A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Practices Exposing Humans to Avian Influenza Viruses, Their Prevalence, and Rationale

Almost all human infections by avian influenza viruses (AIVs) are transmitted from poultry. A systematic review was conducted to identify practices associated with human infections, their prevalence, and rationale. Observational studies were identified through database searches. Meta-analysis produced combined odds ratio estimates. The prevalence of practices and rationales for their adoptions were reported. Of the 48,217 records initially identified, 65 articles were included. Direct and indirect exposures to poultry were associated with infection for all investigated viral subtypes and settings. For the most frequently reported practices, association with infection seemed stronger in markets than households, for sick and dead than healthy poultry, and for H7N9 than H5N1. Practices were often described in general terms and their frequency and intensity of contact were not provided. The prevalence of practices was highly variable across studies, and no studies comprehensively explored reasons behind the adoption of practices. Combining epidemiological and targeted anthropological studies would increase the spectrum and detail of practices that could be investigated and should aim to provide insights into the rationale(s) for their existence. A better understanding of these rationales may help to design more realistic and acceptable preventive public health measures and messages

Sequences of purchases in credit card data reveal life styles in urban populations

Zipf-like distributions characterize a wide set of phenomena in physics, biology, economics and social sciences. In human activities, Zipf-laws describe for example the frequency of words appearance in a text or the purchases types in shopping patterns. In the latter, the uneven distribution of transaction types is bound with the temporal sequences of purchases of individual choices. In this work, we define a framework using a text compression technique on the sequences of credit card purchases to detect ubiquitous patterns of collective behavior. Clustering the consumers by their similarity in purchases sequences, we detect five consumer groups. Remarkably, post checking, individuals in each group are also similar in their age, total expenditure, gender, and the diversity of their social and mobility networks extracted by their mobile phone records. By properly deconstructing transaction data with Zipf-like distributions, this method uncovers sets of significant sequences that reveal insights on collective human behavior.Comment: 30 pages, 26 figure

The Role of Corporate Image and Extension Similarity in Service Brand Extensions

In this article we examine the role of corporate image in extending service brands to new and traditional markets in the telecommunications sector. With regards to corporate image, service brand extensions are primarily associated with innovation-related attributes, such as order of entry (i.e., pioneers versus followers). Increasingly, firms are extending their services to markets that are beyond the markets that they traditionally have been active in. The results of an experimental study show that consumers evaluate service extensions by providers with an innovative late mover image more favourably that service extensions by companies with a pioneer image in terms of perceived corporate credibility and expected service quality. With regards to these evaluation criteria, it was also found that consumers prefer service brand extensions to related rather than unrelated markets. In addition we find that the relative distance between service providers with an innovative late mover image and pioneers is larger in related markets.marketing ;

The role of corporate image and extension similarity in service brand extensions.

Tevens verschenen als: Research Memorandum / METEOR, Universiteit Maastricht. - (RM00035)

Seeking A Sustainable Journey to Work: Findings from the National Bridges to Work Demonstration

The Bridges to Work demonstration was designed to test whether efforts to help inner-city job seekers overcome barriers to accessing suburban jobs would result in better employment opportunities and earnings for these workers. This report examines outcomes for more than 1,800 applicants to Bridges to Work, half of whom were randomly selected to receive the programs transportation, job placement and supportive services for up to 18 months and half who were not offered these services. The researchers found that Bridges to Work did not positively impact participants employment and earnings, results that were consistent across cities and across various strategies for providing transportation services. Given the programs implementation challenges, costs and lack of results, the report concludes that the Bridges model is not a viable policy response to the mismatch between the location of jobs and the location of unemployed workers. However, the models lack of success does not diminish the importance of improving transportation options to increase workers access to employment, and the authors derive a number of important lessons from the demonstrations experience to inform future mobility efforts

Information Inequality and Network Externalities: A Comparative Study of the Diffusion of Television and the Internet

This paper sheds light on whether intergroup inequality in Internet access is likely to persist as the diffusion process continues. To what extent is a given level of inequality in technology diffusion (e.g., use of the Internet) a long-term policy challenge or a temporary inconvenience? What general factors account for group-specific patterns of technology adoption? This paper draws on notions of network externalities to help answer this question. It also presents findings from a comparative analysis of household adoption of television from 1948 to 1957 and the Internet from 1994 to 2002.

Generalized Costs of Travel by Solo and Pooled Ridesourcing vs. Privately Owned Vehicles, and Policy Implications

The emergence of “3 Revolutions” in transportation (automation, electrification and shared mobility) presents a range of questions regarding how consumers will travel in the future, and under what conditions there may be rapid adoption of various services. These include individual on-demand taxi-style services, shared mobility in pooled services, and use of public transit, all with or without drivers. There is now enough data and estimates on the costs of these service combinations, and in some cases ridership data, to consider how consumers are making choices and could do so in the future as things evolve. This project involved: (a) reviewing existing literature and data on consumer mode and vehicle choice; (b) developing new “generalized cost” estimates that combine monetary and non-monetary (e.g., hedonic) components of travel choice, notably incorporating value of time; and (c) conducting a comparison of monetary and generalized trip cost for a range of trip types across travel options in the near term (2020) and longer term (2030-35). Three main travel options were considered: privately owned vehicles, ridesourced solo trips, and ridesourced pooled trips. Consideration of internal combustion vs. battery electric and, in the longer term, automated technology was also core to the analysis. The trips considered include urban and suburban types in the San Francisco metro area, using actual trip characteristics. The results suggest that in the near-term, solo ridesourcing is likely to be perceived as significantly more expensive (in terms of monetary and time costs) than pooled ridesourcing or solo private vehicle trips except for those with a very high value of time. Solo ridesourcing does better in dense, slow, urban trips than in faster suburban trips. In the longer term, with automated driverless vehicles, solo ridesourcing could become the cheapest mode for many travelers in a range of situations. This report includes an initial consideration of the implications of these policies for affecting travel choices, presumably to push choices toward pooled ridesourcing as a sustainable option. VMT-based pricing, pricing that could be adjusted with vehicle occupancy, and parking-related approaches are described. A large price signal might be needed to shift travel, given some of the differences in generalized cost found in this analysis

Exploring the Role of Cities in Electrifying Passenger Transportation

Key Takeaways1. The electrification of passenger vehicles should be one part of a city’s transportation plan. Shifting from internal combustion engine vehicles to plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) can improve urban air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce energy consumption.2. Recent studies show that electric vehicle awareness is low even in mature markets; cities should promote electric vehicles to residents by leveraging existing promotional campaigns.3. Various financial and non-financial incentives can effectively encourage electric vehicle uptake, including: free, discounted, or preferential-location parking; free or reduced road and bridge tolls; and allowing electric vehicles to drive in bus or carpool lanes.4. Several cities are restricting or planning to restrict the access that internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) have to certain areas. If these restrictions apply to most (or all) passenger ICEVs, they can promote PEV purchase and use in cities.5. Infrastructure development in cities should follow the same fundamental approach as that used outside of cities. The priority should be ensuring that PEV owners and prospective PEV buyers have access to charging at or near home. Workplace and public charging should be developed for those who cannot access charging at or near home.6. Cities should be strategic in their approach, first identifying the goals they want to achieve, and then exploring what steps they can take to meet these goals. The steps available will likely differ between cities due to the different ways in which roads, parking, and any other vehicle infrastructure is governed

Теоретические аспекты построения оптимальной системы транспортного налогообложения

Целью данной статьи является анализ теоретико-методологических основ построения оптимальной системы транспортного налогообложения с выделением классификационных признаков, функций и принципов построения такой системы. В работе систематизированы экономические воззрения на природу транспортных налогов и представлен генезис транспортного налогообложения. Аргументируется, что генезис исследований в области транспортного налогообложения состоял в развитии экономических обоснований величин компенсаций, развивавшихся по логике от частного к общему, т. е. от компенсации за пользование отдельными объектами дорожно-транспортной сети до обоснования компенсации совокупности всех отрицательных экстерналий и всей дорожно-транспортной сети. Систематизируются функции транспортного налогообложения, проводится анализ двух основных функций: фискальной и регулирующей. Доказывается, что регулирующая функция в транспортном налогообложении является паритетно значимой, анализируются отрицательные внешние эффекты, связанные с форсированной автомобилизацией населения. Кроме того, обосновывается, что чистые общественные блага, используемые при эксплуатации автотранспорта, в процессе массовой автомобилизации трансформируются в смешанные блага, которые в свою очередь сохраняют свойство неисключаемости, но отличаются конкурентностью в потреблении. В результате исследования разработана оригинальная классификация транспортных налогов по основным классификационным признакам, представлены классификации по видам и характеру транспортных платежей, стадиям жизненного цикла транспортного средства, способу взимания платежа, характеру влияния на интенсивность использования транспортного средства и цели его использования. Предлагается система принципов оптимального транспортного налогообложения, включающая известные и оригинальные принципы, развиваются принцип выгоды в транспортном налогообложении и принцип социального оптимума. Сформулированы оригинальные принципы: комплексности, дифференциации, приближенности платежа к услуге, принцип маркировки.The purpose of this article is to analyze the theoretical and methodological basis of building an optimal transport taxation system. That includes establishing classification criteria, functions and principles of building the system. The article systematizes economic views on the nature of transport taxes and outlines the genesis of transport taxation. The article substantiates that the genesis of studies on transport taxation involved the development of economic measures of the size of compensation which followed the special-to-general model, that is, from compensation for the use of particular road network facilities to compensation for the entirety of negative externalities and the use of the whole road network. The article systemizes functions of transport taxation and analyses its two main functions: fiscal and regulatory ones. The article rationalizes that the regulatory function in transport taxation is equally significant. The article analyzes negative external effects resulting from accelerated growth in car ownership. In addition, it substantiates that pure public benefits relating to motor vehicle use tend to transform into mixed benefits in the course of mass car ownership, which, in turn, remain non-excludable, but become rivalrous in consumption. The work presents an original classification of transport taxes based on the main classification criteria. Transport taxes are classified based on types and designation of transport payments, stages of the life cycle of a motor vehicle, the way the tax is levied, the influence it has on the intensity of car use and the purpose of revenue spending. The work offers a system of principles of optimal transport taxation consisting of well-known and new ones. The article further develops the benefit principle in transport taxation as well as the social optimum principle. In addition, it provides definitions for original principles identified by the author: the principle of comprehensiveness, the principle of differentiation, the principle of payment collection at time of service, and the principle of designation