Should China Expand Its Medical Education Scale? Evidence From Comparative Research

Purpose This study compares doctor staffing level and the scale of medical education in China with those of other countries and proposes policy recommendations for future adjustments to the scale of China's medical education. Design/Approach/Methods This study employs a literature review and descriptive analysis. Findings China had 1.98 medical doctors per 1,000 people in 2018, ranking 85th out of the 193 member-states of the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2017, China had 1.99 practicing doctors per 1,000 people, only ranking above Turkey (1.88) in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. China had only 10.28 medical graduates per 100,000 people—placing in the bottom third of OECD countries. China's provision of 1.4 medical schools per 10 million people was also significantly lower than the global average (3.9). However, the average number of students enrolled in medical schools (509) in China was significantly higher than the global average (160). Originality/Value Although the scale of admission in undergraduate medical education must be expanded in China, this needs to be achieved while controlling the average number of medical students per school and reducing enrollment in low-quality medical schools. Furthermore, it is necessary to establish new medical schools while improving the operating level of existing ones.

Holistic Embodied OD: Integrating Head, Heart, Hands, and Whole Body for Change

This past decade has been filled with significant volatility and disruption for virtually every individual, group, organization, and society on Earth. The COVID-19 pandemic has been perhaps the most significant disruptor to day-to-day life globally since the age of world wars in the mid-20th century. Although OD scholar-practitioners may have seamlessly pivoted in response to COVID-19 and embraced the shift to interacting in a "virtual" world, the challenge of how to maintain an embodied use of self during relentless disruption and constant uncertainty remained. In this article, we discuss developing an enhanced use of self and propose the practice of Holistic Embodied OD as a method of integrating our entire selves-head, heart, hands, and whole body-for effective change practice through retrospective analysis of two case studies, one pre-COVID and one during COVID-19. "Holistic Embodied OD is grounded in the development of an enhanced use of self that integrates and equally values several different elements of our lived selfexperience and relationships with others: Thinking (Head), Feeling (Heart), Doing (Hands), and Being (Whole Body)" (Matthews & Szelwach, 2021, p. 7). Practicing in this way acknowledges that the body is our way of showing up and being in the world as scholar-practitioners who engage with others as embodied social beings. Through Holistic Embodied OD, we resist disembodied OD practice by staying fully present in each situation and flexibly adjusting ourselves and our methods to help organizations and communities facilitate effective and timely change.

Agents of Change? Families, Welfare and Democracy in Mid-to-Late Twentieth-Century Europe

Families have always been vulnerable. They have long been torn apart by the mass migrations of warfare, the oppression of minority groups, the closure of international borders and the refugee crises governed ‘from above'. Families have also always been powerful symbols. Nationalist–populist movements have capitalised on fears about familial decline and liberal democracies have built moralistic views of the family into their welfare systems. Yet, this special issue aims to demonstrate that families have not merely been objects or subjects buffeted by political and social change. Rather, families have also consistently acted as ‘agents of change'. This is not to valorise the family – families have been patriarchal, damaging and oppressive as well as supportive, empowering and caring. However, this is to say that historical work must take ‘the family' seriously as an active participant in shaping historical change.

International Criminal Cooperation in the Shadow of the Coronavirus Pandemic 1

European cooperation in criminal matters is a priority in all EU Member States, whether in the detection, investigation or judicial fields. In recent years, I have been carrying out research in the field of organised crime, during which I have realised that in investigations involving two or more Member States, it is almost impossible to achieve the desired objective without criminal cooperation. Then, in the spring of2020, investigative authorities had to deal with a variable such as the coronavirus pandemic, one of the consequences of which was that personal contact was minimised. However, one of the most important factors for successful and effective police cooperation are personal contacts, which can be achieved through training, meetings or even personal exchanges of views during the course of a criminal case. However, the activity of organised crime groups is ongoing, although it is fair to say that they favour cyberspace, but they have not given much thought to overcoming the obstacles that arose during the coronavirus pandemic. They have emerged in e-commerce, online marketplaces, but at the same time, they have expanded their existing network of recruiters and started to think globally. Their distribution activities and logistics have also changed. Typically, the online space can be observed for criminal activities such as drug trafficking, arms trafficking or fraud. The pandemic has also reduced the effectiveness of international cooperation on crime. In the research for this study, I am looking for answers to the question: what tools and methods of cooperation were available to the investigating authorities in the period before the pandemic and could they be further expanded? I will then contrast this period with the escalated situation during the pandemic. My research questions will include how and to what extent the coronavirus pandemic affected international criminal cooperation, in particular the use of Joint Investigation Teams. I also shed light on the question: what are the opportunities and obstacles to the use of available tools for criminal cooperation in the case of crimes committed in the online space? The threat is growing, it has more and more international aspects, so I think there is a need for deeper cooperation, not only between law enforcement agencies, but also involving the private sector and civil society. It is important to make the citizens of all countries aware of the threats they face.

A novel COVID-19 predictor model inspired by Flower Pollination Algorithm

The COVID-19 outbreak turned the world upside down by infecting hundred million people, killing more than five million and disrupting everyday life across the planet. The Wuhan virus shattered the global economy and brought daily life to a grinding halt in much of the world. The second largest populated country India had no escape as well. Since the very beginning of 20th century, machine learning based methodologies have been largely applied in epidemiological data analysis in order to control diseases and other health issues. In this regard, researchers have come up with various predictor models to forecast the future impact of the Wuhan virus, so that further spreading of virus can be controlled by implementing precautionary measures. The purpose behind this work is to investigate the prediction capability of Legendre Polynomial Neural Network (LEPNN) trained using the very popular bio-inspired Flower Pollination Algorithm on the real data set of three categories of COVID cases in India as well as Odisha. The three types are the confirmed, deceased and recovery cases of daily basis. The prediction performance of the LEPNN-FPA model has been assessed with respect to the performance of two other models. © 2022 IEEE.

American Christianity and the New Eugenics: Consumerism, Human Genetics, and the Challenge to Christian Personhood

Christian leaders and organizations sided overwhelmingly with politicians, scientists, social elites, and various progressive groups to champion the application of "scientific" methods designed to improve the nation's gene pool. Large numbers of Christians believed that genetic improvement of the human species was in keeping with God's command that humankind exercise dominion over creation.2 The unholy association of American Christianity with eugenics laboratories and associations was undermined by 1940 through rec-ognition of Nazi atrocities and realization of the extent to which eugenicists would go in attempts to accelerate and enhance what they saw as "natural" evolutionary processes. The generally favorable disposition of American Christians to the market's moral outcomes, even those that seem to test their reli-gious values, creates a climate in which churches increasingly will be challenged to protect the divine source of human dignity-what German theologian Helmut Thielicke called "alien dignity"-from functional and manipulable views of the person that arise alongside markets for genetic services.3 The entrepreneurial nature of the new "consumer" eugenics also highlights a divide that has formed between American churches and their memberships. Newborn screening and various forms of "reproductive genetics," oncology practices, treatments for auto-immune diseases, and even the response to the COVID-19 pandemic have been boons to this industry, not to mention growth in general interest among Americans eager to learn more about their genealogical and family histories.5 There is even a mail order industry for amateur geneticists who wish to experiment with gene editing in the privacy of their homes.6 It is consumer demand by individuals whose motivations range from the simple desire to experiment with cutting-edge technologies to those who envision possibilities for human "enhancement" to patients who face debil-itating genetic diseases, which fuels fear of a new eugenic age.

Urban Rehabilitation and Tourism: Lessons from Porto (2010–2020)

Cities experience rapid growth and transformation. Over the past decades, change has been particularly intense and complex, associated to globalization, spatial compression and temporal acceleration. Within this context, the EU funds introduced new urban rehabilitation dynamics that made a city center more and more attractive. This, alongside the growth of international tourism, has increased the number of city users, which has furthered the discussion on the relation between the physical, economic, social and environmental intervention of the city, as well as the debates on the positive and negative impacts of tourism in cities. With that in mind, we look at the intense change that occurred in the city of Porto, Portugal, in the period from an intense economic crisis to the COVID-19 confinement. We consider changes in buildings, retail and policies to conclude that a neoliberal attitude favoured a tourism-led and sustainability blind gentrification. Based on a survey and analysis of 50 urban rehabilitation initiatives in downtown Porto and on the analysis of recent public policies, we discuss the relation between urban rehabilitation and tourism in Porto, and therefore the effectiveness of public policies and its contribution to sustainable urban development.

A New Age for Religious Demand: Spiritual Care and Mental Well-Being

Faced with this new need for an enhanced spirituality, it is only natural that religions are called to play a vital role, but the target may be somewhat different from a more traditional emphasis on grand or Big Questions: creation, life and death, sin and atonement, recognition of the Absolute, heaven and hell, and so on. Since the last phase of the 20th century, an opposing philosophy has been advanced under the term "Postmodernism," which is characterized by pluralism and relativism, rejecting the universal validity of stable identity and hierarchy, emphasizing the rights of minor and weaker segments of the population, and calling for social participation of women, for example. Many problems caused by COVID-19 physically and mentally have been handled by medical doctors together with clerics, though of course the situation was unprecedented for all involved. [...]COVID-19 has intensified and highlighted the seriousness of these small and individual questions. Let us start with the development of new fields of academic research, followed by discussion of actual practices on the ground. a.Study of Death and Grief Care Study of Death (thanatology) entails the description or investigation of death and dying and people's psychological coping mechanisms, hence, it aims to contribute to alleviating sorrow and stress experienced by the dying and to the treatment of mental pain of all those who suffer in the last stage of life.

Norwegian and Russian settlements on Svalbard: An analysis of demographic and socio-economic trends

The Svalbard archipelago is a centre of global research on climate change and also an example of a rapidly changing Arctic area with tourism replacing the traditional mining industry. We compared the different development paths of the Norwegian (Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund) and Russian settlements (Barentsburg and Pyramida) on Spitsbergen as part of the Svalbard archipelago using demographic and socio-economic data until 2022 when available, but not focusing on the impacts of COVID-19 and changing geopolitics after 2022. We analysed strategy documents produced by Norway and Russia and by organisations connected to Svalbard. The analysis continued by scrutinising the statistical data available to ascertain if this supported the strategic goals outlined in the documents. Data collection was by direct enquiry to national statistical bureaus, agencies and institutions in Norway and Russia. Secondary data were collected from media publications and social media accounts. Statistics Norway provided very detailed data on demographics and industrial structure, turnover, investments and comprehensive statistics on employees by industry on Norwegian settlements on Svalbard. The results revealed disparities in socio-economic development, striking differences in data availability and in transparency between the Norwegian and Russian settlements. The population in the Norwegian settlements continued to grow during the period 1990–2022 with an increasing number of foreign nationals, and the population in the Russian settlements decreased by 85% at the same time period. The Norwegian settlements exemplify a diversified economy with a growing private sector, and the Russian settlements continued to rely on the town-forming Russian state unitary coal mining enterprise, Trust Arktikugol. While Svalbard presented a prime example of open data and transparency in the environmental sciences, the socio-economic and demographic statistics were lagging behind. Several practical proposals are presented for improved data collection on the Svalbard settlements.

Scientific Theories as Bayesian Nets: Structure and Evidence Sensitivity

We model scientific theories as Bayesian networks. Nodes carry credences and function as representations of propositions within the structure. Directed links carry conditional probabilities and represent connections between those propositions. Updating is Bayesian across the network as a whole. The impact of evidence at one point within a scientific theory can have a very different impact on the network than does evidence of the same strength at a different point. A Bayesian model allows us to envisage and analyze the differential impact of evidence and credence change at different points within a single network and across different theoretical structures.

Co-production Practices in Public Social Services during the COVID-19 Lockdown Period. An Example from Centers for Older Adults Organized under the Polish Government's Multiannual Program "Senior+"

The continuing COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting our health and other aspects of our lives - work, family life, and contact with others. Everyday functioning has changed completely. The threat of the pandemic has forced us to develop new everyday practices, including co-producing services in conditions of minimal direct contact. The article aims to present co-production practices in public social services during the COVID-19 lockdown period. The discussion is based on the results of nationwide research conducted in Poland among formal organizers of services in local centers for older adults organized under the government's multiannual program "Senior+" (155 from 772 centers throughout Poland). The author distinguished three primary forms of the older people co-production (Elementary, Individual, and Collective) filled with various service practices during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

Destroying Institutions: Abandoning the Medical Profession During a Pandemic

Institutions have been described as essential patterns of behavior that come to support a society and are generally understood and agreed upon in their roles. They can include behaviors that individuals must participate in as in rites of passage in religion, or in the use of money or joining a military or providing labor for communal structures or means as in irrigation. When one segment of a society comes to disagree with the goals of institutions and withdraws support or actively attacks one or more, it threatens not only the existence of the institution but the society as an organization. Often in history, revolutions are built on such attacks as in those of the Optimates in Ancient Rome or the Bolsheviks in Russia. The attack on the medical profession in the United States has been one that has a longer history, one bracketed in disbelief in science in general and has set the two institutions of religion and medicine at odds. An underfunded medical profession has faced the pandemic in a cloud of conspiracy theories that question even the purpose or need for medicine. The consequences during Covid-19 have been catastrophic by many assessments.

Scientific production on corporate communication: a systematic study in Scopus with COVID-19 as a determining factor

PurposeSearching, identifying and analysing the scientific literature on "corporate communication” published in scientific journals during the twenty-first century (2000–2021) and indexed in the Scopus database, as well as its possible relationship with COVID-19.Design/methodology/approachA systematic bibliographic search was carried out in Scopus and a subsequent analysis of the literature, based on variables such as year of publication, authorship, original language of the text, most used terms and concepts, journal titles, keywords and possible allusions to COVID-19 or the pandemic.Findings2023 results were initially identified, but after applying the filters that limited the results in time (2000–2021) and discriminated—according to the type of document—the results only to scientific articles, the sample finally analysed was 1,280 articles relating to "corporate communication”. It was found that these were mainly published in journals such as Corporate Communications and Journal of Communication Management, in English, and with an accentuated thematic dispersion, but mostly related to public relations, advertising and communication in general.Originality/valueThere is an article published in 2012, before the COVID-19 pandemic, in the Italian journal Igiene e sanità publica, which already established the relevance of researching the challenges and solutions to communication risks in health crisis situations.

Shifting the Narrative of American Medical History: Disorder: A History of Reform, Reaction, and Money in American Medicine. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021. 584 pp. $35.00 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0300257403

In many ways, this shift paralleled the decade's larger conservative turn, but when American politics shifted leftward during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the AMA continued to take professional medicine into "ultra-conservative” territory, much to the social disadvantage of Americans. Medicine's reactionary turn brought the profession into questionable relationships with the drug and tobacco industries, which in turn led to profits that the AMA used to lobby politicians and influence public opinion against public health and national health care plans that AMA leadership feared would compromise physicians' influence within the health-care marketplace. According to Swenson, recent developments within medicine, including the AMA support for the Affordable Care Act (signed into law in 2010) and physicians joining together during the COVID epidemic to support public health directives in the face of impassioned conservative opposition, point to how the profession may be on the verge of another pendulum swing back to its progressive roots.

The Indian Democracy (Dichotomy of Hindu- Muslims): From Victorian England to Modi Raj

The world in the 20th century broke the chain of colonization and slavery and has seen the rise of Democracy as the new rule of law. India which was a single nation till the evening of 14th august 1947, eventually carved out into three separate nation states in form of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India itself. This paper attempts to analyses the adoption of democracy as the rule of law in the Indian subcontinent. This article traces the development of the democracy in India from the ashes of the partition to being the world's largest democracy. The beginning of the third decade of the 21st century is marked with the devastating second wave of the coronavirus in India. India being the world's largest functioning democracy has seen the people waiting outside the crematorium with the bodies of their loved ones to lay them on the pyres and on the other hand it also seen the election campaigns and the elections in the coastal state of West Bengal. This raises some serious questions about the functioning of democracy in India. This paper attempts to analyses and understand the Indian democracy from being a demand from the colonial masters to being the world's largest democracy with a crippling public sector and poor performance in the various development indexes. Thus, this article will help the readers to understand that the Indian democracy is just a simple flawed version of the democracy borrowed from the Victorian England or it is just a myth.

NOT JUST ESCAPISM—MEDICINE-RELATED FICTION FILMS AS THERAPEUTICAL AND EDUCATION TOOLS AMID PANDEMIC: A FILM AND LITERATURE RESEARCH

Background: During epidemic disease outbreaks, people’s daily lives are restricted by quarantine and social distancing measures that can affect not only their physical and mental health but also other aspects of their lives, including education. The quality of medical education has suffered amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with on-site classes and conferences canceled or postponed. To address the resultant gaps in learning and supplement the rigors of formal medical teaching, recent research has suggested the use of nonfictional films. However, research on the educational and therapeutic value of fictional films is currently lacking. Methods: This study explored fiction films featuring medical practices, diseases, and treatments. The researcher conducted multiple searches using the largest internet movie databases (Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the American Film Institute Catalog, and the British Film Institute’s Collections Search) and literature research focusing on studies related to the value of films as visual learning and educational tools and their therapeutic effects on viewers in times of pandemics. Results: The researcher chose a representative selection of 20 films from over 100 years of cinematic history to educate and intellectually challenge practitioners under lockdown and use as a therapeutic tool. This study identified many ways films could be a potent instrument for medical education and a wide range of educational and therapeutic possibilities for use during public health crises. Medical fiction offers a highly entertaining and effective way to expand and improve medical knowledge and practices while respecting pandemic restrictions. The findings expand our knowledge on the value of medical fiction as an educational and therapeutic tool. Conclusions: Fictional films can be an advantageous, effective, and entertaining medium for educating physicians and improving their medical skills and practices. When public health crises or other concerns necessitate «work from home» and socially distanced conditions, movies can augment and enhance high-level medical learning and offer new perspectives that might be obscured in times of trauma, making them especially valuable for those struggling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 The authors.

Development of Spanish Villages through Oral Memory: Mid-Twentieth Century El Campello

Oral memory is one amongst the most valuable sources of human knowledge, even more so nowadays when the COVID-19 pandemic has taken so many of our elders out. The personal narratives of our towns' dwellers during the past century let us know not only their way of life, customs, and traditions, but also the morphology of the city, its layout and urban evolution, its architecture -both for family homes and monuments-, and most significant of all, the way of using said spaces. The researchers behind this paper, in partnership with Grup Salpassa and the Council of El Campello, have chosen a methodology based on the oral history to expand the knowledge of the mid-20th century village by means of a series of interviews with some octogenarian locals -shaped as thematic "micro-histories", published on social media, and orthophotos, which are subject to urban analysis with the location of streets, public buildings, facilities, and commercial areas. All this is accompanied by moving and previously unpublished images of everyday life and festivities, which set up a stronger emotional bond and stronger terrain roots for current societies.

Realizing full speed after organizational change projects: Impact of restructuring activities on the motivation of high potentials

The COVID-19 pandemic10 and also digitalisation and international competition have also pushed companies to become more future-proof and the ability to restructure is of considerable relevance for organisational resilience30. High potential employees become key players in the implementation of restructuring activities as they have a wide horizon in the company and can take the responsibility21. This study used qualitative research to explore the impact of restructuring activities on the motivation of high potentials. The content was analysed according to Mayring's qualitative content analysis22. The factors of participation in the restructuring process and an open as well as transparent communication have the strongest influence on the motivation of high potentials during the restructuring phase. Career development and compensation are motivators for high potentials to perform strongly further for a degree of autonomy in a function and the meaningfulness of tasks are relevant aspects that can drive employee motivation. Subsequent research can examine the significance of the motivating factors in more detail for example, at what point does salary become less important for high potentials.

Practising International Thought as a Critique of Populism: Realist Accounts for a Democratic Political

Der Beginn der dritten Dekade des 21. Jahrhunderts fühlt sich wie vor hundert Jahren an: ein Virus hat eine Pandemie verursacht, die Weltwirtschaft hat einen Einbruch erlitten, die Arbeitslosigkeit steigt und Demokratien sind in Gefahr von Populisten unterwandert zu werden. Im Gegensatz zu den 1920ern sind heute jedoch vor allem Staaten mit einer langen demokratischen Tradition von Populisten bedroht. Um Wege aufzuzeigen, wie sich Demokratien vor Populismus schützen können, beschäftigt sich dieser Artikel mit dem Wirken von Hans Kelsen und Hans Morgenthau;zwei Intellektuelle, deren Werk von eigenen Erfahrungen mit Populismus in der Zwischenkriegszeit geprägt wurde. Obwohl Kelsen und Morgenthau gegensätzliche Ansätze aus ihren Erfahrungen entwickelten, waren sie doch in ihrer Ablehnung anti-demokratischer Kräfte in der Weimarer Republik vereint. Eine Wiederbeschäftigung mit ihrem Denken lohnt sich daher für gegenwärtige Politikwissenschaft, da sich aus dem Werk Kelsens und Morgenthaus Rückschlüsse über das Wiedererstarken von populistischen Bewegungen heutzutage gewinnen lassen.Alternate :Starting the third decade of the twenty-first century feels like a hundred years before: a virus has led to a pandemic, economies are struggling, unemployment is rising, and democracies are under threat by populist demagogues. In contrast to the 1920s, however, particularly countries with long democratic traditions are threatened by populism today. To identify potential pathways to protect democracies, this paper returns to the 1920s by focusing with Hans Kelsen and Hans Morgenthau on scholars who had first-hand experiences with populism in Europe. While both pursued contrasting approaches to deal with their experiences, they took a similar stance to anti-democratic forces. A reengagement with their thought helps to sensitise current scholarship to understand why such demagogues are resurfacing again.