Taxation without public service: Tianjin meat safety regulation in the Republican era

Dibiteries are restaurants that sell braised meat of small ruminants and sometimes chicken. Current microbiological data indicate that the products sold are sometimes contaminated with pathogenic microorganisms exceeding the quality standards recommended for human consumption, hence a real public health concern. Despite the lack of hygiene, these establishments continue to thrive in the Senegalese food ecosystem. However, very few studies have analyzed the socio-economic motivations and risk representations of these populations who participate in the growing demand for meat from dibiteries. The main objective is to understand the relationships between consumer perception of food risks, quality, and safety indicators of braised meat sold in Dibiteries in Dakar. A total of 479 people from 404 households in the Dakar region were randomly selected and surveyed on the consumption of dibiterie meat using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire allowed to measure the relative importance given by each interviewee to the indicators related to the risk of food infection, and the quality and safety of dibiterie meat. The structural equation model was used to design the paths and analyze the relationships. Of the 479 people interviewed, 291 people consumed dibiterie meat. Only 16% of consumers strongly perceive the quality and safety of meat. This strong perception has been positively associated with monthly food expenditure, while the age of consumers explained it negatively. Among the latent variables identified, the perceived price effect and the dibiteries' expertise were positively related to the perception on the safety and the perception on the nutritional quality of the product. The nutritional quality of the product had negatively impacted the risks of food infection perceived by consumers. The results of this study suggest the strengthening of hygiene standards in dibiteries and the awareness of consumers, especially young people, about the potential health risks associated with the consumption of dibiterie meat. Further work on willingness to pay to improve the safety of dibiterie meat is needed.

The safety evaluation of chilled pork from online platform in China

The existence of Chinese studies (国学研究) at China’s Christian universities seemed to be a paradoxical phenomenon in the early twentieth century. However, the development of the subject became a distinctive feature of Christian colleges in Republican China. The Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Zhijiang UniversityZhijiang University (Hangchow Christian CollegeHangchow Christian College) is one excellent example that can be seen as parallel to the development of the Harvard-Yenching InstituteHarvard-Yenching Institute at Yenching University. The setting up of a Chinese studies department was a unique response to the Western curriculum at Zhijiang University (ZU), showing great respect to traditional Confucian teachings and significantly constituting a gradual move from Western learning (xixue)Western learning (xixue) to (Chinese) National learning (guoxue)National learning (guoxue) at the university. The present chapter is a report of the development of this characteristic feature found at ZU. The development of Chinese studies could be traced back to the time when Warren H. Stuart (the brother of John L. Stuart) became the president of ZU from 1916 to 1922. He transformed ZU into a liberal arts and science university, with the addition of Chinese studies courses. By 1922, ZU succeeded in having Chinese courses account for 15% of the total number of courses offered at the university. By 1924 Zhong Tai, a famous Chinese scholar, was hired to help develop the department of Chinese language and literature at ZU, and by 1931, the university section of ZU succeeded in acquiring approval and registration from the Ministry of Education of the Nationalist government as Private Zhijiang College of Arts and Sciences, with a strong Department of Chinese Language and Literature. This was an outstanding case of the localization of one of China’s Christian universities.

Advancing the Science of Delivery

ObjectivesMeat safety is a central concern for public health. However, there is limited research on the psychological factors that influence people’s perception of meat safety. Such a psychological perspective may benefit meat science by adding understanding of how people interact with meats and how to tailor meat safety interventions to properly convey safety concerns. We will examine the psychology underlying perceptions of safety in wild game, a critical problem in global public health. Wild game provides a popular source of meat throughout the world. In equatorial regions, wild game meat is a key source of nutrients and may be the only meat sources for some rural populations. Consuming wild game is also associated with increased risk of zoonosis and has been implicated in a number of emerging diseases, including Ebola and HIV. Currently, there is limited research on how people judge the risks associated with consuming meat from wild game. According to cognitive psychology, knowing that many animals can catch a disease increases people’s beliefs that other animals are susceptible to the disease. We hypothesize that individual beliefs about the safety of eating wild game meat will associate with beliefs about the likelihood of cross-species disease transmission.Materials and MethodsParticipants (n = 210) were recruited from U.S., Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the Bahamas using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and completed an online survey asking them to rate the safety of wild game meat sources (mammals and birds), judge the likelihood of disease transmission between pairs of wild animals, and provide demographic information. We analyzed mean differences in perceived safety between animals and how average mammal-mammal and mammal-bird disease transmission beliefs related to perceived safety.ResultsPerceived meat safety was highest for common game (deer, rabbits, boar, and bear), and lower for less common game (squirrels, cats, dogs, raccoons, monkeys, and bats). A linear mixed effects model indicated significant variability in perceived safety across animals, F(91881) = 242.3, p 0.25). For common game, mammal-bird disease transmission beliefs were negatively associated with perceived meat safety, t(207) = 3.397, p < 0.001, but mammal-mammal transmission beliefs were not.ConclusionTo the extent that participants believed it was possible for common game mammals to become infected with bird diseases, they perceived mammal meat to be less safe. These results are consistent with a “premise diversity” effect from cognitive psychology and suggest that people believe diseases are more transmittable to humans via wild game meat if they are transmittable across a wide range of species. These results suggest that interventions highlighting species-to-species disease transmission risk may help to increase awareness of the dangers that wild game meat can pose to public health. Because the results were primarily limited to commonly eaten wild game, it is important for future studies to assess whether our findings generalize to safety perceptions for common livestock meat sources.

ObjectivesMeat safety is a central concern for public health. However, there is limited research on the psychological factors that influence people’s perception of meat safety. Such a psychological perspective may benefit meat science by adding understanding of how people interact with meats and how to tailor meat safety interventions to properly convey safety concerns. We will examine the psychology underlying perceptions of safety in wild game, a critical problem in global public health. Wild game provides a popular source of meat throughout the world. In equatorial regions, wild game meat is a key source of nutrients and may be the only meat sources for some rural populations. Consuming wild game is also associated with increased risk of zoonosis and has been implicated in a number of emerging diseases, including Ebola and HIV. Currently, there is limited research on how people judge the risks associated with consuming meat from wild game. According to cognitive psychology, knowing that many animals can catch a disease increases people’s beliefs that other animals are susceptible to the disease. We hypothesize that individual beliefs about the safety of eating wild game meat will associate with beliefs about the likelihood of cross-species disease transmission.Materials and MethodsParticipants (n = 210) were recruited from U.S., Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and the Bahamas using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and completed an online survey asking them to rate the safety of wild game meat sources (mammals and birds), judge the likelihood of disease transmission between pairs of wild animals, and provide demographic information. We analyzed mean differences in perceived safety between animals and how average mammal-mammal and mammal-bird disease transmission beliefs related to perceived safety.ResultsPerceived meat safety was highest for common game (deer, rabbits, boar, and bear), and lower for less common game (squirrels, cats, dogs, raccoons, monkeys, and bats). A linear mixed effects model indicated significant variability in perceived safety across animals, F(91881) = 242.3, p < 0.001. Post hoc tests revealed significant pairwise differences in perceived safety between common and uncommon game mammals. For uncommon game, neither mammal-mammal nor mammal-bird transmission were associated with individual differences in perceived meat safety (p’s > 0.25). For common game, mammal-bird disease transmission beliefs were negatively associated with perceived meat safety, t(207) = 3.397, p < 0.001, but mammal-mammal transmission beliefs were not.ConclusionTo the extent that participants believed it was possible for common game mammals to become infected with bird diseases, they perceived mammal meat to be less safe. These results are consistent with a “premise diversity” effect from cognitive psychology and suggest that people believe diseases are more transmittable to humans via wild game meat if they are transmittable across a wide range of species. These results suggest that interventions highlighting species-to-species disease transmission risk may help to increase awareness of the dangers that wild game meat can pose to public health. Because the results were primarily limited to commonly eaten wild game, it is important for future studies to assess whether our findings generalize to safety perceptions for common livestock meat sources.

Teaching the History and Organization of Libraries: The Coronavirus Pandemic as an Opportunity to Study Public Library Reopenings

Challenges to meat safety in the 21st century

BackgroundPre-slaughter stress or the welfare condition of food-producing animals (FPAs) and the slaughter practices of slaughterhouse workers (SHWs) are critically important for the safety and quality of meats processed in slaughterhouses (SHs). Consequently, this study determined the pre-slaughter, slaughter, and post-slaughter (PSP) practices of SHWsin four SHs in Southeast, Nigeria; and discussed the impacts on meat quality and safety.MethodsThe PSP practices were determined by observation method. Additionally, a structured and validated closed-ended questionnaire was used to determine the knowledge of the SHWs on: the effects of poor welfare (preslaughter stress) on the quality and safety of meats produced, carcass/meat processing practices and modes of transmission of meat-borne zoonotic pathogens during carcass/meat processing. Finally, a systematic post-mortem inspection (PMI) was conducted on cattle, pigs and goats slaughtered, and economic losses accruable from condemned carcasses/meats were estimated.ResultsFood-producing animals were transported to the SHs or held in the lairage under inhumane conditions. A pig being conveyed to one of the SHs was seen gasping for air, as it was firmly tied on motorbike at the thoracic and abdominal regions. Fatigued cattle were forcefully dragged on the ground from the lairage to the killing floor. Cattle for slaughter were restrained, held in lateral recumbency and left groaning, due to extreme discomfort, for about one hour before slaughter. Stunning was not performed. Singed pig carcasses were dragged on the ground to the washing point. Although more than 50% of the respondents knew the modes of transmission of meat-borne zoonotic pathogens during meat processing, 71.3% of the SHWs processed carcasses on bare floor, 52.2% used same bowl of water to wash multiple carcasses while 72% did not wear personal protective equipment during meat/carcass processing. Processed meats were transported to meat shops in an unsanitary conditions, using open vans and tricycles. During the PMI, diseased carcasses/meats/organs were detected in 5.7% (83/1452), 2.1% (21/1006) and 0.8% (7/924) of the cattle, pig and goat carcasses inspected, respectively. Gross lesions pathognomonic of bovine tuberculosis, contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia, fascioliasis and porcine cysticercosis were detected. Consequently, 391,089.2 kg of diseased meat/organs valued at 978 million Naira (235, 030 USD) were condemned. There were significant associations (p < 0.05) between educational level and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) during slaughterhouse operations and knowledge that FPAs can harbour zoonotic pathogens (p = < 0.001) transmissible during carcass processing. Similarly, significant association was observed between working experience and use of PPE; and between geographical location of the respondents and knowledge that zoonotic pathogens in animals are transmissible during carcass processing or via the food chain.ConclusionThe findings show that slaughter practices of SHWs have detrimental impacts on the quality and safety of meats processed for human consumption in Southeast, Nigeria. These findings underscore the need to: improve the welfare condition of slaughter-animals, mechanise abattoir operations, train and retrain the SHWs on hygienic carcass/meat processing practices. There is a need to adopt strict enforcement of food safety laws to promote meat quality, food safety and consequently promote the health of the public.

TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA STUDYING THE DAILY MEDIUM: NEWSPAPERS AS SUBJECT AND SOURCE IN REPUBLICAN-ERA CHINA, 1911-1949 CONTENTS Guest Editor’s Note /2 ARTICLES Timothy B. Weston Minding the Newspaper Business: The Theory and Practice of Journalism in 1920s China /4 Bryna Goodman Appealing to the Public: Newspaper Presentation and Adjudication of Emotion /32 Peter J. Carroll Fate-Bound Mandarin Ducks: Newspaper Coverage of the “Fashion” for Suicide in 1931 Suzhou /70 ANNOUNCEMENTS /97 Twentieth-Century China disclaims any responsibility or liability for statements of fact or opinion expressed by contributors. 2006 2 GUEST EDITOR’S NOTE Newspapers exploded in number and variety and they were a vitally important site of public discourse during China’s Republican era. Their significance as public documents during that period dwarfed the significance they had during the last decades of the Qing dynasty. The dramatic growth in newspaper circulation during the Republican period resulted from a complex mix of factors, including greater political and cultural freedom, the breakdown of formal ties between intellectuals and the state, increased commercial wealth within Chinese society, more efficient printing technologies, and the emergence of a larger reading public—primarily located in cities—hungry for entertainment and information about all manner of things. Few other published mediums enjoyed as large an audience or as much daily contact with Chinese readers during the Republican period. Newspapers both reflected and helped shape society. Not only did famous and educated people publish in newspapers, so too did otherwise unknown men and women. Stories of the rich and powerful appeared next to stories about the poor, the average, and the weak. Newspapers published literature and they covered world affairs as well as national and local politics, culture, and society. They also published massive quantities of advertisements, which reveal a great deal about business strategies, taste and consumption patterns, and the culturally complex negotiation of modern Chinese identity. In short, for historians working on Republican-era China, newspapers represent a gold mine of information. Scholars have studied particular Republican-era newspapers and have made extensive use of newspapers as a source of information in discussions of a broad range of subjects, but the Republican-era Chinese newspaper industry itself has not received systematic treatment from the English-language academic community. The three articles that follow were originally presented at “Studying the Daily Medium: Newspapers as Subject and Source in Republican-Era China, 1911-1949,” a workshop held at the Fairbank Center at Harvard University on 28-29 May 2005 that was intended to initiate a broad discussion of newspapers in Republican China.1 The articles here provide information about a range of subjects related to newspapers and, we hope, successfully make a modest contribution to a more general research agenda on the social, cultural, and political role of newspapers during China’s tumultuous Republican period. 1 I would like to take this opportunity to thank my co-organizer of that workshop, Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, for all of her help, her abundant ideas, and her highly interesting workshop paper. I also wish to thank the other participants in the Harvard workshop. The papers presented by Sei Jeong Chin, Karl Gerth, Eugenia Lean, Stephen R. MacKinnon, and Barbara Mittler, and the comments offered by Timothy Cheek, Lucie Cheng, James Huffman, Christopher A. Reed, and Wen-hsin Yeh were all rich and highly stimulating. Finally, I am very grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for awarding Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and me a “New Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society” workshop grant, without which it would have been impossible to convene the conference. TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA 3 Although from different directions, the articles discuss a number of issues in common: newspapers as businesses, normative ideas about the proper role of newspapers, the nature and content of “social news (社會新聞 shehui xinwen),” newspapers as a forum for the negotiation of cultural and social values, newspapers as a published space available to a wide variety of voices, and the centrality of Shanghai in Republican-era China’s newspaper industry. Read together, the articles make clear that newspapers were a contested and unstable site that mirrored the multifaceted and shifting nature...

Overview of current meat hygiene and safety risks and summary of recent studies on biofilms, and control of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in nonintact, and Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat, meat products

Between State and Society, Between Professionalism and Politics: The Shanghai Bar Association in Republican China, 1912-1937 by Xiaoqun Xu The Shanghai Bar Association (Shanghai lushi gonghui) was one of the urban voluntary associations that came into existence in the tremendous outburst of popular activism following the outbreak of the 1911 Revolution and the founding of the Republic of China in 1912. Unlike many urban associations that had existed before or appeared after the revolution, the Shanghai Bar Association (SBA) was a professional association (ziyou zhiye tuanti) sanctioned by the Republican government, and therefore a legally established association (jatuan) or public association (gongtuan).1 The Shanghai Bar Association did start out for professional purposes. As the government regulations on lawyers during this period explicitly prohibited bar associations from undertaking matters other than those relating to judicial affairs, most of the Shanghai Bar Association's activities were directed at professionalization of lawyers and the institutionalization of the rule of law and judicial independence in the country. Yet, if professionalization per se was an apolitical goal, the demand for the rule of law and judicial independence often challenged the practices of the authorities and thus assumed political meanings. Furthermore, if the demand for the rule of law and judicial independence could be defended as judicial issues and therefore professional concerns for lawyers, the same could not be said of actions directed at national politics and the government's foreign policies. It was into these two areas, however, that the Shanghai Bar Association found itself being drawn in the 1920s and 1930s. This historical experience deserves attention, as it will enhance our understanding of the state -society relationship in Republican China.2 In the past fifteen years or so, the state-society relationship has been one of the central issues in the study of modem China. While social scientists are interested in the post-Mao reforms and the attendant developments in statesociety and central-local relations, historians have paid a great deal of attention to the rise of local elite activism in the late Qing and the Republican period.3 Scholars have little disagreement on the empirical evidence of local elite activism during the period, but they disagree on whether this development should be Twentieth-Century China, XXIV, NO.1 (November 1998): 1-29 2 Twentieth-Century China interpreted as the rise of civil society/public sphere.4 As Heath B. Chamberlain has summarized, scholars have generally dealt with the dilemma in applying the Western-derived concept to the Chinese scene in three ways: "to alter the concept to fit the landscape; to look for changes in the landscape to fit the concept; or to drop the concept entirely."5 This essay does not attempt to take one of the three positions by theorizing about civil society. Rather, with the Shanghai Bar Association as a case in point, I choose to study concrete forms various social groups adopted and specific avenues they pursued to interact with state in the Republican era. What we find is a symbiotic dynamics in a complex, evolving process of state-society interaction, in which state and society were mutually dependent and interpenetrated; legitimacy and authority on either side often contingent and contested; and private, group, and public interests and purposes overlapping and negotiated. To grasp the complexity of these relationships, let us pose a key question: Who represented the state at various points of time, say between 1912 and 1927 (the Beiyang period)? As we shall see, the state in the Beiyang period, especially in the post-Yuan Shikai years, was not a static, monolithic entity, but a fluid, shifting, and even multiple one, one that could be defined separately, negotiated with simultaneously, and ignored partially or temporarily by various societal actors at different times. To some extent it is the actions of social groups that defined the legitimacy of the state and the reach of state power. At the same time, society was not a static entity with fixed boundaries either. Social space was contested and earned by societal actors in their interaction with the state whose reach they helped to define. This was especially true of the newly emerging professional groups. As far as the Shanghai...

Reviewed by: Fenjia: Household Division and Inheritance in Qing and Republican China Robert J. Antony (bio) David Wakefield. Fenjia: Household Division and Inheritance in Qing and Republican China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998. x, 261 pp. Hardcover $42.00, ISBN 0-8248-2092-4. Fenjia is a highly informative and quite detailed study of the inheritance system in Qing and Republican China. This book by David Wakefield, who teaches at the University of Missouri, is a revision of his UCLA dissertation, and is based on extensive primary research in China and Taiwan, including fieldwork interviews. The author sets out to explore both the nature and the importance of household division (fenjia) in modern Chinese history, focusing on Taiwan in the Qing era and North China in the Republican era. The book is divided into ten chapters, including an introduction and a conclusion. After the useful background introduction surveying China's inheritance laws and practices from the Zhou to the Qing dynasties, other chapters probe such topics as why, when, and how households divided; the rights of individuals in property division; inheritance disputes in Qing courts; variations in inheritance patterns according to region and class; and the impact of household division on Chinese society. Throughout history the Chinese have always practiced, both in custom and in law, an "equal-male-division inheritance regime." As Wakefield shows, in China household division meant more than the equal division of family property and debt among all sons. It also included guarantees for the continued support of parents and for the marriage expenses of sons and daughters. Although the rules for household division remained consistent over time and place, the Chinese astutely devised various strategies or orientations that aimed to hold the family—and its property—together as long as possible. In Taiwan, families set aside lineage trusts; in the Lower Yangzi Delta, they used charitable estates; and in Huizhou, Anhui, merchant families adopted a "phased division orientation." Wakefield joins with several other recent scholars, particularly Jing Junjian and Thomas Buoye, in arguing for the notion of individual property rights in Qing China.1 In Qing Taiwan, as elsewhere in China, basic property rights were embodied in the process of household division for sons, adopted sons, living parents, widowed wives and concubines, and daughters. Although not everyone in the family, aside from male siblings, received equal shares, everyone could nevertheless expect to receive some share of property at division. Unmarried sons had rights to marriage expenses; unmarried daughters had rights to continued support and dowries; and parents—including husbands, wives, and concubines—had rights to continued support and a funeral. [End Page 542] Frequently, too, as the cases from the Baxian, Sichuan, judicial archives show, Qing local courts staunchly defended these rights, even those of women. As was true in other civil suits of the Qing period, contracts, wills, and other written evidence played important roles in adjudicating inheritance disputes. Interestingly, too, Wakefield points out that local yamens, once they became involved in disputes, often became "safe deposit boxes" for household division documents. Otherwise, the government tried not to get involved in the division of family property. Despite the promulgation of new laws in the Republican period, the author explains that the inheritance and division of household property continued to follow old customs. Laws that gave equal rights to daughters in inheritance, for instance, were largely ignored in actual practice. Numerous cases from North China in the 1930s show that daughters did not receive shares of the inheritance, but they did continue to get dowries. In discussing the important questions of the effect of household division on Chinese society and social mobility, Wakefield adds little that is new. Rather, his study lends further support to the earlier works by John Lossing Buck, Philip Huang, and William Lavely and R. Bin Wong.2 For example, in addressing the issue of whether or not Chinese peasants divided land beyond the point necessary for survival, the author agrees with Huang that well-to-do peasant families could little avoid the downward mobility caused by household division. Wakefield adds further that actually all peasant families, at least in North China, where most of the evidence comes from...

Global reports on illnesses and deaths related to food consumption continue to raise concern in most countries. This has led to diligent efforts to improve the manner in which food is handled. Hygienic handling of carcasses after slaughter is critical in preventing contamination and ensuring meat safety in both formal and informal meat trading sectors. However, in the informal sector, regulations as prescribed in the Meat Safety Act No. 40 of 2000, which have been set to protect consumer health, are not always adhered to. Although these regulations are put into practice in the formal sector, meat safety challenges associated with meat handling during distribution continue to raise concern. The distribution stage is the most critical period, during which the quality of meat can easily be compromised. Furthermore, meat inspection at the abattoir covers only visual assessment, without considering microbiological tests. Meeting food safety requirements set by government regulations remains a challenge to almost all food processors. This paper reviews the impact of post-slaughter handling on carcass quality and its implications for meat safety during the distribution stage in the formal and informal sectors in South Africa. It also details how meat handling in the informal meat trade exposes consumers to high health risks and recommends that governments create legislation that would be applicable to carcasses produced in the informal sector to align this sector with the regulations governing food production. Keywords: Bacterial contamination, informal meat trade, legal requirements, meat handling, meat safety

Consumers’ practices and knowledge play a significant role in ensuring meat safety and hygiene application. This is important in an environment where the slaughter and release of such meat is restricted and not always controlled and monitored. This could have been contributed by the lack of slaughter facilities; the controlled movement of live animal restrictions applicable in a typical veterinary diseases-controlled area. The aim of this investigation was to identify meat hygiene practices and general meat safety knowledge applied by consumers of central Bushbuckridge, South Africa. Structured interviews (n=81) were conducted with consumers observed purchasing meat from local meat supply centres. Data analysis was achieved by SAS Statistical software (Version 26) SAS and graphs were drawn using MS Excel 2020. The majority (84.2%, σ=29.4) of the consumers indicated that meat supplied in the region were from registered facilities. The general belief amongst the consumers was that routine hygiene inspection was conducted by authorities at all meat distributing or butchery facilities (74.1%, σ=39.7). None of the facilities or/and butcheries in the study area was registered and therefore, no formal regulated practices could have been conducted. Slaughter and distribution of meat within the area were seen as a good business by 78.6%, σ=18.9 of the consumers, and as a result, the consumers did not have a problem with widespread slaughter and release of this meat to the public outside of those facilities. The extent of hygiene application practices at household level varied. These included the assurance that perishable products were properly handled after purchase (84.1%, σ=8.3), and the handling or transportation of sourced meat did not comply with cold chain management prescripts (39.9%, σ=44.9). The likelihood of consumers feeling the same about meat hygiene concerns and practices is undoubtedly low as represented by a high standard deviation (σ) of the responses. These results show that consumers were relying on authorities for meat safety assurances. This ought to caution authorities on consumer practices and needed interventions such as animal movement policies enforcement. The adoption of such policies by consumers lies with the development and rollout of consumer awareness and meat safety assurances training programs. Key words: abattoir, consumer practices, illegal slaughter, meat safety, meat hygiene