Source Attribution of Food-Borne Zoonoses in New Zealand: A Modified Hald Model

A Bayesian approach was developed by Hald et al .^{( 1 )} to estimate the contribution of different food sources to the burden of human salmonellosis in Denmark. This article describes the development of several modifications that can be used to adapt the model to different countries and pathogens. Our modified Hald model has several advantages over the original approach, which include the introduction of uncertainty in the estimates of source prevalence and an improved strategy for identifiability. We have applied our modified model to the two major food-borne zoonoses in New Zealand, namely, campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis. Major challenges were the data quality for salmonellosis and the inclusion of environmental sources of campylobacteriosis. We conclude that by modifying the Hald model we have improved its identifiability, made it more applicable to countries with less intensive surveillance, and feasible for other pathogens, in particular with respect to the inclusion of nonfood sources. The wider application and better understanding of this approach is of particular importance due to the value of the model for decision making and risk management.     

Characterizing the Risk of Infection from Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Commercial Passenger Aircraft Using Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment

Quantitative microbial risk assessment was used to predict the likelihood and spatial organization of Mycobacterium tuberculosis ( Mtb ) transmission in a commercial aircraft. Passenger exposure was predicted via a multizone Markov model in four scenarios: seated or moving infectious passengers and with or without filtration of recirculated cabin air. The traditional exponential ( k  = 1) and a new exponential ( k  = 0.0218) dose-response function were used to compute infection risk. Emission variability was included by Monte Carlo simulation. Infection risks were higher nearer and aft of the source; steady state airborne concentration levels were not attained. Expected incidence was low to moderate, with the central 95% ranging from 10⁻⁶ to 10⁻¹ per 169 passengers in the four scenarios. Emission rates used were low compared to measurements from active TB patients in wards, thus a "superspreader" emitting 44 quanta/h could produce 6.2 cases or more under these scenarios. Use of respiratory protection by the infectious source and/or susceptible passengers reduced infection incidence up to one order of magnitude.     

Contesting neoliberalism through critical pedagogy, intersectional reflexivity, and personal narrative: queer tales of academia

In this article, we use personal narrative to explore allies and alliance building between marginalized people working in and through higher education, with an eye toward interrogating the ways in which ideologies of neoliberalism work to maintain hierarchy through the legitimation of othering. Inspired by Conquergood (1985 ), who calls scholars to engage in intimate conversation rather than distanced observation, we offer our embodied experiences as a way to use the personal to reflect on the cultural, social, and political. Our narratives often recount being out of place, moments of incongruence, or our marked otherness. Through the sharing of these narratives, we will demonstrate the possibility for ally building based in affective connections forged through shared queer consciousness, paying particular attention to the ways in which neoliberal ideologies, such as individualism and postracism, may advance and impede such alliances.     

Radiocarbon dating with temporal order constraints

Bayesian methods are now widely used for analysing radiocarbon dates. We find that the non-informative priors in use in the literature generate a bias towards wider date ranges which does not in general reflect substantial prior knowledge. We recommend using a prior in which the distribution of the difference between the earliest and latest dates has a uniform distribution. We show how such priors are derived from a simple physical model of the deposition and observation process. We illustrate this in a case-study, examining the effect that various priors have on the reconstructed dates. Bayes factors are used to help to decide model choice problems.     

Caring Labor and Class Consciousness: The Class Dynamics of Gendered Work

Previous research on class consciousness has not examined the gendered nature of paid labor. Paid caring laborwork that involves the direct provision of care to clients or customers—now comprises 20% of the labor force. This is work that tends to place workers in conflict with the goals of management. The conflict between caring values and exchange values may lead workers to greater levels of class consciousness. I use national survey data to examine whether workers in caring labor occupations are more class conscious than other workers. Results indicate that caring laborers are more likely to be pro–working-class conscious than other workers after controlling for class position, income, education, government and nonprofit sectors, sex, and race. Workers in high intensity caring jobs are especially likely to be class conscious. This suggests that, at crucial points, the logic of caring and the logic of commodification are at odds.     

Onset of Voluntary Communication: Smiling Looks to Mother

Playing infants often direct smiling looks toward social partners. In some cases the smile begins before the look, so it cannot be a response to the sight or behavior of the social partner. In this study we asked whether smiles that anticipate social contact are used by 8‐ to 12‐month‐old infants as voluntary social signals. Eighty infants—20 at each of 8, 9, 10, and 12 months of age—completed 5 tasks. The tasks assessed anticipatory smiling during toy play, means‐end understanding (2 tasks), intentional communication via gesture and vocalizations, and memory for mother's location. Across all ages, anticipatory smiling was strongly predicted by intentional gestural and vocal communication and by means‐end understanding. The findings are discussed in terms of the nature and origins of infants' voluntary communications.     

Bayesian D-optimal supersaturated designs

We introduce a new class of supersaturated designs using Bayesian D-optimality. The designs generated using this approach can have arbitrary sample sizes, can have any number of blocks of any size, and can incorporate categorical factors with more than two levels. In side by side diagnostic comparisons based on the E(s²)$E(s^2)$ criterion for two-level experiments having even sample size, our designs either match or out-perform the best designs published to date. The generality of the method is illustrated with quality improvement experiment with 15 runs and 20 factors in 3 blocks.