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Introduction: The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) chat programs has opened two distinct paths, one enhancing interaction and another potentially replacing personal understanding. Ethical and legal concerns arise due to the rapid development of these programs. This paper investigates academic discussions on AI in medicine, analyzing the context, frequency, and reasons behind these conversations. Methods: The study collected data from the Web of Science database on articles containing the keyword "ChatGPT" published from January to September 2023, resulting in 786 medically related journal articles. The inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed articles in English related to medicine. Results: The United States led in publications (38.1%), followed by India (15.5%) and China (7.0%). Keywords such as "patient" (16.7%), "research" (12%), and "performance" (10.6%) were prevalent. The Cureus Journal of Medical Science (11.8%) had the most publications, followed by the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (8.3%). August 2023 had the highest number of publications (29.3%), with significant growth between February to March and April to May. Medical General Internal (21.0%) was the most common category, followed by Surgery (15.4%) and Radiology (7.9%). Discussion: The prominence of India in ChatGPT research, despite lower research funding, indicates the platform's popularity and highlights the importance of monitoring its use for potential medical misinformation. China's interest in ChatGPT research suggests a focus on Natural Language Processing (NLP) AI applications, despite public bans on the platform. Cureus' success in publishing ChatGPT articles can be attributed to its open-access, rapid publication model. The study identifies research trends in plastic surgery, radiology, and obstetric gynecology, emphasizing the need for ethical considerations and reliability assessments in the application of ChatGPT in medical practice. Conclusion: ChatGPT's presence in medical literature is growing rapidly across various specialties, but concerns related to safety, privacy, and accuracy persist. More research is needed to assess its suitability for patient care and implications for non-medical use. Skepticism and thorough review of research are essential, as current studies may face retraction as more information emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic created one of the biggest disruptions in human life. We were all confined within the walls of our homes or offices with day-to-day life worldwide seriously affected. In this context, access to and efficient use of technology determined the course of daily life for vast sections of the world's population. However, there was (and still is) a severe pre-existing global divide between the Global North and Global South vis-à-vis digital access. This paper attempts to understand this digital divide and how it has widened during the pandemic in the Global North and Global South with reference to India and the United States (US). This is initiated by analyzing certain factors within each country, namely positional and personal categorical inequalities. Through the cases of the US and India, the authors conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the global digital divide between the two worlds, affecting core social sectors like education and health. The larger implication of this is a broadening inequality between the Global North and Global South in leading development indicators like the Human Development Index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic negatively influenced the entire life globally including various aspects of patients' care. Its effect on medical research production is not known. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on medical research reporting trend. Methods: Advanced search on PubMed was performed over 2011- August, 2021. Monthly comparison was done for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021. Kruskal Wallis test was used to compare continuous distributions. Results: The total publication count showed constant increment over the study period. Faster rise was noticed on 2020 (15.7%). A steady growth in publications over the years and through the pandemic was also seen in seven studied countries with variable, both in total and also after exclusion of COVID-19 related papers. Italy and India have the highest proportions of COVID-19 related publications in comparison to the total papers in 2020, but USA has the highest quantity. Statistically significant differences exist between the first eight months of the last three years with and without counting COVID-19 related publications (p-values=0.0003907 and 0.001084, respectively). Conclusion: Our results reflect that investigators world-wide succeeded to reconfigure their work style and utilize the spared time induced by the lockdown to enrich the medical research platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adhesion contracts have a strong likelihood of being unconscionable. The laws and principles are further complicated by the introduction of electronic contracts, specifically electronic consumer contracts. The paper touches upon the duty to read doctrine in contracts and electronic contracts. While the doctrine of unconscionability has evolved it has been playing catch up with the demands of consumers. This paper compares the application of this doctrine in the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and India. The paper also proposes recommendations for consumers and the development of laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quad or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a group of four democracies, the US, India, Japan, and Australia, was first proposed in 2007 by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his 'confluence of two seas' speech that subsequently embarked on the path to the foundation of the group. Quad perceives China's economic growth, which enables her to transform the world order as a threat and aims at containing the growing Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region. The Malabar naval exercises in the Indian Ocean by the Quad members were one such exercise. This paper, aims to analyze the formation of Quad and will contemplate whether the group is causing confrontation or stability in the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions. The paper will also assess that the Quad is designed to counter China's growing influence in the Asia-pacific and Indo-pacific regions. Containing China is likely to create a confrontation in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recruitment and retention of foreign talent are crucial dimensions of the global education and labour markets. This paper examines how entwined migration policies and corporate practices shape the development and flow of international skill. I pair an original dataset of employment histories with 105 interviews with skilled migrants and institutional actors to examine the process of skill and knowledge formation among foreign-born workers in the United States and return migrants in India. The findings show that employer-sponsored visas constrain the development of foreign skill and inefficiencies in the implementation of H-1B visas andgreen cards are contributing to return migration. Return migrants leave the United States with knowledge and skills in STEM and business that they developed while studying and working in the United States. At the same time, multinational employers are increasingly conceptualising migration experience as a skill, giving return migrants an advantage in their home labour markets. The findings of this paper illustrate how interactions between state and corporate institutions shape the process of skill formation throughout the migration journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The concept of stigma has been widely used to understand patterns of discrimination and negative ideas surrounding people with mental health problems, yet we know little of the specific nuances of how this might operate beyond the 'Global North'. Aim: This paper aims to explore the notion of stigma in an Indian context by considering the lived experience of patients, carers and community members. Methods: A sample of 204 participants, representing mental health patients, informal carers and community members was recruited from urban and rural areas in Kerala, India. Participants took part in interviews where they were encouraged to talk about their experiences of mental ill health, attitudes towards these problems, barriers encountered and sources of support. Results: Experiences akin to the experience of stigma in Europe and the United States were elicited but there were important local dimensions specific to the Indian context. The difficulties faced by people with diagnoses of mental disorders in finding marriage partners was seen as an important problem, leading to marriage proposals being refused in some cases, and secrecy on the part of those with mental health problems. Rather than the 'self-stigma' identified in the US, participants were more likely to see this as a collective problem in that it could reflect badly on the family group as a whole rather than just the sufferer. Conclusions: In the Indian context, the idioms of stigma emphasised impairments in marriage eligibility and the implications for the family group rather than just the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global rise of populism and concomitant polarizations across disenfranchised and marginalized groups has been magnified by so-called echo chambers, and a major public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic has only served to fuel these intergroup tensions. Media institutions disseminating information on ways to prevent the propagation of the virus have reactivated a specific discursive phenomenon previously observed in many epidemics: the construction of a defiled 'Other'. With anthropological lenses, discourse on defilement is an interesting path to understand the continuous emergence of pseudo-scientific forms of racism. In this paper, the authors focus on 'borderline racism', that is the use of an institutionally 'impartial' discourse to reaffirm the inferiority of another race. The authors employed inductive thematic analysis of 1200 social media comments reacting to articles and videos published by six media in three different countries (France, United States and India). Results delineate four major themes structuring defilement discourses: food (and the relationship to animals), religion, nationalism and gender. Media articles and videos portrayed Western and Eastern countries through contrasting images and elicited a range of reaction in readers and viewers. The discussion reflects on how borderline racism can be an appropriate concept to understand the appearance of hygienic othering of specific subgroups on social media. Theoretical implications and recommendations on a more culturally sensitive approach of media coverage of epidemics and pandemics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tobacco use is associated with an annual global economic cost of two trillion dollars and mortality of half of its regular users. Tobacco leaf cultivation is the starting point of the tobacco cycle. Tobacco farming employs millions of small-scale tobacco farmers around the globe, most of whom are out growers who rely on the tobacco industry. This paper aims to map the regions of greatest tobacco production globally (i.e., the US, Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, and Zambia) and tobacco use rates in these locations. Smoking rates were higher in those areas, except for India, where important population subgroups reported an upward trend for tobacco smoking. In general, there was a relationship between tobacco farming and tobacco smoking. Tobacco farming may lead to a higher risk of tobacco use and lower adherence to tobacco control policies. Therefore, promoting viable alternative livelihoods for tobacco farmers must have dual benefits. Additionally, specific health prevention policies might be necessary for those populations reporting higher tobacco use and lower perception of tobacco-related health risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares and contrasts the spread and impact of COVID-19 in the three countries most heavily impacted by the pandemic: the United States (US), India and Brazil. All three of these countries have a federal structure, in which the individual states have largely determined the response to the pandemic. Thus, we perform an extensive analysis of the individual states of these three countries to determine patterns of similarity within each. First, we analyse structural similarity and anomalies in the trajectories of cases and deaths as multivariate time series. Next, we study the lengths of the different waves of the virus outbreaks across the three countries and their states. Finally, we investigate suitable time offsets between cases and deaths as a function of the distinct outbreak waves. In all these analyses, we consistently reveal more characteristically distinct behaviour between US and Indian states, while Brazilian states exhibit less structure in their wave behaviour and changing progression between cases and deaths. • We compare and contrast the natural history of COVID-19 in the US, India and Brazil. • Case, death and mortality rate trajectories are analysed on a state-by-state basis. • We quantify heterogeneity and identify anomalous states therein within each country. • Wave behaviours are explored and clustered across the three countries states. • New mathematical methods quantify the lag in the progression from cases and deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]