Urge to Gamble in Problem Gamblers Exposed to a Casino Environment

Cue-reactivity has received increased attention in addiction research, though not for gambling in particular. We examined cue reactivity in 18 problem gamblers by accompanying them to a gaming casino and measuring their subjective urge to gamble over a 1-h period. Half of the sample was additionally exposed to a gambling-specific negative mood induction (NMI) manipulation via guided imagery. Overall, about two-thirds of the sample reported moderate to high-gambling urges during the casino exposure. Additionally, the NMI reduced cue-reactivity. Finally, gambling urges in both groups decreased over the course of the exposure sessions. These findings suggest that a majority of problem gamblers experience the urge to gamble when exposed to gambling cues and that the intensity of these urges decrease with time, especially in the presence of a gambling-relevant NMI. Cue exposure should be studied further as a potential tool in the treatment of problem gambling.     

Development of an Asset Value Map for Disaster Risk Assessment in China by Spatial Disaggregation Using Ancillary Remote Sensing Data

The extent of economic losses due to a natural hazard and disaster depends largely on the spatial distribution of asset values in relation to the hazard intensity distribution within the affected area. Given that statistical data on asset value are collected by administrative units in China, generating spatially explicit asset exposure maps remains a key challenge for rapid postdisaster economic loss assessment. The goal of this study is to introduce a top‐down (or downscaling) approach to disaggregate administrative‐unit level asset value to grid‐cell level. To do so, finding the highly correlated “surrogate” indicators is the key. A combination of three data sets—nighttime light grid, LandScan population grid, and road density grid, is used as ancillary asset density distribution information for spatializing the asset value. As a result, a high spatial resolution asset value map of China for 2015 is generated. The spatial data set contains aggregated economic value at risk at 30 arc‐second spatial resolution. Accuracy of the spatial disaggregation reflects redistribution errors introduced by the disaggregation process as well as errors from the original ancillary data sets. The overall accuracy of the results proves to be promising. The example of using the developed disaggregated asset value map in exposure assessment of watersheds demonstrates that the data set offers immense analytical flexibility for overlay analysis according to the hazard extent. This product will help current efforts to analyze spatial characteristics of exposure and to uncover the contributions of both physical and social drivers of natural hazard and disaster across space and time.     

The Role of Media Exposure on Coordination in the Humanitarian Setting

Despite high demand and resource limitations, humanitarian organizations (HOs) typically do not share resources and/or coordinate in the field. While coordination enhances operational performance and saves costs, the general perception is that it dilutes the media attention that individual organizations might receive, and negatively influences their future donation income. In this study, we empirically unveil the impact of media exposure and operational performance on the donations obtained by HOs. Then, based on the empirical results, we develop a stylized model to characterize the structure of preferred coordination policies with respect to an organization's funding source and main mandate. Our findings shed light on the incentives and dynamics that drive behaviors in humanitarian operations and provide insights for policy makers on designing and implementing mechanisms that encourage humanitarian coordination.     

Enabling robust assessment of QTc prolongation in early phase clinical trials

Since the implementation of the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) E14 guideline in 2005, regulators have required a “thorough QTc” (TQT) study for evaluating the effects of investigational drugs on delayed cardiac repolarization as manifested by a prolonged QTc interval. However, TQT studies have increasingly been viewed unfavorably because of their low cost effectiveness. Several researchers have noted that a robust drug concentration‐QTc (conc‐QTc) modeling assessment in early phase development should, in most cases, obviate the need for a subsequent TQT study. In December 2015, ICH released an “E14 Q&As (R3)” document supporting the use of conc‐QTc modeling for regulatory decisions. In this article, we propose a simple improvement of two popular conc‐QTc assessment methods for typical first‐in‐human crossover‐like single ascending dose clinical pharmacology trials. The improvement is achieved, in part, by leveraging routinely encountered (and expected) intrasubject correlation patterns encountered in such trials. A real example involving a single ascending dose and corresponding TQT trial, along with results from a simulation study, illustrate the strong performance of the proposed method. The improved conc‐QTc assessment will further enable highly reliable go/no‐go decisions in early phase clinical development and deliver results that support subsequent TQT study waivers by regulators.     

Zero-inflated models for adjusting varying exposures: a cautionary note on the pitfalls of using offset

Zero-inflated count data are frequently encountered in public health and epidemiology research. Two-parts model is often used to model the excessive zeros, which are a mixture of two components: a point mass at zero and a count distribution, such as a Poisson distribution. When the rate of events per unit exposure is of interest, offset is commonly used to account for the varying extent of exposure, which is essentially a predictor whose regression coefficient is fixed at one. Such an assumption of exposure effect is, however, quite restrictive for many practical problems. Further, for zero-inflated models, offset is often only included in the count component of the model. However, the probability of excessive zero component could also be affected by the amount of ‘exposure’. We, therefore, proposed incorporating the varying exposure as a covariate rather than an offset term in both the probability of excessive zeros and conditional counts components of the zero-inflated model. A real example is used to illustrate the usage of the proposed methods, and simulation studies are conducted to assess the performance of the proposed methods for a broad variety of situations.     

Bisphenol A: How the Most Relevant Exposure Sources Contribute to Total Consumer Exposure

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an endocrine disrupting chemical that is found in human urine throughout industrial societies around the globe. Consumer exposure pathways to BPA include packaged food, household dust, air, and dental fillings. To date, information on the relative contribution of the different pathways to total consumer exposure is lacking, but is key for managing substance‐associated risks. We investigated the relative contributions of the pathways known to be most relevant for nine different consumer groups. Our results suggest that the most important pathways for infants and children are the use of polycarbonate (PC) baby bottles and for adults and teenagers the consumption of canned food. Dental surgery can also considerably contribute over a short time directly after the surgery. For infants fed with PC baby bottles with mean dose rates of 0.8 μg/kg_bw/d the highest exposure dose rate was calculated. This dose rate is far below the tolerable daily intake of 50 μg/kg_bw/d. However, it is of the same order of magnitude as recently reported concentrations that caused low‐dose health effects in rodents. We find a pattern of falling exposure levels with rising age that is supported by urinary concentrations of BPA available for selected consumer groups. Similarly, the exposure levels we predict are confirmed by the levels reported in these studies.     

秦兆阳与《组织部新来的青年人》——对一桩历史公案的再认识

王蒙《组织部新来的青年人》发表于《人民文学》1956年9月,秦兆阳对这篇小说的修改引起了一场轩然大波。秦兆阳的修改主要集中在对区委书记周润祥形象的改写和对林赵爱情的强化上。这种修改与秦兆阳的现实主义理论有密切的关系。小说的改写触动了《在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话》关于"文艺与政治的关系"、"歌颂与暴露"、"写真实"等重大问题,因此引起了毛泽东的关注。     

Dose-Response Assessment of Airborne Methyl Isothiocyanate (MITC) Following a Metam Sodium Spill

A tank car derailment in northern California in 1991 spilled metam sodium into the Sacramento River, and released its breakdown product, methyl isothiocyanate (MITC), into the air. This paper describes the risk evaluation process used. Over 240 individuals reported symptoms such as eye and throat irritation, dizziness, and shortness of breath. Reference exposure levels (RELs) for 1 hr were developed for MITC and compared to exposure concentrations. Ocular irritation in cats was the most sensitive endpoint reported. The no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL), divided by an uncertainty factor (UF) of 100, produced an REL of 0.5 ppb of MITC in air to prevent discomfort. An REL to prevent disability was estimated to be 40 ppb. An REL to prevent life-threatening injury was estimated to be 150 ppb. Measured MITC levels ranged from 0.2-37 ppb and estimated peak levels ranged from 140-1600 ppb. The usefulness of RELs for emergency planning is discussed.     

Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Exposure-Response Relationships in Epidemiologic Studies

Demonstration of a dose-response relationship for environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is an important indication of causality. Central to the analysis and interpretation of dose-response relations as described in epidemiological studies is the relationship between dose and exposure. It must be recognized that in studies of ETS we have only surrogate measures of dose, and these surrogate measures (based on exposure) are imperfect. The question-based measures of ETS exposure generally have not been standardized, may have limited validity and reliability, and cannot comprehensively describe total ETS exposure, exposure to individual ETS components, nor doses of biologically relevant agents at target sites. Nevertheless, useful data have been yielded in epidemiologic studies linking ETS exposure to increased respiratory infection and symptoms, reduced lung growth in children, and increased lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. The more consistent exposure-response data for studies on acute health in children may reflect the greater difficulty in measuring exposure in studies of chronic health in adults.