MercadoLibre (Argentina)

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is an aggressive malignancy, associated with poor outcomes in patients with metastatic disease (mMCC). Management has been dramatically altered as a result of incorporating immune checkpoint blockade agents. MCC data from Latin America (LATAM) come from case-series or individual records. Regional registries are lacking. A need for better registries to improve current knowledge about MCC is highlighted. Our objectives were to describe a real-world experience with avelumab as a second-line (or first-line in unfit patients) treatment in a subset of LATAM participants enrolled in a global Expanded Access Program (EAP) for patients with mMCC, and to evaluate its contribution to the resolution of the concerns described in a recent regional experts review. We reviewed data of LATAM participants in an avelumab EAP for mMCC treatment (NCT03089658). EAP patient had unresectable or mMCC with progressive disease after one line of chemotherapy, and were ineligible for clinical trials or unfit for chemotherapy. 46 patients (median age: 71.6years; 60.9% males; median treatment duration: 7.9months) were included in the LATAM EAP. Physician-assessed objective responses were available for 19 patients. Complete response rate was 15.8% and partial response rate reached 42.1%, summarizing an objective response rate of 57.9%. Stable disease rate was 10.5%, with a disease control response of 68.4%. Avelumab showed robust efficacy and a safety profile consistent with global EAP data. Results are aimed to improve current knowledge about mMCC treatment and access to immunooncologic strategies for treating LATAM patients.

SUMMARY Pablo Zbinden?>We consider the drivers and implications of the growth of ‘BigTech’ in finance – i.e. the financial services offerings of technology companies with established presence in the market for digital services. BigTech firms often start with payments. Thereafter, some expand into the provision of credit, insurance and money management products, either directly or in cooperation with financial institution partners. Focusing on credit, we show that BigTech firms lend more in countries with less competitive banking sectors and less stringent bank regulation. Analysing the case of Argentina, we find support for the hypothesis that BigTech lenders, by acquiring a vast amount of non-traditional information, have an advantage in credit assessment relative to a traditional credit bureau. They also serve unbanked borrowers, and may have an advantage in contract enforcement. It is too early to judge the extent of BigTech’s eventual advance into the provision of financial services. However, the early evidence allows us to pose pertinent questions that bear on their impact on financial stability and overall economic welfare.

In physics, like in other sciences, formulas are specified using explicit measurements, that is, a number with its unit. The first step to determine the validity of a physics formula's evaluation is to verify that the unit of the result corresponds with the prospective unit. In software development, physics, financial and other sciences formulas are programmed using mathematical expressions based only on numbers, being the units of these numbers implicitly given by the semantics of the program or assumed by the programmer's knowledge. Consequently, it is common that errors result from operating with values expressed in different units, e.g., dividing a quantity of years by a quantity of months, without obtaining any type of indication or objection to this error from the system. In this report, we discuss our experience designing and implementing a model that solves this problem reifying the concept of measurement, unit and their arithmetic. Our model relieves the programmer from the arduous task of verifying the validity of the arithmetic expressions regarding units, delegating that responsibility to the system, thereby, diminishing the errors introduced by the incorrect use of values expressed in different units. We also show that having implemented this model with a dynamically typed language simplified its programming and increased its reusability.