An Optimal Control Framework to Address the Relationship between Water Resource Management and Water-Borne Health Impacts: Focus on the Texas Lower Rio Grande Valley

The objective of this study is develop a theoretical model that can evaluate two types of public health expenditures on water-borne health risks: water-related municipal services, an ex ante preventative measure against water-borne contamination, and medical treatment, an ex post treatment of the water-borne pollutant’s harmful effects on human health. The modeled community can allocate resources in either centralized-municipal water-services, point-of-use water-services, or medical intervention, with expenditures subject to a budget constraint. The movement of a water-borne illness through the community is modeled with a susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) disease framework. An optimization framework is developed, including a statement of the problem’s Hamiltonian and first-order-conditions. The first-order-conditions are discussed. Future work includes obtaining a numerical solution to the optimization problem.water, public health, rural development, dynamic optimization, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

An Adversarial Dance: Toward an Understanding of Insiders’ Responses to Organizational Information Security Measures

Despite the increased focus on organizational security policies and programs, some employees continue to engage in maladaptive responses to security measures (i.e., behaviors other than those recommended, intended, or prescribed). To help shed light on insiders’ adaptive and maladaptive responses to IS security measures, we conducted a case study of an organization at the forefront of security policy initiatives. Drawing on the beliefs-actions-outcomes (BAO) model to analyze our case data, we uncover a potentially nonvirtuous cycle consisting of security-related beliefs, actions, and outcomes, which we refer to as an “adversarial dance.” Explaining our results, we describe a novel belief framework that identifies four security belief profiles and uncovers an underexplored outcome of IS security: insiders’ lived security experiences. We find that individuals’ unfavorable lived security experiences produce counterproductive security-related beliefs that, in turn, lead to maladaptive behaviors. Maladaptive behaviors create new potential for security risk, leading to increased organizational security measures to counter them. Thus, the adversarial dance continues, as the new security measures have the potential to reinforce counterproductive security-related beliefs about the importance and risk of IS security and lead to new maladaptive behaviors. To help situate our findings within the current security literature, we integrate the results with prior research based on extant theories. While this paper is not the first to suggest that security measures can elicit maladaptive behaviors, the emergent belief framework and expanded BAO model of IS security constitute an important contribution to the behavioral IS security literature

Seawater Desalination for Municipal Water Production

This paper examines the optimal allocation of several inputs in the context of seawater desalination by reverse osmosis (RO) as a source of municipal (or commercial or industrial) water. A cost-minimization model is developed, a production function is estimated, and sensitivity analyses are conducted using the optimization model to investigate the effect of environmental conditions and economic factors on the optimal input portfolio and the cost of operating a modeled seawater desalination facility. The objectives of this paper are to better understand the effect on the seawater desalination facility’s costs and input portfolio from changes in water quality, membrane lifespan, daily operations schedule, and energy prices. Findings include that lower total facility costs are associated with warm-weather water quality parameters, longer membrane life, and mid-range daily operations schedule (14.265 hours/day). Under most conditions, an interruptible power supply regime reduces facility costs. Exceptions include when the interruptible power supply regime implies significant reductions in operating hours and the associated reduction in energy price is very small.water, production, seawater desalination, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

The Added Complications of Climate Change: Understanding and Managing Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Ecosystem Services Under Multiple Stressors.

Ecosystems around the world are already threatened by land-use and land-cover change, extraction of natural resources, biological disturbances, and pollution. These environmental stressors have been the primary source of ecosystem degradation to date, and climate change is now exacerbating some of their effects. Ecosystems already under stress are likely to have more rapid and acute reactions to climate change; it is therefore useful to understand how multiple stresses will interact, especially as the magnitude of climate change increases. Understanding these interactions could be critically important in the design of climate adaptation strategies, especially because actions taken by other sectors (eg energy, agriculture, transportation) to address climate change may create new ecosystem stresses

Development and therapeutic manipulation of the head and neck cancer tumor environment to improve clinical outcomes

The clinical response to cancer therapies involves the complex interplay between the systemic, tumoral, and stromal immune response as well as the direct impact of treatments on cancer cells. Each individual's immunological and cancer histories are different, and their carcinogen exposures may differ. This means that even though two patients with oral tumors may carry an identical mutation in TP53, they are likely to have different pre-existing immune responses to their tumors. These differences may arise due to their distinct accessory mutations, genetic backgrounds, and may relate to clinical factors including previous chemotherapy exposure and concurrent medical comorbidities. In isolation, their cancer cells may respond similarly to cancer therapy, but due to their baseline variability in pre-existing immune responses, patients can have different responses to identical therapies. In this review we discuss how the immune environment of tumors develops, the critical immune cell populations in advanced cancers, and how immune interventions can manipulate the immune environment of patients with pre-malignancies or advanced cancers to improve therapeutic outcomes

Prioritization of HCV treatment in the direct-acting antiviral era: an economic evaluation

BACKGROUND & AIMS: We determined the optimal HCV treatment prioritization strategy for interferon-free (IFN-free) HCV direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) by disease stage and risk status incorporating treatment of people who inject drugs (PWID). METHODS: A dynamic HCV transmission and progression model compared the cost-effectiveness of treating patients early vs. delaying until cirrhosis for patients with mild or moderate fibrosis, where PWID chronic HCV prevalence was 20, 40 or 60%. Treatment duration was 12weeks at £3300/wk, to achieve a 95% sustained viral response and was varied by genotype/stage in alternative scenarios. We estimated long-term health costs (in £UK=€1.3=$1.5) and outcomes as quality adjusted life-years (QALYs) gained using a £20,000 willingness to pay per QALY threshold. We ranked strategies with net monetary benefit (NMB); negative NMB implies delay treatment. RESULTS: The most cost-effective group to treat were PWID with moderate fibrosis (mean NMB per early treatment £60,640/£23,968 at 20/40% chronic prevalence, respectively), followed by PWID with mild fibrosis (NMB £59,258 and £19,421, respectively) then ex-PWID/non-PWID with moderate fibrosis (NMB £9,404). Treatment of ex-PWID/non-PWID with mild fibrosis could be delayed (NMB -£3,650). In populations with 60% chronic HCV among PWID it was only cost-effective to prioritize DAAs to ex-PWID/non-PWID with moderate fibrosis. For every one PWID in the 20% chronic HCV setting, 2 new HCV infections were averted. One extra HCV-related death was averted per 13 people with moderate disease treated. Rankings were unchanged with reduced drug costs or varied sustained virological response/duration by genotype/fibrosis stage. CONCLUSIONS: Treating PWID with moderate or mild HCV with IFN-free DAAs is cost-effective compared to delay until cirrhosis, except when chronic HCV prevalence and reinfection risk is very high

Emotions in business-to-business service relationships

Emotion in business-to-business service relationships regarding cargo services is explored. The service relationship is characterised by mutual trust and cooperation. Contact is mainly via telephone or e-mail with some face-to-face interactions and participants providing a complex, multi-skilled seamless service. Experience rather than training plays a vital role with long-term service relationships built up and maintained. Emotional sensitivity is acquired partly by experience and a repeat customer base but mainly through a genuine desire to help and get to know others. In contrast to the view of emotional labour bringing managerial control or adverse affects to service staff, the emotion engendered by this work is authentic expression bringing personal satisfaction

Pay progression in routinised service sector work: navigating the internal labour market in a fast food multinational company

The United Kingdom's widespread use of low‐skill, low‐paid employment has been well documented. It has been argued internal labour markets (ILMs) benefit such workers, affording them with opportunities for progression. Relatively little is known, however, about the impact of ILMs on entry level workers undertaking routinised service sector work. Drawing on qualitative data, this article explores the prospects on offer in a market leading, fast food multinational company. Potential enabling features include on‐the‐job training, a transparent and integrated pay structure and a professed culture of progression. Occupational movements to positions above the low‐pay threshold are, however, relatively rare. We conjecture this contradiction is the result of the business context in which the firm operates. The findings suggest that in sectors where price leadership strategies dominate, escape from low pay is likely to be exceptional, even within large organisations featuring some of the classic characteristics of ‘pure’ or strong ILMs

STING expression and response to treatment with STING ligands in premalignant and malignant disease.

Human papilloma virus positive (HPV+) tumors represent a large proportion of anal, vulvar, vaginal, cervical and head and neck squamous carcinomas (HNSCC) and late stage invasive disease is thought to originate from a premalignant state. Cyclic dinucleotides that activate STimulator of INterferon Genes (STING) have been shown to cause rapid regression of a range of advanced tumors. We aimed to investigate STING ligands as a novel treatment for papilloma. We tested therapies in a spontaneous mouse model of papilloma of the face and anogenital region that histologically resembles human HPV-associated papilloma. We demonstrate that STING ligands cause rapid regression of papilloma, associated with T cell infiltration, and are significantly more effective than Imiquimod, a current immunotherapy for papilloma. In humans, we show that STING is expressed in the basal layer of normal skin and lost during keratinocyte differentiation. We found STING was expressed in all HPV-associated cervical and anal dysplasia and was strongly expressed in the cancer cells of HPV+ HNSCC but not in HPV-unrelated HNSCC. We found no strong association between STING expression and progressive disease in non-HPV oral dysplasia and oral pre-malignancies that are not HPV-related. These data demonstrate that STING is expressed in basal cells of the skin and is retained in HPV+ pre-malignancies and advanced cancers, but not in HPV-unrelated HNSCC. However, using a murine HNSCC model that does not express STING, we demonstrate that STING ligands are an effective therapy regardless of expression of STING by the cancer cells