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The current COVID-19 pandemic has renewed interest in providing healthcare services based on the implementation of innovative technologies. Such strategy capillarizes the therapeutic opportunities for larger urban areas, mostly when people are living under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Improving care delivery in cardiovascular diseases appears particularly feasible when telemedicine is pursued, especially with regard to baseline standard 12-lead electrocardiography, ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring, and 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. Nowadays, these first-line cardiovascular examinations are also available in health centers and pharmacies, and in recent months, there has been an increasing demand of such local services in the absence of specific rules and regulations regarding technical requirements and standards of interpretation that ensure a high quality clinical consultation.The purpose of this position paper is to provide critical requirements for the type/model of devices to be used, training dedicated to healthcare personnel, ensuring security of sensitive data, highlighting type of platforms to be used, as well as for maintaining high reporting quality and standards.

Minimization of hospital lengths of stay has always been a key goal for healthcare systems. More so during the current COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, we have faced a reduction in no-COVID-19 admissions with the generation of huge backlogs. Low-risk patients undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) can be candidate for short-term hospitalization, with consequent reduction of waiting lists. Several single-center and multicenter observational studies, multiple randomized trials and some meta-analyses have addressed this topic.In this position paper, we present a proposal for short hospitalization for elective PCI procedures in selected patients who present complications only exceptionally and exclusively immediately after the procedure, if the inclusion and exclusion criteria are met. Each Center can choose between admission in day surgery or one day surgery, extending hospital length of stay only for patients who present complications or who are candidate for urgent surgery. Short-term hospitalization considerably reduces costs even if, with the current model, it generally results in a parallel reduction in reimbursement. Hence, we present an actual model, already tested successfully in an Italian hospital, that warrants sustainability. This approach can then be tailored to single Centers.

Sacubitril/valsartan (S/V) has been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death or heart failure hospitalization and improve symptoms in chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction compared to enalapril. After 7 years since the publication of the results of PARADIGM-HF, further insight has been gained with potential new indications. Two prospective randomized multicenter studies (PIONEER-HF and TRANSITION) in patients hospitalized for acute heart failure (AHF) have shown an improved clinical outcome and biomarker profile as compared to enalapril, and good tolerability, safety and feasibility of initiating in-hospital administration of S/V. Furthermore, some studies have highlighted the favorable effects of S/V in attenuating adverse myocardial remodeling, supporting an early benefit after treatment. Observational data from non-randomized studies in AHF report that in-hospital and pre-discharge prescription of evidence-based drugs associated with better survival still remains suboptimal. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has also negatively impacted on outpatient activities. Therefore, hospitalization, a real crossroads in the history of heart failure, must become a management and therapeutic opportunity for our patients. The objective of this ANMCO position paper is to encourage and facilitate early S/V administration in stabilized patients during hospitalization after an AHF episode, with the aim of improving care efficiency and clinical outcome.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on patients with cancer and cardiovascular disease have confirmed the particular vulnerability of this population. Indeed, not only a higher risk of contracting the infection has been reported, but also an increased occurrence of a more severe course and unfavorable outcome. Beyond the direct consequences of COVID-19, the pandemic has an enormous impact on global health systems. Screening programs and non-urgent tests have been postponed; clinical trials have suffered a setback. Similarly, in the area of cardiology care, a significant decline in ST-elevation myocardial infarction accesses and an increase in cases of late presenting heart attacks with increased mortality and complication rates have been reported. Health care systems must therefore get ready to tackle the "rebound effect" that will likely show a relative increase in the short and medium term incidence of diseases such as heart failure, myocardial infarction, arrhythmias and cardio- and cerebrovascular complications. Scientific societies are taking action to provide general guidance and recommendations aimed at mitigating the unfavorable outcomes of this pandemic emergency. Cardio-oncology, as an emerging discipline, is more flexible in modulating care pathways and represents a beacon of innovation in the development of multi-specialty patient management. In the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, cardio-oncology has rapidly modified its clinical care pathways and implemented flexible monitoring protocols that include targeted use of cardiac imaging, increased use of biomarkers, and telemedicine systems. The goal of these strategic adjustments is to minimize the risk of infection for providers and patients while maintaining standards of care for the treatment of oncologic and cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this position paper is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the management of cardio-oncologic patients with the-state-of-the-art knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 in order to optimize medical strategies during and after the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented event that has brought deep changes in hospital facilities with reshaping of the health system organization, revealing inadequacies of current hospital and local health systems. When the COVID-19 emergency will end, further evaluation of the national health system, new organization of acute wards, and a further evolution of the entire health system will be needed to improve care during the chronic phase of disease. Therefore, new standards for healthcare personnel, more efficient organization of hospital facilities for patients with acute illnesses, improvement of technological approaches, and better integration between hospital and territorial services should be pursued. With experience derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, new models, paradigms, interventional approaches, values and priorities should be suggested and implemented.

In over a year, the COVID-19 pandemic caused 2.69 million deaths and 122 million infections. Social isolation and distancing measures have been the only prevention available for months. Scientific research has done a great deal of work, developing in a few months safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19. In the European Union, nowadays, four vaccines have been authorized for use: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, ChAdOx1 (AstraZeneca/Oxford), Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), and three others are currently under rolling review.Vaccine allocation policy is crucial to optimize the advantage of treatment preferring people with the highest risk of contagion. These days the priority in the vaccination program is of particular importance since it has become clear that the number of vaccines is not sufficient for the entire Italian population in the short term. Cardiovascular diseases are frequently associated with severe COVID-19 infections, leading to the worst prognosis. The elderly population suffering from cardiovascular diseases is, therefore, to be considered a particularly vulnerable population. However, age cannot be considered the only discriminating factor because in the young-adult population suffering from severe forms of heart disease, the prognosis, if affected by COVID-19, is particularly ominous and these patients should have priority access to the vaccination program. The aim of this position paper is to establish a consensus on a priority in the vaccination of COVID-19 among subjects suffering from different cardiovascular diseases.

Similar to many other countries, journalistic production in China during the first half of 2020 was dominated on a thematic level by the COVID-19 pandemic. The trend included the mouthpiece of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Renmin Ribao. Its news and commentary articles, which are widely republished by other media, influence the country’s political life, and contribute to the process of meaning generation in the news discourse and to the CCP’s effort to align Chinese citizens to official narratives. Renmin Ribao can therefore provide a relevant source to investigate the relationship between political power and the COVID-19 pandemic, starting from the hypothesis that the paper’s narrative would aim at discursively turning the international health crisis into a piece of positive propaganda. This study aims to verify whether and how the paper did so, and to question the assumption that the outlet’s media discourse can be equated to the CCP official discourse. The research is developed as a case study and blends quantitative and qualitative tools grounded on Applied Linguistics, Discourse-Historical Approach, and Frame Analysis, in order to analyse a corpus of commentaries that have appeared in the outlet’s online edition in 2020. By applying a Genre Analysis approach, the study also offers insights into the possibility to identify distinguishing characteristics and communicative goals in the different sub-genres of Renmin Ribao commentaries.

Introduction: the rapidity with which the Coronavirus epidemic emergency exploded took the scientific community by surprise, unprepared for such an event. The objective of this work is to evaluate, to date, the state of the art of the clinical trials approved by Aifa, analyzing the characteristics of the single completed and published trials and the authorization status for the use of the drugs under study in the treatment of Covid-19., Materials and Methods: The protocols available for each clinical study were extrapolated from the Aifa website relating to the management of clinical trials in Italy during the Covid-19 emergency; the unique EudraCT and Nct codes were extrapolated from these, verifying their publication using the PubMed search engine, the ClinicalTrials.gov platform, the EU Clinical Trials Register portal and the website of the pharmaceutical company identified as the promoter of the study. The characteristics of the individual trials useful for the analysis were extracted from the published papers. Finally, a comparison was made between the studies relating to experimental drugs which were subsequently authorized for the Covid-19 indication and the studies relating to drugs which have not yet been authorized to date., Results: In total, Aifa approved 94 between March 2020 and March 2022; of these, 22 are not listed on ClinicalTrials.gov; of the 72 trials listed on ClinicalTrials.gov, 31 (43%) were published, for a total of 25 drugs. Of the authorized and published trials, 26 report the "mortality endpoint". The most studied drugs are remdesivir and tocilizumab with 3 studies each, methylprednisone and molnupravir with 2. 14 studies are phase III, of these 12 used a drug as an experimental treatment which was then approved for Covid-19. Of the 41 trials present on ClinicalTrials.gov that have not yet been published, 21 are terminated. The drugs anakinra, remdesivir, molnupravir, regdanvimab, tocilizumab, AZD1222 vaccine have been updated/registered for Covid-19 indication; anakinra, baricitinib, tocilizumab and sarilumab have been included in the list of Law 648/96; remdesivir, canakinumab and ruxolitinib have been entered into compassionate use programmes., Discussion and Conclusions: The methods of early access to therapy have allowed an alternative to patients who are not eligible for the ongoing trials. The challenge that the scientific community has faced has strengthened the culture of evidence-based medicine.

The aim of this paper is to explore a grassroots initiative in which Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) serve as infrastructures for processes of human and urban regeneration to rethink places. Through the case study of «La Città che Parla», an interesting project carried out in San Cesario (LE) during the first lock down Covid-19, we reflect on the potential of places, to encourage inhabitants to co-design human and urban regeneration strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Introduction: Epidemiology is increasingly involved on a wide variety of topics and to engage different professionals and disciplines in an increasingly active way. A fundamental role is played by young researchers active in Italian epidemiology who create opportunities for meeting and discussion, in the name of multidisciplinarity and integration of different skills., Objective: The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the topics most frequently studied in epidemiology by young people and to highlight any changes in these topics in the pre- and post-Covid-19 workplaces., Methods: All abstracts submitted in the years 2019 and 2022 by young participants in the Maccacaro Prize, an annual award aimed at Italian association of epidemiology (Aie) conference addressed to people under 35 years of age, were considered. In addition to the comparison of the topics, a comparison of the related work structures and their geographical location was carried out by grouping the research centres into three Italian geographical regions: north, centre and south/islands., Results: Between 2019 and 2022, the number of abstracts participating in the Maccacaro Prize increased. The interest in topics related to infectious diseases, vaccines, and pharmaco-epidemiology has sharply increased, while in environmental and maternal and child epidemiology it has moderately increased. Social epidemiology, health promotion and prevention, as well as clinical and evaluative epidemiology, have experienced a decrease in interest. Finally, after analysing the geographical distribution of reference centres, it was discovered that certain regions, such as Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Latium, have a strong and consistent presence of young people in the field of epidemiology. Conversely, there is a small number of young professionals working in this field in other Italian regions, especially in Southern regions., Conclusions: The pandemic has changed our personal and working habits, but it has also played a fundamental role in making epidemiology known. The increase in young people joining an association such as the Aie is a clear sign of the growing interest in this discipline.

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The generation of rapid information has been an important novelty in the COVID-19 pandemic and a challenge for epidemiology. The methodological frailty and uncertainty of rapid data use has been a consequence. We are talking about an 'intermezzo' epidemiology between the event and the production of consolidated data that opens up great opportunities to the use epidemiology for rapid public health decisions, provided a careful work to be done before emergencies. In Italy, an ad hoc national COVID-19 information system producing daily data that quickly became essential for public decision-making. Total and all-cause mortality data are derived from the traditional information system of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat), which, at the onset of the pandemic, was unable to provide rapid total and all-causes mortality data at the national level and still produces them with a one- to two-month delay. National cause and place mortality data referred to the first epidemic wave (March and April 2020) was in May 2021 and recently updated (October 2022) for the whole year 2020. Nearly three years after the onset of the epidemic, we have no nationwide rapid information on the distribution of deaths by place of death (hospitals, nursing homes and other care facilities, home) neither on their breakdown in 'by COVID-19', 'with COVID-19', and 'non-COVID-19' deaths. The pandemic being still in progress, new problems arise (the long-term impact of COVID-19, the impact of lockdown policies, etcetera), whose solution cannot be postponed until peer reviewed papers are available. A fine-tuning of the rapid processing of interim data certainly requires the development of national and regional information systems, but first of all a methodologically robust 'intermezzo' epidemiology.

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The objective of this paper is to investigate the hybridization dynamics of the Third sector at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. The progressive contamination between the State, market, family and Third sector spheres has long been subject of interest of the scholars. This paper aim at analysing these dynamics through the case study of Fondazione Banco Alimentare (Italian Food Bank Foundation). The case helps in investigating the impact of the pandemic on the role, logics and actors that make up the Third sector (both organizations and people) and its relation with the other subsystems. The empirical analysis shows that the pandemic and its consequences has enhanced the role of Fondazione Banco Alimentare, thanks to its relevance during the food emergency that also increased its visibility in the media. There are more institutional and non-institutional donors, more beneficiaries and help requests that resulted also in an accelerated professionalization and training of volunteers and employers. In conclusion, the Italian Food Bank and its network dealt with processes of digitalization, institutionalization and professionalization. These transformations resulted in a new positioning of the organization in the public sphere and redefined its relationship between local, national and European institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of social media (SoMe) has spread worldwide among doctors, scientific societies, and researchers. SoMe offer a powerful platform to accelerate or create new contacts, spread scientific news, and increase visibility. A social media promotion strategy for cardiovascular medicine papers seems to be associated with increased online visibility and a higher number of citations. This effect is independent of the type of article and the total number of followers of the authors. Indeed, SoMe are democratic and even non-senior researchers may be popular on Twitter: your title is not as important as what you do on Twitter. Nevertheless, some physicians may be over-celebrated due to their presence on SoMe. This is why a new author index, the K-index, has been proposed. The K-index correlates the citations of a scientist with the number of Twitter followers. Even scientific journals and societies have recognized the importance of SoMe and in the last years they have appeared on SoMe with official accounts. Therefore, besides the classic impact factor, publishers now pay more and more attention to other parameters, such as the Altmetric score, which takes into account the number of citations, but also the number of downloads, mentions on SoMe, newspapers and tv news, web sites, and blogs. The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the importance of SoMe for scientific content distribution, particularly for congresses. For all these reasons, it is important to understand the pros and cons of SoMe. It is also possible that SoMe will become a new education medium for continuing medical education.

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Summary: Introduction. The relationship between Self-compassion and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder does not appear to be investigated among health professionals, in the period of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This study intends to examine it in a hospital unit, where ordinary units have been converted into units for those infected with the virus. Materials and Methods. The cross-sectional observational study was carried out at a hospital in Central Italy, proposing the self-administration of the IES-R Impact Event Stress-Revised and SCS Self-Compassion Scale to nurses. The data were collected, from 10 January to 10 February 2021, on paper; the forms were handed over to the nursing coordinators, who distributed them to the operators. Results. The convenience sample includes 60 nurses, mainly female (76.7%), with an average age of 43 years (sd = 11.9) and with a presence in service of 14.6 years (sd = 11.7). The average level on the total scale Self-compassion 3.02 (ds = 1.26); the average level of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is 2.4 (sd = 0.64); there is a direct correlation between the common Humanity dimension and the intrusive symptoms and the mean total level of PTSD and between the Self-Criticism dimension and the avoidance symptoms. Discussion and Conclusion. The sample shows a good level in the positive dimensions of Self-compassion and low secondary Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Further studies, transversal, on specific more representative samples of nurses, and longitudinal, are required to evaluate the relationship between the two variables, even in the period of COVID-19. The acquisition of a personal attitude is recommended, which increases the positive dimension of Self-compassion, for one's personal well-being in the helping profession., Competing Interests: The authors of this article have no conflict of interests to disclose., (Copyright© by GIMLE.)

Introduction: Personal stories accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic are of utmost relevance when considering policy adjustments and future improvements in the field of nursing., Methods: in order to gather data and offer a more detailed overview of the complexity of nurses' responsibilities in times of global health crisis, the method used is ethnographic research., Results: The analisys demonstrates that the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, characterized by major uncertainties, has altered nurses' daily routines to the extent that they have been exposed to additional sets of duties, as well as to the higher levels of exhaustion and risks with potentially fatal consequences., Conclusion: This narratives provide a valuable input to the debate on nurses' own status, as well as on the state of healthcare. This paper extends the current knowledge and contributes to wider discussions about nursing and our society's ability to handle outbreaks of large-scale health crises.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(1), 481-506 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. The case of the ESM: why the Eurozone's governance does not question the unity of the EU institutional framework. - II.1. The establishment of the ESM. - II.2. The institutional functioning of the ESM. - III. The impact of tasks entrusted to the EU institutions under the ESM on the institutional equilibrium within the EU legal order. - III.1. How are new tasks entrusted to the EU institutions? - III.2. What impact do these new tasks produce on the institutional equilibrium within the EU? - IV. The post-Covid institutional set-up: back to a "community" mode of governance? - V. Conclusion. | (Abstract) In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the EU and its Member States had to face very pragmatic issues: how to avoid the economic collapse of Greece, Portugal and Ireland? Decisions had to be taken quickly in any institutional or legal forum that was immediately available. For this specific reason, legal solutions entailing the conclusion of international agreements by some of the EU Member States outside the EU legal framework were taken as a new normal. Due to a close legal relationship between these new international treaties and the EU legal order, a decision was also taken to "borrow" already existing EU institutions and entrust them with new tasks. In this Article, we question the role of EU institutions outside the EU legal framework. We first address the evolution of the EU institutional framework in the context of the euro crisis in relation to art. 13 TEU and recital 7 of the TEU preamble and the requirement of "unity of the institutional framework". Section II shows that "borrowing" the EU institutions outside the EU legal framework does not seem to alter the nature of the single EU institutional setting. Section III questions whether the tasks entrusted to the EU institutions outside the EU legal framework do not undermine the existing institutional equilibrium within the EU legal order. Section IV addresses the EU response to the Covid-19 pandemic from an institutional perspective as raising similar concerns within the EU legal order. The last section concludes.

Introduction: In recent years, and even more following the need for social distancing generated by the global COVID-19 pandemic, e-health has become an increasingly widespread reality in clinical practice, especially for those clinicians operating in the front-line, like nurses. Its growing importance has been followed by increasing attention both by the literature as well as in the generation of specific rules aimed at regulating the phenomenon., Methods: A regulatory review of the literature aims to outline the current regulatory framework relating to telemedicine. Telemedicine, especially in a pandemic context, calls for regulation that runs parallel to the rapid evolution of the phenomenon itself. The paper traces the European, Italian, and Regional legislation, focusing then on a practical experience of telemedicine, called Doctor @ Home, active at the IRCCS National Cancer Center in Aviano (Italy)., Discussion: First, the need for regulatory harmonization emerges. Secondly, the potential of co-production and co-learning processes for healthcare professionals and patients arises to adapt to the outpatient needs of patients in a post-pandemic "new normal," exploiting the new technological tools made available by the National Health Service.

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The paper is a reflection on the psychic phenomenon involving the denial of reality of covid-19 pandemic, the denial of data from scientific research about it and the denial of therapeutic purposes of vaccine and national and international health policies, as it emerges in the frame of the so-called no-vax movements. The possible basic or associated psychopathological pictures are described, analogies and differences respect to classic psychiatric nosology are evaluated, psychological and psychiatric interpretative hypotheses are considered, in what they can to some extent characterize a wide and complex reality, in whose knowledge and management psychiatrists could play a much more relevant role than they actually do.

Background: Health Information Systems (HIS) play a strategic role in the development of community healthcare services, a field still underdeveloped in Italy as shown by the COVID-19 pandemic, and their use for epidemiological purposes is increasing over the years. However, some general critical issues have been reported concerning national community health information systems, but no detailed study was found after a non-systematic review in Medline database and institutional websites., Objectives: to assess uniformity and comparability of health information collected by the national health information Systems for Home Care (SIAD), Nursing Homes (FAR), and Hospices (HOS) in Italy, three healthcare settings sharing patients with common conditions and healthcare needs., Methods: information was gathered from current Technical Regulations Papers of the Italian Health Ministry. All variables of the three Information Systems were ordered on the basis of the characteristics provided by the ministerial documents into a single grouping model created for the purpose and their distribution compared among and between the Systems. According to the grouping model, the variables were divided in two main groups: System Variables for administrative, bill, and identification-personal data and the Pathway Variables for patient's conditions and provided healthcare data. Common information content variables among all systems and between two of them were then identified, highlighting those with also identical terminology and allowed values. On the basis of the percentages of common and identical variables, uniformity in content and terminology was then calculated among all systems and between two of them. Besides, levels of content and terminology agreement have been calculated with Cohen's K matching the three Systems in all possible combinations of pairs., Results: there are 70 variables in SIAD, 45 variables in FAR, and 34 in HOS. System variables are nearly the half in FAR and HOS, 22 (48.9%) and 17 (50.0%) variables, respectively. Pathway variables are prevalent only in SIAD, with 55 variables (78.6%). Only SIAD and HOS use ICD-9-CM, with 2 (2.8%) and 9 (26.5%) variables, respectively. The three Systems share 18 common variables, with other 16 common between just two of them. Considering the common variables, the total number of variables used by all the Systems is 97, with 23 System variables (23.7%) and 74 Pathway variables (76.3%). Overall, content uniformity among the three Systems is 18.5%, but becomes 60.9% considering only the System variables and 5.4% for the Pathway variables, with respectively 14 and 4 common variables. Among the common variables, 11 have the same denomination and allowed values, with an overall terminological uniformity of 11.3%. Being all of them System variables, no terminological uniformity has been found among the three Systems.The level of content agreement was fair for the couple FAR-HOS (K Cohen 0.26), but null for HOS-SIAD and SIAD-FAR (K Cohen -0.20 and <0.01). Null was also the level of terminological agreement in all the possible pairs of matched systems (K Cohen all negative)., Conclusions: content and terminology uniformity of National Health Information Systems in Italy for Home Care, Nursing Homes, and Hospices has been found to be poor, with little reference to standardised classification systems and a scarce level of comparability of the information gathered in the three healthcare settings, although similarity in patients' characteristics and provided health services. Data comparability among them is mainly limited to administrative and identification-personal information, with little possibility of comparing information on patients' conditions and provided healthcare in the three settings. This scarce uniformity might undermine the contribution of national Health Information Systems in the development of community healthcare services in Italy and limit the potential of epidemiological research in this area. Also in the light of the establishment of new national Health Information Systems for Primary Care and Community Hospitals, a methodological reassessment of languages, codes, and evaluation tools used by community health services and information systems is needed.

This paper aims to analyze former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s thirty speeches on COVID-19 delivered between February 2, 2020 and April 27, 2020. We apply Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of discourse analysis to investigate and analyze Rouhani’s rhetorical and discursive strategies in making meaning of COVID-19. Findings showed that COVID-19 discourse in Rouhani’s speeches has mainly revolved around three nodal points: “the country”, “the enemy”, and “the state of exception”. Thus, the structural articulation of COVID-19 discourse resembles the hegemonic discourse in Iran. Our results also explain how Rouhani used COVID-19 as an empty signifier to reinforce the hegemonic discourse in Iran while trying to redefine his relations with the state-leaning organizations. Furthermore, we analyzed the rhetorical practices that Rouhani employed to articulate the COVID-19 discourse. This paper contributes to a growing body of literature into discursive aspects and implications of a global pandemic by providing empirical evidence form an understudied context: Iran.

Inflationary pressures, but also the uncertainty regarding the duration and severity of the Covid-19 pandemic, have significantly increased in the last year. Moreover, the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, further called into question the upward trend in the inflation rate. In this sense, the sudden and continuous increase in energy, fuel, and food prices constitute new challenges for decision-makers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of inflation in Romania from the period 1990-2022 because this constitutes a topical macroeconomic challenge. Compared to the way of presenting the information from the bibliography used and found at the end of the paper, in this paper only the essential aspects, the particularities of the chosen research topic, which finally provide an overview, can be found.

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COVID-19, a deadly pandemic that has affected millions of people worldwide, is also associated with cardiovascular complications, such as venous and arterial thromboembolic events. The viral spike protein, in fact, may promote the release of prothrombotic and inflammatory mediators. Vaccines, coding for the spike protein, are the primary measure for preventing COVID-19. However, some unexpected thrombotic events at unusual sites, most frequently the cerebral venous and splanchnic districts, with associated thrombocytopenia, have emerged in subjects who received adenovirus-based vaccines, especially in fertile women. This clinical entity has been rapidly recognized as a new syndrome, named vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, probably caused by cross-reacting antiplatelet factor 4 antibodies activating platelets. This prompted the regulatory agencies of various countries to restrict the use of adenovirus-based vaccines to specific age groups. The prevailing opinion of most experts, however, is that the risk of developing COVID-19 disease, including thrombosis, clearly outweighs this potential extremely low risk.This paper aims at providing a comprehensive review of epidemiological issues, clinical data and pathogenetic hypotheses of thrombosis linked to both COVID-19 and its vaccines, helping cardiologists to offer an up-to-date and evidence-based counseling to their often-alarmed patients with acute or chronic coronary syndromes.

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Copyright of Il Capitale Culturale: Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage is the property of Il Capitale Culturale Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Il Capitale Culturale: Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage is the property of Il Capitale Culturale Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare is the property of Firenze University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper stems from the «Progetto Pilota Natalità» in the province of Modena of the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy. Run between 2019 and 2021, the project introduces new evidence related to family policies in the Province of Modena. Specifically, we integrate primary qualitative firm-level evidence gathered during the Covid-19 pandemic with data on the voluntary organizations operating in the Italian third sector obtained just before the Covid-19 outbreak. We provide meaningful insights at the intersection of the public, the private and the voluntary sectors, while setting some guidelines to move forward in the design and implementation of family policies that are sensible across the territory. The study is interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic and, as a result, is mainly centered around two themes: (1) the processes involved in the territorialization of public policy, particularly family policies, that entail local collective action levers and bottom-up resilience for the application of national policies; (2) the potential of these policies in terms of social innovation, understood as the joint design of a social infrastructure within a value allocation process between the actors involved, given certain time and space aspects. The paper explores the dimensionality of social innovation through the emergence and the scaling up of innovative processes as a result of devolved governance from national and EU levels to the local level, which gives precisely the framework of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ricerche di Psicologia is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Orientamenti Pedagogici is the property of Pontificio Ateneo Salesiano (Facoltà di Scienze dell'Educazione dell'Università Pontificia Salesian) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper provides a historical perspective to understand food security at the global level and in the Indian context. It explores how food security in India evolved into a significant public policy concern through the implementation of the National Food Security Act (2013) and other key policy measures. When examining India’s policy focus on food security, a shift has occurred from primarily concentrating on the overall national availability of grains to a more nuanced emphasis on household and individual-level nutrition security. This shift is thoroughly examined in the study. As for methodology, it is primarily descriptive in nature and involves secondary data analysis. The paper follows a systematic literature review to gain insights into food security as a key policy concern, examining it through the lens of the Agenda 2030 achievement. The paper also seeks to comprehend the breadth of literature and research related to global food security, with a specific focus on India. The study firmly argues that the success of the 2030 Agenda hinges on its implementation and the reach of the final beneficiary. Ensuring the availability, accessibility, affordability, and optimal nutritional utilization of resources is critical to achieving this success. This outcome is inherently linked to India’s capacity to garner support for both the established goals and the appropriate methods of execution.

There are many dimensions to conflict in Africa. It depends on the nature of the underlying demography, heterogeneity, and historical context of the state’s social and political problems. The impact of the coronavirus has greatly affected the socioeconomic structure and governance system in Africa, leading to social conflicts. Moreover, the social conflict led to deaths, job losses, and human capital reductions, resulting in economic catastrophes in South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia, among others. In Nigeria, the government was unable to cushion the impact of Covid-19, frustrated by the issues of poverty and inequality, wherein the masses were pounded with hunger and insecurity; a corrupt policing system precipitated the social unrest in 2020. Nigeria’s social issues, coupled with the shock of Covid-19, cumulated into protest actions, looting, and police brutality. The government’s inadequate response to the political crisis and state of unrest greatly influenced the public’s belief and outlook on social concerns. The research postulates the following question: how did the social conflict in Africa and Nigeria become overheated during Covid-19? The paper adopts a qualitative method that explores existing literature and media sources on social conflicts and Covid-19 in Africa and Nigeria. The study anchors its theoretical framework on the fragile state theory. The paper concludes that Nigeria’s weakened socioeconomic structure met with the shock of the horror of Covid-19, which sparked social conflict in the country.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2021 6(1), 189-198 | European Forum Insight of 7 June 2021 | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. Diversity in Member States' approach to COVID-19 related travel restrictions. - III. The EU institutions' response to the implications of Member States imposing differing COVID-19 travel restrictions. - IV. Council Recommendation on a coordinated approach to measures restricting free movement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. - V. Striking a balance between respect for Member States competence in protecting public health at national level and combating the risks to European unity and freedoms from Member States imposing differing restrictive measures. - VI. The Council Recommendation's timely and useful guidance and recommendations. - VII. The Recommendation's lack of consideration of other international public health bodies. - VIII. Final remarks. | (Abstract) The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many EU Member States to introduce unilateral and diverse travel restriction measures and border controls. European Treaties do allow the Member States to derogate from free movements on the grounds of public health, however, the imposition of inconsistent and diverse restrictions threaten the integrity of the Union. The European Commission and Council have an important role to play promoting cooperation and solidarity amongst the EU Member States and safeguarding the Union. A recent Council Recommendation for a coordinated approach to measures restricting free movement is an example of the EU's response, but does it go far enough? For it is important to acknowledge that a Recommendation is not a legally binding instrument. This Insight analyses the Council Recommendation and its role in promoting a coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic by the EU Member States.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2020 5(3), 1143-1170 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction: border closures as a source of symbolic capital. - II. Reintroduction and termination of internal border controls. - II.1. Legality of the initial suspension of border-free travel. - II.2. Alternatives to systematic internal border controls. - II.3. Return to normality: intergovernmental cooperation. - II.4. Institutional implications: limited sway of legal supranationalism. - III. "A Europe that protects": closure of the external Schengen border. - III.1. "Fortress Europe" as an affirmative narrative. - III.2. Individualised assessment and proportionality. - III.3. Exemption of travellers with an "essential function or need". - IV. Restricting the free movement of Union citizens. - IV.1. The principle of proportionality: between individual cases and abstract considerations. - IV.2. Distinguishing different categories of free movement. - IV.3. Graded approaches towards quarantine and other alternatives. - IV.4. Practical implications of travel restrictions. - IV.5. Coherence of domestic and border restrictions. - V. Conclusion. | (Abstract) Initial response to the Covid-19 pandemic capitalised on symbolism of national belonging. Against this background, borders soon took centre stage in the effort to tackle the spread of the virus during the spring of 2020 with Member States enforcing drastic restrictions to inter-state mobility, both at internal and external Schengen borders. As the second wave rolled in, restrictions gained momentum again, even though Member States by and large, did not revert to symbolically relevant border controls and travel bans. This Article revisits the measures taken by the Member States and EU institutions at the internal and external borders of the Schengen area until late-October 2020 and draws lessons regarding the interaction of symbolism, law and politics in times of crisis. It focuses on shifts in the perception of borders and the role of different actors in the closure and the subsequent re-opening thereof. We illustrate that the supranational institutions struggled to support the rule of law without the political support of the Member States, even though the rich case law of the Court of Justice on the internal market provides critical doctrinal arguments that can be employed in times of crises.

Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement Armando Stefanati, Erica d’Anchera, Francesco De Motoli and Marta Savio declare no conflict of interest. Giovanni Gabutti declares that he does not have a specific conflict of interest related to this paper; however, he reports grants from Sanofi Pasteur MSD, GSK Biologicals SA, Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur Italy, MSD Italy, Emergent BioSolutions and Seqirus for taking part in advisory boards, expert meetings, acting as speaker and/or organizer of meetings/congresses and acting as principal investigator and chief of OU in RCTs.

Summary: This paper describes how the health surveillance protocols adopted in hospitals and nursing homes have changed in response to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and its risks. These changes concern assessments that must be performed with urgency, to detect potential cases and symptoms that may indicate contagion and to protect vulnerable and hypersensitive workers. Besides, these changes have been implemented in order to regulate how the appointed occupational physician should perform everyday tasks, particularly in regard to preventive visits, periodic visits, office visits, and visits meant to authorize one's return to the workplace. This paper recommends that both preventive visits and periodic visits should include rapid antigen swab tests to screen for SARS-CoV-2 (which, if positive, should be confirmed by molecular tests) and serologic tests to detect IgG SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Since this phase involves great risks for healthcare facilities, this paper proposes that swab testing should be performed every month and that serologic testing should be performed every three months (depending on whether the first test detects the presence of IgG antibodies). By combining antigen and molecular swab tests, healthcare professionals can diagnose workers with SARS-CoV-2 and identify positive asymptomatic cases. Because of its costs and its long turnaround times for results, molecular swab testing is recommended only when one needs to confirm a positive antigen swab test result. Serologic testing should be used alongside swab testing, to acquire data concerning the immunity of workers., Competing Interests: The authors of this article have no conflict of interests to disclose., (Copyright© by GIMLE.)

Background: During the first semester 2020 almost all country implemented rigid measures of social distances, including schools closure, to limit the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Up to now, however, the efficacy of school closure to reduce the spread of the disease in the community still remains unclear and no much is known about the potential negative effects of such measures on physical health and psychological wellbeing of youths, mainly if protracted for long periods., Objective: To summarize the data of a systematic review on the impact of the 2020 school closure and social distances measures implemented in response to covid-19 pandemic on youths' physical health and psychological wellbeing. In the present paper we describe the impact on psychological wellbeing., Methods: We searched 11 international databases up to 1st September 2020 to retrieve cohort studies, cross sectional surveys, uncontrolled pre-post studies and modelling studies. Methodological quality of included studies has been assessed with validated checklists., Results: Sixty-four studies have been included; 27 assessed the impact on psychological wellbeing. All the studies have been conducted during the first wave of pandemic and assessed the short-term effect of social distances measures implemented for relatively short periods. The majority of the studies were conducted in the UK (37,6%) and China (27%). The 42.3% has been judged of high methodological quality. Two studies reported an increase of suicides, while two studies reported a reduction of the access to Psychiatric Emergency Department, Maltreatment allegations decreased substantially, likely due to a reduction in reports rather than actual incidence. Prevalence of anxiety among adolescents ranged between 19% and 64%, depression between 22.3% and 43.7%. Among children 5-12 years old, prevalence of anxiety varied between 19% and 78%, while depression between 6.3% and 22.6%. Among pre-school children, some studies found worsening of behavioural and emotional problems while others did not., Conclusions: Most of the studies reported relevant worsening of the psychological wellbeing, mainly among adolescents. If school closure and rigid social distances measures will extend for a long time, an even more pronounced negative effect can be expected. Further studies are needed on the long-term effect of prolonged social distances measures, as well as a careful harm-benefit analysis of the impact of such measures.

Background: During the first semester 2020 almost all country implemented rigid measures of social distances, including schools closure, to limit the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Up to now, however, the efficacy of school closure to reduce the spread of the disease in the community still remain unclear and no much is known about the potential negative effects of such measures on physical health and psychological wellbeing of children and adolescents, mainly if protracted for long periods., Objective: To summarize the most relevant data of a systematic review on the impact of the 2020 school closure and social distances measures implemented in response to covid-19 pandemic on youths physical health and psychological wellbeing. In the present paper we describe the review's methodology and the characteristics and methodological quality of the retrieved studies., Methods: We searched on 11 international databases up to 1st September 2020 to retrieve cohort studies, cross sectional surveys, uncontrolled pre-post studies and modelling studies. Methodological quality of included studies has been assessed with validated checklists., Results: Sixty-four studies have been included; 42 assessed the effect of social distances measure of physical health and 27 on psychological wellbeing. All the studies have been conducted during the first wave of pandemic and assessed the short-term effect of social distances measures implemented for relatively short periods. The 32.4% of the studies has been conducted in the UK, 20.3% in Italy, 12.5% in China, 10.9% in developing countries and 9.4% in the US. 37.5% of the studies were cohort studies, 40.6% cross sectional surveys, 19.7% uncontrolled studies and 1 was a modeling study. 59.6% of the studies has been rated as high quality. The most important weakness of the cross-sectional surveys and uncontrolled studies was the scarce representativeness of the sample while 96% of the cohort studies were judged as high quality., Conclusions: A large number of acceptable quality studies have been published during the first months of pandemic to assess the impact of school closure and social distances measures on physical health and psychological wellbeing of youths. This highlights the relevance of the topic and the need to assess carefully the balance between harms and benefits of such measures in terms of actual reduction of transmission and youths' psychological and physical harms. Further studies are needed on the long-term effect of social distances measures extended over long periods.

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