Meningococcal serogroup B outbreak response University of Wisconsin-Madison

A meningococcal serogroup B (MenB) outbreak at a large public university prompted an emergency response to immunize undergraduates. Objective: To report on a successful meningococcal serogroup B (MenB) vaccine clinic response at a large public university. Methods: We assembled the team leaders to write this case report. Results: Activation of the emergency plan and points of dispensing required cooperation of many units on campus under the leadership of university health officials with support from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state division of public health and the city-county health department. Significant efforts to provide consistent messages to students and parents regarding the outbreak and the availability of the MenB vaccines were made. Volunteers were recruited to staff the clinics alongside university healthcare providers. Over 22,000 doses of vaccine were administered. Conclusion: We report our experience and lessons learned which may be helpful to universities in preventing and responding to disease outbreaks.     

Building a Human Health Risk Assessment Ontology (RsO): A Proposed Framework

Over the last decade the health and environmental research communities have made significant progress in collecting and improving access to genomic, toxicology, exposure, health, and disease data useful to health risk assessment. One of the barriers to applying these growing volumes of information in fields such as risk assessment is the lack of informatics tools to organize, curate, and evaluate thousands of journal publications and hundreds of databases to provide new insights on relationships among exposure, hazard, and disease burden. Many fields are developing ontologies as a way of organizing and analyzing large amounts of complex information from multiple scientific disciplines. Ontologies include a vocabulary of terms and concepts with defined logical relationships to each other. Building from the recently published exposure ontology and other relevant health and environmental ontologies, this article proposes an ontology for health risk assessment (RsO) that provides a structural framework for organizing risk assessment information and methods. The RsO is anchored by eight major concepts that were either identified by exploratory curations of the risk literature or the exposure‐ontology working group as key for describing the risk assessment domain. These concepts are: (1) stressor, (2) receptor, (3) outcome, (4) exposure event, (5) dose‐response approach, (6) dose‐response metric, (7) uncertainty, and (8) measure of risk. We illustrate the utility of these concepts for the RsO with example curations of published risk assessments for ionizing radiation, arsenic in drinking water, and persistent pollutants in salmon.     

基于消费者效用的生鲜农产品供应链生鲜度激励机制研究

生鲜供应链整体生鲜度的提升对减少浪费、提高供应链整体盈利水平及社会福利有重要意义。本文基于消费者效用理论研究了两供应商和单一零售商组成的供应链系统，构建了单周期下生鲜农产品生鲜度激励模型，模型以供应商为领导者，采用Stackelberg博弈方法求解得到了均衡状态下供应商、零售商的最优定价策略及供应商新鲜度努力选择。研究结果表明，供应商和零售商利润与消费者价格敏感系数呈反向变化，与新鲜度敏感系数呈同向变化。在价格竞争市场，供应商保鲜努力程度和利润与价格替代率呈反向变化；在生鲜度竞争市场，供应商保鲜努力程度和利润与新鲜度替代率呈同向变化。基于研究结论，厂商及政府应当联手引导消费者的消费观念，尽可能减少由于信息不对称引致的道德风险，在市场价格替代率不变甚至降低的情形下，提高生鲜度替代率，使得消费者的意愿支付价格上升，提高自身讨价还价能力，获取更多利润。     

本土品牌逆袭与消费者偏好逆转的纵向扎根研究

  如今的中国市场，诸多行业本土品牌崛起甚至逆袭，消费者对全球品牌与本土品牌的偏好相应逆转。已有研究较为全面地揭示了全球品牌和本土品牌偏好的驱动因素，但本土品牌逆袭过程中全球品牌与本土品牌偏好的驱动因素是否相同、本土品牌逆袭与消费者偏好逆转的互动影响路径是怎样的，对这些问题缺乏探讨。         在梳理相关研究的基础上，以手机行业为研究对象，采用扎根理论的研究方法，通过对网络讨论数据的初始编码、聚焦编码和理论编码，首先研究全球品牌与本土品牌偏好的驱动因素的异同，然后结合对讨论数据的纵向统计结果，研究本土品牌逆袭过程中品牌逆袭与消费者偏好逆转的互动影响路径。         研究结果表明，本土品牌逆袭中，全球品牌与本土品牌偏好的驱动因素模型具有相似的结构，功能价值和社会价值的测量受个人因素调节而影响消费者偏好，但测量功能价值或社会价值的具体因素在全球品牌与本土品牌中存在差异。品牌逆袭有助于提升综合国力、促进消费者成熟，进而驱动消费者偏好逆转；消费者偏好逆转则通过反馈路径帮助品牌进一步逆袭。具体的，消费者对产品特质更加重视，全球品牌的原产国效应和符号价值表现力减弱，本土品牌的口碑效应和符号价值表现力增强，同时消费者的民族主义增强而爱国绑架感减弱，这些因素通过感知价值带来消费者偏好逆转。综合而言，本土品牌逆袭和消费者偏好逆转是互动提升的关系。         研究结果丰富了全球品牌和本土品牌的相关研究，为全球品牌和本土品牌的建设提供了实践启示。产品特质是影响消费者偏好的主要因素，并对其他驱动因素有支撑作用。所以全球品牌和本土品牌都要重视产品的创新和研发，还要根据各驱动因素的变化调整其营销策略。     

Overcoming the ‘tyranny of the urgent’: integrating gender into disease outbreak preparedness and response

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to discussions on the gender dimensions of disease outbreaks, and preparedness policies and responses, by providing a multi-level analysis of gender-related gaps, particularly illustrating how the failure to challenge gender assumptions and incorporate gender as a priority at the global level has national and local impacts. The implications of neglecting gender dynamics, as well as the potential of equity-based approaches to disease outbreak responses, is illustrated through a case study of the Social Enterprise Network for Development (SEND) Sierra Leone, a non-government organisation (NGO) based in Kailahun, during the Ebola outbreak.     

An improved cluster two-stage randomized response model

In this paper, Abdelfatah and Mazloum's (2015) two-stage randomized response model is extended to unequal probability sampling and stratified unequal probability sampling, both with and without replacement. The extended models result in more efficient estimators than Lee et al.'s (2014) estimators of the proportion of the population having a sensitive attribute.     

Completing the Circuit: Routine,Reflection, and Ethical Consumption

Efforts to explain why some people incorporate ethical concerns into everyday shopping for food and household goods, while many do not, have so far left significant variation in “ethical consumption” unexplained. Seeking to move beyond explanations that rely mainly on differences in consumers' social class, gender, and political engagement, I draw on concepts associated with “practice theory” to argue that ethical consumption is closely tied to people's willingness and ability to spend time, while shopping, on distinct activities associated with breaking old routines and establishing new ones. The central insight of practice theory is that most consumption is the product of unconscious routine. And it is precisely because consciously departing from routine is, according to my study, a fundamentally time‐consuming process, that lack of time emerges as a crucial obstacle to translating abstract ethical concerns into concrete action as a consumer.     

Improved randomized response in additive scrambling models

Randomized response models deal with stigmatizing variables appearing in health surveys. Additive and subtractive scrambling in split sample and double response yield unbiased mean and sensitivity estimators of high precision. The split sample method is protective of privacy. The double response method is as protective only conditionally. To achieve the maximum efficiency, the scrambling variables must be similar to each other and the probability of obtaining a true response must be as large as possible. The randomized response procedures yield more efficient estimates of the average total number of classes missed by university students.     

论网络点击合同下消费者权益的法律保护

点击合同是格式合同在网络环境下的嬗变，是电子商务交易中的主要形式之一。点击合同在信息披露、不公平条款、合同确认方式等方面存在很多亟待解决的新问题，这些问题也直接影响到网络消费者权益的保护。我国应当在借鉴国际先进立法和实践的基础上，对点击合同予以重点监管和规制以适应网络经济发展的需要，为网络消费者权益的保护提供制度保障。     

Evaluation of Inhaled Versus Deposited Dose Using the Exponential Dose‐Response Model for Inhalational Anthrax in Nonhuman Primate,Rabbit, and Guinea Pig

The application of the exponential model is extended by the inclusion of new nonhuman primate (NHP), rabbit, and guinea pig dose‐lethality data for inhalation anthrax. Because deposition is a critical step in the initiation of inhalation anthrax, inhaled doses may not provide the most accurate cross‐species comparison. For this reason, species‐specific deposition factors were derived to translate inhaled dose to deposited dose. Four NHP, three rabbit, and two guinea pig data sets were utilized. Results from species‐specific pooling analysis suggested all four NHP data sets could be pooled into a single NHP data set, which was also true for the rabbit and guinea pig data sets. The three species‐specific pooled data sets could not be combined into a single generic mammalian data set. For inhaled dose, NHPs were the most sensitive (relative lowest LD₅₀) species and rabbits the least. Improved inhaled LD₅₀s proposed for use in risk assessment are 50,600, 102,600, and 70,800 inhaled spores for NHP, rabbit, and guinea pig, respectively. Lung deposition factors were estimated for each species using published deposition data from Bacillus spore exposures, particle deposition studies, and computer modeling. Deposition was estimated at 22%, 9%, and 30% of the inhaled dose for NHP, rabbit, and guinea pig, respectively. When the inhaled dose was adjusted to reflect deposited dose, the rabbit animal model appears the most sensitive with the guinea pig the least sensitive species.