Global Membership Research Articles

International Survey of Psychosocial Care for Cancer Survivors in Low-/Middle- and High-Income Countries: Current Practices, Barriers, and Facilitators to Care.

The number of cancer survivors living with and beyond cancer treatment is rising globally. It is fundamental to understand the extent and type of psychosocial care services offered worldwide. We evaluated models of cancer survivorship care, psychosocial care practices in the post-treatment survivorship phase, and barriers/facilitators to delivery of psychosocial care services, including in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS) Survivorship Special Interest Group led a cross-sectional online survey between March and November 2022. Health care professionals and researchers in psycho-oncology were invited through the IPOS global membership, social media, and snowballing. The survey was administered to individuals but included questions related to practices in their country at a national level. Two hundred eighty-three respondents from 37 countries participated (40% from LMICs), with a median of 12 years of experience (IQR, 6-20) in the psycho-oncology field. Participants reported that the most common elements of routine survivorship care were related to the prevention/management of recurrences/new cancers (74%), physical late effects (59%), and chronic medical conditions (53%), whereas surveillance/management of psychosocial late effects (27%) and psychosocial/supportive care (25%) were least common. Service availability was more commonly reported in high-income countries (HICs) than LMICs related to reproductive health (29% v 17%), genetic counseling/support (40% v 20%), and identifying/managing distress (39% v 26%) and pain (66% v 48%). Key barriers included providers focusing on treatment not survivorship (57%), medical not psychosocial care (60%), and a lack of allied health providers to deliver psychosocial care (59%). The psychosocial needs of people living with cancer are not adequately available and/or provided in post-treatment survivorship even in HICs, because of barriers at patient, provider, and system levels.

Clinical oncology pharmacy has become a reality: results of a member survey of the European Society of Oncology Pharmacy Global

Abstract Introduction: The European Society of Oncology Pharmacy (ESOP) Global has almost 4000 members across 70 countries. Over the past few decades, the focus of oncology pharmacists has shifted, from a mostly product-based role to include a patient-centric care model, often termed clinical pharmacy. To map the advancement of the integration of clinical pharmacy into daily oncology pharmacy practice, a survey was conducted among the members of the ESOP Global in 2023. Methods: A survey comprising 28 questions was distributed across the full ESOP Global membership. Questions were grouped to obtain demographic results (first section), the practice of clinical pharmacy (second section), and barriers to providing clinical oncology pharmacy (third section). Results: Overall, 314 colleagues responded to the clinical oncology pharmacy survey from 59 individual countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, yielding a response rate of 28.6%. Overall, all participants who responded to the survey reported being involved in one or more tasks associated with clinical oncology pharmacy, with the highest responses in the section's patient counseling (62.5% of participants actively counseling outpatients) and drug–drug interaction checking (performed by 58% of participants). Furthermore, almost 50% of participants indicated that their pharmaceutical interventions are always or usually accepted by doctors. Conclusions: This survey showed that there is currently an operational clinical oncology pharmacy service in all countries surveyed. This may provide a reference for policymakers, promote international communication, and shed light on the future development of clinical pharmacies in oncology settings. These survey findings may also help guide future education strategies for the ESOP Global and other providers of oncology pharmacy education.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion in the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer: a global membership survey.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are essential for healthcare organizations since they allow for the development of programs and initiatives that bring together diverse perspectives and knowledge. Global multidisciplinary organizations, such as the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC), need to understand the perspective of their members regarding EDI to identify opportunities to enhance diversity and inclusiveness and to better meet the needs of members from different backgrounds and resources. The MASCC Health Disparities Committee designed a survey to identify issues related to disparities faced by MASCC members when providing supportive care to patients with cancer and to examine the EDI landscape within the organization. Here, we report results related to EDI initiatives within the organization. Two-hundred and eighteen MASCC members responded to the survey (response rate 10.2%). The results indicated that respondents were generally satisfied with how MASCC manages leadership, membership, and organization-related EDI issues. Opportunities for improvement noted by respondents included developing strategies to foster a more diverse membership, improving communication regarding diversity in the organization, and increasing EDI content in educational sessions and publications. The results of this survey represent the first attempt at understanding how to improve EDI within MASCC and will be utilized to guide further initiatives and programs.

Protocol-Based SMC for Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Semi-Markovian Jumping Systems With Channel Fading

The sliding mode control (SMC) problem is studied for interval type-2 fuzzy semi-Markovian jumping systems (S-MJSs) subject to channel fading. To reduce the network burden, a dynamic event-triggered protocol is adopted to improve the transmission efficiency. A key feature is that the signal transmission is inevitably affected by fading phenomenon due to random noise and amplitude attenuation during the wireless communication. The main challenge lies in designing an appropriate fuzzy control scheme to achieve the reachability of the specified sliding region in line with channel fading. Under the common sliding surface, a fuzzy SMC law is constructed, which is related to the state signals affected by dynamic event-triggered protocol and channel fading. Then, by means of the boundary information of the global membership functions, sufficient conditions to ensure the stochastic stability of the underlying system, and the system states can be driven on the specified sliding region within a finite-time interval, which attenuates the influence of the channel fading. In the end, the tunnel diode circuit model is simulated to verify the proposed SMC strategy.

The new ACS membership model: a year in review

The Committee on Membership Affairs (MAC), with the support of the ACS Council and ACS staff, launched a new membership model in 2022. The model has different membership options to suit different needs. Members can now opt for a slimmed-down set of benefits with the Standard Package, which is half the price of the Premium Package. There is also a no-cost Basic Package for community associates. The cost of ACS membership also went down for all members. MAC remains confident in this new model and will continue to refine the full suite of available options and benefits according to our ongoing assessments of the ACS community’s needs. Overall membership in the society grew last year. We ended 2022 with over 173,000 individuals in our global membership community, compared with just over 151,000 a year earlier. But the inaugural year of our new membership model was not without challenges, which included

Evidence of the content validity, acceptability, and feasibility of a new Patient-Reported Impact of Dermatological Diseases measure.

The Global Research on the Impact of Dermatological Diseases (GRIDD) team is developing the new Patient-Reported Impact of Dermatological Diseases (PRIDD) measure of the impact of dermatological conditions on the patient's life, in partnership with patients. To develop PRIDD, we conducted a systematic review, followed by a qualitative interview study with 68 patients worldwide and subsequently a global Delphi survey of 1,154 patients to ensure PRIDD items were meaningful and important to patients. To pilot test PRIDD with patients with dermatological conditions, focusing on its content validity (comprehensiveness, comprehensibility, and relevance), acceptability, and feasibility. We conducted a theory-led qualitative study using the Three-Step Test-Interview method of cognitive interviewing. Three rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted online. Adults (≥ 18 years) living with a dermatological condition and who spoke English sufficiently to take part in the interview were recruited through the International Alliance of Dermatology Patient Organizations' (GlobalSkin) global membership network. The topic guide met the gold-standard COSMIN (Consensus-based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments) standards for cognitive interviewing. Analysis followed the thematic analytical model of cognitive interviewing. Twelve people (58% male) representing six dermatological conditions from four countries participated. Overall, patients found PRIDD to be comprehensible, comprehensive, relevant, acceptable, and feasible. Participants were able to discern the conceptual framework domains from the items. Feedback resulted in: the recall period being extended from 1 week to 1 month; removal of the 'not relevant' response option; and changes to the instructions and item ordering and wording to improve clarity and increase respondents' confidence in their ability to respond. These evidence-based adjustments resulted in a 26-item version of PRIDD. This study met the gold-standard COSMIN criteria for the pilot testing of health measurement instruments. The data triangulated our previous findings, in particular the conceptual framework of impact. Our findings illuminate how patients understand and respond to PRIDD and other patient-reported measurement instruments. The results of comprehensibility, comprehensiveness, relevance, acceptability, and feasibility of PRIDD provide evidence of content validity from the target population. The next step in the development and validation of PRIDD is psychometric testing.

Foreword

Foreword Ryan Alexander, Editor Following on the success of our spring 2021 special issue dedicated to Brazil, I am pleased to present to you a special issue dedicated to the topic of human trafficking in the Global South. Organized by Professor of Political Science Sabella Abidde at Alabama State University, Professor of Political Science José de Arimatéia da Cruz at Georgia Southern University, and Professor of History Michael R. Hall at Georgia Southern University, this issue looks at various dynamics of human trafficking in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The collection was inspired in part by the 7th INTERPOL Global Conference on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, just months before the Association of Global South Studies held its own annual meeting there. The editors of this collection have provided a brief introduction, which follows this foreword, to the project and the individual articles contained within it. As always, I want to express my thanks to the many people who make this journal possible, including the anonymous peer reviewers who review manuscripts; the volunteer associate editors (Joseph Bangura for Africa, Srobana Battacharya for Asia, Sonia Farid for the Middle East, Tyler Ralston for the Americas, Jason Strakes for Eurasia, and Michael Hall for book reviews); Sara Abernathy, JGSS editorial assistant; Lauren Phillips, manager of journals at the University of Florida Press; Raven Hudson, the press's editorial assistant for journals; and the copy editors at the press. Our parent organization, the Association of Global South Studies, was established in order to provide an international structure for the humane and scientific study of peoples, problems, and issues in the world's developing countries, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of life in those places. The late Dr. Harold Isaacs, professor emeritus of history at Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, Georgia, founded the Association of Third [End Page vii] World Studies (ATWS), Inc., in 1983. The association now has a global membership and chapters in South Asia and Africa. In the summer of 2016, following a vote of the members of the association, ATWS was renamed the Association of Global South Studies (AGSS). As ATWS, the association began its history as an institution in 1991 when, under the newly ratified ATWS constitution, elected officials assumed responsibility for the management of the organization. Since 1992, the executive headquarters have been located at Georgia Southern University (1992–2003), Mississippi State University (2003–2006), and Louisiana State University–Shreveport (2006–). Due to the dedicated and energetic leadership of Zia H. Hashmi and Paul Rodell at Georgia Southern, Shu-hui Wu at Mississippi State, and William Pederson at LSU-Shreveport, AGSS has made great progress as a global, professional organization. In 1995, the United Nations recognized the success of AGSS by granting it UN "consultative status," thus enabling the association to increase its direct impact on world development. AGSS has an established and newly revamped website, to be found at http://apps.gsw.edu/atws/. Membership in AGSS is open to any person interested in studying the developing countries. Yearly membership dues are $60.00, which includes an annual subscription to JGSS. The yearly subscription rate is $60.00; single copies are $30.00. Discounts are available for students and those living in the developing countries. Membership and subscription forms, as well as copies of JTWS/JGSS, may be obtained by writing to the Association of Global South Studies, Inc., care of Ryan Alexander, History Department, SUNY-Plattsburgh, Champlain Valley Hall 224, Plattsburgh, NY 12901. Individuals interested in submitting articles to be considered, or refereed, for publication by the JGSS Board of Editors should write to the editor, also Ryan Alexander, at the above address. Alternatively, manuscripts may be sent to the editor via email: ralex006@plattsburgh.edu. Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Scopus, GEOBASE, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), International Political Science Abstracts Database (IPSA), Political Science Database, Sociological Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, Periodica Islamica, Social Sciences Index, PAIS Indexes, CAB International (CABI), and others. [End Page viii] Copyright © 2023 Association of Global South Studies, Inc.

The Healing of Maseko

Enforced restriction of movement and social distancing regulations during the pandemic pushed a Nigerian-based church with global membership to innovate liveness without co-presence. The church purportedly transcended time-space limits in miracle performances during their Distance Is Not a Barrier digital sessions.

From the Wright Brothers to the A380: Developing Transplantation Takes Teams of Teams.

From the Wright Brothers to the A380: Developing Transplantation Takes Teams of Teams.

Indonesian K-Pop fans: The relationship between ARMY-BTS identity and their demographic

This article analysed the fans’ identity among K-Pop fans in Indonesia, especially BTS fans. The study aimed to explore how these fans express their identity as fans both internally and externally despite negative stereotyping of loyal K-Pop fans. Using a quantitative method through online surveys based on the fans-identity scale approach, the research surveyed a total of 243 BTS fans in Indonesia. Results showed that BTS fans had a positive tendency toward overall fan characteristics. None of the characteristics showed a negative score. It indicated that there was a high loyalty among the fans. Almost all six-behaviour dimensions observed correlated with all seven fans-identity characters. “Specific social media accounts followed” showed no correlation with “enjoyment” and “identity” respectively. However, high loyalty and a large number of fan-based did not translate into monetization for official merchandise. Results showed a low number of purchases for official merchandise and global membership package.

We Aren't Just 'Slack'ing Off: Utilizing a Digital Tool to Connect Emerging Women Leaders in Global Health.

Background:Investing in women leaders in global health catalyzes growth and positive outcomes for individuals and their communities, yet large gender disparities persist in leadership within the field due to several barriers. The use of digital tools facilitates cross-institutional and international collaborations to allow individuals or groups to create or share information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities. Digital tools can dramatically expand access to and the quantity and quality of opportunities for networking, mentoring, and collaboration to support women in their professional development.Objectives:The objective of this paper is to document tangible examples of positive experiences, connections, or collaborations resulting from connecting with other participants in a Slack network. We aimed to evaluate this network to understand how to better build, model, and scale advantageous digital networks of women leaders in global health moving forward.Methods:Semi-structured interviews were conducted virtually with seven members of the Slack network from Africa and North America who volunteered to share their experiences. Transcripts of six of these interviews were analyzed for key points using thematic analysis to derive short vignettes from each interview.Findings:The findings of this study indicate that Slack is a highly beneficial tool for women in global health to use for facilitating job searches, mentoring opportunities, promoting project collaborations, and proposing programming and outreach ideas in a remote environment. We found distinct recommendations for utilizing this digital networking tool in a way that best supports and engages women in global health. It is important to spread awareness and ensure visibility of the network to recruit and maintain members, design the network in a way that inspires internal motivation, encourage consistent and meaningful engagement, send weekly emails, and maintain accessibility for a global membership base.Conclusions:The Slack network provides an engaging digital tool that facilitates communication, opportunities, and growth among women in global health. Digital tools such as Slack can help to increase opportunities for participants from low- and-middle-income countries to engage in the same networking and leadership opportunities as individuals from high-income countries. It remains critical to continue to build, advance, and scale advantageous networks like Slack to promote equity and accessibility among women leaders in the global north and south into the post-pandemic world.

Social media in neurosurgery during COVID-19: an evaluation of the role of Neurosurgery Cocktail platform.

Social media use in neurosurgery remains an understudied phenomenon. Our study aims to examine the global membership and engagement of the prominent Neurosurgery Cocktail Facebook group with over 25,000 neurosurgeons and trainees worldwide, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Neurosurgery Cocktail's numbers of members, posts, comments, and reactions were collected from December 2019 to November 2020. Anonymized aggregate data of members' characteristics, including age, sex, and country of origin in November 2020, were also obtained. The most engaging posts in November 2020 were categorized into topics by a majority consensus of 3 reviewers. The average number of members steadily increased from 21,266 in December 2019 to 25,218 in November 2020. In November 2020, 18.8% of members were women, and 71.3% were between 25-44 years old. With members from 100 countries, 77.9% are from low- and middle-income countries, with the highest representation from India, Egypt, and Brazil. After the COVID-19 pandemic declaration, daily engagement peaked in April 2020 with a daily average of 41.63 posts, 336.4 comments, and 1914.6 reactions before returning to pre-pandemic levels. Among the 99 top posts in November 2020, the majority (56.5%) were classified as "interesting cases," with "education-related" as the second-most common topic (16.2%). Neurosurgery Cocktail has shown steady growth since its creation. The COVID-19 pandemic was correlated with a spike in activity without lasting impact. The group demonstrates social media's potential for knowledge exchange and promoting organic international collaborations.

Symptom profiles and health care utilization in long-term survivors of Survivors of Childhood Childhood Cancer Survivor (CCSS) study.

e22024 Background: Physical and psychological symptoms co-occur among survivors of childhood cancer, and subgroups with high symptom burden may be at increased risk for problematic healthcare utilization (HCU). Methods: Childhood Cancer Survivor Study participants (N = 17,231; Mean [SD] age = 27.4 [5.98]; 79% non-Hispanic White; 48% female) self-reported sensory, motor, cardiac, respiratory, pain, gastrointestinal, fatigue, memory, depression, and anxiety symptoms at baseline evaluation and latent class analysis identified symptom profiles. Chronic health conditions (CHCs) at baseline (graded per CTCAE 1-2 [mild or moderate; reference] vs 3-4 [severe-life threatening or disabling). HCU (no health care, general care, oncology-focused, long-term follow-up, emergency room visit) for the past 2 years was assessed 6.3 median years after baseline. Logistic regressions examined associations between class membership and follow-up HCU, adjusted for sex, age, health insurance and CHCs. Results: Five symptom classes were identified: 1) Global symptoms (global; 7.7%); 2) emotional distress and pain (distress-pain; 13.3%); 3) neurologic and pain (neuro-pain; 10.6%); 4) cardiopulmonary and pain (cardio-pain; 5.3%); 5) non-elevated symptoms (norm; 63.1%). Bone tumor survivors had higher risk of falling into global, neuro-pain and cardio-pain groups (p’s < .001), and CNS tumor survivors had higher risk of falling into global and neuro-pain group (all p < .001) compared to leukemia survivors. Radiation, Grade 3-4 CHCs, female sex, and older age increased risk of global, distress-pain, neuro-pain and cardio-pain membership compared to norm (all p’s < .001). Oncology-focused care was more common in cardio-pain and global symptom groups, while long-term follow-up care was more common in neuro-pain and global groups (Table). All elevated symptoms groups were more likely to have emergency room visits compared to norm group. Conclusions: Adjusting for insurance, CHCs and older age, elevated symptoms are associated with future emergency room use. Pain is prevalent in all high symptom groups, and suggests an important intervention target.[Table: see text]

SID: Powering the Display Industry for 60 Years

SID: Powering the Display Industry for 60 Years

Global membership of Guild CPO purchasing cooperative approaching 100

The Wabunsee (Carboniferous: Virgilian) through Sumner (Permian: Leonardian) Groups of Oklahoma preserve a record of terrestrial and nearshore marine environments during glacio-eustatic fluctuations caused by southern hemisphere glaciation. This section, with the Pennsylvanian–Permian Boundary firmly established in the Red Eagle Formation on the basis of conodonts, permitted study of vegetational change across the boundary interval. The palynology of 43 productive samples from five cores in Kay and Osage counties in Oklahoma was investigated. Palynomorphs were assigned to eight morphologic groups that also reflect climate preferences. Four distinct palynofloras are recognized. The three transitions between them—in the lower Council Grove, middle Chase and lower Sumner groups—are abrupt and, in succession, consistent with an interpretation of increasing seasonality/aridity from latest Pennsylvanian into the Early Permian. None of these floristic transitions align with the conodont-based boundary, or with any lithostratigraphic “group” boundary. These palynological data from Oklahoma are in accord with previous data from Kansas that also demonstrated no palynological shift at the boundary and increased seasonality/aridity through this period. Comparison of the palynofloras from Oklahoma, Kansas, and the boundary interval of the Pennsylvanian–Permian Boundary type section in Aidaralash Creek in Kazakhstan reveals differences in composition that suggest local to regional, including climatically induced, heterogeneities that may present an obstacle to confident palynologically based, global correlations in fully terrestrial sections.

A multi-modal and multi-scale emotion-enhanced inference model based on fuzzy recognition

Only the label corresponding to the maximum value of the fully connected layer is used as the output category when a neural network performs classification tasks. When the maximum value of the fully connected layer is close to the sub-maximum value, the classification obtained by considering only the maximum value and ignoring the sub-maximum value is not completely accurate. To reduce the noise and improve classification accuracy, combining the principles of fuzzy reasoning, this paper integrates all the output results of the fully connected layer with the emotional tendency of the text based on the dictionary to establish a multi-modal fuzzy recognition emotion enhancement model. The provided model considers the enhancement effect of negative words, degree adverbs, exclamation marks, and question marks based on the smallest subtree on the emotion of emotional words, and defines the global emotional membership function of emojis based on the corpus. Through comparing the results of CNN, LSTM, BiLSTM and GRU on Weibo and Douyin, it is shown that the provided model can effectively improve the text emotion recognition when the neural network output result is not clear, especially for long texts.

Role and Relevance of International Organizations in Present Global scenario

" With dynamic international socio-economic, political, and climate change scenarios the role and relevance of international organizations are continuously changing. An international organization has a stable set of norms and rules to govern the behavior of states and other actors in the international system. The first and oldest International organization being established employing a treaty, and creating a permanent secretariat, with global membership was the International telecommunication union (Founded in 1865).The First general international organization addressing a variety of issue-was the League of Nations. The United Nations followed this mode; after world war-II. The present study is focusing on the role and relevance of international organizations in the present global scenario. It analyzes the importance of the international organization in socio-economic and political as well as environmental development across the world. It will provide greater insight towards identifying the challenges present in the global scenario and in turn role and relevance of international organizations to solve them. It fulfills current literature gaps and provides a base for future research trajectories"

Tick-box, weasel words, or a transformative experience? Insights into what educators consider the real impact of HEA Fellowships

ABSTRACT Global membership of the HEA fellowship scheme is increasing. Despite the focus by academic developers on supporting staff to achieve fellowship, there is limited research that examines whether it improves teaching and the learning experience. Our detailed survey of educators in the UK and Australia indicates perceptions of impact on individuals, practice, and community. Importantly for academic developers, the reflective act of developing a fellowship has potential to shape the student learning experience. However, some staff are frustrated and disillusioned by their experience. We call for institutions to design development and recognition that maximise impact and acknowledge the benefits valued by educators.

Reimagining the World Bank: Global Public Goods in an Age of Crisis

For some time now, there has been a push for the World Bank to shift its focus toward global public goods (GPGs). These are goods that, once delivered, can be unrestrictedly consumed by most—if not all—countries on the planet. Nor are their benefits rivalrous. Moreover, the production of GPGs cannot be left to markets or individual countries, as these have suboptimal incentives to act. In the wake of the COVID‐19 outbreak, the concept of GPGs has seen a revival of sorts, with the pandemic not only striking just as multilateralism was at its lowest ebb, but also serving as irrefutable proof that the world needs international collaboration now more than ever. Multilateral institutions, and in particular the World Bank—a leading global institution with global membership—can rightfully be regarded as a possible solution to many global challenges. Based on interviews conducted with World Bank senior staff, as well as numerous experts, this article discusses arguments in favor of such a strategic shift. While there are legitimate claims for the Bank becoming a full‐fledged provider of GPGs, the institution's historical roots and operational constraints make this an unlikely prospect.

Fear of Disconnecting: Global Health Imaginations and the Transformations of the Taiwanese State

Abstract Global health scholarship concerning AIDS governance often regards the global either as products of translocal connections or as external forces that initiate local restructurings. As a state without a membership in major global organizations, Taiwan alternatively presents a case for conceiving of global health as grounded, competing imaginations which serve as the foundation both for a symbolic pursuit of Taiwan’s global membership and for the transformations of the Taiwanese state. Building on a global ethnography perspective, this study explores the idea of in-pursuit-of-globality nationalism by examining three AIDS projects in Taiwan that configured global and national imaginations simultaneously. It particularly looks into how sexuality and race became sites of transformative struggles in those projects, arguing that Taiwan’s marginality is not only a product of global geopolitics but also a standpoint on which multiple globalities are imagined and (re)produced. As such, this study contributes to global health scholarship by rejecting a monolithic view of the global and the national and by centering racial and sexual imaginations in processes of globalization.