Underlying Factors of Tourist Social Responsibility (TSR) within the COVID-19 Context: An Empirical Investigation of the Saudi Tourism Market

The current literature on social responsibility in tourism is criticized for its bias in focusing on business ethics and responsibility while neglecting the tourist perspective. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the underlying factors of tourist social responsibility (TSR) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the Saudi tourism market. Based on the common scale development procedures, including a thorough review of the literature, identifying TSR domains and items, purifying the measurement scale, and demonstrating its reliability, a five-dimensional 24-item scale is developed. The findings reveal that TSR can be measured based on five distinct factors: (1) “Responsibility for legal and social aspects”, (2) “Responsibility for COVID-19 health issues”, (3) “Responsibility for altruism and solidarity”, (4) “Responsibility for supporting socially responsible businesses”, and (5) “Responsibility for environmental impacts”. Moreover, the results confirm the significant relationship between TSR attitude and tourists’ intention to behave socially. These findings enable policymakers to understand the TSR notion and factors influencing tourists to be more socially responsible during and after the COVID-19 pandemic to realize a more resilient and sustainable tourism sector.

Calibration of two validated SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus neutralization assays for COVID-19 vaccine evaluation

Vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) are key biomarkers considered to be associated with vaccine efficacy. In United States government-sponsored phase 3 efficacy trials of COVID-19 vaccines, nAbs are measured by two different validated pseudovirus-based SARS-CoV-2 neutralization assays, with each trial using one of the two assays. Here we describe and compare the nAb titers obtained in the two assays. We observe that one assay consistently yielded higher nAb titers than the other when both assays were performed on the World Health Organization’s anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin International Standard, COVID-19 convalescent sera, and mRNA-1273 vaccinee sera. To overcome the challenge this difference in readout poses in comparing/combining data from the two assays, we evaluate three calibration approaches and show that readouts from the two assays can be calibrated to a common scale. These results may aid decision-making based on data from these assays for the evaluation and licensure of new or adapted COVID-19 vaccines.

Erlang mixture modeling for Poisson process intensities

We develop a prior probability model for temporal Poisson process intensities through structured mixtures of Erlang densities with common scale parameter, mixing on the integer shape parameters. The mixture weights are constructed through increments of a cumulative intensity function which is modeled nonparametrically with a gamma process prior. Such model specification provides a novel extension of Erlang mixtures for density estimation to the intensity estimation setting. The prior model structure supports general shapes for the point process intensity function, and it also enables effective handling of the Poisson process likelihood normalizing term resulting in efficient posterior simulation. The Erlang mixture modeling approach is further elaborated to develop an inference method for spatial Poisson processes. The methodology is examined relative to existing Bayesian nonparametric modeling approaches, including empirical comparison with Gaussian process prior based models, and is illustrated with synthetic and real data examples.

Validating Communicative Tests of Reading and Language Use of Classical Greek

This paper builds on the work presented previously in this journal by Poupounaki-Lappa et al. (2021), which described the development of a communicative test of Reading and Language Use of Classical Greek calibrated to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) at levels A1 and A2 (Council of Europe, 2001). In the current paper, the two tests of Classical Greek are calibrated both together and to the CEFR. In addition to describing the methodology for comparing the two separate tests of Classical Greek, the paper is also designed to be of interest to educators of other classical languages. It is hoped that they may find it useful not only by facilitating robust test design, but also by demonstrating the methods by which tests can be linked together on a common scale (as with the CEFR) or linking tests one to another (e.g., different end-of-year tests, at different points in time).

Synthesis of data from trials of interventions designed to change health behaviour; a case study

Many complex healthcare interventions aim to change the behaviour of patients or health professionals, e.g. stopping smoking or prescribing fewer antibiotics. This prompts the question of which behaviour change interventions are most effective. Synthesising evidence on the effectiveness of a particular type of behaviour change intervention can be challenging because of the high levels of heterogeneity in trial design. Here we use data from a published systematic review as a case study and compare alternative methods to address this heterogeneity. One important sources of heterogeneity is that compliance to a desired behaviour can be measured and reported in a variety of different ways. In addition, interventions designed to target behaviour can be implemented at either an individual or group level leading to trials with varying layers of clustering. To handle heterogeneous outcomes we can either convert all effect estimates to a common scale (e.g. using standardised mean differences) or have separate meta-analyses for different types of outcome measure (binary and continuous measures).To address the clustering structure, adjusted standard errors can be used with the inverse variance method, or weights can be assigned based on a consistent level of clustering, such as the number of healthcare professionals. A graphical method, the albatross plot utilises reported p-values only, and can synthesise data with both heterogeneous outcomes and clustering with minimal assumption and data manipulation. Based on these methods, we reanalysed our data in four different ways and have discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Calibration of Two Validated SARS-CoV-2 Pseudovirus Neutralization Assays for COVID-19 Vaccine Evaluation

Vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) are key biomarkers considered to be associated with vaccine efficacy. In United States Government-sponsored phase 3 efficacy trials of COVID-19 vaccines, nAbs are measured by two different validated pseudovirus-based SARS-CoV-2 neutralization assays, with each trial using one of the two assays. Here we describe and compare the nAb titers obtained in the two assays. We observe that one assay consistently yielded higher nAb titers than the other when both assays were performed on the World Health Organization's anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin International Standard, COVID-19 convalescent sera, and mRNA-1273 vaccinee sera. To overcome the challenge this difference in readout poses in comparing/combining data from the two assays, we evaluate three calibration approaches and show that readouts from the two assays can be calibrated to a common scale. These results may aid decision-making based on data from these assays for the evaluation and licensure of new or adapted COVID-19 vaccines.

Penyuluhan Kesehatan Tentang Prosedur Evakuasi Saat Terjadinya Gempa Bumi Di Desa Wonorejo Karanganyar

Earthquakes in Indonesia cause physical damage as well as fatalities, high mortality rates and disability when an earthquake occurs, it is necessary to reduce or prevent it by increasing people's knowledge and skills about how to evacuate during an earthquake. Earthquakes that are not resolved with resilience and lack of human resources that can handle earthquakes from pre-disaster, during disaster and post-disaster. Earthquakes are caused by the movement of the Earth's crust (Earth's plates). The frequency of a region, refers to the type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time. Earthquakes are measured using a seismometer. Moment magnitude is the most common scale where earthquakes occur throughout the world so that the community is demanded to be prepared, one of which is evacuation during a disaster which is held by evacuation counseling in Wonorejo Village, Karanganyar. earthquake with pre-test data 75% of the residents did not know and after counseling and post-testing it was found that 90% of the residents understood the skills and knowledge of evacuation during an earthquake. with the lack of knowledge and skills of residents regarding evacuation during an earthquake, it is very appropriate for residents to understand when an earthquake occurs

Calibration of Two Validated SARS-CoV-2 Pseudovirus Neutralization Assays for COVID-19 Vaccine Evaluation

Vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) are key biomarkers considered to be associated with vaccine efficacy. In United States Government-sponsored phase 3 efficacy trials of COVID-19 vaccines, nAbs are measured by two different validated pseudovirus-based SARS-CoV-2 neutralization assays, with each trial using one of the two assays. Here we describe and compare the nAb titers obtained in the two assays. We observe that one assay consistently yielded higher nAb titers than the other when both assays were performed on the World Health Organization’s anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin International Standard, COVID-19 convalescent sera, and mRNA-1273 vaccinee sera. To overcome the challenge this difference in readout poses in comparing/combining data from the two assays, we evaluate three calibration approaches and show that readouts from the two assays can be calibrated to a common scale. These results may aid decision-making based on data from these assays for the evaluation and licensure of new or adapted COVID-19 vaccines.

Estimating the locations of voters, politicians, policy outcomes, and status quos on a common scale

How well are voters represented and what explains how well voters are represented? Answering these questions requires unpacking the mechanisms by which voters choose elected officials and elected officials implement policies. Though spatial theories of voting and legislative bargaining provide a broad framework for understanding these mechanisms, testing these theories involves a measurement problem where multiple political actors and outcomes must be located. We develop a technique for estimating policy outcomes, status quo locations, the ideology of elite political actors, and the ideology of voters, on a common scale. Using our new estimates, we demonstrate a similar level of incongruence for tax policies and spending policies. The incongruence arises for different reasons however—tax policies are over-responsive to the position of the median voter. Contrarily, spending policies are under-responsive and barely correlated with the position of the median voter. In examining the underlying mechanisms for policy change, we find that while the positions of elected officials over-respond to the median voter, the changing composition of state government has little immediate impact on policy. Instead, policy outcomes respond to long-term trends in the composition of government.

Cost-effective implementation of the Paris Agreement using flexible greenhouse gas metrics

Greenhouse gas (GHG) metrics, that is, conversion factors to evaluate the emissions of non-CO2 GHGs on a common scale with CO2, serve crucial functions in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. While different metrics have been proposed, their economic cost-effectiveness has not been investigated under a range of pathways, including those substantially overshooting the temperature targets. Here, we show that cost-effective metrics for methane that minimize the overall mitigation costs are time-dependent, primarily determined by the pathway, and strongly influenced by temperature overshoot. Parties to the Paris Agreement have already adopted the conventional GWP100 (100-year global warming potential), which is shown to be a good approximation of cost-effective metrics for the coming decades. In the longer term, however, we suggest that parties consider adapting the choice of common metrics to the future pathway as it unfolds, as part of the recurring global stocktake, if global cost-effectiveness is a key consideration.