Genetically Modified Organisms and Liability: What are the Issues?

This paper examines the main economic issues surrounding liability for genetically modified organisms with focus on the New Zealand situation and liability debate and in particular the interaction between liability and regulation

Genetically Modified Organisms and Liability: What are the Issues?

This paper examines the main economic issues surrounding liability for genetically modified organisms with focus on the New Zealand situation and liability debate and in particular the interaction between liability and regulation

International Externalities in Pandemic Influenza Mitigation

A serious influenza pandemic could be devastating for the world. Ideally, such a pandemic could be contained, but this may be infeasible. One promising method for pandemic mitigation is to treat infectious individuals with antiviral pharmaceuticals. While most of the benefits from treatment accrue to the country in which treatment occurs, there are some positive spillovers: when one country treats more of its population this both reduces the attack rate in the other country and increases the marginal benefit from additional treatment in the other country. These externalities and complementarities may mean that self-interested rich countries should optimally pay for some AV treatment in poor countries. This dissertation demonstrates the presence of antiviral treatment externalities in simple epidemiological SIR models, and then in a descriptively realistic Global Epidemiological Model (GEM). This GEM simulates pandemic spread between cities through the international airline network, and between cities and rural areas through ground transport. Under the base case assumptions of moderate transmissibility of the flu, the distribution of antiviral stockpiles from rich countries to poor and lower middle income countries may indeed pay for itself: providing a stockpile equal to 1% of the population of poor countries will reduce cases in rich countries after 1 year by about 6.13 million cases at a cost of 4.62 doses per rich-country case avoided. Concentrating doses on the outbreak country is, however, even more cost-effective: in the base case it reduces the number of influenza cases by 4.76 million cases, at the cost of roughly 1.92 doses per case avoided. These results depend on the transmissibility of the flu strain, the efficacy of antivirals in reducing infection and on the proportion of infectious who can realistically be identified and treated

Policy Response to Pandemic Influenza: The Value of Collective Action

This paper examines positive externalities and complementarities between countries in the use of antiviral pharmaceuticals to mitigate pandemic influenza. It demonstrates the presence of treatment externalities in simple SIR (susceptible-infectious-recovered) models and simulations of a Global Epidemiological Model. In these simulations, the pandemic spreads from city to city through the international airline network and from cities to rural areas through ground transport. While most treatment benefits are private, spillovers suggest that it is in the self-interest of high-income countries to pay for some antiviral treatment in low-income countries. The most cost-effective policy is to donate doses to the country where the outbreak originates; however, donating doses to low-income countries in proportion to their populations may also be cost-effective. These results depend on the transmissibility of the flu strain, its start date, the efficacy of antivirals in reducing transmissibility, and the proportion of infectious people who can be identified and treated.pandemic influenza, disease control externalities

A question of trust: can we build an evidence base to gain trust in systematic review automation technologies?

Background Although many aspects of systematic reviews use computational tools, systematic reviewers have been reluctant to adopt machine learning tools. Discussion We discuss that the potential reason for the slow adoption of machine learning tools into systematic reviews is multifactorial. We focus on the current absence of trust in automation and set-up challenges as major barriers to adoption. It is important that reviews produced using automation tools are considered non-inferior or superior to current practice. However, this standard will likely not be sufficient to lead to widespread adoption. As with many technologies, it is important that reviewers see “others” in the review community using automation tools. Adoption will also be slow if the automation tools are not compatible with workflows and tasks currently used to produce reviews. Many automation tools being developed for systematic reviews mimic classification problems. Therefore, the evidence that these automation tools are non-inferior or superior can be presented using methods similar to diagnostic test evaluations, i.e., precision and recall compared to a human reviewer. However, the assessment of automation tools does present unique challenges for investigators and systematic reviewers, including the need to clarify which metrics are of interest to the systematic review community and the unique documentation challenges for reproducible software experiments. Conclusion We discuss adoption barriers with the goal of providing tool developers with guidance as to how to design and report such evaluations and for end users to assess their validity. Further, we discuss approaches to formatting and announcing publicly available datasets suitable for assessment of automation technologies and tools. Making these resources available will increase trust that tools are non-inferior or superior to current practice. Finally, we identify that, even with evidence that automation tools are non-inferior or superior to current practice, substantial set-up challenges remain for main stream integration of automation into the systematic review process

The prevalence and distribution of high salaries in English and Welsh charities

There has recently been public discussion of the rewards available to senior staff in English and Welsh charities. However, that discussion is usually based on examples of individual salaries, or on unrepresentative and small subsets of the charity population. To provide a robust and informed basis for debate, we have conducted analyses of evidence on the payment of high salaries (defined as the numbers of people paid above £60 000 p.a., a reporting threshold used by the Charity Commission) in (a) a representative sample of c.10 000 English and Welsh charities, and (b) surveys of individuals regarding comparative salary levels in different sectors of the economy. Overall, survey data shows that the proportion of staff in receipt of high salaries is lower than average in the third sector than in other sectors. Information from charity annual accounts is used to demonstrate which charities are more likely than others to pay such salaries, and to relate the likelihood of paying high salaries to charity characteristics (income, location, and subsector). We show that the distribution of high pay in the charitable sector is largely a function of the size and complexity of organisations, and is generally unrelated to subsector or income mix

The Diet of the Cumberland Plateau Salamander (Plethodon kentucki) in an old growth forest of southeastern Kentucky

Examining the diet of salamanders is important for understanding their effects on invertebrate communities and the interactions among sympatric salamander species. We examined the diet of the Cumberland Plateau Salamander, Plethodon kentucki (Mittleman), in an old growth forest in southeastern Kentucky. A total of 763 prey items were recovered from 73 salamanders with an average of 10.75 prey items per stomach. The four most important prey groups were Formicidae (ants), Araneae (spiders), Coleoptera (beetles), and Collembola (springtails). Overall, we found a total of 58 different prey types in the stomach contents from 20 invertebrate orders. This study represents one of the few successful uses of nonlethal gastric lavage methods on a large plethodontid salamander and the first description of P. kentucki diet identified to family and genus. Future work should examine diet throughout the year, compare prey species composition to sympatric salamander species, and look at local prey abundances and diversity to explore salamander foraging behavior

The Diet of the Cumberland Plateau Salamander (Plethodon kentucki) in an old growth forest of southeastern Kentucky

Terrestrial lungless salamanders are known to reach very high densities in forested ecosystems of the United States. They can be important for the top down regulation of invertebrates Diets of 57% (31 of 54) Plethodonsalamanders are still poorly known The Cumberland Plateau Salamander (Plethodon kentucki) is a large plethodontid common in the Central Appalachians, however, its diet is only known from West Virginia DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18118.4768

Improving Productivity through Strategic Alignment of Competitive Capabilities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the productivity performance at the firm level from the perspective of manufacturing capability development at the process level. Moreover, it reveals how alignment of manufacturing capabilities with market requirements has influenced a firm’s productivity over a period that includes the 2008 global recession. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual framework was derived from established theories and employed as part of a case study design encompassing a multiple methods research approach. The case of a UK SME was selected to reflect some of the issues associated with the wider productivity stagnation experienced by the UK economy in recent years. Findings The firm’s manufacturing strategy had become incrementally misaligned with market requirements due to external changes in its business environment. The complex relationships between capabilities such as quality, speed and cost were characterised. Realigning the firm’s manufacturing strategy to regain productivity performance required a range of prioritised actions including capital investment and changes in management practices concerning bottom-up process improvement and regular, top-down strategy review. Research limitations/implications The findings of the case study cannot be generalised and the outcomes are specific to just one firm. However, the approach lends itself to replication, particularly within SMEs. Originality/value Prior studies have focussed on capability development at higher levels of abstraction. The study operationalized established theoretical perspectives at the firm level to derive context-based outcomes that can be used to improve manufacturing strategy alignment and productivity. Furthermore, the study contributes empirical evidence from the SME sector to the ongoing debate regarding the UK’s productivity puzzle