The indigenous "Bolsa Família" (Family Allowance): monetarization, income redistribution, and the social life of the Rikbaktsa, Brazilian Amazon.

Primarily since the early 2000s, Indigenous peoples in Brazil have become beneficiaries of social security and income transfer policies, such as the program known as Bolsa Família (Family Allowance). Few field studies have evaluated the magnitude and significance of monetarization in Indigenous social lives and economies. To this end, between 2019 and 2020, the present work conducted an ethnographic study and survey in two villages of the Rikbaktsa people in the Brazilian Amazon.

How charitable giving affects litigation duration? Empirical evidence from China.

Charitable donations are an important manifestation of corporate social responsibility. Current research focuses on the economic effects of corporate donations while ignoring their legal effects in the litigation field. This paper utilizes litigation and arbitration data from A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2008 to 2021 to investigate the impact and mechanism of charitable donations on the litigation duration of listed companies.

HEalth professionals Responding to MEn for Safety (HERMES): Mixed methods evaluation of a pilot sexual health intervention for gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men experiencing domestic violence and abuse.

Background: Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) is a violation of human rights that damages the health and well-being of-gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM). Sexual health services provide a unique opportunity to assess for DVA and provide support. This study explores the feasibility and acceptability of Healthcare Responding to Men for Safety (HERMES), a pilot intervention aimed to improve the identification and referral of gbMSM experiencing DVA in a London NHS Trust.

Insurance coverage and consistent pricing is needed for over-the-counter naloxone.

With the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the first over-the-counter naloxone nasal spray in 2023, it was expected that access to naloxone nasal spray would increase and that its cost would be reduced. However, the writers of this commentary found varying insurance coverage of naloxone during purchase attempts at local pharmacies. Failure to cover naloxone can reduce access and increase risk of overdose death.

Unveiling multiscale spatiotemporal dynamics of volatility in high-frequency financial markets.

This study explores the intricate dynamics of volatility within high-frequency financial markets, focusing on 225 of Chinese listed companies from 2016 to 2023. Utilizing 5-minute high-frequency data, we analyze the realized volatility of individual stocks across six distinct time scales: 5-minute, 10-minute, 30-minute, 1-hour, 2-hour, and 4-hour intervals. Our investigation reveals a consistent power law decay in the auto-correlation function of realized volatility across all time scales.

Traditional online and live-streaming dual-channel strategies and pricing policies.

This study examines the pricing policies and the dual-channel strategies in a two-tier supply chain where a manufacturer distributes products through a retailer and considers the opening of a traditional direct online channel or a live-streaming sales channel The manufacturer has three sales modes, i.e., traditional retail channel only, opening a traditional direct online channel and opening a live-streaming direct sales channel, to consider.

Structural engineering of flagellin as vaccine adjuvant: quest for the minimal domain of flagellin for TLR5 activation.

Flagellin stimulates Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5), triggering both innate and adaptive immune responses, making it a potential vaccine adjuvant. On mucosal surfaces, flagellin induces a strong release of cytokines, chemokines, and immunoglobulins. When used in its free monomeric form, flagellin has been shown to enhance immune responses when combined with vaccine antigens.

Burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in adults aged 70 years and older, 1990-2021: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.

Background: Life expectancy at age 70 has continued to rise globally over the past 30 years. However, a comprehensive assessment of the burden of COPD in older adults is lacking. We aimed to estimate the burden of COPD and its attributable risk factors among adults aged ≥70 years.

Hospital and physician-based mental healthcare during 12 months of opioid agonist treatment for opioid use disorder: Exploring costs and factors associated with acute care.

Background: Individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) have a high prevalence of co-occurring mental health disorders; however, there exists little information on mental health service use for this population. We aimed to determine the prevalence of non-substance use-related mental health emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations, and outpatient physician visits for individuals receiving treatment for OUD over one year. We also explored individual-level characteristics associated with mental health care service use and estimated the costs of this care.

Challenges and motivating factors for integrating geostatistical models in targeted schistosomiasis control: A qualitative case study in Northwestern Tanzania.

Introduction: To address problems of over- and under-treatment with preventive chemotherapy resulting in ongoing transmission of schistosomiasis, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends targeted mass drug administration (MDA) interventions at a sub-district level. In Tanzania, the lack of sub-district (ward) prevalence data has inhibited a transition to targeted treatment. Model-based prevalence estimation combined with routine surveillance data can be used to overcome this gap.

Aggregating multiple test results to improve medical decision-making.

Gathering observational data for medical decision-making often involves uncertainties arising from both type I (false positive) and type II (false negative) errors. In this work, we develop a statistical model to study how medical decision-making can be improved by aggregating results from repeated diagnostic and screening tests. Our approach is relevant to not only clinical settings such as medical imaging, but also to public health, as highlighted by the need for rapid, cost-effective testing methods during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Does environmental management system certification keep enterprises out of trouble? Evidence from stock price crash risk.

This paper examines the impact of environmental management system (EMS) certification, a significant voluntary participatory environmental regulation, on the risk of stock price collapse. The study is based on sample data of heavily polluting listed companies from 2008-2020. The study demonstrates that certification of environmental management systems has a significant impact on preventing share price collapse.

Willingness to pay for exercise oncology services: a mixed methods study.

Purpose: To evaluate cancer patients' willingness to pay for exercise services and oncology health professionals' perception of patients' willingness to pay.

Methods: A mixed-methods design was used. Online questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were administered to people with any type of cancer and oncology health professionals delivering clinical care.

The number of available sample observations modulates gambler's fallacy in betting behaviors.

The gambler's fallacy is a prevalent cognitive bias in betting behaviors, characterized by the mistaken belief that an independent and identically distributed random process exhibits negative serial correlation. This misconception often arises when individuals observe a series of realized outcomes from the process. We study how varying the quantity of information about the sample of realized outcomes influences individuals' propensity towards the gambler's fallacy in repeated betting.

A study of the impact of urban business credit environment on environmental pollution.

Environmental pollution has become a global concern, so it is critical to find out the elements that influence it. Is the urban business credit environment influencing urban environmental conditions? The study takes the entropy method for calculating the environmental pollution index of 276 prefecture-level cities across China from 2010 to 2021, the CE1 index to describe the urban business credit environment, and a spatial Durbin model to empirically analyze the mechanism and transmission path of the urban business credit environment on environmental pollution. The findings demonstrate that: (1) there is an important positive spatial association between China's urban pollution index and urban business credit index, and that the level of spatial clustering of the two is increasing over time.

Evolutionary game of international trade network based on trade policy differences.

Trade policy differences among different countries are important factors affecting international trade cooperation. In this paper, we build an evolutionary game model of international trade in which complex networks portray game relationships and trade policy differences are game strategies of players. Compared with the fully coupled game relationship and two-strategies game, the game relationship dynamic adjustment, trade policy differences and stochastic game payoffs in this paper are more in line with the real international trade context.

Gait ecological assessment in persons with Parkinson's disease engaged in a synchronized musical rehabilitation program.

Data on gait parameters during real-life activities and home rehabilitation programs for Persons with Parkinson's disease (PwPDs) are scarce. Although cueing has been shown to improve their gait in laboratory conditions, few studies have applied this technique in at-home rehabilitation programs. Our study aimed to explore the use of a real-time synchronized beat-step music program for at-home rehabilitation.

Tariffs, transportation, and profits in cross-border e-commerce: A dual-channel supply chain decision-making strategy.

The development of cross-border e-commerce platform promotes the new channel model between domestic and international. How to determine the dual-channel pricing decision of manufacturers and retailers under the condition of tariff and transportation heterogeneity has become an important and realistic problem. Based on the perspective of cross-border e-commerce dual-channel supply chain, this paper considers the impact of import tariff, transport heterogeneity and export tax rebate, compares and analyzes the performance difference between decentralized decision-making and centralized decision-making, and analyzes the impact of import tariff, export tax rebate and transport heterogeneity on cross-border e-commerce dual-channel pricing, demand and profit.

Behavioral choice of manufacturers, recyclers and customers in Trade-In Programs.

This study investigates the behavioral choices of manufacturers, recyclers, and customers in Trade-In Programs designed to promote recycling and environmental sustainability. Using a manufacturer-led evolutionary game model, the research explores how factors such as government policies, market demand, financial incentives, and the simplicity of participation impact stakeholder engagement in these programs. Numerical simulations were conducted to analyze the effects of specific parameters on each participants' willingness to participate.

Global, regional, and national survey on burden and Quality of Care Index (QCI) of orofacial clefts: Global burden of disease systematic analysis 1990-2019.

Background: Orofacial clefts are the most common craniofacial anomalies that include a variety of conditions affecting the lips and oral cavity. They remain a significant global public health challenge. Despite this, the quality of care for orofacial clefts has not been investigated at global and country levels.

Can ICT investment promote green development? new insights from highly polluting listed enterprises in China.

Green development is related to the long-term sustainable development of enterprises, but there is little literature on the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) investment on green development of enterprises. To fill this gap, based on the sample of A-share high-polluting industry enterprises in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2007 to 2019, this paper uses the dynamic panel threshold model to deeply study the non-linear impact of ICT investment on green development. This paper found that: (1) there is a threshold effect on the impact of ICT investment on green development of enterprises in high-polluting industries, and when ICT investment breaks through the threshold value, it can promote green development.

Testing the significance of pricing factors of oil and gas companies.

For decades, fossil fuels have accounted for 70% to 80% of global primary energy demand. Far from ending this trend, O&G companies continue to be the main fore-runners in providing secure, versatile and widespread energy to the entire world. The relevance of this sector in the economic-financial landscape and the concern for its stability, makes that the high interest of the scientific community to explore the factors that explain the O&G cross-sectional expected returns remains intact.

Views and opinions of the general public about the reimbursement of expensive medicines in the Netherlands.

Objectives: Solidarity-based healthcare systems are being challenged by the incremental costs of new and expensive medicines for cancer and rare diseases. To regulate reimbursement of such drugs, the Dutch government introduced a policy instrument known as the Coverage Lock (CL) in 2015. Little is known about the public opinion regarding such policy instruments and their consequences, i.