vermiculture is the culture of earthworms. the goal is to continually increase the number of worms in order to obtain a sustainable harvest. the worms are either used to expand a vermicomposting operation or sold to customers who use them for the same or other purposes. vermicomposting is the process by which worms are used to convert organic materials (usually wastes) into a humus-like materia...

This paper aims to provide a quantitative analysis of the influence of an aging population on the financing of Japan’s universal health insurance system and potential reform policies. We construct a general equilibrium life-cycle model to study the effects of aging on the tax burden, individual behaviors, the aggregate economy, and welfare. We also evaluate various policy alternatives designed ...

• Health benefits a big potential target for raising revenue: President Bush’s FY 2008 budget estimates all employee benefits-related “tax expenditures” (government revenue foregone due to special tax treatment) will amount to $328 billion next year, or 34 percent of the $961 billion worth of total tax expenditures in the federal budget. Tax-favored employment-based health insurance benefits ac...

Flavones correspond to a flavonoid subgroup that is widely distributed in the plants, and which can be synthesized by different pathways, depending on whether they contain C- or O-glycosylation and hydroxylated B-ring. Flavones are emerging as very important specialized metabolites involved in plant signaling and defense, as well as key ingredients of the human diet, with significant health ben...

OBJECTIVE Numerous scientific studies show that certain combinations of dietary and/or lifestyle factors produce health benefits which are greater than the sum of the benefits associated with each factor alone. To address an existing knowledge gap, we assessed the extent to which individuals understand that certain combinations present these 'synergistic health benefits'. DESIGN Health benefi...

Over the past decade the economies of East Asia and APEC more generally have been increasinglyopening up their markets, and in the process have achieved significant gains in exports and economicgrowth. In conjunction with this increased economic integration, there has been increased recognitionby regional governments of the potential for a substantial increase in the participation by smallbusin...

BACKGROUND National tuberculosis (TB) programs increasingly engage with international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), especially to provide TB care in complex settings where community involvement might be required. In Myanmar, however, there is limited data on how such INGO community-based programs are organized and how effective they are. In this study, we describe four INGO strategies...

People tend to contribute more to a charity when they are asked to. Although this so-called ‘power of asking’ is well-known among fundraisers, the existing literature does not pay much attention to the role of donation requests in charitable giving. This paper uses a unique data set, which was designed to measure giving behavior in the United States, to estimate the causal effects of charitable...

background one common challenge to social systems is achieving equity in financial contributions and preventing financial loss. because of the large and unpredictable nature of some costs, achieving this goal in the health system presents important and unique problems. the present study investigated the household financial contributions (hfcs) to the health system.   methods the study investiga...