CRO Update: Where are Contract Research Organizations Headed?

Goliath dynamic The CRO space has seen a flurry of merger and acquisition activity in recent years. 2016 saw the merger of IMS Health with Quintiles, resulting in the birth of IQVIA. "In a commoditized service area, scale is important, because it gives you a depth of business development and sales coverage in the market," Getz explains. John Kreger, an equity research analyst with William Blair in Chicago, IL, says the pharma industry's source of innovation has aggressively shifted from large pharmaceutical companies to small biotech startups. Coldwell says most CROs will forge partnership agreements with DCT software developers, but three or four of the world's largest CROs are building DCT technology in-house.

Tracking the Transit Divide: A Multilevel Modelling Approach of Urban Inequalities and Train Ridership Disparities in Chicago

Using a multilevel modelling approach, this study investigates the impact of urban inequalities on changes to rail ridership across Chicago's "L” stations during the pandemic, the mass vaccination rollout, and the full reopening of the city. Initially believed to have an equal impact, COVID-19 disproportionally impacted the ability of lower socioeconomic status (SES) neighbourhoods' to adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions: working-from-home and social distancing. We find that "L” stations in predominately Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino neighbourhoods with high industrial land-use recorded the smallest behavioural change. The maintenance of higher public transport use at these stations is likely to have exacerbated existing health inequalities, worsening disparities in users' risk of exposure, infection rates, and mortality rates. This study also finds that the vaccination rollout and city reopening did not significantly increase the number of users at stations in higher vaccinated, higher private vehicle ownership neighbourhoods, even after a year into the pandemic. A better understanding of the spatial and socioeconomic determinants of changes in ridership behaviour is crucial for policymakers in adjusting service routes and frequencies that will sustain reliant neighbourhoods' access to essential services, and to encourage trips at stations which are the most impacted to revert the trend of declining public transport use.

Assessing the Impact of Disruptive Events on Urban Mobility: A Case Study of Chicago Taxis during COVID-19

The rise of Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) over the last decade has significantly disrupted the taxi industry. Studies have shown that taxi ridership has plummeted, and their capacity utilization rates are lower than 50% in five major U.S. cities. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a severe blow to the already struggling taxi industry. To monitor the evolution of the taxi industry and its impacts on society, our study evaluates changes in the utilization rates, fuel consumption, and emissions among Chicago taxis, using taxi data with rich information on trip profiles from pre-pandemic and pandemic times. Our findings indicate that the taxi utilization rate decreased during the pandemic. While fuel consumption and emissions per kilometer decreased thanks to the reduced traffic during the pandemic, the overall fuel consumption and emissions increased due to increased deadhead travel. The methods developed in this study can be applied to monitor and evaluate the impact of future disruptive events on urban mobility and transportation systems more effectively. By utilizing mobility data to better understand transportation systems, we can develop more efficient, sustainable, and resilient mobility solutions for smart cities. © 2023 ACM.

25 ready-to-use sustainable living programs for libraries: by Elyssa Kroski, Chicago, ALA Editions, 2022, 208 pp., US$59.99 (softcover), ISBN 978-0-8389-3649-8

Library patrons have become more interested in sustainability and self-reliance since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The programs in this book are written by librarians and sustainability experts who have run these programs themselves. I would recommend this book to library staff who organise events, are interested in sustainable living programs, and who would like to help their communities to learn more sustainable and self-reliance skills. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Journal of the Australian Library & Information Association is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

U.S. Public Transportation Ridership Analysis and Prediction based on COVID-19

In this paper, a research was conducted to analyse and predict the impacts of COVID-19 on public transportation ridership in the U.S. and 5 most populous cities of the U.S. (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia). The paper aims to exploit the correlation between COVID-19 and public transportation ridership in the U.S. and make the reasonable prediction by machine learning models, including ARIMA and Prophet, to help the local governments improve the rationality of their policy implementation. After correlation analyses, high level of significant and negative correlations between monthly growth rate of COVID-19 infections and monthly growth rate of public transportation ridership are decidedly validated in the total U.S., and New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, except Houston. To analyse the errors of Houston, we consult the literature and made a discussion of Influencing factors. We find that the level of public transportation in quantity and utilization is terribly low in Houston. In addition, the factors, such as the lack of planning law and estimation of urban expressways, the high level of citizens' dependence on private cars and pride of owning cars play a considerable roll in the errors. And the impacts can be predicted to a certain extent through two forecasting models (ARIMA and Prophet), although the precision of our models is not enough to make a precise forecast due to the limitations of model tuning and model design. According to the comparison of the two models, ARIMA models' forecasting accuracy is between 6% and 10%, and Prophet's forecasting accuracy is between 8%-12%, depending on the city. Since the insufficient stationarity, periodicity, seasonality of time series, the Prophet models are hard be more refined. © 2023 SPIE.

Communities in Transitions: Reflection on the Impact of the Outbreak of COVID-19 on Urban China

"Community”, as a basic category of urban socio-space, has undergone evolution within academic, policy, and day-to-day life contexts in China. Through years of transitions, a kind of dual community emerged in Chinese cities before the epidemic. It encompassed a "conceptual community” based on the concept of (social) co-governance and an "experiential community” based on citizens' daily living. The disparity between the two had given rise to a paradoxical situation in local community governance practices. The outbreak of COVID-19 brought fundamental changes to the transition process. Through the analysis of 21 recording reports during the outbreak period, we found that to contain the pandemic, the community epidemic prevention measures necessitated both these communities to overlap within a brief time frame. This led to reinforced community boundaries, the coexistence of multiple actors, the reconstruction of a sense of security-based belongingness, and the reformulation of the governance symbolic system that temporarily resolved the paradoxical governance practices. What happened under the preface of co-governance logic during the outbreak period was the coverage and shaping of the conceptual community over the experiential community, which may continue during the post-epidemic era. This study offers a relatively new approach and valuable insights into examining the long-lasting impact of the epidemic on urban social space and sustainable development in the post-epidemic era.

Exploring violent crimes in Chicago during the COVID-19 pandemic: do location, crime type, and social distancing type matter?

The current study estimates the impact of the SAH order on violent crimes across public and residential locations: assault, battery, homicide, robbery, and sexual assault. Using interrupted time series analyses, it analyzes weekly crime data in Chicago, Illinois, from 2017 to 2020. The SAH order caused significant decreases in battery and sexual assault across public and residential locations. It also decreased assault in public locations only. Such decreases in assault, battery, and sexual assault were greater under the SAH order when social distancing was strictly enforced, as opposed to during the relaxation of social distancing. On the other hand, there were significant increases in homicide across public and residential locations. Robbery increased in public locations only. There were greater increases in homicide and robbery during the relaxation of social distancing, as opposed to under the SAH order. The study ultimately indicates that the impacts of the containment measures are conditional upon the offense location, type of crime, and level of social distancing being mandated. From a public policy perspective, it is important to allocate staffing and resources for law enforcement accordingly during the enduring pandemic.

At last, a silver lining

Medical Director, International Patient Services Program, Co-Director, Pediatric Travel Medicine Clinic, Director, International Adoptee Clinic, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois contributing editors Bernard A. Cohen, MD Section Editor for Dermcase, Professor of Pediatrics and Dermatology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland Jon Matthew Farber, MD Section Editor for Journal Club, pediatrician, ALL Pediatrics, Woodbridge, Virginia Carlton K.K. Lee, PharmD.MPH, FASHP.FPPAG Section Editor for The Clinical Pharmacologist's Notebook, Pediatric Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, Department of Pharmacy, and Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland MinaL.Alfieri.MD, MS nstructor of Pediatrics, Feinberg Schoo of Medicine, Northwestern University Attending Physician, Academic General Pediatrics, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois AminJ. MSCE Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences;Pediatric Infectious Diseases Attending, Director, Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, Associate Fellowship Program Director, Children's National Hospital, Washington, DC Michael S. Jellinek, MD Professor of Psychiatry and of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts Candice Jones, MD Board-certified general pediatrician in group practice in Orlando, Florida, former National Health Service Corps Scholar, AAP member, spokesperson and author Andrew J. Schuman, MD Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, New Hampshire Steven M. Selbst, MD Professor of Pediatrics, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Attending Physician, Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Nemours/Alfred I duPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington, Delaware As 2021 gets underway and an increasing number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are administered, I believe that 2021 will be much more of a "normal" year, especially with the hope of COVID-19 vaccine availability for children by fall 2021. Issues discussed include illnesses more prevalent in children of color, such as asthma, sickle cell disease, and COVID-19;the difference in pain managementfor White children versus children of color;and how bias impacts mental health issues in children of color.

Abolition as Durational Performance: Mutual Aid Aesthetics in Chicago's Southeast Asian Neighborhood

Responses to rising anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic prompted multiple, often conflicting, actions including calls to defund the police, calls for more police, bystander interventions, and the exploitation of violence to promote influencers' brands. In Chicago's "Argyle" Uptown neighborhood, an area known as a Southeast Asian refugee business district, Asian Americans and local white government officials promoting liberal multiculturalist urban renewal projects used the news after the Atlanta spa shooting to advance their plans for gentrification and increased policing. How do we understand the colliding narratives of racial antagonisms, racial solidarities, and the genocidal logics of urban renewal, as they emerge at the intersection of settler colonialism and the afterlife of slavery? How is this question complicated by the entwined issues of refugee resettlement and multiculturalist solutions to anti-Asian violence? In this article, I argue abolition as durational performance offers an embodied, performance studies based analytic and methodology for the study and praxis of abolition. Abolition as durational performance centers the creation of life-affirming institutions, relations, and spaces while navigating the histories and bodily impacts of white supremacy, anti-Blackness, native genocide, and US liberal war on refugee resettlement as it is enacted through urban renewal and redevelopment projects. I focus on Axis Lab, a community-based arts and architecture organization based in Chicago, which launched its mutual aid and public arts project in June 2020. This is an abolitionist project inspired by the Black Panther breakfast and political education programs.

Leading through Disruption and Change

Join us for a conversation with three Chicago-based Chief Information Officers. Learn how each has navigated the disruptions and changes associated with COVID-19 pandemic at their institutions and how their IT departments are faring under new conditions of remote and hybrid work. We'll look at the biggest challenges facing their institutions today and how they approached possible solutions. Meet our CIOS below. © 2023 Owner/Author.

Changing Higher Education in the United Kingdom: Examining Three Trends through a Neoliberal Lens

Perry discusses how neoliberalism has had a dramatic impact on higher education in the UK. She traces the history of neoliberalism in broad strokes from the pre-Thatcher years to the post-Thatcher years and identifies three key trends in higher education: widening participation and the politics of aspiration, the emergence of the student entrepreneur-consumer, and the marketization of higher education. With specific reference to the third trend, she discusses the use of Internet-based education by higher education institutions and its potential impact on students. The coronavirus pandemic has posed major challenges for student recruitment and increased the precariousness of students in the instructional process.

U.S. HATE CRIME TRENDS: WHAT DISAGGREGATION OF THREE DECADES OF DATA REVEALS ABOUT A CHANGING THREAT AND AN INVISIBLE RECORD

When prejudice-related data are combined and analyzed over time, critical information is uncovered about overall trends, related intermittent spikes, and less common sharp inflectional shifts in aggression. These shifts impact social cohesion and grievously harm specific sub-groups when aggression escalates and is redirected or mainstreamed. These data, so critical to public policy formation, show that we are in such a historic inflection period now. Moreover, analysis of the latest, though partial Federal Bureau of Investigation hate crime data release, when overlaid with available data from excluded large jurisdictions, reveals hate crimes hit a record high in 2021 in the United States that previously went unreported. This Essay analyzes the most recent national data as well as various numerical and policy milestones that accompanied the historic, yet incomplete, implementation of hate crime data collection and related statutes over recent decades. This analysis of emerging trends in the United States is undertaken in the context of bigoted aggression broken down over time.

Pandemic Time: A Critical Introduction

Researchers found that time was distorted during social distancing, the sense of time as slowing down was strongly associated with emotions and feelings of isolation, and the perception of time as speeding up was strongly associated with stress and personal care.1 The researchers acknowledged that their sample was biased toward middle- and upper-class women in the southeast region of Brazil, but they saw no reason why this sample could not be used to address their research question. In their 2020 "Feminist Response to COVID-19," however, a global network of feminist and women's rights organizations from the Global South and from marginalized communities in the Global North stressed that a feminist response to COVID-19 "must center the well-being of all people in an intersectional manner," must take into account how "multiple and intersecting discrimination . . . may increase the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on specific population groups and communities," and "that women, men, and gender non-conforming people within these groups will have different experiences and needs"2 Relatedly, they note how, "in many countries, curfews and lockdowns are being brutally enforced by military and police forces, often most cruelly targeting the most marginalized groups. NORMALIZING PANDEMIC TIME At the time of this writing, I have just recovered from my first bout of COVID-19. Since the virus first appeared in the United States in January 2020, I have remained very cautious. Because the media and public health officials have described home tests as somewhat unreliable, I took another one, which also came back positive.

COVID-Related Stressors and Psychological Distress Among Chicago Residents: the Moderating Role of Race.

BACKGROUND: Racial and ethnic minorities have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and have experienced greater financial loss, housing instability, and food insecurity due to COVID-related restrictions. As a result, Black and Hispanic communities may be at greater risk of experiencing psychological distress (PD). METHODS: Using data collected between October 2020 and January 2021from 906 Black (39%), White (50%), and Hispanic (11%) adults, we assessed racial/ethnic differences in the effect of three COVID-related stressors-employment stress, housing instability, and food insecurity-on PD using ordinary least square regression. RESULTS: Black adults reported lower PD levels compared to White adults (ß = - 0.23, P < 0.001), but Hispanic adults did not differ significantly from White adults. COVID-related housing instability (ß = 0.46, P < 0.001), food insecurity (ß = 0.27, P < 0.001), and employment stress (ß = 0.29, P < 0.001) were associated with higher PD. Employment stress was the only stressor to differentially affect PD by race/ethnicity. Among those that reported employment stress, Black adults had lower levels of distress compared to Whites (ß = - 0.54, P < 0.001) and Hispanics (ß = - 0.04, P = 0.85). CONCLUSION: Despite relatively high exposure to COVID-related stressors, Black respondents had lower levels of PD compared to Whites and Hispanics which may reflect differences in race-specific coping mechanisms. Future research is needed to elucidate the nuances of these relationships and identify policies and interventions that prevent and minimize the impact of employment, food, and housing-related stressors and support coping mechanisms that promote mental health among minority populations, such as policies that support easier access to mental health and financial and housing assistance.

Managing the curb – Public space and use of curbside cafes during the Coronavirus pandemic

Urban streets, especially curbside spaces, are increasingly complex and often contested. The Coronavirus pandemic created a new demand for street space to enable physical distancing. The urgency of the pandemic and the fear of covid exposure suspended traditional community engagement opportunities, opposition from residents and business owners, and considerations over the privatization of public street space. This exploratory paper uses the case studies of Toronto and Chicago to trace the past and present regulations and programs affecting curbside parking spaces. Through these cases, this paper addresses larger questions that relate the historical conceptions around curbside parking use with those put forward in response to the pandemic. Given the popularity of pandemic-related curbside space programs and their potential to become long-term interventions, this paper also raises several questions around privatization, access and social equity that must be addressed in future iterations of programs affecting curbside space. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

COVID-19, Retention in HIV Care, and Access to Ancillary Services for Young Black Men Living with HIV in Chicago.

This study conducted 28 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Young Black Men who have Sex with Men in Chicago to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on their HIV care and ancillary service access. The qualitative analysis identified both negative and positive effects. The negative effects included: (l) mixed disruptions in linkage to and receipt of HIV care and ancillary services, and (2) heightened concerns about police and racial tensions in Chicago following the murder of George Floyd, contributing to possible disruption of retention in care. The positive effects included: (1) the ability to reflect and socially connect, contributing to heightened self-care and retention in care, and (2) some improvements in receipt of medical care. These findings suggest that while COVID-19 disruptions in care reduced in-person use of HIV care, the expansion of telemedicine allowed more administrative tasks to be handled online and focused in-person interactions on more substantive interactions.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic, Social Vulnerability, and Opioid Overdoses in Chicago.

Introduction: This research was undertaken to examine the individual and neighborhood drivers that contributed to increases in opioid overdose deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The incident location and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Social Vulnerability Index (along with the individual indicators) were then geocoded to 1 of the 77 Chicago Community Areas. Changes in opioid overdose death rates were calculated and compared for each Chicago Community Area using linear regression between 2019 and 2020. Results: Opioid overdose deaths increased by 45% from 2019 to 2020. Chicago Community Areas in the highest 25th percentile of social vulnerability before the pandemic had a 2.8 times higher rate of opioid overdose deaths than Chicago Community Areas in the lowest 25th percentile. The increase in opioid overdose death rate observed from 2019 to 2020 was 10.2 times higher in the most socially vulnerable Chicago Community Areas than in the least vulnerable communities. Chicago Community Areas with the highest degree of social vulnerability had a higher baseline and disproportionate relative increase in opioid overdose death rate compared with the least vulnerable Chicago Community Areas. Conclusions: COVID-19 has revealed the urgent need for policies that better support the social and economic security of disadvantaged communities, particularly for residents who use opioids.

Pods in Action: Hyde Park Neighborhood Club. A Community Organization Treats Students as Individuals

Hyde Park Neighborhood Club (HPNC) is a small, hyper-local community-based organization that, before the pandemic, provided after-school care and enrichment to children living on the South Side of Chicago. During the pandemic, HPNC created a learning pod for children in grades K-8 to provide parents in the community with childcare and students with online learning support. HPNC staff supervised students' online learning and provided social experiences that were designed to mimic those that students would experience in school in a normal year. Key Lessons: (1) a community organization that provided after-school programs overcame scheduling challenges and competing parent demands to provide in-person support and enrichment to students in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood when school buildings closed during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, and (2) the organization hopes to provide more structured individual support to students after the pandemic, but faces logistical barriers and, more critically, a shortage of clear funding sources.

Primary health care and universal health coverage in Africa: Sustaining the legacies of Olikoye Ransome-Kuti

[...]this day, his achievements have remained unsurpassed by any health administrator in the country. 7) How may PHC be better deployed to address second-generation threats to human security like the rising frequency of zoonotic disease outbreaks (as witnessed in recent decades with EVD, SARS, MERS, Zika, and Covid-19), growing inequities in access to digital health resources, and worsening public health impacts of the climate crisis? To this end, as announced in this issue of the journal and in subsequent issues, the AJRH in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is calling for research papers as contributions to a special edition of the journal to be launched in May 2023 to celebrate the memories of Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and his contributions to health promotion and global development. ÉDITORIAL Soins de santé primaires et couverture sanitaire universelle en Afrique: pérenniser l'héritage d'Olikoye Ransome-Kuti DOI: 10.29063/ajrh2022/v26i9.1 Friday Okonofua1, Lorretta Ntoimo2, Bola Ekezue3, Ukpai Eze4, Akhere Omonkhua5 Uche Menakaya6, Babatunde Ahonsi7, Rachel Snow8 et Joseph Balogun9 Rédacteur en chef, AJRH, chef de centre, Centre africain d'excellence en innovation en santé reproductive, üniversite du Bénin, Nigéria1;Éditeur en sciences sociales, Departement de démographie et de statistiques sociales, üniversite fedérale d'Oye-Ekiti, Nigéria2;Éditeur en sciences sociales et en économie, Broadwell College of Business and Economics, Fayetteville State University, Caroline du Nord, États-Unis3;Éditeur scientifique, Leicester School of Allied Health Sciences, Faculté des sciences de la santé et de la vie, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, Royaume-Uni4;Éditeur scientifique, Département de biochimie médicale, Université du Bénin, Nigéria5;Éditeur clinique, directeur, JUNIC Specialist Imaging and Women's Centre, Calvary Public Hospital, Australie6;Coordonnateur resident des Nations Unies en Sierra Leone, Freetown7;Chef, Population et Développement, UNFPA, New York, États-Unis8;Professeur émérite de physiothérapie, Chicago State University, Chicago, Illinois, États-Unis9 *Pour la Correspondance: Courriel: feokonofua@yahoo.co.uk;Friday.okonofua@cerhi.uniben.edu Ce mois de septembre 2022 marque 19 ans et quatre mois depuis qu'Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, professeur de pédiatrie a l'Université de Lagos et directeur de l'Institut de santé infantile de l'Université est décédé a l'âge de 75 ans.