Optimal three-part tariff pricing and marketing strategies for consumer overconfidence.

Experts in traditional pricing literature often assume that consumers are rational in their purchasing decisions, and tend to ignore the effect of psychological behavior. One of the fundamental irrational psychological behaviors is overconfidence, which refers to overestimation. The benefits of three-part tariffs under demand uncertainty caused by overconfident consumers have been demonstrated in various forms.

An economic reappraisal of hepatitis B virus testing strategy for blood donors in Taiwan.

Background And Objectives: Taiwan is among the few hepatitis B virus (HBV) high-endemic countries that implement universal mini-pool nucleic acid testing (MP-NAT) and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) testing together with confirmatory individual donor nucleic acid testing (ID-NAT) for its blood supply since 2013. The aim of this study was to reappraise the value of HBsAg test in Taiwan's HBV testing strategy.

Materials And Methods: A Markov model was constructed, and cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted in order to reappraise the existing HBV screening strategy in Taiwan.

Effects of socioeconomic status on cancer patient survival: counterfactual event-based mediation analysis.

Purpose: This study investigated the direct and indirect effects of socioeconomic status (SES) on the survival time of cancer patients by using cancer stage to create a pathway from SES to health outcomes and facilitate a mechanistic inference.

Methods: Both a traditional mediation analysis and a counterfactual event-based mediation analysis were applied to SEER (The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) data from the National Cancer Institute of the United States. A Cox proportional hazards model for survival analysis was performed in the mediation analysis.

Effects of meteorological factors on blood donation.

Background And Objectives: Blood donation can be affected by various factors including time, weather, and other events (such as disasters). To better understand how meteorological factors affect blood donation, this study builds a novel predictive model for blood supply in North Taiwan to facilitate better blood supply chain and inventory management.

Materials And Methods: This study uses a two-step prediction model that combines generalized additive models (GAM) and time series models to investigate the meteorological and the day-of-the-week effects on blood donation.

Optimal collecting policy for apheresis platelets in a regional blood center.

Background And Objectives: Planning platelet collection and inventory must rely not only on adequate forecasts of transfusion demand but also sophisticated mathematical modeling techniques. This research aims to develop a better demand forecasting model of apheresis platelets and a mathematical programming model to determine the best target amounts of apheresis platelet collection.

Materials And Methods: Time series data of apheresis platelets collected from donors and platelets supplied to hospitals daily in Taipei Blood Center from January 2014 to December 2015 was used to fit a forecasting model which combines a regression-type model for formulating the deterministic trends and seasonal variation and an autoregressive moving average model (ARMA) for explaining remaining serial correlations.

On the treatment of uncertainty and variability in making decisions about risk.

Much attention has been paid to the treatment of dependence and to the characterization of uncertainty and variability (including the issue of dependence among inputs) in performing risk assessments to avoid misleading results. However, with relatively little progress in communicating about the effects and implications of dependence, the effort involved in performing relatively sophisticated risk analyses (e.g.

Should the model for risk-informed regulation be game theory rather than decision theory?

Risk analysts frequently view the regulation of risks as being largely a matter of decision theory. According to this view, risk analysis methods provide information on the likelihood and severity of various possible outcomes; this information should then be assessed using a decision-theoretic approach (such as cost/benefit analysis) to determine whether the risks are acceptable, and whether additional regulation is warranted. However, this view ignores the fact that in many industries (particularly industries that are technologically sophisticated and employ specialized risk and safety experts), risk analyses may be done by regulated firms, not by the regulator.

Analysis of treatment delivery errors in brachytherapy using formal risk analysis techniques.

Purpose: To identify hazardous situations in treatments, analyze the nature of errors committed, and assess the value of several analysis techniques.

Materials And Methods: The study applied several risk analysis techniques to brachytherapy events (misadministrations) reported to the U.S.