Topic Review
Trade Openness and Sustainable Government Size
The ongoing discussion regarding the role of the free market economy and the extent of state intervention is a critical subject in economics. This matter holds special significance for transition economies, as it presents both challenges and opportunities in such contexts. One may perceive the degree of trade openness as a path toward welfare societies. However, the dual impacts of trade openness on an economy, namely, the compensation and efficiency hypotheses, must be considered. The compensation hypothesis proposes that global trade can enhance the economic influence of the state, whereas the efficiency hypothesis advocates for a contraction in the state’s economic undertakings.
  • 264
  • 11 Aug 2023
Topic Review Video Peer Reviewed
Unraveling Neurodiversity: Insights from Neuroscientific Perspectives
Neurodiversity is a concept and a social movement that addresses and normalizes human neurocognitive heterogeneity to promote acceptance and inclusion of neuro-minorities (e.g., learning disabilities, attention disorders, psychiatric disorders, and more) in contemporary society. Neurodiversity is attributed to nature and nurture factors, and about a fifth of the human population is considered neurodivergent. What does neurodiversity mean neuroscientifically? This question forms the foundation of the present entry, which focuses on existing scientific evidence on neurodiversity including neurodiversity between and within individuals, and the evolutional perspective of neurodiversity. Furthermore, the neuroscientific view will be synergistically integrated with social approaches, particularly in the context of the normalization of neurodiversity and its association with the medical and social models of disability. This multidimensional analysis offers a cohesive and comprehensive understanding of neurodiversity, drawing insights from various vantage points, such as social, psychological, clinical, and neuroscientific viewpoints. This integrated approach fosters a nuanced and holistic discussion on the topic of human diversity.
  • 1.0K
  • 10 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Psychological Symptoms of Endometriosis
Endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory disease that is defined by the growth of endometrial-like tissues outside of the uterus. Endometriosis is currently the second most common gynecological disease and is associated with severe pain, vegetative impairment, and infertility. In association, there are considerable psychological symptoms that limit the quality of life of those affected. This is a brief summary of the current endometriosis literature that is linked to the RDoC domain "Negative Valence".
  • 274
  • 10 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Mirror-like Responses in Neurological and Psychiatric Diseases
What is the significance of a touch encoded by slow-conducted unmyelinated C-tactile (CT) fibers? It is the so-called affiliative touch, which has a fundamental social impact. In humans, it has been demonstrated that the affiliative valence of this kind of touch is encoded by a dedicated central network, not involved in the encoding of discriminative touch, namely, the “social brain”. Moreover, CT-related touch has significant consequences on the human autonomic system, not present in the case of discriminative touch, which does not involve CT fibers as the modulation of vagal tone. In addition, CT-related touch provokes central effects as well.
  • 287
  • 10 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Online Learning Obstacles during COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to the education sector, forcing schools at a worldwide level to quickly adapt their activities to remote learning. The analysis of these challenges and lessons learned aim to improve the quality of digital education. The lessons learned from this experience highlighted the importance of developing strategies to address challenges such as the necessary infrastructure, digital skills, student engagement, collaboration, and personalised online learning.
  • 370
  • 08 Aug 2023
Topic Review
The Effect of COVID-19 Transmission on Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Dogecoin have emerged as important asset classes in general, and diversification and hedging instruments in particular. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided the chance to examine and assess cryptocurrencies’ behavior during extremely stressful times. 
  • 221
  • 08 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Reforming Forest Policies and Management in Russia
The future development of forest industries in Russia, besides the country’s geopolitical issues, could be seriously undermined by the depletion of forest resources available under the current model of forest management that mainly relies on clearcutting mature coniferous forests and leaving these areas for natural regeneration. The introduction of a new model that prioritizes efficient forest regeneration faces many problems on the ground. The efficiency of the use of funds allocated by both governmental and private logging companies for forest regeneration and subsequent tending of young stands should urgently be significantly increased. The government should also develop pragmatic economic incentives to encourage logging concession holders to switch to the new model and to address the problem of the spatial shift (demarginalization) of the country’s forest complex from northern and eastern “green fields” to secondary mixed and southern taiga forests. Instead of harvesting low-productivity northern taiga forests of European Russia and remote areas of Central and Eastern Siberia, wood sourcing should be mainly concentrated in the immediate vicinity of existing mills. Moreover, the development of “greenfield” projects in wilderness forest areas that currently lack any kind of infrastructure should not be encouraged. The focus on the regions with productive southern taiga, mixed and broadleaf forests, developed wood-processing infrastructure, and high forest roads density could ensure the economically beneficial transition towards resilient forestry.
  • 296
  • 08 Aug 2023
Topic Review
The Analysis of Chaos-Based Metaheuristic Methods
The concept of chaos has been applied extensively in various applications with the growth of nonlinear dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to the initial state. Chaos-based algorithms can generate a large number of different search points in a short time, which can help explore the optimization area more efficiently and quickly than traditional optimization algorithms. In this regard, a new method named CSCSO is proposed to improve the shortcomings of the recently proposed Sand Cat Swarm Optimization (SCSO) algorithm with this chaos theory. This algorithm has also been tested in engineering and social science-based constrained problems. Especially in social sciences, it solves basic problems with this kind of artificial intelligence-based mechanism instead of traditional methods such as questionnaires and fieldresearch.
  • 458
  • 07 Aug 2023
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Need for Widely Applicable Cultural Competencies in the Healthcare of Humans and Animals
This entry discusses the importance of cultural competence in the healthcare of humans and animals, its challenges, its mixed research results, and the need for widely applicable competencies. Although there is research evidence showing that cultural competence is linked with patient satisfaction, better doctor–patient relationships, adherence to therapy, and to some extent, better health outcomes, there is a huge variety of models and competencies in the literature, which has sometimes resulted in inclusive outcomes, confusion as to what constitutes the necessary competencies, and patchy implementation. In spite of the development of cultural competence in human healthcare, its implementation in veterinary medicine remains poor. On this note, the aims of this entry are to provide a brief overview of the cultural competence in healthcare and veterinary medicine and education, to outline the important facts, and to highlight the need for more standardisation in implementing and testing widely applicable cultural competencies for both human and veterinary healthcare.
  • 734
  • 07 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Inclusive Governance
Inclusive governance is strongly connected to, yet not limited to, notions such as good governance, and democratic governance, a human rights-based approach to development and legitimacy. Inclusive governance is an intrinsic value within governance and has become an integral feature of the good governance agenda aiming at achieving a better world through establishing fair, judicious, transparent, accountable, and inclusive political systems and decision-making processes in public institutions.
  • 3.0K
  • 07 Aug 2023
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