scholarly journals Science communication as a preventative tool in the COVID19 pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gagan Matta
Keyword(s):  
Science Communication ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Hygiene Practices ◽  
Linguistic Barriers ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

AbstractHumans have witnessed epidemics and pandemics periodically throughout history. Often, such infectious outbreaks have resulted in entire civilisations struggling against possible extinction. Despite recent clinical advancements and technological developments, issues of neglected sustainability and lax health hygiene practices, among others, have provided a context for the emergence of the COVID19 pandemic. Against such a backdrop, scientific communication using diversified tools could play a significant role in efforts towards preparedness and control, as well as the initiation of immediate remedial measures in the fight against epidemics and pandemics. These tools could help to increase understanding of the scientific solutions to minimise the outbreaks of infectious diseases, thereby strengthening societal immunity. This paper considers the history of epidemics/pandemics to draw attention to their occurrence, effects and potential impacts on human societies. In addition, it defines the major factors underpinning the various infectious outbreaks over the last three decades. Constructive preparation and preventative stages for authorities, scientists and researchers to check and diminish the impact of epidemics and pandemics during and post-outbreak are suggested while focusing on the need for science communication in the healthcare system. The paper also reviews recent empirical studies and WHO guidelines. Communication through appropriate communicators may help cut through the noise, share facts and boost confidence in science and governance. The impact of science communication on the interplay between government–expert–public or society could help promote positive behavioural change as well as overcome linguistic barriers.

Investigation of Cost-Influencing Factors Potentially ‎Controllable by Main Contractors in Construction Projects in ‎Iraq

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (7A) ◽  
pp. 1069-1076
Author(s):  
Layth T. Ali ◽  
Raid S. Abid Ali ◽  
Zeyad S. M. Khaled
Keyword(s):  
Construction Projects ◽  
Project Managers ◽  
Cost Overrun ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Importance Index ◽  
Labor Recruitment ◽  
Supply Planning ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

Cost overrun in construction projects is a common phenomenon in Iraq. This might occur due to diversity of factors. This study aims to identify the factors influencing construction projects cost that are potentially controllable by main contractors. A field study through a questionnaire survey was directed to a sample of related Iraqi professional engineers from general contracting companies at both public and private sectors. Their opinions on the impact and frequency of each factor were investigated. The questionnaire offered (59) factors classified in (8) categories namely; legislations, financial and economic, design, contractual, site management, material, labor and equipment. The factors were ranked according to the highest Relative Importance Index (RII). The study revealed (10) major factors that are potentially controllable by main contractors namely; labor productivity, sub-contractors and suppliers performance, equipment productivity, site organization and distribution of equipment, experience and training of project managers, scheduling and control techniques, planning for materials supply, planning for equipment supply, materials delivery and planning for skilled labor recruitment. Recommendations to aid contractors and owners in early identification of these factors are also included in this study.

Theory A, Theory B and Theory C of managing people at work

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-75
Author(s):  
Birendra Nath Singh
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Shop Floor ◽  
Scientific Management ◽  
Business Organization ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Research Gaps ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Modern Business ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

Managing people and productivity are prime concerns of modern business organizations. Many empirical studies were conducted during the era of scientific management (Taylor, 1911) to investigate What and How? McGregor’s (1960) epic theory — Theory X and Theory Y, categorizing all employees into two groups and prescribing methods to motivate and control them was the best. However, his findings also suffered strong criticisms, creating research gaps. The objective of this study was to investigate further and to conclude that there are three major groups named Theory A, Theory B, and Theory C. Amongst them, a middle group — Theory B is most dominant, having all capabilities to significantly influence productivity and prosperity of organizations. The methodology used was qualitative, based upon intensive and critical shop-floor observations. Since this study was not empirical, it had many limitations requiring further researches. Therefore, rightly recommended that future studies should correlate the impact of technological advancements upon motivations and productivity of the modern business organization (Veitch, 2018).

scholarly journals The role of attentional focus on walking efficiency among older fallers and non-fallers

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 811-816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby C T Mak ◽  
William R Young ◽  
Wing-Kai Lam ◽  
Andy C Y Tse ◽  
Thomson W L Wong
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Thigh Muscle ◽  
Balance Confidence ◽  
Functional Balance ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Control ◽  
Community Dwelling Older Adults

Abstract Background This study evaluated the effect of attentional focus instructions on movement efficiency during a level-ground walking task in older adults with and without a history of falls. Methods One hundred and thirty-four community-dwelling older adults were categorised into older fallers (OF) (n = 37) and older non-fallers (ONF) (n = 97). Each participant was instructed to walk at a self-selected pace along a 6 m walkway under three attentional focus conditions (i.e. internal, goal-directed and control) for a total of nine trials. Average muscle activity indices of lower limb co-contractions were measured using surface electromyography. Results Both shank and thigh muscle co-contractions were higher in OF than in ONF in all three conditions. OF also demonstrated higher shank muscle co-contraction under the internal relative to the goal-directed condition, with no such change observed in ONF. Conclusion Despite no significant between-group differences in functional balance and balance confidence, relative walking inefficiencies were observed in OF compared with ONF. This finding demonstrates the debilitating consequences of falling that can occur with relative independence from various physiological or psychological factors that are commonly associated with falling and used to rationalise behavioural change. We also provide evidence that OF are more susceptible to conditions that provoke them to allocate attention internally. Therefore, in clinical contexts (e.g. gait rehabilitation), verbal instructions that refer to body movements (internal focus) might serve to compromise movement efficiency in older adults with a history of falls. Such changes will, theoretically, lessen the ability to react efficiently to changing environments experienced in daily life.

scholarly journals Evaluating the scope and intensity of the conflict trap

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Håvard Hegre ◽  
Håvard Mokleiv Nygård ◽  
Ranveig Flaten Ræder
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Income Country ◽  
Low Income Country ◽  
Internal Armed Conflict ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
The Impact

Several studies show that internal armed conflict breeds conflict by exacerbating conditions that increase the chances of war breaking out again. Empirically, this ‘conflict trap’ works through four pathways: conflicts increase the likelihood of continuation, recurrence, escalation, and diffusion of conflict. Past empirical studies have underestimated the scope and intensity of the conflict trap since they consider the impact of conflict only through one of these pathways and rarely across sufficiently long time periods. This article shows that simulation and forecasting techniques are useful and indeed necessary to quantify the total, aggregated effect of the conflict trap, over long time periods and across countries. We develop a country-year statistical model that allows estimating the probability of no conflict, minor conflict, and major conflict, and the probabilities of transition between these states. A set of variables denoting the immediate and more distant conflict history of the country are used as endogenous predictors in the simulated forecasts. Another set of variables shown to be robustly associated with armed conflict are treated as exogenous predictors. We show that the conflict trap is even more severe than earlier studies have indicated. For instance, if a large low-income country with no previous conflicts is simulated to have two to three years of conflict over the 2015–18 period, we find that it will have nine more years of conflict over the 2019–40 period than if peace holds up to 2018. Conversely, if a large low-income country that has had major conflict with more than 1,000 battle-related deaths in several of the past ten years succeeds in containing violence to minor conflict over the 2015–18 period, we find that it will experience five fewer years of conflict in the subsequent 20 years than if violence continues unabated.

scholarly journals Preprints & Pandemics: Interventions into the Dynamic Scholarly System of Scholarly Communication

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micah Altman ◽  
Philip N. Cohen ◽  
Jessica Polka
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Scholarly Communications ◽  
History Of ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic is an exemplar of how scholarly communication can change in response to external shocks, even as the scholarly knowledge ecosystem is evolving rapidly, and many argue that swift and fundamental interventions are needed. However, it is much easier to identify ongoing changes and emerging interventions than to understand their immediate and long term impacts. This is illustrated by comparing the approaches applied by the scientific community to understand public health risks and interventions with those applied by the scholarly communications community to the science of COVID-19. There are substantial disagreements over the short- and long- term benefits of most proposed approaches to changing the practice of science communication, and the lack of systematic, empirically-based research in this area makes these controversies difficult to resolve. We argue that the methodology of analysis and intervention developed within public health can be usefully applied to the science-of-science. Starting with the history of DDT application, we illustrate four ways complex human systems threaten reliable predictions and blunt ad-hoc interventions. We then show how these four threats apply lead to the last major intervention in scholarly publication -- the article publishing charge based open access model -- to yield surprising results. Finally, we outline how these four threats may affect the impact of preprint initiatives, and we identify approaches drawn from public health to mitigate these threats.

scholarly journals History of substance use and control in British Guiana

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kellie Moss ◽  
Deborah Toner
Keyword(s):  
Labour Productivity ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
British Guiana ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Licensing Laws

Whilst the impact of drugs on the culture of Caribbean societies and Indigenous populations is well documented, their role in maintaining influence over an ethnically diverse population and regulating labour productivity are frequently overlooked. In this paper we examine the use of drugs as a means of compelling and retaining labour in British Guiana during the nineteenth century. We also assess changes over time in how the colonial state managed concerns that the use of intoxicants threatened its control over the labouring population through licensing laws, carceral institutions and the criminalisation of certain drugs.

scholarly journals Cycad Toxins and Neurological Diseases in Guam: Defining Theoretical and Experimental Standards for Correlating Human Disease with Environmental Toxins

HortScience ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 1598-1606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Marler ◽  
Vivian Lee ◽  
Christopher A. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Human Disease ◽  
Neurological Diseases ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Science Standards ◽  
Community Factors ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

Consumption of Cycas micronesica seed tissue has been associated with the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–parkinsonism dementia complex (ALS–PDC) of the Western Pacific. However, failures to document vital plant and neighborhood descriptors and pronounced variability in toxin concentrations noted within and among studies obfuscate decades of research on this subject. We discuss the theoretical and experimental constraints of plant tissue sampling in relation to human disease research. Comparisons are made between this approach and methods used throughout the history of ALS–PDC research, most notably very recent reports concerning β-methyl-amino-alanine. Methods for studying possible plant neurotoxins need to be standardized and must follow rigorous criteria to be valid in principle. Our discussions reveal why these criteria are essential and highlight the impact that natural variations have on environmental toxin quantification and interpretation. Past research on cycad toxins is deficient on experimental and theoretical grounds, and interpretation of published data is dominated by ambiguities. This area of study as conventionally conceived and carried out needs transforming. We argue that future empirical studies should honor appropriate plant science standards concomitantly with medical science standards. This dual focus will ensure appropriate sampling scheme, sample size, and reporting of background plant and community factors known to influence phenotypic plasticity.

THE LAW OF OCCUPATION REVISITED: THE BEGINNING OF AN OCCUPATION

2007 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 99-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marten Zwanenburg
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Positive Element ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Negative Element ◽  
The Core ◽  
Occupied Territory ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Hague ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThis article discusses the criteria for establishing the beginning of an occupation. To this end, it analyzes the wording and drafting history of IHL instruments as well as international case law. It also looks at the influence of human rights law, in particular the notion of “jurisdiction” as used in the ICCPR and the ECHR, on the concept of occupation. Given that the IHL instruments on occupation were drafted some time ago, the impact of a number of technological developments in military affairs on the criteria for the beginning of occupation are discussed. The article concludes that the core of the concept of occupation consists of a negative and a positive element. The negative element is that the indigenous authorities of the occupied territory have been rendered incapable of functioning publicly. The positive element is expressed in Article 42 of the Hague Regulations as the requirement that the territory ‘is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army’.

scholarly journals RELIGION AS A MEANS TO SOCIETAL COHESION IN NORDIC POLITICS 1988 – 2010

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-168
Author(s):  
Jonas Lindberg
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Model ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Core Values ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Parliamentary Politics

While the Nordic countries have a history of many similarities in core values and institutional arrangements, a number of differences have developed in recent years in relation to religion, due to political reasons. In this article, findings from four empirical studies on religion in Nordic parliamentary politics are analysed in terms of weak or strong politicisation for the purpose of homogeneity or in diversity. From an analytical model, different patterns of the use of religion in politics in the five countries are identified, due to the relationships between church and state, the level of religious diversity and the presence of right-wing populist parties. The conclusion is that religion once again has become a means to societal cohesion in Denmark, but also to some degree in Norway and Sweden in a search for a core authority in society. The main reason behind this change is the impact of globalisation.

scholarly journals Book publishing in Canada, 1945-2010: ownership and control of the Canadian market

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordana Lobo-Pires
Keyword(s):  
Publishing Industry ◽  
Government Intervention ◽  
Book Publishing ◽  
Canadian Market ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

"This essay sets out to trace the structure of the Canadian publishing industry in light of the policies that have allowed and enabled the survival of an indigenous Canadian publishing industry. Specifically, it explores the history of government intervention in the Canadian publishing industry through the Investment Canada Act in its three formualations: Federal Investment Revenue Agency Act (FIRA), enacted from 1974 to 1985; the Baie Comeau policy, from 1985 to 1992; and the Revised Investment Canada Act, from 1992 to the present. The Investment Canada Act in each of these formulation was the crucial policy designed to protect and encourage Canadian ownership of the publishing industry. This study then assesses the impact of these policies on the ownership and size of Canadian publishers"--From the introduction, page 3.

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