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Firms use consumer data to price discriminate. In response, policymakers have pushed for consumers to have control over their data so that they choose what to share and with whom. We model consumer control and its effect on markets through the lens of voluntary disclosure: the consumer has characteristics that they can verifiably disclose to the market. The market in turn draws inferences in equilibrium. Using this framework, we identify when consumers benefit from price discrimination in monopolistic and competitive markets. We also show that this framework can resolve the privacy paradox and potentially offers new limits for price discrimination.

The global coronavirus SARS-CoV2 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak caused immediate, far-reaching social schisms and created unprecedented challenges for hospital social work services worldwide. Existing hospital disaster plans were inadequately equipped for pandemics and organisational plans needed to quickly adapt to respond to the increased clinical demands and unique logistical considerations triggered by the virus. Literature reviews provided little in the way of precise guidance for practitioners. Hospital social workers responded not only to a new cohort of patients, but also to all patients affected by the societal repercussions of the pandemic and by governments’ attempts to mitigate the impacts of the virus. Psychosocial assessments, the bedrock of social work intervention, needed to adapt and evolve to encompass and address the exacerbation of existing social risks in new ways. This article originated from the authors’ interest in identifying practice implications for hospital social work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors briefly outline the distinct impact of COVID-19 on psychosocial issues such as domestic and family violence, elder abuse, child protection, financial stress and social isolation. They create a forum of international hospital social work centres to develop a consensus approach for addressing these issues in the context of a social work psychosocial assessment.

This study examines the impact of qualifications and hiring advantages on women’s and minorities’ access to state government jobs, both in managerial and high-salary positions and overall. It also looks at how race and gender differences in representation have changed since 1990 and how they compare with the private sector. All groups, except Latino and Asian men, are more likely than White men to work for state governments, and all groups are more likely to do so than comparable White men. White men remain more likely to be managers and to earn top-decile salaries than comparable White women and people of color. Differences in education, experience, veteran status, and citizenship contribute, in different ways, to each group’s underrepresentation at top levels, but sizable unexplained gaps remain. The good news is that access to top jobs is better in state governments than in the private sector and has improved since 1990.

Although much has been written about the initial impact of head and neck cancer (HNC) and its disruptive effect on the quality of people’s lives, less attention has been paid to treatment repercuss...

Introduction: In individuals with dyspnea on exertion (DOE) and suspected exercise pulmonary hypertension (exPH), oxygen uptake (VO 2 ), cardiac output (CO), peripheral oxygen extraction (Ca-vO 2 ), and mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) have been well characterized during incremental exercise but less is known about the kinetics of post-exercise recovery patterns. Hypothesis: Exercise recovery cardiac output kinetics are slowed in patients with exPH. Methods: Upright maximum incremental ramp cycle ergometry cardiopulmonary exercise testing with invasive hemodynamic monitoring and serial blood gas measurements during exercise and recovery was performed in 50 consecutive patients referred for evaluation of DOE of unclear etiology. VO 2 , arterial and venous oxygen content (Ca-vO 2 ), Fick cardiac output, and mPAP were analyzed from rest, peak exercise, and 2 minutes post-exercise. ExPH was defined in a consistent manner with recent consensus statements (ΔmPAP/ΔCO >3.0 mmHg/L/min) from rest to peak exercise. Results: Among 50 patients with DOE, [62% female, Age 61.7±11.8, BMI 30.7±8.2] 2-min post-exercise VO 2 was -56±11%, CO: -22±19%, Ca-vO 2 :-42±15% compared to peak exercise values. The % fall in CO at 2min was significantly lower in the 26 patients with exPH compared to the 24 patients without exPH (Table). The average mPAP remained elevated at 2 min post-exercise (>20mmHg) in exPH despite normal average resting values. Conclusions: Patients with exPH demonstrate slowed CO recovery kinetics in conjunction with persistent PAP elevation 2-min post-exercise. Persistent elevation in blood flow through the pulmonary circuit at a time conducive to non-invasive assessment of PAP (i.e. by echocardiography) may lend itself to non-invasive detection of exercise-PH in patients undergoing evaluation of dyspnea on exertion.

In recent years, both academic research and industry applications see an increased effort in using machine learning methods to measure granular causal effects and design optimal policies based on these causal estimates. Open source packages such as CausalML and EconML provide a unified interface for applied researchers and industry practitioners with a variety of machine learning methods for causal inference. The tutorial will cover the topics including conditional treatment effect estimators by meta-learners and tree-based algorithms, model validations and sensitivity analysis, optimization algorithms including policy leaner and cost optimization. In addition, the tutorial will demonstrate the production of these algorithms in industry use cases.

Oral presentation assignments help students develop and engage multiple learning skills. In the process of preparing a presentation, students search and evaluate information (evidence-based engagement), decide whether to include it (content relevancy), organize information in an engaging manner (audience engagement), adhere to the presentation instructions (logistics), and attempt to appear credible (credibility). The final product is often a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation. In this study, we introduced students to the Pecha Kucha presentation format: 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each. While previous studies claimed that Pecha Kucha is pedagogically superior to traditional formats, particularly in the presentation and communication competence, its impacts on learning have not been examined. This study, which involved students in three classes, was designed to do so. All the students presented twice in a semester, but in one class, the first presentation was in Pecha Kucha and second in the traditional format and in the other two classes, the first was in the traditional format and second in Pecha Kucha. Five decision-making categories were assessed: evidence-based engagement, content relevancy, audience engagement, logistics, and credibility. Also assessed were the students’ confidence levels in presentation. The statistically significant differences between these two formats mostly reflected the intentional selection of presentation material to meet the time constraint of the Pecha Kucha format. However, all were slightly more confident in presentation after the second one. Students also reported that they preferred listening to Pecha Kucha than to traditional PowerPoint presentations.

Objectives: The negative effects of smoking have been well documented following orthopedic injury. Though nicotine has been shown to be detrimental to musculoskeletal tissue healing, nicotine in the form of “Vaping” is being increasingly used as a perceived healthier alternative to actual smoking. It may theoretically obviate many of the harmful volatiles and chemicals contained within combusted tobacco that are additionally harmful to musculoskeletal healing, beyond just nicotine. The literature has yet to establish the benefits, or lack thereof, to exposure of e-cigarettes and their effect on tendon healing when compared to traditional combusted tobacco. Our objective was to evaluate the biomechanical and histological effects on Achilles tendon repair between inhaled combusted tobacco versus isolated nicotine exposure via vaping versus a control group in a small animal (Sprague Dawley Rat) model. Methods: 54 Sprague Dawley rats were randomly placed in a control, vaping, or cigarette cohort. Each group contained 17 rats for exposure and they were exposed six days per week. The smoking cohort was exposed to 2 unfiltered University of Kentucky research cigarettes in a smoking chamber (Image 1). The vaping group was exposed to e-cigarette vapor with equivalent nicotine exposure as compared to the cigarette group, over ten minutes at a flow rate of 2.4 L/min. The control group was placed in the smoking chamber with room air flowing through the chamber. All rats received their respective daily exposures for 4 weeks prior to surgery where transection and repair of the Achilles tendon was performed. Following surgery, the rats received 2 additional weeks of smoking vs vaping vs control exposure. After sacrifice, Achilles tendons were harvested and tested with tensile and a load to failure model (Image 2). Histological samples were sent for analysis. Results: Tensile load testing evaluated maximum force to rupture and tissue stiffness amongst the three cohorts. The control group demonstrated highest mean tensile strength of 41.0 N (18.3-55.1 N), with the cigarette cohort having the second highest mean tensile strength at 37.3 N (14.0-54.7 N), and finally the vaping group had the lowest at 32.28 N (17.8-45.1 N). One-way ANOVA with heterogeneous of variance was used for evaluation. There was a significant difference noted in load to failure when comparing controls to e-cigarettes (p=0.026). No statistical difference was seen between controls vs cigarettes (p=0.35). Histological analysis is in progress. Conclusion: Our investigation demonstrates that in a rat model, isolated nicotine exposure via ”vaping” significantly impedes biomechanical healing properties of Achilles tendon surgical repair. Though smoking resulted in a lower maximum force to failure as compared to control, this difference was not significant. While E-cigarettes are often utilized as a perceived “safer” alternative to smoking combusted tobacco, this study suggests that use of e-cigarettes may be more detrimental to tendon healing than combusted tobacco in a rat Achilles model.

We consider off-policy evaluation and optimization with continuous action spaces. We focus on observational data where the data collection policy is unknown and needs to be estimated from data. We take a semi-parametric approach where the value function takes a known parametric form in the treatment, but we are agnostic on how it depends on the observed contexts. We propose a doubly robust off-policy estimate for this setting and show that off-policy optimization based on this doubly robust estimate is robust to estimation errors of the policy function or the regression model. We also show that the variance of our off-policy estimate achieves the semi-parametric efficiency bound. Our results also apply if the model does not satisfy our semi-parametric form but rather we measure regret in terms of the best projection of the true value function to this functional space. Our work extends prior approaches of policy optimization from observational data that only considered discrete actions. We provide an experimental evaluation of our method in a synthetic data example motivated by optimal personalized pricing.

Objectives: Use of Cannabis is common amongst athletes and the U.S. population at large. Use of Cannabinoid Oil is being increasingly utilized for a number of different pathologies, injuries, and ailments due to anecdotal evidence of its efficacy. Due to the current United States Opioid crisis, Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD), the two major constituents of cannabis, are currently being evaluated as potential safer alternatives to narcotic pain medicines. The effects of recreational and/or therapeutic THC and CBD on musculoskeletal injury and healing however remain largely unknown. Our purpose was to evaluate the biomechanical effects of THC and CBD on tendon to tendon healing in a Sprague Dawley Achilles Tendon injury and surgical repair model. Methods: 33 Sprague Dawley rats were randomly assigned into control (1 ml/kg/day of vehicle containing 5% Cremaphor, 5% ethanol, and 0.9% saline n=12), THC (3 mg/kg/day n = 12), or CBD (3 mg/kg/day n=9) treatment groups. Surgical transection and repair of the Achilles tendon was performed and all rats began subcutaneous administration of their respective drug treatment the day of surgery and for 4 subsequent days, followed by sacrifice. Load to failure and stiffness were calculated from load displacement data during tensile load testing on a MTS machine. One-way ANOVA with heterogeneous variance was utilized for evaluation. Means and 95% confidence intervals were also determined. Results: The CBD group demonstrated the highest mean load to failure of 17.5 N (15.1-19.8 N), with the THC group having the second highest mean load to failure at 17.3 N (15.3-19.2 N), and the control group reporting the lowest at 15.2 N (12.1-18.3 N). No statistical difference was observed between CBD/control (p = 0.25), THC/control (p = 0.29), or CBD/THC groups (p = 0.92, Figure 1A). The THC group reported the highest mean stiffness of 3.9 N/mm (2.7-5.1 N/mm). The CBD and control groups demonstrated mean stiffness values of 3.5 N/mm (2.9-4.1 N/mm) and 3.5 N (2.7-4.3 N/mm), respectively. No statistically significant differences were observed between THC/control (p = 0.51), THC/CBD (p = 0.50), or CBD/control groups (p = 0.96) for stiffness (Figure 1B). Conclusion: Our investigation demonstrates that subcutaneous administration of CBD resulted in the highest mean load to failure while THC administration resulted in the highest mean stiffness of the three groups. This did not result however in a statistically significant difference between groups. In our small animal tendon-to-tendon repair model, use of THC or CBD did not result in decreased biomechanical characteristics, and there was a trend toward improved ultimate strength and stiffness as compared to control. Further evaluation with larger numbers of animals, and evaluating the potential synergistic effects of THC and CBD administered together are warranted. [Figure: see text]

The use of heart rate variability (HRV) for monitoring stress has been growing in the behavioral health literature, especially in the areas of posttraumatic stress disorder, stress reactivity, and resilience. Few studies, however, have included general populations under workplace conditions. This study evaluates whether military and other first responders show lower HRV during stress than at baseline and greater post stress rebound, controlling for a myriad of potential confounders. A convenience sample of Reserves, National Guard, veteran, fire, and police personnel provided HRV and self-reported questionnaire responses before, during, and after a cognitive-stressor task with a smart phone application. Timing of HRV application; mental and physical health scores; coping and posttraumatic growth indicators, including being open to new possibilities; and emotional support were predictors of trajectories of the HRV response to stress. Findings from this exploratory study emphasize the strong link between stress and relaxation breathing in both respiratory sinus arrhythmia and low frequency heart rate variability and the need for controlling potential covariates for understanding the relationship between HRV and the stress response and providing a basis for hypothesis driven research.

Condensation particle counter (CPC) technology has continued to evolve, with the introduction of several new instruments over the last several years. An important aspect in the characterization of these instruments is the measurement of their time response. Yet there is no standardly accepted approach for this measurement. Here we evaluate different classically used methods for determining CPC time response, and present the potential pitfalls associated with these approaches. Further, we introduce a new simple definition for the term response time, E, which is based on the first-order systems response, while providing a practical definition by corresponding to approximate to 95% change in concentration. We also present results for various commonly used CPCs, and for the Airmodus A11 nano Condensation Nucleus Counter (nCNC) system, the TSI 3777+3772 Nano Enhancer system, and Aerosol Dynamics Inc.'s (ADI) new versatile water condensation particle counter.Copyright (c) 2018 American Association for Aerosol Research

The current study provides detailed, acoustic analyses of coda /s/realization in the Spanish of Mexico City. Linguistic variables studied include stress placement and following consonant context and the social factors that were included are gender and speaker age. Overall, the participants exhibited more variation than expected, including deletion of coda /s/, particularly before sonorants. The results of the study indicate that both linguistic and social factors affect the realization of coda /s/ in this dialect. The findings have practical implications for the L2 language and phonetics classrooms, as well as theoretical implications for phonological accounts of voicing assimilation in Spanish.

To determine the impact of losing health insurance coverage on perceived need for and access to mental health care in women screened for postpartum depression (PPD) in primary care settings.The study sample included 2343 women enrolled in a 12-month, multisite, randomized trial that compared clinical outcomes of a comprehensive PPD screening and management program with usual care (March 1, 2006, through August 31, 2010). Screening for PPD occurred at the first postpartum visit (5-12 weeks) using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale followed by the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire. Insurance status during the prenatal period, at delivery, and during the first postpartum year and perceived need for and access to mental health care during the first postpartum year were assessed via questionnaires completed by individual patients and participating practices.Rates of uninsured increased from 3.8% during pregnancy and delivery (n=87 of 2317) to 10.8% at the first postpartum visit (n=253 of 2343) and 13.7% at any subsequent visit to the practice after 2 months post partum (n=226 of 1646) (P.001, both comparisons vs baseline). For patients with data on insurance type during follow-up, insurance loss occurred primarily in Medicaid beneficiaries. Nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire scores and self-reported need for mental health care did not differ significantly between patients who remained insured and those who lost insurance during the first postpartum year. However, of patients who reported the need for mental health care, 61.1% of the uninsured (n=66 of 108) vs 27.1% of the insured (n=49 of 181) reported an inability to obtain mental health care (P.001).Loss of insurance during the first postpartum year did not significantly affect depressive symptoms or perceived need for mental health care but did adversely affect self-reported ability to obtain mental health care.

Autonomic nervous system (ANS) control may be disrupted by cerebrovascular disease. We investigated the relationship between alterations in white matter integrity and regulation of the ANS in 23 participants who sustained a stroke within 5 years. These participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging, and fractional anisotropy values were calculated (DTI-FA) for each hemisphere and lobe. Cognitive and physical exertion tasks were performed while recording an electrocardiogram. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) decreased more during a verbal fluency task with lower left hemisphere DTI-FA. Further, the physical stressor yielded decreases in RSA with lower frontal DTI-FA and higher temporal lobe DTI-FA, p

Whilst the literature consistently argues that vocational education and training, including apprenticeships and trainee- ships, contribute to positive employment outcomes for people with disability, little is documented regarding their post-course outcomes, particularly over time. This paper presents a retrospective outcome analysis of 253 apprentices and trainees with dis- ability who were placed and supported by EDGE Employment Solutions (EDGE) between 2000 and 2010. EDGE, established in 1984 as a Disability Employment Service (DES) in Perth, Western Australia, has actively pursued apprenticeships and traineeship for people with disability in Australia since the 1990s. Post-course outcomes, including income, hours worked, and job durability, were analysed and compared with matched pairs of current EDGE registrants with similar socio-demographic characteristics who had not commenced an apprenticeship or traineeship. The retrospective outcome analysis found significantly better post-training outcomes for participants in the "completed" apprenticeship cohort than those achieved by their matched pairs. Improved out- comes were evident in higher hourly wages, more hours worked per week, higher weekly wages, and greater job durability. Better outcomes were also achieved by participants in the "completed" traineeship cohort and "did not complete" apprenticeship cohort. The outcomes for participants in the "did not complete" traineeship cohort did not differ significantly from the comparison group on most outcome measures.

Objectives: To determine the effects of delaying fluid on the rate of hemorrhage and hemodynamic parameters in an injury involving the arterial system. Methods: Twenty-one adult, anesthetized sheep underwent left anterior thoracotomy and transection of the left internal mammary artery. A chest tube was inserted into the thoracic cavity to provide a continuous measurement of blood loss. The animals were randomly assigned to one of three resuscitation protocols: 1) no fluid resuscitation (NR), 2) standard fluid resuscitation (SR) begun 15 minutes after injury, or 3) delayed fluid resuscitation (DR) begun 30 minutes after injury. All of the animals in the two resuscitation groups received 60 mL/kg of lactated Ringer's solution over 30 minutes. Blood loss and hemodynamic parameters were measured throughout the experiment. Results: Total hemorrhage volume (mean ± SD) at the end of the experiment was significantly lower (p = 0.006) in the NR group (1,499 ± 311 mL) than in the SR group (3,435 ± 721 mL) or the DR group (2,839 ± 1549 mL). Rate of hemorrhage followed changes in mean arterial pressure in all groups. Hemorrhage spontaneously ceased significantly sooner (p = 0.007) in the NR group (21 ± 14 minutes) and the DR group (20 ± 15 minutes) than in the SR group (54 ± 4 minutes). In the DR group, after initial cessation of hemorrhage, hemorrhage recurred in five of six animals (83%) with initiation of fluid resuscitation. Maximum oxygen (O2) delivery in each group after injury was as follows: 101 ± 34 mL O2/kg/min at 45 minutes in the DR group, 51 ± 20 mL O2/kg/min at 30 minutes in the SR group, and 35 ± 8 mL O2/kg/min at 60 minutes in the NR group. Conclusions: Rates of hemorrhage from an arterial injury are related to changes in mean arterial pressure. In this animal model, early aggressive fluid resuscitation in penetrating thoracic trauma exacerbates total hemorrhage volume. Despite resumption of hemorrhage from the site of injury, delaying fluid resuscitation results in the best hemodynamic parameters.

Objectives: Patella fracture is a rare complication after medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) reconstruction. Though many of the cases in the literature have been precipitated by trauma, the surgical factors that may lead to a higher risk of fracture are not well understood. The purpose of our study was to determine if transosseous tunnels that exit through the anterior cortex of the patella, and transverse bone tunnels have lower tensile load to failure as compared to control, and may predispose to post-operative patellar fracture. Methods: Fresh-frozen cadaveric human patellas were randomized to one of three groups: a control group with unmodified intact patellas, a group with two transverse tunnels (TT) drilled in the superior third of the patella that did not violate the anterior cortex, and a group with two transversetunnels that breach anterior cortex of the patella (PA). Patellas were connected to a freeze clamp mechanism via the remaining quadriceps and patellar tendons. A load cell was connected in series with the quadriceps clamp to measure maximum load to failure with a maximum load of 9000N. The angle of pull was fixed at 45 degrees, with the patella set in the trochlear groove of a composite synthetic femur. Patellas were cyclically loaded to 500 N for a total of 100 cycles. Specimens that did not fail during cyclic loading were then loaded to failure defined as fracture or tendon rupture. At failure, fluoroscopy was used to confirm a fracture if present and maximum load was recorded. The mean and standard deviation (STD) for each group were recorded. ANOVA and Student-T tests were used to identify significant differences between groups. Results: A total of 26 patellas were randomized and tested in this study. There were 12 male and 14 female patellas ranging in age from 37-95 years. There was no significant difference in the average age among the groups (Mean = 71.4 years, STD = 11.5 years, P =0.96). None of the patellas failed during cyclic loading alone. Control, TT and PA groups failed at 1915 N (STD= 508N), 1901 N (STD= 884N), and 1640 N (STD= 625N) respectively. This represents a 14% difference in means between Control and PA and Control and TT tunnels. There was no statistically significant difference between control and TT (p=.969), control and PA (p=.321), and TT and PA (p=.488). Subset analysis of fractures only through bone tunnels did not affect the significance. Conclusion: Our results show that breeching of the anterior cortex and transosseous tunnels that do not breach the anterior cortex during MPFL reconstruction do not significantly decrease the load to failure when compared to native patellas and, thus, may not pose an increased risk for patellar fracture. Further research is needed to analyze if other surgical factors may predispose to this complication.

Although heart rate and temperature are continuously monitored in patients during recovery following surgery, measures that extract direct manifestations of neural regulation of autonomic circuits from the beat-to-beat heart rate may be more sensitive to outcome. We explore the relationship between features of autonomic regulation and survival in the prairie vole, a small mammal, with features of vagal regulation of the heart similar to humans. Cardiac vagal regulation is manifested in the beat-to-beat heart rate variability (HRV) pattern and can be quantified by extracting measures of the amplitude of periodic oscillations associated with spontaneous breathing. Thus, monitoring beat-to-beat heart rate patterns post-surgery in the prairie vole may provide an opportunity to dynamically assess autonomic adjustments during recovery. Surgeries to implant telemetry devices to monitor body temperature and continuous ECG in prairie voles are routinely performed in our laboratory. Ten of these implanted prairie voles died within 48 h post-surgery. To compare the post-surgery autonomic trajectories with typical surviving prairie voles, the post-surgery data from 17 surviving prairie voles were randomly selected. The data are reported hourly for 27 prairie voles between 6 and 14 h (1 h before the demise of the first subject) post-surgery. Receiver operator curves were calculated hourly for each variable to evaluate sensitivity in discriminating survival. The data illustrate that measures of HRV are the most sensitive indicators. These findings provide a foundation for investigating further neural mechanisms of cardiovascular function.