Deoxynivalenol (DON) in wheat: an example of weighing the pros and cons of food stuffs

A Committee of the Health Council of the Netherlands advised on deoxynivalenol (DON), a mycotoxin occurring in cereals. TDIs of 1.0 and 0.5?µg.kg_{body weight} ^?1.day^?1 have been based on mice and pig studies in which DON reduced growth. In 1999, the 50^th and 95^th percentiles of DON intake by 1‐4‐year‐old children were, respectively, 1.3 and 2.4?µg.kg_{body weight} ^?1.day^?1. The Committee considered: (i) TDI contains safety factors, (ii) a slightly reduced weight gain is not necessarily harmful, (iii) when growth rate is highest, children consume little or no wheat, and (iv) in real life, exposure varies, causing the effect to be smaller. The Committee concluded that an exposure that only incidentally exceeds—up to about five times—0.5?µg.kg_{body weight} ^?1.day^?1 very unlikely inhibits weight gain. More severe effects on immunity, fertility and the foetus may occur at intakes higher than 2.5µg.kg_{body weight} ^?1.day^?1. Nonetheless, toxin exposure should be kept as low as possible. The Committee advised to agriculturally reduce DON content; second one may exclude wheat with high DON content for human consumption. Limits of 500 and 100?µg/kg_wheat prevent exposure exceeding 1.5 and 0.5?µg.kg_{body weight} ^?1.day^?1, respectively. As wheat products are good sources of nutrients, the Committee advised against discouraging their consumption.     

山东科技金融绩效评价——基于主成分分析的DEA研究路径

本文以主成分分析方法进行指标蕴含信息的整合,重新组合一组线性无关的综合性指标,运用数据包络分析方法(DEA)对山东省科技金融投入进行效益评价。研究结果表明,山东省2000—2010年的金融投入重数量、轻质量,重速度、轻基础,呈现出DEA无效状态。基于此,山东省科技金融发展应转变发展方向,走可持续、集约化的发展路径。     

浅谈企业安全文化

针对企业安全文化建设,笔者结合实际,深入思考,按照认识问题,分析问题,解决问题的思路,分别阐述了什么是安全文化,为什么要建设安全文化,如何建设安全文化。     

和谐社会下高校特殊群体学生教育管理研究

随着和谐社会构建的深入和高等教育由精英教育向大众教育的转变,加强和改进大学生思想政治教育工作尤其是高校特殊群体学生的教育管理工作,是摆在高校学生教育管理者面前维持学校团结稳定重大课题。高校特殊群体大学生教育管理过程中凸显的亟需面对和解决的各类问题,更需要高校的思想政治教育工作者在新形势下对其教育管理方式方法作出新的尝试研究。     

Debt monetization,inflation, and the ‘neutral’ interest rate

The main purpose of this study is to explore the potential expansionary effect stemming from the monetization of debt. We develop a simple macroeconomic model with Keynesian features and four sectors: creditor and debtor households, businesses, and the public sector. We show that such expansionary effect stems mainly from the reduction in the financial cost to servicing the public debt. The efficacy of the channel that operates allegedly through the compression of the risk/term premium on securities is found to be ambiguous. Finally, we show that countries that issue their own currency can avert getting stuck in a structural ‘liquidity trap’ provided their central banks are willing to monetize the debt created by a strong enough fiscal expansion.     

PORTFOLIO CHOICE VIA QUANTILES

A portfolio choice model in continuous time is formulated for both complete and incomplete markets, where the quantile function of the terminal cash flow, instead of the cash flow itself, is taken as the decision variable. This formulation covers a wide body of existing and new models with law‐invariant preference measures, including expected utility maximization, mean–variance, goal reaching, Yaari's dual model, Lopes' SP/A model, behavioral model under prospect theory, as well as those explicitly involving VaR and CVaR in objectives and/or constraints. A solution scheme to this quantile model is proposed, and then demonstrated by solving analytically the goal‐reaching model and Yaari's dual model. A general property derived for the quantile model is that the optimal terminal payment is anticomonotonic with the pricing kernel (or with the minimal pricing kernel in the case of an incomplete market if the investment opportunity set is deterministic). As a consequence, the mutual fund theorem still holds in a market where rational and irrational agents co‐exist.     

A preliminary comparative analysis of 3D body scanner,manually taken girth body measurements and size chart measurements

In an attempt to provide a technological solution to the influx of cheap imports in South Africa and bridging the technology divide between Africa and the rest of the world, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research procured a three‐dimensional body scanner from the Textile and Clothing Technology Corporation, in the US. The pilot study was aimed at introducing the technology to the South African consumers, and to compare the scanned data with the manually taken measurements. A convenience sample of 56 females in South Africa was interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Interviews were used to capture views on acceptance of the technology, prior to being scanned. Scanning garments made from a stretchy fabric were designed and sewn in four sizes of small, medium, large and extra large. A covariance, one sample t‐test and paired t‐ tests were used for data analyses. Almost all respondents felt comfortable with the designed scanning garments and the scanning process. The scanner measurements were generally more numerical in value than the manual measurements for a body part as expected, although the disparity was on the higher side than expected. The discernible difference between means of scanned data and standard values in the currently used sizing charts highlighted the long overdue need to update the sizing charts using a national anthropometric database generated locally.     

Investment and Innovation State Support of Agriculture in Russia as a Condition of WTO

Russian agriculture is one of the industries operating in the unstable economic situation in a developing market taking into account risks of the world economy, economic, political, and climatic factors. The role of agriculture is to provide people＇s needs for food, significant effects on employment, the efficiency of domestic production, and way of life in rural areas by obligatory preserving food security in Russia. One of the major tasks for agriculture is the development of innovations and investments aimed at improving the competitiveness of the domestic agricultural sector. Russia＇s membership in the WTO since 2012 is getting a particular importance in the innovation and investment support of agriculture. The strategy of innovative development of the Russian Federation until 2020 ＂Innovative Russia--2020＂ assumes three possible options for innovative development： inertial （directed on imports）, catch-up development and a local technological competitiveness and a variant of achieving leadership in leading scientific and technical sectors, and fundamental research. A positive point is that the strategy provides an algorithm of state support of the innovation cycle. The innovation cycle is the process associated with the sequence of innovation transformations （scientific or business ideas） in products, technology, business process and launches it on the market for commercial use. A positively developing regional aspect is of great importance.     

“1＋1＋1”的教学改革模式——中职计算机专业分方向教学的探讨

从中职计算机专业的现状出发，为了培养出适应社会需求的实用型技术人才，实现中职学校的计算机教育事业又好又快发展，文章阐述了计算机专业分方向教学的设想，提出了“1＋1＋1”的教学改革模式。     

Master's Level Education in Business Marketing: Quo Vadis?

ABSTRACT

Given the paucity of knowledge on the state of business marketing education at the master's level, we conducted an exploratory survey of instructors at selected universities in North America and Europe. We supplemented results from this survey with discussions with our colleagues who teach business marketing at the master's level, and a review of articles on master's level programs.

Through our investigations, we discovered that there is a shortage of management cases that address contemporary issues in business marketing. We learned that nearly half of survey participants do not use a textbook and that the remaining participants use a wide variety of textbooks. We observed that many instructors still teach business marketing courses from a traditional functional perspective. Instead, we believe that business marketing courses must address a host of emerging issues such as value and its assessment, business process reengineering, global marketing, working relationships and business networks, and cross-functional coordination issues, among other things.

We believe that scholars can rejuvenate the discipline by tailoring business marketing courses to the new generation of accelerated master's programs, by creating a network for sharing information on new cases and teaching materials, and by writing more relevant and timely business marketing cases. Finally, we believe that the time is right for a faculty consortium on teaching business marketing.