The measurement of farmers' risk attitudes using a non-structural approach

This study estimates farmers' risk attitudes in Missouri using a non-structural approach over time. The non-structural approach proposed by Antle (1989) allows for multiple outputs and various types of risk faced by farmers and doesn't require specific functional forms for utility or production. This approach can also provide farmers' risk attitudes over time. The results show that farmers' risk attitudes are risk loving and change over time, while farmers' risk attitude is generally assumed to be risk averse and very stable over time. Since this approach has the different definition of risk attitude, the results of this study may be a bit different from previous studies.risk attitude, risk preference, nonstructural approach, structural approach, Agribusiness, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Farm Management,

Lifting Vendor Loyalty Through Trust: Testing the Chutes and Ladders Metaphor

Trust in technology is a nascent but growing Information Systems research domain. This paper applies and tests both trust theory and loyalty theory to trust in technology. Researchers show that trust builds loyal relationships over time. Even though trust is a known key loyalty antecedent, few have followed trust’s effects on loyalty over time or how trust develops and changes over time. This paper investigates the relationship between trust in technology and loyalty to the technology vendor at time 0 and time 8. Then it tests Lewicki and Bunker’s “chutes and ladders” metaphor of trust change, which we apply to trust in technology. We find trust is related to loyalty, but that this relationship changes over time. We also provide empirical evidence consistent with the chutes and ladders theory. We finds trust change occurs more frequently when users are new to a technology versus experienced with it

Primary Candida guilliermondii Infection of the Knee in a Patient without Predisposing Factors

Isolated primary candidal infection of joint is extremely rare, with only a few reported cases. It occurs as a result of accidental implantations of fungus during traumatic procedures, such as surgery, and is usually reported in patients with predisposing factors such as immunosuppression, malignancy, and drug abuse. If left untreated, irreversible deformity and pain with severe osteoarticular destruction occur. Thus, early diagnosis and treatment are important. This paper presents a case of 72-year-old man with primary C. guilliermondii infection of knee joint without predisposing factors and previous traumatic procedures, who was misdiagnosed with advanced degenerative osteoarthritis. Our case is the second case of primary C. guilliermondii arthritis of knee to be reported in the English-language literature and the first to be successfully treated with total knee arthroplasty following IV amphotericin B and oral fluconazole. Primary candidal infection of joint is generally asymptomatic or involves only mild pain and swelling in the affected knee. Thus, although the majority of knee joint infections are of a pyogenic or tuberculous origin, if a patient complains of mild pain and swelling in the knee and has mild signs of infection, the possibility of fungal infection should be considered

Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives for Flexible Display Applications

Pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSA) have been used in electronics for not only attachment of two materials but also shock absorption, thermal and electrical conductivity, electromagnetic shielding, and optical property. Optically clear adhesives (OCA) have been used as a core material for optical performance of display. In addition to basic properties of OCA such as adhesion strength, transmittance, haze, and reliability, it has required dielectric constant, gap filling, and anticorrosion according to a substrate. However, the structural and functional changes of flexible display bring challenges to OCA that protects vulnerable components such as thin-film transistor, OLED, and thin-film encapsulation by stress dispersion and adjustment of a neutral plane. At the same time, flexibility and existing properties are essential. In this chapter, the development of components and performance of OCA, and evaluation methods will be discussed

Acupuncture in sham device controlled trials may not be as effective as acupuncture in the real world: a preliminary network meta-analysis of studies of acupuncture for hot flashes in menopausal women

Background: Randomised controlled trials of acupuncture performed using sham interventions to control for the placebo effect have mostly used two types of sham techniques: techniques with minimal insertion of acupuncture needles with no additional stimulation (shallow needling control) and techniques with sham acupuncture devices that do not penetrate the skin (sham device control). To achieve successful blinding, sham device controlled acupuncture trials also use the acupuncture base unit in the verum acupuncture group, but in the shallow needling control trials this is not necessary for the verum acupuncture treatment. Objective: In this study, we analysed the estimated comparative effectiveness of these two verum acupuncture modalities in studies of acupuncture for menopausal hot flashes that used two types of sham control treatments. Methods: We conducted a network meta-analysis that included randomised controlled trials of acupuncture for hot flashes. Electronic databases, including Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library and AMED, were searched through March 2017. Data were extracted using a predefined data extraction tool by two independent reviewers. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool for randomised controlled trials. A five-node network meta-analysis was conducted based on the frequentist framework. Results: Eight studies were included in this review. From the network meta-analysis, we found that verum acupuncture in the shallow needling controlled trials was more effective than verum acupuncture in the sham device controlled trials (SMD −7.27, 95% CI−9.11 to −5.43). Significant heterogeneity and inconsistency were not observed among the included studies or the comparisons. Conclusions: From this preliminary analysis, we found that different types of verum acupuncture may have different effect sizes with respect to the severity of menopausal hot flashes.publishedVersio

Concurrence of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Bilateral Parotitis after Minocycline Therapy

Minocycline is an antibiotic of tetracycline derivatives that is commonly used in the treatment of moderate to severe acne vulgaris. It has been reported to cause rare adverse events from mild cutaneous eruption to severe forms including drug-induced lupus, serum sickness-like reaction, and hypersensitivity reactions, etc. The risks of adverse events attributed to minocycline have not been ascertained reliably and there are concerns about the safety of minocycline which could possibly result in life-threatening events such as the Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Here we demonstrate an unusual case of Stevens-Johnson syndrome in conjunction with bilateral parotitis after the intake of minocycline in a Korean boy suggesting discreet use of the drug

Plausible Mechanism of Sham Acupuncture Based on Biomarkers: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials

Introduction: Sham acupuncture was developed to be used as an inert control intervention in clinical trials of acupuncture. However, controversies exist regarding the validity of sham acupuncture. In this systematic review (SR) of acupuncture trials, we assessed whether serum biomarkers showed significant differences after sham and verum acupuncture treatments. Methods: Any acupuncture clinical trials that evaluated serum biomarker changes between sham acupuncture and verum acupuncture were included in this review. Relevant literature was searched in the PubMed database, EMBASE, and The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) database from inception until June 2021. The Cochrane risk of bias was assessed. Summary effect estimates for each biomarker between groups were calculated with a random effect model. Results: From 51 sham acupuncture trials, we found that there were no significant differences in most of the 36 serum biomarkers after sham acupuncture and verum acupuncture needling. Only VEGF, IG-E, TNF-a, NGF, GABA, NPY, and VIP serum levels were identified as being different between the groups. The overall risk of bias of the included studies and the limited numbers of studies for meta-analysis do not strongly support the results of this SR. Conclusion: Sham acupuncture techniques might have similar effects on biomarkers as the so-called “real acupuncture” techniques, which indicates that sham acupuncture, as an inert intervention similar to a placebo drug, needs to be reconsidered. Systematic Review PROSPERO Registration: identifier [CRD42021260889].publishedVersio