COVID-19 Vaccine Concerns about Safety, Effectiveness, and Policies in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Italy among Unvaccinated Individuals

Despite the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine, global vaccination distribution efforts have thus far had varying levels of success. Vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to vaccine uptake. This study has four objectives: (1) describe and compare vaccine hesitancy proportions by country; (2) categorize vaccine-related concerns; (3) rank vaccine-related concerns; and (4) compare vaccine-related concerns by country and hesitancy status in four countries—the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Italy. Using the Pollfish survey platform, we sampled 1000 respondents in Canada, Sweden, and Italy and 750 respondents in the United States between 21–28 May 2021. Results showed vaccine-related concerns varied across three topical areas—vaccine safety and government control, vaccine effectiveness and population control, and freedom. For each thematic area, the top concern was statistically significantly different in each country and among the hesitant and non-hesitant subsamples within each county. Concerns related to freedom were the most universal. Understanding the specific concerns among individuals when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine can help to inform public communications and identify which, if any, salient narratives are global.

COVID-19 Vaccine Concerns about Safety, Effectiveness and Policies in the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Italy among Unvaccinated Individuals

Despite the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine, global vaccination distribution efforts have thus far had varying levels of success. Vaccine hesitancy remains a threat to vaccine uptake. This study has four objectives: 1) describe and compare vaccine hesitancy proportions by country; 2) categorize vaccine-related concerns; 3) rank vaccine-related concerns; and 4) compare vaccine-related concerns by country and hesitancy status in four countries- the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Italy. Using the Pollfish survey platform, we sampled 1000 respondents in Canada, Sweden, and Italy and 750 respondents in the United States between May 21-28, 2021. Results showed vaccine related concerns varied across three topical areas- vaccine safety and government control, vaccine effectiveness and population control, and freedom. For each thematic area, the top concern was statistically significantly different in each country and among the hesitant and non-hesitant subsamples within each county. Understanding the specific concerns among individuals when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine can help to inform public communications and identify which, if any, salient narratives, are global.

A Computational Framework for Social Entrepreneurs to Determine Policies for Sustainable Development

Many villagers in India suffer from multiple socio-economic challenges, such as, low-income, unemployment, and lack of access to clean water and energy that hinder their overall development. Social entrepreneurs can assist with the design and implementation of policies that help villagers achieve overall sustainability. Previously, a framework to support social entrepreneurs and stakeholders in identifying potential challenges and evaluating the impact of solutions concerning sustainable development was proposed. The framework was anchored in a single perspective (thematic area) Dilemma Triangle Method for identification of challenges and System Dynamics Models for evaluation of impacts. Policies for sustainable development, however, require an understanding of the interactions among multiple possibilities and their associated challenges to be viable, feasible, and equitable. Additionally, one key missing feature in the past framework is the evaluation of the economic impact of the solutions or policies. In this paper, we add new value to the past framework using the Dilemma Triangle Method to integrate more than one perspective, and the System Dynamics Model integrating the economic indicator to get a holistic view of sustainable development. By the addition of more than one thematic area in the Dilemma Triangle Method, the inter-dependency among thematic areas and their associated parameters is understood, which is necessary for identifying problems in complex systems. We include Gross Value Added (GVA) as an economic indicator for evaluating the economic feasibility of the policies identified by using the framework. To illustrate the efficacy of the framework, we implement it for the Kantashol village (panchayat), Jharkhand, India. Based on the Dilemma Triangle Method, multiple policies are proposed, out of which four policies are evaluated in the Systems Dynamic Model for the sustainable development of the village. The policies are currently being applied in the village and the outcome of this framework will be validated in real-time over the years.

Trends and Gaps on Philippine Scombrid Research: A bibliometric analysis

Philippine scombrids have been among the top priorities in fisheries research due primarily to their economic value worldwide. Assessment of the number of studies under general themes (diversity, ecology, taxonomy and systematics, diseases and parasites, and conservation) provides essential information to evaluate trends and gaps of research. This study presents a bibliometric evaluation of the temporal trends from 2000-2019 on Philippine scombrid research. Seven out of nine tuna species have SREA values equal to or higher than 1 with Thunnus albacares being the most researched tuna species. Twelve out of thirteen non-tuna species have SREA values less than one, thus indicating low research effort. It was apparent that there were significant differences in the number of studies in each thematic area except in 'chemical analysis' and 'diseases and parasites' between scombrid groups where there was low research effort observed. The research points at the uneven research distributions between scombrid groups in each thematic area. As locally published research are significantly behind foreign publications in terms of citation index, international collaborations by Filipino researchers have shown an increase research impact. Our study hopes to influence the local and international R&D agenda on Philippine scombrids and promote solidarity among nations towards its conservation and management.

Importance of interaction between areas of knowledge and institutions in the development of a health innovation: a study of thematic area networks and institutional co-authorship networks in development of computed tomography (CT)

OBJECTIVE: To identify thematic area networks and institutional co-authorship networks in the initial development of the CT, to recognize their characteristics in order to demonstrate the importance of interaction in a health innovation. METHODS: The method proposed by the researchers at the University of Manchester and thematic area studies was used. The databases used were ISI-Web of Science (ISI-WoS) and SCOPUS. The pioneer article was located and the literature limited to subsequent years was systematically reviewed. Excel Node XL, Pajek wiki and Ucinet software were used for data processing. RESULTS: Thematic areas and institutional co-authorship networks were obtained in the early years of CT development. Multiple types of interactions are evident. CONCLUSION: The success of the process of invention, innovation and diffusion in the development of CT required the interaction of many disciplines (medicine, physics and engineering) and institutions (University hospitals, Universities, companies, Research centers and scientific communication media). The study of the thematic areas and SNA (Social Networks Analysis) allow to know the processes of invention and innovation and identify new fields of research.

Problems of diagnostics and treatment of xerostomia. Current view

In this article there are described urgent problems of diagnostics and treatment of xerostomia and established positions in interpretation of the term “xerostomia” and their fundamental provisions are considered. Also there is presented a survey of the different kinds of xerostomia, including discovered. The presence of existing clinical and practical problems and the absence of common exposition of xerostomia create some premises of the further explorations and development of this thematic area.

Slovak adverbs belonging to the group “often”: the problem of quasi-synonymy

The article examines the semantics of the Slovak lexemes často and neraz, the two most frequent adverbs included in the semantic group of temporal words with a common meaning of high repeatability of action, based on the material of the National Corpus of the Slovak language. The characteristics of adverbs, their relative compatibility, which is isolated using the logDice association measure, as well as the mutual occurrence of adverbs within the same context are analyzed. The analysis showed that adverbs are not complete synonyms. For často, the main sphere of compatibility is formed by collocations with verbs and participles, which have the semantics of detection, appearance; combinations with representative verbs. Neraz, in turn, tends to particles that emphasize the significance of the situation; also to particles with the meaning ‘literally, really’, from verbal collocations, adverbs are mainly characterized by combinations with mental predicates denoting the process of persuasion. A separate thematic area for the adverb is formed by words that somehow denote life difficulties. Thus, the semantics of často, unlike neraz, presupposes regularity of repetition; neraz denotes not only irregular, but primarily non-standard situations, the adverb is largely focused on the subject of perception. In the case of the joint use of both adverbs, where their neutralization does not occur, the situation designated neraz often occurs after the situation designated často, and is its direct consequence. In addition, často can mark more frequent situations than neraz.

Turkey and the European Union

This volume studies the enduring complexity of EU–Turkey relations in all their thematic dimensions and with a view to offering future scenarios. It accomplishes three important aims. First, following a narratives analysis, the chapters analysing identity, politics, the economy, security, migration and energy identify the key dynamics that impact the relationship in these areas. Second, they evaluate how these drivers influence the three ideal-type future scenarios of convergence, cooperation and conflict, subsequently offering a relationship scenario for each thematic area. Third, the volume synthesises the chapters’ individual findings and argues that conflictual cooperation is the most likely scenario in future EU–Turkey relations. With contributions by İbrahim Semih Akçomak, Senem Aydın-Düzgit, Lorenzo Colantoni, Angeliki Dimitriadi, Atila Eralp, Erkan Erdil, Doruk Ergun, Hanna Lisa Hauge, Ayhan Kaya, Ebru Ece Özbey, Bahar Rumelili, Beken Saatçioğlu, Eduard Soler i Lecha, Melike Sökmen, Funda Tekin, Sinan Ülgen and Wolfgang Wessels.