• COVID-19
• Other research productsclose
• Open Access close
• US close
• BE close
• SK close
• COVID-19 close

Deep economic crises - the global financial crisis and the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic - have put some strains on and rekindled an older debate about the costs and benefits of central bank Independence. Central banks have been accorded more independence since the 1970s, which has helped bring down and keep inflation low and reduced the risk of fiscal crises. However, as their interventions in the economy with unconventional policies expand further beyond their original mandate, especially those pertaining to financial stability, critics have called for more oversight of their activities. That is because some of the central banks’ newfound responsibilities such as financial stability does not have a precise and unambiguous target or measure, making accountability difficult. The evidence in support of central bank independence remains strong, as highlighted in this brief. However, in light of the expansion of central banks’ power, reforms should aim to institute oversight of the newfound powers.

Protecting healthcare workers and patients is critical to reduce the spread of the disease. In this brief we highlight three urgent actions : Distribution of infection prevention and control (IPC) policies and guidelines to all health facilities; Manufacturing and distribution of IPC supplies to health facilities; and Mass media hand hygiene behavior change campaigns for health workers and the general population.

Air connectivity is at the center of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis. Global air cargo capacity has dropped substantially since most commercial passenger flights have been cancelled or grounded worldwide. Air cargo operators are trying to satisfy the existing demand, and also support pandemic-related relief efforts, mostly with freighters, and also with repurposed passenger widebody aircrafts (carrying freight in the main cabin). The economic impact for developing countries is likely to be felt directly through the loss of cargo capacity and skyrocketing air cargo rates, as well as cascading effects from all-cargo operations. Governments should coordinate and work with industry to ease regulatory and operational restrictions on air cargo operations to ensure market access, essential operations, and timely turnaround at airports and hubs. Many passenger airlines (responsible for hauling half of air cargo globally) will require financial support or restructuring, in a context of prolonged revenue starvation and assets’ immobility.

The COVID19 (coronavirus) pandemic and associated containment measures are expected to cause far-reaching damage to economies around the world. Firms are suffering from reduced demand due to movement restrictions, from reduced labor supply and from constraints to sourcing material inputs. The breakup of otherwise healthy businesses in response to a temporary shock implies large social costs. Governments are therefore intent on designing emergency policies to keep businesses afloat. In this brief, the authors present simulations using firm-level tax records from Ethiopia, which vary the duration of the lockdown and the relative impact across sectors.

Over 400 million people currently have a paid subscription to a premium music streaming service, averaging a total number of yearly streams surpassing a trillion. In 2020, a single song garnered 1.6 billion streams on Spotify alone. The most successful artist has collected over 36 billion streams so far. The amount of revenue amassed by music streaming on a global level is simply staggering. However, the distribution of such revenues within the music value chain more often than not leaves both composing and performing musicians to draw the short straw. While the fairness of streaming revenue division has been questioned in the past, this issue was fully brought to the fore in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the temporary annihilation of the live performances sector and the ensuing increased reliance of musicians on streaming income. Online campaigns in favour of a redistribution of revenues such as #BrokenRecord and #MakeStreamingFair have gained significant traction within the music community and show the need for ambition in tackling these issues. Taking account of the particular contractual dynamics in the digitised music industry, this paper focuses on the commitments in terms of remuneration for music publishers and record companies in relation to compositions and (fixated) performances as harmonised by Articles 18 and 20 Digital Single Market (DSM) Directive, referring to the applicable legal framework in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands where relevant. It analyses and reviews legal obligations relating to the amount of remuneration required. On this basis and taking due account of both the artistic and commercial interests involved, the paper conceptualises a duty of ‘fair’ remuneration that may contribute to achieving a fair(er) balance in the digitised music industry. ispartof: IP and the Future of Innovation (EPIP Annual Conference 2021) location:Madrid, Spain date:8 Sep - 10 Sep 2021 status: published

This brief presents the main findings from a rapid phone survey conducted by the World Bank across eight South Asian countries. The primary aim of the survey was to understand changes in the labor market among different groups. Additional questions were included on households’ ability to meet basic needs, safety nets, and coping mechanisms. In Sri Lanka, the survey was implemented between September and December 2020, and therefore helps assess the short-term impact of the COVID-19 crisis.

Tertiary education is vital for producing the caliber and diversity of graduates needed both for the economy that exists today and for economy to which a nation aspires. It fuels competitiveness and growth by preparing professionals, like managers and engineers, medical personal and teachers. Universities are also centers of research and innovation and – working with small and medium size enterprises – support regional development. Tertiary education is both the aspiration of more and more young people around the globe and a fundamental requirement for employment in the industries that drive the global knowledge economy. As such, tertiary education provides unique opportunities for individual development and equality of opportunity as well as promoting shared prosperity. A failure to sustain effective tertiary systems can lead to perilous social upheavals, as youth fall outside the education system, unable to engage in active learning and uncertain about the future of their education and prospects. Societies are, then, confronted with a massive challenge of youth disengagement and deprived of the graduate professionals needed to keep countries on track for social cohesion and growth.

Because of the high sensitivity, molecular specificity, and non-invasive sampling technique, surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is one of the most powerful analytical techniques. Additionally, its low interference from water makes SERS uniquely effective for biological sensing. In the last decade, the emergence of life-threatening pathogens and debilitating diseases has outpaced the development of treatments. Detection and monitoring have become the first guard approach to containing the spread of deadly infections such as Ebola, H1N1, and SARS-CoV-2. As a result, recent SERS research has heavily focused on studying biological processes and point of care diagnostics.The choice of the nanostructure of the SERS substrate determines its localized surface plasmon resonance which directly contributes to the overall SERS enhancement. Hollow nanostructures are advantages as SERS substrates due to their highly tunable optical properties, which arise from varying the outer diameter to shell thickness. However, hollow nanoparticles have been underexplored due to a more complex synthesis needed to control their physical dimensions. The work in this dissertation explores using hollow gold nanospheres (HGNs) as a template to synthesize rugose hollow nanostructures. HGNs enabled fine control over the hollow (void space) core. However, isotropic geometry yields a single plasmon mode limiting the number of hot spots for SERS enhancement. Rugose nanostructures have improved electric field strength as compared to smooth nanoparticles. More specifically, spiny nanostructures have better electron confinement at their tips. A multibranched structure has an increased number of hot spots. Multibranched hollow gold nanostructures were synthesized using hollow gold nanospheres as a seed particle. Chapter 1 introduces general concepts of plasmonics applied to Raman spectroscopy, specifically how the nanostructure of noble metals influences the localized surface plasmon resonance. The latter part of chapter 1 discusses the characterization of metal nanoparticles through absorption spectroscopy and electron microscopy. Chapter 2 highlights the use of hollow gold nanostars and PEG-based conjugation to overcome the difficulty of detecting amyloid beta 1-14. As a result, we increased our understanding of the parameters needed to detect low Raman scatterers in aqueous media. The key findings were that hollow gold nanostars enable improved SERS enhancement compared to hollow gold nanospheres and solid gold nanostars. The analytical enhancement factor of the hollow gold nanostars was 1.29 x 109 for the 1367 cm-1 peak in R6G was shown to be 11.5 times increased compared to hollow gold nanospheres. Chapter 3 focuses on developing a new method to detect the SARS-CoV-2 S1 spike protein and the anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies by anchoring the his-tagged spike protein to a multibranched gold nanoshell for detection via SERS. Multibranched gold nanoshells were prepared using HAuCl4, AgNO3, and ascorbic acid to improve the optical and morphological properties of smooth ~150 nm gold nanoshells for detecting proteins. The multibranched gold nanoshells were gently mixed with a his-tagged SARS-CoV-2 S1 spike protein, purified, and mixed with Anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies. Raman and SERS measurements of the spike protein and monoclonal antibody with a histidine tag showed a significant increase in peak intensity compared to samples without histidine. Enhanced SERS peaks from the spike protein at 1079, 1178, and 1592 cm-1 are attributed to δ =N-H, νC-N, νC=C, respectively. Enhanced peaks from the Anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibody at 861, 1205, 1454, and 1630 cm-1 can be assigned to νN-H, νC-C, C-H def, and νC=O associated with the phenylalanine and tyrosine rich region closest to the binding sites on mAb. Chapter 4 discusses the work to apply fiber-enhanced SERS to monitor the repair process of a self-healing wastewater purification membrane. The use of a SERS substrate with hollow core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) as a waveguide increased the signal intensity for major distinguishing hydrocarbon tail peaks at 1436cm-1 (CH2 bend) and 1296cm-1 (CH2 twist) by 1.5 and 2x as compared to SERS alone. The increase in signal for lower intensity C-C peaks such as 1157cm-1 was 14x compared to SERS alone. The results show that SERS coupled with a waveguide can enable highly sensitive in situ measurements.

The game is set on a college campus and starts with the player having an exposure to someone infected with COVID-19. The player then has to make decisions about what to after their exposure.

In response to the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has rapidly issued 49 emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for SARS-CoV-2 in vitro diagnostic test-kits. A critical metric in the performance evaluation for a diagnostic test kit is the analytical sensitivity, which is measured by the limit of detection (LOD). Commercial RNA stocks with known titers are used to determine LOD. We identified a problem with the titer reported for the commercial stocks when examining the analytical sensitivity of the reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) protocol that is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) using plasmid DNA from Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), synthetic RNA from BEI Resources (BEI), and extracted genomic RNA from BEI. We detected 3/3 positives for reactions containing synthetic RNA at a concentration of 0.1 copies/reaction (based on the supplier's label concentration). The apparent better-than-single-molecule performance is a statistically highly unlikely event, indicating a potential inaccuracy in the supplier's quantification of the stock material. Using an ultrasensitive and precise assay, reverse transcription digital PCR (RT-dPCR), we independently quantified concentrations of commercial SARS-CoV-2 plasmid DNA and SARS-CoV-2 RNA stocks. For plasmid DNA, the actual concentration measured by RT-dPCR was 11% of the nominal label concentration. For synthetic RNA, the actual concentration measured by RT-dPCR for one lot was 770% of the label concentration and for a different lot was 57% of the label concentration. For genomic RNA, the concentration measured by RT-dPCR for one lot was 240% of the label concentration and for a different lot it was 300% of the label concentration. This SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA from BEI Resources has been used in at least 11 approved FDA Emergency Use Authorizations as of April 27, 2020. Such deviations of reported RNA or DNA stock concentrations from true concentrations can result in inaccurate quantification and calculation of LOD. Precise and accurate reporting of DNA and RNA stock concentrations by commercial suppliers will enable accurate quantification of assay performance, which is urgently needed to improve evaluation of different assays by diagnostic developers and regulatory bodies.