union over the period 1995–2015 using a club convergence approach. First, we analyze non-central expenditure and revenue as percentages of GDP, of total expenditure and of total revenue. The results for the EU-15 countries indicate some clustering, with three clubs formed when using GDP and four to five when using total revenue or expenditure. Second, we study the gap between expenditure and revenue as a proxy of fiscal responsibility. This results in three and two clubs respectively, with Denmark as the divergent country with the highest gap. Finally, we analyze potential unions of clubs and transitions. We also interpret our results taking into account variables found in the literature as determinants of fiscal decentralization. These results show how European countries are quite heterogeneous in terms of fiscal federalism and decentralization, with greater convergence in fiscal responsibility than in the other magnitudes.     

The Origins of the European Coalition for Vision: Exploring the Formation of a Network

Despite growing interest in EU-level transnational networks, there is little understanding about how these form. This article investigates the formation of one network—the European Coalition for Vision (ECV). Using document analysis of 100 email exchanges, 12 semi-structured interviews, and observation of 5 ECV meetings, it identifies environmental and organizational triggers, most important to the creation of the ECV. Findings show that while environmental triggers played a role in ECV formation, organizational triggers were crucial. In particular, the presence of network leaders, a network entrepreneur and a network mentor were vital for the successful creation of the network.     

Conditioned Networking: Swiss–EU Relations in Transport

This article addresses the structural characteristics of the interactions between Switzerland and the EU in the transport sector, i.e. transport by air and land. More precisely, it is focused on two different aspects of this relationship: first the modes of coordination between Switzerland and the EU according to the concept of external governance and, second, those conditions that make inclusive patterns of interaction more likely. The central finding of this case study is an expansion of both the regulatory and organisational boundary in both cases. This shift finds expression in the incorporation of Swiss actors into a variety of networks that, at least in some cases, allow Swiss actors to shape EU policy making. The actual patterns of interaction are influenced by a number of factors, including the type of governance inside the EU that facilitates the inclusion of third parties in EU external governance and the problem structure that is characterized by coordination rather than enforcement problems.     

“We feel that our strength is on the factory floor”: Dualism,shop-floor power,and labor law reform in late apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article explores the transformation of South African labor relations during the 1980s. In 1979, prompted by new shop-floor militancy, the Wiehahn Commission recommended that black workers, previously excluded from state labor machinery, be permitted to join recognized trade unions. Most discussions of this shift in apartheid labor relations focus on the ensuing debate within the black unions, torn between preserving their independence or securing state legitimation. This article looks instead at the related debate about ‘levels of bargaining’: should emergent black unions demand to negotiate at the factory level, where they had secured shop-floor strength through organizing and democratic practice, or pursue the benefits of the corporatist bargaining structures that had long excluded them and had privileged white workers? The eventual drift towards corporatism, I argue, imprinted the character of the South African labor movement into the post-apartheid era. An understandable desire to wield influence at the level of the national political economy eroded the tradition of workers’ control, shop floor democracy, and struggle unionism that black unions had forged during the 1970s and 1980s.     

Promising more to give less: international disputes between core and periphery around European posted labor, 1955–2018

ABSTRACT

The posting of workers from the European periphery has generated the longest and most tumultuous series of labor disputes in the history of European Integration. On the basis of relevant archives, this article conducts the first historical review of posting rules in the European Union, from the first negotiation in 1955 until the latest directive in 2018. This historical review enables to discard the idea of a neoliberal turn in posting rules from the 1980s onward. It also leads to reject the explanation of disputes by the movement out of the European periphery under posting rules of a Lumpenproletariat insensitive to class struggle. Instead, the article identifies the increasing regulation of the labor market at the expense of posting opportunities since thirty years. It reveals the dominant role played by governments and their invariable support for their workers. It highlights the constant asymmetry of power between core richer countries and the Southern and Eastern periphery of the European Union. Eventually, this article locates the long-term problem in the contradictions between the interests of workers and firms in richer destination countries and the enlargements of the Single Market to poorer countries.     

European Union civil society support and the depoliticisation of Turkish civil society

Despite growing critical literature on external funding, the link between EU funding to Turkish civil society organisations (CSOs) and their depoliticisation remains understudied. This article fills this gap. This article explores EU funds in Turkey and shows the incentives it creates for a depoliticised civil society. Drawing on an original set of interviews with 45 CSOs, this article analyses how Turkish CSOs interact with EU funding and how this support impacts on Turkish civil society. This article argues that EU funding’s short-term, activity-based, measurable outcome and visibility-oriented structure contributed to the depoliticisation of those CSOs benefited from EU funds.