Large Share Research Articles

P898 Hesitancy on COVID-19 Vaccination Among Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in South Korea: A Multicenter Survey

Abstract Background Despite many clinicians recommending COVID-19 vaccination to patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) due to high susceptibility, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was a worldwide phenomenon. Although previous studies to identify the cause of this vaccine hesitancy are being published, few studies have been done on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among IBD patients in South Korea. Therefore, the aim of our study was to find out the factors that cause vaccine hesitancy in patients with IBD in South Korea. Methods An electronic survey was conducted on IBD patients with receiving treatment at 5 hospitals in Daejeon-Chungchung province from September 2022 to January 2023. Basal characteristics, factors for vaccine hesitancy was evaluated. Survey was designed as a voluntary and anonymous manner. Results A total of 272 patients participated in the survey, of which 119 patients had Crohn’s disease (CD) and 153 patients had ulcerative colitis (UC). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy tended to decrease with age (r=-0.158, p=0.011). In IBD medication, comparing patient group using 5-aminosalisylic acid and using biologics, hesitancy was higher in the biologics group (p=0.017). Hesitancy was high in patients who preferred Moderna (p=0.049). 102 patients answered that the cause of vaccine hesitancy was concern about safety of vaccines, with the largest share. Conclusion The study found that the main reason of hesitancy was concerns about the safety of the vaccine. Hesitancy tended to decrease with age and was higher in patients using biologics. This study may be helpful to educate patients with more specific targets to prepare for the current COVID-19 as well as other possible future pandemics.

When will global gender gaps close?

Global gender gaps are commonly expected to gradually close along a deterministic path over time. This paper uses Markov chains as in Quah (1993) to simulate the future dynamic path of the global distribution of gender labor force participation gaps based on country data from the last 30 years. The simulations suggest that global gender gaps will never close. A large share of countries will feature elevated gaps in the long run owing to the potential for individual episodes of increasing gaps found in the data. Absent improved and strengthened policy measures, the observed waste and misallocation of women's skills and talents may persist indefinitely.

Preference Externality Estimators: A Comparison of Border Approaches and IVs

This paper compares two estimators—the Border Approach and an Instrumental Variable (IV) estimator—using a unified framework where identifying variation arises from “preference externalities,” following the intuition in Waldfogel (2003) . We highlight two dimensions in favor of the IV approach. First, an econometric model of the data-generating process reveals that the border approach requires a set of identification assumptions that are not easily satisfied in practice: the ignorance of some payoff-relevant information and conflicting spatial correlation assumptions. The IV approach, in contrast, exhibits greater internal validity because it is derived from the model that generates the data. Second, the border approach suffers from representative issues when the true effect sizes are different between border and off-border regions. We use a common political advertising example to evaluate these estimators and suggest ways to evaluate or limit the above concerns, such as excluding localities that are a large share of the policy making region and evaluating spatial correlations of observables. We find the border approach’s representative issue to be substantial when the ignorance assumption is most plausible and observe that spatial correlations do not reflect those needed in the unobservables for consistency of the estimator. The IV, in contrast, does not exhibit concerns related to local average treatment effects. We also derive the specific conditions when the border approach can reduce bias relative to OLS. This paper was accepted by Raphael Thomadsen, marketing. Funding: This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [72072004, 72131001]. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4977 .

Low-carbon production performance of agricultural green technological innovation: From multiple innovation subject perspective

Green technological innovation displays a multi-subject participation trend; however, within agriculture, literature scarcely addresses its low-carbon production performance and rarely considers citizen participation innovation. Therefore, we examine how agricultural green technological innovation impacts agricultural carbon productivity at production and performance levels, considering university and scientific institution, citizen, or enterprise participation. The results show: (1) Agricultural green technological innovation experienced rapid growth from 2000 to 2019, with enterprise participation innovation having the largest share while citizen participation innovation the lowest share. (2) Agricultural green technological innovation, with enterprises or citizens participation, can effectively enhance agricultural carbon productivity; however, universities and scientific institutions participation innovation remains relatively weak. (3) Citizen and enterprise participation innovation can enhance technical progress and economic growth performance in agriculture, ultimately promoting agricultural carbon productivity. Therefore, we should improve agricultural green technological innovation with various innovation subjects, and promote their allocation efficiency and carbon reduction performance in agricultural production.

Multifactorial analysis of terminator performance on heterologous gene expression in Physcomitrella

Key messageCharacterization of Physcomitrella 3′UTRs across different promoters yields endogenous single and double terminators for usage in molecular pharming.The production of recombinant proteins for health applications accounts for a large share of the biopharmaceutical market. While many drugs are produced in microbial and mammalian systems, plants gain more attention as expression hosts to produce eukaryotic proteins. In particular, the good manufacturing practice (GMP)-compliant moss Physcomitrella (Physcomitrium patens) has outstanding features, such as excellent genetic amenability, reproducible bioreactor cultivation, and humanized protein glycosylation patterns. In this study, we selected and characterized novel terminators for their effects on heterologous gene expression. The Physcomitrella genome contains 53,346 unique 3′UTRs (untranslated regions) of which 7964 transcripts contain at least one intron. Over 91% of 3′UTRs exhibit more than one polyadenylation site, indicating the prevalence of alternative polyadenylation in Physcomitrella. Out of all 3′UTRs, 14 terminator candidates were selected and characterized via transient Dual-Luciferase assays, yielding a collection of endogenous terminators performing equally high as established heterologous terminators CaMV35S, AtHSP90, and NOS. High performing candidates were selected for testing as double terminators which impact reporter levels, dependent on terminator identity and positioning. Testing of 3′UTRs among the different promoters NOS, CaMV35S, and PpActin5 showed an increase of more than 1000-fold between promoters PpActin5 and NOS, whereas terminators increased reporter levels by less than tenfold, demonstrating the stronger effect promoters play as compared to terminators. Among selected terminator attributes, the number of polyadenylation sites as well as polyadenylation signals were found to influence terminator performance the most. Our results improve the biotechnology platform Physcomitrella and further our understanding of how terminators influence gene expression in plants in general.

Simultaneous Cannabis and Alcohol Use among Medical Cannabis Patients

Background: During the past two decades of cannabis legalization, the prevalence of medical cannabis (MC) use has increased and there has also been an upward trend in alcohol consumption. As less restricted cannabis laws generate more adult cannabis users, there is concern that more individuals may be simultaneously using medical cannabis with alcohol. A few studies have examined simultaneous use of medical cannabis with alcohol, but none of those studies also assessed patients’ current or previous non-medical cannabis use. This paper explores simultaneous alcohol and medical cannabis use among medical cannabis patients with a specific focus on previous history of cannabis use and current non-medical cannabis use. Methods: A retrospective cohort study of MC patients (N = 319) from four dispensaries located in New York. Bivariate chi-square tests and multivariable logistic regression are used to estimate the extent to which sociodemographic and other factors were associated with simultaneous use. Results: Approximately 29% of the sample engaged in simultaneous use and a large share of these users report previous (44%) or current (66%) use of cannabis for non-medical purposes. MC patients who either previously or currently use cannabis non-medicinally, men, and patients using MC to treat a pain-related condition, were significantly more likely to report simultaneous alcohol/MC use. Conclusions: Findings indicate that there may be differential risks related to alcohol/MC use, which should be considered by cannabis regulatory policies and prevention/treatment programs. If patients are using cannabis and/or alcohol to manage pain, clinicians should screen for both alcohol and cannabis use risk factors.

Carbon emission oriented life cycle assessment and optimization strategy for meat supply chain

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions is imperative to achieve sustainable meat production and supply. Few previous studies have assessed the carbon emissions of the whole meat supply chain from the sheep fattening stage to the meat distribution stage. Therefore, this study established a boundary model of the carbon emission system of the mutton supply chain and adopted the life cycle assessment (LCA) method to comprehensively analyze the carbon emissions during breeding, transportation, processing, and distribution, and then assessed the overall carbon emissions, and optimized the route planning of the supply chain subsystems using improved genetic algorithms (GA) in order to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. The results show (1) The fattening sheep process generates a relatively large share of carbon emissions, but the unit emissions are stable. The carbon emissions from the transportation and marketing phases are lower than those from the fattening phase, but their carbon emissions are uncertain, which is the focus of optimization. (2) By optimizing the routes of the subsystems in the life cycle analysis model, carbon emissions due to changes in route planning can be reduced by 24.19%. Therefore, life cycle analysis can comprehensively assess the carbon emissions and total carbon emissions of each link in the mutton supply chain, and the optimization strategy plays an important role in energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Introduction: what are alternations and how should we study them?

Abstract The research paradigm of alternation studies is forming an increasingly large share of the empirical foundations of usage-based linguistics. As the paradigm is essentially an amalgamation of research traditions from various subfields of linguistics, including sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, and construction grammar, it sports various definitions of the concept of “alternation” and various ways of conducting an alternation study, which are not always compatible. The present special issue is therefore intended to bring researchers from various backgrounds in usage-based linguistics together to see how we can deal with these issues. This introduction first presents the various ways of defining an alternation and discusses the differences between them and how these definitions determine the methodological set-up of an alternation study. Next, the contributions to the special issue are each in turn summarized and related to one another.

A novel cross-docking EOQ-based model to optimize a multi-item multi-supplier multi-retailer inventory management system

AbstractNowadays, the retail industry accounts for a large share of the world’s economy. Cross-docking is one of the most effective and smart inventory management systems used by retail companies to respond to demands efficiently. In this study, the aim is to develop a novel cross-docking EOQ-based model for a retail company. By considering a two-stage inventory procurement process, a new multi-item, multi-supplier, multi-retailer EOQ model is developed to minimize the total inventory costs. In the first stage, the required items are received from suppliers and are held in a central warehouse. In the second stage, these items are delivered to several retail stores. The total inventory costs include four main parts, i.e., holding costs at the central warehouse, holding costs at the retail stores, fixed ordering costs from the suppliers, and fixed ordering costs from the central warehouse. The optimal inventory policy is obtained by analyzing extrema, and a numerical example is used to confirm the efficiency of the proposed model. Based on the obtained results, it is evident that the proposed model produces the optimal policy for the cross-docking system. Furthermore, the model enables managers to analyze the effects of key factors on the costs of the system. Based on the obtained results, the annual demand of each retailer, the ordering cost by the central warehouse, the ordering cost at each retail store, and the holding cost at each retail store have a direct impact on the optimal cost. Furthermore, it is not possible to describe the effects of the holding cost at the central warehouse on the optimal cost of the system generally.

War and Esport: The Russian Invasions Impact on the Performance of Ukrainian and Russian Professional Players

Understanding and assessing worker performance is of major sociological and economic interest. This importance is mirrored in the extent of research that analyzes incentives and behavioral traits influencing worker performance. Most of this research focuses on workers in a peaceful or stable environment. However, a large share of the global population works in a country that is at war. To examine the situation of workers in such a vulnerable situation, micro-level data is necessary but often unavailable. Esports is an exception as data regarding professional players – workers – is accessible. Here, we examine how Ukrainian and Russian professional players behave before and since the Russian invasion. Contrary to popular thinking, we find a sizable improvement in performance. For Ukrainians, the effect is especially prominent for live events, and for Russians, for online events. Our results demonstrate that the behavior of professional gamers rapidly changed after the occupation.

Can the party family approach explain Polish partisan positions? A case study on the policy field of higher education in post-socialist Poland

ABSTRACT Research on partisan positions on higher education policies has focused to date mainly on parties in sustained democratic regimes in Western Europe. This study compares these findings with Polish parties’ positioning and investigates the extent to which parties’ preferences in post-socialist Poland can be explained by their party family affiliations. Poland provides an interesting case because of its socialist heritage of strong government control in the higher education sector and the rather fluid party system with a comparatively large share of populist right parties. By means of a qualitative content analysis of 41 party manifestos from 1989–2019, partisan positions of Christian democratic, social democratic, liberal, agrarian, and populist right parties are categorized along the re-distributive and control dimension of higher education policies. While party families can explain Polish parties’ positioning on the control dimension, there is a cross-party consensus to expand the sector and increase public funding due to strong popular demand after the transformation which contrasts with the positions of West European parties. Key results are a rising salience of this policy field in party manifestos and a detailed description of populist right parties’ preferences for government control of higher education institutions and expansion of this sector.

A European Unemployment Benefit to Protect Atypical Workers?

This paper evaluates the potential of a common unemployment insurance scheme for the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU-UI) to improve income protection of atypical workers, namely those in part-time and temporary contracts. Our approach relies on simulating entitlements to national unemployment insurance and the EMU-UI to assess their effects on the household disposable income of atypical workers in the event of unemployment. Our results show that the introduction of an EMU-UI would reduce coverage gaps and increase net replacement rates, especially for atypical workers, and would protect a large share of the workforce against the risk of poverty. Extending eligibility for the EMU-UI to the self-employed would further improve income protection, reducing their risk of falling into poverty in the event of unemployment.

Limited Access to Aortic Valve Procedures in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Areas.

To explore how differences in local socioeconomic deprivation impact access to aortic valve procedures and the treatment of aortic valve disease, in comparison to other open and minimally invasive surgical procedures. Procedure volume data were obtained from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project from 18 states from 2016 to 2019 and merged with area deprivation index data, an index of zip code-level socioeconomic distress. We estimate the relationship between local deprivation ranking and differences in volumes of aortic valve replacement, which include transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR), versus coronary artery bypass graft surgery and laparoscopic colectomy (LC). All regressions control for state and year fixed effects and an array of zip code-level characteristics. TAVR procedures have increased over time across all zip codes. The rate of increase is negatively correlated with deprivation ranking, regardless of the higher share of hospitalizations per population in high deprivation areas. Distributional analysis further supports these findings, showing that lower area deprivation index areas account for a disproportionately large share of SAVR, TAVR, and LC procedures in our sample relative to their share of all hospitalizations in our sample. By comparison, the cumulative distribution of coronary artery bypass graft procedures was nearly identical to that of total hospitalizations, suggesting that this procedure is equitably distributed. Regressions show high area deprivation index areas have lower prevalence of SAVR (β=-15.1%, [95% CI, -26.8 to -3.5]), TAVR (β=-9.1%, [95% CI, -18.0 to -0.2]), and LC (β=-19.9%, [95% CI, -35.4 to -4.4]), with no statistical difference in the prevalence of coronary artery bypass graft (β=-2.5%, [95% CI, -12.7 to 7.6]), a widespread and commonly performed procedure. In the population aged ≥80 years, results show high area deprivation index areas have a lower prevalence of TAVR (β=-11.9%, [95% CI, -18.7 to -5.2]) but not SAVR (β=-0.8%, [95% CI, 8.1 to 6.3]), LC (β=-3.5%, [95% CI, -13.4 to -6.4]), or coronary artery bypass graft (β=5.2%, [95% CI, -1.1 to 1.1]). People living in high deprivation areas have less access to life-saving technologies, such as SAVR, and even moreso to device-intensive minimally invasive procedures such as TAVR and LC.

Sizing isolated mini-grids in Kenya: Risk transfer to deal with multidimensional uncertainties and constraints

Isolated mini-grids (MG) can be an efficient option for rural electrification worldwide. Nonetheless, a large share of MG fail after a few years and inadequate sizing has been identified as a major risk. Academia, public authorities and funding agencies tend to consider the sizing of mini-grids mostly from a technical and economic angle, looking to optimize performance for MG developers and operators with tools such as HOMER. This paper proposes a different approach. We study the strategies adopted by different MG stakeholders to deal with their own uncertainties and constraints in the sizing process. Based on field work in Kenya, we detail how MG funders and regulators transfer risks to private MG developers and operators. As a result, the latter face risks regarding demand estimation, funding and regulatory aspects when sizing MGs. In turn, they adapt their methods and business models, sometimes transferring risks to end users. While flexible sizing might be a solution, we show that regulatory and funding issues limit MG modularity, leading low-income customers to eventually bear the consequences of ill-suited sizing.

Comparative analysis of local pig breeds in China and Russia

Pork is a favorite type of meat with a large share in the structure of consumption worlwide, including China and Russia. Pork production in China and Russia has been constantly growing over the last years. This type of meat remains to be in high demand due to its sensory properties despite consumer attitude to pork fat content. This review presents the short history of pig farming in China and Russia, as well as the modern trends in the development of this industry. The data on the pork production and consumption in two countries over the last years are compared. Characteristics that consumers consider important when buying pork and negative factors influencing consumer choice are described. Consumer properties of meat products from pork depend on keeping conditions and feeding of animals. Meat composition and functional properties depend greatly on pig breed. Information about pig breeds that are raised in China (depending on a region) and Russia, as well as indicators of productivity of pigs of certain breeds, are presented.

Optimization of normal operation mode of an electric system with renewable energy sources in Mongolia

This article is aimed at developing an algorithm for optimizing the operation modes of the electric power system of Mongolia, particularly the central power system that include not only conventional thermal power plants, but also renewable sources (wind and solar power plants). This power system accounts for a large share of electricity consumption and generation in Mongolia. The method of linear programming was chosen to minimize financial costs and active power losses during power generation at thermal power plants, while Newton’s method was used to minimize power losses. In addition, the article uses load schedules of each node of the studied power system for its modeling based on the ranking model. Load graphs are predicted using ensemble machine learning algorithms. After the optimization by the criterion of power loss minimization in the grid, power losses were found to be 3.05% of the total power consumption (with power losses in the basic variant of 3.12% and the average selling price of thermal power plants of 0.51 units). Thus, the reduction in losses amounted to 0.07 percentage points, or 2.24%. In terms of the cost minimization criterion, the average selling price of electricity was 0.49 units, i.e., decreased by 3.92%. Average losses of electric power in the grid decreased by 0.6%. According to empirical data, the suggested algorithms can be applied to the optimization of power distribution between thermal power plants by given criteria. The suggested algorithms are implemented using pandapower, a Python-based tool for power system analysis, thus creating a unified system of predictive analytics of power system operation modes

A Sustainable Model for Healthcare Systems: The Innovative Approach of ESG and Digital Transformation.

In recent years, the globe has faced a series of topics of growing concern, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the international financial crisis, rising socio-economic inequalities, the negative outcomes of greenhouse gas emissions, which resulted in climate change, and many others. Organizations worldwide have confronted these new challenges of sustainable finance by incorporating environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors and digital transformation (DT) in their innovation business strategies. The healthcare sector represents a large share of the global economy (about 10% of global economic output), employs a large number of workers, and needs to rely more on an open innovation model where interested parties, especially patients, are going to have a say in their own well-being. Thus, it is imperative that healthcare providers be efficient, effective, resilient, and sustainable in the face of significant challenges and risks. At the same time, they must offer sustainable development goals and digital transformation to healthcare users through limited governmental resources. This study investigates the role, importance, and correlation of ESG factors and digital transformation to the sustainable finance of healthcare systems through an innovative model. The main purpose of the paper is to present the already implemented ESG and DT factors in the healthcare sector and to propose a mutual and combined implementation strategy based on common evaluation tools, methods, and actions. A set of proposed actions and strategies are presented for the sustainability and resilience of the healthcare sector.

Contracts and Firms' Inflation Expectations

Abstract We use novel survey data to study firms’ inventory contracts. We document facts about the usage of purchase and sale contracts. We find that firms purchase and sell inventory through three contractual arrangements: fixed price and quantity, fixed price only, and fixed quantity only. Those using fixed price and quantity hold the largest share of contracts. The average duration of purchase contracts is not very different from the average duration of sale contracts. We then find that the upward bias in inflation expectations is a feature of firms that do not purchase or sell largely through contracts. Our findings are useful in the calibration of sticky price models.

A Life Cycle Analysis of a Polyester–Wool Blended Fabric and Associated Carbon Emissions in the Textile Industry

The effect of industrialization and technological developments and the rate of population growth have begun to disrupt the ecological balance in the world. A large share of the deterioration of this balance is due to the rapidly increasing energy demands of people. Fossil fuels and renewable energy sources are used to obtain the energy that is needed by human beings. Most of the world’s energy needs are met by fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. These resources, which we call fossil fuels, cause many parallel environmental problems, such as global warming, climate change, and carbon emissions, for the world and nature. The most affected by all these experiences, of course, is the entire production sector, which is dependent on energy. However, textile and apparel, which is a pioneer in taking steps towards harmonization with the Green Agreement, is one of the sectors that started the transition to green energy within the scope of the European Union and brands’ net-zero targets. Within the scope of the Green Agreement, Turkey has participated and started to work for a 70% carbon reduction, which is the target for 2030, and carbon neutrality, which is the target for 2050. Therefore, within the scope of these targets, the textile sector of Çukurova Region, which has the highest export rate in Turkey, was chosen. Within the scope of this study, carbon emission, which is one of the global problems, was examined within the framework of the ISO 14067-ISO Product Based Carbon Footprint (CF) standard by examining the production of a textile company, and the results were analyzed in detail. The main innovation of this article is to follow all stages of the fabric called Tricia, which is the most produced product in the textile industry, from its entry as fiber to its exit as fabric in the factory, and to calculate and analyze the amount of carbon that is released into nature. The dynamic and experimental results showed that it was determined that 6.00 tons of carbon dioxide carbon were released in the time it took for the fabric to go to the sewing room as a fabric.

Survey based assessment of sustainable agricultural practices: Evidence from Indian plots

AbstractIn recent years concerns have been raised regarding the environmental consequences of over‐use of nitrogen fertilizers on a global level. However, the balance between sustainability and agricultural productivity, a central concern for policy makers in developing countries, has not been sufficiently addressed. In this paper, I evaluate farmers’ fertilization practices and their effect on yield using unique plot level data from India. I estimate quadratic crop response functions for different crops and cropping systems. To address endogenous input choices, I use input prices and cost shifters from the fertilizer industry as instrumental variables for the fertilization practice. I find that a large share of Indian cultivators overuse nitrogen relative to the other two nutrients, and could benefit from simply reducing the amount of nitrogen used while keeping the other nutrients fixed. This suggests a potential win‐win situation where both productivity and sustainability can be improved by changing fertilizer application. The widespread “nitrogen‐only” fertilization pattern is rejected as optimal in most cases. [EconLit Citations: Q12, Q15, Q16, E23, C26, C14].