From weakest-link to best-shot: The voluntary provision of public goods

It has traditionally been assumed that the socially available amount X of a public good is the simple sum of the separate amounts x _i produced by the i = 1, ..., I members of the community. But there are many other possibilities of practical importance. Among them are: (i) Weakest-link rule, where the socially available amount is the minimum of the quantities individually provided, and (ii) Best-shot rule, where the socially available amount is the maximum of the individual quantities. The former tends to arise in linear situations, where each individual has a veto on the total to be provided (e.g., if each is responsible for one link of a chain); the latter tends to arise when there is a single prize of overwhelming importance for the community, with any individual's effort having a chance of securing the prize. In comparison with the standard Summation formula of ordinary public-good theory, it is shown that underprovision of the public good tends to considerably moderated when the Weakest-link function is applicable, but aggravated when the Best-shot function is applicable. In time of disaster, where the survival of the community may depend upon each person's doing his duty, the conditions for applicability of the Weakest-link rule are approximated. This circumstance explains the historical observation that disaster conditions tend to elicit an extraordinary amount of unselfish behavior.     

Sudden death due to asphyxia by esophageal polyp: two case reports and review of asphyxial deaths

Asphyxia, not an uncommon cause of sudden death, may result from numerous etiologies. Foreign-body aspiration and strangulation are 2 extrinsic causes. Airway obstruction may also be caused by laryngeal edema, asthma, infection, or anaphylaxis. Chronic causes of asphyxia include musculoskeletal diseases (eg, muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), neurologic disorders (eg, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis), respiratory disease (eg, emphysema, chronic bronchitis), or tumors. The manner of death in cases of asphyxiation may be natural, accidental, homicide, or suicide. For the death investigator, determining the cause and manner of death can often be quite challenging.We report here 2 cases of an esophageal fibrovascular polyp causing sudden asphyxial death, review of the literature, and discussion of other differential diagnoses in the case of asphyxial death.     

Public opinion and the politics of obesity in America

Health policy experts have recently sounded the warning about the severe health and economic consequences of America's growing rates of obesity. Despite this fact, obesity has only begun to enter America's political consciousness and we have little information about what average Americans think of obesity or whether they support obesity-related policies. Using unique survey data collected by the authors, this essay examines public attitudes toward obesity and obesity policy. We find that, contrary to the views of health experts, most Americans are not seriously concerned with obesity, express relatively low support for obesity-targeted policies, and still view obesity as resulting from individual failure rather than environmental or genetic sources. Given the absence of elite discourse on this problem, we also find that typical determinants of policy preferences, such as ideology or partisanship, are not good predictors of attitudes on obesity policy. Rather, with a low-valence issue such as obesity, the public utilizes other attitudinal frameworks such as their opinions on smoking policy and the environmental culpability for obesity. The implications of these findings for obesity policy and research on health-related public opinion are discussed.     

Correlation of methamphetamine results and concentrations between head, axillary, and pubic hair

This study was designed to compare the qualitative results and concentrations of methamphetamine (MA) and its metabolite amphetamine (AP) in head hair and hair collected from different parts of the body (axillae and pubis). Hair from subjects (N = 14) suspected MA users was simultaneously collected. Hair preparation involved washing step, fine cutting, overnight extraction, derivatization by the trifluoroacetic anhydride, and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) using selective ion monitoring. In this study, we found a good correlation of the qualitative results for MA between head hair and hair on other parts of the body, but there were some differences in concentrations of MA and AP. Namely, the concentrations of MA and AP were higher in axillary and pubic hair than in head hair.     

Haplotype diversity in mitochondrial DNA hypervariable region I, II and III in northeast China Han

Sequence polymorphism of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region, hypervariable regions HVR I, HVR II and HVR III, from 51 unrelated China Han (Yan Bian area) were determined by PCR amplification and cycle sequencing.