Public Policies and the Demand for Carbonated Soft Drinks: A Censored Quantile Regression Approach

Heavy consumption of soda may contribute to obesity, strokes, and cardiac problems. From a health perspective, the distribution of the consumption is at least as important as the mean. Censored as well as ordinary quantile regression techniques were used to estimate the demand for sugary soda based on household data from 1989 to 1999. It was found that heavy drinkers are more price- and expenditure-responsive than are light drinkers. The study shows that increasing the taxes on carbonated soft drinks will lead to a small reduction in consumption for small and moderate consumers and a huge reduction for heavy consumers.soda demand, quantile regression, taxes, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, D12, I10,

Consumer Cohorts and Milk Purchases

Fluid milk is the most important product of Norwegian agriculture, and the decline in milk purchase has impact in many rural communities. By decomposing the milk purchase into cohort effects, age effects and year effects we show that the reason for the decline is that older generations purchase more milk than younger generations, and during lifetime consumption decline with age. Consequently, as younger generations replace older generations milk purchase decline. We show that towards 2021 the milk purchase will continue to fall.Milk, Purchases, Cohorts, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

FOR WHOM REDUCED PRICES COUNT: A CENSORED QUANTILE REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF VEGETABLE DEMAND

Low consumption of vegetables is linked to many diseases. From a health perspective, the distribution of consumption is at least as important as mean consumption. We investigated the differential effects of policy changes on high- and low-consuming households by using 15,700 observations from 1986 to 1997. Many households did not purchase vegetables during the two-week survey periods and censored as well as ordinary quantile regressions were estimated. Removal of the value added tax for vegetables, income increases, and health information are unlikely to substantially increase purchases in low-consuming households. Nevertheless, information provision is cheap and best targeted at low-consuming households.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

A survey of Massachusetts business teachers to determine the emphasis they are placing on the development of good character and personality traits in high school business students

Thesis (Ed. M.)--Boston University, 195

Adjusting VAT rates to promote healthier diets in Norway: A censored quantile regression approach

a b s t r a c t The effects of health-related taxes and subsidies on food and beverages have mainly been investigated using models that assume identical price responses among high-and low-consuming households. Diet-related health problems are, however, more likely among households with high intakes of unhealthy foods or low intakes of healthy foods than in households with average intakes. In this article, we focus on purchases of healthy and unhealthy foods among low-, median-, and high-purchasing households. The effects of an increase in the Norwegian value-added tax (VAT) on some unhealthy foods and a removal of the VAT on some healthy foods are investigated. Using censored quantile regressions, we reject equality of the own-price elasticities for eight of nine food and beverage groups. We find that a VAT increase is more effective in reducing purchases of unhealthy foods among high-purchasing households than a VAT removal is in increasing the purchases of healthy foods among low-purchasing households. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Norwegian obesity rates are on par with those of the other Nordic countries, and approximately 15-20% of Norwegians aged 40-45 are obese 1 Obesity leads to increased risk of diseases such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer (National Task Force on the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity, 2000). The costs associated with obesity have been estimated to be 0.5-1% of the gross domestic product (Departementene, 2007: 9), and most of those costs are paid publicly. These public costs may justify market interventions such as taxes on unhealthy foods and subsidies for healthy foods. 2 Food taxes and subsidies may also be motivated by people's self-control problems, as discussed by O'Donoghue and Rabin (2006). They argue that food taxes may help people who currently consume large quantities of food without considering the future health costs of such consumption. Furthermore, some studies suggest that certain foods that are high in sugar or fat content could be addictive for some people (e.g., 1 An adult with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9 is considered to be overweight; an adult with a BMI of 30 or higher is considered to be obese. 2 The average household is likely to over-consume nutrients such as sugar and fats. We refer to energy-dense food and beverage groups with little nutritional value as unhealthy foods. However, it should be noted that for households who consume small quantities of these foods, an increased intake is not considered to be unhealthy. Food Policy 42 (2013) 88-9

Optogenetics and deep brain stimulation neurotechnologies

Brain neural network is composed of densely packed, intricately wired neurons whose activity patterns ultimately give rise to every behavior, thought, or emotion that we experience. Over the past decade, a novel neurotechnique, optogenetics that combines light and genetic methods to control or monitor neural activity patterns, has proven to be revolutionary in understanding the functional role of specific neural circuits. We here briefly describe recent advance in optogenetics and compare optogenetics with deep brain stimulation technology that holds the promise for treating many neurological and psychiatric disorders

A versatile targeting system with lentiviral vectors bearing the biotin-adaptor peptide

Background: Targeted gene transduction in vivo is the ultimate preferred method for gene delivery. We previously developed targeting lentiviral vectors that specifically recognize cell surface molecules with conjugated antibodies and mediate targeted gene transduction both in vitro and in vivo. Although effective in some experimental settings, the conjugation of virus with antibodies is mediated by the interaction between protein A and the Fc region of antibodies, which is not as stable as covalent conjugation. We have now developed a more stable conjugation strategy utilizing the interaction between avidin and biotin. Methods: We inserted the biotin-adaptor-peptide, which was biotinylated by secretory biotin ligase at specific sites, into our targeting envelope proteins, enabling conjugation of the pseudotyped virus with avidin, streptavidin or neutravidin. Results: When conjugated with avidin-antibody fusion proteins or the complex of avidin and biotinylated targeting molecules, the vectors could mediate specific transduction to targeted cells recognized by the targeting molecules. When conjugated with streptavidin-coated magnetic beads, transduction by the vectors was targeted to the locations of magnets. Conclusions: This targeting vector system can be used for broad applications of targeted gene transduction using biotinylated targeting molecules or targeting molecules fused with avidin.Fil: Morizono, Kouki. University of California at Los Angeles. School of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Xie, Yiming. University of California at Los Angeles. School of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Helguera, Gustavo Fernando. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Daniels, Tracy R.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Lane T. F.. University of California at Los Angeles. School of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Penichet, Manuel L.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados Unidos. University of California at Los Angeles. School of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Chen, Irvin S.Y.. University of California at Los Angeles. School of Medicine; Estados Unido

Ultra scale-down approaches to study the centrifugal harvest for viral vaccine production

Large scale continuous cell‐line cultures promise greater reproducibility and efficacy for the production of influenza vaccines, and adenovirus for gene therapy. This paper seeks to use an existing validated ultra scale‐down tool, which is designed to mimic the commercial scale process environment using only milliliters of material, to provide some initial insight into the performance of the harvest step for these processes. The performance of industrial scale centrifugation and subsequent downstream process units is significantly affected by shear. The properties of these cells, in particular their shear sensitivity, may be changed considerably by production of a viral product, but literature on this is limited to date. In addition, the scale‐down tool used here has not previously been applied to the clarification of virus production processes. The results indicate that virus infected cells do not actually show any increase in sensitivity to shear, and may indeed become less shear sensitive, in a similar manner to that previously observed in old or dead cell cultures. Clarification may be most significantly dependent on the virus release mechanism, with the budding influenza virus producing a much greater decrease in clarification than the lytic, non‐enveloped adenovirus. A good match was also demonstrated to the industrial scale performance in terms of clarification, protein release, and impurity profile.UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, EPSRC. Grant Number: EP/G034656/1Published versio

Anticancer Gene Transfer for Cancer Gene Therapy

Gene therapy vectors are among the treatments currently used to treat malignant tumors. Gene therapy vectors use a specific therapeutic transgene that causes death in cancer cells. In early attempts at gene therapy, therapeutic transgenes were driven by non-specific vectors which induced toxicity to normal cells in addition to the cancer cells. Recently, novel cancer specific viral vectors have been developed that target cancer cells leaving normal cells unharmed. Here we review such cancer specific gene therapy systems currently used in the treatment of cancer and discuss the major challenges and future directions in this field