scholarly journals Using Spatial Patterns of COVID-19 to Build a Framework for Economic Reactivation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10092
Author(s):  
Renato Quiliche ◽  
Rafael Rentería-Ramos ◽  
Irineu de Brito Junior ◽  
Ana Luna ◽  
Mario Chong
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Response And Recovery ◽  
Pandemic Response ◽  
Spatial Regression Analysis

In this article, we propose an application of humanitarian logistics theory to build a supportive framework for economic reactivation and pandemic management based on province vulnerability against COVID-19. The main research question is which factors are related to COVID-19 mortality between Peruvian provinces? We conduct a spatial regression analysis to explore which factors determine the differences in COVID-19 cumulative mortality rates for 189 Peruvian provinces up to December 2020. The most vulnerable provinces are characterized by having low outcomes of long-run poverty and high population density. Low poverty means high economic activity, which leads to more deaths due to COVID-19. There is a lack of supply in the set of relief goods defined as Pandemic Response and Recovery Supportive Goods and Services (PRRSGS). These goods must be delivered in order to mitigate the risk associated with COVID-19. A supportive framework for economic reactivation can be built based on regression results and a delivery strategy can be discussed according to the spatial patterns that we found for mortality rates.

scholarly journals Using Spatial Patterns of COVID-19 to Build a Framework for Economic Reactivation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato Quiliche ◽  
Rafael Renteria-Ramos ◽  
Irineu de Brito Junior ◽  
Ana Luna ◽  
Mario Chong
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Response And Recovery ◽  
Pandemic Response ◽  
Spatial Regression Analysis

In this article we propose an application of humanitarian logistics theory to build a supportive framework for economic reactivation and pandemic management based on province vulnerability against COVID-19. The main research question is: which factors are related to COVID-19 mortality between Peruvian provinces? We conduct a spatial regression analysis to explore which factors determines the differences in COVID-19 cumulative mortality rates for 189 Peruvian provinces up to December 2020. The most vulnerable provinces are characterized by having low outcomes of long-run poverty and high population density. Low poverty means a high economic activity that leads to more deaths of COVID-19. There is a lack of supply of a set of relief goods defined as Pandemic Response and Recovery Supportive Goods and Services (PRRSGS). These goods must be delivered in order to mitigate the risk associated to COVID-19. A supportive framework for economic reactivation can be built based on regression results and a delivery strategy can be discussed according to the spatial patterns that we found for mortality rates.

Discussing the determinants of online budget transparency based on a spatial regression analysis of Croatian cities and municipalities: Do good neighbours make you better?

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-287
Author(s):  
Paulo Reis Mourao ◽  
Mihaela Bronić ◽  
Branko Stanić
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Regression ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Direct Effects ◽  
Spatial Lag ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
European Democracy ◽  
Local Budget ◽  
Spatial Regression Analysis ◽  
The City

Taxpayers want to pay as little in taxes as possible to fund an adequate level of public goods and services in their local government, and so they need to keep their local incumbents accountable. Online local budget transparency (OLBT) facilitates this accountability, as it enables citizens to find information online about their local budgets that is timely, accurate, comprehensive and understandable. The aim of this article is to identify the most important determinants of OLBT for all 556 Croatian cities and municipalities from 2014 to 2017. Using a dynamic spatial lag Durbin model, the analysis explores the direct and indirect effects of potential determinants on OLBT. The main contribution is the pioneering use of a dynamic spatial lag Durbin model for researching local budget transparency determinants in a Central and Eastern European democracy. The results show that neighbours have an influence on OLBT but that direct effects dominate; that is, the major OLBT determinants come from within each city/municipality. Particularly important determinants are residents’ income, the local government’s wealth, the number of public employees in the city/municipality and the population size.

INITIAL STEP OF SPECIALIZED CORPORA BUILDING: CLEANING PROCEDURES

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Yakubson ◽  
Victor Zakharov
Keyword(s):  
Text Processing ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Initial Step ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Linguistic Annotation ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Cleaning Procedures ◽  
Unique Source ◽  
Future Work

This paper deals with the specialized corpora building, specifically academic language corpus in the biotechnology field. Being a part of larger research devoted to creation and usage of specialized parallel corpus, this piece aims to analyze the initial step of corpus building. Our main research question was what procedures we need to implement to the texts before using them to develop the corpus. Analysis of previous research showed the significant quantity of papers devoted to corpora creation, including academic specialized corpora. Different sides of the process were analyzed in these researches, including the types of texts used, the principles of crawling, the recommended length of texts etc. As to the text processing for the needs of corpora creation, only the linguistic annotation issues were examined earlier. At the same time, the preliminary cleaning of texts before their usage in corpora may have significant influence on the corpus quality and its utility for the linguistic research. In this paper, we considered three small corpora derived from the same set of academic texts in the biotechnology field: “raw” corpus without any preliminary cleaning and two corpora with different level of cleaning. Using different Sketch Engine tools, we analyzed these corpora from the position of their future users, predominantly as sources for academic wordlists and specialized multi-word units. The conducted research showed very little difference between two cleaned corpora, meaning that only basic cleaning procedures such as removal of reference lists are can be useful in corpora design. At the same time, we found a significant difference between raw and cleaned corpora and argue that this difference can affect the quality of wordlists and multi-word terms extraction, therefore these cleaning procedures are meaningful. The main limitation of the study is that all texts were taken from the unique source, so the conclusions could be affected by this specific journal’s peculiarities. Therefore, the future work should be the verification of results on different text collections

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S APPROACH TO ENERGY SECURITY IN POLAND AND THE BALTIC STATES

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1/2020) ◽  
pp. 33-67
Author(s):  
Olga Stevanovic
Keyword(s):  
Energy Security ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Realist Theory ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Baltic

The subject of this paper encompasses US policy towards Poland and the Baltic States regarding energy security during Donald Trump’s presidency. It is discernible that vast domestic energy resources have created an opportunity for the US to project more power to these countries, and the surrounding region. We argue that Trump and his administration’s perceptions have served as an intervening variable in that opportunity assessment, in accordance with the neoclassical realist theory. The main research question addressed in this paper is whether US has used that opportunity to contribute to energy security in countries it has traditionally deemed as allies. Two aspects of US approach to energy security of the designated countries are taken into consideration: liquified natural gas exports and support for the Three Seas Initiative. The way Trump presented his policy and its results in his public statements has also been considered in this paper. The article will proceed as follows. The first subsection of the paper represents a summary of energy security challenges in Poland and the Baltic States. The second subsection is dedicated to the opportunity for the US to project energy power and to Trump’s perceptions relevant for the opportunity assessment. The third subsection deals with American LNG exports to these countries as a possible way for contributing to energy security in Poland and the Baltic States. The last part of the paper addresses the Three Seas Initiative and US approach to this platform.

scholarly journals Effects of exposure to immersive videos and photo slideshows of forest and urban environments

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fariba Mostajeran ◽  
Jessica Krzikawski ◽  
Frank Steinicke ◽  
Simone Kühn
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Jail Inmates ◽  
Forest Environment ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Head Mounted Display ◽  
Sense Of Presence ◽  
Hospital Patients

AbstractA large number of studies have demonstrated the benefits of natural environments on people’s health and well-being. For people who have limited access to nature (e.g., elderly in nursing homes, hospital patients, or jail inmates), virtual representations may provide an alternative to benefit from the illusion of a natural environment. For this purpose and in most previous studies, conventional photos of nature have been used. Immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, however, can induce a higher sense of presence compared to conventional photos. Whether this higher sense of presence leads to increased positive impacts of virtual nature exposure is the main research question of this study. Therefore, we compared exposure to a forest and an urban virtual environment in terms of their respective impact on mood, stress, physiological reactions, and cognition. The environments were presented via a head-mounted display as (1) conventional photo slideshows or (2) 360$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ videos. The results show that the forest environment had a positive effect on cognition and the urban environment disturbed mood regardless of the mode of presentation. In addition, photos of either urban or forest environment were both more effective in reducing physiological arousal compared to immersive 360$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ videos.

“There Was No ‘That’s Not My Job’”: New York Area Agencies on Aging Approaches to Supporting Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 073346482199102
Author(s):  
Claire Pendergrast
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
New York ◽  
New York State ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Contextual Influences ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Response And Recovery ◽  
Pandemic Response ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Priority Needs

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many older adults’ traditional sources of formal and informal supports, increasing demand for Area Agency on Aging services (AAAs). This study examines strategies used by AAAs to support older adults’ health and well-being during COVID-19 and identifies contextual influences on AAA pandemic response activities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of 20 AAAs in New York State. A combined inductive and deductive approach was used to code and thematically analyze the data. AAAs rapidly expanded capacity and dramatically modified program offerings, communications activities, and service delivery protocols to address emergent needs and minimize COVID-19 exposure risk for clients. AAAs’ trusted relationships with older adults and community partners improved their capacity to identify priority needs and coordinate appropriate supports. Policymakers should ensure that AAAs receive sustained financial and technical support to ensure critical community-based services are available for older adults throughout pandemic response and recovery.

Directionality of cross-linguistic influence: Which referring choices do bilingual Ukrainian–English children make?

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roksolana Mykhaylyk ◽  
Elinor Ytterstad
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Dual Language ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Object Language ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Null Object ◽  
Significant Difference

Aims and research questions: This paper presents a new study addressing the issue of cross-linguistic influence in acquisition of referring expressions. The main research question is how to predict directionality of this influence in a dual language development. Methodology: The method is an elicited production task. We consider the phenomenon of direct object referring choices, i.e. noun, pronoun and null element, in a ‘null-object’–‘overt-object’ language pair (Ukrainian and English). Data and Analysis: Participants of the experiment are 4–6-year-old Ukrainian–English bilinguals (N20) and Ukrainian monolinguals (N21). The data are analyzed in the statistical program R, utilizing the R-library function lme4. The results are presented as odds ratios (ORs) of each direct object type. Findings: Our data reveal that while there is no significant difference in Ukrainian object types in most of the age groups, there is a considerable amount of null object usage in English at the ages of four to five. Originality: The innovative nature of this study lies in: (i) the consideration of a licit object omission at a later stage of language development (from 4 to 6 years of age); (ii) the examination of an under-investigated language combination (i.e. English and Ukrainian); and (iii) the innovative approach to linguistic data analysis (e.g. comparing OR values). Implications: Our findings suggest that the directionality of influence in dual language acquisition depends on the developmental stage, language-specific means of syntax–pragmatics interaction, and extra-linguistic input-related factors. At the early stages of development, the null-object language is likely to influence the overt-object language, especially under conditions of limited exposure to the latter.

Changing family model, social capital and caring: how to reconcile? the case of Lithuania

2013 ◽  
pp. 75-105
Author(s):  
Vida Cesnuityte
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Family Practices ◽  
Mother’S Day ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Family Models

The aim of the research presented in the paper is to explore the inter-relations between care processes and personal social networks as social capital in the light of the changing family models. Research of interdependence of care, social capital and family models is based on the idea of family practices suggested by Morgan. The main research question is what family practices of various family models create such social capital that ensure caring for its' members? The research hypothesis is that participation in various activities together with family members and persons beyond nuclear and extended family create dense social networks of caregivers. The analysis is based on data of representative quantitative survey carried out in Lithuania between 2011 November-2012 May within the ESF supported research project "Trajectories of family models and social networks: intergenerational perspective". Research results only partly support this hypothesis: particular family practices create networks of caregivers, but in order to involve particular persons into network of caregivers, different family practices in various family models are needed. Usually, inhabitants of Lithuania primarily expect to receive care from persons who depend to nuclear family created through marriage and extended family arisen from this relation. But persons from whom it is expected to receive care and care received differ in Lithuania. In reality, caregivers usually are children in families with children and parents in families without children. Family practices that create social networks of caregivers, and are common for all family models include annual feasts like Christmas Eve, Christmas, Easter, All Soul's Day, New Year party, Mother's Day. Various family practices differently impacting creation social networks of caregivers for different family models but usually its include joint dinner daily, Sunday lunch together, vacations with family, communication face-toface, by the telephone or Internet, consultations on important decision-making, All Soul's Day feast, Christmas celebration, Mother's Day, Gatherings of relatives, Birthday, Name-day feast, visiting cultural event together.

Stakeholders and opportunities of debt settlement as a values-based banking activity in Hungary

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Győri ◽  
Borbála Benedek
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Banking System ◽  
Financial Inclusion ◽  
Stressful Situation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Lessons Learnt

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the stakeholders of debt settlement programmes in general and some lessons learnt from the most significant debt settlement programmes of recent years in Hungary. The study also presents a planned debt settlement programme in Hungary. The paper explores and details behaviours and motivations of different stakeholders in debt settlement in general and also with reference to a specific case study. As for its main research question, the paper seeks to identify the preconditions of a successful debt settlement programme with specially emphasis on the poor. Design/methodology/approach Data from semi-structured in-depth expert interviews, documents and former research papers were collected for identifying previous Hungarian debt settlement programmes and potential lessons learnt. After a general discussion, based on primary and secondary sources, a case study is presented to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of opportunities and challenges of debt settlement. Findings Six preconditions of successful debt settlement targeting the poor are identified. In the case study, the existence and relevance of these preconditions are tested: the main finding is that they all are important for solving the situations, so a partial solution is not sufficient. In the scope of the case study, more precisely within the planned innovative banking solution, the motivations of the bank and the coordinator NGO are identified. On the part of the bank, motivations for solving social problems (both as far as business and moral issues are concerned) are relevant, while – as for the other party – the situation of the debtor is important to understand so that opportunities of cooperation can be identified. In addition, as other stakeholders also influence the potentials of the programme, their cooperative attitude is also needed. Research limitations/implications Limitations consist in generalisation: the study presents some cases from one single country and finally it focuses only on one specific case in one specific social and economic context in Hungary. Having recognized this risk, the author opted for basing research questions on theory, documented the process in detail, and also used triangulation through applying a multiple data collection (interview, content analysis, literature review) method. Practical implications Besides presenting an academic understanding of the phenomena, the goal of the study is to contextualize and interpret the case, to help the realization of currently frozen initiatives and to promote similar future ones. Social implications Indebtedness is a stressful situation affecting families, smaller communities and broader society as well. The planned cooperation of BAGázs and MagNet tries to help people excluded from the banking system. So that a deeper debt trap can be avoided, the goal of this programme is to purchase, partially discharge and reschedule pre-accumulated debts of carefully selected people who have regular income and are willing to undertake bearable repayment. The idea is very innovative with literally no good practice to follow. The research seeks to clarify the pitfalls and opportunities to help the realization of the project and similar future ones. Originality/value A certain form of values-based banking concerns the financial inclusion of the poor, e.g. debt settlement. Nevertheless, over-indebtedness and the settlement of existing debts as well as the relevance of such issues to the financial inclusion are not emphasized enough in the literature or in practice. Besides presenting an academic understanding of the phenomena, the goal of the study is to contextualize and interpret the case, to help the realization of currently frozen initiatives and to promote similar future ones.

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