Hasil untuk "History of Low Countries - Benelux Countries"

R. Yeh, E. Secemsky, D. Kereiakes et al.

J. Eikelboom, E. Lonn, J. Genest et al.

T. Thayabaranathan, Joosup Kim, D. Cadilhac et al.

Background: Contemporary data on stroke epidemiology and the availability of national stroke clinical registries are important for providing evidence to improve practice and support policy decisions. Aims: To update the most current incidence, case-fatality, and mortality rates on stroke and identify national stroke clinical registries worldwide. Methods: We searched multiple databases (based on our existing search strategy) to identify new original papers, published between 1 November 2018 and 15 December 2021, that met ideal criteria for data on stroke incidence and case-fatality, and added these to the studies reported in our last review. To identify national stroke clinical registries, we updated our last search, using PubMed, from 6 February 2015 until 6 January 2022. We also screened reference lists of review papers, citation history of papers, and the gray literature. Mortality codes for International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-9 and ICD-10 were extracted from the World Health Organization (WHO) for each country providing these data. Population denominators were obtained from the United Nations (UN) or WHO (when data were unavailable in the UN database). Crude and adjusted stroke mortality rates were calculated using country-specific population denominators, and the most recent years of mortality data available for each country. Results: Since our last report in 2020, there were two countries (Chile and France) with new incidence studies meeting criteria for ideal population-based studies. New data on case-fatality were found for Chile and Kenya. The most current mortality data were available for the year 2014 (1 country), 2015 (2 countries), 2016 (11 countries), 2017 (10 countries), 2018 (19 countries), 2019 (36 countries), and 2020 (29 countries). Four countries (Libya, Solomon Islands, United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon) reported mortality data for the first time. Since our last report on registries in 2017, we identified seven more national stroke clinical registries, predominantly in high-income countries. These newly identified registries yielded limited information. Conclusions: Up-to-date data on stroke incidence, case-fatality, and mortality continue to provide evidence of disparities and the scale of burden in low- and middle-income countries. Although more national stroke clinical registries were identified, information from these newly identified registries was limited. Highlighting data scarcity or even where a country is ranked might help facilitate more research or greater policy attention in this field.

R. Marchioli, G. Finazzi, R. Landolfi et al.

J. Frymoyer, M. Pope, J. Clements et al.

Anne-Lot Hoek

The Dutch government and academic institutions waited many decades before conducting a large-scale research into violence during the Indonesian War of Independence (1945-1949). When the government finally decided to fund an investigation in 2016, it soon became clear that there were differing opinions about its implementation, not only externally, but also internally among the participating researchers. Although these internal discussions are not included in the 2022 summary volume Beyond the Pale: Dutch Extreme Violence in the Indonesian War of Independence, 1945-1949, they are part of the project’s process of knowledge production. This essay reflects on some of the internal discussions and their relationship to the final outcomes of the ODGOI project.

Claudio Lissona, Esther Ruiz

We analyse economic growth vulnerability of the four largest Euro Area (EA) countries under stressed macroeconomic and financial conditions. Vulnerability, measured as a lower quantile of the growth distribution conditional on EA-wide and country-specific underlying factors, is found to be higher in Germany, which is more exposed to EA-wide economic conditions, and in Spain, which has large country-specific sectoral dynamics. We show that, under stress, financial factors amplify adverse macroeconomic conditions. Furthermore, even severe sectoral (financial or macro) shocks, whether common or country-specific, fail to fully explain the vulnerability observed under overall stress. Our results underscore the importance of monitoring both local and EA-wide macro-financial conditions to design effective policies for mitigating growth vulnerability.

Vladimir Batagelj

Analyzing the Erasmus mobility network, we illustrate typical problems and approaches in analyzing weighted networks. We propose alternative exploratory views on the network "Erasmus+ learning mobility flows since 2014". The network has 35 nodes (countries), is very dense, and the range of link weights (number of visits) is huge (from 1 to 217003). An increasing transformation is used to reduce the range. The traditional graph-based visualization is unreadable. To gain insight into the structure of a dense network, it can be reduced to a skeleton by removing less essential links and/or nodes. We have determined the 1-neighbors and 2-neighbors subnetworks. The 1-neighbors skeleton highlights Spain as the main attractor in the network. The 2-neighbors skeleton shows the dominant role of Spain, Germany, France, and Italy. The hubs and authorities, Pathfinder and Ps cores methods confirm these observations. Using the "right" order of the nodes in a matrix representation can reveal the network structure as block patterns in the displayed matrix. The clustering of network nodes based on corrected Salton dissimilarity again shows the dominant role of Spain, Germany, France, and Italy, but also two main clusters of the division into developed/less developed countries. The Balassa normalization (log(measured/expected) visits) matrix shows that most visits within the two main clusters are above expected, while most visits between them are below expected; within the clusters of Balkan countries, Baltic countries, {SK, CZ, HU}, {IS, DK, NO} visits are much above expected, etc.

Kathleen Salazar-Serna, Lorena Cadavid, Carlos Franco

Deciphering travel behavior and mode choices is a critical aspect of effective urban transportation system management, particularly in developing countries where unique socio-economic and cultural conditions complicate decision-making. Agent-based simulations offer a valuable tool for modeling transportation systems, enabling a nuanced understanding and policy impact evaluation. This work aims to shed light on the effects of transport policies and analyzes travel behavior by simulating agents making mode choices for their daily commutes. Agents gather information from the environment and their social network to assess the optimal transport option based on personal satisfaction criteria. Our findings, stemming from simulating a free-fare policy for public transit in a developing-country city, reveal a significant influence on decision-making, fostering public service use while positively influencing pollution levels, accident rates, and travel speed.

Andre de Carvalho, Robson Bonidia, Jude Dzevela Kong et al.

Infectious diseases, transmitted directly or indirectly, are among the leading causes of epidemics and pandemics. Consequently, several open challenges exist in predicting epidemic outbreaks, detecting variants, tracing contacts, discovering new drugs, and fighting misinformation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can provide tools to deal with these scenarios, demonstrating promising results in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. AI is becoming increasingly integrated into various aspects of society. However, ensuring that AI benefits are distributed equitably and that they are used responsibly is crucial. Multiple countries are creating regulations to address these concerns, but the borderless nature of AI requires global cooperation to define regulatory and guideline consensus. Considering this, The Global South AI for Pandemic & Epidemic Preparedness & Response Network (AI4PEP) has developed an initiative comprising 16 projects across 16 countries in the Global South, seeking to strengthen equitable and responsive public health systems that leverage Southern-led responsible AI solutions to improve prevention, preparedness, and response to emerging and re-emerging infectious disease outbreaks. This opinion introduces our branches in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries and discusses AI governance in LAC in the light of biotechnology. Our network in LAC has high potential to help fight infectious diseases, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, generating opportunities for the widespread use of AI techniques to improve the health and well-being of their communities.

Michael Wilson, Philippa J. K. Wilson

P. Mahanani, Sa’dun Akbar, Azni Yati Binti Kamaruddin et al.

This study aims to describe character development in elementary schools in Malaysia and Indonesia. The research method used is a qualitative method with a literature study design. The data collected in this study is about government policies regarding Character Education contained in the Curriculum Structure and supporting policies in the two countries. Analysis of the data used is content analysis. Data analysis was carried out qualitatively through the process of description, reduction, categorization, and interpretation. The results show that Indonesia and Malaysia have a strong commitment to developing education. Character education is developed in elementary schools or low schools through school textbooks, lesson plans, examples, and the existence of certain subjects, such as civic education and religious subjects. The conclusion obtained about the similarities is that character development is carried out under the auspices of the ministry of education and the method used is through textbooks and learning examples. The difference is, in Indonesia character has been directly included in the lesson plans and developed in all subjects, but there are two special subjects that are intended to shape students' attitudes and character. while in Malaysia character development is implemented in Islamic Education and Moral Education subjects as well as embedded in other subjects like Malay Language, English Language and History Education.

Y. Ortiz-Martínez, Gabriela Zambrano-Sánchez, A. Rodríguez-Morales

Human monkeypox (MPX) is a zoonotic viral disease caused by a member of the Orthopoxvirus genus, the monkeypox virus (MPXV). MPX has been reported primarily in endemic countries in Central and West Africa, with few imported cases to other regions. However, a rapidly emerging outbreak of monkeypox infection in over 20 non-endemic countries commenced in May 2022 and raised concerns because most patients had no travel history to endemic areas and were diagnosed through primary care and sexual health services and were mainly reported in men who have sex with men (MSM). Several men who developed monkeypox are living with HIV, but there are limited data on monkeypox and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Previous studies in Africa found that people with uncontrolled HIV had worse outcomes, including more extensive and longer-lasting lesions, more complications, and several deaths. In 2017–2018, an extensive study of 118 confirmed cases of MPX in Nigeria reported a case fatality rate of 6%, seven people with monkeypox virus infection died, four of whom had HIVwith features ofAIDS, not on antiretroviral therapy (ART). However, the total number of people with MPX who were livingwithHIVwas not described.Also, in a study of 40MPX cases in Nigeria (9 with HIV type 1 coinfection; at least 7 with high viremia and low CD4 counts), PLWHAwere significantly more likely to have skin rashes ≥2 cm, genital ulcers, secondary bacterial skin infection, and longer duration of illness. More recently, in Portugal, the first 27 confirmed cases appear to be mainly among MSM aged 30–39, living with HIV (14/27) and having a mild form of the disease. Likewise, in a report of four MPX cases among MSM in Italy, two were HIV-positive and on effective antiretroviral therapy, two were HIV-negative and on PrEP, and all recovered without treatment. Mild forms of MPX in PLWHA presenting with genital ulcers and rash have been reported in the current outbreak so far. Although there are limited data among people living with HIV, it appears that those with undetectable viral load and a high CD4 count on ART are less likely to have a severe disease course. Furthermore, the British HIV Association (BHIVA) suggests that those with a CD4 count below 200 cells/ mm, persistent detectable viral load (e.g. >200 copies/mL), or a recent HIV-related illness should be considered at higher risk. In the current outbreak, it is obligatory to consider the diagnosis of monkeypox in all MSM patients with typical rash and sexual behaviour that may place them at risk of acquisition of MPXV. For these cases, it is necessary to ensure active contact tracing, reliable tests and prompt treatment in severe disease, and the possibility of post-exposure prophylaxis of contacts to prevent further spread of the disease. In addition, while anyone can acquire the virus through close personal contact, there is an urgent need for education and awareness, especially among the PLWHA and the LGBTQI+ community, on the signs and symptoms of MPX and how to reduce transmission, particularly during Pride season.

Dan Braha

Phase transitions, characterized by abrupt shifts between macroscopic patterns of organization, are ubiquitous in complex systems. Despite considerable research in the physical and natural sciences, the empirical study of this phenomenon in societal systems is relatively underdeveloped. The goal of this study is to explore whether the dynamics of collective civil unrest can be plausibly characterized as a sequence of recurrent phase shifts, with each phase having measurable and identifiable latent characteristics. Building on previous efforts to characterize civil unrest as a self-organized critical system, we introduce a macro-level statistical model of civil unrest and evaluate its plausibility using a comprehensive dataset of civil unrest events in 170 countries from 1946 to 2017. Our findings demonstrate that the macro-level phase model effectively captures the characteristics of civil unrest data from diverse countries globally and that universal mechanisms may underlie certain aspects of the dynamics of civil unrest. We also introduce a scale to quantify a country's long-term unrest per unit of time and show that civil unrest events tend to cluster geographically, with the magnitude of civil unrest concentrated in specific regions. Our approach has the potential to identify and measure phase transitions in various collective human phenomena beyond civil unrest, contributing to a better understanding of complex social systems.

Veronica Vinciotti, Luca De Benedictis, Ernst C. Wit

Cultural values vary significantly around the world. Despite a large heterogeneity, similarities across national cultures are present. This paper studies cross-country culture heterogeneity via the joint inference of country-specific copula graphical models from world-wide survey data. To this end, a random graph generative model of the cultural networks is introduced, with a latent space and proximity measures that embed cultural relatedness across countries. Within-country heterogeneity is also accounted for, via parametric modelling of the marginal distributions of each cultural trait. All together, the different components of the model are able to identify several dimensions of culture.

Yunhan Wu, Jon Wakefield

In low- and middle-income countries, household surveys are the most reliable data source to examine health and demographic indicators at the subnational level, an exercise in small area estimation. Model-based unit-level models are favored in producing the subnational estimates at fine scale, such as the admin-2 level. Typically, the surveys employ stratified two-stage cluster sampling with strata consisting of an urban/rural designation crossed with administrative regions. To avoid bias and increase predictive precision, the stratification should be acknowledged in the analysis. To move from the cluster to the area requires an aggregation step in which the prevalence surface is averaged with respect to population density. This requires estimating a partition of the study area into its urban and rural components, and to do this we experiment with a variety of classification algorithms, including logistic regression, Bayesian additive regression trees and gradient boosted trees. Pixel-level covariate surfaces are used to improve prediction. We estimate spatial HIV prevalence in women of age 15-49 in Malawi using the stratification/aggregation method we propose.

Cosima Rughinis, Mihai Dima, Simona-Nicoleta Vulpe et al.

We investigated the negative relationship between mortality and COVID-19 vaccination at ecological level, which has been established through clinical trials and other investigations at the individual level. We conducted an exploratory, correlational, country-level analysis of open data centralized by Our World in Data concerning the cumulative COVID-19 mortality for the winter wave of the pandemic as function of the vaccination rate in October 2021. In order to disentangle the protective relationship from confounding processes, we controlled variables that capture country-level social development and level of testing. We also deployed three segmentation tactics, distinguishing among countries based on their level of COVID-19 testing, age structure, and types of vaccines used. Controlling for confounding factors did not highlight a statistically significant global relationship between vaccination and cumulative mortality in the total country sample. As suggested by previous estimates at country level, a strong, significant, negative relationship between cumulative mortality and vaccination was highlighted through segmentation analysis for countries positioned at the higher end of the social development spectrum. The strongest estimate for vaccine effectiveness at ecological level was obtained for countries that use Western-only vaccines. This may partly reflect the higher effectiveness of Western vaccines in comparison with the average of all vaccines in use; it may also derive from the lower social heterogeneity of countries included in this segment. COVID-19 testing has a significant and positive relationship with cumulative mortality for all subsamples. This indicates that testing intensity should be controlled as a potential confounder in future ecological analyses of COVID-19 mortality.

Nirmalya Thakur, Isabella Hall, Chia Y. Han

The rise of the Internet of Everything lifestyle in the last decade has had a significant impact on the increased emergence and adoption of online learning in almost all countries across the world. E-learning 3.0 is expected to become the norm of learning globally in almost all sectors in the next few years. The pervasiveness of the Semantic Web powered by the Internet of Everything lifestyle is expected to play a huge role towards seamless and faster adoption of the emerging paradigms of E-learning 3.0. Therefore, this paper presents an exploratory study to analyze multimodal components of Semantic Web behavior data to investigate the emergence of online learning in different countries across the world. The work specifically involved investigating relevant web behavior data to interpret the 5 W's and 1 H - Who, What, When Where, Why, and How related to online learning. Based on studying the E-learning Index of 2021, the study was performed for all the countries that are member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The results presented and discussed help to interpret the emergence of online learning in each of these countries in terms of the associated public perceptions, queries, opinions, behaviors, and perspectives. Furthermore, to support research and development in this field, we have published the web behavior-based Big Data related to online learning that was mined for all these 38 countries, in the form of a dataset, which is avail-able at https://dx.doi.org/10.21227/xbvs-0198.

Mikhail Ola Adisa, Shola Oyedeji, Jari Porras

The need for efficient and sustainable software to improve business and achieve goals cannot be over-emphasized. Sustainable digital services and product delivery cannot be achieved without embracing sustainable software design practices. Despite the current research progress on software sustainability, most software development practitioners in developing countries are unclear about what constitutes software sustainability and often lack the proper understanding of how to implement it in their specific industry domain. Research efforts from software engineering focused on promoting software sustainability awareness in developed countries, and fewer efforts have been channeled to studying the same awareness in developing countries. This has affected the level of awareness about sustainable software design practices in most developing countries. This research investigates the awareness of software sustainability in the Nigerian pension industry and its challenges among practitioners. The software development practitioners were engaged and interviewed. We offered ways to mitigate the identified challenges and promote the awareness of software sustainability in the pension industry. Our findings further show that, with the right sustainability knowledge, the software practitioners in the pension industry have the potential to support their organization's sustainable culture and improve the efficiency of product design and service delivery.

O. Al Omari, S. A. Al Sabei, Omar Al Rawajfah et al.

BACKGROUND: Given the restrictions associated with COVID-19, feelings of loneliness among youth may increase. AIMS: The aims of the current study were to assess the prevalence of loneliness among young people at the time of COVID-19 and to identify whether selected variables related to the pandemic predicted the level of loneliness. METHOD: A cross-sectional study using WhatsApp and Facebook social media platforms was conducted to survey 1,057 young people aged 15 to 24 years from six Middle Eastern countries. Participants completed survey items including demographic and COVID-19-related questions; the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS); the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS); and the UCLA Loneliness Scale. RESULTS: The prevalence of experienced loneliness was 1 (0.1%), 625 (59.1%), 429 (40.6%), and 2 (0.2%), reflecting low, moderate, moderately high, and high experiences for loneliness, respectively. History of depression or anxiety, being dissatisfied with life, and having depression at the time of COVID-19 were significant predictors of loneliness among youth. The model was significant (F = 44.95, p < .05) and accounted for 29.8% of the variance in UCLA Loneliness Scale scores. CONCLUSIONS: We found that the high prevalence rate of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic was correlated with depression and impaired life satisfaction among Middle Eastern youth. Thus, special attention and interventional action plans need to be developed taking into consideration the youths’ special situation during COVID-19.