Perspectives, Expectations, and Concerns of European Patient Advocates on Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews of 10 expert patient advocates on several different issues around Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs). The interviews were conducted between February and May 2020 based on a guideline with a list of 8 topics that covered concerns about safety and ethics, access problems and limitations, pricing of ATMPs and educational needs for patient communities. Overall, the interviewees expressed a high degree of convergence of opinions on most of the topics and especially on the identification of the reasons for concern. Conversely, when asked about possible solutions, quite a wide range of solutions were proposed, although with many common points. However, it highlights that the debate is still in its infancy and that there are not yet consolidated positions across the whole community. A general concern emerging from all the interviews is the potential limitation of access to approved ATMPs, both due to the high prices and to the geographical concentration of treatment centers. However, patients recognize the value of a model with a limited number of specialized clinical centers administering these therapies. On the ethical side, patients do not show particular concern as long as ATMPs and the underlying technology is used to treat severe diseases. Finally, patients are asking for both more education on ATMPs as well as for a more continuous involvement of patient representatives in the whole “life-cycle” of a new ATMP, from the development phase to the authorization, from the definition of the reimbursement scheme to the collection of Real Word Data on safety and long-term efficacy of the treatment.

E-campaigning: An Empirical Study of the Utilisation of ICTs for Election Campaigning in the 2008 New Zealand General Election

<p>E-campaigning refers to the utilisation of information and communication technologies (ICTs), predominantly the Internet, and related applications for election campaigning. At present, scholarly research in this social phenomenon chiefly focuses on how e-campaigning is utilised by political parties or candidates. Also, there is growing research interest in factors that influence e-campaigning utilisation. However, political parties’ or candidates’ e-campaigning utilisation is largely unexplored and unexplained. This is attributable to several factors, notably, restricted access to the phenomenon, the narrow and geographical concentration of existing e-campaigning research, the accessibility of political parties’ or candidates’ campaign teams as research participants, and a dearth of multidisciplinary research. To that end, this study empirically explores and explains e-campaigning utilisation with a multidisciplinary, multiple-case research approach. Further, this study is situated in the 2008 New Zealand general election, involving six of eight parliamentary parties. Based on existing e-campaigning research, this study proposes a new theoretical framework to understand, describe, and compare e-campaigning utilisation. This e-campaigning framework has been empirically applied. Notably, the findings suggest that political parties’ e-campaigning utilisation varied markedly beyond information dissemination; although social media was introduced in most parties’ e-campaigning, its interactive nature was barely exploited; and innovative e-campaigning appeared to be the exception rather than the norm. From political science and information systems literature, this study identifies ten factors, encompassing both external and internal aspects as well as various perspectives, to explain e-campaigning utilisation. The findings suggest that those factors in general are empirically relevant, accurate, and adequate. This study concludes that e-campaigning is a complex, contextual, diverse, and dynamic phenomenon. As such, it is difficult, if not impossible, to generalise or predict e-campaigning utilisation; also, a multidisciplinary approach is pivotal to investigating the phenomenon.</p>

E-campaigning: An Empirical Study of the Utilisation of ICTs for Election Campaigning in the 2008 New Zealand General Election

<p>E-campaigning refers to the utilisation of information and communication technologies (ICTs), predominantly the Internet, and related applications for election campaigning. At present, scholarly research in this social phenomenon chiefly focuses on how e-campaigning is utilised by political parties or candidates. Also, there is growing research interest in factors that influence e-campaigning utilisation. However, political parties’ or candidates’ e-campaigning utilisation is largely unexplored and unexplained. This is attributable to several factors, notably, restricted access to the phenomenon, the narrow and geographical concentration of existing e-campaigning research, the accessibility of political parties’ or candidates’ campaign teams as research participants, and a dearth of multidisciplinary research. To that end, this study empirically explores and explains e-campaigning utilisation with a multidisciplinary, multiple-case research approach. Further, this study is situated in the 2008 New Zealand general election, involving six of eight parliamentary parties. Based on existing e-campaigning research, this study proposes a new theoretical framework to understand, describe, and compare e-campaigning utilisation. This e-campaigning framework has been empirically applied. Notably, the findings suggest that political parties’ e-campaigning utilisation varied markedly beyond information dissemination; although social media was introduced in most parties’ e-campaigning, its interactive nature was barely exploited; and innovative e-campaigning appeared to be the exception rather than the norm. From political science and information systems literature, this study identifies ten factors, encompassing both external and internal aspects as well as various perspectives, to explain e-campaigning utilisation. The findings suggest that those factors in general are empirically relevant, accurate, and adequate. This study concludes that e-campaigning is a complex, contextual, diverse, and dynamic phenomenon. As such, it is difficult, if not impossible, to generalise or predict e-campaigning utilisation; also, a multidisciplinary approach is pivotal to investigating the phenomenon.</p>

Agglomeration and Innovation: An Empirical Study Based on China’s Manufacturing Data

This study explores the relationship between spatial agglomeration and innovation, taking Chinese manufacturing data as an example. Tractable model is built to explain the mechanism through which spatial concentration of firms in a city affects industrial innovation. Then in the empirical analysis, new agglomeration and innovation indicators are used to test the theoretical conclusions at the city-industry level. Results show that the geographical concentration of firms has significant negative effects on industrial innovation and growth. These overall effects can be divided into positive and negative categories after considering the interaction between the industrial labor scale and firm’s spatial agglomeration. Industries with a higher labor scale will bear more crowding effects of firms’ spatial agglomeration. These findings mean that moving to a less concentrated area might be a good choice for the labor-intensive firms which aim at innovation.

Cluster policy and the innovative activity of industrial enterprises

The purpose of the article is to assess the possibility of using cluster policy in Russia’s industry as an instrument for developing dynamic competition (encouraging innovation activity). Drawing on the results of a detailed systematic review of the cluster theory, the author identifies the reason for its weak operationality: an implicit premise on entrepreneur’s passive role in the innovation process. He then attempts to remove this premise by explaining the motives of company's behavior through a modified product variety model which is tested on empirical data from the U.S. and Russia. The results of testing show that at similar level of economic activity the geographical concentration of industrial enterprises in a cluster contributes to the intensification of innovation processes. A relatively more competitive behavior of firms in a cluster is explained through the theory of industrial markets and new institutional economic theory. The analysis concludes with valuable recommendations for economic policy.

Cluster policy and the innovative activity of industrial enterprises

The purpose of the article is to assess the possibility of using cluster policy in Russia’s industry as an instrument for developing dynamic competition (encouraging innovation activity). Drawing on the results of a detailed systematic review of the cluster theory, the author identifies the reason for its weak operationality: an implicit premise on entrepreneur’s passive role in the innovation process. He then attempts to remove this premise by explaining the motives of company's behavior through a modified product variety model which is tested on empirical data from the U.S. and Russia. The results of testing show that at similar level of economic activity the geographical concentration of industrial enterprises in a cluster contributes to the intensification of innovation processes. A relatively more competitive behavior of firms in a cluster is explained through the theory of industrial markets and new institutional economic theory. The analysis concludes with valuable recommendations for economic policy.

Innovation and Development of Rural Leisure Tourism Industry Using Mobile Cloud IoT Computing

As a promising IoT application, the rural leisure tourism industry can promote the reconstruction of industrial structure in rural areas and realize a sustainable, rapid, and healthy development of rural economy. This paper takes the rural leisure tourism industry in China as an example and aims at building an intelligent and integrated modern IoT use case. Based on the traditional rural leisure tourism, we improve the system by adding the data analysis over a mobile cloud IoT computing platform. In particular, this work investigates the characteristics of the national tourism market under the security requirements from governmental cloud data management policy. Our study shows that the geographical concentration index G of tourists in the Chinese market continues to increase. With the booming of IoT applications in rural leisure tourism, intelligent and integrated tourism guidance and optimized decision-making will provide tourists with better information and thus make rapid improvement of geographical concentration index.

Geographical concentration of COVID-19 cases by social determinants of health in 16 large metropolitan areas in Canada - a cross-sectional study

Background: There is a growing recognition that strategies to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission should be responsive to local transmission dynamics. Studies have revealed inequalities along social determinants of health, but little investigation was conducted surrounding geographic concentration within cities. We quantified social determinants of geographic concentration of COVID-19 cases across sixteen census metropolitan areas (CMA) in four Canadian provinces. Methods: We used surveillance data on confirmed COVID-19 cases at the level of dissemination area. Gini (co-Gini) coefficients were calculated by CMA based on the proportion of the population in ranks of diagnosed cases and each social determinant using census data (income, education, visible minority, recent immigration, suitable housing, and essential workers) and the corresponding share of cases. Heterogeneity was visualized using Lorenz (concentration) curves. Results: Geographic concentration was observed in all CMAs (half of the cumulative cases were concentrated among 21-35% of each city's population): with the greatest geographic heterogeneity in Ontario CMAs (Gini coefficients, 0.32-0.47), followed by British Columbia (0.23-0.36), Manitoba (0.32), and Québec (0.28-0.37). Cases were disproportionately concentrated in areas with lower income, education attainment, and suitable housing; and higher proportion of visible minorities, recent immigrants, and essential workers. Although a consistent feature across CMAs was concentration by proportion visible minorities, the magnitude of concentration by social determinants varied across CMAs. Interpretation: The feature of geographical concentration of COVID-19 cases was consistent across CMAs, but the pattern by social determinants varied. Geographically-prioritized allocation of resources and services should be tailored to the local drivers of inequalities in transmission in response to SARS-CoV-2's resurgence.

ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN THE CONTEXT OF PREREQUISITES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLUSTER FORMATIONS IN THE WORKS OF FOREIGN SCIENTISTS

The process of forming the concept of “cluster” included a centuries-old history. Theoretical and methodological aspects of this definition were presented in the works of a big number of foreign scientists, such as M. Porter, M. Enright, R. Nelson, A. Lesh, W. Rostow, W. Isard, N. Rosenberg, A. Phillips, J. Tyunen, J. Van Dein, I. Fezer, S. Sweeney, M. Janikas, S. Ray, P. Stout, A. Weber et al. The formation of the modern understanding of clusters was influenced by the theories of agglomeration, industrial complex and industrial areas. Analyzing the history of economic thought, we can say that the approach to cluster economic development was formed gradually, but ideas about the advantages of economic clusters as forms of business organization arose quite a long time ago. In the middle of the XVII century, the «theory of pure agglomeration» was wrote by J. Tyunen, V. Launhardt and A. Marshall. The formation of localization theory is usually associated with the name of the German economist J. Tyunen. The beginning of the “industrial cluster” theory was laid by A. Marshall, who saw the following pattern: enterprises will be able to achieve savings due to internal resources and a system of interaction with suppliers of raw materials and in the presence of highly specialized specialists. A. Lesh studied the agglomeration effect and the scale effect, as a result of which production has properties relative to geographical concentration. In addition, he said that each industry has its own maximum level of production concentration. The theory of the information society was associated with the concept of social networks, which was formed at the end of the twentieth century in the works of certain scientists: S. Berkowitz, S. Wasserman, B. Wellman, D. Nook, P. Marsden, K. Faust, L. Freeman and others. The formation of the modern understanding of clusters was influenced by the theories of agglomeration, industrial complex and industrial areas. In addition, technological and innovative approaches were identified, which were based on the analysis of the competitiveness of the regions. The network approach to economic development has had a significant impact on the modern understanding of clusters. The above-mentioned aspects are formed on the basis of the approaches of a number of foreign scientists, whose main research results are presented in this article. The authors present the evolution of the formation and development of the cluster approach in Economics in Western Economic Thought, give the author’s definition of the concept of “cluster” and describe the common features characteristic of clusters, provide reasoned conclusions.

Is the Creative Class a Game Changer in Cities? A Socioeconomic Study on Romania

In the wake of current urbanization trends, Creative Class theory has gained much popularity. According to the theory, in order to achieve sustainable socioeconomic growth and citizens’ well-being, cities have to attract the Creative Class, who prefer places that simultaneously provide amenities such as tolerance, talent, technology, and territorial assets (the four Ts). Although the theory has been tested extensively in the USA and in Western European countries, few attempts have been made to study it in Eastern Europe. As such, this paper tests Creative Class theory in the case of Romania, which is an interesting country for this study, since it has a relatively low level of urbanization and the population is less mobile compared to Western countries. Our results show that talent, technology, and territorial assets are able to significantly explain the geographical concentration of the Creative Class. However, different types of tolerance have different effects on the concentration of the Creative Class. Nevertheless, when we control for conventional socioeconomic welfare variables, the results change. The variable that has the highest effect on welfare patterns is path-dependency, namely, the previous level of regional and urban welfare registered. Thus, this paper reflects the need for both researchers and practitioners to consider the path-dependency trajectories of socioeconomic health and well-being in urban areas.