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By embedding a spatially explicit ecosystem services modelling tool within a policy simulator we examine the insights that natural capital analysis can bring to the design of policies for nature recovery. Our study is illustrated through a case example of policies incentivising the establishment of new natural habitat in England. We find that a policy mirroring the current practice of offering payments per hectare of habitat creation fails to break even, delivering less value in improved flows of ecosystem services than public money spent and only 26% of that which is theoretically achievable. Using optimization methods, we discover that progressively more efficient outcomes are delivered by policies that optimally price activities (34%), quantities of environmental change (55%) and ecosystem service value flows (81%). Further, we show that additionally attaining targets for unmonetized ecosystem services (in our case, biodiversity) demands trade-offs in delivery of monetized services. For some policy instruments it is not even possible to achieve the targets. Finally, we establish that extending policy instruments to offer payments for unmonetized services delivers target-achieving and value-maximizing policy designs. Our findings reveal that policy design is of first-order importance in determining the efficiency and efficacy of programmes pursuing nature recovery. This article is part of the theme issue 'Bringing nature into decision-making'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing is a heterogeneous good, which makes choosing a house a complex process. An unexplained variability of the housing prices led to growing interest in studying prices and price expectations from a behavioural perspective. We conduct an experiment to study house price anchoring. In this research we use empirical data, examining the strength of the anchoring effect in terms of the external paradigm. We check whether and how respondents revise their valuations and expectations after receiving additional external information. It turns out that anchors impact households' decisions regarding the housing price valuation and dynamics forecasts, which could suggest households' autoregressive way of thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the problem of allocating packages of different objects to a group of bidders. A rule is overbidding-proof if no bidder has incentives to bid above his actual valuations. We prove that if an efficient rule is overbidding-proof, then each winning bidder pays a price between his winning bid and what he would pay in a Vickrey auction for the same package. In counterpart, the set of rules that satisfy underbidding-proofness always charge a price below the corresponding Vickrey price. A new characterization of the Vickrey allocation rule is provided with a weak form of strategy-proofness. The Vickrey rule is the only rule that satisfies efficiency, individual rationality, overbidding-proofness and underbidding-proofness. Our results are also valid on the domains of monotonic valuations and of single-minded bidders. Finally a family of overbidding rules is introduced that price the assigned packages at a fixed average of the Vickrey price and the pay-as-bid price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption and development of high technology situations such as additive manufacturing is complicated because the technology system characteristics used by manufacturers are different than the technology-performance characteristics evaluated by customers. This study explores the relationship between the desktop 3D printers' underlying technology characteristics, its performance, and its price. Data were collected for 107 Fused Deposition Modelling desktop 3D printers from 2014 to 2019. Twelve technology characteristics were included such as the build volume, the material of the build platform and whether it is heated, the number of extruders, type of movements and whether it uses open source software, hardware or filament. It was found that 8% of the technology characteristics only matter for performance, 33% only matter for price, 33% for neither and 25% of the characteristics matter for both performance and price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurs have to price their innovations under the unpredictability of customers' reactions. While predictive pricing methods are prevalent in business-to-business pricing literature, we argue for the critical importance of control-oriented pricing strategies for digital services. By applying effectuation theory, our study investigates how entrepreneurs co-create their pricing strategies for their digital services as a co-evolutionary, iterative process with their customers. We found that pricing is the co-evolutionary process where entrepreneurs learn from their interactions with customers and use this knowledge to develop and improve their pricing practices further. The findings contribute to behavioural pricing literature by explaining pricing strategy formation as a co-creative process that focuses on interactions rather than predictive actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of market transparency in medicine pricing is highlighted in this article, as it affects the affordability and accessibility of medicines. Disparities in pricing and access to medicines are a global challenge, and efforts to enhance transparency and affordability are necessary. Strategies such as value-based tiered pricing and managed entry agreements have been adopted to address these issues. However, achieving transparency in medicine pricing is complex and requires a collaborative approach. Challenges include proprietary pricing information, healthcare system complexity, and negotiation processes. The article emphasizes the need for ongoing dialogue and shared learning to achieve fair medicine pricing. [Extracted from the article]

The multilevel model of behavioral selection (MLBS) by Borgstede and Eggert (Behav Process 186:104370. 10.1016/j.beproc.2021.104370, 2021) provides a formal framework that integrates reinforcement learning with natural selection using an extended Price equation. However, the MLBS is so far only formulated for homogeneous populations, thereby excluding all sources of variation between individuals. This limitation is of primary theoretical concern because any application of the MLBS to real data requires to account for variation between individuals. In this paper, I extend the MLBS to account for inter-individual variation by dividing the population into homogeneous sub-populations and including class-specific reproductive values as weighting factors for an individual's evolutionary fitness. The resulting formalism closes the gap between the theoretical underpinnings of behavioral selection and the application of the theory to empirical data, which naturally includes inter-individual variation. Furthermore, the extended MLBS is used to establish an explicit connection between the dynamics of learning and the maximization of individual fitness. These results expand the scope of the MLBS as a general theoretical framework for the quantitative analysis of learning and evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlled‐source electromagnetic methods are applied to survey the electrical resistivity distribution of the subsurface. This work compares normalized electromagnetic field components and transfer functions such as impedance tensors and vertical magnetic transfer functions generated by two independent source polarizations as input data for three‐dimensional inversion. As most other available inversion codes allow for inverting only one of the mentioned input data types, it is unclear which data type is preferable for controlled‐source electromagnetic inversion. Our three‐dimensional non‐linear conjugate gradient inversion code can handle both input data types, facilitating a comparison of normalized electromagnetic field components and transfer functions inversion. Examining inversion results for a three‐dimensional synthetic model with two anomalies, we infer that the transfer functions inversion is favourable for recovering the overall resistivity distribution below the receiver sites in fewer iterations. The inversion of normalized electromagnetic field components produces a sharper image of the anomalies and may be capable of detecting the resistivity distribution below the extended sources, which comes at the price of introducing a more heterogeneous background resistivity in the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Pasinetti's Natural Economic System gives an important reference to the analysis of the structural changes in a growing economy. • The natural rate of profit is given by the rate of profit to the wage (r w) in our Sraffian aggregate model. • The pure labour theory of value is compatible with the positive rate of profit in the aggregates. • The standard productivity index gives the base to combine the changes in sectoral labour productivities, the average productivity, income distribution, and commodity prices. Pasinetti's (1981) natural economic system is a central idea of Pasinetti's structural economic dynamics, which explains various features of a growing economy, focusing on an evolving structure of commodity prices, an evolving structure of production, and the time pass of the wage rate and the rate of profit (Pasinetti, 1981 , p.128). It exhibits three core properties: first, the sum of the growth rate of the quantity of labour and the growth rate of demand or the growth rate of labour productivity determines the rate of profit (the natural rate of profit). Second, under a 'positive' natural rate of profit, the quantity of labour commanded by a commodity equals the quantity of labour embodied in the commodity (a pure labour theory of value). Finally, equal rewards should be paid for equal amounts of homogenous labour (the basic principle of equal rewards). These core properties were examined, using our Sraffian discrete-time models corresponding to the three cases. The first model explains the simple case of a growing economy with no technical change and an invariant composition of demand. The second model treats the difference between the actual net product and the standard net product, assuming no technical change and an invariant composition of demand. The third model explains the occurrence of technical progress in a growing economy. The validity of three core properties of the natural economic system in Pasinetti (1981) is examined by three Sraffian models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper focuses on the relation between Marx's and Sraffa's treatments of prices of production. • Sraffa turns out to be right that empirical aggregates have essentially the same magnitudes in prices and labor values. • However, Sraffa's emphasis on the curviness of individual prices is not supported by the data. Rather, empirical prices are mostly near-linear and can be extremely well approximated by a simple quadratic form. This paper examines three propositions: Sraffa's comment that Marx was "of course" right in thinking that labor value and "Sraffa price" (prices expressed relative to Sraffa's standard commodity) aggregates are essentially the same: empirical deviations of various aggregate components of total output are around five percent. This should be reflected in small representative models. Second, Pasinetti is correct that actual Sraffa price paths are generally simpler than those in the theoretical literature – as confirmed by the 403 industry price curves of the US 2002 input-output matrix. Third, as has been often demonstrated, Marx's transformation procedure is an iterative procedure for deriving Sraffa prices. Bienenfeld derives powerful first and second iterates, each beginning and ending at the corresponding individual Sraffa price curves. The simple nonlinear form of the second iterate provides excellent fits for the 403 Sraffa price curves. It is therefore an empirically sufficient general form of such price curves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in wool prices, labour costs and animal welfare have sparked interest in several new sheep traits. Shedding, the ability of moulting or seasonal wool loss in sheep, is one of them. Here, we aimed to develop breeding values for shedding using existing data from New Zealand flocks. We used breeder-collected shedding scores, 0 = 'no shedding on any part of the body' to 10 = 'wool shed fully from all the body', for Wiltshire and Wiltshire-composite lambs born between 2003 and 2022. After QC, 20,653 phenotypic records from 25,066 animals with pedigree information (393 sires and 7439 dams from 12 flocks) were included in the analyses. Genetic parameters and breeding values were obtained using a genetic additive model with pedigree data (BLUP model), assuming shedding scores were quantitative. The genetic model incorporated the following variables: date of birth, sex, birth and rearing rank, age of dam and contemporary group. We found a high heritability for lamb shedding, 0.54 (0.02), and estimated a low-to-moderate prediction accuracy of breeding values (ranging from 0.09 to 0.36) using forward-validation. Our results confirmed that shedding can be subject to selection and that pedigree-based breeding values for this trait can be a useful tool for breeders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brownian bridge or Lévy–Ciesielski construction of Brownian paths almost surely converges uniformly to the true Brownian path. We focus on the uniform error. In particular, we show constructively that at level N , at which there are $d=2^N$ points evaluated on the Brownian path, the uniform error and its square, and the uniform error of geometric Brownian motion, have upper bounds of order $\mathcal {O}(\sqrt {\ln d/d})$ , matching the known orders. We apply the results to an option pricing example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical indications (GIs) aim to protect the names of specific high‐quality products (food and wine) to preserve and promote the uniqueness linked to their geographical origin and traditional know‐how. EU and extra‐EU countries register domestic products with GIs. This study disentangles the effects of such registrations on the quality of imports using country‐level product import data for the fruit, vegetable, coffee, tea, and spice sectors. Our results show that the registration of domestic products as GIs enhances the quality of imported goods only if the importing country has a lower level of quality of domestic production. The introduction of GIs into high‐quality domestic markets can discourage import quality upgrades. This is because domestic producers may prefer to compete for quality rather than price, and imported goods represent a less expensive alternative to high‐quality national goods for consumers. Conversely, in countries where domestic product quality is lower, the introduction of GIs may enhance import quality upgrading because the diffusion of GIs induces domestic consumers to become more demanding in terms of quality for foreign products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The standard vascular surgical procedure (SV) for the treatment of distal aortic arch pathologies involves a hybrid approach using a left carotid-subclavian bypass and thoracic endovascular aortic repair. Considering the introduction of a thoracic side branch prosthesis (TBE), the aim of this study was to analyze the cost-revenue aspects of both procedures. Material and methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on cases treated by SV from 2017 to 2022. To draw conclusions regarding the use of TBE, the main diagnoses and procedures of SV were recoded based on current classifications (ICD/OPS 2023) for revenue calculations and regrouped according to aG-DRG 2023. An OPS modification and regrouping were performed for modeling TBE revenues. Results: A total of 13 cases were identified (mean age 62.5 ± 13.8 years; 10 males). After regrouping, the following DRGs were obtained: F42Z in N = 5, F51A in N = 4, F08B in N = 2, and F07A and F36B each in N = 1. The total revenue after regrouping was € 666,514.13, including an additional payment (ZE) of € 132,729.14. With the modeled application of TBE, a total revenue of € 659,212.19 was achieved. Compared to SV, this represents a revenue decrease of € 16,886.71 (changed DRG), but with an increase in ZE revenue by € 65,559.78 (different ZE). The use of TBE resulted in a saving of 74 occupancy days, including 13.5 days in intensive care. Conclusion: A cost coverage seems probable with a change in the procedure, despite the yet to be determined pricing of TBE. This is highly dependent on the coding quality and the future development of ZE, given the annually changing DRG relative weights. Precise and transparent performance and cost documentation are essential for determining the pricing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "Seafood in Argentina: marine fish species, seasonal presence and prices." The correction addresses errors in Tables 1 and 2 of the original article, including missing colors and incorrect headings. The corrected tables are provided in the correction article. The document also includes a graph and a table listing commercial marine species of Argentina based on various sources. It provides a comprehensive list of fish and crustaceans found in the Southwest Atlantic region, including their common and scientific names. The authors of the document are Jorge A. Hirt-Chabbert, Alejandro S. Mechaly, and Ciro Tapia. [Extracted from the article]

Argentina is among the 20 largest seafood producing countries in the world, with an annual fish capture of about 800,000 tons. However, national annual fish consumption is low, about 5 kg per capita, and the domestic seafood market is little known. The objective of this study was to contribute to the characterization of seafood in the Argentine market. Monthly landings, presence at points of sale and prices of seafood were analyzed. The seafood data were gathered from official statistics of the Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture, statistics from the Central Market of Buenos Aires and surveys conducted in fish shops in the city of Mar del Plata. Based on the monthly seasonal index (SI), price variations throughout the year were studied. Likewise, relative fish prices were determined by using as unit the price of Argentine hake (Merluccius hubbsi), which is the most consumed fish in the country. This study identified the marine species most present in the domestic market and their prices. The presence of the different fish species at the points of sale could not be directly associated with their landing seasons. There was also no direct link between fish prices and quantities landed. No significant seasonal fluctuations in prices were found on seafood products (SI = 90–110), with the exception of hake fillet (SI = 80–113). Many finfishes had a price peak during Easter week. Overall, price patterns suggest that seafood prices in Argentina are mainly determined by demand rather than supply. Further research on seafood traceability and fish consumption is needed to advance the understanding of the seafood market in Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a comprehensive theoretical and empirical analysis of a fundamentals-based investment criterion (HSBC's Rating to Economic Profit – REP). By employing a large sample of US-listed firms over a 12-year time-period and conducting univariate, multivariate and portfolio analyses, we provide robust empirical results that support the ability of REP to explain contemporaneous stock market valuations, justify financial analysts' target prices, and predict one-year ahead stock returns. Through content analysis of selected financial analysts' equity research reports, we also provide some descriptive evidence of the usefulness of accrual accounting numbers over dividends for valuation purposes. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first academic study that offers a comprehensive analysis of REP as a value-based stock screening method that should be of interest to market-based accounting researchers, valuation educators, and capital market participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One crucial premise in the argument from illusion is the Phenomenal Principle. It states that if there sensibly appears to be something that possesses a sensible quality, then there is something of which the subject is aware that has that sensible quality. The principle thus enables the inference from a mere appearance to an existence (usually a mental one). In the argument from appearance, a similar move is taken by some philosophers—they infer a content from a mere appearance. There are two kinds of defences for the Phenomenal Principle in the literature, namely, the epistemological one (e.g. H.H. Price) and the semantic one (e.g. Frank Jackson). I argue that neither consolidates the Phenomenal Principle. I particularly demonstrate that the appearance verb in premise 1 of the argument from illusion is not used in the phenomenal sense as it is used in the Phenomenal Principle, which renders the argument essentially invalid. To avoid invalidity, the proponents either give up the phenomenal use, which makes the argument unable to serve its original purpose, i.e. inferring an unusual existence, or they insist on the phenomenal use in all premises of the argument, which will trivialise the argument. I also demonstrate that a similar objection applies to the argument from appearance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Masstige, or luxury for the masses, is a phenomenon that requires a heterodox economic approach based on Original Institutional Economics view of corporate power combined with Marxian concept of brand fetishism and post-Keynesian theories of pricing and consumer choice. The attitude toward luxury in classical works on political economy is briefly outlined. By applying the post-Keynesian theory of oligopolistic pricing, we show how the power of luxury brands enables high profits of luxury conglomerates. We use the post-Keynesian theory of consumer choice to differentiate between various types of masstige buyers. JEL Classification: B52, D11, D21, D43 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article combines the comparative political economy of skill formation literature with the one on growth models to analyse the state's role in skill systems of late industrialising countries. It focuses on Mexico and Turkey, which constitute crucial cases for a most similar case analysis. The article shows that Mexico and Turkey followed different growth models after their economic liberalisation, which led to distinct state roles in two key skill system institutions, namely the minimum wage and the vocational education and training (VET) system. In Mexico, the state aligned these institutions with the 'dependent-downgrading' growth model, which was reliant on external demand and investments with low industrial upgrading and sometimes downgrading, and minimal working-class cohesion. Minimising labour costs was prioritised to attract foreign investment and to reduce the prices of exports, leading to extremely low wages and a liberal VET system in Mexico. In Turkey, the growth model was 'domestic-upgrading' with higher role of domestic investments and demand, and some improvements in industrial upgrading and working-class social cohesion. Ensuring high minimum wage and comprehensive VET system constituted key strategies for the state to maintain this growth model in Turkey, leading to relatively higher minimum wage and a statist VET system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We approach the questions, what part of evolutionary change results from selection, and what is the adaptive information flow into a population undergoing selection, as a problem of quantifying the divergence of typical trajectories realized under selection from the expected dynamics of their counterparts under a null stochastic-process model representing the absence of selection. This approach starts with a formulation of adaptation in terms of information and from that identifies selection from the genetic parameters that generate information flow; it is the reverse of a historical approach that defines selection in terms of fitness, and then identifies adaptive characters as those amplified in relative frequency by fitness. Adaptive information is a relative entropy on distributions of histories computed directly from the generators of stochastic evolutionary population processes, which in large population limits can be approximated by its leading exponential dependence as a large-deviation function. We study a particular class of generators that represent the genetic dependence of explicit transitions around reproductive cycles in terms of stoichiometry, familiar from chemical reaction networks. Following Smith (2023), which showed that partitioning evolutionary events among genetically distinct realizations of lifecycles yields a more consistent causal analysis through the Price equation than the construction from units of selection and fitness, here we show that it likewise yields more complete evolutionary information measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the relationship between growth in Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollment and changes in finances at skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). Data Source s : Medicare SNF cost reports, LTCFocus.org data, and county MA penetration rates. Study Design: We used ordinary least squares regression with SNF and year fixed effects. Our primary outcomes were SNF revenues, expenses, profits, and occupancy. Our primary independent variable was the yearly county Medicare Advantage penetration. Data Collection/Extraction: We linked facility‐year data from 2012 to 2019 obtained from cost reports and LTCFocus.org to county‐year MA penetration. Principal Findings: A 10 percentage point increase in county MA enrollment was associated with a $213,883.89 (95% Confidence Interval [CI]: −296,869.08, −130,898.71) decrease in revenue, a $132,456.19 (95% CI: −203,852.28, −61,060.10) decrease in expenses, and a 0.59 percentage point (95% CI: −0.97, −0.21) decrease in profit margin. A 10 percentage point increase in county MA enrollment was associated with a decline (−318.93; 95% CI: −468.84, −169.02) in the number of resident‐days (a measure of occupancy) as well as a decline in the revenue per resident day ($4.50; 95% CI: −6.81, −2.20), potentially because of lower prices in MA. There was also a decline in expenses per patient day (−2.35; 95% CI: −4.76, 0.05), though this was only statistically significant at the 10% level. While increased MA enrollment was associated with a substantial decline in the number of Medicare resident days (487.53; 95% CI: −588.70, −386.37), this was partially offset by an increase in other payer (e.g., private pay) resident days (285.91; 95% CI: 128.18, 443.63). Increased MA enrollment was not associated with changes in the number of Medicaid resident days or a decrease in staffing per resident day. Conclusion: SNFs in counties with more MA growth had substantially greater relative declines in revenue, expenses, and profit margins. The continued growth of MA may result in significant changes in the SNF industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We combine two recent credit risk models with the Marshall–Olkin setup to capture the dependence structure of bivariate survival functions. The main advantage of this approach is to handle fatal shock events in the dependence structure since these two credit risk models allow one to match the time of death of an individual with a catastrophe time event. We also provide a methodology for adding other sources of dependency to our approach. In such a setup, we derive the no-arbitrage prices of some common life insurance products for coupled lives. We demonstrate the performance of our method by investigating Sibuya's dependence function. Calibration is done on the data of joint life contracts from a Canadian company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated urban space quality in Beijing using service quality and landscape quality based on points of interest (POI) data, street view data, and perception data derived from deep learning and then applied a hedonic price model (HPM) and a spatial lag model (SLM) to calculate people's heterogeneity marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for urban space quality across categories, locations, and purchasers. The results showed that (1) people are willing to pay for urban space quality, especially urban landscape quality; however, the MWTP for urban space quality decreases as its distance from the main employment center increases; (2) the MWTP for urban space quality has an inverted u-shaped relationship, indicating that individuals with medium income exhibit a higher willingness to pay for urban space quality; and (3) urban space quality exhibits spatial spillover effects on individuals' MWTP in surrounding areas, with a spatial spillover boundary of approximately 22 km. Overall, this study provided important insights into quantifying the economic benefits of urban space quality and highlights the importance of considering different categories, locations, and purchasers when assessing urban space quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture plays a leading role in the economic growth and development process. Ensuring the continuity of production depends on the purchasing power of the producers. The sustainability of production and the development of the rural welfare index in favor of the producers will increase the driving role of the agricultural sector, which is also a resource for other sectors. This study determined the variables affecting the Domestic Terms of Trade of the greenhouse tomato producers in Antalya, Türkiye. The product price has been determined as the major factor affecting the Domestic Terms of Trade. In addition, it was concluded that a one-unit increase in the product price increases the Domestic Terms of Trade by 34.99 units. Interviews revealed that the continuity of consumption needs is more important than the continuity of production. It has been determined that the high and variable input costs cause erosion in the incomes of the producers. Agricultural policies will be more effective both in the short and long term when the aim is to improve the welfare and purchasing power of producers, rather than intervening in agricultural prices or reducing prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For market players and policy officials, commodity price forecasts are crucial problems that are challenging to address due to the complexity of price time series. Given its strategic importance, corn crops are hardly an exception. The current paper evaluates the forecasting issue for China's weekly wholesale price index for yellow corn from January 1, 2010 to January 10, 2020. We develop a Gaussian process regression model using cross validation and Bayesian optimizations over various kernels and basis functions that could effectively handle this sophisticated commodity price forecast problem. The model provides precise out-of-sample forecasts from January 4, 2019 to January 10, 2020, with a relative root mean square error, root mean square error, and mean absolute error of 1.245%, 1.605, and 0.936, respectively. The models developed here might be used by market players for market evaluations and decision-making as well as by policymakers for policy creation and execution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to analyze the trends in food price in Brazil with emphasis on the period of the Covid-19 pandemic (from March 2020 to March 2022). Data from the Brazilian Household Budget Survey and the National System of Consumer Price Indexes were used as input to create a novel data set containing monthly prices (R$/Kg) for the foods and beverages most consumed in the country between January 2018 and March 2022. All food items were divided according to the Nova food classification system. We estimated the mean price of each food group for each year of study and the entire period. The monthly price of each group was plotted to analyze changes from January 2018 to March 2022. Fractional polynomial models were used to synthesize price changes up to 2025. Results of the present study showed that in Brazil unprocessed or minimally processed foods and processed culinary ingredients were more affordable than processed and ultra-processed foods. However, trend analyses suggested the reversal of the pricing pattern. The anticipated changes in the prices of minimally processed food relative to ultra-processed food, initially forecasted for Brazil, seem to reflect the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy. These results are concerning as the increase in the price of healthy foods aggravates food and nutrition insecurity in Brazil. Additionally, this trend encourages the replacement of traditional meals for the consumption of unhealthy foods, increasing a health risk to the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Malaria treatment is faced with the challenge of access, affordability, availability, and quality of antimalarial medicines. Affordable medicines facility-malaria (AMFm) program and subsequently Co-payment mechanism were developed to help increase access to quality assured Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We explored through a qualitative study, experience of healthcare personnel on Co-payment mechanism and the implication on its use in private drug outlets in Uganda. Method: Private drug outlets that reported stocking antimalarial agents in moderate-to-high and low malaria transmission settings were purposively selected for inclusion in the study. In each drug outlet, data was collected from a pharmacist/dispenser through key informant interview. The interview was done using a key informant interview guide which covered the following areas, (i) sociodemographic characteristics, ii) awareness of healthcare personnel on the co-payment mechanism, (iii) awareness of healthcare personnel on quality assured artemisinin combination therapies (QAACT), (iv) antimalarial stocking in private drug outlets, (v) antimalarial dispensing prices, (vi) considerations made while stocking, and pricing antimalarial agents, vii) challenges in antimalarial dispensing, and (viii) access to antimalarial agents in private drug outlets. Data was managed using Atlas.ti and analyzed using framework methodology. Results: Data was collected from 25 key informants (12 pharmacists and 13 dispensers). Five themes emerged following data analysis, (i) antimalarial stocking influenced by price and client demand, (ii) access and purchasing behavior of drug outlet clients, (iii) basis of dispensing antimalarial agents in private drug outlets, (iv) awareness of QAACT, and (v) awareness of Co-payment mechanism. None of the study participants was aware of the existence of Co-payment mechanism and QAACT in the private sector. Duocotecin brand of ACTs was the most mentioned and dispensed ACT among the study participants in private drug outlets. Nearly all the pharmacists/dispensers said that many clients who request to purchase ACTs don't come with a prescription and prefer buying cheaper antimalarial agents. Study participants reported stocking and selling both ACTs and non-ACT antimalarial agents in the drug outlets. Pharmacists/dispensers in the drug outlets reported that most clients could not afford buying a full dose of an ACT. None of the study participants considered using Co-payment mechanism while stocking ACTs in the drug outlets. Conclusion: There is lack of awareness and utilization of Co-payment mechanism in stocking, pricing, and dispensing of ACTs among pharmacists/dispensers in private drug outlets in Uganda. The antimalarial dispensing in drug outlets was mostly based on prescriptions, clients' preferences, and medicine affordability. The Ministry of Health needs to create demand for Co-payment mechanism through public awareness campaigns, training of healthcare personnel and behavior change communication in the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chameleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive group of reptiles, mainly found in Africa, which have high local endemism and face significant threats from the international wildlife trade. We review the scale and structure of international chameleon trade, with a focus on collection in and exports from Tanzania; a hotspot of chameleon diversity. Analysis used data from the CITES Trade Database 2000–2019, combined with assessment of online trade, and on-the-ground surveys in Tanzania in 2019. Between 2000 and 2019, 1,128,776 live chameleons from 108 species were reported as exported globally, with 193,093 of these (from 32 species) exported by Tanzania. Both global and Tanzanian chameleon exports declined across the study period, driven by decreased trade in generalist genera. Whilst the proportion of captive-bred individuals increased across time for the generalist taxa, the majority of range-restricted taxa in trade remained largely wild-sourced. For Tanzanian exports, 41% of chameleons were from one of the 23 endemic species, and 10 of the 12 Tanzanian endemic species in trade are categorised as threatened with extinction by IUCN. In terms of online trade, of the 42 Tanzanian species assessed, there was evidence of online sale for 83.3% species, and 69% were actively for sale with prices listed. Prices were on average highest for Trioceros species, followed by Kinyongia, Rieppeleon, Rhampholeon, and Chameleo. Field work in Tanzania provided evidence that the historic harvest of endemic chameleon species has been higher than the quantities of these species reported as exported by Tanzania in their annual trade reports to CITES. However, we found no field evidence for trade in 2020 and 2021, in line with Tanzanian regulations that applied a blanket ban on all exports of live wild animals. Literature evidence, however, suggests that illegal trade continued to Europe from seizures of Tanzanian chameleon species in Austria in 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Caseous lymphadenitis is one of the main infectious problems affecting sheep rearing areas worldwide. In Morocco, sheep farming constitutes an important socioeconomic activity and is considered to be a source of income for the local rural population. However, breeders are facing considerable economic losses due to caseous lymphadenitis. This negative impact is mainly due to the low prices and limited saleability of sheep with superficial abscesses, particularly for religious celebrations. In the present study, investigations were realised at the flock and slaughterhouse levels to determine the prevalence and risk factors implicated in caseous lymphadenitis. As a result, the form of rearing management adopted was found to impact the dissemination of caseous lymphadenitis. In conclusion, improvement of ventilation in sheep barns and implementation of periodic control of abscess cases, including their treatment with adequate procedures, are a must. Two surveys were conducted to assess the prevalence and risk factors of ovine caseous lymphadenitis (CL) and explore the association between its superficial and visceral forms in Sardi sheep in Settat province, Morocco. A total of 1521 sheep, including 318 lambs < 6 months, 572 young sheep aged 6–24 months, and 631 adult sheep > 24 months, were examined from 57 flocks. Superficial CL prevalence levels were as follows: 69/318 in lambs, 292/572 in young sheep, and 114/631 in adult sheep. Additionally, 2124 sheep, including 1813 young and 311 adult sheep, were inspected in slaughterhouses ante- and post-mortem. Among all infected animals, the prevalence of visceral abscesses was notably higher in adult sheep (83%, OR = 9.8, 95% CI = 5.5–17.2) compared to young sheep (35%). Data on flock size, sex, age, body condition score, rearing methods, and hygienic measures were collected. Suspected CL cases were confirmed using quadruplex-PCR. Poor barn ventilation, lack of abscess control, and younger age were identified as key risk factors for CL. Additionally, a high percentage (89%) of animals with thoracic abscesses did not display superficial lesions. While age and abscess control have been reported in previous studies, barn ventilation appears to be a new, but important, risk factor. In conclusion, the identified risk factors in Settat province are linked to breeding management practices. Implementing regular abscess control measures and improving barn ventilation are essential for CL prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study unimodality conditions for distributions that describe markets with stochastic demand. Such conditions naturally emerge in the analysis of game-theoretic models of market competition (Cournot games) and supply chain coordination (Stackelberg games). We express the price elasticity of expected demand in terms of the mean residual life (MRL) function of the demand distribution and characterize optimal prices or equivalently, points of unitary elasticity, as fixed points of the MRL function. This leads to economic interpretable conditions on the demand distribution under which such fixed points exist and are unique. We find that markets with increasing price elasticity of expected demand that eventually become elastic correspond to distributions with decreasing generalized mean residual life (DGMRL) and finite second moment. DGMRL distributions strictly generalize the widely used increasing generalized failure rate (IGFR) distributions. We further elaborate on the relationship of the two classes, link their limiting behavior at infinity and examine moment and closure properties of DGMRL distributions that are important in economic applications. The DGMRL unimodality condition is useful in the analysis of optimal decisions under uncertainty in settings that are not covered by the widely-used IGFR condition; thus, it can be of broader interest to the game-theory and operations research literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Causal evidence of housing premiums of new metro lines is indispensable for financing and governing infrastructure investments. Previous studies have investigated the housing effects of urban rail transit with varying methods, while causality remains unsettled. This study used a natural experiment to estimate the causal effects of the new metro interventions on housing premiums in Shenzhen, China. We used metro planning knowledge, reasoning on pursuits in land finance and engineering efficiency to verify the as-if randomness of the treatment–control group assignment in the natural experiment to reinforce the power of causal inference. We applied hedonic difference-in-difference (DID) models to estimate the average treatment effects based on the longitudinal housing price and rent data. We found that housing rents increased significantly and consistently after the metro entered operation, but the price premium varied. In addition, the rent premiums around new metro lines showed a price gradient over the distance to stations. Our findings provide scientific evidence for designing value capture mechanisms (e.g. value-added property tax and rent revenue) to recover metro investment costs in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An auction mechanism is an effective way to allocate resources through market behavior. However, in existing studies, most auction mechanisms are designed based on the maximization of social welfare, and there are few studies on potential revenue. Based on cloud computing resource allocation, this paper studies an auction mechanism with revenue limits under single-dimensional and multidimensional resource allocation. That is, the resource provider proposes the lowest revenue limit B. The mechanism aims to maximize the total social welfare while conforming to the lowest revenue limit of the provider. Specifically, we design a new price-raising auction mechanism based on resource similarity and the user cost-effectiveness value, which unifies the two stages of resource allocation and payment pricing, overcoming the problem of low revenue caused by overallocated resources and the lowest winning price. This mechanism can also achieve truthfulness, individual rationality and computational efficiency. In the experimental section, the proposed mechanism is compared with the optimal VCG mechanism and the monotonic mechanism with critical values in terms of revenue, social welfare, resource utilization, etc., and the results demonstrate the good effects of the mechanism designed in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed model training is made possible by federated learning on various computing nodes, and compute nodes can submit model updates individually while preserving data privacy and avoiding the need to share raw user data. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-assisted edge computing utilizes its advantages of greater coverage, decreased latency, flexible deployment, and adapting to network infrastructure to offer users better services. In the context of federated learning-based UAV-assisted mobile edge computing, UAVs are deployed over the user devices to perform the process of locally aggregating the parameter updates. For global aggregation, these updates are subsequently transmitted to the edge base station, resulting in the updated model parameters. However, the performance of federated learning can be greatly affected due to computational and energy consumption, user reluctance to engage in training, and differences in the amount and quality of data from users. Hence, this study presents a novel approach in the form of a bilateral auction-based incentive mechanism. The objective is to encourage user engagement in training by considering crucial elements such as the magnitude of their data, the quality of their data, and the expenses associated with their devices. The experimental findings demonstrate that, in comparison to the benchmark method, the algorithm suggested in this study can incentivize users possessing high-quality data to engage in training, hence enhancing the overall training accuracy of federated learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: New effective treatments for dementia are lacking, and early prevention focusing on risk factors of dementia is important. Non-pharmacological intervention therapies aimed at these factors may provide a valuable tool for reducing the incidence of dementia. This study focused on the development of a mathematical model to predict the number of individuals with neurodegenerative diseases, specifically Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, vascular dementia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Scenarios for non-pharmacological intervention therapies based on risk factor reduction were also assessed. The estimated total costs and potential cost savings from societal were included. Methods: Based on demographic and financial data from the EU, a mathematical model was developed to predict the prevalence and resulting care costs of neurodegenerative diseases in the population. Each disease (Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, vascular dementia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) used parameters that included prevalence, incidence, and death risk ratio, and the simulation is related to the age of the cohort and the disease stage. Results: A replicable simulation for predicting the prevalence and resulting cost of care for neurodegenerative diseases in the population exhibited an increase in treatment costs from 267 billion EUR in 2021 to 528 billion EUR by 2050 in the EU alone. Scenarios related to the reduction of the prevalence of dementia by up to 20% per decade led to total discounted treatment cost savings of up to 558 billion EUR. Conclusion: The model indicates the magnitude of the financial burden placed on EU healthcare systems due to the growth in the population prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases in the coming decades. Lifestyle interventions based on reducing the most common risk factors could serve as a prevention strategy to reduce the incidence of dementia with substantial cost-savings potential. These findings could support the implementation of public health approaches throughout life to ultimately prevent premature mortality and promote a healthier and more active lifestyle in older individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The WHO highlight alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes as one of the most effective policies for preventing and reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases. This umbrella review aimed to identify and summarise evidence from systematic reviews that report the relationship between price and demand or price and disease/death for alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs. Given the recent recognition as gambling as a public health problem, we also included gambling. Methods: The protocol for this umbrella review was pre-registered (PROSPERO CRD42023447429). Seven electronic databases were searched between 2000–2023. Eligible systematic reviews were those published in any country, including adults or children, and which quantitatively examined the relationship between alcohol, tobacco, gambling, unhealthy food, or SSB price/tax and demand (sales/consumption) or disease/death. Two researchers undertook screening, eligibility, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment using the ROBIS tool. Results: We identified 50 reviews from 5,185 records, of which 31 reported on unhealthy food or SSBs, nine reported on tobacco, nine on alcohol, and one on multiple outcomes (alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs). We did not identify any reviews on gambling. Higher prices were consistently associated with lower demand, notwithstanding variation in the size of effect across commodities or populations. Reductions in demand were large enough to be considered meaningful for policy. Conclusions: Increases in the price of alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food, and SSBs are consistently associated with decreases in demand. Moreover, increasing taxes can be expected to increase tax revenue. There may be potential in joining up approaches to taxation across the harm-causing commodities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]