scholarly journals A Note on Smoking Behavior and Health Risk Taking

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Pfeifer

This research note presents two economic frameworks to describe the relationship between individual health risk aversion and smoking behavior. Using a large-scale representative data set (GSOEP), direct empirical evidence is found that individuals, who are more health risk taking, are more likely to be smokers and have a higher demand for cigarettes smoked per day. Non-linear specifications of risk taking reveal, however, that the risk effects are only significant for high risk takers. The estimated effects hold also separately for men and women.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reto Sterchi ◽  
Pascal Haegeli ◽  
Patrick Mair

Abstract. While guides in mechanized skiing operations use a well-established terrain selection process to limit their exposure to avalanche hazard and keep the residual risk at an acceptable level, the relationship between the open/closed status of runs and environmental factors is complex and has so far only received limited attention from research. Using a large data set of over 25 000 operational run list codes from a mechanized skiing operation, we applied a general linear mixed effects model to explore the relationship between acceptable skiing terrain (i.e., status open) and avalanche hazard conditions. Our results show that the magnitude of the effect of avalanche hazard on run list codes depends on the type of terrain that is being assessed by the guiding team. Ski runs in severe alpine terrain with steep lines through large avalanche slopes are much more susceptible to increases in avalanche hazard than less severe terrain. However, our results also highlight the strong effects of recent skiing on the run coding and thus the importance of prior first-hand experience. Expressing these relationships numerically provides an important step towards the development of meaningful decision aids, which can assist commercial operations to manage their avalanche risk more effectively and efficiently.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Moudud-Ul-Huq

Purpose This paper aims to empirically investigate the impact of bank diversification on performance and risk-taking behavior. The analysis uses an unbalanced panel data set covering the period between 2007 and 2015 for a total of 1,397 banks from ASEAN-5 and BRICS economies. Design/methodology/approach Dynamic panel generalized method of moments (GMM) has been used primarily to examine the relationship between bank diversification on performance and risk-taking and later, validate the core results by incorporating two-stage least squares (2SLS). Findings Similar to the results of previous studies based on the developed economy, this study also confirms the hypothesis of the portfolio diversification. The key robust result is that the benefits from revenue and assets diversification are heterogeneous and the BRICS banks achieve higher benefit from using both diversification strategies. On the other hand, ASEAN-5 banks fail to show the significant advantage from assets diversification. Among the diverse sources of income, interest is not a major determinant of efficiency and bank’s stability, while ASEAN-5 banks should foster commission and others income as mechanisms for diversification benefit in the region. Originality/value A few studies are available in the current literature which examines the impact of revenue and assets diversification on either bank performance or risk-taking in the developed economy’s context. However, very few studies are found that examine the relationship between bank diversification, performance and risk-taking together. Moreover, to the best of the author’s knowledge, there is a dearth of literature on this topic that built on the comparative analysis between two regions, i.e. ASEAN-5 and BRICS. As a result, the empirical results of this research provide useful information to the stakeholders so that they can enhance bank diversification strategy and implement them successfully by considering the other factors.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 776-781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Walker ◽  
Jody Langdon ◽  
Krystina Johnson

Background:Young adults have the highest participation in physical activity but also have the highest incidence rates of binge drinking, cigarette smoking, and smokeless tobacco use. We examined these factors to determine whether there are relationships among physical activity and health risk behaviors.Methods:We conducted correlation and χ2 analyses using the American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment fall 2009 data set (N = 34,208) to examine the relationship among meeting physical-activity guidelines, binge drinking, and tobacco use among survey participants.Results:The data suggest a positive relationship between meeting physical-activity guidelines and binge drinking, with the strongest relationship between those reporting binge drinking 4 times in a 2-week period. Meeting physical-activity guidelines was negatively associated with cigarette use but positively associated with all other types of tobacco use.Conclusion:Associations between physical activity and binge-drinking episodes indicate a need to address the relationship between heavy drinking and alcohol dependence and physical-activity behavior patterns. Further studies should examine relationships between physical activity and binge drinking in other age groups. Results also suggest the need to examine differing associations between physical activity and types of tobacco use.


Author(s):  
Arbian Humaidi ◽  
Ade Gustiawan ◽  
Adi Rizfal Efriadi ◽  
Alief Jordan ◽  
Dandi Surya

Smoking is a problem that has not been solved until now. Smoking has spread to various groups, from children to the elderly, men and women. This smoking habit can harm adolescents directly or indirectly which has been proven to interfere with the growth and development of adolescents. Many factors are associated with smoking behavior in adolescents aged 15-18 years. These factors are discussed based on research articles and book references. Factors that influence the relationship include peer association, price, and lack of parental attention. Smoking can increase the risk of several diseases, such as cancer, pregnancy disorders, and hypertension. Smoking too often not only causes problems in the development and growth of adolescents.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 440-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilfredo Robles ◽  
John D. Madsen ◽  
Ryan M. Wersal

AbstractMany large-scale management programs directed toward the control of waterhyacinth rely on maintenance management with herbicides. Improving the implementation of these programs could be achieved through accurately detecting herbicide injury in order to evaluate efficacy. Mesocosm studies were conducted in the fall and summer of 2006 and 2007 at the R. R. Foil Plant Science Research Center, Mississippi State University, to detect and predict herbicide injury on waterhyacinth treated with four different rates of imazapyr and glyphosate. Herbicide rates corresponded to maximum recommended rates of 0.6 and 3.4 kg ae ha−1(0.5 and 3 lb ac−1) for imazapyr and glyphosate, respectively, and three rates lower than recommended maximum. Injury was visually estimated using a phytotoxicity rating scale, and reflectance measurements were collected using a handheld hyperspectral sensor. Reflectance measurements were then transformed into a Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) simulated data set to obtain pixel values for each spectral band. Statistical analyses were performed to determine if a correlation existed between bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 and phytotoxicity ratings. Simulated data from Landsat 5 TM indicated that band 4 was the most useful band to detect and predict herbicide injury of waterhyacinth by glyphosate and imazapyr. The relationship was negative because pixel values of band 4 decreased when herbicide injury increased. At 2 wk after treatment, the relationship between band 4 and phytotoxicity was best (r2of 0.75 and 0.90 for glyphosate and imazapyr, respectively), which served to predict herbicide injury in the following weeks.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Senan Ebrahim ◽  
Henry Ashworth ◽  
Cray Noah ◽  
Adesh Kadambi ◽  
Asmae Toumi ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Worldwide, nonpharmacologic interventions (NPIs) have been the main tool used to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes social distancing measures (closing businesses, closing schools, and quarantining symptomatic persons) and contact tracing (tracking and following exposed individuals). While preliminary research across the globe has shown these policies to be effective, there is currently a lack of information on the effectiveness of NPIs in the United States. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to create a granular NPI data set at the county level and then analyze the relationship between NPI policies and changes in reported COVID-19 cases. METHODS Using a standardized crowdsourcing methodology, we collected time-series data on 7 key NPIs for 1320 US counties. RESULTS This open-source data set is the largest and most comprehensive collection of county NPI policy data and meets the need for higher-resolution COVID-19 policy data. Our analysis revealed a wide variation in county-level policies both within and among states (<i>P</i>&lt;.001). We identified a correlation between workplace closures and lower growth rates of COVID-19 cases (<i>P</i>=.004). We found weak correlations between shelter-in-place enforcement and measures of Democratic local voter proportion (R=0.21) and elected leadership (R=0.22). CONCLUSIONS This study is the first large-scale NPI analysis at the county level demonstrating a correlation between NPIs and decreased rates of COVID-19. Future work using this data set will explore the relationship between county-level policies and COVID-19 transmission to optimize real-time policy formulation.


2003 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 895-900 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina El-Khairy ◽  
Stein E Vollset ◽  
Helga Refsum ◽  
Per M Ueland

Abstract Background: We have previously reported a positive association between tHcy and mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) hospitalizations in the Hordaland Homocysteine Study cohort. Using the same data set, we assessed the relationship between plasma total cysteine (tCys) and mortality from all causes and from cardiovascular and noncardiovascular conditions, and the association between tCys and the risk of hospitalizations from CVD. Methods: We measured plasma tCys in blood samples from 12 595 men and women 40–42 years of age and from 4766 men and women 65–67 years of age, collected as part of the Hordaland Homocysteine Study in the year 1992–1993. Follow-up data on mortality were collected through 1999. Data on CVD hospitalizations were collected from hospital records up to May 31, 1998. Results: After a follow-up time of 6.6–7.6 years, there were a total of 610 deaths, of which 243 were cardiovascular deaths and 367 were noncardiovascular deaths. There was no association between tCys and all-cause, cardiovascular, or noncardiovascular mortality. When we used tCys values &lt;247.6 μmol/L (lowest quartile) as the reference category, the adjusted mortality ratio (MR) for all-cause mortality at tCys concentrations of 247.6–270.79, 270.8–295.79, and ≥295.8 μmol/L (highest quartile) were 1.0, 0.9, and 1.0, respectively. The adjusted MRs for cardiovascular mortality were 1.0, 1.1, and 1.1, respectively. There were no associations between tCys and 1275 CVD hospitalizations, except that tCys was significantly associated with hospitalizations from coronary artery bypass grafting. Conclusion: Plasma tCys is not associated with mortality or CVD hospitalizations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-198
Author(s):  
Luis Otero ◽  
Rafat Alaraj ◽  
Ruben Lado-Sestayo

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between corporate governance and risk-taking behaviour of banks operating in the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. Design/methodology/approach In doing so, the authors use a data set covering 165 banks located in 13 MENA countries over the period 2005–2012 and apply dynamic panel data methodology. Findings The results show that good governance acting in the interests of shareholders could lead to excessive risk taking; in this sense, a conflict of interest between the stakeholders, interested in the solvency of the financial system, and shareholders, trying to maximise their benefit, may occur. The greater risk can be reinforced by the governance of the country and a strong macro governance framework can incentivise a higher risk exposure in banks, showing the influence of bank regulation and law enforcement on the risks taken by banks. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper showing that corporate governance is relevant for explaining risk taking at the country and bank levels in MENA countries.


2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062110150
Author(s):  
Jason W. Hannay ◽  
B. Keith Payne ◽  
Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi

The present research proposes and tests the “hedonic risk hypothesis” that affective experiences of pleasure provide a common currency that people use to equate economic and hedonic inequality. As a result, economic inequality can increase risk-taking in pursuit of pleasure even in noneconomic domains. Study 1 showed that higher economic inequality at the state level was associated with people in those states spending more time pursuing pleasure. Studies 2–4 were experiments, which demonstrated that when people perceive inequality in other people’s hedonic experience, they become riskier in their pursuit of pleasure for themselves. The relationship between inequality and risk-taking in pursuit of pleasurable experiences was moderated by upward social comparisons. Both monetary and hedonic inequality caused participants to become riskier in their pursuit of pleasure. The findings suggest a psychological pathway by which systemic effects of income inequality may affect individual health and social outcomes.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1017
Author(s):  
Qitong Sun ◽  
Jun Han ◽  
Dianfu Ma

To construct a large-scale service knowledge graph is necessary. We propose a method, namely semantic information extension, for service knowledge graphs. We insist on the information of services described by Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and we design the ontology layer of web service knowledge graph and construct the service graph, and using the WSDL document data set, the generated service knowledge graph contains 3738 service entities. In particular, our method can give a full performance to its effect in service discovery. To evaluate our approach, we conducted two sets of experiments to explore the relationship between services and classify services that develop by service descriptions. We constructed two experimental data sets, then designed and trained two different deep neural networks for the two tasks to extract the semantics of the natural language used in the service discovery task. In the prediction task of exploring the relationship between services, the prediction accuracy rate reached 95.1%, and in the service classification experiment, the accuracy rate of TOP5 reached 60.8%. Our experience shows that the service knowledge graph has additional advantages over traditional file storage when managing additional semantic information is effective and the new service representation method is helpful for service discovery and composition tasks.


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