View Of Policy Research Articles

Boron delivery agents for boron neutron capture therapy

<p indent=0mm>Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a binary method of radiotherapy, which is based on the nuclear reaction that occurs when boron-10 is irradiated with thermal neutron to yield high linear energy transfer α particles and recoiling lithium-7 nuclei. These particles with high energy and short range can kill cancer cells which absorbed ¹⁰B while little damage to normal tissues. BNCT has experienced nearly <sc>90 years</sc> of development since it was first proposed in 1936, which is one of the most effective methods for the treatment of malignant glioma. One of the key factors for the success of BNCT is to find boron delivery agents with high targeting and high affinity to tumors. Currently, although there are various of boron delivery agents, the best compound recognized for BNCT is still boronophenylalanine (BPA), for it has little side effect and no chemistry toxicity. BPA can penetrate the BBB and cell membrane, so it owns higher relative biological effectiveness. BPA is the most widely used BNCT drug in the world, which was officially approved in Japan last year, and the therapeutic effect on glioma is without question. In the past few decades, in order to improve the efficacy of BNCT, significant effort has been devoted to developing new boron delivery agents that possess better uptake and favorable pharmacokinetic characteristics for clinical use. This review focuses on differents kinds of boron delivery agents developed over the past years, which can be divided into three generations. At present, the first generation of boron delivery agents has been banned for lacking of targeting. The second generation of boron delivery agents is the most mature of the clinical application, but there are some problems need to be solved, such as limited boron loading and individual uptake varies greatly. The third generation of boron delivery agents contains various of agents—The boron-containing amino acids and peptides, the boron-containing compound conjugated with nucleosides, porphyrin derivatives, and different types of nanomaterials, was introduced in detail in this review. The boron loading and targeting of the third generation of boron delivery agents have greatly increased, but most of them are still in the experimental stage, and the safety and effectiveness need to be further verified. The advantages and disadvantages of the three generation boron delivery agents were analyzed and compared. Meanwhile the limitations of the various boron delivery agents were discussed and summarized. Additionally, the prospect and bottleneck of clinical arpplication of these boron delivery agents was critically analyzed from different view of research institutions, pharmaceutical enterprises and government policy. And the corresponding solutions were proposed: (1) Expand the application scope of BPA and BSH; develop new drugs and expand the application fields of BNCT technology; (2) enhance the cooperation of enterprises, university and research institutions, and promote the clinical approval and application of BPA and BSH; (3) multi disciplines jointly overcome technical barriers and establish a perfect evaluation system of safety and effectiveness for BNCT. In summary, with the official approval of the Japanese accelerator BNCT treatment system, the application prospects of BNCT technology will be broad all over the world. The comprehensive research of BNCT technology will be promoted by enhancing the intercrossing and coalescence between subjects relative with BNCT, and new ideas will be inspired, all of which will promote the clinical application of BNCT technology, and that benefit patients.

Gold rush: the political economy of the Yugoslavian gold exchange standard

This article analyses the economic, political and cultural factors that influenced the decision of policy-makers in Yugoslavia to join the gold exchange standard in the midst of the Great Depression in June 1931. The analysis proceeds in three stages. First, the economic reasons why policy elites and interest groups endeavoured to adopt the gold exchange standard are examined by looking at debates in Yugoslavia's central bank, correspondence between governmental institutions and the views of policy elites as depicted in various economic newspapers. Subsequently, the article analyses how the beliefs in economic benefits analysed in the previous part were formed, considering the state of economic knowledge in the country, as well as pressures exerted by foreign lenders such as the Bank of England, the Banque de France and the Bank for International Settlements. The third part analyses reasons for legal stabilisation that go beyond economic rationales, considering how the government employed the prestige involved in legal stabilisation for its political agenda, and how cultural attachments to ‘gold core countries’ made sharing their monetary system a matter of cultural integration.

«Кадровый резерв» деэскалации: М. Рожански об американо-российских отношениях

The article is devoted to the analysis of the political, scientific and practical activities of the director of the Kennan Institute, Matthew Rojanski. In the context of the statements of the Biden administration on the need to de-escalate US-Russian relations and taking into account the attempt to appoint Rozhansky to the post of Russia Director on the US National Security Council, the evolution of his worldview, the system of views on the modern world order, the role of Russia in the contemporary world and nature of relations between Washington and Moscow are considered. It is concluded that Rojanski’s foreign policy views are close to the liberal-universalist ideology of the progressive grouping in the Democratic Party.

URBAN MOBILITY SCENARIO EVALUATION IN A POST-COVID-19 ERA

This paper brings an evaluation of different mobility scenarios in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. The mobility is a fundamental human need, a manifestation of an integrated society and an individual and rational act. Building scenarios offer a means of dealing with critical issues of innovation, reflexivity and framing in analysing change in socio-economic systems. Forecasting, exploratory or backcasting scenarios, they are all analysed from the point of view of collective behavioral choice, public policy or technology. The pandemic brought first a serious decrease in traffic and mobility imposing a lockdown, but after it generated an amplified transition to private motorised transport, as public transport is a potent force in disease spread. And this is translated by congestion and pollution. Luckily, based on the same priciples, walking and cycling gained particular importance. A key element in the concept of sustainable development is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Revisiting the Macroeconomic Impact of Benefits Generosity

ABSTRACT This paper is an attempt to empirically investigate the macroeconomic effects of public policy on unemployment benefits. We address this issue by asking a simple question: How does public policy relating to unemployment benefits affect economic growth, productivity, and unemployment rate? We employ a dynamic panel VAR and perform a number of estimations, using data for several OECD countries. Overall, our results suggest that increases in unemployment benefits have both positive and adverse effects. In particular, we find that benefits generosity can increase output and productivity, but can also weakly raise unemployment rates in some cases. Our analysis in this paper calls into question the mainstream policy view of using reduction in unemployment benefits as a tool to improve macroeconomic outcomes.

Still Not Important Enough? COVID-19 Policy Views and Vote Choice

Scholars have long been skeptical of citizens’ ability to vote on the basis of their policy views. Voters lack incentives to pay attention to politics and so are often unaware of the policy stances adopted by presidential candidates and parties. However, some scholars have suggested that voter attention may increase when policy issues become important to them, such as when a crisis disrupts their lives. The coronavirus pandemic provides an opportunity to test this proposition. It is one of the most severe crises the United States has faced. It has disrupted almost everyone’s lives, and many people know someone who has tested positive or died from the virus. It is thus salient and important to many—if not most—voters. Despite this context, we find that many voters remain unaware of the 2020 US Presidential candidates’ stances on coronavirus policies. Their levels of knowledge are about typical for other policies, which is middling. In the absence of knowledge, voters cannot connect their policy views on the virus with their presidential voting decisions.

The Trauma of Disregard

The Trauma of Disregard

Different Reality? Generations’ and Religious Groups’ Views of Spirituality Policies in the Workplace

Over the past 20 years, there has been considerable expansion, particularly spirituality theory in the workplace. Simultaneously, there has been a growth of research, most especially in practitioner publication into generational differences. The study's context is human resource (HR) policy and procedures in the workplace. Through this prism, generational perspectives and religious theory are compared and scrutinised within the United Kingdom. Two major religious groups (Muslim and Christian) and three-generational categories (Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers) were selected to explore different attitudes, with participants identifying as belonging to religious groups outside of these two major religions, categorised as 'Other.' This study adopts a quantitative approach, with questionnaires gathering employees' perceptions of spirituality policy within their place of work. Although the study found differences in expectations between the religious groups and between the three generations, there is greater homogeneity than a difference in that the results provide limited support for workplace spirituality. Indeed, the study raises more questions than answers. The study uncovered areas ripe for informed debate around personal values, generations, and spirituality in the workplace. This is a relatively new research area, and our findings are in line with others that suggest that employee spiritual well-being is both underresearched and underexplored by organisations. Changing the current intransigence around the place of spirituality is overdue.

Lives or Livelihoods? Perceived Trade-Offs and Policy Views

We study the role of perceived trade-offs between human lives and economic benefits in shaping policy views. In an online experiment with a representative sample from the US conducted during the early Covid-19 pandemic, we provide randomized information on the medium-run costs of restricting economic activity to mitigate infections. A one standard deviation lower perceived economic cost of lockdowns increases support by about twice as much as having a Covid at-risk condition, and by half as much as being a Democrat. Varying projected health benefits has a similar effect. Personal exposure to health risks reduces people’s responsiveness to cost-benefit considerations.

Understanding Tax Policy: How do People Reason?

Abstract I study how people understand, reason, and learn about two major tax policies: income taxation and estate taxation. Using large-scale social economics surveys issued to representative U.S. samples and associated experiments, I elicit respondents’ factual knowledge about tax policy and the income or wealth distributions. Most important, I study their understanding of the mechanisms of tax policy and the reasoning that underlies their policy views. In decomposing policy views, I find that support for income and estate taxes is most strongly correlated with social preferences, that is, the perceived benefits of redistribution and concerns around the fairness of inequality and taxation, as well as with broader views of the government. Efficiency concerns play a more minor role. These correlational patterns are confirmed by the experimental approach, which shows people instructional videos that explain the workings and consequences of one of the aspects of tax policy (the Redistribution and the Efficiency treatments) or that bring the two together and focus on the trade-off (the Economist treatment). The Redistribution and Economist treatments significantly increase support for more progressive income or estate taxes, while the Efficiency treatment has no effect. There are large partisan gaps in both the final policy views and at every step of the reasoning about the underlying mechanisms of taxes. Democrats’ and Republicans’ divergences in tax policy views can ultimately be traced back to different normative criteria (social preferences) and views of the government, rather than to different perceptions of the efficiency implications of taxation.

Learning to Classify the Consumer Confidence Indicator (in Portugal)

The literature paid some attention, some time ago, to the relationship that, supposedly, should exist between the level of consumer confidence and the unemployment rate. This relationship is interesting, both from a scientific point of view, given the inherently subjective character of that level of confidence, but also from the point of view of economic policy, given the importance of the unemployment rate. In this article, that relationship is revisited, using learning models, namely regression and classification trees. Using, for example, the case of Portugal, the unemployment rate presents itself as an adequate classifier of the consumer confidence level. The use of classification trees shows that the separation between low and high values of the consumer confidence indicator is made from an adequate threshold value of the unemployment rate. The use of regression trees shows that the levels of consumer confidence are inversely related to the levels of the unemployment rate. In terms of policy lessons, this confirms that, in the face of economic crises, such as the one we are experiencing, in which confidence levels tend to fall and the unemployment rate increases, the relationship between these two variables cannot be ignored.

COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study of Healthcare Students' Perceptions of Life during the Pandemic in the United States and Brazil.

Societal influences, such as beliefs and behaviors, and their increasing complexity add to the challenges of interactivity promoted by globalization. This study was developed during a virtual global educational exchange experience and designed for research and educational purposes to assess personal social and cultural risk factors for students’ COVID-19 personal prevention behavior and perceptions about life during the pandemic, and to inform future educational efforts in intercultural learning for healthcare students. We designed and implemented a cross-sectional anonymous online survey intended to assess social and cultural risk factors for COVID-19 personal prevention behavior and students’ perceptions about life during the pandemic in public health and healthcare students in two public universities (United States n = 53; Brazil n = 55). Statistically significant differences existed between the United States and Brazil students in degree type, employment, risk behavior, personal prevention procedures, sanitization perceptions, and views of governmental policies. Cultural and social differences, risk messaging, and lifestyle factors may contribute to disparities in perceptions and behaviors of students around the novel infectious disease, with implications for future global infectious disease control.

Study on the policy literacy of the Republic of Korea regarding nuclear and new-renewable energy

Policy literacy plays a critical role in enhancing deliberative communication among the public, policymakers, and experts. It also helps develop a positive view of policy by the public, which facilitates public acceptance. Despite its importance, however, policy literacy has received little attention in energy policy practice. Therefore, this study explores factors affecting the public's understanding and knowledge (i.e., policy literacy) of nuclear and new-renewable energy policies. Accordingly, we analyzed data from an online survey of 790 laypeople in Korea. Specifically, we examined the effects of trust, transparency, and policy public relations (PR) on the policy literacy of the public regarding the two alternative energy sources. The analysis revealed that people showed higher policy literacy about the alternative sources when provided with more transparent information and exposed to more policy PR activities. However, we found that trust in energy plant operators played a negligible role in improving policy literacy for both energy sources. Based on these findings, we developed some policy suggestions to secure the energy policy literacy of the public.

Partisanship in the #MeToo Era

Partisanship structures mass politics by shaping the votes, policy views, and political perceptions of ordinary people. Even so, substantial shifts in partisanship can occur when elites signal clear differences on a political issue and attentive citizens update their views of party reputations. Mismatched partisans who strongly care about the issue respond by changing parties in a process of “issue evolution” when writ large. Others simply update their views to match their party in a “conflict extension” process. We build on these models by integrating the largely separate research strands of party issue ownership. Using sexual misconduct as a critical case study, we argue that partisan change can occur rapidly when party elites move strategically to take ownership of an issue, thereby clarifying differences between the parties. Using a quasi-experiment, a survey experiment, and data from dozens of national surveys, we find recent, rapid shifts in party reputations on #MeToo, views of the issue, party votes, and broader party support.

Theories of Learning and Economic Policy

L’hypothèse de référence, celle des anticipations rationnelles, suppose, d’une part, un degré irréaliste de rationalité des agents économiques, et d’autre part élude la question de savoir comment les agents parviennent à se coordonner sur une position d’équilibre. Cet article examine comment les théories de l’apprentissage, et plus particulièrement de l’apprentissage adaptatif, traitent ces questions et peuvent conduire à des conclusions en termes de politique économique distinctes de celles obtenues avec anticipations rationnelles. Des exemples sont discutés, ils incluent la politique monétaire au sein de modèles de la nouvelle économie keynésienne, la vision néo-Fisherienne de la politique économique, les objectifs d’inflation, les modèles d’hyperinflation et les politiques macroéconomiques visant à éviter la stagnation au taux plancher zéro.

Transformative public policy design? The lifeworld of early postcolonial social policy in Ghana

Based on the experience of advanced industrialized countries, social policies are portrayed as responses to the crises of capitalist industrialization. But this claim cannot explain the development of social policies, albeit limited in scope, in African countries in the early postcolonial era where policy makers undertook ambitious social development programs although their countries were comparatively underdeveloped. This article examines the approach to socio-economic development in the early postcolonial era (1950s to mid 1960s) in Ghana and argues that policymakers at the time adopted a transformative view of social policy and used it strategically as an integral part of modernization efforts to serve multiple purposes simultaneously. Consequently, social programs such as education and health were conceptualized as essential for human and societal progress hence, they were provided on the basis of social citizenship, whereas other such as old age income security and housing were designed to address new vulnerabilities that arise when a person is disconnected from traditional support systems due to processes of social change.

Competition and partnership in public and private sector strategies

The existence of the public and private sectors in the modern economy is justified from the point of view of economic policy, especially with regard to its stabilising function (regulatory sphere) and allocative and redistributive function (real sphere).

Why are we still waiting? Views of future-focused policy and the direction of the profession from dissatisfied recent pharmacy graduates

PurposeThe New Zealand Pharmacy Action Plan 2016–20 acknowledges the young, highly qualified pharmacist workforce, and seeks to address pharmacist underutilisation in the wider health setting. Anecdotal evidence suggests many recently qualified pharmacists are dissatisfied with the profession. Therefore, those completing BPharm programs after 2002, who had left or were seriously considering leaving the New Zealand pharmacy profession, were invited to comment on future-focused pharmacy documents, and the current direction of pharmacy in New Zealand.Design/methodology/approachAn online questionnaire was open December 2018 to February 2019. Recruitment occurred via e-mail lists of universities and professional organisations, print and social media, and word-of-mouth. Free-text responses were thematically analysed using a general inductive approach.FindingsFrom the 328 analysable surveys received, 172 respondents commented on the documents and/or direction of the pharmacy profession. Views were mixed. Overarching document-related themes were positive direction, but concern over achievability, the lack of funding details, lack of implementation, their benefits for pharmacists and the public, and ability to bring about change and secure a future for the profession. Overall pharmacy was considered an unattractive profession needing to change.Originality/valueThis study highlights dissatisfied recent BPharm graduates agree with the vision in the documents but do not see progress towards achieving the vision occurring, leading to frustration and exit in some cases. Policymakers should be aware of these views as considerable resource goes into their development.

Can intersectionality help with understanding and tackling health inequalities? Perspectives of professional stakeholders

BackgroundThe concept of “intersectionality” is increasingly employed within public health arenas, particularly in North America, and is often heralded as offering great potential to advance health inequalities research and action. Given persistently poor progress towards tackling health inequalities, and recent calls to reframe this agenda in the United Kingdom and Europe, the possible contribution of intersectionality deserves attention. Yet, no existing research has examined professional stakeholder understandings and perspectives on applying intersectionality to this field.MethodsIn this paper we seek to address that gap, drawing upon a consultation survey and face-to-face workshop (n = 23) undertaken in the United Kingdom. The survey included both researchers (n = 53) and policy and practice professionals (n = 20) with varied roles and levels of engagement in research and evaluation. Topics included familiarity with the term and concept “intersectionality”, relevance to health inequalities work, and issues shaping its uptake. Respondents were also asked to comment on two specific policy suggestions: intersectionally targeting and tailoring interventions, and evaluating the intersectional effects of policies. The workshop aims were to share examples of applying intersectionality within health inequalities research and practice; understand the views of research and practice colleagues on potential contributions and challenges; and identify potential ways to promote intersectional approaches.ResultsFindings indicated a generally positive response to the concept and a cautiously optimistic assessment that intersectional approaches could be valuable. However, opinions were mixed and various challenges were raised, especially around whether intersectionality research is necessarily critical and transformative and, accordingly, how it should be operationalized methodologically. Nonetheless, there was general agreement that intersectionality is concerned with diverse inequalities and the systems of power that shape them.ConclusionsWe position intersectionality within the wider context of health inequalities policy and practice, suggesting potential ways forward for the approach in the context of the United Kingdom. The views of policy and practice professionals suggest that intersectionality has far to travel to help counter individualistic narratives and to encourage an approach that is sensitive to subgroup inequalities and the processes that generate them. Examples of promising practice, albeit mostly in North America, suggest that it is possible for intersectionality to gain traction.

Hubungan Iran-Amerika Serikat Masa Pemerintahan Hassan Rouhani (Telaah Perjanjian JCPOA)

Relations between Iran and the United States show fluctuating dynamics. The historical relationship and cooperation between the two countries represents how the process works. In fact, during the reign of Shah Reza Pahlavi, Iran-US relations looked good and established important cooperation in several sectors. The political constellation of Iran that continues to intertwine makes the US also respond and issue various policies, including the issue of the nuclear development program. The program during the reign of Hassan Rouhani was also one of the priority policies. Until, the JCPOA agreement was formed between Iran and the P5+1 group countries (US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany). However, in 2015, the US tried to get out of the agreement because the contents of the agreement did not match the views of US domestic policy. Political constellations and the process of nuclear development are important discourses in viewing the relationship that is being built between Iran and the US. This article seeks to examine the dynamics of relations and cooperation between Iran and the US during the reign of Hassan Rouhani, the reasons for the US leaving the JCPOA agreement, and the background of Iran continuing its nuclear development. The data collection method that the researcher uses is by collecting various references, both from books, journals, newspapers, online media, and other literature related to the issue of relations and cooperation between Iran and the US during the Hassan Rouhani administration and topics surrounding the cause of the US leaving the JCPOA agreement.