Humanities and social science based interrogation of ‘citizenship’ during infectious disease crises: The role of health communication against inequalities

Covid-19 is an infectious disease caused by novel Coronavirus. The overall prevalence rate of Covid-19 in Worldwide ( 9.94M )& it is (529 K) & (153 K) in India and Maharashtra. This situation can be considered under JanapadodhwansaVyadhi in Ayurveda. The primary purpose of Ayurveda is the prevention of the disease in healthy individuals and eradication of disease, which are curable. Immunity comes under the Vyadhikshamatva. Further, Covid-19 infection is correlated with Vataj-Kaphaj Jwara. In Ayurveda Rasayana therapy to boost up immunity (Bala & Vyadhikshamatva). The present study aimed to explore the concept of infectious disease and its prevention through different lifestyles described in Ayurveda. The above need-based information is collected from various Ayurvedicliterature (Laghutrayee, Bruhatryayi) along with numerous research articles from databases, such as PubMed, Google Scholar. All collected data were depicted in narrative form and tabular manner under different heads. Considering the above aspect in the prevention of Covid-19, the role of Ayurveda intervention may be proved more beneficial in Covid-19. Further, adoption of code of conduct may efficiently overcome the current pandemic situation by maintaining good immunity & implementation of Ahar, Vihar Vidhis, Dincharya, and Rutucharya& Sadvritta for improving disease resistance.

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Bringing the User Back in the Building: An Analysis of ESG in Real Estate and a Behavioral Framework to Guide Future Research

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13063239 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (6) ◽

pp. 3239

Author(s):

Shirley Kempeneer ◽

Michaël Peeters ◽

Tine Compernolle

Keyword(s):

Real Estate ◽

Social Science ◽

Environmental Psychology ◽

Fiduciary Duty ◽

Future Research ◽

The Real Estate ◽

Investment Value ◽

Real Estate Sector ◽

Sustainable Investments

Investors are currently obliged to take environment, social, and governance (ESG) issues into consideration as part of their fiduciary duty. As such, it becomes increasingly important to identify sustainable investments that also hold financial value. A sector where this is especially underdeveloped is real estate. This has a lot to do with the obfuscated conceptualization of ESG. The article identifies key gaps in the literature and practice and provides a framework to further the understanding of how ESG factors can add societal and financial value in the real estate sector. A key premise of the article is that the user in the building is grossly overlooked. Drawing on insights from behavioral social science and environmental psychology, the paper explains the role of the user in improving buildings’ ESG, also taking into account the investment value. To conclude, the article makes the case that the transition to user-centered smart real estate is the solution to improving both the environmental (E) and social (S) sustainability of buildings, as well as their investment value. Therefore, practitioners and academics are encouraged to critically evaluate and contextualize the ESG framework they are using as well as the extent to which users are considered and smart technology is employed.

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How does globalization affect COVID-19 responses?

Globalization and Health ◽

10.1186/s12992-021-00677-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Steve J. Bickley ◽

Ho Fai Chan ◽

Ahmed Skali ◽

David Stadelmann ◽

Benno Torgler

Keyword(s):

Infectious Disease ◽

Disease Transmission ◽

State Capacity ◽

International Travel ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Government Effectiveness ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Travel Restrictions ◽

High Government

Abstract Background The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vast differences in approaches to the control and containment of coronavirus across the world and has demonstrated the varied success of such approaches in minimizing the transmission of coronavirus. While previous studies have demonstrated high predictive power of incorporating air travel data and governmental policy responses in global disease transmission modelling, factors influencing the decision to implement travel and border restriction policies have attracted relatively less attention. This paper examines the role of globalization on the pace of adoption of international travel-related non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the coronavirus pandemic. This study aims to offer advice on how to improve the global planning, preparation, and coordination of actions and policy responses during future infectious disease outbreaks with empirical evidence. Methods and data We analyzed data on international travel restrictions in response to COVID-19 of 185 countries from January to October 2020. We applied time-to-event analysis to examine the relationship between globalization and the timing of travel restrictions implementation. Results The results of our survival analysis suggest that, in general, more globalized countries, accounting for the country-specific timing of the virus outbreak and other factors, are more likely to adopt international travel restrictions policies. However, countries with high government effectiveness and globalization were more cautious in implementing travel restrictions, particularly if through formal political and trade policy integration. This finding is supported by a placebo analysis of domestic NPIs, where such a relationship is absent. Additionally, we find that globalized countries with high state capacity are more likely to have higher numbers of confirmed cases by the time a first restriction policy measure was taken. Conclusions The findings highlight the dynamic relationship between globalization and protectionism when governments respond to significant global events such as a public health crisis. We suggest that the observed caution of policy implementation by countries with high government efficiency and globalization is a by-product of commitment to existing trade agreements, a greater desire to ‘learn from others’ and also perhaps of ‘confidence’ in a government’s ability to deal with a pandemic through its health system and state capacity. Our results suggest further research is warranted to explore whether global infectious disease forecasting could be improved by including the globalization index and in particular, the de jure economic and political, and de facto social dimensions of globalization, while accounting for the mediating role of government effectiveness. By acting as proxies for a countries’ likelihood and speed of implementation for international travel restriction policies, such measures may predict the likely time delays in disease emergence and transmission across national borders.

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Infectious disease-associated encephalopathies

Critical Care ◽

10.1186/s13054-021-03659-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Maria C. Barbosa-Silva ◽

Maiara N. Lima ◽

Denise Battaglini ◽

Chiara Robba ◽

Paolo Pelosi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Infectious Disease ◽

Cognitive Deficits ◽

Brain Function ◽

Cell Activation ◽

Therapeutic Strategies ◽

Barrier Dysfunction ◽

Glial Cell Activation ◽

The Central Nervous System ◽

Underlying Mechanisms

AbstractInfectious diseases may affect brain function and cause encephalopathy even when the pathogen does not directly infect the central nervous system, known as infectious disease-associated encephalopathy. The systemic inflammatory process may result in neuroinflammation, with glial cell activation and increased levels of cytokines, reduced neurotrophic factors, blood–brain barrier dysfunction, neurotransmitter metabolism imbalances, and neurotoxicity, and behavioral and cognitive impairments often occur in the late course. Even though infectious disease-associated encephalopathies may cause devastating neurologic and cognitive deficits, the concept of infectious disease-associated encephalopathies is still under-investigated; knowledge of the underlying mechanisms, which may be distinct from those of encephalopathies of non-infectious cause, is still limited. In this review, we focus on the pathophysiology of encephalopathies associated with peripheral (sepsis, malaria, influenza, and COVID-19), emerging therapeutic strategies, and the role of neuroinflammation. Graphic abstract

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Social Ontology and Model-Building: A Response to Epstein

Philosophy of the Social Sciences ◽

10.1177/0048393121991728 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 51 (2) ◽

pp. 176-192

Author(s):

Nadia Ruiz

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Social Science ◽

Model Building ◽

Social Ontology ◽

Model Construction ◽

Ontological Commitments ◽

Starting Point ◽

The Social

Brian Epstein has recently argued that a thoroughly microfoundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. Generally, Epstein argues that for an improvement in the methodology of social science we must adopt social ontology as the foundation of social sciences; that is, the standing microfoundationalist debate could be solved by fixing economics’ ontology. However, as I show in this paper, fixing the social ontology prior to the process of model construction is optional instead of necessary and that metaphysical-ontological commitments are often the outcome of model construction, not its starting point. By focusing on the practice of modeling in economics the paper provides a useful inroad into the debate about the role of metaphysics in the natural and social sciences more generally.

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Prioritizing and Analyzing the Role of Climate and Urban Parameters in the Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 Based on Artificial Intelligence Applications

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph17103730 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (10) ◽

pp. 3730 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Sina Shaffiee Haghshenas ◽

Behrouz Pirouz ◽

Sami Shaffiee Haghshenas ◽

Behzad Pirouz ◽

Patrizia Piro ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Infectious Disease ◽

Relative Humidity ◽

Cost Function ◽

Selection Process ◽

Environmental Parameters ◽

Pso Algorithm ◽

Data Set ◽

De Algorithm

Nowadays, an infectious disease outbreak is considered one of the most destructive effects in the sustainable development process. The outbreak of new coronavirus (COVID-19) as an infectious disease showed that it has undesirable social, environmental, and economic impacts, and leads to serious challenges and threats. Additionally, investigating the prioritization parameters is of vital importance to reducing the negative impacts of this global crisis. Hence, the main aim of this study is to prioritize and analyze the role of certain environmental parameters. For this purpose, four cities in Italy were selected as a case study and some notable climate parameters—such as daily average temperature, relative humidity, wind speed—and an urban parameter, population density, were considered as input data set, with confirmed cases of COVID-19 being the output dataset. In this paper, two artificial intelligence techniques, including an artificial neural network (ANN) based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and differential evolution (DE) algorithm, were used for prioritizing climate and urban parameters. The analysis is based on the feature selection process and then the obtained results from the proposed models compared to select the best one. Finally, the difference in cost function was about 0.0001 between the performances of the two models, hence, the two methods were not different in cost function, however, ANN-PSO was found to be better, because it reached to the desired precision level in lesser iterations than ANN-DE. In addition, the priority of two variables, urban parameter, and relative humidity, were the highest to predict the confirmed cases of COVID-19.

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How much would you like to pay? Trust, reciprocity and prosocial motivations in El trato

Social Science Information ◽

10.1177/0539018412441756 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 389-417 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Francisco J León ◽

José A Noguera ◽

Jordi Tena-Sánchez

Keyword(s):

Social Science ◽

External Validity ◽

Laboratory Experiments ◽

Social Science Research ◽

Science Research ◽

Trust Game ◽

Sales Strategy ◽

Pay What You Want ◽

Natural Settings

Prosocial motivations and reciprocity are becoming increasingly important in social-science research. While laboratory experiments have challenged the assumption of universal selfishness, the external validity of these results has not been sufficiently tested in natural settings. In this article we examine the role of prosocial motivations and reciprocity in a Pay What You Want (PWYW) sales strategy, in which consumers voluntarily decide how much to pay for a product or service. This article empirically analyses the only PWYW example in Spain to date: the El trato (‘The deal’) campaign launched by the travel company Atrápalo, which offered different holiday packages under PWYW conditions in July 2009. Our analysis shows that, although the majority of the customers did not behave in a purely self-interested manner, they nonetheless did so in a much higher proportion than observed in similar studies. We present different hypotheses about the mechanisms that may explain these findings. Specifically, we highlight the role of two plausible explanations: the framing of the campaign and the attribution of ‘hidden’ preferences to Atrápalo by its customers, which undermined the interpretation of El trato as a trust game.

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