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The present study aims to overview Brazilian human resources and scientific output in astronomy, immunology and oceanography during the last decade.

Data on human resources and on scientific output were obtained from the Brazilian database, the Directory of Research Groups. Scientific outputs were also analysed from a set of journals catalogued by the Institute for Scientific Information: the 20 journals with the largest number of articles in 2003.

Compared with the other two fields, the number of Brazilian researchers in astronomy has not grown from 1997‐2002, but they are the most qualified and more than 90 per cent of them have a PhD degree. Most astronomy publications are in international journals and they are well cited. The most cited astronomy papers are on international topics, but this is not true for the oceanography papers.

These data are derived from a particular set of publications and should be interpreted as trends rather than as definitive.

This study, which covers three fields with different structures and traditions, provides a snapshot of some features of the whole of Brazilian science, and will provide evidence for new science policies.

To provide an empirical contribution to analyse the dynamics of research groups in knowledge production in an interdisciplinary research field in two scientifically peripheral countries (Colombia and Brazil).

This dynamic is analysed in the interdisciplinary area of immunology through a comparative study of Brazilian and Colombian research groups. The practices of publication, collaborative links and patterns of acknowledgements provided the framework for this study. Quantitative and qualitative tools were used; in particular a bibliometric study was complemented with information derived from semi‐structured interviews with members of the research communities selected.

The bibliometric study allowed the construction of some indicators: channels of publication, impact of the research outputs, citations and patterns of collaboration. Also, a database with acknowledgements was created to identify the different actors who take part in the process of knowledge production. These indicators, interpreted in the light of qualitative analysis, throw considerable light on how the different groups work on the cognitive and social aspects of knowledge production.

This study is limited to 31 leading research groups from Colombia and Brazil.

This paper starts to redress the situation of a lack of empirical studies in developing countries in the use of acknowledgements as a tool to examine formal and informal scientific collaboration and as indicator of accountability to funding bodies. This work provides an empirical contribution to policy‐makers and scientific communities in the task of understanding the dynamics of knowledge production in an interdisciplinary area combining different approaches.

In two case studies of research units, reference values used to benchmark research performance appeared to show contradictory results: the average citation level in the subfields (FCSm) increased world‐wide, while the citation level of the journals (JCSm) decreased, where concomitant changes were expected. Explanations were sought in: a shift in preference of document types; a change in publication preference for subfields; and changes in journal coverage. Publishing in newly covered journals with a low impact had a negative effect on impact ratios. However, the main factor behind the increase in FCSm was the distribution of articles across the five‐year block periods that were studied. Publication in lower impact journals produced a lagging JCSm. Actual values of JCSm, FCSm, and citations per publication (CPP) values are not very informative either about research performance, or about the development of impact over time in a certain subfield with block indicators. Normalized citation impact indicators are free from such effects and should be consulted primarily in research performance assessments.

We are in the midst of a refugee crisis, and the ways in which we approach the issue of unprecedented numbers of people crossing borders will shape our world for generations to come. In this chapter, we problematize immunology, capitalism and other lenses through which we construct, label and categorize others and how such constructions and categorizations manifest in educational spheres for migrants, immigrants, refugees and host country nationals. As with access to education, the resources one has also determine one’s ability to migrate and the conditions of one’s resettlement. Therefore, we discuss the ways in which globalization provides greater mobility for those with substantial wealth and how conditions with/in post-modernism serve to create borders between people, their wealth and the social contexts in which they and their wealth reside. We create boxes as labels into which we slot people all too easily. While we critique the discourses and systems that create the socio-political milieu of education for immigrants, migrants and refugees in the US, we also highlight issues abroad, including how language is weaponized in the framing of immigration and those who emigrate.

The advent of space travel and long‐term space dwelling has precipitated the need for the development of Space Exercise Science. Because of the uniqueness of weightlessness conditions, microgravities, and isolation in space – special considerations for career planning in space exercise science must be initiated. The current trends, by many countries, to establish long‐term space ventures, by many countries, gives impetus to develop various new areas of study in space exercise science. The career implications for future exercise space‐scientists are many, including space nutrition, robotics, and exercise prescription and space cell physiology. Current Earth studies concerning radiation, immunology, and stress are linked with future space endeavours. Seeks to give an overview of current happenings in space physiology; and how these conditions transpose to create a new field for career planning in Space Exercise Science.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that collaboration was a key characteristic of Cuban science to maintain their scientific capacity during a period of economic restrictions and an important feature of Cuban science policy and practice for the benefit of society.

Collaboration was studied through Cuban scientific publications listed in PubMed for the period 1990-2010. The search was carried out using the advanced search engine of PubMed indicating < Cuba > in the affiliation field. To identify participating institutions a second search was performed to find the affiliations of all authors per article through the link to the electronic journal. A data set was created to identify institutional publication patterns for the surveyed period. Institutions were classified in three categories according to their scientific production as Central, Middle or Distal: the pattern of collaboration between these categories was analysed.

Results indicate that collaboration between scientifically advanced institutions (Central) and a wide range of national institutions is a consequence of the social character of science in Cuba in which cooperation prevails. Although this finding comes from a limited field of biomedical science it is likely to reflect Cuban science policy in general.

Using bibliometric tools the study suggests that Cuban science policy and practice ensure the application of science for social needs by harnessing human resources through national and international collaboration, building in this way stronger scientific capacity.

There is a general notion that immunology represents one of the more recently emerged branches in the field of science. Its actual roots, however, go back to the late 19th century when scientists like Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich — just to name a few — laid the basis for active immunisation against bacterial infections. Following the discovery of the virus and its structure, immunisation against viral infections was developed, the most spectacular and effective treatments being vaccinations against smallpox and poliomyelitis.

This study is an attempt to evaluating the growth of scientific literature in the domain of coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic research based on scientometric indicators: prolific countries and relative citation impact (RCI); influential institutions; author analysis and network, h-index and citation; DC (degree of collaboration), CC (collaboration coefficient), MCI (modified collaboration index) in the subject domain of coronavirus and Covid-19 research.

The authors adopted approaches to obtain the literature data from Scopus database from 2000 to 2020 by conducting a systematic search using keywords related to the studied subject domain. In total, 15,297 numbers of records were considered for the literature analysis considering the real significant growth of this subject domain. This study presented the scientometric analysis of these publications. Furthermore, statistical correlations have been used to understand the collaboration pattern. Visualization tool VOSviewer is used to construct the co-author network.

The present study found that 53.57% (8,195) of the research documents published on the open-access platform. Journal of Virology was found to be most preferred journal by the researcher producing around 839(5.48%) articles. USA and China dominate in the research output, and the University of Hong Kong has produced the highest number of research paper 547(3.58%). A significant portion of the research documents are published in the subject domain of medicine (49.70%), followed by immunology and microbiology (35.72%), and biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology subject domains (22.32%). There has been an unparalleled proliferation of publications on COVID-19 since January 2020 and also a significant distribution of research funds across the globe.

The study exclusively examines 15,297 research outputs which have been indexed in the Scopus database from 2000 to 2020 (till 01 April 2020). Thus, documents published in any other different channels and sources which are not covered in Scopus are excluded from the purview of research.

It will be beneficial for researchers and practitioners worldwide for understanding the growth of scientific literature in the coronavirus and COVID-19 and identifying potential collaborator.

Considering the global impact and social distress due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, this study is significant in the present scenario for identifying the growth of scientific literature in this field and evolving of this domain of research around the globe. The research results are useful to identify valuable research patterns from publications and of developments in the field of coronavirus and COVID-19.

The right to health for all people means that everyone should have access to the needed healthcare services without suffering from severe financial hardship. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence as well as the effective factors on facing catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) among gastrointestinal cancer patients and families in Kurdistan province in west of Iran after the implementation of Health Transformation Plan (HTP).

A cross-sectional study was carried out on 189 households with gastrointestinal cancer patients in Kurdistan province in 2018. Data were collected using World Health Survey questionnaire. A method developed by World Health Organization with the threshold of 40 percent household’s capacity to pay was used in order to measure the proportion of households facing CHE. Also, logistic regression was applied for identifying the effective factors on household’s exposure to CHE. Data were analyzed using STATA version 13.

Almost 73 percent (72.7 percent) of the households (n=117) faced the CHE. Not having supplementary health insurance (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 3.8; 95% confidence interval: 1.3–10.8 (and having low socio-economic status (AOR: 7.1; 95% CI: 1.8–28.1) were the significant factors affecting the households’ exposure to CHE. In total, 57 and 1 percent of the studied households reported that having a gastrointestinal cancer patient at home had a significant effect on refraining from using health services by other family members.

The proportion of the studied households facing CHE was very high. This may indicate the weakness of health system as well as health insurance or the weakness of HTP in financial protection of fragile population.

Blueberry contains bioactive compounds which are beneficial to organisms, such as phenolics and flavonoids. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the potential protective effects of blueberry extracts (BE) on H₂O₂-induced HepG2 cells.

Cell protection was evaluated via the survivals of the cell. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, antioxidant enzyme and malondialdehyde (MDA) were detected. Western blot was carried out to analysis protein which was related to the cell apoptosis pathway. Changes in morphology including: cell total apoptosis/necrosis and G0/G1 cycle arresting were also concomitant.

The levels of ROS and malondialdehyde (MDA) reduced after the BE treatment while the contents of superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) increased in HepG2 cells induced by H2O2. Furthermore, mechanistic studies indicated that BE regulated the activation of mitochondrial apoptosis signal-regulating (Bcl-2, Bax). Qu was used as a positive control group. All these results demonstrated that the BE have a potential against oxidative stress in vitro.

Few studies have focused on the bioactivities of blueberry on oxidative stress. Taken together, the results confirm that polyphenol-enriched BE have the ability to protect against oxidative stress in cells. It has a great potential as a functional food ingredient to health benefits. Furthermore, this work showed the value of using simple biological models to screen for compounds that are of interest for food and pharmacological industry.