Medical examiner response to the drug overdose epidemic in King County Washington: “Real-time” surveillance,data science,and applied forensic epidemiology

As the overdose epidemic overwhelmed medicolegal death investigation offices and toxicology laboratories, the King County Medical Examiner's Office responded with “real-time” fatal overdose surveillance to expedite death certification and information dissemination through assembling a team including a dedicated medicolegal death investigator, an information coordinator, and student interns. In-house testing of blood, urine, and drug evidence from scenes was performed using equipment and supplies purchased for surveillance. Collaboration with state laboratories allowed validation. Applied forensic epidemiology accelerated data dissemination. From 2010 to 2022, the epidemic claimed 5815 lives in King County; the last 4 years accounted for 47% of those deaths. After initiating the surveillance project, in-house testing was performed on blood from 2836 decedents, urine from 2807, and 4238 drug evidence items from 1775 death scenes. Time to complete death certificates decreased from weeks to months to hours to days. Overdose-specific information was distributed weekly to a network of law enforcement and public health agencies. As the surveillance project tracked the epidemic, fentanyl and methamphetamine became dominant and were associated with other indicators of social deterioration. In 2022, fentanyl was involved in 68% of 1021 overdose deaths. Homeless deaths increased sixfold; in 2022, 67% of 311 homeless deaths were due to overdose; fentanyl was involved in 49% and methamphetamine in 44%. Homicides increased 250%; in 2021, methamphetamine was positive in 35% of 149 homicides. The results are relevant to the value of rapid surveillance, its impact on standard operations, selection of cases requiring autopsy, and collaboration with other agencies in overdose prevention.     

Beyond Dyads: Regional Democratic Strength’s Influence on Dyadic Conflict

Over the history of modern international relations research, we have moved from systemic and regional studies to empirical explorations of dyadic interactions. However, our statistical models have put the details of dyadic interactions under a microscope at the expense of ignoring the relevant regional context that these dyads interact in. This development has been in part due to computational limitations, but do we really believe that decision makers interact with one another while ignoring the regional power balance and the wishes of regional powers? In this article, I take a look at the well-researched relationship between democracy and peace by using a multilevel approach to dyadic interactions and the regions they are embedded in. The findings suggest that when the regional power balance favors democracies, it influences conflict between dyads, especially mixed dyads, by increasing the costs of aggression by autocracies and establishing regional norms of cooperation and compromise.     

In Search of Strategies to Face the Economic Crisis: Evidence from Greek Farms

This study examines the strategies – defensive or aggressive, individual or collective – undertaken by sheep farms in a Greek rural area in order to face the repercussions of the economic crisis and their effects on the productivity and economic performance of these farms. The article presents the results of a farm management survey conducted in 2010 and repeated in 2014 in northern Evros, Greece. The mix of strategies – mainly passive – adopted by farmers shows their confusion in the face of crisis conditions, which has resulted in reduced productivity, more use of family labour and a rise in collective actions.     

开放政府与修改《政府信息公开条例》的内容定位

修改《政府信息公开条例》要处理好《政府信息公开条例》与其他行政公开立法的分工,重大行政决策过程公开、行政执法公开等为行政行为中的公开机制,可在行政程序立法中予以规定。修法应当回归《政府信息公开条例》作为权利法的法律属性,实现知情权法定,确立公开原则,扩展公开范围,取消限制公民知情权实现的相关机制。修法还应回应互联网时代对开放政府数据提出的立法需求,完善政府数据开放的内部与外部机制。     

国际服务贸易之反倾销法律制度初探

反倾销法律制度是WTO所允许的国际货物贸易的有效保障措施。在贸易自由化浪潮下,国际服务贸易遭到不公平竞争的损害和威胁,并呈愈演愈烈之势。因此,在国际服务贸易保障措施缺位的情况下,探讨货物贸易的反倾销制度与服务贸易接合的可行性与必要性,并以GATS的相关规定为依据尝试对服务贸易的反倾销制度进行实体构建,具有重大的理论和现实意义。     

Firm entries and exits in Estonian urban municipalities: urban hinterlands and rural peripheries, 2005–2012

This paper studies firm entries and exits in Estonian urban areas, urban hinterlands, and rural peripheries following EU accession, and it analyzes the effects of changes in population density, employee income level, unemployment, and economic climate on firm entries and exits. It concludes that the firm entry rate exceeded the exit rate in all of the years between 2005 and 2012. The urban hinterland is characterized by the highest level of both entries and exits. The fixed-effect regression models show that income and recession, which are the most significant factors to impact on local entrepreneurship, have a similar effect on different municipality types.     

县域金融发展与产业集聚区经济增长——以浙江为例

本文以浙江为例,在经济增长理论的基础上,建立了县域金融发展与产业集聚区经济增长之间相互作用的内生模型,基于浙江省22县（市）的县级数据,运用面板数据模型对县域金融发展与产业集聚区经济增长的互动关系进行了实证检验,比较了各产业集聚区经济增长的影响因素。研究发现：浙江县域金融发展规模、固定资产投资、实际利用外资与产业集聚区经济增长存在高度正相关关系;金融发展效率对产业集聚区经济增长的检验效果不显著;实际利率对产业集聚区经济增长的影响不显著,提出在执行利率政策时,不能采用金融发展理论中提高利率、解除金融抑制的政策手段。     

A model for adoption of mobile banking services using classification and regression trees

The analysis and improvements of bank performance is a challenging issue for bank managers. Among various banking services, mobile banking is one of the most risky fields that is prone to customer resistance. Mobile banking is a form of banking transaction carried out via a mobile phone. Mobile banking allows bank customers to check their account balances and perform credit card transaction, as well as provide information on the latest transaction made by customers. This paper summarizes experiences and results of productively using knowledge discovery and data mining techniques in a large detail bank data. Data mining is the process of extracting patterns from data. We review prior literature on mobile payments, analyze the various factors that impact mobile payment services markets, and suggest directions for future research in this risk management field. Our research work demonstrates the effectiveness and efficiency of data mining in analysis of retailing bank performance. We use classification and regression tree learning algorithm for proposing a customer adoption model of mobile banking according to some personal characteristics of customers.     

数字经济时代的全球数据安全治理与中国策略

进入数字经济时代以来,日益严峻的数据安全风险与变幻莫测的国际形势交织叠加,各国围绕数据安全治理规则博弈呈现加剧态势,引发全球数据安全治理问题。各国际行为体虽然已经意识到数据安全治理的重要性,但对全球数据安全治理并未形成统一的治理框架。全球数据安全治理仅仅由单边、双边和多边框架以及贸易规则拼凑而成,相关治理议题在公民个人、社会、经济以及国家安全等多个层面相继涌现。多领域多维度的数据安全问题难免造成治理主体利益诉求的差异,也导致全球数据安全治理出现了规则碎片化、机制效用不足、治理乏力等问题。与此同时,个别国家的数据霸权主义行为更是使得国际行为体难以凝聚共识,全球数据安全治理步履蹒跚,重视和加强对全球数据安全问题的治理迫在眉睫。中国高度重视数据安全的相关议题,由于中国在数据治理领域起步较晚,仍存在立法不完善、技术创新能力薄弱、国际合作不足、治理乏力等问题。中国需要全面、系统地分析影响数据安全的各种重大风险因素,准确把握全球数据安全趋势,进一步优化中国在全球数据安全治理中的策略选择。     

数据要素对制造业高质量发展的影响——来自制造业上市公司微观视角的经验证据

随着数字经济与实体经济的不断融合发展,数据已经成为经济发展进程中的关键生产要素。基于手工整理的2011—2020年我国A股制造业上市公司年报数据的研究表明：制造业高质量发展是企业研发创新、生产制造、市场匹配三个环节整体联动实现更高效率发展的一种高级状态。数据要素能够显著促进我国制造业高质量发展,且主要是通过关键性技术突破与知识创新的研发创新效应、生产流程优化与协同的生产协同效应产生影响,但市场匹配效应尚未完全显现;数据要素对我国制造业高质量发展的推动作用在非国有企业、高技术密集度行业与东部地区更加显著。研究结论为数字经济时代下我国如何激活数据要素潜能、推进传统产业转型升级提供了政策启示。