Actual Media Reports on GM Foods and Chinese Consumers' Willingness to Pay for GM Soybean Oil

Information has been proven to have significant impacts on consumers' behavior and willingness to pay (WTP). In this study, information on GM soybean oil is given in the form of real-life cases involving GM food. These cases recorded from actual media reports. Using a hybrid of the double-bounded and payment care elicitation approaches, Chinese consumers' WTP for soybean oil is examined both before and after these cases are presented to them. Results indicate that media reports on positive cases do not increase consumers' WTP significantly, while reports on negative cases drastically lower their WTP.Chinese consumers, double-bounded, soybean oil, willingness to pay, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis,

BSE and the Dynamics of Beef Consumption: Influences of Habit and Trust

This study relates habit persistence and trust to recurring food safety incidents in the context of a series of three BSE incidents in Canada. We examined the dynamics of monthly beef expenditure shares of a sample of Canadian households for monthly time periods during year 2002 through 2005 using micro level panel data which followed meat expenditures by Canadian households before and after the first three BSE cases which were discovered in 2003 and 2005. Our results suggest that households’ reactions to the first three BSE events followed a similar general pattern: households reduced beef purchase expenditures following the discovery of BSE but these expenditures subsequently recovered, suggesting that concern diminished over time. Following the first BSE event, we identified an immediate negative impact on beef expenditures. However, in the case of the second and third BSE events, this negative impact was not evident until two months after these BSE announcements. In each of the three cases, the negative impact of BSE on beef purchase expenditures was limited to no more than four months. Assessment of how habit persistence affected beef expenditures indicates that this influence limited households reductions of beef purchases following the BSE events, but the effects of habit diminished subsequent to the initial event. Regarding the role of trust in shaping households’ reactions to BSE, we found that households’ respondents whose answers to standardized questions suggest that they are not “trusting” individuals were more sensitive to the food risks identified by the BSE events.BSE, habit, and trust, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Influence of generalized trust on Canadian consumers’ reactions to the perceived food risk of three recurring BSE cases

Interest in the influence of trust on consumers’ responses to food risk perceptions associated with Canadian instances of BSE motivates this study, in which Canadian households’ expenditures on fresh meat are assessed in the context of the first three recurring risk events in which bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was found to have affected Canadian cows. Engel Curve analysis focusing on the dynamics of the monthly meat expenditure shares for a selected sample of 437 Canadian households for 2002 through 2005 is applied based on data on household expenditures for meat purchased by a national sample of Canadian households from the Nielsen Homescan® Canadian panel, supplemented by survey responses on BSE risk perceptions and measures of trust. Two sets of models are estimated: Engel curves in differences with instruments in levels and Engel curves in levels with instruments in differences. It is found that habit persistence limited households’ reductions of beef purchases following the first BSE event and that that trust limited households’ reduction in beef expenditure shares following the subsequent two BSE cases. Significant seasonal effects and a significant negative influence on beef expenditure shares are also found, consistent with the trend of declining consumption of beef in Canada since the late 1990s.BSE, Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), trust, Consumer/Household Economics, D12, C29,

THE INFLUENCE OF ATTRIBUTE CUTOFFS ON CONSUMERS’ CHOICES OF A FUNCTIONAL FOOD

This study investigates evidence of non-compensatory preferences by incorporating attribute cutoffs into the modeling of consumer choices in the context of food with health-related attributes (omega-3 content) that may be associated with fortification or may result from genetic modification (GM). Data for this study were collected through a nation-wide internet-based survey drawn from a representative panel of Canadian households maintained by a major North American marketing firm. In addition to querying respondents on their perceptions and attitudes regarding food and health, choices of canola oils are elicited using a stated choice experiment in which product alternatives are identified based on attributes of price, country of origin, omega-3 content and GM/non-GM derivation. Consumers’ choices for functional canola oil products are examined in three steps. Initially, a conditional logit (CL) model is estimated assuming that no cutoffs apply in decisions on canola oil choices. Respondent’s self-reported cutoffs are then incorporated into the CL model and a random parameters logit (RPL) model, applying a utility model which penalizes rather than eliminates a desired alternative when a cutoff violation occurs. In the third step, the problem of endogeneity associated with attribute cutoffs is examined by linking respondents’ self-reported cutoffs to their demographic characteristics. Results from estimations of models with/without cutoffs show that consumers value omega-3 content in canola oils but dislike GM-derived ingredients in canola oil products. These Canadian respondents prefer canola oils produced in Canada to those produced in the United States. Regarding attribute cutoffs, it is found that consumers suffer a utility loss when violating their self-reported attribute cutoffs. Comparisons between models with/without attribute cutoffs suggest that incorporating cutoffs into the compensatory utility model significantly improves the model fit. Cutoff endogeneity is examined by predicting cutoffs based on respondents’ demographic characteristics. Using predicted cutoffs as instruments for self-reported cutoffs, this study provides some evidence that self-reported cutoffs may be endogenous and that researchers should consider using approaches that account for the potential endogeneity.decision strategy, attribute cutoff, functional food, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy, C25, C93, D1,

HSPA12A Unstabilizes CD147 to Inhibit Lactate Export and Migration in Human Renal Cell Carcinoma

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). See http://ivyspring.com/terms for full terms and conditions. Background: Metastasis accounts for 90% of cancer-associated mortality in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). However, the clinical management of RCC metastasis is challenging. Lactate export is known to play an important role in cancer cell migration. This study investigated the role of heat shock protein A12A (HSPA12A) in RCC migration. Methods: HSPA12A expression was examined in 82 pairs of matched RCC tumors and corresponding normal kidney tissues from patients by immunoblotting and immunofluorescence analyses. The proliferation of RCC cells was analyzed using MTT and EdU incorporation assays. The migration of RCC cells was evaluated by wound healing and Transwell migration assays. Extracellular acidification was examined using Seahorse technology. Protein stability was determined following treatment with protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide and proteasome inhibitor MG132. Mass spectrometry, immunoprecipitation, and immunoblotting were employed to examine protein-protein interactions. Results: RCC tumors from patients showed downregulation of HSPA12A, which was associated with advanced tumor node metastasis stage. Intriguingly, overexpression of HSPA12A in RCC cells inhibited migration, whereas HSPA12A knockdown had the opposite effect. Lactate export, glycolysis rate, and CD147 protein abundance were also inhibited by HSPA12A overexpression but promoted by HSPA12A knockdown. An interaction of HSPA12A with HRD1 ubiquitin E3 ligase was detected in RCC cells. Further studies demonstrated that CD147 ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation were promoted by HSPA12A overexpression whereas inhibited by HSPA12A knockdown. Notably, the HSPA12A overexpression-induced inhibition of lactate export and migration were abolished by CD147 overexpression. Conclusion: Human RCC shows downregulation of HSPA12A. Overexpression of HSPA12A in RCC cells unstabilizes CD147 through increasing its ubiquitin-proteasome degradation, thereby inhibits lactate export and glycolysis, and ultimately suppresses RCC cell migration. Our results demonstrate that overexpression of HSPA12A might represent a viable strategy for managing RCC metastasis

deepDriver: Predicting Cancer Driver Genes Based on Somatic Mutations Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

With the advances in high-throughput technologies, millions of somatic mutations have been reported in the past decade. Identifying driver genes with oncogenic mutations from these data is a critical and challenging problem. Many computational methods have been proposed to predict driver genes. Among them, machine learning-based methods usually train a classifier with representations that concatenate various types of features extracted from different kinds of data. Although successful, simply concatenating different types of features may not be the best way to fuse these data. We notice that a few types of data characterize the similarities of genes, to better integrate them with other data and improve the accuracy of driver gene prediction, in this study, a deep learning-based method (deepDriver) is proposed by performing convolution on mutation-based features of genes and their neighbors in the similarity networks. The method allows the convolutional neural network to learn information within mutation data and similarity networks simultaneously, which enhances the prediction of driver genes. deepDriver achieves AUC scores of 0.984 and 0.976 on breast cancer and colorectal cancer, which are superior to the competing algorithms. Further evaluations of the top 10 predictions also demonstrate that deepDriver is valuable for predicting new driver genes

Predicting biomolecule-disease associations based on machine learning approaches

The abstract of this item is unavailable due to an embargo

Who should have the strongest quit smoking willingness and much easier to persuade?

Background and challenges to implementation Base on the Report on cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in China in 2016. In China, the prevalence of CVD is continuously increasing. Currently, an estimated 290 million individuals suffer from CVD. Rates of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality are higher among smokers and passive smokers than among non-smokers. Intervention or response Put the “smoking history questionnaire” and “assessment of patient willingness to quit smoking survey” into process of 4154 cardiovascular disease patients diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. Increasing the frequency of intervention from none or 1 time to 3 times (intake, Discharge and follow-up) within one year in 27 difference hospitals from random province in China. Keep tracking the quit smoking willingness of the patients during the period from acute phase to recovery phase, and to maintenance phase. Results and lessons learnt Continuing to increase the awareness that cigarette smoking causes HEART DISEASE and other serious diseases in this group of people. 90.15% patients were becoming increasingly clear to the harm of cigarette smoking to their whole body, not only the lung. Base on the quit line success rate, more than 2%, in 2015. Strengthen patients' quit smoking willingness is easier than non-disease smokers. The number of patients who has the willing for quit smoking increase from 21(0.5%, acute stage) to 282(6.7%, follow up) within one years. The patients who have strong will to quit smoking is 75 individuals (1.8%). Conclusions and key recommendations Quitting smoking was found to substantially reduce the risks of death. Our retrospective study shows tremendous persuade successful rate in patient's population who have been educated by our cardiovascular doctors and their medical teams. We should start the quit smoking process from the “weakness” (willpower and physical) patients who are fearful of the disease may destroy his life or even take away his life and more dangerous groups. It will give us much more clinical outcomes than the normal person