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Background. The largest measles epidemic in North America in the last decade, occurred in 2011 in Quebec, Canada, where rates of 1- and 2-dose vaccine coverage among children 3 years of age were 95%—97% and 90%, respectively, with 3%—5% unvaccinated. Methods. Case patients identified through passive surveillance and outbreak investigation were contacted to determine clinical course, vaccination status, and possible source of infection. Results. There were 21 measles importations and 725 cases. A superspreading event triggered by 1 importation resulted in sustained transmission and 678 cases. The overall incidence was 9.1 per 100 000; the highest incidence was in adolescents 12—17 years old (75.6 per 100 000), who comprised 56% of case patients. Among adolescents, 22% had received 2 vaccine doses. Outbreak investigation showed this proportion to have been an underestimate; active case finding identified 130% more cases among 2-dose recipients. Two-dose recipients had milder illness and a significantly lower risk of hospitalization than those who were unvaccinated or single-dose recipients. Conclusions. A chance superspreading event revealed an overall level of immunity barely above the elimination threshold when unexpected vulnerability in 2-dose recipients was taken into account. Unvaccinated individuals remain the immunization priority, but a better understanding of susceptibility in 2-dose recipients is needed to define effective interventions if elimination is to be achieved.

Purpose Previous studies have shown the VIX futures tend to roll-down the term structure and converge towards the spot as they grow closer to maturity. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach to improve the volatility index fear factor-level (VIX-level) prediction. Design/methodology/approach First, the authors use a forward-looking technique, the Heath–Jarrow–Morton (HJM) no-arbitrage framework to capture the convergence of the futures contract towards the spot. Second, the authors use principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce dimensionality and save substantial computational time. Third, the authors validate the model with selected VIX futures maturities and test on value-at-risk (VAR) computations. Findings The authors show that the use of multiple factors has a significant impact on the simulated VIX futures distribution, as well as the computations of their VAR (gain in accuracy and computing time). This impact becomes much more compelling when analysing a portfolio of VIX futures of multiple maturities. Research limitations/implications The authors’ approach assumes the variance to be stationary and ignores the volatility smile. Nevertheless, they offer suggestions for future research. Practical implications The VIX-level prediction (the fear factor) is of paramount importance for market makers and participants, as there is no way to replicate the underlying asset of VIX futures. The authors propose a procedure that provides efficiency to both pricing and risk management. Originality/value This paper is the first to apply a forward-looking method by way of a HJM framework combined with PCA to VIX-level prediction in a portfolio context.

We investigate the impact of flood risk on the Canadian housing market. We combine a variety of large heterogeneous sets of data, both structured and unstructured, that allows taking into account key drivers of properties value that are otherwise difficult to control for. We infer the findings from two distinct samples composed of properties for sale and properties sold. The results suggest that high-risk location commands an average price discount of 4% even though overland flood insurance protections are mostly nonexistent in Canada. Such a discount is both economically and statistically significant and robust to the use of alternative modeling strategies. Interestingly, the discount is larger for the sold than the for sale sample, which indicates that homebuyers are aware of high-risk flood areas.

Microbial contamination of fresh produce (fresh fruits and vegetables) poses serious public health concerns worldwide. This study was conducted as a comprehensive analysis of biological hazards in the global fresh produce chain. Data about produce-related outbreaks and illness were collected from the annual reports and databases of foodborne outbreak surveillance systems in different regions and countries from 2010 to 2015. The global patterns of and regional differences in documented outbreaks and cases were analyzed, and produce commodities and pathogens of greatest concern were identified. Data on sporadic illnesses were also collected through a comprehensive literature review of case-control studies. We found 988 produce-related outbreaks (with known agents) and 45,723 cases in all regions and countries. The numbers of produce-related outbreaks per million person-years were approximately 0.76, 0.26, 0.25, 0.13, 0.12, and 0.05 in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the European Union, Canada, and Japan, respectively. The top three food categories and pathogens contributing to produce-related outbreaks were vegetables and nonfruits (i.e., food other than fruits; 27.0%), unspecified vegetables (12.2%), and vegetable row crops (11.7%) and norovirus (42.4%), Salmonella enterica (19.9%), and Staphylococcus aureus (7.9%), respectively. Produce consumption was identified as a protective factor, a risk factor, and either a protective or risk factor for sporadic illnesses in 11, 5, and 5 studies, respectively, among 21 case-control studies. Risks associated with produce consumption in the United States and the European Union have been linked to various factors such as irrigation water, cross-contamination, storage time and temperature abuse, infected food handlers, and unprocessed contaminated ingredients. The results of the current study indicate the complexity of produce products consumed across the globe and the difficulty in tracing illnesses back to specific food ingredients.

There seems to be a proliferation of prizes and rankings for ethical business over the past decade. Our principal aims in this article are twofold: to initiate an academic discussion of the epistemic and normative stakes in business-ethics competitions; and to help organizers of such competitions to think through some of these issues and the design options for dealing with them. We have been able to find no substantive literature — academic or otherwise — that addresses either of these two broad topics and audiences. Our modest aim, therefore, is to suggest an agenda of issues, and to begin to explore and analyse some of the possible arguments for and against various philosophical or practical solutions. Part I explores the challenges facing a prize-organizing committee, including problems derived from what Rawls calls the \"fact of pluralism\" in democratic societies (reasonable people will always disagree over some basic values, including those relevant to evaluating business practices), and epistemic issues about how we can justify qualitative judgments on the basis of incomplete quantitative data. We also try to identify risks and opportunity costs for ethics-prize granters. In Part II we spell out (a) a range of design options and (b) some advice about how any particular prize-awarding committee might select among these options to best achieve its goals (which typically involve highlighting and publicizing best practices for ethical business).

Micrometer-sized dust particles present in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) beam pipe are believed to have caused many thousands of sporadic beam loss events around the LHC. These so-called unidentified falling objects (UFOs) have been under continuous study since the start of high intensity beam operation in the LHC due to their impact on the LHC availability: 139 beam dumps and 12 magnet quenches during Run II (2015–2018) alone. To mitigate the impact of UFOs on future accelerators such as the High Luminosity LHC and the Future Circular Collider, it is fundamental to foster a better understanding of these beam loss events. In this paper, key observations made since the start of LHC operation are summarized and the prevailing UFO hypothesis is confronted by a compilation of observations acquired during Run II. In particular, it is shown that UFOs must carry an initial negative charge before entering the proton beam, or that they are by some other means accelerated toward the beam not only by gravity. A simulation model for the dynamics of the dust particles and their interaction with the beam was developed over the years. This model is improved and validated by measurements. It is however also shown that a subset of observed beam losses, which contain a positive time profile skewness, cannot be explained by it.

This paper investigates the impact of flood risk on the Canadian housing market. The research innovates by combining a variety of large heterogeneous sets of data, both structured and unstructured, that allows taking into account key drivers of properties value that are otherwise difficult to control for. We infer the findings from two distinct samples composed of properties for-sale and properties sold, respectively. Results suggest that high-risk location commands an average price discount of 4 percent even though overland flood insurance protections are mostly inexistent in Canada. Such a discount is both economically and statistically significant and robust to the use of alternative modelling strategies. Interestingly, the discount is larger for the sold than the for-sale sample, which indicates that homebuyers are aware of high-risk flood areas.

This article provides an historical analysis and overview of the critical supplier doctrine as it has evolved before the American and Canadian Courts. In light of the important controversy relating to use of the critical supplier doctrine in the United States following the Seventh Circuit decision in Kmart Corp, Re and based upon the actual wording of section 11.4 CCAA, it is suggested in this article that section 11.4 CCAA should be interpreted and applied by the Canadian Courts to force critical suppliers to continue to provide goods or services to the restructuring debtor without necessarily allowing the payment of prefiling debts to such critical suppliers. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Energy efficiency is one of the more economically sounds way to sustainability. Real Estate accounts for 30% of energy consumption in most developed countries. It also accounts for more than 30% of GHG emission. In the last several years many research have been looking to energy efficiency technology. Very few of them include the future energy price forecast in their valuation. Very few of them include the fact that different energy source savings may have different value. This paper demonstrates that one euro of annual energy savings in different source has a very different value when we account for expected future cost. It also underlines the fact that energy source prices are more or less volatile depending on sources. This should imply different discount rate for investment in technology that involves savings of those energy sources with high prices volatility. Following this demonstration the paper support the idea that whoever assesses the value of energy efficiency have to make assumption on energy source saved, future energy prices, appropriate discount rate and maturity of the investment. When researchers and professionals omit to do those assumptions explicitly they do it implicitly.Hedonic models have been widely used by researcher to assess the value of buildings properties. We use forecast at the moment of the transaction to underline the integration of energy efficiency value in building valuation with hedonic models. We use a US database to investigate the relationship between building energy consumption and building value. We also investigate this relationship with rent. Results suggest that the energy consumption that impacts the rent value is different from those who impact transaction price. It appears that overall energy cost impact the rent value, but not the transaction price.In conclusion, the economic sustainability assessment of an energy savings investment must take into account energy sources and future price.

A huge part of housing finance is related to mortgage. In Europe, loan-to-value range between 50% and 85% for mortgage while the mortgage market/GDP ratio increased by 20% in 2010. In most developed countries housing is the most important household's investment or expenditure. This investment is generally leveraged by mortgage borrowing. The mortgage can bear fixed or variable interest rate; both with their pros and cons. Fixed rate allows easier budgeting over years since the bank bear the interest rate risk. This property of fixed rate mortgage is often assimilated to insurance that hedge against monthly payment fluctuation. Usually, initial variable rate is cheaper since the interest rate risk is assumed by the borrower. Yet, there has been surprisingly little work on mortgage decisions from the perspective of the household. Instead, most research on mortgages has been conducted by real estate or fixed-income securities specialists who are interested in pricing mortgage-backed derivatives. This paper proposes a method to assess the relative cost of fixed rate mortgage implied insurance for the borrower. Thus, we link the insurance cost with insurance premium concept and the related hedged risk. The proposed method is applied to Swiss data. This method offers a sound's basis for comparison of the cost of fixed mortgage rate in time and among countries. It also allows the exploration of the relationship between fixed rates implied insurance cost and people's preference for the financial product. We use the method to analyse mortgage rate between 2002 and 2012. We compare variables rates (Libor and bank variable rate) with five and three years fixed rate. We find that most of the time fixed implied insurance is costly for the borrower. This cost represents a value between 0.5% and 7% of the total initial mortgage when compared with libor.