Individual attitudes towards trade: Stolper-Samuelson revisited

This paper studies to what extent individuals form their preferences towards trade policies along the lines of the Stolper-Samuelson logic. We employ a novel international survey data set with an extensive coverage of high-, middle-, and low-income countries, address a subtle methodological shortcoming in previous studies and condition on aspects of individualenlightenment. We find statistically significant and economically large Stolper-Samuelson effects. In the United States, being high-skilled increases an individual's probability of favoring free trade by up to twelve percentage points, other things equal. In Ethiopia, the effect amounts to eight percentage points, but in exactly the opposite direction. --Trade policy,Voter preferences,Political economy

Revised Pacific-Antarctic plate motions and geophysics of the Menard Fracture Zone

A reconnaissance survey of multibeam bathymetry and magnetic anomaly data of the Menard Fracture Zone allows for significant refinement of plate motion history of the South Pacific over the last 44 million years. The right-stepping Menard Fracture Zone developed at the northern end of the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge within a propagating rift system that generated the Hudson microplate and formed the conjugate Henry and Hudson Troughs as a response to a major plate reorganization ∼45 million years ago. Two splays, originally about 30 to 35 km apart, narrowed gradually to a corridor of 5 to 10 km width, while lineation azimuths experienced an 8° counterclockwise reorientation owing to changes in spreading direction between chrons C13o and C6C (33 to 24 million years ago). We use the improved Pacific-Antarctic plate motions to analyze the development of the southwest end of the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge. Owing to a 45° counterclockwise reorientation between chrons C27 and C20 (61 to 44 million years ago) this section of the ridge became a long transform fault connected to the Macquarie Triple Junction. Following a clockwise change starting around chron C13o (33 million years ago), the transform fault opened. A counterclockwise change starting around chron C10y (28 millions years ago) again led to a long transform fault between chrons C6C and C5y (24 to 10 million years ago). A second period of clockwise reorientation starting around chron C5y (10 million years ago) put the transform fault into extension, forming an array of 15 en echelon transform faults and short linking spreading centers

Weight change and quality of life in a community-based population

*Objectives:* This study investigates the longitudinal association between 5-year weight change and quality of life (QoL) in Dutch men and women.

*Design:* A prospective cohort study (1998, 2000, 2003) in a population based sample. Subjects: 2,414 men and women from the Maastricht region of the Netherlands.

*Measurements:* QoL outcomes were measured by the RAND-36 (eight subscales and two overall composite scores, physical and mental health (PCS and MCS)). Weight was measured on a scale. Weight change was calculated as change in weight between 1998 and 2003. In addition, 5-year weight change was also categorized in three groups: weight losers, weight maintainers, and weight gainers. All analyses were stratified for gender.

*Results:* A total of 598 men (50%) and 646 women (54%) maintained their weight, 177 men (15%) and 163 women (14%) lost more than 2.5 kg, and 410 men (35%) and 379 women (32%) gained more than 2.5 kg. Associations between 5-year weight change and QoL were found for MCS ([beta] = 0.13, 95% CI: 0.02|0.24) in women, and PCS ([beta] = -0.09, 95% CI: -0.17|-0.00; [beta] = -0.10, 95% CI: -0.19|-0.01) in men and women respectively. Moreover, associations between weight change and QoL were most pronounced for women of normal weight and obese men. Furthermore, in both genders, weight gainers showed a greater reduction on all physical components of QoL compared with weight maintainers. However, after 5-years weight gainers and weight losers did not significantly differ from weight maintainers in the mean change of MCS and PCS.

*Conclusion:* Weight gain was inversely associated with the physical domains of QoL in women and obese men. Conversely, in women, weight gain was positively associated with the mental domains of QoL. No differences between weight losers and weight gainers were found in mean change of QoL compared with weight maintainers

On the Ground Validation of Online Diagnosis with Twitter and Medical Records

Social media has been considered as a data source for tracking disease. However, most analyses are based on models that prioritize strong correlation with population-level disease rates over determining whether or not specific individual users are actually sick. Taking a different approach, we develop a novel system for social-media based disease detection at the individual level using a sample of professionally diagnosed individuals. Specifically, we develop a system for making an accurate influenza diagnosis based on an individual's publicly available Twitter data. We find that about half (17/35 = 48.57%) of the users in our sample that were sick explicitly discuss their disease on Twitter. By developing a meta classifier that combines text analysis, anomaly detection, and social network analysis, we are able to diagnose an individual with greater than 99% accuracy even if she does not discuss her health.Comment: Presented at of WWW2014. WWW'14 Companion, April 7-11, 2014, Seoul, Kore

On the Ground Validation of Online Diagnosis with Twitter and Medical Records

Social media has been considered as a data source for tracking disease. However, most analyses are based on models that prioritize strong correlation with population-level disease rates over determining whether or not specific individual users are actually sick. Taking a different approach, we develop a novel system for social-media based disease detection at the individual level using a sample of professionally diagnosed individuals. Specifically, we develop a system for making an accurate influenza diagnosis based on an individual's publicly available Twitter data. We find that about half (17/35 = 48.57%) of the users in our sample that were sick explicitly discuss their disease on Twitter. By developing a meta classifier that combines text analysis, anomaly detection, and social network analysis, we are able to diagnose an individual with greater than 99% accuracy even if she does not discuss her health.Comment: Presented at of WWW2014. WWW'14 Companion, April 7-11, 2014, Seoul, Kore