scholarly journals Are people excessively pessimistic about the risk of coronavirus infection?

Author(s):  
Jocelyn Raude ◽  
Marion Debin ◽  
Cécile Souty ◽  
Caroline Guerrisi ◽  
Clement Turbelin ◽  
...  

The recent emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 in China has raised the spectre of a novel, potentially catastrophic pandemic in both scientific and lay communities throughout the world. In this particular context, people have been accused of being excessively pessimistic regarding the future consequences of this emerging health threat. However, consistent with previous research in social psychology, a large survey conducted in Europe in the early stage of the COVID-19 epidemic shows that the majority of respondents was actually overly optimistic about the risk of infection.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (01) ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Santosa Santosa

Looking at the historical flow of Islamic development in Indonesia as such, the author took an analysis that the future prospects of Islam in Indonesia have a great opportunity to continue to develop, be it in the fields of politics, economics, education, social, and culture. This can be seen from the history of Islam in Indonesia that continues to develop until now, this is the early stage of the emergence of awareness of the Indonesian nation of the importance of planting religious values in Indonesian society so that the Indonesian nation can meet the future not only with science and technology but also in the balance by IMTAQ.  The era of globalization in the 21st century that has begun at this time, Islam in Indonesia has apparently exerted a huge influence on the advancement of Islam in the world. Although the existence of Islam today is really faced with a fairly severe challenge that requires the involvement of various parties concerned. With regard to this, strategic efforts need to be made, among others: by providing knowledge, skills, and piety in all fields (religious, political, economic, social, cultural, educational) so as to give birth to creative, innovative, independent and productive people considering the world to come is a competitive world. Keywords: Islam, The Future, Indonesia


2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc L. Busch ◽  
Krzysztof J. Pelc

AbstractInternational institutions often moderate the legal decisions they render. World Trade Organization (WTO) panels do this by exercising judicial economy. This practice, which is evident in 41 percent of all rulings, involves the decision not to rule on some of the litigants' arguments. The constraint is that it can be appealed. We argue that panels exercise judicial economy when the wider membership is ambivalent about the future consequences of a broader ruling. This is proxied by the “mixed” (that is, nonpartisan) third-party submissions, which are informative because they are costly, jeopardizing a more decisive legal victory that would benefit these governments too. We empirically test this hypothesis, and find that mixed third-party submissions increase the odds of judicial economy by upwards of 68 percent. This suggests that panels invoke judicial economy to politically appease the wider WTO membership, and not just to gain the litigants' compliance in the case at hand.


Author(s):  
Antonio Celesti ◽  
Francesco Tusa ◽  
Massimo Villari

Federation in cloud computing is an emerging topic. Currently, all over the world in both academia and industry contexts many operators are picking up the advantages of cloud computing and federation in planning the Internet of the future. Nevertheless, cloud federation is at the early stage, and the scientific community is not fully aware how the federation will impact the cloud computing scenario. In this chapter, the authors try to clarify the ideas and discuss the main future challenges regarding cloud federation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Kiverstein ◽  
Mark Miller ◽  
Erik Rietveld

Abstract In this article, we propose a neurophenomenological account of what moods are, and how they work. We draw upon phenomenology to show how mood attunes a person to a space of significant possibilities. Mood structures a person’s lived experience by fixing the kinds of significance the world can have for them in a given situation. We employ Karl Friston’s free-energy principle to show how this phenomenological concept of mood can be smoothly integrated with cognitive neuroscience. We will argue that mood is a consequence of acting in the world with the aim of minimizing expected free energy—a measure of uncertainty about the future consequences of actions. Moods summarize how the organism is faring overall in its predictive engagements, tuning the organism’s expectations about how it is likely to fare in the future. Agents that act to minimize expected free energy will have a feeling of how well or badly they are doing at maintaining grip on the multiple possibilities that matter to them. They will have what we will call a ‘feeling of grip’ that structures the possibilities they are ready to engage with over long time-scales, just as moods do.


2004 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Bovaird

This article explores the current state of knowledge in relation to public–private partnerships (PPPs), taken to mean working arrangements based on a mutual commitment (over and above that implied in any contract) between a public sector organization with any organization outside of the public sector. Since it originally became fashionable over 25 years ago, the concept of PPPs has been strongly contested. However, PPPs are now to be found in the public domain in many countries around the world and their number has been increasing in recent years. This article looks at how this has happened, what have been the strengths and weaknesses of this development and what the future may hold for PPPs. It argues that we are still at an early stage of learning which types of PPP are appropriate for which tasks and at managing PPPs to increase public value. It will be essential to apply principles of good governance to the future development of PPPs — but it will also be necessary to ensure that these principles are genuinely appropriate to the context in which these PPPs are working.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Guevara Beltran ◽  
Calvin Isch ◽  
Jessica Daphne Ayers ◽  
Joe Alcock ◽  
Jessica F. Brinkworth ◽  
...  

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing protective facial masks has become a divisive issue, yet little is known about what drives differences in mask wearing across individuals. We surveyed 711 people around the world, asking about mask wearing and several other variables. We found that people who reported greater perceived risk of infection, stress, and those with greater consideration of future consequences reported wearing masks more often during in-person interactions. Participants who knew more people who had been infected and those who lived in postal codes with higher prevalence of COVID-19 perceived their risk of infection to be higher and reported greater pandemic-related stress. Perceived risk of infection and pandemic-related stress were higher overall in women and those reporting greater future-orientedness. Finally, participants who were more politically conservative reported lower perceived risk of becoming infected and lower stress than those who were more liberal, but there was no reliable difference in mask wearing between these groups. This is the first of four papers investigating mask wearing using this data set; the forthcoming papers will focus on predicting attitudes and motivations about mask wearing, the situations in which people do and do not report wearing masks, and the extent to which people report mask wearing in their communities. This is part of a broader study to understand the psychological and social influences on mask wearing and, more broadly, the impacts of the pandemic on human behavior and social interactions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 183 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 66-78
Author(s):  
Svitlana Birbirenko ◽  
◽  
Yuliia Zhadanova ◽  
Natalia Banket ◽  
◽  
...  

Introduction. Modern Ukrainian enterprises operate in conditions of uncertainty and risk which could develop in unpredictable way. Currently the critical situation for Ukrainian economy is determined by the spread of pandemic of coronavirus infection COVID-19, which has acquired a global nature. Under the circumstances which has brought the pandemic, many Ukrainian enterprises approached the verge of bankruptcy due to the absence of management mechanism, which main objective is ensuring of economic resilience and maximum management efficiency and creating ability for prospective growth of their potential under the circumstances of force majeure. The objective of this paper is to study an influence of pandemic of coronavirus infection COVID-19 on economic resilience of Ukrainian enterprises with defining of negative and positive aspects for creation of a background which would enable a development of Ukrainian business in the future. Results. The global spread of coronavirus infection COVID-19 contributed to risk of recession in the world economy, index of world GDP growth for 2019 equals 2.9%, while the predicted values display its reduction by 3% for 2020, and by 5.8% in 2021. The GDP growth for Ukraine in 2019 equals 3.2%, its reduction in 2020 will make 7.7% and reduction predicted for 2021 makes 3.6%. The number of unemployed has increased in 2020 by 48% compared to the same period of 2019, and according to the forecasts of National Bank of Ukraine in ІІІ quarter of 2020 the rate of unemployment will grow by 12% compared to І quarter of the year. The arrears in wage equal USD 112.7 million. The state budget income deficit equals 29.6%, and specifically customs revenue has decreased by 32.2%. The fiscal revenue for May 2020 displays a slippage by 8.5% compared to May 2019. Currently one third of Ukrainian enterprises lost about 50-75% of their revenue. Most of enterprises of Ukraine show a remarkable growth of accounts receivable, and 7% of enterprises came to a near halt. It means that a new crisis will only make the make larger a rupture between Ukraine and developed countries both in aspect of competitiveness of economy and in that life quality. With regard to necessity of resumption of the operation of enterprises and ensuring their economic resilience almost all countries in the world, which were affected by the pandemic, take certain measures for resuscitation. The major part of the affected countries of the world, including Ukraine, showed their unpreparedness to face the challenges like a pandemic of coronavirus infection. The hard circumstances that Ukrainian entrepreneurs have got in were resulted not only from external political and economic factors, but were determined by the instruments of internal policy of Ukraine, what has led to reduction of business activity, reduction in public consumption and unemployment growth, which factors eventually undermine the mechanism of reproduction in national economy. Another factor which influences Ukrainian economy in a deleterious way is a reduction in global demand, which contributes to a decline in export capabilities of the country. Almost every economic sector of Ukraine sustained major losses, which have significantly influenced the general state of state economy. Only in case of fulfillment by Cabinet of Ministers and National Bank of Ukraine of economically justified efficient anti-crisis program the state has chance to survive the crisis with damages lower than other countries will have. Despite the deleterious effect that coronavirus exercises on Ukrainian economy, there are also some positive aspects of this situation, and the main of them is gaining experience, which would be able to help in the future while managing the country’s own economic resilience to take into account an option functioning in critical circumstances of global extent. Conclusions. The main problem of Ukrainian business nowadays is the poor knowledge of strategies of enterprise functioning in conditions of force majeure of global extent. The key aspects of efficient anti-crisis program on ensuring of economic resilience of Ukrainian enterprises must include risk assessment, development of well-defined business plan, increasing adaptivity to threats which occur under conditions of continuous business processes and constant iteration and business renewal, which has to face any challenge both on national and global level.


2020 ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
A. V. Gusev ◽  
◽  
R.E. Novitsky ◽  

Recently, a new coronavirus infection, or COVID‑19, caused by the pathogen SARS-CoV‑2, has been continuing to spread around the world rapidly. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), which declared this outbreak a pandemic, COVID‑19 is a serious public health problem of international concern. Due to the lack of proven effective treatment and vaccination against COVID‑19, precautions are considered by WHO to be strategic goals and a primary response to the pandemic. It is recommended that country guidelines adopt national health care programs aimed at assessing and reducing the risk of infection spread. Predictive analytics have begun to be actively used to compile population and personal forecasts of the progression of morbidity, mortality, assess the severity of the course of the disease, etc. This article provides an overview of available developments and publications on the use of predictive analytics in the management of COVID‑19 pandemic.


Author(s):  
Donny Trinh Ba Duong

Abstract The last 15 years have witnessed a substantial rise of summary procedure to gradually become more and more significant in the world of investment arbitration since ICSID Arbitration Rules first introduced it in 2006. Before the emergence of this procedure that allows early dismissal of claims, various states have criticized the time and costs needed to defend their position in investment proceedings. Against this background, the birth of summary procedure aims to help parties to save time and costs and avoid unnecessary consumption of parties’ resources by disposing of manifestly frivolous and unmeritorious at an early stage of the proceedings. This feature has captured much attention since major arbitration institutions started to adopt it, with ICSID being the pioneer, followed by the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) and the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC). Given its increasing importance in investment disputes, the ICSID has lately published a series of Working Papers which, among many other things, proposed to enhance the rule on ‘manifest lack of legal merit’. This article aims to look back on the evolution of summary procedure in investment arbitration for the last 15 years by examining its genesis and development, the current regime, and tribunals’ application of this procedure in practice, the future contemplated by the ICSID proposed amendments.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Curry

Watch the VIDEO of the presentation.Robert Pirsig’s book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is an exploration of the metaphysics of quality, is a Guinness world record holder. No best-seller has been rejected by more publishers – 121 in all. That numerical anomaly, mentioned at the top of the Wikipedia entry for the book (because of our obsession with quantity and rank), reminds us that identifying quality is hard. It requires expertise, but also the imagination to anticipate the future consequences of any new work – whether it be a book or a research paper. Time and again in academia, we get such judgments wrong. And yet, our systems of incentive and reward are increasingly tightly geared to the moment and place of publication. The evaluation of the work itself, or of the idea that it is a living thing that reaches out into the world, is being undermined as busy researchers strive to please busy masters who turn too often to numbers to make their assessment. Quantity is the pernicious proxy that trumps quality. But we must rediscover quality, in all its dimensions, if we are to maintain the reputation of the academy for unflinching interrogation. And one of the most important of those dimensions is openness, which can serve not only as a buttress for quality, but also as a reminder to the academy that freedom of inquiry brings responsibilities to society that can also be enriching.


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