A Stochastic Model to Assess the Effect of Meat Inspection Practices on the Contamination of the Pig Carcasses

The objective of meat inspection is to promote animal and public health by preventing, detecting, and controlling hazards originating from animals. With the improvements of sanitary level in pig herds, the hazards profile has shifted and the inspection procedures no longer target major foodborne pathogens (i.e., not risk based). Additionally, carcass manipulations performed when searching for macroscopic lesions can lead to cross‐contamination. We therefore developed a stochastic model to quantitatively describe cross‐contamination when consecutive carcasses are submitted to classic inspection procedures. The microbial hazard used to illustrate the model was Salmonella, the data set was obtained from Brazilian slaughterhouses, and some simplifying assumptions were made. The model predicted that due to cross‐contamination during inspection, the prevalence of contaminated carcass surfaces increased from 1.2% to 95.7%, whereas the mean contamination on contaminated surfaces decreased from 1 logCFU/cm² to ?0.87 logCFU/cm², and the standard deviations decreased from 0.65 to 0.19. These results are explained by the fact that, due to carcass manipulations with hands, knives, and hooks, including the cutting of contaminated lymph nodes, Salmonella is transferred to previously uncontaminated carcasses, but in small quantities. These small quantities can easily go undetected during sampling. Sensitivity analyses gave insight into the model performance and showed that the touching and cutting of lymph nodes during inspection can be an important source of carcass contamination. The model can serve as a tool to support discussions on the modernization of pig carcass inspection.     

Sexual Beliefs and Sexual Functioning: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Distraction

Dysfunctional sexual beliefs are vulnerability factors for sexual dysfunction. This cross-sectional study aimed to test the mediating role of cognitive distraction on the relationship between dysfunctional sexual beliefs about sexual functioning shared by men and women and sexual function. The authors used a sample of 421 cisgender heterosexual participants involved in a monogamous relationship. The hypothesized mediation model was tested using a bootstrapped cross product of coefficients approach. Results showed a significant negative, indirect effect between dysfunctional sexual beliefs and women's sexual function through cognitive distraction. The discussion of this study highlights the importance of cognitive factors in sexual functioning.     

COWORDS: a probabilistic model for multiple word clouds

Word clouds constitute one of the most popular statistical tools for the visual analysis of text documents because they provide users with a quick and intuitive understanding of the content. Despite their popularity for visualizing single documents, word clouds are not appropriate to compare different text documents. Independently generating word clouds for each document leads to configurations where the same word is typically located in widely different positions. This makes it very difficult to compare two or more word clouds. This paper introduces COWORDS, a new stochastic algorithm to create multiple word clouds, including one for each document. The shared words in multiple documents are placed in the same position in all clouds. Similar documents produce similar and compact clouds, making it easier to simultaneously compare and interpret several word clouds. The algorithm is based on a probability distribution in which the most probable configurations are those with a desirable visual aspect, such as a low value for the total distance between the words in all clouds. The algorithm output is a set of word clouds that are randomly selected from this probability distribution. The selection procedure uses a Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation method. We present several examples that illustrate the performance and visual results that can be obtained by our algorithm.     

The turn to optional familialism through the market: Long‐term care,cash‐for‐care,and caregiving policies in Europe

Cash‐for‐care (CfC) schemes are monetary transfers to people in need of care who can use them to organize their own care arrangements. Mostly introduced in the 1990s, these schemes combine different policy objectives, as they can aim at (implicitly or explicitly) supporting informal caregivers as well as increasing user choice in long‐term care or even foster the formalization of care relations and the creation of care markets. This article explores from a comparative perspective, how CfC schemes, within broader long‐term care policies, envision, frame, and aim to condition informal care, if different models of relationships between CfC and informal care exist and how these have persisted or changed over time and into which directions. Building on the scholarly debate on familialization vs. defamilialization policies, the paper proposes an analytical framework to investigate the trajectories of seven European countries over a period of 20 years. The results show that, far from being simply instruments of supported familialism, CfC schemes have contributed to a turn towards “optional familialism through the market,” according to which families are encouraged to provide family care and are (directly or indirectly) given alternatives through the provision of market care.     

中华民族传统音乐理性刍议

音乐是人类最古老的艺术形式之一,也是最具感染力的艺术形式。中华民族传统音乐侧重于个体性和生命性,注重感悟性和体验性,也注重在现实层面关注于对社会的教化作用,实际上是实用理性指导下的音乐。在社会主义文化建设背景下,努力发掘中华民族传统音乐理性的优良特质,对于当前社会主义文化建设有着积极的意义。     

鞍山 从废墟中站起的中国钢都

从共和国第一炉铁水、钢水诞生的那一刻算起,鞍钢为新中国钢铁工业创造了多个第一,被誉为"共和国钢铁工业长子"、 "新中国钢铁工业摇篮":1953年10月27日,第一根无缝钢管在鞍钢诞生,11月30日,第一根重轨在鞍钢问世; 12月19日,第一座现代化高炉流出第一炉铁水, "一五"期间,鞍钢成为新中国第一个大型钢铁生产基地,并涌现出孟泰、王崇伦等一批劳动模范……     

基于集体主义情境的变革型领导、组织承诺与离职倾向研究

在构建变革型领导对离职倾向影响的中介模型,以及分析水平-垂直集体主义背景下组织承诺中介作用的基础上,对东北和华北地区10家企业的202名管理者和员工进行问卷调查,采用层次回归等方法进行研究分析。结果表明,组织承诺在变革型领导和离职倾向之间起部分中介作用,不同集体主义背景影响变革型领导对离职倾向的作用路径;在水平集体主义背景下,持续承诺中介了变革型领导对离职倾向的影响;在垂直集体主义背景下,情感承诺和规范承诺中介了变革型领导对离职倾向的作用路径。鉴于此,组织需要根据员工集体主义导向的差异,通过采用不同的激励措施以提高员工的组织承诺,降低离职倾向。     

Regularization with Maximum Entropy and Quantum Electrodynamics: The Merg(E) Estimators

It is well-known that under fairly conditions linear regression becomes a powerful statistical tool. In practice, however, some of these conditions are usually not satisfied and regression models become ill-posed, implying that the application of traditional estimation methods may lead to non-unique or highly unstable solutions. Addressing this issue, in this paper a new class of maximum entropy estimators suitable for dealing with ill-posed models, namely for the estimation of regression models with small samples sizes affected by collinearity and outliers, is introduced. The performance of the new estimators is illustrated through several simulation studies.