浅谈森林病虫害的特点和预防措施

依据我国森林病虫害的发生特点分析造成我国森林病虫害日趋严重的原因,简要介绍我国森林病虫害的预防措施以及有效的生物治理措施。     

Linking agricultural policies with obesity and noncommunicable diseases: A new perspective for a globalising world

In light of the shift in policy paradigm in agriculture from state intervention to market liberalisation and globalisation, this paper develops a series of hypotheses on the relationship between agricultural policies and consumer diets. The first hypothesis is that the paradigm shift has led to greater specialisation of production, so changing the ability and incentive for producers to supply certain foods relative to others. Second, the shift has affected farmgate prices (both up and down), so creating opportunities for the industries which purchase farm commodities (the food consuming industries – FCIs) to substitute lower priced ingredients, thereby influencing the nutritional quality and content of foods available in the marketplace. Third, it has increased the ability of the FCIs to “add value” through product innovation and marketing, creating a market characterised by highly differentiated products targeted to individualised preferences, thus increasing the acceptability of a wider variety and quantity of food products.     

The cost implications of the use of telmisartan or ramipril in patients at high risk for vascular events: the ONTARGET study

Abstract

Background:

The recently published ONTARGET trial found that telmisartan was non-inferior to ramipril in reducing CV death, MI, stroke, or heart failure in patients with vascular disease or high-risk diabetes. The cost implications of ramipril and telmisartan monotherapy use based on the ONTARGET study are reported here.

Methods and Results:

Only healthcare system costs were considered. Healthcare resource utilization was collected for each patient during the trial. The authors obtained country-specific unit costs to the different healthcare care resources consumed (i.e., hospitalizations events, procedures, non-study, and study drugs) for all enrolled patients. Purchasing power parities were used to convert country-specific costs into US dollars (US$ 2008). The total undiscounted costs of the study for the telmisartan group was $12,762 per patient and is higher than the ramipril group at $12,007 per patient, an un-discounted difference of $755 (95% confidence interval [CI], $218–$1292); The discounted costs for the telmisartan group was $11,722 compared with $11,019 for the ramipril group; a difference of $703 (95% CI, $209–$1197). The difference in costs is exclusively related to the acquisition cost of telmisartan over generic ramipril.

Limitations:

This analysis only considered direct healthcare system costs. Costs accrued outside the hospital were not collected. Combination therapy was excluded since it would likely be more expensive than ramipril alone, with no additional benefit and a risk of some harm.

Conclusions:

Based on these results, it is suggested that for the ONTARGET patients, the use of telmisartan instead of ramipril increases costs by 6.3%. These findings suggest that the choice to put patients on telmisartan should be justified based on the patient’s susceptibility to specific adverse events to minimize the cost implications.     

"传染病模型"在隐性知识传播中的应用

隐性知识是形成企业核心竞争力的基础和源泉,隐性知识传播机制的准确把握是对隐性知识进行有效管理的关键。在比较隐性知识传播过程及传染病传播过程的基础上,阐述了用"传染病模型"研究隐性知识传播机制的可行性,建立了员工隐性知识传播的"传染病模型",并模拟了华安公司隐性知识的传播过程,提出了提高该公司隐性知识传播效率的措施。     

溶栓药物的研究进展及发展方向

溶栓药物在治疗血栓栓塞性疾病中具有极为重要的地位和作用。本文就溶栓药物的作用机制和近年来的研究进展以及溶栓药物的发展方向进行了综述。     

The effectiveness of information interventions to improve domestic food safety among rural consumers

Consumer education on food handling behavior is regarded as an effective method to improve domestic food safety and prevent foodborne illness, but is usually overlooked in rural areas. Using a presurvey and two rounds of postsurveys targeted at rural consumers from China included in a randomized controlled trial, this study investigated the effectiveness of two information interventions—a leaflet with tips for best practices and the leaflet plus consumer education sessions conveyed by phone—and compared them with a control group. Cloth use behavior was the target in the trial and five specific aspects were evaluated: (1) whether the cloth was made of old clothes, (2) whether the one used to clean kitchen tables was also used to wash dishes, (3) whether it was hung to dry, (4) how it was disinfected, and (5) how long the cloth was used before being discarded. Firstly, consumers' behavior was scored by summing the above-mentioned five behaviors. The results estimated using the difference-in-difference model showed that respondents in the leaflet-only group improved to a greater extent than those in the control group, but their difference in progress was not statistically significant until the second round of the postsurvey. Respondents in the leaflet-plus-phone group were quicker to adopt suggested practices and made discernible improvements compared with those in the leaflet-only group in the first round of the postsurvey, but the gap between these groups narrowed to statistically insignificant in the second round of the postsurvey. It was concluded that one consumer education session was effective and made a difference in the long term, whereas more education sessions produced normative behavior at faster rates, showing a significant improvement in the short term. Then, the study estimated the effectiveness of interventions on the five specific behaviors separately. The results were estimated using a probit difference-in-difference model and showed that the suggested behaviors with lower costs or a greater difference from past behaviors were more likely to be adopted by consumers. Consumer education facilitates proper food handling practices among rural households, which should be considered by policy makers.     

Testing the predictive accuracy of COVID-19 forecasts

We test the predictive accuracy of forecasts of the number of COVID-19 fatalities produced by several forecasting teams and collected by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the epidemic in the United States. We find three main results. First, at the short horizon (1 week ahead) no forecasting team outperforms a simple time-series benchmark. Second, at longer horizons (3 and 4 week ahead) forecasters are more successful and sometimes outperform the benchmark. Third, one of the best performing forecasts is the Ensemble forecast, that combines all available predictions using uniform weights. In view of these results, collecting a wide range of forecasts and combining them in an ensemble forecast may be a superior approach for health authorities, rather than relying on a small number of forecasts.     

Infectious diseases tracking and sectoral stock market returns: A quantile regression analysis

This paper investigates the relationship between changes in the newspaper-based infectious diseases tracking index (ITI) of Baker et al. (2020) and sectoral stock market returns in the US. Our results spanning the period 1985:01 to 2020:03 reveal the presence of a negative (positive) relationship between returns and ITI at lower (higher) return quantiles (representing different market conditions) in a majority of the sectors. For the health care sector, this relationship is negative at all quantiles. Interestingly, inclusion of the COVID-19 period in the sample data leads to the detection of a stronger relationship for smaller quantiles across all sectors. An asymmetric relationship between returns and the ITI is witnessed across different market conditions for the Consumer Staples, Healthcare, Industrial and Technology sectors. Results from a rolling regression uncover differences in the magnitudes of responses to various infectious diseases over time. Our results carry important implications regarding investment strategies for US sectoral returns in the presence of news relating to infectious diseases.     

New perspectives on the contribution of sanitary investments to mortality decline in English cities, 1845–1909

Health improved in English cities in the last third of the nineteenth century, in tandem with substantial increases in public spending on water supplies and sanitation. However, previous efforts to measure the contribution of public expenditures to mortality improvements have been hampered by difficulties in quantifying public health investments and the lack of mortality data for specifically urban populations. We improve upon the existing evidence base by (1) creating measures of the stock of urban district sanitary capital, by type, on the basis of capital expenditure flows, rather than loan stocks; (2) using mortality and capital stock data that relate to the same administrative units (urban districts), and (3) studying the period 1880–1909 as well as the earlier period from 1845. The stock of sewerage capital was robustly related to improvements in all-cause mortality after 1880. The size of this effect varied with the extent of public investment in water supplies, suggesting complementarity between the two assets. For the period 1845–84, investments in water were associated with declines in infant and child mortality but the effect was much smaller and less precisely estimated in later decades. Our results suggest that improvements in water and sewerage targeted different transmission pathways for faecal–oral diseases.     

收入不平等下的零加成改革*——医生策略反应与医疗支出再分配

本文主要研究药品零加成改革引起的医疗支出在病情间的再分配效应。首先，本文利用中国健康与养老追踪调查进行双重差分分析，讨论改革对医疗支出在病情间分配的影响。回归结果显示，地区平均药占比每增加10个百分点，病情严重程度等于均值的患者的总治疗费用将显著上升513%。在此基础上，病情严重程度每增加1个标准差，患者的总治疗费用将少增加298%。进一步，本文在患者收入、病情二维异质性的框架下讨论了这种现象可能的成因并从实证上进行验证。分析表明，改革提高了对重症更有益的诊疗手段的相对价格，改变了医生在诊疗方案上的选择。这种改变会因患者的支付能力不同而有差异，相比收入低且病情较重的患者，医生更多地对收入高且病情较轻的患者使用了对重症更有益的诊疗手段。这种微观选择引起了医疗资源在病情间的扭曲配置和医疗支出向轻病的倾斜。