Clinical Trial

Between 2004 and 2007, the National Institutes of Health conducted a STEP vaccine clinical trial—Phase IIB "test-ofconcept" study.

The STEP study is the name of a clinical trial to test an experimental human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccine. The STEP study enrolled 3,000 participants at sites in Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru, Puerto Rico, and the United States. The study was designed to test an HIV vaccine, which aimed to stimulate production of immune system T-cells that can kill HIV-infected cells.

Based on its first evaluation of vaccine efficacy, the findings showed there were 24 cases of HIV infection among the 741 volunteers who received at least one dose of the investigational vaccine compared with 21 cases of HIV infection among the 762 volunteers who were vaccinated with the placebo. In volunteers who received at least two vaccinations, there were 19 cases of HIV infection among the 672 volunteers who received the investigational vaccine and 11 instances of HIV infection among the 691 volunteers who received placebo. The study investigators of the vaccine trials have decided to cease immunizations and are contacting study volunteers to inform them of the developments.

Based on your research, understanding, and above information, answer the following questions:

Prior to beginning this study, how would you have described the risks and benefits of the study to participants?

What are the ethical issues surrounding this study at the beginning and when the decision was made to terminate the study?

Volkswagen saw a 95% drop in its fourth quarter profits in 2004 after an unexpected surge in the value of the Euro left the company with losses of $1.5 billion.

1. What is hedging? Explain how Volkswagen's failure to fully protect itself against foreign exchange fluctuations had a negative effect on the company? What can Volkswagen and other companies learn from this experience?

2. Why was Volkswagen so vulnerable to the change in the value of the Euro against the US Dollar relative to the US Dollar?

3. In 2015 and 2016 strong dollar affected several US companies. Please see the one of the examples in the following links (2015 and 2016) where the strong dollar hurt the company. What can this company do to protect itself from exchange rate fluctuations? Since the beginning of 2017, the dollar has been weakening. What does that mean for US companies? How will the weaker dollar affect US businesses?  

only need to anwser to question 3

Moretti (2004) finds that higher education has significant positive externalities on wages of all workers. This suggests that

Group of answer choices

High skill and low skill workers are complements in production.

A larger share of workers with higher education causes employers to choose labor-biased technology.

A larger share of workers with higher education increases the productivity of all human capital levels.

Workers can 'pick up' human capital from working with high skill co-workers.

Membrane Protein Census

(a) Table 1 of Mitra et al. (2004) reports the mass ratio of proteins and phospholipids in the membranes of various cells and organelles. Use the asserted 2.0mg of protein for every 1.0mg of phospholipid in the E. coli membrane to compute the areal density of membrane proteins and their mean spacing. Make a corresponding estimate for the membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum using the fact that the mass ratio in this case is 2.6. Explain all of you assumptions in making the estimate.

(b) Dupuy and Engelman (2008) report that the area fraction associated with membrane proteins in the red blood cell membrane is roughly 23%, while the lipids themselves take up roughly 77% of the membrane area. Use these numbers to estimate the number of membrane proteins in the red blood cell membrane and their mean spacing. Explain all theassumptions you make in constructing the estimate.

Where does all that Halloween candy go? The October 2004 issue of Readers' Digest quoted that "86% of parents admit taking Halloween candy from their children's trick-or-treat bags." The source of information was the National Confectioners Association. Suppose that 25 parents are interviewed. What is the probability that 20 or more took Halloween candy from their children's trick-or-treat bags? (Give your answer correct to three decimal places.)

A particular report from 2004 classified 721 fatal bicycle accidents according to the month in which the accident occurred, resulting in the accompanying table.

(a) Use the given data to test the null hypothesis H₀: ?₁ = 1/12, ?₂ = 1/12, . . . , ?₁₂ = 1/12, where ?₁ is the proportion of fatal bicycle accidents that occur in January, ?₂ is the proportion for February, and so on. Use a significance level of 0.01. (Use 2 decimal places.)
?² =  

(b) The null hypothesis in Part (a) specifies that fatal accidents were equally likely to occur in any of the 12 months. But not all months have the same number of days. Test the hypotheses proposed in H₀: ?₄ = ?₆ = ?₉ = ?₁₁ =

? 0.082, ?₂ =

? 0.079, ?₁ = ?₃ = ?₅ = ?₇ = ?₈ = ?₁₀ = ?₁₂ =

? 0.085 using a 0.05 significance level. (Use 2 decimal places.)
?² =  

1. In 2004, the University of California education system drastically cut enrollment due to significant state budget cuts and asked 7,600 applicants to defer enrollment for two years after completing two years at a community college. Tuition costs remained fixed by the state.
   • Demonstrate the situation described with supply and demand curves, carefully labeling any excess supply or demand for college admission.
   • What is the market solution to the excess demand for college?
   • What is a possible reason the market solution was not pursued?

In 2004, Congress allocated over $20 billion to fight illegal drugs. About 60 percent of the funds were directed at reducing the supply of drugs through domestic law enforcement and interdiction. Some critics of this approach argue that supply-side approaches to reduce the drug supply actually helped drug producers.

• Demonstrate graphically the effect of supply-side measures on the market for illegal drugs.
• Explain how these measures affect drug producers. (Hint: Consider the elasticity of demand).
• Demonstrate the effect of demand-side measures such as treatment and prevention on the market for illegal drugs.
• How does the shift in demand affect the profitability of producers?
• submit your graph as a jpg attachment in your original discussion post

Use the following information to answer the next two questions:

On January 2, 2004, Shady Corp. acquired equipment for $110,000. The estimated life of the equipment is 5 years, the estimated residual value is $10,000 and Shady Corp. uses the straight-line method for computing depreciation expense. On June 30^th of 2006 (2 and ½ years after acquiring the asset), Shady Corp sold the equipment for $50,000.

What two journals entries were made on June 30^th, 2006, on the date the asset was sold? directly below.

1. The first (adjusting) entry recorded on June 30th, 2006 was:

Provide answer towards the bottom of the answer sheet

2. The second entry to record the equipment sale on June 30th, 2006 was:

            Provide answer towards the bottom of the answer sheet

3. Apple’s Worldwide Revenues from 2004 to 2019 is as follows:
Year Worldwide Revenue in Billions
2004 8.2
2005 13.9
2006 19.3
2007 24.6
2008 37.5
2009 42.9
2010 65.2
2011 108.2
2012 156.5
2013 170.9
2014 182.8
2015 233.72
2016 215.64
2017 229.23
2018 265.6
2019 260.17

a. Enter the data above into the tab labeled Apple. Graph the data in Excel and use your graph to determine what kind of time series pattern exist. Put your answer in your spreadsheet.
b. Make the following forecasts for 2020. For all of them, use Mean Squared Error to determine which of the forecasts is the best. Make sure your answers are clearly labeled.
i. Naïve forecast from one prior time period
ii. Calculate a 4-period moving average
iii. Calculate a 3-period moving average with the following weights for time t: time period t-1=0.8, t-2 = 0.15, t-3=.05
c. In the tab called Apple Smoothing, use the data from 3. to forecast 2020 using an alpha equal to 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9. Using MSE, which one offers the best estimate for 2020?
d. In the tab called Apple Regression, use the information from 3. and run a regression to determine your forecast for 2020
i. Put your regression output in F1 of the same workbook.
ii. Calculate what your forecast is for 2020 in F21.
iii. How does well does this regression equation predict revenue? Write your answer in F22. In addition, explain what your numerical answer means in words.