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The History of Economics Society (HES) has traveled a long way throughout its fifty conferences, from the first one organized by Warren Samuels and Vincent Tarascio on May 30 and 31, 1973, in Chicago, to the fiftieth annual meetings that took place on June 23 to 25, 2023, in Vancouver, Canada. This journey can be analyzed in different ways, and here we focus on the presidential addresses delivered as a guide to our analysis. From the conference programs we identified a total of forty-four presidential addresses: the first to appear on the conference program was Vincent Tarascio’s speech on Vilfredo Pareto, on the second day of the Boston conference in 1975. Since 1975, presidential addresses have become a regular feature of the conference, with rare exceptions such as the 1977 Irvine, CA, conference or in the recent years when Marcel Boumans’s presidential address was postponed from 2020 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the forty-four presidential addresses in the history of HES, we analyzed the forty-one that were published in scholarly journals (see Table 1). However, we could not find whether two presidential addresses—specifically Joseph Spengler, HES conference 1976, Chicago; and Carl Uhr, HES conference 1978, Toronto—have been published. Moreover, Robert Leonard has not published the address he delivered at the 2015 HES conference but two related papers.
The US National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria established a goal to decrease unnecessary outpatient antibiotic use by 50%. However, data to inform this goal have been limited to medical settings and have not included dental prescribing. Thus, we sought to identify the proportion of antibiotics prescribed inappropriately by dentists to inform outpatient stewardship efforts.
Methods:
Cross-sectional analysis of 2019 Veterans’ Affairs (VA) national electronic health record data. Antibiotics prescribed by dentists were evaluated for appropriateness based on 2 definitions: one derived from current guidelines (consensus-based recommendations) and the other based on relevant clinical literature (nonconsensus). A clustered binomial logistic regression model determined factors associated with discordant prescribing.
Results:
In total, 92,224 antibiotic prescriptions (63% amoxicillin; mean supply, 8.0 days) were associated with 88,539 dental visits. Prophylaxis for complications in medically compromised patients was associated with the most (30.9%) antibiotic prescriptions, followed by prevention of postsurgical complications (20.1%) and infective endocarditis (18.0%). At the visit level, 15,476 (17.5%) met the consensus-based definition for appropriate antibiotic usage and 56,946 (64.3%) met the nonconsensus definition.
Conclusions:
More than half of antibiotics prescribed by dentists do not have guidelines supporting their use. Regardless of definition applied, antibiotics prescribed by dentists were commonly unnecessary. Improving prescribing by dentists is critical to reach the national goal to decrease unnecessary antibiotic use.
A quaternary ammonium and alcohol-based disinfectant with reported continuous activity demonstrated reduced microbial buildup on surfaces over time compared to routine disinfectants without continuous activity in in vitro and hospital studies. We compared these disinfectants in ambulatory settings and found no difference in bioburden on high-touch surfaces over time.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) disease outbreak started in China and went on to affect the entire world. Healthcare providers were among the communities that faced severe challenges during the pandemic, and this was especially true of Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical Services (PHEMS) providers.
Objectives:
This study aims to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on service requests submitted to PHEMS providers via calls made to emergency hotlines.
Methods:
Data were obtained on calls made to 112 (the emergency hotline) during March – August 2020 (i.e., during the pandemic) and the same period the previous year (i.e., the pre-pandemic period). These 2 data sets were analyzed and compared using the SPSS 26 software package (IBM Corp., Armonk, New York, USA).
Results:
The results of the analysis indicated that the total number of emergency calls received during the pandemic period (11 745) increased compared to the pre-pandemic period (10 747), whereas there was a decrease in the proportion of trauma-related emergency calls during the pandemic period (5.3%) compared to the pre-pandemic period (6.8%). Furthermore, there was a higher proportion of extended service times among ambulances serving in PHEMS during the pandemic period (ambulance movements longer than 90 seconds: 15.6%) compared to the pre-pandemic period (ambulance movements longer than 90 seconds: 8.6%). Non-emergency ambulance usage rate was 44.90% in the pre-pandemic period and 38.90% in the pandemic period.
Conclusions:
As the study’s results show that there was an increase in the number of calls to PHEMS during the pandemic period, especially given that a significant portion of these calls consisted of non-emergency calls, it is recommended that measures be taken to reduce the excessive load on PHEMS during a pandemic.
Motivated by the increased importance of trade between industrialized and less-developed countries, we build a two-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model featuring inter-industry trade as well as intra-industry trade to analyze the business cycle dynamics of industrialized countries. We find that import-competing sectors are more sensitive to domestic productivity shocks than exporting sectors, due to their stronger reliance on domestic demand. This generates pressure to adjust relative prices and to reallocate factors of production. It also propagates the international spillover effects of productivity shocks leading to stronger business cycle comovement across countries, relative to a traditional business cycle model that does not feature inter-industry trade.
This study addresses the phenomenon of misinformation about misinformation, or politicians “crying wolf” over fake news. Strategic and false claims that stories are fake news or deepfakes may benefit politicians by helping them maintain support after a scandal. We posit that this benefit, known as the “liar’s dividend,” may be achieved through two politician strategies: by invoking informational uncertainty or by encouraging oppositional rallying of core supporters. We administer five survey experiments to over 15,000 American adults detailing hypothetical politician responses to stories describing real politician scandals. We find that claims of misinformation representing both strategies raise politician support across partisan subgroups. These strategies are effective against text-based reports of scandals, but are largely ineffective against video evidence and do not reduce general trust in media. Finally, these false claims produce greater dividends for politicians than alternative responses to scandal, such as remaining silent or apologizing.
Within the field of virtue and vice epistemology open-mindedness is usually considered an archetypal virtue. Nevertheless, there is ongoing disagreement over how exactly it should be defined. In this paper I propose a novel definition of open-mindedness as a process of impartial belief revision and use it to argue that we should shift our normative assessments away from the trait itself to the context in which it is exercised. My definition works by three sequential stages: not screening new claims, impartially weighing the evidential strength of claims, and updating beliefs accordingly. Using this definition I argue for a focus on agents’ particular circumstances to determine what degrees of credulity, open-, or closed-mindedness are appropriate in any given situation. As well as providing conceptual clarity regarding the concept of open-mindedness this paper indicates the benefits of this contextual approach for our everyday epistemic attitudes. In particular it enables us to recognise, without stigma, when ourselves or others deviate from open-mindedness for appropriate reasons.
In this article, we study the complexity of weighted team definability for logics with team semantics. This problem is a natural analog of one of the most studied problems in parameterized complexity, the notion of weighted Fagin-definability, which is formulated in terms of satisfaction of first-order formulas with free relation variables. We focus on the parameterized complexity of weighted team definability for a fixed formula $\varphi$ of central team-based logics. Given a first-order structure $\mathcal{A}$ and the parameter value $k\in \mathbb N$ as input, the question is to determine whether $\mathcal{A},T\models \varphi$ for some team T of size k. We show several results on the complexity of this problem for dependence, independence, and inclusion logic formulas. Moreover, we also relate the complexity of weighted team definability to the complexity classes in the well-known W-hierarchy as well as paraNP.
Vegetables are known to be beneficial to human health, but the association between vegetable consumption and gastric cancer remains uncertain. To synthesise knowledge about the relationship between vegetable group consumption and gastric cancer risk, update present meta-analyses and estimate associations between vegetable consumption and gastric cancer risk based solely on prospective studies, we perform a PRISMA-compliant three-level meta-analysis. Systematic search identified thirteen prospective studies with fifty-two effect sizes that met all inclusion criteria and no exclusion criteria for our meta-analysis. Pooled risk ratios (RRs) showed a positive association between high vegetable consumption and low gastric cancer risk (pooled RR 0·93, 95% confidence interval 0·90–0·97, P = 0·06). In moderator analyses for indicators of gender, region and quantity of vegetable intake, there was no significant difference between subgroups. However, the effect became significant in populations with lower than the minimum risk exposure level (TMREL) of vegetable consumption (P < 0·05). Higher vegetable intake is associated with a decreased risk of gastric cancer. This effect may be limited to specific populations, such as ones with lower vegetable consumption. Evidence from our study has important public health implications for dietary recommendations.
The objective of this study was to translate the Preference-Based Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Scale to French-Canadian. After the scale underwent forward and back translations, the expert committee examined the translated versions and found minor grammatical errors and suggested idioms to be changed to better represent French-Canadian language. Cognitive debriefing interviews were carried out to assess the pre-final version for clarity, and minor changes were made. Consensus from the expert committee and people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on the measure’s clarity, word choice, and meaning were achieved, resulting in the final French version of the Preference-Based Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Scale.
Differentially flat under-actuated robots are characterized by more degrees of freedom (DOF) than actuators: this makes possible the design of lightweight cheap robots with high dexterity. The main issue of such robots is the control of the passive joint, which requires accurate dynamic modeling of the robot.
Friction is usually discarded to simplify the models, especially in the case of low-speed trajectories. However, this simplification leads to oscillations of the end-effector about the final position, which are incompatible with fast and accurate motions.
This paper focuses on planar $n$-DOF serial robotic arms with $n-1$ actuated rotational joints plus one final passive rotational joint with stiffness and friction properties. These robots, if properly balanced, are differentially flat. When the non-actuated joint can be considered frictionless, differentially flat robots can be controlled in open loop, calculating the motor torques demanded by point-to-point motions. This paper extends the open-loop control to robots with a passive joint with viscous friction adopting a Laplace transform method. This method can be adopted by exploiting the particular structure of the equations of motion of differentially flat under-actuated robots in which the last equations are linear. Analytical expressions of the motor torques are obtained. The work is enriched by an experimental validation of a $2$-DOF under-actuated robot and by numerical simulations of the $2$- and $4$-DOF robots showing the suppression of unwanted oscillations.
To describe the relative burden of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) and non-CAUTI hospital-onset urinary tract infections (HOUTIs).
Methods:
A retrospective observational study of patients from 43 acute-care hospitals was conducted. CAUTI cases were defined as those reported to the National Healthcare Safety Network. Non-CAUTI HOUTI was defined as a positive, non-contaminated, non-commensal culture collected on day 3 or later. All HOUTIs were required to have a new antimicrobial prescribed within 2 days of the first positive urine culture. Outcomes included secondary hospital-onset bacteremia and fungemia (HOB), total hospital costs, length of stay (LOS), readmission risk, and mortality.
Results:
Of 549,433 admissions, 434 CAUTIs and 3,177 non-CAUTI HOUTIs were observed. The overall rate of HOB likely secondary to HOUTI was 3.7%. Total numbers of secondary HOB were higher in non-CAUTI HOUTIs compared to CAUTI (101 vs 34). HOB secondary to non-CAUTI HOUTI was more likely to originate outside the ICU compared to CAUTI (69.3% vs 44.1%). CAUTI was associated with adjusted incremental total hospital cost and LOS of $9,807 (P < .0001) and 3.01 days (P < .0001) while non-CAUTI HOUTI was associated with adjusted incremental total hospital cost and LOS of $6,874 (P < .0001) and 2.97 days (P < .0001).
Conclusion:
CAUTI and non-CAUTI HOUTI were associated with deleterious outcomes. Non-CAUTI HOUTI occurred more often and was associated with a higher facility aggregate volume of HOB than CAUTI. Patients at risk for UTIs in the hospital represent a vulnerable population who may benefit from surveillance and prevention efforts, particularly in the non-ICU setting.
Decades of research shows that sexual minority youth (SMY) display heightened risk for mental health problems, although the onset of such disparities remains unclear. The Millennium Cohort Study is the largest nationally representative longitudinal study of adolescents in the United Kingdom. In this study, participants (N = 10,047, 50% female) self-reported their sexual identity at age 17 and had parent-reported mental health data, from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, reported across five waves at ages 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17. Multilevel linear spline models, stratified by sex, were used to examine mental health trajectories between sexual identity groups (completely heterosexual, mostly heterosexual, SMY). SMY showed heightened peer problems from the baseline assessment at age five, increasing over time, and heightened emotional problems from age 11, increasing over time. Mostly heterosexual youth showed heightened emotional problems at age 11 in males, and at age 17 in females. Findings are discussed in light of the literature on minority stress and gender conformity in youth. The use of parent-reported mental health data means that estimates are likely to be conservative. We conclude that interventions supporting SMY should start early and be available throughout adolescence.