scholarly journals Antibody Tests: They Are More Important Than We Thought

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luís Guimarães
Keyword(s):  
Economic Model ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Health State ◽  
Antibody Testing ◽  
Pharmaceutical Intervention ◽  
Welfare Losses ◽  
State Uncertainty ◽  
Increased Activity ◽  
Antibody Tests ◽  
Simple Economic

AbstractAntibody testing is a non-pharmaceutical intervention – not recognized so far in the literature – to prevent COVID-19 contagion. I show this in a simple economic model of an epidemic in which agents choose social activity under health state uncertainty. In the model, susceptible and asymptomatic agents are more socially active when they think they might be immune. And this increased activity escalates infections, deaths, and welfare losses. Antibody testing, however, prevents this escalation by revealing that those agents are not immune. Through this mechanism, I find that antibody testing prevents about 12% of COVID-19 related deaths within 12 months.

A Simple Economic Model with Interactions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxim Gusev ◽  
Dimitri Kroujiline
Keyword(s):  
Economic Model ◽  
Simple Economic

scholarly journals Education and Energy Intensity: Simple Economic Modelling and Preliminary Empirical Results

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Sequeira ◽  
Marcelo Santos
Keyword(s):  
Gross Domestic Product ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Energy Intensity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Modelling ◽  
Empirical Application ◽  
Primary Schooling ◽  
Simple Economic

The ratio of energy use to Gross Domestic Product (defined as energy intensity) is a major determinant of environmental hazard and an indicator of eco-efficiency. This paper explains why education can have an effect in reducing the energy intensity thus affecting eco-efficiency. We devise a stylized economic model with simple and widely accepted assumptions that highlights the role of education in decreasing energy intensity worldwide. In an empirical application that is robust to the features of the data, we show that primary schooling contributes to a decrease in energy intensity which has a very significant effect, even accounting for the other well-known determinants of energy intensity. Additionally, when schooling is taken into account, income is no longer a negative determinant of energy intensity.

scholarly journals Identifying Sources of Inefficiency in Healthcare*

2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
pp. 785-843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amitabh Chandra ◽  
Douglas O Staiger
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Advantage ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Heart Attack ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Substantial Variation ◽  
Treatment Use ◽  
Simple Economic ◽  
Allocative Inefficiency ◽  
Empirical Framework

Abstract In medicine, the reasons for variation in treatment rates across hospitals serving similar patients are not well understood. Some interpret this variation as unwarranted and push standardization of care as a way of reducing allocative inefficiency. An alternative interpretation is that hospitals with greater expertise in a treatment use it more because of their comparative advantage, suggesting that standardization is misguided. A simple economic model provides an empirical framework to separate these explanations. Estimating this model with data for heart attack patients, we find evidence of substantial variation across hospitals in allocative inefficiency and comparative advantage, with most hospitals overusing treatment in part because of incorrect beliefs about their comparative advantage. A stylized welfare calculation suggests that eliminating allocative inefficiency would increase the total benefits from the treatment that we study by 44%.

The Curious Case for Media Monopoly in Technology-Driven Sports

2015 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Potts ◽  
Stuart Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Positive Feedback ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Surprising Result ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Simple Economic

This article examines the effect of technological change (innovation) on sports. We argue that innovation affects a sport through two pathways: sports equipment and sports media. We propose a simple economic model with positive feedback, which predicts that technology-enhanced sports will dominate the sports ecology. There is also the opposite phenomenon of technological overshooting that causes the elite end of a sport to develop much faster than the beginner's end, damaging entry into the sport. We present this model through a case study on windsurfing, illustrating the role of sports media. A surprising result is that the case study suggests a welfare-maximising case for monopoly licensing of sports media in newly emerging sports, or sports with rapidly changing equipment technologies.

scholarly journals Rapid and Laboratory SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing in High-Risk Hospital Associated Cohorts of Unknown COVID-19 Exposure, a Validation and Epidemiological Study After the First Wave of the Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan O'Kelly ◽  
Ronan McLaughlin ◽  
Roseann O'Doherty ◽  
Hailey Carroll ◽  
Roisin Murray ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Diagnostic Test ◽  
Rapid Diagnostic Test ◽  
Antibody Testing ◽  
Single Center Study ◽  
Risk Patients ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Antibody Tests ◽  
Abbott Architect ◽  
Laboratory Assay

Objective: We aimed to use SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests to assess the asymptomatic seroprevalence of individuals in high-risk hospital cohorts who's previous COVID-19 exposure is unknown; staff, and patients requiring haemodialysis or chemotherapy after the first wave.Methods: In a single Center, study participants had five SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests done simultaneously; one rapid diagnostic test (RDT) (Superbio Colloidal Gold IgM/IgG), and four laboratory tests (Roche Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG [RE], Abbott Architect i2000SR IgG [AAr], Abbott Alinity IgG [AAl], and Abbott Architect IgM CMIA). To determine seroprevalence, only positive test results on laboratory assay were considered true positives.Results: There were 157 participants, of whom 103 (65.6%) were female with a median age of 50 years (range 19–90). The IgG component of the RDT showed a high number of false positives (n = 18), was inferior to the laboratory assays (p < 0.001 RDT vs. AAl/AAr, p < 0.001 RDT vs. RE), and had reduced specificity (85.5% vs. AAl/AAr, 87.2% vs. RE). Sero-concordance was 97.5% between IgG laboratory assays (RE vs. AAl/AAr). Specificity of the IgM component of the RDT compared to Abbott IgM CMIA was 95.4%. Ten participants had positivity in at least one laboratory assay, seven (9.9%) of which were seen in HCWs. Two (4.1%) hematology/oncology (H/O) patients and a single (2.7%) haemodialysis (HD) were asymptomatically seropositive. Asymptomatic seroprevalence of HCWs compared to patients was not significant (p = 0.105).Conclusion: HCWs (9.9%) had higher, although non-significant asymptomatic seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies compared to high-risk patients (H/O 4.1%, HD 2.7%). An IgM/IgG rapid diagnostic test was inferior to laboratory assays. Sero-concordance of 97.5% was found between IgG laboratory assays, RE vs. AAl/AAr.

scholarly journals Suppression of transfusion-related alloimmunization in intensively treated cancer patients

Blood ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
TV Holohan ◽  
PI Terasaki ◽  
AB Deisseroth
Keyword(s):  
Aplastic Anemia ◽  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Retrospective Review ◽  
Antibody Formation ◽  
Hla Antigens ◽  
Antibody Testing ◽  
Hla Antibodies ◽  
Documented Infection ◽  
Antibody Tests ◽  
Hla Antibody

A retrospective review of HLA antibody testing and transfusion records of 100 cancer patients who required extensive platelet support revealed that 27 of 100 patients exhibited positive HLA antibody tests; only 13 remained positive on repetitive examination, while 88% of aplastic anemia patients so tested were positive. Sixty-five patients with leukemia, 16 with Ewing's sarcoma, and 19 with recurrent undifferentiated lymphoma were studied. Each patient received at least 10 U of platelets (mean of 72). HLA antibodies were detected in 31% (20/65) of the leukemias, 12% (2/16) of the Ewing's, and 26% (5/19) of the lymphoma patients. Fourteen of the 27 patients who developed antibodies became antibody negative again within 2 mo and remained so. There were no significant differences in quantity of platelet transfusions between antibody-negative patients and alloimmunized patients. A smaller group (n = 8) of aplastic anemia patients followed at the NCl exhibited a frequency of alloimmunization of 88% (7/8) after a mean of 44 U of platelets were transfused. Granulocyte transfusions given therapeutically for granulocytopenia and documented infection did not appear to influence HLA antibody formation. These data indicate that significant immunosuppression occurs in intensively treated cancer patients, as measured by their ability to from antibodies to HLA antigens expressed on the surface of transfused platelets.

scholarly journals TAIL BEHAVIOR OF STOPPED LÉVY PROCESSES WITH MARKOV MODULATION

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Brendan K. Beare ◽  
Won-Ki Seo ◽  
Alexis Akira Toda
Keyword(s):  
Economic Model ◽  
Absolute Risk ◽  
Tail Behavior ◽  
Tail Probabilities ◽  
Absolute Risk Aversion ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
State Dependent ◽  
Markov Modulated ◽  
Constant Absolute Risk Aversion ◽  
Simple Economic

This article concerns the tail probabilities of a light-tailed Markov-modulated Lévy process stopped at a state-dependent Poisson rate. The tails are shown to decay exponentially at rates given by the unique positive and negative roots of the spectral abscissa of a certain matrix-valued function. We illustrate the use of our results with an application to the stationary distribution of wealth in a simple economic model in which agents with constant absolute risk aversion are subject to random mortality and income fluctuation.

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