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Willingness to Vaccinate Against COVID-19 in the U.S.: Representative Longitudinal Evidence From April to October 2020
No full textVaccines against COVID-19 have been developed in unprecedented time. However, the effectiveness of any vaccine is dictated by the proportion of the population willing to be vaccinated. This observational population-based study examines intentions to be vaccinated against COVID-19 throughout the pandemic.
Methods
In November 2020, longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of 7,547 U.S. adults enrolled in the Understanding America Study were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression. Participants reported being willing, undecided, and unwilling to get vaccinated against COVID-19 across 13 assessments conducted from April to October 2020. Public attitudes to vaccination against COVID-19 were also assessed on a 4-point Likert-type scale.
Results
Willingness to vaccinate declined from 71% in April to 53.6% in October. This was explained by an increase in the percentage of participants undecided about vaccinating (from 10.5% to 14.4%) and the proportion of the sample unwilling to vaccinate (from 18.5% to 32%). The population subgroups most likely to be undecided/unwilling to vaccinate were those without a degree (undecided: RR=2.47, 95% CI=2.04, 3.00; unwilling: RR=1.92, 95% CI=1.67, 2.20), Black participants (undecided: RR=2.18, 95% CI=1.73, 2.74; unwilling: RR=1.98, 95% CI=1.63, 2.42), and female participants (undecided: RR=1.41, 95% CI=1.20, 1.65; unwilling: RR=1.29, 95% CI=1.14, 1.46). Participants who were older or were on higher incomes were least likely to be undecided or unwilling to vaccinate. Concerns about potential side effects of a vaccine were common.
Conclusions
Intentions to be vaccinated against COVID-19 have declined rapidly during the pandemic, and close to half of Americans are undecided or unwilling to be vaccinated
A review of innovation strategies and processes to improve access to AT: Looking ahead to open innovation ecosystems
No full textIt is essential to understand the strategies and processes which are deployed currently across the Assistive
Technology (AT) space toward measuring innovation. The main aim of this paper is to identify functional
innovation strategies and processes which are being or can be deployed in the AT space to increase access
to AT globally. We conducted a scoping review of innovation strategies and processes in peer-reviewed
literature databases and complemented this by identifying case studies demonstrating innovation
strategies. The review includes WHO world region, publication year, AT type and a sector analysis against
the Systems-Market for Assistive and Related Technologies Framework. We analyzed the case studies and
interviews using thematic analysis. We included 91 papers out of 3,127 after review along with 72 case
studies. Our results showed that product innovations were more prevalent than provision or supply
innovations across papers and case studies. Case studies yielded two themes: open innovation (OI); radical
and disruptive innovation. Financial instruments which encourage OI are needed and we recommend
pursuing OI for AT innovation. Embedding AT within larger societal missions will be key to success
governments and investors need to understand what AT is and their translational socioeconomic value
International management challenges of professional service firms: a synthesis of the literature
No full textPurpose – This paper aims to identify what international management challenges professional service
firms (PSFs) face and why they face them.
Design/methodology/approach – This study carries a focussed thematic literature review of 102
empirical articles. This paper uses content analysis to extract and aggregate challenges identified by
researchers in their fieldwork and then analysed this data using qualitative and quantitative
methods.
Findings – This study identifies 10 international management challenges that PSFs face and a number of
causes for these challenges. The analysis also suggests that the distinctive characteristics of PSFs generate
some of the international management challenges for PSFs.
Practical implications – This study helps PSF managers understand the international management
challenges they may face depending on the specifics of their company, thus helping them better prepare their
internationalisation.
Originality/value – This study contributes to providing a greater understanding of what is holding PSFs
back in their internationalisation and why. It demonstrates that distinctive characteristics of PSFs may
predict the challenges that PSFs will face, thus paving the way for further research on international
management in PSFs and for the development of the diagnostic tool for practitioners that could help them to
identify which challenges they should prepare for most
Sister cities, cross-national FDI, and the subnational FDI location decision
No full textWe investigate how intergovernmental ties at subnational levels between home
and host countries influence the intensity and location of foreign direct
investment (FDI) inflows. We focus on an intriguing type of subnational tie,
namely, International Friendship (Sister) Cities. A sister city is a decentralized
form of intergovernmental relationship that provides a platform by which a
multinational corporation (MNC) can approach a local government, customers,
and clients to acquire localized information and political capabilities. We argue
that cities with a sister-city relationship attract more FDIs than other similar
cities within a host country. The benefit extends to the national level as MNCs
have higher FDI levels in host countries with a greater number of sister cities
with their home country. We further investigate whether the effect of sister
cities on an MNC’s country selection is greater when host-country subnational
governments have a higher degree of autonomy relative to the national
government, and lesser when governments have a higher level of policy
uncertainty. Using data from the 1990–2009 period, we find consistent support
for our ideas as tested at two levels of analysis: a city-level matched sample
analysis on Japanese FDI inflows, and a country-level analysis on Japanese
MNCs’ country selectio
Towards a Model of Integrated Person-centred Care
No full textThis article discusses whether and to what extent the existing legal framework in Ireland enhances
integrated care, thereby facilitating smart and healthy ageing. After having provided an overview of the functioning
Irish healthcare system and of the current challenges it faces, the article moves onto examining the relevant legal
framework. It then discusses the extent to which current legislation and policies have supported the move towards
integrated care systems and the use of technology to facilitate independent living for older people. In that regard, this contribution supports the view that technology can act as a lever for integrated care, and highlights how
technology has been used and promoted thus far. The analysis proposed in this contribution suggests that the
current Irish legal framework does not actively promote smart and healthy ageing, but ensures a certain level of
protection in terms of decision making and privacy rights. On the whole, this article contends that additional
legislative and soft-law measures would facilitate innovative healthcare for older people
Scotland-Ireland Relations in a European Context
No full textUntil the Brexit vote in 2016, Scotland’s relations with the island of Ireland (i.e. both Ireland and Northern Ireland) took place in the context of the UK and Ireland being member states of the European Union. Ireland looked to its relations, North-South and East-West, in that EU context; in the East-West case both to the UK as a whole but also to its constituent parts, notably Scotland and Wales.
Scotland’s constitutional debate has inevitably played into Scottish-Irish relations, not least with the 2014 independence referendum, but the Irish government has tended to be adept and well-versed in dealing with constitutional sensitivities in its relations with the UK, including with respect to Scotland. Scotland’s constitutional debate continues: since the May 2021 elections to the Scottish parliament the Scottish government, has underlined its intention to hold an independence referendum during the new/current term of the Scottish parliament, something the UK government is currently opposed to.
But that constitutional debate now takes place in the context of Brexit having happened, even though 62% of Scottish voters chose ‘remain’ in 2016. Scottish debates over the desirability and feasibility of independence in the EU frequently look both to Ireland and to its Nordic neighbours to the East, seeing similarly sized countries prospering and having influence within the EU. Equally, despite the pronounced difficulties in EU-UK relations over the Northern Ireland protocol, there has also been some tendency in Scotland to look at that protocol as giving Northern Ireland the access to the EU’s single market that the Scottish government would very much liked to have kept (and which it proposed as a compromise to the UK government during the Brexit negotiations).
The UK left the EU on 31st January 2020 and left its single market and customs union on 31st December 2020. Scotland, inevitably, left with the rest of the UK. We now see a patchwork of differentiated relations across these two islands. Ireland remains an EU member state. Northern Ireland is part of the UK but is in the EU’s single market for goods and effectively in the EU customs union. England, Wales and Scotland are no longer in the EU’s single market or customs union; they face an internal border to Northern Ireland in the context of the protocol and a rather hard post-Brexit border to Ireland and the rest of the EU in the context of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and the Withdrawal Agreement. Ireland and the UK are also participants in their joint Common Travel Area in terms of movement of people, meaning England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland’s relations to Ireland are different from those to the rest of the EU where free movement has ended.
In this article, we explore the implications of this patchwork and differentiated set of relationships that Brexit has super-imposed on pre-existing relations, focusing on Scotland’s relationship to Ireland, and their different relationships to the EU. We also consider how different constitutional scenarios could impact in future on these relations
On the group generated by C, P and T: I 2 = T 2 = P 2 = ITP = −1, with applications to pseudo-scalar mesons
No full textWe study faithful representations of the discrete Lorentz symmetry operations
of parity P and time reversal T, which involve complex phases when acting on
fermions. If the phase of P is a rational multiple of π then P2n = 1 for some
positive integer n and it is shown that, when this is the case, P and T generate a
discrete group, a dicyclic group (also known as a generalised quaternion group)
which are generalisations of the dihedral groups familiar from crystallography.
Charge conjugation C introduces another complex phase and, again assuming
rational multiples of π for complex phases, TC generates a cyclic group of order
2m for some positive integer m. There is thus a doubly infinite series of possible
finite groups labelled by n and m. Demanding that C commutes with P and T
forces n = m = 2 and the group generated by P and T is uniquely determined
to be the quaternion group. Neutral pseudo-scalar mesons can be simultaneous
C and P eigenstates, T commutes with P and C when acting on fermion bilinears so neutral pseudo-scalar mesons can also be T eigenstates. The T-parity
should therefore be experimentally observable and the CPT theorem dictates
that T = CP
Spectral Domain Spline Graph Filter Bank
No full textIn this letter, we present a structure for two-channel
spline graph filter bank with spectral sampling (SGFBSS) on arbitrary undirected graphs. Our proposed structure has many desirable properties; namely, perfect reconstruction, critical sampling
in spectral domain, flexibility in the choice of shape and cut-off
frequency of the filters, and low complexity implementation of
the synthesis section, thanks to our closed-form derivation of the
synthesis filter and its sparse structure. These properties play a
pivotal role in multi-scale transforms of graph signals. Additionally, this framework can use both normalized and non-normalized
Laplacian of any undirected graph.We evaluate the performance of
our proposed SGFBSS structure in nonlinear approximation and
denoising applications through simulations. We also compare our
method with the existing graph filter bank structures and show its
superior performance
The sociology of Catholicism: A review of research and scholarship
No full textThis article seeks to review recent research and scholarship in the sociology of Catholicism, as well as focusing on areas needing greater attention. In taking stock of this literature, I identify institutional change, church-society interactions, institutional resources and influence, and the church as international actor as four key topics that have engaged scholarship. I review existing research under each, as well as highlighting gaps and blind spots that invite further inquiry of this specific religious group
Does an online professional profile violate an employer’s confidentiality?
No full textThe ECtHR’s decision in Herbai v Hungary focuses on freedom of expression. However, there is a larger issue that touches upon the overlap of employment obligations and professional engagement