What Is Deep Learning and How Has It Helped the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have been trying to find solutions through international collaborations and interdisciplinary studies. This chapter aims to present how deep learning is used for the COVID-19 pandemic. Within this scope, this chapter covers the fundamentals of deep learning in terms of definitions, key concepts, popular network types, and application areas. Then it gives a summary of the most recent studies in which deep learning models are used for COVID-19. The authors believe this chapter is a good start for researchers who want to study deep learning. In addition, the literature review section of this chapter, which was prepared by considering the COVID-19 pandemic, is expected to shed light on a broad range of health studies within the pandemic process and to provide better solutions to similar problems encountered in different sectors.

The African swine fever modelling challenge: objectives, model description and synthetic data generation

African swine fever (ASF) is an emerging disease currently spreading at the interface between wild boar and pig farms in Europe and Asia. Current disease control regulations, which involve massive culling with significant economic and animal welfare costs, need to be improved. Modelling enables relevant control measures to be explored, but conducting the exercise during an epidemic is extremely difficult. Modelling challenges enhance modellers' ability to provide timely advice to policy makers, improve their readiness when facing emerging threats, and promote international collaborations. The ASF-Challenge, which ran between August 2020 and January 2021, was the first modelling challenge in animal health. In this paper, we describe the objectives and rules of the challenge. We then demonstrate the mechanistic multi-host model that was used to mimic as accurately as possible an ASF-like epidemic, provide a detailed explanation of the surveillance and intervention strategies that generated the synthetic data, and describe the different management strategies that were assessed by the competing modelling teams. We then outline the different technical steps of the challenge as well as its environment. Finally, we synthesize the lessons we learnt along the way to guide future modelling challenges in animal health.

Strengthening local volcano observatories through global collaborations

We consider the future of volcano observatories in a world where new satellite technologies and global data initiatives have greatly expanded over the last two decades. Observatories remain the critical tie between the decision-making authorities and monitoring data. In the coming decade, the global scientific community needs to continue to collaborate in a manner that will strengthen volcano observatories while building those databases and scientific models that allow us to improve forecasts of eruptions and mitigate their impacts. Observatories in turn need to contribute data to allow these international collaborations to prosper.

Earth Dreams: Reimagining ARPA for Health of People, Places and Planet

Bold new approaches are urgently needed to overcome global health challenges. The proposed Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is intended to provide rapid health breakthroughs. While new technologies for earlier disease detection and more effective treatment are critical, we urge equal attention be given to the wider (physical, emotional, social, political, and economic) environmental ecosystems driving the non-communicable disease (NCD) crisis in the first place. This requires an integrated, cross-sectoral vision that spans the interwoven connections affecting health across the scales of people, places, and planet. This wider “exposome” perspective considers biopsychosocial factors that promote resilience and reduce vulnerabilities of individuals and communities over time—the many variables driving health disparities. Since life course health is strongly determined by early life environments, early interventions should be prioritized as a matter of effectiveness and social justice. Here, we explore the origins of the Advanced Research Project Agency and point to its potential to build integrated solutions, with wisdom and ethical value systems as a compass. Since the planned ARPA-H is anticipated to spawn international collaborations, the imagined concept is of relevance to a broad audience of researchers. With appropriate input, the quest for health equity through personalized, precision medicine while deconstructing unacceptable structural inequities may be accelerated.

Intellectual disability genomics: current state, pitfalls and future challenges

Intellectual disability (ID) can be caused by non-genetic and genetic factors, the latter being responsible for more than 1700 ID-related disorders. The broad ID phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity, as well as the difficulty in the establishment of the inheritance pattern, often result in a delay in the diagnosis. It has become apparent that massive parallel sequencing can overcome these difficulties. In this review we address: (i) ID genetic aetiology, (ii) clinical/medical settings testing, (iii) massive parallel sequencing, (iv) variant filtering and prioritization, (v) variant classification guidelines and functional studies, and (vi) ID diagnostic yield. Furthermore, the need for a constant update of the methodologies and functional tests, is essential. Thus, international collaborations, to gather expertise, data and resources through multidisciplinary contributions, are fundamental to keep track of the fast progress in ID gene discovery.

Policing and Preventing Gender Violence in the Global South

This special issue is the product of a workshop on innovations in policing and preventing gender violence in the Global South, hosted by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Centre for Justice 3-4 December 2019. The event was attended by scholars from Brazil, Pacific Island communities, Bangladesh, Argentina, and several Australian jurisdictions. Hence the articles in this special issue reflect the diverse nationalities present at the event. A central aim of the workshop realised in this special issue is the stimulation of innovation in understanding the policing and prevention of gender violence through novel international collaborations and cross-fertilization. It reverses the assumptions that underpin the epistemic injustice of the social sciences, that innovations generally flow only from the Global North to the Global South. This special issue shows that it can be the other way round.

Sustainable development: a developmental evaluation of logistics higher education in the Sultanate of Oman based on two innovation approaches (the triple helix of innovation and innovation competencies)

PurposeThis research seeks to identify evidence of innovation elements in the implementation of a sustainable development ecosystem in the HE environment. For the purposes of this investigation, the use of developmental evaluation has been deemed appropriate to fully explore the depths of the topic.Design/methodology/approachThe research follows a qualitative approach of inductive reasoning. For the purpose of this developmental evaluation, the collection of information from several stakeholders has been pursued in the study. Both a semi-structured interview and documents analysis were used.FindingsDifferent awareness levels among logistics faculty members, while the incentives given are minimal. Availability of grants and lack of tenure are some of the reasons raised. Industry is not cooperative in providing placements/internships restricting students of industry experience. Internationalisation is slow and international collaborations limited. Limited freedom in topical discussions and their implications to learning.Research limitations/implicationsThe research has considered possible limitations and used other methods for triangulation of the findings.Practical implicationsLow awareness on the implementation of pedagogical approaches for innovation. Not all faculty can be innovative (owing to current practice) neither they are incentivised to be so. Government spending is very low on R&D – 0.136 of the GDP in 2016. The industry is not ready for University-Business Collaborations, therefore achieving a low theory to practice ratio for students.Originality/valueIn the context in which the research has taken place (HE in Oman), there has been no evaluation (and more so developmental evaluation) previously implemented. Additionally, a longitudinal study, integrated as part of an ESD system targeted to innovation could increase the innovation capacity of the country on the international innovation index.

Bibliometric Analysis of Academic Journal Articles Reporting Results of Psychedelic Clinical Studies

After a decades long period of investigational dormancy, there is renewed interest in employing psychedelics as treatments for mental illness and addiction. The academic journals, journal articles, academic institutions, and countries that have helped sustain clinical psychedelic research and the evolution of the literature on clinical studies of psychedelic compounds have only been minimally investigated. Therefore, in we conducted a bibliometric analysis of clinical studies of 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), ayahuasca, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), ibogaine, mescaline, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and psilocybin published from 1965-2018. Our search revealed 320 articles published across 106 journals. After a nearly quarter century lull between the 1970s and 1990s, publications in this area have resurged over the last two decades and continue on an upward trajectory, with most clinical studies now focusing on LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin. A subanalysis of the ten most cited articles in psychedelic research prior to 2010 and afterwards demonstrated a shift from research on risks of psychedelics, primarily those of MDMA, to research on therapeutic applications, predominantly those of psilocybin. We also conducted network analyses of inter-country collaborations in psychedelic research, which suggested that psychedelic researchers in the United Kingdom have more diverse international collaborations.