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The study examines the relationship between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) investments of a food firm, an activist's incentive to target the firm to uncover and deter fraudulent behavior, and the firm's incentive to commit food fraud. Specifically, we develop a game theoretic model to analyze the strategic interaction between a food firm that decides whether to provide a credence food attribute and whether to misrepresent the quality of its product, and an activist who decides whether to monitor the firm and launch a campaign to uncover and remove false/misleading quality claims. We further examine the effect of CSR and the activist's presence on the level of quality the firm provides. We derive the conditions under which an activist will find it optimal to monitor the firm to uncover fraudulent quality claims and the firm will find it optimal to misrepresent its product quality. Analytical results show that the greater the firm's CSR investments, the less likely it is that the activist will find it optimal to monitor the firm, and the more likely it is that the firm will find it optimal to misrepresent its product quality. Results also show that the firm is more likely to misrepresent its product quality when its effectiveness in contesting the activist's campaign is relatively high, and more likely to actually provide a high-quality product when the cost of the credence attribute is relatively low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects one in four women globally and is more commonly enacted by men than women. Rates of IPV in South Africa exceed the global average. Exploring the background and context regarding why men use violence can help future efforts to prevent IPV. Methods: We explored adult men's perspectives of IPV, livelihoods, alcohol use, gender beliefs, and childhood exposure to abuse through a secondary analysis of qualitative interviews that were conducted in South Africa. The setting was a peri-urban township characterized by high unemployment, immigration from rural areas, and low service provision. We utilized thematic qualitative analysis that was guided by the social ecological framework. Results: Of 30 participants, 20 were residents in the neighborhood, 7 were trained community members, and 3 were program staff. Men reported consumption of alcohol and lack of employment as being triggers for IPV and community violence in general. Multiple participants recounted childhood exposure to abuse. These themes, in addition to culturally prescribed gender norms and constructs of manhood, seemed to influence the use of violence. Conclusion: Interventions aimed at reducing IPV should consider the cultural and social impact on men's use of IPV in low-resource, high-IPV prevalence settings, such as peri-urban South Africa. This work highlights the persistent need for the implementation of effective primary prevention strategies that address contextual and economic factors in an effort to reduce IPV that is primarily utilized by men directed at women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study aimed to understand psychosocial and economic impacts of female caregivers and families caring for children with a disability in Belu district, Indonesia. A qualitative inquiry employing one-on-one in-depth interviews was used to collect data from participants (n = 22). Data analysis was guided by a framework analysis for qualitative research. Social implications framework and the economic consequence of disease and injury framework were used to guide the conceptualisation, analysis and discussion of the findings. Findings indicated that female caregivers of children with a disability experienced significant psychosocial challenges. These included feeling frustrated, sad, angry, worried, inferior and insecure due to rejection of their children by other kids with no disability. Poor physical conditions of and negative labelling given to their children and the fear of what the future held for their children with a disability added yet another layer of psychosocial challenges experienced by these women. Separation or divorce and reduced social interaction and engagement in the community were expressed social impact loaded to these women resulting from poor acceptability of the children by their fathers, increased time spent caring and discriminatory and stigmatising attitudes against their children with a disability. The participants also experienced economic impacts, such as increased health and transport expenses, loss of jobs and productivity, and lack of savings. The findings indicate the need for programs and interventions addressing the needs of mothers or female caregivers and families with disabled children. Further studies with large number of participants covering mothers, fathers and caregivers to understand broader experiences and the need of caring for children with a disability are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we present the first comprehensive analysis of the spatio-temporal differences in excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. We used a population-based design on all-cause mortality data, for the 7,904 Italian municipalities. We estimated sex-specific weekly mortality rates for each municipality, based on the first four months of 2016–2019, while adjusting for age, localised temporal trends and the effect of temperature. Then, we predicted all-cause weekly deaths and mortality rates at municipality level for the same period in 2020, based on the modelled spatio-temporal trends. Lombardia showed higher mortality rates than expected from the end of February, with 23,946 (23,013 to 24,786) total excess deaths. North-West and North-East regions showed one week lag, with higher mortality from the beginning of March and 6,942 (6,142 to 7,667) and 8,033 (7,061 to 9,044) total excess deaths respectively. We observed marked geographical differences also at municipality level. For males, the city of Bergamo (Lombardia) showed the largest percent excess, 88.9% (81.9% to 95.2%), at the peak of the pandemic. An excess of 84.2% (73.8% to 93.4%) was also estimated at the same time for males in the city of Pesaro (Central Italy), in stark contrast with the rest of the region, which does not show evidence of excess deaths. We provided a fully probabilistic analysis of excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic at sub-national level, suggesting a differential direct and indirect effect in space and time. Our model can be used to help policy-makers target measures locally to contain the burden on the health-care system as well as reducing social and economic consequences. Additionally, this framework can be used for real-time mortality surveillance, continuous monitoring of local temporal trends and to flag where and when mortality rates deviate from the expected range, which might suggest a second wave of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 3 April 2020, the Director-General of the WHO stated: "[COVID-19] is much more than a health crisis. We are all aware of the profound social and economic consequences of the pandemic (WHO, 2020)". Such consequences are the result of counter-measures such as lockdowns, and world-wide reductions in production and consumption, amplified by cascading impacts through international supply chains. Using a global multi-regional macro-economic model, we capture direct and indirect spill-over effects in terms of social and economic losses, as well as environmental effects of the pandemic. Based on information as of May 2020, we show that global consumption losses amount to 3.8$tr, triggering significant job (147 million full-time equivalent) and income (2.1$tr) losses. Global atmospheric emissions are reduced by 2.5Gt of greenhouse gases, 0.6Mt of PM2.5, and 5.1Mt of SO2 and NOx. While Asia, Europe and the USA have been the most directly impacted regions, and transport and tourism the immediately hit sectors, the indirect effects transmitted along international supply chains are being felt across the entire world economy. These ripple effects highlight the intrinsic link between socio-economic and environmental dimensions, and emphasise the challenge of addressing unsustainable global patterns. How humanity reacts to this crisis will define the post-pandemic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wheelchair castors fail frequently causing physical, social and economic consequences for wheelchair users. These failures occur in spite of established wheelchair test methods and regulations, suggesting that the existing tests may not be sufficient to screen poorly designed castors. An expert stakeholder group, convened by the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals (ISWP), noted castor failures as a high priority and recommended that a new castor testing system should be developed. In a previous study, the effect of shock exposure on castor durability was studied. The current paper extends the previous work and focuses on the development of a castor testing protocol based on shock, corrosion and abrasion exposure data collected in the community. The testing protocol was applied to 8 different castor models tested under four conditions: shock, corrosion + shock, abrasion + shock and abrasion + corrosion + shock. For each model, a total of n = 8 samples were evaluated across the four conditions. Results demonstrate that corrosion and abrasion reduced castor durability between 13% to 100% depending on the model. Importantly, the inclusion of corrosion and abrasion resulted in changes in the failure modes for 75% of the tested models and two-thirds of the altered failure modes are associated with increased risk of injury for wheelchair users. These results suggest that corrosion and abrasion present in the community reduce castor durability, thus supporting their inclusion in the castor testing protocol and potentially other wheelchair standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University dropout is a growing problem with considerable academic, social and economic consequences. Conclusions and limitations of previous studies highlight the difficulty of analyzing the phenomenon from a broad perspective and with bigger data sets. This paper proposes a new, machine-learning based method, able to examine the problem using a holistic approach. Advantages of this method include the lack of strong distribution hypothesis, the capacity for handling bigger data sets and the interpretability of the results. Results are consistent with previous research, showing the influence of personal and contextual variables and the importance of academic performance in the first year, but other factors are also highlighted with this model, such as the importance of dedication (part or full time), and the vulnerability of the students with respect to their age. Additionally, a comprehensive graphic output is included to make it easier to interpret the discovered rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 400 cancer genes have been identified in the human genome. The list is not yet complete. Statistical models predicting cancer genes may help with identification of novel cancer gene candidates. We used known prostate cancer (PCa) genes (identified through KnowledgeNet) as a training set to build a binary logistic regression model identifying PCa genes. Internal and external validation of the model was conducted using a validation set (also from KnowledgeNet), permutations, and external data on genes with recurrent prostate tumor mutations. We evaluated a set of 33 gene characteristics as predictors. Sixteen of the original 33 predictors were significant in the model. We found that a typical PCa gene is a prostate-specific transcription factor, kinase, or phosphatase with high interindividual variance of the expression level in adjacent normal prostate tissue and differential expression between normal prostate tissue and primary tumor. PCa genes are likely to have an antiapoptotic effect and to play a role in cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and cell adhesion. Their proteins are likely to be ubiquitinated or sumoylated but not acetylated. A number of novel PCa candidates have been proposed. Functional annotations of novel candidates identified antiapoptosis, regulation of cell proliferation, positive regulation of kinase activity, positive regulation of transferase activity, angiogenesis, positive regulation of cell division, and cell adhesion as top functions. We provide the list of the top 200 predicted PCa genes, which can be used as candidates for experimental validation. The model may be modified to predict genes for other cancer sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lying is a pervasive phenomenon with important social and economic implications. However, despite substantial interest in the prevalence and determinants of lying, little is known about its biological foundations. Here we study a potential hormonal influence, focusing on the steroid hormone testosterone, which has been shown to play an important role in social behavior. In a double-blind placebo-controlled study, 91 healthy men (24.32±2.73 years) received a transdermal administration of 50 mg of testosterone (n = 46) or a placebo (n = 45). Subsequently, subjects participated in a simple task, in which their payoff depended on the self-reported outcome of a die-roll. Subjects could increase their payoff by lying without fear of being caught. Our results show that testosterone administration substantially decreases lying in men. Self-serving lying occurred in both groups, however, reported payoffs were significantly lower in the testosterone group (p<0.01). Our results contribute to the recent debate on the effect of testosterone on prosocial behavior and its underlying channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]