Environmental Pollen Trapped by Tobacco Leaf as Indicators of the Provenance of Counterfeit Cigarette Products: A Preliminary Investigation and Test of Concept

Abstract: The global trade in counterfeit tobacco products is increasingly taking market share from legal brands in many parts of the developed world, with attendant adverse economic, health, criminal, and other societal impacts. Knowing the geographical source is central to developing new strategies for curbing this illicit trade, and here, the potential of environmental pollen extracted from manufactured cigarettes is examined. Two samples representing U.S. and Chinese brands were investigated for their pollen content. Results indicate that tobacco leaf very efficiently captures environmental pollen (about 1800 and 12,600 grains per cigarette, respectively) with no detectable self‐contamination by the tobacco plant. In both cases, the flora is typical of open space environments, but pollen type counts indicate very different distributions of species. This preliminary investigation indicates that palynology has the potential to constrain geographical source(s) of tobacco, particularly if regionally localized species can be recognized among the pollen.     

The appraisal remedy and merger premiums

The appraisal remedy affords corporate shareholders the optionto redeem their shares for cash in the event of certain transactions,including mergers. Access to appraisal for publicly traded shares,however, differs from state to state. We present the first large-sampleempirical study of the effect of appraisal rights on targetshareholder gains from acquisitions. We examine 1,350 mergersinvolving publicly held firms. We find some evidence that appraisalreduces average shareholder gains in transactions involvingself-interested managers. For the entire sample, however, wefind no evidence that appraisal has any effect, positive ornegative, on target shareholder gains from takeovers.     

Family-of-origin characteristics and current family relationships of female adult incest victims

Past and present family relationships of a group of female adult incest victims were examined. The sample consisted of 40 women who were, at the time of assessment, in treatment for childhood experiences of incest. The majority of these women viewed their families-of-origin as generally unhealthy in regard to various dimensions of autonomy and intimacy. Current relationships with their families-of-origin were characterized by less intimacy and more intimidation, triangulation, and fusion than a normed group. Some of these patterns were also evident in the families-of-procreation of these women, including greater triangulation and less spousal intimacy. The subjects also perceived their families-of-procreation as disengaged, controlling, less active in events outside the family, conflict-ridden, and lacking in organization and emotional expressiveness. Finally, based on a circumplex model, a significant number of families-of-procreation were in the extreme range of family functioning.     

Joshua Eisenman,ed., Red China’s Green Revolution: Technological Innovation,Institutional Change,and Economic Development Under the Commune

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Searchers vs surveyors in estimating the monetary value of a QALY: resolving a nasty dilemma for NICE

Recently, for many health economics researchers, empirical estimation of the monetary valuation of a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) has become an important endeavour. Different philosophical and practical approaches to this have emerged. On the one hand, there is a view that, with health-care budgets set centrally, decision-making bodies within the system can iterate, from observation of a series of previous decisions, towards the value of a QALY, thus searching for such a value. Alternatively, and more consistent with the approach taken in other public sectors, individual members of the public are surveyed with the aim of directly eliciting a preference-based - also known as a willingness-to-pay-based (WTP-based) - value of a QALY. While the former is based on supply-side factors and the latter on demand, both in fact suffer from informational deficiencies. Sole reliance on either would necessitate an acceptance or accommodation of chronic inefficiencies in health-care resource allocation. On the basis of this observation, this paper makes the case that in order to approach optimal decision making in health-care provision, a framework incorporating and thus, to a degree, reconciling these two approaches is to be preferred.     

Invited Commentary: National Safe Place: Meeting the Immediate Needs of Runaway and Homeless Youth

An estimated 1.6 million youth run away from home each year. While on the run, these youth are vulnerable to exploitation, victimization, increased dangers and perpetration of criminal behavior. Runaway and homeless youth are far more likely to engage in substance use and delinquent behavior, drop out of school and suffer from sexually transmitted diseases and mental illness at greater rates than the norm. Timely and direct intervention in runaway and throwaway cases is imperative to protect youth from the high risks of living on the streets. National Safe Place is an outreach and prevention program that is uniquely designed to provide immediate safety and access to services for any youth in need. In partnership with over 360 youth serving agencies and over 10,000 businesses and community organizations across the United States, the Safe Place program educates youth about alternatives to running away and homelessness and provides easily accessible links to service providers. Ongoing data collection indicates that National Safe Place has been successful in reaching endangered youth at risk of abuse, neglect or serious family problems but that expanded program models remain needed. The challenges and successes of current programming and the future of National Safe Place program expansion are discussed.     

‘Suddenly you've become somebody else’: A study of pregnancy and the creative woman

This pilot study is a woman-centered exploration of the effects of pregnancy on a woman artist's work, asking what changes in the work occur during pregnancy or as a result of pregnancy.Conventionally, conditions for artistic creation and for reproduction have been thought to be mutually exclusive, the one requiring self-centeredness and the other, selflessness. The women in this study reported instead that their work was augmented by this change and its product, motherhood. Subject matter and imagery, use of time, attitude about the world and the self were seen in retrospect—if not always at the time—to have benefitted. Having enough time to spend on one project or the other was the most significant conflict reported.Recent theories about and explorations of women's lives and ideas, particularly regarding preparation for motherhood, support what the subjects of this study reported about the multi- layered complexity of the experience. Beauvoir, Rich, Ruddick and Gilligan provide the theoretical background: patriarchal culture's use of biology marks women off as being significantly different from men; while this bodily distinction has been used to limit women, it need not be and may instead be a source of power and growth; maternal thinking has its own previously unacknowledged structures; and women's development, particularly in the valued category of morality, has a different basis than men's, in responsibility rather than in rights.Instead of dividing art from life, motherhood, if not pregnancy specifically, allowed, demanded, or called up a vision of enlargement and unity in social, spiritual, and universal terms, a transcendent philosophy that is not an escape but an embrace.