Attribution of Human VTEC O157 Infection from Meat Products: A Quantitative Risk Assessment Approach

To address the risk posed to human health by the consumption of VTEC O157 within contaminated pork, lamb, and beef products within Great Britain, a quantitative risk assessment model has been developed. This model aims to simulate the prevalence and amount of VTEC O157 in different meat products at consumption within a single model framework by adapting previously developed models. The model is stochastic in nature, enabling both variability (natural variation between animals, carcasses, products) and uncertainty (lack of knowledge) about the input parameters to be modeled. Based on the model assumptions and data, it is concluded that the prevalence of VTEC O157 in meat products (joints and mince) at consumption is low (i.e., <0.04%). Beef products, particularly beef burgers, present the highest estimated risk with an estimated eight out of 100,000 servings on average resulting in human infection with VTEC O157.     

从《啊,拓荒者!》看西进运动中美国妇女的嬗变

以《啊,拓荒者!》中两个女性人物为例,揭示镀金时代这一阶段的西进运动对美国妇女的影响,指出当时的主流社会坚持传统,认为集"虔诚、贞洁、顺从、居家"等品德于一身的女人才是真正的女人,虽然西部老一辈女性也极力维护这样的传统,但在西部成长起来的新一代女性却偏离了传统。拓荒岁月的艰辛迫使她们走出家这个"女人的领域",在外面的世界里像男人一样地奋力拼搏。同时,也给她们提供了更多的发展空间,使她们有机会充分展示她们作为人的才干,而不仅仅是社会定义的"女人"的才能。这样成长起来的她们,自然有着与东部发达地区的女性以及西部老一辈女性不一样的精神面貌和价值观念。     

Growth,inequality and innovation: A CGE analysis of India

This paper probes into the growth and distributional consequences of four basic policy options emanating from the three sources of economic growth, namely, physical capital, human capital and technological progress, with the help of a computable general equilibrium model of India. The simulation results show that, the efficacy of physical capital accumulation in augmenting growth and abating income inequality is greater than that of human capital accumulation. In the long term, however, the latter overtakes the former in promoting growth, but inequality worsens. When the two policies are commingled, growth improves but it continues to be inequality-augmenting. Finally, with concomitant Hicks-neutral technological progress, not only is growth enhanced further, but it turns out to be significantly inequality-mitigating. The emerging policy lesson is that any integrated policy of boosting investments in physical as well as human capital must be closely bound up with technological progress for growth to be inclusive.     

Risk Assessment of Escherichia coli O157 Illness from Consumption of Hamburgers in the United States Made from Australian Manufacturing Beef

We analyze the risk of contracting illness due to the consumption in the United States of hamburgers contaminated with enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) of serogroup O157 produced from manufacturing beef imported from Australia. We have used a novel approach for estimating risk by using the prevalence and concentration estimates of E. coli O157 in lots of beef that were withdrawn from the export chain following detection of the pathogen. For the purpose of the present assessment an assumption was that no product is removed from the supply chain following testing. This, together with a number of additional conservative assumptions, leads to an overestimation of E. coli O157‐associated illness attributable to the consumption of ground beef patties manufactured only from Australian beef. We predict 49.6 illnesses (95%: 0.0–148.6) from the 2.46 billion hamburgers made from 155,000 t of Australian manufacturing beef exported to the United States in 2012. All these illness were due to undercooking in the home and less than one illness is predicted from consumption of hamburgers cooked to a temperature of 68 °C in quick‐service restaurants.     

O2O模式下消费者对零售商的双重伦理感知

零售商的伦理问题直接影响着消费者的购买行为并制约着零售业的长久发展。通过问卷调查,开发在O2O背景下测量消费者对传统零售商店和网络商店的伦理感知量表,得出双渠道中影响消费者伦理感知的因子主要包括诚信度、企业责任、顾客价值、公平竞争及公平交易。同时,通过Pearson相关分析法发现消费者对传统零售商店的伦理感知会显著影响对其网络商店的伦理感知,采用单样本T检验法分析得出同一零售商消费者对传统实体店和网络商店的伦理感知水平不存在显著差异的结论,从而为规模大且知名度高的传统零售实体店采取高水平的伦理战略提供理论基础。     

PRODUCT MARKET REGULATION,FIRM SELECTION,AND UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper analyzes the effect of product market regulation (PMR) on unemployment in a search model with heterogeneous multiple‐worker firms. In our setup, PMR modifies the distribution of firm productivities, thereby affecting the equilibrium rate of unemployment. We distinguish between PMR related to entry costs and PMR that generates recurrent fixed costs. We find that: (i) higher entry costs raise the rate of unemployment mainly through our novel selection effect, (ii) higher fixed costs decrease unemployment through the selection effect and increase it through the competition effect analyzed in Blanchard and Giavazzi (2003, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118, 879–907). Firm heterogeneity magnifies the impact of both types of regulatory costs. We propose econometric evidence consistent with the unemployment effects of sunk versus recurring costs.     

ARTIFICIAL STATES

We define artificial states as those in which political borders do not coincide with a division of nationalities desired by the people on the ground. We propose and compute for most countries in the world two measures of the degree to which borders may be artificial. One measures how borders split ethnic groups into two separate adjacent countries. The other measures the straightness of land borders, under the assumption the straight land borders are more likely to be artificial. We then show that these two measures are correlated with several measures of political and economic success.     

EXTERNALITIES IN PROGRAM EVALUATION: THE IMPACT OF A WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM ON IMMUNIZATION

Impact evaluations of development programs usually do not explicitly take into account externalities on non‐participants. Based on a unique dataset we estimate the direct as well as the spillover effects of Mahila Samakhya, a women's empowerment program in India, on child immunization. The survey covers both participants and non‐participants in program villages, as well as respondents in control villages. We account for participation selection bias using instrumental variables. We propose a direct test for the exclusion restriction using the control villages. We find both direct effects on the immunization rates of participants’ children and significant spillovers on immunization rates of non‐participants’ children. The impact of interventions might be substantially underestimated if such external effects were not taken into account. Alternative estimation methods such as propensity score matching and a regression discontinuity approach yield comparable results.     

ECONOMIC INTEGRATION,POLITICAL INTEGRATION OR BOTH?

We study the effects of economic and political integration by presenting a model in which firms compete with each other in both an economic market—where they produce a good and compete for market share—and in a political (rent seeking) market—where they compete for transfers from the government. Growth is driven by firms’ cost‐reducing innovation activity and economic and political integration affect firms’ incentive to innovate differently. In this setting, economic and political integration can be seen as complementary. Economic integration, when not accompanied by political integration, can lead to less innovation and slower growth as firms respond to increased competition in the economic market by focusing more on rent‐seeking activity. When economic integration is accompanied by political integration, innovation and growth will be stronger and welfare higher.     

从分裂人格看尤金·奥尼尔的身份叙事

奥尼尔戏剧充分揭示身份的可塑性特征,挑战并解构权力话语对身份本质和本体特征的规定,演示了身份变化的过程。《大神布朗》揭示了布朗分裂的、非连贯的人格;《无穷岁月》中约翰.洛文两个分裂自我的对白实际上是相互矛盾的本我和自我的冲突。