TMS 2023 BACK TO BUSINESS AT TMS2023

With nearly 4,500 attendees gathered in San Diego CA, the TMS 2023 Annual Meeting & Exhibition (TMS2023) was the fourth best-attended meeting in TMS history, marking a return to business as usual (more or less) after two decidedly unusual years for the Society's biggest event. By comparison, approximately 2,600 individuals came together in person for TMS2022 in Anaheim CA. One year earlier, TMS2021--held as a fully virtual conference--attracted 2,967 attendees from around the world. This year's event, held Mar 19-23 in one of TMS's most popular meeting locations, brought the conference back closer to its pre-COVID participation numbers. The last time TMS met in San Diego was in 2020 (shortly before widespread pandemic shutdowns began) when more than 4,600 individuals came together for the largest meeting in the Society's history.

Maximizing the Value of Remote Monitoring

The success achieved in the creation of the coronavirus vaccines, from speedy development to speedier authorization, leaves little doubt that remote monitoring has value. The trials' uniform design, standardized data language, use of central monitoring, and the heterogeneous patient population have all contributed to that survival rate. Survey respondents said COVID-19 has caused longer enrollment times (49%), amended protocols (45%), and paused protocols (41%).6 * The Oracle survey also showed that while two-thirds of respondents were using remote data collection in their trials-patient apps, ePRO and wearables-nearly half of these professionals said a primary concern with using new sources and methods of data collection was just that;shifting gears would mean adopting a new approach to manage, review, and interpret the data. * Starting last year, said Rajneesh Patil, IQVIA's vice president, Digital Strategy and Innovation, 60% to 70% of its customers looked at incorporating these standardized, transparent, remote monitoring methods into their protocol design. Agreed, said Oracle's Jim Streeter, global vice president, Life Sciences Product Strategy.

Nigeria's new president ‘must walk the talk on health'

Speed read Nigeria's president-elect eyes 40 per cent health insurance coverage in two years Ambitious target needs funding, human resources Over 75,000 nurses and midwives left Nigeria in five years [LAGOS] Health experts in Nigeria say the country's president-elect who will be inaugurated on 29 May must prioritise health care and refrain from politicising it. While Nigeria committed to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030, its National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) established in 2005 makes health insurance coverage voluntary. [...]in May 2022, after two decades of sustained calls by health professionals, a new Act was passed which aimed to provide health insurance for all Nigerians, through a mandatory mechanism and in collaboration with state health insurance agencies.

Introduction: A Call to Engage with Denial

Cruz was appointed as head of the General Directorate of Public Health in 1903, at a time when yellow fever had killed a thousand people in the city of Rio de Janeiro alone the previous year. The newspaper printed a portrait of a man suffering from a grisly tumor in late October 1904 and claimed that vaccines caused his ailment.8 The newspaper explained that vaccines were the, "monster that pollutes the pure and innocent blood of our children with the vile excretions expelled from sick animals, of a nature that contaminates the system of any living being. "9 This newspaper article argued that it was providing the public with the "information" it needed to evaluate the government's mandates.10 It is an example of coordinated efforts to spread mis/disinformation by the press as part of the effort to create a public campaign against Alves' public health policy. Uprisings, which were also taking place in the industrial workers' neighborhoods and the Afro-Brazilian districts with fierce hand-to-hand combat, were eventually put down and citizens were pressured to retreat by the army advancing by land and the threat of bombardment by the navy docked just offshore.11 The state used repressive measures (imprisonment, beatings, interrogation, and internal exile) and put the instigators, including Senator Lauro Sodré and military officers, on trial following the uprising.12 The government declared a "state of siege" and the uprising was controlled in three days.13 However, although the government had survived the assault, the Alves administration was forced to abandon its vaccine mandate and smallpox continued to plague the country for several more years, slowing plans to modernize.

Is Democracy Lost?

President Kais Saied's de facto dissolution of parliament in July 2021, abandonment of the constitution, and targeting of the opposition are clear signs that Tunisia is no longer a democracy and has returned to the authoritarian playbook of Arab leaders past and present. I see three main reasons for this abrupt end to Tunisia's decade-old democracy: 1) the failure to accompany political reform with socioeconomic gains for citizens;2) the subsequent rise of populism;and 3) the mistakes of the Islamic party. To move forward in Tunisia and the Arab world more broadly, prodemocratic forces must link freedom, development, and social justice.

Covid-19 and the 2020 presidential election

Whether deserved on not, US Presidents often receive the blame or the credit for the nature of the economy and direction of the country. Therefore, the status of the economy and the country in an election year can be a very important factor in election success for an incumbent President (or his party if an incumbent is not running). This is especially true in ‘battleground states' due to the presence of the Electoral College system where Presidential candidates need only win different combinations of states in order to become President. However, the 2020 Presidential election was vastly different from past election cycles in that an additional variable, COVID-19, was added to the decision calculus of voters. Eventually, the 2020 election came down to the extremely slim margins in three states (Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin) and thin margins in two others (Pennsylvania and Michigan). This paper shows that deaths from COVID-19 at the county level played a small role in demotivating voters to turnout in 2020 to cast their vote for Joe Biden as President. In other words, without Covid-19, President Trump's losses within these five states would have been even larger.

Editors' Note

Returning to the world prior to March 2020, though, is perhaps more of a return to a status quo in which those occupying positions of privilege and power—particularly in the Global North—shift focus back to the conventional news cycle. Aside from early reporting on COVID-19, former President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial and reactions to the United States' assassination mission of Qasem Soleimani dominated headlines in early 2020. [...]we cannot return to holding that level of unconcern for similar violence in the United States towards historically marginalized communities like Black and Indigenous People of Color.

Does Higher Education Provide the Necessary Skills and Competencies to Succeed in the Job Market and Life?

There is a crisis in higher education. One troublesome issue is the sharp drop in higher education enrollments as well as the decline in the number of colleges in the United States. There is evidence that some college degrees are not worth the time and the money, and students would have earned more had they joined the workforce immediately after graduating high school. The authors discuss some of the problems and posit that some higher education institutions in the United States have done a poor job of teaching crucial skills, including critical thinking, ethical thinking, collaboration skills, and character development. The most vital competency of all might be inculcating in students a passion for lifelong learning, which is necessary to develop the ability to adapt swiftly to changing business conditions. Without these skills, it should be no surprise that there has been a disconnect between higher education and employability.

Higher Education Development and Student Mobility During Crises: From a Comparative and Historical Perspective

More advanced transportation and a much flatter world structure accelerate the internationalization process of higher education, and which also makes it possible for the virus to spread quickly around the world. [...]in the age of globalization, there are much more potential factors that may cause global/regional social crises. Harari (2018) proposed in his 21 Lessons for the 21st Century that human beings are now facing new challenges caused by global warming, big data algorithms, and terrorism, and "when the old stories have collapsed, no new story has emerged so far to replace them.” [...]although the nature of medieval universities still more or less influences the current higher education, while anticipating the future trend of cross-border student mobility, it seems more appropriate to use the premodern history as a supplement, rather than evidence for proving that history repeats itself. According to the university archives, "over 500 UNC students had been treated in the infirmary and seven had died as a result of complications with the illness” (Cozens, 2020, para. 10). [...]presently, the State of New York is still the second most popular destination for international students in the U.S., and New York University in the City of New York "has been the leading host university for international students” since 2013 (Zong & Batalova, 2018, para. 16).

The Incumbency Advantage during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Examining the 2020 Polish Presidential Election

This article analyzes how the 2020 Polish Presidential election was affected by the recent COVID-19 pandemic in the context of global democratic backsliding. Specifically, this article examines how the incumbency advantage of President Andrzej Duda was bolstered during the pandemic by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS). Although PiS was unable to carry out every planned electoral manipulation, the party nonetheless helped Duda secure a second term in office in a historically close election. On the one hand, this article illustrates that while many of the tactics undertaken by PiS were within the limits of the letter of the law, its actions still undermined the spirit of Polish democracy. On the other hand, this article also contributes to the literature on democratic backsliding by underscoring the fact that the election in Poland was free and fair, which makes this regime qualitatively different from other cases in the region.

Erő és diplomácia - Az Egyesült Államok stratégiai érdekei és lehetőségei a Biden-kormányzat időszakában

Joe Biden hivatalba lépését követoen már láthattuk az adminisztráció elso üzeneteit és cselekvési elképzeléseinek elozetes körvonalazását, miközben több kérdésben Washington egyenesen lépéskényszerben volt. Az elnöki hatalom átvételekor a nemzetközi politikai és stratégiai folyamatok azonnali és határozott cselekvést kívántak a koronavírus-járvány és hatásainak kezelésében. Emellett az intézményi hatalomátadás és a szakapparátus Donald Trumptól örökölt muködési nehézségei ellenére is lendületesen látott hozzá az újjászervezodo külügyi apparátus, a szövetségest kapcsolatok és multilaterális intézmények megerosítéséhez,e Éppen ezért Biden elnök elso személyes külföldi körútja is az európai szövetségesekre fókuszált. Elemzésünk az amerikai stratégiai érdekekbol kiindulva az adminisztráció kül- és biztonságpolitikai opcióit vizsgálja meg, és az egyes kérdésekben az amerikai érdekek és az aktuális körülmények alapján egy valószínusítheto forgatókönyvet is meghatároz. Bár értékelésünknek ez az eleme szubjektív, ezáltal kívánjuk meghaladni az adminisztráció elott álló lehetoségeket ugyan kategorikusan - és gyakran ideológiai vagy pártpolitikai lencsén keresztül értelmezo - áttekinto, ugyanakkor szakpolitikai elorejelzésként „súlytalan" elemzéseket.Alternate :We have already witnessed the first messages and the preliminary contours of planned action since Joe Biden took office, while in some regards Washington was under direct pressure to act. When taking over presidential power, international politics and strategic processes required immediate and decisive action to tackle the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Moreover, Biden started to reforge allied relations and multilateral institutions despite the difficulties inherited from the Trump administration regarding the shortcomings of the professional administration apparatus and the transfer of power. Having these aims in mind, the first personal foreign trip of the president took him to European allies. This analysis examines the foreign and security policy options of the Biden administration based on U.S. strategic interests, also identifying a likely scenario regarding individual issues, taking the current circumstances into consideration. Even though this aspect of our analysis will be subjective, thus we deem to offer an analysis that goes beyond those "weightless" analyses that only provide an - ideologically or politically motivated - overview of the administration's options.

Financial Risk Management of the Russian Economy during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The research objects are the tax and budgetary policies of the Russian Federation. In this research, financial (budgetary) risks are understood as a decrease in the balance of the state (national) budget resulting from a reduction in revenues or an increase in expenditures. This research considers production in the main sectors of the economy as a key factor of financial risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research aims to analyze the main directions of the budgetary and tax policy of the Russian Federation that aimed at supporting the economy and the population during the spread of COVID-19, which is especially relevant in connection with the expected recession in a number of sectors of the economy and a decrease in the level of employment and, accordingly, the well-being of citizens. In these conditions, it is necessary to adjust the budgetary and tax policy to preserve the state's social obligations and expand social and economic support for businesses and citizens to smooth out the negative consequences of the impact of restrictive measures. The authors applied systemic and institutional approaches and statistical methods. The main results of the research reflect the need to (1) implement support measures (tax and budgetary incentives) for small and medium-sized enterprises, on which the crisis provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic has had the most destructive impact, and (2) to expand the volume of budgetary financing of social programs for financial risk management of the Russian economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Compositionally, the article consists of the following sections: the introduction, which provides an overview of the publication activity in the field of financing measures to overcome the spread of COVID-19 and substantiates the relevance and purpose of the study;the literature review, which lists modern authors whose works were aimed at studying similar issues as well as the methodological apparatus used by them, which are suitable for adaptation;the section ‘materials and methods', which provides more adaptive methods of other people's research and the authors selected in accordance with them are listed;the results section, in which the authors present the main array of statistical data, which is then discussed. At the end of the article, the authors draw conclusions about the applied fiscal policy tools that can be used effectively in the new economic reality.

Empty Streets

This visual essay invites renewed reflection on the iconography of the people. In the spring of 2020, Guatemala's President Alejandro Giammattei prohibited citizens from leaving their homes to help contain the spread of the novel coronavirus known as Covid-19. Doing little to manage the spread of the virus, these curfew events gave new aesthetic and political meaning to a familiar visual genre: photographs of empty streets. For more than a century, and especially in the summer of 2020, images of crowds and mass protests have provided both governments on the one hand, and protesting multitudes on the other with an aesthetic representation of the people. But this interest in collective assemblies has tended to engage only one side of the equation. To fully appreciate the visual power of the people, it is also necessary to understand those images from which people are strikingly absent.

Praising a Dead Dictator: How US Officials' Visits to Taiwan Wade into Complex Historical Debates

The trip occurred soon after Nancy Pelosi had visited the island with a bipartisan delegation of other elected US officials in what was the first visit by a US Speaker of the House of Representatives in 25 years, since Newt Gingrich's mission in 1997 (Timsit 2022). At that point, public comments by US President Joe Biden suggested that he viewed the visit as inadvisable, given the potential for escalation by China in response (Desiderio and Ward 2022). Since the Biden administration took power, it has been more common for US politicians to announce visits to Taiwan only once they have arrived, to minimise the window for China to react. [...]Pelosi's journey was fraught with symbolism—significant stops included meetings with semiconductor executives and a visit to a former prison from the authoritarian era to meet with Tiananmen Square student leader and Uyghur dissident Wu'er Kaixi;the last of the Hong Kong Causeway Bay booksellers to remain free, Lam Wing-kee;and Taiwanese human rights nongovernmental organisation worker Lee Ming-che, who was arrested in China and detained for five years on charges of subversion of state power (Apple Daily 2022).

The Ukraine-Russia War and Its Implications for Philippine Foreign Policy: Pushing Further to a Limited Hard Balancing Policy towards China

This article examines the impact of the Ukraine-Russia War on Philippine foreign policy. It observes that Russia's invasion of Ukraine created the widespread idea that China might emulate its strategic partner on how to deal with an irredentist claim by using force against Taiwan. This alarmed the Duterte Administration at the time it was shifting policy towards China from appeasement to limited hard balancing. This policy aims to constrain China's maritime expansion in the South China Sea by building up the Philippine military's external defence capabilities, maintaining its alliance with the United States, and making security arrangements with other middle powers like South Korea, Japan, and Australia. The outbreak of the Ukraine-Russian War further pushed the Duterte administration to this policy of limited hard balancing towards China. This was shown by President Duterte's decision to strengthen the country's security relations with the U.S. In conclusion, the article notes that the current Marcos Administration has followed its predecessor's footsteps in applying a policy of limited hard balancing policy towards the revisionist powers in the 20th century.

COVID-19 and the Ugandan Presidential Election: Contesting Lockdown Authority in Popular Songs

The COVID-19 pandemic struck when Uganda was in the middle of an acrimonious campaign season, in which longstanding president Yoweri Museveni was being challenged by Bobi Wine, a reggae singer turned politician. When Museveni imposed a strict lockdown, musicians sympathetic to Wine responded with songs about COVID-19 that challenged the government's short-term, biopolitical demarcation of the national emergency. Pier and Mutagubya interpret a selection of Ugandan COVID-19 pop songs from 2020, considering in musical-historical perspective their various strategies for re-narrating the health crisis.

The Office of Legal Counsel's Client is the President: Why the Model Rules Demand a Secretive Agency Identify its Boss

This Note argues that the Model Rules of Professional Conduct require the Office of Legal Counsel to identify President Biden as its client. Had the agency done so when Biden first took office, it could have immediately implemented Biden's policy preference: keeping former prisoners home during the coronavirus pandemic.

China in 2022: Political Power, Zero-COVID Policy, and Economic Slump

In 2022, president Xi Jinping's prolonged one-man rule was formalized, further concentrating political authority in the Communist Party of China. Unemployment increased sharply because of the continued zero-COVID policy, and the economy declined significantly, generating pain and dissatisfaction and leading to anti-government protests and demonstrations in several cities. At the end of the year, the Party recognized the crisis and eased the preventive measures. Internationally, the United States maintained its technology blockade, hampering China's economy.

Mongolia in 2022: From the COVID-19 Lockdown to Opening the Border

As in 2020, the biggest stories in Mongolia in 2021 and 2022 were elections, COVID-19, and how to cope with the contracting economy. At the end of the year, Mongolia was struggling to meet public health challenges and to recover from the economic downturn. Both the government that was elected in 2020 and the president who took office in 2021 have promised to improve corruption, which is endemic in Mongolia, but people have yet to see much change. Popular dissatisfaction led to a huge public protest in December 2022 that demanded the government ensure more transparency in the coal trade. Thirty years after a peaceful transition to democracy, Mongolia is facing its greatest challenge: how to maintain and develop a transparent democracy that truly cares about public opinion and people's livelihoods.