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This article empirically investigates the role of import intermediaries in Canada and discusses how public policies can affect them. Among the main results is that intermediaries are shown to play a very different role with respect to manufacturers and retailers regarding differentiated and complex products, but their role is qualitatively the same across North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and non-NAFTA countries, and the share of intermediaries' imports is always boosted by a greater mass of small domestic manufacturers and retailers. These results suggest that import wholesalers play an important role in the Canadian economy, especially with respect to domestic manufacturers, and that policy-makers should be mindful of policy impacts on this sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China announced a slight easing of its zero-COVID rules on November 11, 2022, and then a major relaxation on December 7, 2022. We estimate that the ensuing wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections caused 1.41 million deaths in China during December 2022–February 2023, substantially higher than that reported through official channels.

In this work, the research team employed a VECM regression model to evaluate the relationship between money supply and inflation rate (INF) in Egypt from 1990 to 2019. The model includes four independent variables: money supply (MS), imports (IMP), Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and exchange rate (EXCH). A Johansen-Juselius co-integration test and a Vector Error Correction Model were used to determine the existence of long-term and short-term links between the variables. The results demonstrated the existence of co-integrating links between the variables. Aside from the effects of GDP, all independent factors had a positive effect on the inflation rate. Depending on the results, the money supply is the primary long-term predictor of the inflation rate in Egypt.

As COVID-19 vaccines become available, different model-based approaches have been developed to evaluate strategic priorities for vaccine allocation to reduce severe illness. One strategy is to directly prioritize groups that are likely to experience medical complications due to COVID-19, such as older adults. A second strategy is to limit community spread by reducing importations, for example by vaccinating members of the mobile labour force, such as rotational workers. This second strategy may be appropriate for regions with low disease prevalence, where importations are a substantial fraction of all cases and reducing the importation rate reduces the risk of community outbreaks, which can provide significant indirect protection for vulnerable individuals. Current studies have focused on comparing vaccination strategies in the absence of importations, and have not considered allocating vaccines to reduce the importation rate. Here, we provide an analytical criteria to compare the reduction in the risk of hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admission over four months when either older adults or rotational workers are prioritized for vaccination. Vaccinating rotational workers (assumed to be 6,000 individuals and about 1% of the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) population) could reduce the average risk of hospitalization and ICU admission by 42%, if no community spread is observed at the time of vaccination, because epidemic spread is reduced and vulnerable individuals are indirectly protected. In contrast, vaccinating all individuals aged 75 and older (about 43,300 individuals, or 8% of the NL population) would lead to a 24% reduction in the average risk of hospitalization, and to a 45% reduction in the average risk of ICU admission, because a large number of individuals at high risk from COVID-19 are now vaccinated. Therefore, reducing the risk of hospitalization and ICU admission of the susceptible population by reducing case importations would require a significantly lower number of vaccines. Benefits of vaccinating rotational workers decrease with increasing infection prevalence in the community. Prioritizing members of the mobile labour force should be considered as an efficient strategy to indirectly protect vulnerable groups from COVID-19 exposure in regions with low disease prevalence.

Conifer wood moldings are classified as high value-added wood products and are used for several purposes in civil construction. Brazil is the world’s leading exporter of this product and the United States are its main destination market. It is very important to analyze the behavior of such importations and exportations to set strategies to obtain or increase the competitive advantage and improve the commercialization of these products. The objective of this study was to analyze the US importation seasonality of conifer wood moldings from Brazil and Chile, the main competitor of the Brazilian product in the US market. To write this paper, monthly data of the quantity of US importations of Brazilian and Chilean moldings from the period of 2011 to 2017 were collected from the database of the United States Department of Agriculture/Foreign Agricultural Service. The methodology proposed by Hoffman (2006) was employed to calculate the seasonal and seasonality indexes. The results indicated that the US importation of conifer wood moldings, both from Brazil and Chile, have a seasonal behavior, with great variation of the seasonal index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate that heterogeneity in the perceived risks associated with infection within host populations amplifies chances of superspreading during the crucial early stages of epidemics. Under this behavioural model, individuals less concerned about dangers from infection are more likely to be infected and attend larger sized (riskier) events, where we assume event sizes remain unchanged. For directly transmitted diseases such as COVID-19, this leads to infections being introduced at rates above the population prevalence to those events most conducive to superspreading. We develop an interpretable, computational framework for evaluating within-event risks and derive a small-scale reproduction number measuring how the infections generated at an event depend on transmission heterogeneities and numbers of introductions. This generalizes previous frameworks and quantifies how event-scale patterns and population-level characteristics relate. As event duration and size grow, our reproduction number converges to the basic reproduction number. We illustrate that even moderate levels of heterogeneity in the perceived risks of infection substantially increase the likelihood of disproportionately large clusters of infections occurring at larger events, despite fixed overall disease prevalence. We show why collecting data linking host behaviour and event attendance is essential for accurately assessing the risks posed by invading pathogens in emerging stages of outbreaks.

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Keywords: Omicron; SARS-CoV-2 variant; spreading; importations EN Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant spreading importations 1 3 3 09/21/22 20220801 NES 220801 South Africa (SA) first detected the B.1.1.529 SARS-CoV-2 variant from a specimen collected on 9 November 2021 and reported the variant to the World Health Organization (WHO) on 24 November 2021.[1] Two days later, the WHO named the variant Omicron and classified it as a variant of concern (VOC) because of increasing detections in SA and large number of mutations in the immunogenic regions of the spike protein.[1] In addition to increasing cases in SA, the new variant may have been prevalent in other locations in southern Africa. If the sequences we analysed were disproportionately sampled from regions of SA in which the Omicron variant first emerged, then we may overestimate the relative frequency of Omicron across all of SA. [Extracted from the article]

In many jurisdictions, public health authorities have implemented travel restrictions to reduce coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread. Policies that restrict travel within countries have been implemented, but the impact of these restrictions is not well known. On 4 May 2020, Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) implemented travel restrictions such that non-residents required exemptions to enter the province. We fit a stochastic epidemic model to data describing the number of active COVID-19 cases in NL from 14 March to 26 June. We predicted possible outbreaks over nine weeks, with and without the travel restrictions, and for contact rates 40–70% of pre-pandemic levels. Our results suggest that the travel restrictions reduced the mean number of clinical COVID-19 cases in NL by 92%. Furthermore, without the travel restrictions there is a substantial risk of very large outbreaks. Using epidemic modelling, we show how the NL COVID-19 outbreak could have unfolded had the travel restrictions not been implemented. Both physical distancing and travel restrictions affect the local dynamics of the epidemic. Our modelling shows that the travel restrictions are a plausible reason for the few reported COVID-19 cases in NL after 4 May.

Copyright of Algerian Journal of Arid Environment (AJAE) is the property of University of Kasdi Merbah Ouargla and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Economic Sciences, Management & Commercial Sciences (JESMCS) is the property of Association of Arab Universities and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Social & Economic Studies is the property of University of the West Indies - Mona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Economic Sciences, Management & Commercial Sciences (JESMCS) is the property of Association of Arab Universities and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the last five years, the debate about fracking has been wider than the question of hydrocarbon research permits granted in Spain. The United States has developed an export strategy for shale gas production to European Union countries. These exports to Europe are aimed at reducing the role of Russia as the main gas supplier in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. On the other hand, these imports have been rejected by environmental groups. This article studies the evolution of liquefied natural gas imports in Spain and the European Union, especially imports from the United States. In addition, I will analyse the role of Spain in the geopolitics of energy. Spain is one of the main importers of liquefied natural gas, after Japan, South Korea, China, India, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. In 2017, the United States became the sixth largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and Spain was the fifth main destination of these emerging exchanges. In addition, the European Union received 11.2% of the total LNG exported by the world’s first economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Quantitative Economics Studies (JQES) is the property of University of Kasdi Merbah Ouargla and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Given the interconnectivity of Brazil with the rest of the world, Zika virus (ZIKV) infections have the potential to spread rapidly around the world via viremic travellers. The extent of spread depends on the travel volume and the endemicity in the exporting country. In the absence of reliable surveillance data, we did mathematical modelling to estimate the number of importations of ZIKV from Brazil into Europe. Design: We applied a previously developed mathematical model on importations of dengue to estimate the number of ZIKV importations into Europe, based on the travel volume, the probability of being infected at the time of travel, the population size of Brazil, and the estimated incidence of ZIKV infections. Results: Our model estimated between 508 and 1,778 imported infections into Europe in 2016, of which we would expect between 116 and 355 symptomatic Zika infections; with the highest number of importations being into France, Portugal and Italy. Conclusions: Our model identified high-risk countries in Europe. Such data can assist policymakers and public health professionals in estimating the extent of importations in order to prepare for the scale up of laboratory diagnostic assays and estimate the occurrence of Guillain–Barré Syndrome, potential sexual transmission, and infants with congenital ZIKV syndrome.

China announced a slight easing of its zero-COVID rules on November 11, 2022, and then a major relaxation on December 7, 2022. We estimate that the ensuing wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections caused 1.41 million deaths in China during December 2022-February 2023, substantially higher than that reported through official channels.

This perspective examines amphetamine importations into Ireland. Some novel by‐products were detected and linked to a change in the method of production of P2P from APAAN. These by‐products remained present during subsequent Leuckart reaction conditions. Novel by‐products from substituted cathinone synthesis reactions were also isolated and characterized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista En-Contexto is the property of Tecnologico de Antioquia, Institucion Universitari and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some countries, such as Australia, China, Iceland, New Zealand, Thailand, and Vietnam successfully implemented an elimination strategy, enacting strict border control and periods of lockdowns to end community transmission. Atlantic Canada and Canada's territories implemented similar policies, and reported long periods with no community cases. In Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island a median of 80% or more of daily reported cases were travel-related from July 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021. With increasing vaccination coverage, it may be appropriate to exit an elimination strategy, but most existing epidemiological frameworks are applicable only to situations where most cases occur in the community, and are not appropriate for regions that have implemented an elimination strategy. To inform the pandemic response in regions that are implementing an elimination strategy, we extend importation modelling to consider post-arrival travel restrictions, and pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions in the local community. We find that shortly after the Omicron variant had begun spreading in Canada, the expected daily number of spillovers, infections spread to NL community members from travellers and their close contacts, was higher than any time previously in the pandemic. By December 24, 2021, the expected number of spillovers was 44% higher than the previous high, which occurred in late July 2021 shortly after travel restrictions were first relaxed. We develop a method to assess the characteristics of potential future community outbreaks in regions that are implementing an elimination strategy. We apply this method to predict the effect of variant and vaccination coverage on the size of hypothetical community outbreaks in Mount Pearl, a suburb of the St. John's metropolitan area in NL. Our methodology can be used to evaluate alternative plans to relax public health restrictions when vaccine coverage is high in regions that have implemented an elimination strategy. This manuscript was submitted as part of a theme issue on "Modelling COVID-19 and Preparedness for Future Pandemics". • Prior to May 31, 2021 most SARS-CoV-2 cases in Atlantic Canada were travel-related. • In mid-December 2021, infection risk from travellers to Nfld. and Lab. was high. • Modelling is needed to support exiting an elimination strategy. • We extend importation modelling to consider vaccination in the local community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1978 and its opening, China has undergone a process of nutrition transition, animal products taking an increasing share. Anxious to ensure a certain level of food independence, Chinese authorities have developed national livestock production. The increase in volumes and the development of large scale breeding have increased the demand for commercial feed and thus soymeal. Meanwhile, edible oil consumption rose sharply, accentuating the demand for soybeans. To meet this demand, soybean imports were liberalized early, leading the country to become heavily dependent. China has indeed made the choice to maintain its independence in cereals at the expense of other grains, such as soybeans. Competition between corn and soybeans has turned in favor of the cereal, soybean production levelling off then regressing. China’s dependence extends to the crushing sector, controlled by foreign companies. Public supports in place, such as minimum prices, have resulted in increasing the price gap with imported products, leading to a reform of soybean policy in 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Given the interconnectivity of Brazil with the rest of the world, Zika virus (ZIKV) infections have the potential to spread rapidly around the world via viremic travellers. The extent of spread depends on the travel volume and the endemicity in the exporting country. In the absence of reliable surveillance data, we did mathematical modelling to estimate the number of importations of ZIKV from Brazil into Europe. Design We applied a previously developed mathematical model on importations of dengue to estimate the number of ZIKV importations into Europe, based on the travel volume, the probability of being infected at the time of travel, the population size of Brazil, and the estimated incidence of ZIKV infections. Results Our model estimated between 508 and 1,778 imported infections into Europe in 2016, of which we would expect between 116 and 355 symptomatic Zika infections; with the highest number of importations being into France, Portugal and Italy. Conclusions Our model identified high-risk countries in Europe. Such data can assist policymakers and public health professionals in estimating the extent of importations in order to prepare for the scale up of laboratory diagnostic assays and estimate the occurrence of Guillain–Barré Syndrome, potential sexual transmission, and infants with congenital ZIKV syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Le Maroc, l’Algérie et la Tunisie connaissent un important déficit en huiles alimentaires et tourteaux. Par projection, on peut prévoir que, pour suivre une demande croissante, les importations vont continuer d’augmenter, et ce malgré l’accroissement potentiel de la production locale. La principale huile produite est l’huile d’olive, dont la Tunisie est un exportateur significatif, tandis que la production couvre à peine les besoins en Algérie et au Maroc. Celui-ci produit également un peu de tournesol. Mais les trois pays restent fortement dépendants des importations pour alimenter leur marché. La consommation et les importations diffèrent selon le pays (l’huile de soja domine au Maroc et en Tunisie alors que les huiles de tournesol et de colza sont plus importantes en Algérie), de même que les types de produits importés (seul le Maroc dispose d’une trituration développée et importe de la graine). Le degré de libéralisation et d’intervention directe de l’Etat sur le marché varie également et chaque pays possède son propre cadre de politiques d’échanges et de protection. Ces politiques sont cohérentes par rapport aux productions et industries développées localement et, combinées aux habitudes alimentaires et aux niveaux de prix sur le marché mondial, influent sur les types de produits préférentiellement importés. Dans les trois pays existent des projets de développement de la production d’oléagineux. Pour l’olive, le modèle tunisien, orienté vers l’exportation, fait référence et un certain nombre de facteurs socio-économiques devraient favoriser le développement des oliveraies. Pour les graines oléagineuses, seul le Maroc a jusqu’à présent effectivement mis en place une politique ayant permis de développer la production domestique. Les politiques de prix constituent certainement le moyen le plus simple de soutenir le développement des oléagineux, mais elles doivent être mises en œuvre dans un souci d’efficacité économique. En particulier, tout en assurant une certaine stabilité de la production intérieure, elles devraient permettre d’ajuster les soutiens entre oléagineux et céréales en fonction des prix relatifs sur le marché international, pour en tirer le meilleur parti.

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The article discusses the internal market for agricultural machinery in Argentina during the period 1870-1940, with specific reference to a reflection based on empirical data.

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