Virtual Healthcare Center for COVID-19 Patient Detection Based on Artificial Intelligence Approaches

At the end of 2019, the infectious coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was reported for the first time in Wuhan, and, since then, it has become a public health issue in China and even worldwide. This pandemic has devastating effects on societies and economies around the world, and poor countries and continents are likely to face particularly serious and long-lasting damage, which could lead to large epidemic outbreaks because of the lack of financial and health resources. The increasing number of COVID-19 tests gives more information about the epidemic spread, and this can help contain the spread to avoid more infection. As COVID-19 keeps spreading, medical products, especially those needed to perform blood tests, will become scarce as a result of the high demand and insufficient supply and logistical means. However, technological tests based on deep learning techniques and medical images could be useful in fighting this pandemic. In this perspective, we propose a COVID-19 disease diagnosis (CDD) tool that implements a deep learning technique to provide automatic symptoms checking and COVID-19 detection. Our CDD scheme implements two main steps. First, the patient’s symptoms are checked, and the infection probability is predicted. Then, based on the infection probability, the patient’s lungs will be diagnosed by an automatic analysis of X-ray or computerized tomography (CT) images, and the presence of the infection will be accordingly confirmed or not. The numerical results prove the efficiency of the proposed scheme by achieving an accuracy value over 90% compared with the other schemes.

Climate Change-Induced Flood Disaster Policy Communication Issues for Local Community Adaptation Resilience Management in Uganda

Effective climate change and disaster policy communication services are vital for enhancing the adaptive resilience capacity of the vulnerable local communities in poor countries like Uganda. This chapter focuses on the effectiveness of the Ugandan national climate change and disaster policy information communication strategies in addressing national flooding disaster risks, highlights the recent trends of knowledge based responses to climate change induced floods, assesses the impact of the flood on the socio-economic well-being of local households and communities, and determines the vulnerability issues with corresponding adaptation strategies to floods in the flood prone country. Climate change flood risks have continued to exact huge socio-economic loss and damage effects due to the vulnerability and weak adaptation strategies to floods. The national meteorological services tend to forecast seasonal flood events; some flood forcing factors; and the impact of floods on social, economic, ecological, and physical infrastructure are on the rise in some parts of the country.

Is This Time of Global Crisis the Opportunity That Higher Education Needs?

The pandemic has badly affected the world without exception. All the domains of human existence have been impacted. Poor countries have suffered in specific and general ways for many reasons to do with a systemic lack of infrastructure, endemic poverty, and lack of appropriate resources. Action is required to find new and innovative ways to adapt education to the needs of developing societies in addressing crises such as this. The connection between conflict transformation theories and post-pandemic higher education challenges is explored with specific reference to indigenous paradigms in shaping alternative structures. This reflection is threefold: The authors reflect on how the concept of conflict transformation is relevant to the post-pandemic higher education and how the pandemic impacts Madagascar. Then, they focus on how Madagascar dealt with the pandemic through adoption of a more traditional approach. Finally, they discuss the concept of Teny ierana as a solution to the global crisis, not only in Madagascar but globally.

The public-private partnership (PPP) initiative in healthcare system: as the pathways to achieve the SDGs in Nepal

Globally, financing healthcare is one of the biggest challenges and it becomes a life or death issue in poor countries. Nepal is strongly committed to universal health coverage and Sustainable Development Goals. Existing public health services are inadequate to cater to the growing demands of quality health care and Public Private Partnership (PPP) evolved as newer arrangement for robust healthcare system, improved healthcare quality and enhance cost-effectiveness. Nepal has successfully utilized the PPP model in multiple sectors, however there is limited experience in healthcare. Strengthening PPP models in healthcare could be the pathway for Nepal toward SDG’s and UHC achievement.

The rich-to-poor vaccine donation game: When will self-interested countries donate their surplus vaccines during pandemics?

When will self-interested vaccine-rich countries voluntarily donate their surplus vaccines to vaccine-poor countries during a pandemic? We develop a game-theoretic approach to address this question. We identify vaccine-rich countries' optimal surplus donation strategies, and then examine whether these strategies are stable (Nash equilibrium or self-enforcing international agreement). We identify parameter ranges in which full or partial surplus stock donations are optimal for the donor countries. Within a more restrictive parameter region, these optimal strategies are also stable. This implies that, under certain conditions (notably a total amount of surplus vaccines that is sufficiently large), simple coordination can lead to significant donations by strictly self-interested vaccine-rich countries. On the other hand, if the total amount that the countries can donate is small, we expect no contribution from self-interested countries. The results of this analysis provide guidance to policy makers in identifying the circumstances in which coordination efforts are likely to be effective.

Immigration, Self-Determination, and the Brain Drain*

This chapter argues that the immigration arrangements of liberal states in the area of skilled migration can sometimes contribute to the inability of citizens in poor countries to secure their human rights to health care and education. It argues that because liberal states have a duty not to contribute to harm abroad, they should not implement migration arrangements that lead to a situation whereby vulnerable populations are left without adequate access to important human rights. The upshot of the discussion is that liberal states do not only have a prima facie right to exclude but also a duty to exclude when the relevant conditions are met.

Effect of Productive Capacities on Economic Complexity: Do Aid for Trade Flows Matter?

This is the first study to examine the effect of productive capacities on economic complexity and understand whether the Aid for Trade (AfT) flows is important for this effect in recipient countries. The analysis uses a sample of 126 developed and developing countries for 2002-2018 and adopts the two-step system Generalized Method of Moments approach. Results show that strengthening productive capacities enhances economic complexity. Furthermore, productive capacities and total AfT flows are strongly complementary in positively affecting economic complexity, and the degree of complementarity is higher for poor countries than for other AfT-recipient countries. Similarly, productive capacities are strongly complementary with total Non-AfT flows, as well as for total development aid. These findings highlight the need for scaling-up development aid flows, notably AfT flows, in favor of developing countries and poor countries having the lowest levels of productive capacities.

China, Africa and the International Aid System: A Challenge to (the Norms Underpinning) the Neoliberal World Order?

The China–Africa relationship has received increased interest over the past few decades as scholars critically examine the challenge that China, in its quest for a closer strategic partnership with Africa, poses to the norms governing the neoliberal world order (NLWO). One crucial aspect of this is international aid, and how Chinese aid to Africa differs from Western aid. This paper argues that Chinese aid reduces the power of traditional aid donors to shape the development route of African countries. This new development finance ultimately breaks the monopoly of Western aid to decide how poor countries in the global ‘South’ develop. In doing so, the Sino–African aid relationship is challenging the current world order as it offers African states the possibility to decouple (or delink) themselves from the global economy. By challenging assumed neoliberal economic development fundamentals, this relationship, if harnessed correctly by African leaders, can pose longer-term ideological questions around the very set of ideas that underpin development itself, while enabling African states the policy space needed to pursue more sustainable development from an Afro-centric perspective. It is this possibility to delink, due to changing ideological fundamentals concerning economic development, that is the challenge China and Africa pose to the NLWO.