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As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread across countries, it is becoming increasingly clear that the presence of pre-existing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) dramatically increases the risk of aggravation in persons who contract the virus. The neglect in managing NCDs during emergencies may result in fatal consequences for individuals living with comorbidities. This paper aims to highlight the need for a paradigm shift in the governance of public health emergencies to simultaneously address NCD and noncommunicable disease (CD) pandemics while taking into account the needs of high-risk populations, underlying etiological factors, and the social, economic, and environmental determinants that are relevant for both CDs and NCDs.

The paper reviews the available global frameworks for pandemic preparedness to highlight the governance challenges of addressing the dual agenda of NCDs and CDs during a public health emergency. It proposes key strategies to strengthen multilevel governance in support of countries to better prepare for public health emergencies through the engagement of a wide range of stakeholders across sectors.

Addressing both CD and NCD pandemics during public health emergencies requires (1) a new framework that unites the narratives and overcomes service and system fragmentations; (2) a multisectoral and multistakeholder governance mechanism empowered and resourced to include stakeholders across sectors and (3) a prioritized research agenda to understand the political economy of pandemics, the role played by different political systems and actors and implementation challenges, and to identify combined strategies to address the converging agendas of CDs and NCDs.

The article is based on the review of available published evidence.

The uptake of the strategies proposed will better prepare countries to respond to NCD and CD pandemics during public health emergencies.

The article is the first of its kind addressing the governance challenges of the dual pandemic of NCDs and CDs in emergencies.

Purpose –– The purpose of this chapter is to test the managerial decision-making knowledge of Mexican administrators managing maquiladora plants, or ‘twin plants’, in the effort to devise a practical skill set assessment.

Design/methodology/approach –– A sample of Mexican maquiladora managers was studied along dimensions of gender, experience, proximity to parent firm and upward mobility in order to assess the managers' level of ‘managerial intelligence’, where the constructs of tacit knowledge and intuition were used as proxies for managerial intelligence.

Findings –– While managerial decision-making may be classified as special forms of knowledge, assessment of this knowledge as forms of tacit ‘knowing’ did not prove successful.

Research limitations/implications –– Due to limitations of time and money in conjunction with the characteristically low response rate on surveys in Mexico, the sample was rather limited given the number and size of ‘twin plants’ and not wholly random. Thus, future research will need to address these shortcomings.

Originality/value –– This chapter is an effort to fill a gap in the literature regarding measures of tacit knowledge and the effort to elucidate the operation and management of plants in Mexico's maquiladora industry.

The sociology of science and technology, although a lively field (Lynch, 1993; Shapin, 1995; Pinch, 2006), continues to be little taught within American sociology departments. The practitioners are often to be found within interdisciplinary Science and Technology Studies (S&TS) programs and departments. S&TS is a newly emerging discipline. In 2007 for the first time the NRC in the US included it as an “emerging discipline” within its annual ranking exercises. This peculiarly “interdisciplinary discipline” (in other words it has interdisciplinary roots largely in sociology, philosophy, history, political science, law, anthropology, cultural studies, and feminism, but has now formed a sufficiently stable body of canonical works, handbooks, PhD programs, and the like that it is becoming institutionalized as a new discipline in its own right), takes science, technology, and medicine as its object of study and examines its knowledge, practices, and embedding in culture and society using largely humanistic and social science methods. Often the practitioners of S&TS have their first degrees in the sciences or engineering and a higher degree in the humanities and social sciences. Many S&TS departments, as well as teaching their own majors, and offering capstone courses, carry out a service role teaching engineering and science students. These latter students often take S&TS courses to meet humanities distribution requirements. In the past they may have taken courses on Shakespeare and the like but now they look for something a bit more relevant to their careers. Such courses present an unusual opportunity to teach fundamental sociological ideas to scientists and engineers. For these students it is often their first and perhaps only encounter with the world of academic sociology. In this chapter I report on the experiences of developing and teaching one such course, “What is Science?”. I offer this account in the hope that other teachers may benefit from what I have learnt in my 14-year experience of offering this course.

This study aims to extend the knowledge and literature on which information sources influences (explicit service promises such as advertising, personal selling; implicit service promises such as tangibles and price; past experiences; word of mouth; image and reputation) Chinese students’ expectations of overseas universities’ service quality.

Data were collected from undergraduate Chinese students from two universities in Australia. A total of 133 questionnaires were returned for data analysis. Factor analysis and multiple analysis of variance were conducted for this study.

Results indicate the three most influential sources of information on Chinese students expectations of universities are: past experiences, advertising and word of mouth. Findings suggest that the more explicit and implicit service promises the respondent is exposed to; the higher the desired and predicted expectations of the university's service quality. However their level of expectations (both desired and predicted) is considerably greater when exposed to explicit service promises.

One limitation of this study includes the results obtained as not necessarily generalisable or applicable to other cultures (for instance Europeans). Future research could examine Chinese students’ formation of expectations based on other factors such as human values.

The theoretical contribution of this study consists of applying and extending Zeithaml et al.'s model, that proposes that a customer's level of expectations is dependent on several antecedents, within a higher education (pre‐purchase) context using a Chinese sample. The main managerial implication is that measuring the influence of information sources on Chinese students will provide universities with more effective ways of targeting Chinese consumers with their marketing communication campaigns.

Purpose – This chapter argues that assistive technology itself, rather than a shared disabled identity, can be the basis for peer interaction and therefore serve as the basis for community. Specifically, prosthetic technology serves as a point of connection between amputees of different backgrounds.

Methodology – Data are from 20 in-depth qualitative interviews with a diverse group of men and women who lost legs or feet since 2002. The analysis of these interviews is enriched by ethnographic observation of support groups, mobility clinics, and visits to rehabilitation facilities.

Findings – Despite misgivings about support groups and socializing with others simply because of shared impairment, respondents reported connecting with peers through trading technical information and insights into prosthesis use. Thus, the notion of community may be most clearly understood in terms of interaction with shared objects and environments rather than shared identity.

Limitations – As with most qualitative studies, the findings here cannot be generalized to the greater amputee population in the United States.

Practical implications – The findings suggest that groups organized around activities that help people learn prosthetic legs can be the basis for community.

Social implications – This example suggests that communities of users can be a unique source of technical information about assistive technology that professionals cannot necessarily provide.

Value of paper – The analysis brings a unique perspective to the question of community and disability by drawing on sources from science and technology studies to theorize communities of users of assistive technology.

This study aims to estimate the impact of refugee inflows on host countries’ entrepreneurial rates. The refugee crisis led to an increased scientific and public policy interest in the impact of refugee inflows on host countries. One important perspective of such an impact, which is still underexplored, is the impact of refugee inflows on host countries entrepreneurial rates. Given the high number of refugees that flow to some countries, it would be valuable to assess the extent to which such countries are likely to reap the benefits from increasing refugee inflows in terms of (native and non-native) entrepreneurial talent enhancement.

Resorting to dynamic (two-step system generalized method of moments) panel data estimations, based on 186 countries over the period between 2000 and 2019, this study estimates the impact of refugee inflows on host countries’ entrepreneurial rates, measured by the total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) rate and the self-employment rate.

In general, higher refugee inflows are associated with lower host countries’ TEA rates. However, refugee inflows significantly foster self-employment rates of “medium-high” and “high” income host countries and host countries located in Africa. These results suggest that refugee inflows tend to enhance “necessity” related new ventures and/ or new ventures (from native and non-native population) operating in low value-added, low profit sectors.

This study constitutes a novel empirical contribution by providing a macroeconomic, quantitative assessment of the impact of refugee from distinct nationalities on a diverse set of host countries' entrepreneurship rates in the past two decades resorting to dynamic panel data models, which enable to address the heterogeneity of the countries and deal with the endogeneity of the variables of the model.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a complex disorder that exacerbates the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus; some studies have indicated the beneficial effects of green tea on human health. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of green tea consumption on the MetS indicators in women.

A randomized clinical trial was carried out on 70 eligible women with confirmed diagnosis of MetS who visited Shabani Diabetes Clinic (Isfahan, Iran). Participants were randomly divided into two groups. Participants in the Green Tea Group were asked to consume three 200 cc of green tea in the morning, at noon and at night for eight weeks, while people in the control group were asked to take identical amount of lukewarm water at the same schedule. Anthropometric indicators, blood pressure, blood sugar, lipid profile, diet and physical activity were assessed at the beginning and the end of the study.

An independent t-test showed that weight (p = 0.001), body mass index (p = 0.001), waist circumference (p < 0.001) and waist–hip ratio (p = 0.02), systolic blood pressure (p = 0.04), fasting blood glucose (p = 0.01) and low density lipoprotein (p = 0.03) changed significantly more in the Green Tea Group than in the control group; but no such inter-group difference was observed in diastolic blood pressure, triglyceride, total cholesterol and high density lipoprotein (HDL) values (p > 0.05).

Regular consumption of green tea for eight weeks significantly improved anthropometric indices, blood pressure, blood sugar and lipid profile in women with MetS. Therefore, this beverage can serve as part of an effective dietary strategy to control MetS.

This study uses the concept of standing, or legitimacy, to bridge the disciplinary divide between social movement and communication scholarship on activism. Here, the authors examine whether activist standing in 269 broadcast news stories sampled between 1970 and 2012 across five social movements – Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, Immigrant Rights, Occupy Wall Street, and Tea Party – is undermined by (1) the mix of visuals included in media coverage and (2) activists’ social statuses at the intersection of gender, race, and age. The authors find that broadcast media undercut the standing of activists in some social movements more than others. Occupy activists faced the most challenges to their standing because they were more likely to be shown as angry, young protestors wearing anti-government costumes and engaged in nonnormative protest behavior than activists associated with other movements. In contrast, Tea Party movement activists, who also made anti-government claims during the same relative time frame, were not cast in a similarly negative light. The authors also find that activist standing is diminished and enhanced at the intersection of gender, race, and age. For example, the social movements with the most racial diversity – the immigrant rights and Occupy movements – were also shown as the most deviant and deserving violent repression in coverage. The authors conclude the study with a discussion of the importance of interdisciplinary research and a call for additional research on the movement–media relationship.

This chapter is a critical analysis of the empirical research described in the work of Arlie R. Hochschild “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right” (2016). The problem of dignity is one of the common psychosocial elements that is used in the book to explain the phenomenon of strong support for right-wing parties that apply specific identity policies. The research report describes the Bayou region in Louisiana, US. The state and the region are the poorest and most ecologically polluted in the United States, and the Tea Party, a right-wing party, obtained the highest support in the region in the latest election. Arlie Hochschild's research and analytical achievements will be compared in this chapter with Polish studies carried out in a small town in Mazovia region, in which the right-wing party currently ruling Poland, the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc), won in the most recent election. Although, I am aware of significant demographic, economic, and political differences between these two countries, I will show that there are certain political and psychosocial processes common to both of them, and these will be analyzed here. I mainly focus on the issues concerning emotions and the analysis of emotional labor, as well as emotion management as described by Arlie R. Hochschild, and I also refer to the concept of interaction rituals and emotional energy.

IT is evident from the numerous press cuttings which are reaching us, that we are once more afflicted with one of those periodical visitations of antagonism to Public Libraries, which occasionally assume epidemic form as the result of a succession of library opening ceremonies, or a rush of Carnegie gifts. Let a new library building be opened, or an old one celebrate its jubilee, or let Lord Avebury regale us with his statistics of crime‐diminution and Public Libraries, and immediately we have the same old, never‐ending flood of articles, papers and speeches to prove that Public Libraries are not what their original promoters intended, and that they simply exist for the purpose of circulating American “Penny Bloods.” We have had this same chorus, with variations, at regular intervals during the past twenty years, and it is amazing to find old‐established newspapers, and gentlemen of wide reading and knowledge, treating the theme as a novelty. One of the latest gladiators to enter the arena against Public Libraries, is Mr. J. Churton Collins, who contributes a forcible and able article, on “Free Libraries, their Functions and Opportunities,” to the Nineteenth Century for June, 1903. Were we not assured by its benevolent tone that Mr. Collins seeks only the betterment of Public Libraries, we should be very much disposed to resent some of the conclusions at which he has arrived, by accepting erroneous and misleading information. As a matter of fact, we heartily endorse most of Mr. Collins' ideas, though on very different grounds, and feel delighted to find in him an able exponent of what we have striven for five years to establish, namely, that Public Libraries will never be improved till they are better financed and better staffed.