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In this paper, we apply the Analytic Hierarchy Process approach to conflict resolution in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. We build models that illustrate the evaluation criteria, strategic and sub-criteria, and concessions for each party in this negotiation. Ratings are used to evaluate the degree to which concessions contribute or take away from successful resolution of the conflict. Afterwards, gain ratios are built to determine the benefit-cost scores so that concessions may be traded that result in equitable solutions. The approach presented here demonstrates for the first time why all concessions that parties to a conflict may offer might not trade all at once. A Max-Min optimization approach is used to maximize the gain to both parties of the conflict while minimizing the disparity in gain between the two., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestsThere are no statements or declarations to disclose., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

The importance of cryptocurrency to the global economy is increasing steadily, which is evidenced by a total market capitalization of over $2.18T as of December 17, 2021, according to coinmarketcap.com (Coin, 2021). Cryptocurrencies are too confusing for laymen and require more investigation. In this study, we analyze the impact that the effective reproductive rate, an epidemiological indicator of the spread of COVID-19, has on both the price and trading volume of eight of the largest digital currencies-Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, and Binance. We hypothesize that as the rate of spread decreases, the trading price of the digital currency increases. Using Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity models, we find that the impact of the spread of COVID-19 on the price and trading volume of cryptocurrencies varies by currency and region. These findings offer novel insight into the cryptocurrency market and the impact that the viral spread of COVID-19 has on the value of the major cryptocurrencies., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2022.)

Since the start of the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, more than 106 million people have been infected and global deaths have surpassed 2.4 million. In Chile, the government restricted the activities and movement of people, organizations, and companies, under the concept of dynamic quarantine across municipalities for a predefined period of time. Chile is an interesting context to study because reports to have a higher quantity of infections per million people as well as a higher number of polymerize chain reaction (PCR) tests per million people. The higher testing rate means that Chile has good measurement of the contagious compared to other countries. Further, the heterogeneity of the social, economic, and demographic variables collected of each Chilean municipality provides a robust set of control data to better explain the contagious rate for each city. In this paper, we propose a framework to determine the effectiveness of the dynamic quarantine policy by analyzing different causal models (meta-learners and causal forest) including a time series pattern related to effective reproductive number. Additionally, we test the ability of the proposed framework to understand and explain the spread over benchmark traditional models and to interpret the Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) plots. The conclusions derived from the proposed framework provide important scientific information for government policymakers in disease control strategies, not only to analyze COVID-19 but to have a better model to determine social interventions for future outbreaks., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To determine behavioural, dietary and other common factors associated with new cases of gallstones, diagnosed by ultrasonography, in a prospective cohort study conducted in southern Italy., Subjects and Methods: Between May 1985 and June 1986, systematic sampling from the electoral register of Castellana, a small town in southern Italy, yielded 2472 subjects who had had their gallbladder checked for gallstones by ultrasonography. Between May 1992 and June 1993, 1962 out of the 2235 (87.7%) subjects without gallstones at baseline agreed to a further ultrasound examination. At the first survey a standardized questionnaire was administered, inquiring about medical history, diet, cigarette smoking and other behavioural characteristics. Height and weight were also measured, and blood levels of glucose, cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides were determined by standard methods. The same variables were measured at the second survey. The diagnosis of gallstones was made with the same echograph by echographists working in the same department. Multiple logistic regression was used to determine which factors measured at the first survey were associated with the incident cases of gallstones., Results: One hundred and four subjects had developed gallstones, an incidence of 9.7 per 1000 persons per year. Age, body mass index (BMI), weight change, a history of diabetes, constipation (shown by use of laxatives), cigarette smoking, years of schooling, consumption of fried foods and excessive oil, and pregnancy in females, were positively associated with the incidence of gallstones. Consumption of wine, coffee, fish and wholemeal bread was inversely associated. Sex, family history of cholelithiasis, use of oral contraceptives and serum lipids were not independent risk factors for gallstones., Conclusion: The results of this study confirm many gallstone-associated factors reported in previous cross-sectional and case-control studies, as well as in other cohort studies based on the clinical diagnosis of gallstones, such as BMI, ageing and wine consumption. Furthermore, use of laxatives, considered a proxy of constipation, appears to be another important independent risk factor for gallstones.