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This study empirically investigates how the COVID-infodemic manifests differently in different languages and in different countries. This paper focuses on the topical and temporal features of misinformation related to COVID-19 in five countries.

COVID-related misinformation was retrieved from 4,487 fact-checked articles. A novel approach to conducting cross-lingual topic extraction was applied. The rectr algorithm, empowered by aligned word-embedding, was utilised. To examine how the COVID-infodemic interplays with the pandemic, a time series analysis was used to construct and compare their temporal development.

The cross-lingual topic model findings reveal the topical characteristics of each country. On an aggregated level, health misinformation represents only a small portion of the COVID-infodemic. The time series results indicate that, for most countries, the infodemic curve fluctuates with the epidemic curve. In this study, this form of infodemic is referred to as “point-source infodemic”. The second type of infodemic is continuous infodemic, which is seen in India and the United States (US). In those two countries, the infodemic is predominantly caused by political misinformation; its temporal distribution appears to be largely unrelated to the epidemic development.

Despite the growing attention given to misinformation research, existing scholarship is dominated by single-country or mono-lingual research. This study takes a cross-national and cross-lingual comparative approach to investigate the problem of online misinformation. This paper demonstrates how the technological barrier of cross-lingual topic analysis can be overcome with aligned word-embedding algorithms.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-09-2020-0417

The purpose of this paper is to study, a bridged-T topology with inductorless passive network used as a bandpass (BP) negative group delay (NGD) function.

The BP NGD topology under study is composed of an inductorless passive resistive capacitive network. The circuit analysis is elaborated from the equivalent impedance matrix. Then, the analytical model of the C-shunt bridged-T topology voltage transfer function is established. The BP NGD analysis of the considered topology is developed in function of the bridged-T parameters. The NGD properties and characterizations of the proposed topology are analytically expressed. Moreover, the relevance of the BP NGD theory is verified with the design and fabrication of surface mounted device components-based proof-of-concept (PoC).

From measurement results, the BP NGD network with −151 ns at the center frequency of 1 MHz over −6.6 dB attenuation is in very good agreement with the C-shunt bridged-T PoC.

This paper develops a mathematical modeling theory and measurement of a C-shunt bridged-T network circuit.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the high-pass (HP) negative group delay (NGD) circuit based (RL) network. Synthesis and experimental investigation of HP-NGD circuit are developed.

The research work methodology is organized in three phases. The definition of the HP-NGD ideal specifications is introduced. The synthesis method allowing to determine the RL elements is developed. The validation results are discussed with comparison between the calculated model, simulation and measurement.

This paper shows a validation of the HP-NGD theory with responses confirming NGD optimal frequency, value and attenuation of about (9 kHz, −1.12 µs, −1.64 dB) and (21 kHz, −0.92 µs, −4.81 dB) are measured. The tested circuits have experimented NGD cut-off frequencies around 5 and 11.7 kHz.

The validity of the HP-NGD topology depends on the coil self-inductance resonance. The HP-NGD effect is susceptible to be penalized by the parasitic elements of the self.

The NGD circuit is usefully exploited in the electronic and communication system to reduce the undesired delay effect context. The NGD can be used to compensate the delay in any electronic devices and system.

Applications based on the NGD technology will be helpful in the communication, transportation and security research fields by reducing the delay inherent to any electronic circuit.

The originality of the paper concerns the synthesis formulations of the RL elements in function of the expected HP-NGD optimal frequency, value and attenuation. In addition, an original measurement technique of HP-NGD is also introduced.

As an initial step to implement total quality management (TQM) in a small manufacturing enterprise (SME) of electrical products, we applied statistical techniques to quantify and evaluate the data collected in order to improve the quality characteristics of a selected product circuit breaker. A circuit breaker will “jump” or the current will be cut short if a current stronger than 15A passes through the equipment. The time required for the circuit breaker to stop the flow of the current is called the trip‐time. Our major concern is to find out how sensitive a 15A circuit breaker is, and how reliable is the device. We were able to confirm several dominant factors that influence the trip‐time of the circuit breaker after conducting several experiments. We used regression analysis to find out the model that best fits the relationship between the current supply and the trip‐time of the 15A circuit breaker. Meanwhile reliability testings of the circuit breaker were performed. Balanced factorial design techniques were applied in finding out the optimal combination of factors with the highest success rate of trips. The results demonstrated that the optimal combination of factors we found could bring about quality improvement of the product.

Measuring the similarity between two resources is considered difficult due to a lack of reliable information and a wide variety of available information regarding the resources. Many approaches have been devised to tackle such difficulty. Although content-based approaches, which adopted resource-related data in comparing resources, played a major role in similarity measurement methodology, the lack of semantic insight on the data may leave these approaches imperfect. The purpose of this paper is to incorporate data semantics into the measuring process.

The emerged linked open data (LOD) provide a practical solution to tackle such difficulty. Common methodologies consuming LOD mainly focused on using link attributes that provide some sort of semantic relations between data. In this work, methods for measuring semantic distances between resources using information gathered from LOD were proposed. Such distances were then applied to music recommendation, focusing on the effect of various weight and level settings.

This work conducted experiments using the MusicBrainz dataset and evaluated the proposed schemes for the plausibility of LOD on music recommendation. The experimental result shows that the proposed methods electively improved classic approaches for both linked data semantic distance (LDSD) and PathSim methods by 47 and 9.7%, respectively.

The main contribution of this work is to develop novel schemes for incorporating knowledge from LOD. Two types of knowledge, namely attribute and path, were derived and incorporated into similarity measurements. Such knowledge may reflect the relationships between resources in a semantic manner since the links in LOD carry much semantic information regarding connecting resources.

The current volume in the Research in Finance series features an international set of contributors. The overall theme of the volume is a timely topic capturing one of the leading issues of the year: coping with “systemic” risk.

The demand for ambulance services in Hong Kong is increasing and first aid plays an important role in saving lives. The government recognized first aid training courses offered by four organizations. This study aims to review and discuss the past, present and future of first aid and health training in Hong Kong.

This study adopted a case study approach to investigate the operations and development of the first aid and health training in one of the largest training providers in Hong Kong. Publicly available secondary data, including annual reports, websites, newspapers and social media, were collected and analysed. Using the thematic analysis procedure, researchers familiarised the data collected, generated initial codes, searched for themes, reviewed themes, defined themes and reported the results.

Through data analysis, researchers identified six themes which help to address the research questions regarding the types of first aid and health training courses, quality issue, awareness of first aid in the community and the future delivery of first aid training.

This study provided two implications on both micro and macro levels. At the micro level, training providers can enhance training quality by adopting technology. At the macro level, training providers can continue to advocate and facilitate the integration of first aid into the formal education curriculum. The last section addressed the limitations of this study and provided future research directions.

This study provided insights about the development of the first aid and health education and training. Health-care training providers and policymakers could benchmark the findings from this study and develop appropriate measures for promoting health education.