Optimal control strategy for prevention of avian influenza pandemic

The spread of H5N1 virus to Europe and continued human infection in Southeast Asia have heightened pandemic concern. Although, fortunately, sustained human-to-human transmissions have not been reported yet, it is said that a pandemic virus which can be easily transmitted among humans certainly emerges in the future. In this study, we extended the previous studies for the prevention of the pandemic influenza to evaluate the time-dependent optimal prevention policies, which are associated with elimination policy and quarantine policy, considering its execution cost. Actually, the execution cost affects the optimal strategy of prevention policies and the prevention of the disease spread. We found that the quarantine policy is very important rather than the elimination policy during the disease spread, even if the unit execution cost of the quarantine policy is more expensive than that of the elimination policy. And also, the change of the unit execution cost does affect the total cumulative cost of the optimal prevention policies but does not affect the relative frequency of each cumulative execution cost. Furthermore, interestingly, we revealed that an optimal strategy to reduce the number of total infected humans might increase a chance of invadability of the mutant influenza.     

关于我国国民环境的态度调查

2004年10月随机抽取了北京、上海、河北、河南、湖南、陕西六省市对5000余位国民做了环境态度问卷调查.了解我国民众的生态观念、制约因素、以及潜在的保护环境的动机.调查结果显示,91%的被访者感到我国环境已严重恶化,78%的被访者支持政府耗资3000多亿元人民币开展退耕还林项目.居民的环境意识同经济收入、受教育水平、年龄、职业、居住环境有着密切关系,其中经济收入和受教育水平是影响居民环境意识变化的首要因素.区域差异分析结果表明,我国现阶段的环境压力主要集中在贫困的边远山区和快速崛起的城市周边地区,把发展经济、改善教育、提高居民的生活质量与环境修复有机地结合起来,是生态政策管理的根本途径.     

我国暴力伤医事件成因的政策分析及应对

暴力伤医事件是我国医患信任解体的具体表现,并有逐年上升的趋势,它已严重威胁到医疗正常秩序。清晰的阐释其复杂的成因并提出政策应对建议,对减少暴力伤医以及构建和谐医患关系具有重要意义。本文旨在剖析伤医事件的成因的政策根源,并提出相应的政策应对策略及意见,进而为构建和谐的医患关系提供理论参考。     

我国儿童药物发展环境与市场分析

我国儿童药物处于市场需求大、竞争小、政策利好的环境中,面临着前所未有的发展机遇。分析了我国儿童药物的发展环境和市 场现状,并对儿童药物的市场开发策略给予了建议。     

低碳经济发展战略研究进展

发展低碳经济已成为国家和区域发展的重要战略。从发展战略的角度,对低碳经济的产生背景、内涵和理论基础等进行了总结和归纳;在此基础上提出了低碳经济发展战略框架研究的主要内容,包括碳政治和碳排放权分配、目标思路、指标体系构建和碳排放的核算;从政策路径、政策工具和政策仿真等方面介绍了低碳经济发展战略的政策研究的主要内容和国内外研究进展。最后指出当前研究的不足之处和未来研究趋向,主要有:低碳经济理论的深入研究,低碳经济战略和政策工具研究,区域低碳经济发展模式研究,低碳经济发展潜力、市场规模和经济技术风险研究,碳减排标准规范的研究和制定。     

Focus: Preventive Medicine: Race,Racism, and the Policy of 21st Century Medicine

This perspective describes three new policies passed at the November 2020 Special Meeting of the American Medical Association House of Delegates. These policies (1) denounce racism as a public health threat; (2) call for the elimination of race as a proxy for ancestry, genetics, and biology in medical education, research, and clinical practice; and (3) decry racial essentialism in medicine. We also explore the social and institutional context leading to the passage of these policies, which speak directly to the harmful legacy of racism in America, and its insidious impact on the healthcare system.     

Urban land rights and child nutritional status in Peru, 2004

Advocates of land-titling programs in developing countries posit that these programs lead to a multitude of benefits, including health improvements. This paper presents the results of a child health survey of several Lima communities after various time exposures to Peru's urban land-titling program. The results provide suggestive evidence that improved property rights increase children's weight but not their height, which is consistent with previous work on the topic. However, titles also appear to raise children's risk of being overweight or obese, implying that the observed weight gain is not necessarily an improvement in nutritional status.     

Mars, Materials, and Three Morality Plays: Materials Flows and Environmental Policy

Although industrial ecology represents a captivating metaphor and rich repertoire of analytical tools, its impact on environmental policy has been marginal at best. This article examines the insights provided by the studies of three common materials in the US. economy-lead, arsenic, and silver-and the abilrty of such studies to illuminate some larger and looming challenges for future environmental policy. Three specific challenges are explored: the flow of materials across national borders, the increasing embodiment of emissions in products, and the dangers of unchallenged assumptions about the drivers of material flows. The article argues that industrial ecology can inform public policy but that it is time for the practitioners of industrial ecology, an applied science, to apply it in the often messy world of environmental policymaking.     

Implications of Fire Policy on Native Land Use in the Yukon Flats, Alaska

Through a process of participatory mapping, this research assessed the impacts of the 1984 change in Alaska fire policy from one of exclusion to one of management on Native land use in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Findings suggest that while the change in policy has had little measurable effect on community land use the continued suppression of fire on Native owned lands is having a direct impact on the current availability of wildlife resources to the point of necessitating territorial expansion among Native resource users. However, given the complexity of human nature, the impacts associated with the 1984 policy change should not be reduced to a simplistic cause-and-effect relationship. Rather this analysis demonstrates the interaction as well as the contradiction that occur between policy, culture, and ecology as these factors together have come to influence Native land use.     

Integrating Professional Skills in Wildlife Student Education

Abstract: Recent articles have called for enhanced quantitative proficiency in wildlife students, arguing that such training will increase scientific rigor and produce wildlife researchers and managers who are better able to remedy current problems and to address future challenges in wildlife management. The idea that better, or more rigorous, science is the panacea for controversial natural resource problems is a cavalier and common presumption in many applied professions and one to which wildlife science and management is not immune. However, science and management are distinct processes and although scientific rigor is important, dialogue between the 2 processes is more critical for successful interaction. Integrated training that exposes students to nontraditional coursework and develops essential professional skills, such as planning, consensus-building, and communication, can help produce graduates to bridge the science—management gap and promote the conservation of natural resources. Changes in the structure and coursework of university wildlife departments can help to develop more effective wildlife professionals.