A CROSS-SECTION ANALYSIS OF INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN THE U.S. PROCESSED FOOD AND BEVERAGE SECTORS

This paper analyzes the determinants of variation across industries in levels of intra-industry trade (IIT) for a sample of 36 U.S. processed food and beverage industries in 1987, previous studies of intra-industry trade having focused on industry characteristics in the manufacturing sectors. The determinants predicted by IIT theory are measures of product differentiation, economies of scale, and imperfect competition; the results of this analysis indicate that IIT variation across the food and beverage industries is positively related to product differentiation, U.S. total trade, similarity of tariff barriers among trade partners, and economies of scope, but negatively related to industry concentration.International Relations/Trade,

LOCATION OF VERTICALLY LINKED INDUSTRIES UNDER FREE TRADE: CASE STUDIES OF ORANGE JUICE AND TOMATO PASTE IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

The objective of this study was to determine the economic impact on the United States of removing tariff barriers on imports of concentrated orange juice and tomato paste from South America. The study highlighted an agglomeration model of industry location recognizing imperfect competition and increasing returns. The results were contrasted with those from a competitive model with conventional estimates of supply and demand elasticities. Because the assumptions of the models differed, the results also differed. The agglomeration model indicated that the United States would gain market share of production and processing with the removal of tariffs. In contrast, the competitive model indicated that the United States would lose market share in production and processing. According to the competitive model, US consumers would gain, producers would lose, and the government would lose from less tariff revenue, but the gains to consumers would offset losses elsewhere so that national income would rise. In South America, consumers would lose, producers would gain, and national incomes would rise. In the long run, countries would individually and collectively gain from freer trade in fruits and vegetables. Both models indicated that American production and processing of oranges and tomatoes would not be displaced by removing barriers to international trade.oranges, tomatoes, juice, paste, model, agglomeration, competitive, comparative advantage., Industrial Organization, International Relations/Trade,

Polygenic Risk Modelling for Prediction of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Risk

Funder: Funding details are provided in the Supplementary MaterialAbstractPolygenic risk scores (PRS) for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) have the potential to improve risk stratification. Joint estimation of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) effects in models could improve predictive performance over standard approaches of PRS construction. Here, we implemented computationally-efficient, penalized, logistic regression models (lasso, elastic net, stepwise) to individual level genotype data and a Bayesian framework with continuous shrinkage, “select and shrink for summary statistics” (S4), to summary level data for epithelial non-mucinous ovarian cancer risk prediction. We developed the models in a dataset consisting of 23,564 non-mucinous EOC cases and 40,138 controls participating in the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC) and validated the best models in three populations of different ancestries: prospective data from 198,101 women of European ancestry; 7,669 women of East Asian ancestry; 1,072 women of African ancestry, and in 18,915 BRCA1 and 12,337 BRCA2 pathogenic variant carriers of European ancestry. In the external validation data, the model with the strongest association for non-mucinous EOC risk derived from the OCAC model development data was the S4 model (27,240 SNPs) with odds ratios (OR) of 1.38(95%CI:1.28–1.48,AUC:0.588) per unit standard deviation, in women of European ancestry; 1.14(95%CI:1.08–1.19,AUC:0.538) in women of East Asian ancestry; 1.38(95%CI:1.21-1.58,AUC:0.593) in women of African ancestry; hazard ratios of 1.37(95%CI:1.30–1.44,AUC:0.592) in BRCA1 pathogenic variant carriers and 1.51(95%CI:1.36-1.67,AUC:0.624) in BRCA2 pathogenic variant carriers. Incorporation of the S4 PRS in risk prediction models for ovarian cancer may have clinical utility in ovarian cancer prevention programs.</jats:p

A CROSS-SECTION ANALYSIS OF THE INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN THE U.S. PROCESSED FOOD AND BEVERAGE SECTORS

This paper analyzes the determinants of variation across industries in levels of intra-industry trade (IIT) for a sample of thirty-six U.S. processed food and beverage industries in 1987, previous studies of intra-industry trade having focused on industry characteristics in the manufacturing sectors. The determinants predicted by IIT theory are measures of product differentiation, economies of scale, and imperfect competition; the results of this analysis indicate that IIT variation across the food and beverage industries is positively related to product differentiation, economies of scope, and similarity of tariff barriers among trade partners, but negatively related to industry concentration

A CROSS-SECTION ANALYSIS OF INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN THE U.S. PROCESSED FOOD AND BEVERAGE SECTORS

This paper analyzes the determinants of variation across industries in levels of intra-industry trade (IIT) for a sample of 36 U.S. processed food and beverage industries in 1987, previous studies of intra-industry trade having focused on industry characteristics in the manufacturing sectors. The determinants predicted by IIT theory are measures of product differentiation, economies of scale, and imperfect competition; the results of this analysis indicate that IIT variation across the food and beverage industries is positively related to product differentiation, U.S. total trade, similarity of tariff barriers among trade partners, and economies of scope, but negatively related to industry concentration

A Cross-Section Analysis of Multilateral Intra-Industry Trade in the U.S. Processed Food and Beverage Sectors

This paper analyzes the determinants of inter-industry variation in levels of multilateral intra-industry trade for a sample of thirty-six U.S. processed food and beverage industries in 1987, previous studies of intra-industry trade having focussed on industry characteristics in the manufacturing sectors. The results of the analysis indicate that IIT variation across these industries is positively related to U.S. total trade, similarity of tariff barriers, and economies of scope, but negatively related to industry concentration

LOCATION OF VERTICALLY LINKED INDUSTRIES UNDER FREE TRADE: CASE STUDIES OF ORANGE JUICE AND TOMATO PASTE IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

The objective of this study was to determine the economic impact on the United States of removing tariff barriers on imports of concentrated orange juice and tomato paste from South America. The study highlighted an agglomeration model of industry location recognizing imperfect competition and increasing returns. The results were contrasted with those from a competitive model with conventional estimates of supply and demand elasticities. Because the assumptions of the models differed, the results also differed. The agglomeration model indicated that the United States would gain market share of production and processing with the removal of tariffs. In contrast, the competitive model indicated that the United States would lose market share in production and processing. According to the competitive model, US consumers would gain, producers would lose, and the government would lose from less tariff revenue, but the gains to consumers would offset losses elsewhere so that national income would rise. In South America, consumers would lose, producers would gain, and national incomes would rise. In the long run, countries would individually and collectively gain from freer trade in fruits and vegetables. Both models indicated that American production and processing of oranges and tomatoes would not be displaced by removing barriers to international trade

A CROSS-SECTION ANALYSIS OF THE INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN THE U.S. PROCESSED FOOD AND BEVERAGE SECTORS

This paper analyzes the determinants of variation across industries in levels of intra-industry trade (IIT) for a sample of thirty-six U.S. processed food and beverage industries in 1987, previous studies of intra-industry trade having focused on industry characteristics in the manufacturing sectors. The determinants predicted by IIT theory are measures of product differentiation, economies of scale, and imperfect competition; the results of this analysis indicate that IIT variation across the food and beverage industries is positively related to product differentiation, economies of scope, and similarity of tariff barriers among trade partners, but negatively related to industry concentration.International Relations/Trade,

Marburgvirus Genomics and Association with a Large Hemorrhagic Fever Outbreak in Angola

In March 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) investigated a large hemorrhagic fever (HF) outbreak in Uige Province in northern Angola, West Africa. In total, 15 initial specimens were sent to CDC, Atlanta, Ga., for testing for viruses associated with viral HFs known to be present in West Africa, including ebolavirus. Marburgvirus was also included despite the fact that the origins of all earlier outbreaks were linked directly to East Africa. Surprisingly, marburgvirus was confirmed (12 of 15 specimens) as the cause of the outbreak. The outbreak likely began in October 2004 and ended in July 2005, and it included 252 cases and 227 (90%) fatalities (report from the Ministry of Health, Republic of Angola, 2005), making it the largest Marburg HF outbreak on record. A real-time quantitative reverse transcription-PCR assay utilized and adapted during the outbreak proved to be highly sensitive and sufficiently robust for field use. Partial marburgvirus RNA sequence analysis revealed up to 21% nucleotide divergence among the previously characterized East African strains, with the most distinct being Ravn from Kenya (1987). The Angolan strain was less different (∼7%) from the main group of East African marburgviruses than one might expect given the large geographic separation. To more precisely analyze the virus genetic differences between outbreaks and among viruses within the Angola outbreak itself, a total of 16 complete virus genomes were determined, including those of the virus isolates Ravn (Kenya, 1987) and 05DRC, 07DRC, and 09DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo, 1998) and the reference Angolan virus isolate (Ang1379v). In addition, complete genome sequences were obtained from RNAs extracted from 10 clinical specimens reflecting various stages of the disease and locations within the Angolan outbreak. While the marburgviruses exhibit high overall genetic diversity (up to 22%), only 6.8% nucleotide difference was found between the West African Angolan viruses and the majority of East African viruses, suggesting that the virus reservoir species in these regions are not substantially distinct. Remarkably few nucleotide differences were found among the Angolan clinical specimens (0 to 0.07%), consistent with an outbreak scenario in which a single (or rare) introduction of virus from the reservoir species into the human population was followed by person-to-person transmission with little accumulation of mutations. This is in contrast to the 1998 to 2000 marburgvirus outbreak, where evidence of several virus genetic lineages (with up to 21% divergence) and multiple virus introductions into the human population was found