Mobike: Backpedaling Out of India

In the past few years, the bike-sharing industry has gained traction in large cities and suburban areas all over the world. Mobike, an app-based bike-sharing company founded in China in 2015, introduced a new, efficient and eco-friendly mode of travel for short commutes using smart bikes which are bikes with a motor that help assist the rider’s pedal-power. Bike-sharing has grown into a booming industry due to rapid urbanization, traffic congestion, and pollution problems. Mobike entered India in 2018 but faced many challenges. Since the takeover and expansion of Mobike, Meituan, the holding company, has suffered a loss of 4.6 billion yuan ($680 million), which is triple the bike-sharing business contribution of 1.5 billion yuan (Liu, 2019). These problems have been seen industry-wide as interest in bike-sharing has been waning and the industry, especially start-ups, are not adequately regulated (QP software, 2019). Challenges for Mobike in India include low literacy, aversion to cashless payments, and privacy concerns. Additionally, public transportation is a popular mode of travel and most cities do not have designated bike lanes. Indeed, India just doesn’t have the same “bike culture” like China. This case study focuses on how Mobike needs to adapt its marketing mix to address consumers’ needs while tackling the many challenges it faces in India. Keywords: Bike-sharing, India, China, Emerging Markets, Fitness, Mobike, International Marketing Strategy, Smart Bikes, Transportation, Case Study Note: Reference available on reques

HIV risk behavior profiles among men who have sex with men interested in donating blood: Findings from the Assessing Donor Variability and New Concepts in Eligibility study.

BACKGROUND: Individual risk assessment allows donors to be evaluated based on their own behaviors. Study objectives were to assess human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) risk behaviors in men who have sex with men (MSM) and estimate the proportion of the study population who would not be deferred for higher risk HIV sexual behaviors. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Cross-sectional survey and biomarker assessment were conducted in eight U.S. cities. Participants were sexually active MSM interested in blood donation aged 18-39 years, assigned male sex at birth. Participants completed surveys during two study visits to define eligibility, and self-reported sexual and HIV prevention behaviors. Blood was drawn at study visit 1 and tested for HIV and the presence of tenofovir, one of the drugs in oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Associations were assessed between HIV infection status or HIV PrEP use and behaviors, including sex partners, new partners, and anal sex. RESULTS: A total of 1566 MSM completed the visit 1 questionnaire and blood draw and 1197 completed the visit 2 questionnaire. Among 1562 persons without HIV, 789 (50.4%) were not taking PrEP. Of those not taking PrEP, 66.2% reported one sexual partner or no anal sex and 69% reported no new sexual partners or no anal sex with a new partner in the past 3 months. CONCLUSION: The study found that questions were able to identify sexually active, HIV-negative MSM who report lower risk sexual behaviors. About a quarter of enrolled study participants would be potentially eligible blood donors using individual risk assessment questions

Talking About and Preparing for Death Among Older Adults

Experts on end-of-life issues recommend that individuals make preparations – living will, health care proxy, last will and testament, and memorial service – for their eventual death (Bischoff, Sudore, Miao, Boscardin, & Smith, 2013). While these experts further encourage a broader process of advance care planning, which includes conversations with loved ones, many individuals are reticent to engage in such end-of-life conversations (Brinkman-Stoppelenburg, Rietjens, & Heide, 2014). The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between older adults’ comfort having end-of-life discussions with family members, death preparation, and comfort with their end-of-life plans. Community-dwelling older adults (N = 354) participated in an interview survey about end-of-life issues. Comfort with having end-of-life discussions with family was associated with greater death preparation and comfort with end-of-life plans. Death preparation mediated the relationship between comfort with end-of-life discussions and comfort with end-of-life plans. Overall, the results are consistent with the notion that individuals who are more comfortable discussing their end-of-life plans with loved ones engage in greater death preparation and thereby feel a greater sense of contentment with their plans for death

Variability and host density independence in inductions-based estimates of environmental lysogeny.

Temperate bacterial viruses (phages) may enter a symbiosis with their host cell, forming a unit called a lysogen. Infection and viral replication are disassociated in lysogens until an induction event such as DNA damage occurs, triggering viral-mediated lysis. The lysogen-lytic viral reproduction switch is central to viral ecology, with diverse ecosystem impacts. It has been argued that lysogeny is favoured in phages at low host densities. This paradigm is based on the fraction of chemically inducible cells (FCIC) lysogeny proxy determined using DNA-damaging mitomycin C inductions. Contrary to the established paradigm, a survey of 39 inductions publications found FCIC to be highly variable and pervasively insensitive to bacterial host density at global, within-environment and within-study levels. Attempts to determine the source(s) of variability highlighted the inherent complications in using the FCIC proxy in mixed communities, including dissociation between rates of lysogeny and FCIC values. Ultimately, FCIC studies do not provide robust measures of lysogeny or consistent evidence of either positive or negative host density dependence to the lytic-lysogenic switch. Other metrics are therefore needed to understand the drivers of the lytic-lysogenic decision in viral communities and to test models of the host density-dependent viral lytic-lysogenic switch

High prevalence and two dominant host-specific genotypes of Coxiella burnetii in U.S. milk

BackgroundCoxiella burnetii causes Q fever in humans and Coxiellosis in animals; symptoms range from general malaise to fever, pneumonia, endocarditis and death. Livestock are a significant source of human infection as they shed C. burnetii cells in birth tissues, milk, urine and feces. Although prevalence of C. burnetii is high, few Q fever cases are reported in the U.S. and we have a limited understanding of their connectedness due to difficulties in genotyping. Here, we develop canonical SNP genotyping assays to evaluate spatial and temporal relationships among C. burnetii environmental samples and compare them across studies. Given the genotypic diversity of historical collections, we hypothesized that the current enzootic of Coxiellosis is caused by multiple circulating genotypes. We collected A) 23 milk samples from a single bovine herd, B) 134 commercial bovine and caprine milk samples from across the U.S., and C) 400 bovine and caprine samples from six milk processing plants over three years.ResultsWe detected C. burnetii DNA in 96% of samples with no variance over time. We genotyped 88.5% of positive samples; bovine milk contained only a single genotype (ST20) and caprine milk was dominated by a second type (mostly ST8).ConclusionsThe high prevalence and lack of genotypic diversity is consistent with a model of rapid spread and persistence. The segregation of genotypes between host species is indicative of species-specific adaptations or dissemination barriers and may offer insights into the relative lack of human cases and characterizing genotypes

Reflections: Students\u27 Tribute to Stan Kuczaj (1950-2016)

On April 14th, 2016, Animal Behavior and Cognition lost its Editor-in-Chief. But the scientific community and the friends and colleagues of Stanley ‘Stan’ Kuczaj III lost so much more. As many know, Stan began his career in Developmental Psychology, making enormous contributions in the area of language development, but became best known for his many innovative contributions in the area of marine mammal behavior. Stan founded Animal Behavior and Cognition because he was deeply passionate about research with a broad range of topics concerning animal behavior, animal cognition, and animal welfare. He was equally passionate about the idea that science should be accessible to all, and that accessibility should not come at a financial burden to researchers. The current editorial team is committed to carrying on Stan’s vision for the journal, and we believe that its continuation will pay homage to Stan as a researcher, and as a leader within the scientific community. However, for the next few pages, we wish to pay special tribute to Stan as a mentor, as this role was perhaps the one that was most pivotal in defining who he was as a scientist, colleague, and friend. We take comfort in the fact that Stan’s memory will live on in the legacy of his mentees, many of whom became cherished friends and colleagues. Below you will find reflections from several of these former students who were given the difficult task of trying to summarize the most meaningful aspect of Stan’s influence on their personal and professional development. Although no few words could summarize the impact of someone as enigmatic as Stan, we hope that these reflections will contribute to a full and nuanced tribute to the man he was

Genes, Education, and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Recent advances have led to the discovery of specific genetic variants that predict educational attainment. We study how these variants, summarized as a genetic score variable, are associated with human capital accumulation and labor market outcomes in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We demonstrate that the same genetic score that predicts education is also associated with higher wages, but only among individuals with a college education. Moreover, the genetic gradient in wages has grown in more recent birth cohorts, consistent with interactions between technological change and labor market ability. We also show that individuals who grew up in economically disadvantaged households are less likely to go to college when compared to individuals with the same genetic score, but from higher socioeconomic status households. Our findings provide support for the idea that childhood socioeconomic status is an important moderator of the economic returns to genetic endowments. Moreover, the finding that childhood poverty limits the educational attainment of high-ability individuals suggests the existence of unrealized human potential

Induction of potent neutralizing antibody responses by a designed protein nanoparticle accine for respiratory syncytial virus

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a worldwide public health concern for which no vaccine is available. Elucidation of the prefusion structure of the RSV F glycoprotein and its identification as the main target of neutralizing antibodies have provided new opportunities for development of an effective vaccine. Here, we describe the structure-based design of a self-assembling protein nanoparticle presenting a prefusion-stabilized variant of the F glycoprotein trimer (DS-Cav1) in a repetitive array on the nanoparticle exterior. The two-component nature of the nanoparticle scaffold enabled the production of highly ordered, monodisperse immunogens that display DS-Cav1 at controllable density. In mice and nonhuman primates, the full-valency nanoparticle immunogen displaying 20 DS-Cav1 trimers induced neutralizing antibody responses ∼10-fold higher than trimeric DS-Cav1. These results motivate continued development of this promising nanoparticle RSV vaccine candidate and establish computationally designed two-component nanoparticles as a robust and customizable platform for structure-based vaccine design

Procalcitonin Is Not a Reliable Biomarker of Bacterial Coinfection in People With Coronavirus Disease 2019 Undergoing Microbiological Investigation at the Time of Hospital Admission

Abstract Admission procalcitonin measurements and microbiology results were available for 1040 hospitalized adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (from 48 902 included in the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections Consortium World Health Organization Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK study). Although procalcitonin was higher in bacterial coinfection, this was neither clinically significant (median [IQR], 0.33 [0.11–1.70] ng/mL vs 0.24 [0.10–0.90] ng/mL) nor diagnostically useful (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.56 [95% confidence interval, .51–.60]).</jats:p

Implementation of corticosteroids in treating COVID-19 in the ISARIC WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK:prospective observational cohort study

BACKGROUND: Dexamethasone was the first intervention proven to reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 being treated in hospital. We aimed to evaluate the adoption of corticosteroids in the treatment of COVID-19 in the UK after the RECOVERY trial publication on June 16, 2020, and to identify discrepancies in care. METHODS: We did an audit of clinical implementation of corticosteroids in a prospective, observational, cohort study in 237 UK acute care hospitals between March 16, 2020, and April 14, 2021, restricted to patients aged 18 years or older with proven or high likelihood of COVID-19, who received supplementary oxygen. The primary outcome was administration of dexamethasone, prednisolone, hydrocortisone, or methylprednisolone. This study is registered with ISRCTN, ISRCTN66726260. FINDINGS: Between June 17, 2020, and April 14, 2021, 47 795 (75·2%) of 63 525 of patients on supplementary oxygen received corticosteroids, higher among patients requiring critical care than in those who received ward care (11 185 [86·6%] of 12 909 vs 36 415 [72·4%] of 50 278). Patients 50 years or older were significantly less likely to receive corticosteroids than those younger than 50 years (adjusted odds ratio 0·79 [95% CI 0·70–0·89], p=0·0001, for 70–79 years; 0·52 [0·46–0·58], p80 years), independent of patient demographics and illness severity. 84 (54·2%) of 155 pregnant women received corticosteroids. Rates of corticosteroid administration increased from 27·5% in the week before June 16, 2020, to 75–80% in January, 2021. INTERPRETATION: Implementation of corticosteroids into clinical practice in the UK for patients with COVID-19 has been successful, but not universal. Patients older than 70 years, independent of illness severity, chronic neurological disease, and dementia, were less likely to receive corticosteroids than those who were younger, as were pregnant women. This could reflect appropriate clinical decision making, but the possibility of inequitable access to life-saving care should be considered. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research and UK Medical Research Council