Containment of Polioviruses After Eradication and OPV Cessation: Characterizing Risks to Improve Management

The goal of the World Health Organization is to stop routine use of oral poliovirus vaccine shortly after interruption of wild poliovirus transmission. A key component of this goal is to minimize the risk of reintroduction by destruction of polioviruses except in an absolute minimum number of facilities that serve essential functions and implement effective containment. Effective containment begins with a complete facility risk assessment. This article focuses on characterizing the risks of exposure to polioviruses from the essential vaccine production, quality control, and international reference and research facilities that remain. We consider the potential exposure pathways that might lead to a poliovirus reintroduction, including para-occupational exposures and releases to the environment, and review the literature to provide available estimates and a qualitative assessment of containment risks. Minimizing the risk of poliovirus transmission from a poliovirus facility to increasingly susceptible communities is a crucial and ongoing effort requiring understanding and actively managing the potential exposure pathways.     

Much ado about Goffman

“The claim that all the world’s a stage is sufficiently commonplace for readers to be familiar with its limitations and tolerant of its presentation.” (Goffman 1959, 72, 254) “Given that the logic of privatization....now odiously shapes archetypes of citizenship, [and] manages our perceptions of what constitute the ‘good society’....it stands to reason that new ethnographic research approaches must take global capitalism not as an end point of analysis, but as a starting point.” (Kincheloe and McLaren 2000, 304) “My abhorrence of neoliberalism helps to explain my legitimate anger when I speak of the injustices to which the ragpickers among humanity are condemned. It also explains my total lack of interest in any pretension of impartiality, I am not impartial, or objective...[this] does not prevent me from holding always a rigorously ethical position.” (Freire 1998, 22)     

Political equilibria with electoral uncertainty

After an election, when party positions and strengths are known, there may be a centrally located large party at the core position. Theory suggests that such a core party is able to form a minority government and control policy. In the absence of a core party, theory suggests that the outcome be a lottery associated with coalition risk. Stochastic models of elections typically indicate that all parties, in equilibrium, will adopt positions at the electoral center. This paper first presents an existence theorem for local Nash equilibrium (LNE) under vote maximization, and then constructs a more general model using the notion of coalition risk. The model allows for the balancing of office and policy motivations. Empirical analyses of elections in the Netherlands and Israel are used as illustrations of the model and of the concept of a structurally stable LNE. The figures and tables are reproduced from Schofield and Sened (2006) with permission from Cambridge University Press.     

Ambivalence and the paradoxes of grandparenting

This paper focuses on ‘normative talk’ about grandparenting. It is based on a secondary analysis of a study involving 46 interviews with grandparents. It identifies two main cultural norms of grandparenting that emerged from the data –‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. There were very high levels of consensus in the study that these constituted what grandparents ‘should and should not’ do. However, these two norms can be contradictory, and are not easy to reconcile with the everyday realities of grandparenting. The study found that norms of parenting and also of self determination were also very important for the grandparents in the study. They had a keen sense of what being a ‘good parent’ (to their own adult children) should mean – especially in terms of allowing them to be independent – but this could sometimes conflict with their sense of responsibility to descendant generations of grandchildren. Using the concept of ambivalence and drawing on the accounts of grandparents in the study, the paper explores and offers an explanation for both the coexistence and conflict between different sets of norms, as well as for the remarkably high levels of consensus about ‘being there’ and ‘not interfering’. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the limitations of the data and the analysis, and with suggestions for the development of further work in this area.     

On estimation of covariate-specific residual time quantiles under the proportional hazards model

Estimation and inference in time-to-event analysis typically focus on hazard functions and their ratios under the Cox proportional hazards model. These hazard functions, while popular in the statistical literature, are not always easily or intuitively communicated in clinical practice, such as in the settings of patient counseling or resource planning. Expressing and comparing quantiles of event times may allow for easier understanding. In this article we focus on residual time, i.e., the remaining time-to-event at an arbitrary time t given that the event has yet to occur by t. In particular, we develop estimation and inference procedures for covariate-specific quantiles of the residual time under the Cox model. Our methods and theory are assessed by simulations, and demonstrated in analysis of two real data sets.     

“A DIAMOND IS FOREVER” AND OTHER FAIRY TALES: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WEDDING EXPENSES AND MARRIAGE DURATION

In this study, we evaluate the association between wedding spending and marriage duration using data from a survey of more than 3,000 ever‐married persons in the United States. Controlling for a number of demographic and relationship characteristics, we find evidence that marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony. (JEL J12, Z1, D1)