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Sustainability is a business strategy combining economic, social, and environmental issues. This paper examines the corporate governance and sustainability literature. So we consider a new bibliometric database focusing on the network of keywords appearing in the literature. The quantitative approach is also new: we combine the information from different community detection algorithms to find the most important results and relationships in the literature. The final results show that the literature on corporate governance and sustainability raises an essential strategic question: for long-term sustainability if there needs to be a strong link between stakeholders and corporate social responsibility (CSR). So, considering a company's actions' social, economic, and environmental effects can help figure out how much corporate responsibility is needed. Also, companies that consider CSR and sustainability in their businesses find it easier to keep long-term relationships with customers, employees, and other stakeholders, which can be considered vital. Last, a strategic view of corporate governance should emphasize the importance of intellectual capital and the Triple-Bottom-Line approach to sustainable growth in a strategic view of corporate governance. In this sense, a more wholesome view of value creation aims to provide companies with better financial results while also serving society's environment and social well-being. By addressing these issues, governments and other groups can make the business world more sustainable and responsible.

Background There has been much speculation about untoward effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on psychological symptoms. OCD may be expected to be especially impacted. Our aim was to distil the current evidence base on relationships between the pandemic and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, in patients, and general population samples. Methods We conducted a rapid scoping review, in the form of a systematic literature search, coupled with narrative review. 32 relevant papers were identified. Results and interpretation (1) A sizable proportion of people with OCD (but not all) experienced/reported symptom worsening during the pandemic, especially during initial restrictions (approximately 20–65 % of cases in longitudinal studies); (2) contamination/washing symptoms appeared particularly susceptible; and (3) OCD symptoms in general population samples were associated with trait compulsivity and pandemic-related-stress. The literature was heterogeneous with various methodological issues being commonplace. Future directions The review identified important unaddressed issues: how should exposure based therapy be adapted during pandemics? How can we minimise harm from exacerbation of OCD in vulnerable individuals arising from public health messaging? Why do some but not all OCD patients experience worsening? And does Covid-19 infection affect (or lead to) OCD symptoms?

The effect of proximity to a transit system on property values has become a key issue of debate regarding public infrastructure and economic development. This article aims to examine the impact of selected stations along the Blue line of Delhi Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) on commercial property prices. The research analyzed 1,413 commercial property parcels sold before and after the commissioning of Blue line in 2005. Hedonic Price Analysis (HPA) was used to estimate the effects of proximity to the metro rail on commercial property values. The method was applied to two time periods, i.e., from 2000-2004 and 2005-2008, coinciding with planning and construction (pre-commissioning phase and the operation phase (post-commissioning phase) of metro rail using actual sale prices of commercial units. The results indicate that a station node shows a negative trend during the planning and construction period. However, the operation period has produced a significant price premium associated with commercial properties, connected with improved accessibility. The coefficients indicate that MRTS has induced an increase in prices from INR 732.80 to INR 246.19, and its radius of impact covers an area of approximately 1/2 km from the stations. The methodology and results provide insight with a specific focus on commercial real estate values in other metropolitan cities developing and expanding MRTSs.

Circular Economy has the potential of being a solution to face current environmental problems, by incorporating reusage and recycling of production materials and/or the final product. However, the current markets seem unable to fully tap into this type of solution on their own, requiring state and/or governmental intervention. This study gathers some of the most recommended policies from current literature, which range from helping to disseminate clear information about Circular Economy, promoting collaborations between firms, to the implementation of stricter laws. Shifts in the market may also be done by financial and fiscal policy means, such as increasing indirect taxes for wastes and pollution, increasing taxes on unoptimized linear production methods, granting positive incentives to firms trying to turn their production into a circular system. Nevertheless, to implement these policies, it is crucial to consider adapting them at each specific point of the production chain, considering the local firm properties/diversity, and how agents behave in response to such incentives. This dissertation also demonstrates how to use basic economics, to attempt a general quantification of how much an incentive or tax should be, as to support a market shift towards Circular Economy. Econometric models using real data prove that both incentives and taxes are significant governmental intervention tools that improve development towards sustainability. Nonetheless, Circular Economy also has limits and risks, therefore, assessing the costs of implementing it is crucial for determining if it is the correct solution for each specific situation. Economia Circular tem o potencial de ser uma solução para os atuais problemas ambientais, ao incorporar materiais e produtos finais que podem ser reutilizados e/ou reciclados. Porém, o atual mercado não é capaz de alcançar esta solução por si mesmo, requerendo intervenção do estado e/ou governo. Este estudo recolhe algumas das políticas mais recomendadas na literatura atual, que vão desde ajudar a divulgar informação clara sobre a economia circular, promover colaborações entre empresas, ou até implementação de leis. Mudanças no mercado também podem ser causadas usando políticas fiscais e financeiras, tais como aumentar taxas indiretas aos desperdícios e poluição, aumentar taxas diretas a produções lineares não otimizadas, fornecer incentivos positivos a empresas que tentem transformar a sua produção num sistema circular. Todavia, para implementar estas políticas, é necessário adaptá-las a cada ponto específico na cadeia de produção, considerar propriedades/diversidade das empresas locais, e as possíveis respostas comportamentais dos agentes face aos incentivos. Esta dissertação também demonstra como usar os básicos da economia para tentar quantificar, no geral, quanto deve ser o valor do incentivo ou taxa, para que o mercado mude em favor da Economia Circular. Modelos econométricos com dados reais provam que seja incentivos ou taxas são ferramentas de intervenção governamental que significativamente promovem o desenvolvimento sustentável. Não obstante, Economia Circular também tem os seus limites e riscos, por isso é pertinente calcular o seu custo de implementação para determinar se realmente é a solução correta para cada situação em específico.

This paper analyses correlations between several organizational characteristics and product/process innovations in enterprises in Serbia. We used the World Bank Enterprise Survey data on 339 small, medium, and large companies from various industries. Many of the factors analysed in this study are consistent with theoretical conclusions in the literature on this topic and relate to organizational maturity. Also, factors such as the size of the company and the industry to which it belongs were analysed. For correlations testing, the Chi-square correlation coefficient and the Cramer’s V test were used. The analysis revealed correlations between innovativeness and many organizational characteristics. However, in some cases, contrary to theoretical claims, correlations were not confirmed. We found that the introduction of new products and/or processes in the company is influenced by business strategy, production targets, number of performance indicators monitored, establishment of quality management system, formal training programs for company’s full-time employees, ease of achieving the company’s production targets, level of awareness of management and employees about the company’s production targets, spending on research and development activities within the company, and acquisition of external knowledge, way of promoting non-managers in a company, time frame of the company’s production targets, company’s size and main market.

Tourism is one of the most important sectors for several researchers and decision makers, due to its influence on the world economic growth in the twenty-first century, making it as a source of competition between countries to a global industry for its effective strategic role in the development of countries. In this paper, we used two variables natural logarithm of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and natural logarithm of per capita international and national tourism expenditure (ITE) to study the relationship between the tourism sector and economic growth in Algeria over the period of 1995–2017. We established with the unit root test with and without breakpoint that the variables are stationary in the first difference and there is a structural break in (ITE) and (GDP). Thus, with the presence of a breakpoint, we employed the methodology of Gregory–Hansen to avoid such issue, but we found that there was no evidence of cointegration with breakpoint, so then we used the vector autoregressive model (VAR). The model showed that the tourism sector has a positive and insignificant coefficient on the economic growth, while the economic growth factor has a positive and significant on the tourism sector. In the short run, there was a one-way causality from GDP to ITE at the level of 1%, confirming the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis. Also, we found with Breitung and Candelon causality that there was same causality at the level of 10%.

As one of the fastest growing social media networks, Facebook is used daily by 7.91 billion users. Despite its worldwide influence, the cognitive perception of this social network has not been fully understood or researched. The current study examines human behavior when viewing Facebook pages to provide marketers information on how to enhance content and increase attention on their Facebook pages. A neuroscience approach using an eye-tracking device was used to gain insight into the reasons users chose to follow the Croatian Academic Union of the Faculty of Economics (HAZEF). The results showed that followers spent, on average, less than 1.5 s viewing a Facebook post, while the emotional analysis of facial expressions revealed a higher prevalence of negative moods and emotions such as sadness when viewing the HAZEF page. Negative moods decreased when posts contained images of human faces. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed, and recommendations are made to optimize the Facebook page for optimal attention and awareness of postings.

This paper documents a comparative application of algorithms to deal with the problem of missing values in higher frequency data sets. We refer to Swiss business tendency survey (BTS) data, in particular the KOF manufacturing surveys, which are conducted in both monthly and quarterly frequency, where an information sub-set is collected at quarterly frequency only. This occurs in many countries, for example, the harmonised survey programme of the European Union also has this frequency pattern. There is a wide range of ways to address this problem, comprising univariate and multivariate approaches. To evaluate the suitability of the different approaches, we apply them to series that are artificially quarterly, i.e., de facto monthly, from which we create quarterly data by deleting two out of three data points from each quarter. The target series for imputation of missing (deleted) observations comprise the set of time series from the monthly KOF manufacturing BTS survey. At the same time, these series are ideal to deliver higher frequency information for multivariate imputation algorithms, as they share a common theme, the Swiss business cycle. With this set of indicators, we conduct the different imputations. On this basis, we then run standard tests of forecasting accuracy by comparing the imputed monthly series to the original monthly series. Finally, we take a look at the congruence of the imputed monthly series from the quarterly survey question on firms’ technical capacities with existing monthly data on the Swiss economy. Due to the massive shock from the Covid-19 pandemic, we restrict the in-sample analyses to data from 1967m2 to 2019m12 and at the end take a look at how well our imputations would have fared in real-time during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The results show that for our data corpus, algorithms based on the approach suggested by Chow and Lin deliver the most precise imputations, followed by multiple OLS regressions. Of the multivariate methods that we consider, the EM algorithm’s performance is disappointing, and amongst the univariate methods, simply carrying the last observation forward procedure proved superior to cubic spline imputations, and this in particular at the end of the time series., KOF Working Papers, 509

We propose the CoJPoD, a novel framework explicitly linking the cross-sectional and cyclical dimensions of systemic risk. In this framework, banking sector distress in the form of the joint probability of default of financial intermediaries (reflecting contagion from both direct and indirect interconnectedness) is conditioned on the financial cycle (reflecting the buildup and unwinding of system-wide balance sheet leverage). An empirical application to large systemic banks in the euro area, US and UK illustrates how the unravelling of excess leverage can magnify banking sector distress. Capturing this dependence of banking sector distress on prevailing financial imbalances can enhance risk surveillance and stress testing alike. An empirical signaling exercise confirms that the CoJPoD outperforms the individual capacity of either its unconditional counterpart or the financial cycle in signaling financial crises - particularly around their onset - suggesting scope to increase the precision with which macroprudential policies are calibrated.

The paper features an analysis of former President Trump’s early tweets on COVID-19 in the context of Dr. Fauci’s recently revealed email trove. The tweets are analysed using various data mining techniques, including sentiment analysis. These techniques facilitate exploration of content and sentiments within the texts, and their potential implications for the national and international reaction to COVID-19. The data set or corpus includes 159 tweets on COVID-19 that are sourced from the Trump Twitter Archive, running from 24 January 2020 to 2 April 2020. In addition we use Zipf and Mandelbrot’s power law to calibrate the extent to which they differ from normal language patterns. A context for the emails is provided by the recently revealed email trove of Dr. Fauci, obtained by Buzzfeed on 1 June 2021 obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

This paper features an analysis of cryptocurrencies and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their effectiveness as a portfolio diversification tool and explores the correlations between the continuously compounded returns on Bitcoin, Ethereum and the S&P500 Index using a variety of parametric and non-parametric techniques. These methods include linear standard metrics such as the application of ordinary least squares regression (OLS) and the Pearson, Spearman and Kendall’s tau measures of association. In addition, non-linear, non-parametric measures such as the Generalised Measure of Correlation (GMC) and non-parametric copula estimates are applied. The results across this range of measures are consistent. The metrics suggest that, whilst the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic does not appear to have increased the correlations between the cryptocurrency series, it appears to have increased the correlations between the returns on cryptocurrencies and those on the S&P500 Index. This suggests that investments in cryptocurrencies are not likely to offer key diversification strategies in times of crisis, on the basis of evidence provided by this crisis.

Die wohnortnahe Verfügbarkeit ambulanter Pflegedienste und von Tagespflegeeinrichtungen in Deutschland, die Pflegeleistungen gemäß des Elften Buch Sozialgesetzbuch (SGB XI) anbieten, ist ein wichtiger Bestandteil der Daseinsvorsorge in ländlichen Räumen und zugleich Voraussetzung dafür, den Grundsatz 'ambulant vor stationär' im Bereich der sozialen Pflegeversicherung umsetzen zu können. Daher wird im Folgenden die Erreichbarkeit mit einem Pkw durch den nächsten ambulanten Pflegedienst und die Erreichbarkeit der wohnortnächsten Tagespflegeeinrichtung flächendeckend für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland analysiert. Grundlage hierfür ist das Thünen-Erreichbarkeitsmodell. Als Ergebnisse lassen sich festhalten: * Insgesamt ist das Standortnetz ambulanter Pflegedienste in Deutschland mit ca. 15.637 Standorten (Stand März 2021) recht dicht. Das Standortnetz der Tagespflegeeinrichtungen ist mit ca. 5.877 Standorten (Stand Juni 2022) deutlich dünner als das der ambulanten Pflegedienste. * Zwischen 2003 und 2021 hat bundesweit die Anzahl ambulanter Pflegedienste von 10.619 (2003) auf ca. 15.637 (2021) stetig zugenommen. Dies entspricht einer Zunahme von ca. 47 % gegenüber 2003. Anhand der vorliegenden Daten lässt sich dieser Trend auch auf die Bundesländer übertragen (Ausnahme: Bremen). * Gemäß des Standortdatensatzes 'Pflegedienste' der Datensammlung POI-Bund ('Points of Interest'-Bund) (Stand März 2021) werden im Mittel pro ambulantem Pflegedienst 87 (Median) bzw. 114 (arithmetisches Mittel) Patient*innen betreut. * Im Median ist der nächste ambulante Pflegedienst in Deutschland ca. 8 Minuten Fahrzeit und die nächste Tagespflegeeinrichtung ca. 9 Minuten Fahrzeit entfernt. * Die mittleren Pkw-Erreichbarkeiten sind sowohl für die ambulanten Pflegedienste als auch die Tagespflegeeinrichtungen in den nicht ländlichen Regionen (ambulante Pflegedienste 5 Minuten; Tagespflegeeinrichtungen 6 Minuten) geringfügig kürzer als in den ländlichen Regionen (ambulante Pflegedienste 8 Minuten; Tagespflegeeinrichtungen 10 Minuten). Zwischen den unterschiedlichen Typen ländlicher Räume (sehr ländlich / eher ländlich; gute sozioökonomische Lage / weniger gute sozioökonomische Lage) sind die Erreichbarkeitsunterschiede bei beiden untersuchten Infrastrukturen relativ gering. * Deutschlandweit und in den einzelnen Bundesländern können in allen Regionstypen über 85 % der Bevölkerung innerhalb einer Pkw-Fahrzeit von 10 Minuten von einem ambulanten Pflegedienst erreicht werden. Innerhalb von 25 Minuten Pkw-Fahrzeit können deutschlandweit und auch in den einzelnen Ländern nahezu 100 % der Bevölkerung von einem ambulanten Pflegedienst erreicht werden. Ähnlich sieht es bei den Tagespflegeeinrichtungen aus, die deutschlandweit ca. 88 % der Bürger*innen innerhalb von 10 Minuten erreichen können. Allerdings liegt die Spannbreite im Vergleich der Länder zwischen ca. 75 % in Bayern und 100 % in Bremen. Innerhalb von 20 Minuten Fahrzeit können gemäß des Erreichbarkeitsmodells über 97 % der Bürger*innen eine Tagespflegeeinrichtung erreichen, innerhalb von 25 Minuten beträgt der Anteil in allen Regionstypen annähernd 100 %.* Vor allem in Bayern lassen sich Regionen mit vergleichsweise ungünstigen Erreichbarkeiten von Tagespflegeeinrichtungen identifizieren. Obwohl die verfügbaren Daten darauf hinweisen, dass Bayern zusammen mit Baden-Württemberg bei den Standortadressen der Tagespflegeeinrichtungen größere Fehlstellen aufweist, ist zu vermuten, dass sich die dort registrierten ungünstigen Erreichbarkeiten nicht alleine durch ggf. fehlende Standortdaten erklären lassen. Somit ist davon auszugehen, dass v. a. in Bayern in den Kreisen Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Freyung-Grafenau, Neuburg-Schrobenhausen, Regen und Schwandorf Tagespflegeeinrichtungen für die Bürger*innen z. T. vergleichsweise schlecht erreichbar sind. * Die Anzahl der innerhalb der Reisezeitfenster 'bis 5 Minuten', 'bis 10 Minuten', 'bis 15 Minuten', 'bis 20 Minuten' und 'bis 25 Minuten' erreichbaren Standorte ambulanter Pflegedienste unterscheidet sich deutlich zwischen ländlichen und nicht ländlichen Regionen. Während in ländlichen Regionen im Mittel innerhalb von bis zu 5 Minuten Fahrzeit nur 0,7 ambulante Pflegedienste erreicht werden können, sind es in nicht ländlichen Regionen drei. Innerhalb einer Reisezeit von bis zu 15 Minuten können in ländlichen Räumen im Mittel ca. acht ambulante Pflegedienste erreicht werden, in nicht ländlichen Räumen sind es im Mittel ca. 48 ambulante Pflegedienste. Ein ähnliches Bild ergibt sich bei der Betrachtung der Anzahl der innerhalb dieser Reisezeitfenster erreichbaren Tagespflegeeinrichtungen. Während in ländlichen Regionen im Mittel innerhalb von bis zu 5 Minuten Fahrzeit nur ca. 0,3 Tagespflegeeinrichtungen erreicht werden können, sind es in nicht ländlichen Regionen 0,7. Innerhalb einer Reisezeit von bis zu 15 Minuten können in ländlichen Räumen im Mittel ca. vier Tagespflegeeinrichtungen erreicht werden, in nicht ländlichen Räumen sind es im Mittel ca. elf Tagespflegeeinrichtungen. * Der Vergleich von Standortdaten ambulanter Pflegedienste von 2014 und 2021 zeigt, dass in Deutschland als Reaktion auf die gewachsene Nachfrage nach Pflegeleistungen die Anzahl ambulanter Pflegedienststandorte um ca. 2.171 zugenommen hat. Das entspricht einer Zunahme von 16 % zur Basis 2014. Interessanterweise führte diese Zunahme an Standorten nicht zu einer signifikanten Verbesserung der wohnortnahen Erreichbarkeitssituation durch ambulante Pflegedienste. * Die Ergebnisse lassen vermuten, dass in ländlichen Räumen etwaige Versorgungsengpässe in der ambulanten Pflege weniger auf eine schlechte wohnortnahe Erreichbarkeit durch ambulante Pflegedienste zurückzuführen sein dürften, sondern eher auf begrenzte Betreuungskapazitäten aufseiten der Pflegedienste. Auch bei den Tagespflegeeinrichtungen deuten die Ergebnisse der Erreichbarkeitsmodellierung eher auf begrenzte Betreuungskapazitäten als auf Erreichbarkeitsprobleme als Ursache für Versorgungsengpässe hin. Allerdings zeigen die Modellergebnisse auch, dass sich v. a. in Bayern und Baden-Württemberg sowie Brandenburg und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern vermehrt Gemeinden identifizieren lassen, bei denen die mittleren Pkw-Fahrzeiten zwischen 15 und 25 Minuten und vereinzelt sogar darüber liegen, während in der Mehrzahl der Gemeinden die mittleren Pkw-Fahrzeiten zur nächsten Tagespflegeeinrichtung unter 15 Minuten betragen. In order assess the basic availability of outpatient care services in Germany (operating in accordance with the Social Code, book eleven (SGB XI) as well as adult day care services near the place of residence we analyzed the accessibility of these services in June 2022 based on the Thünen-Accessibility Model with following results. * Altogether, with 15,637 locations, the network of outpatient care services in Germany is quite dense (March 2021). In contrast, with 5,877 locations, the network of adult day care services locations is much more widely meshed (June 2022). * The number of outpatient care services increased steadily from ca. 10,619 (2003) locations to ca. 15,637 (2021) locations between 2003 and 2021. This is an increase of 47 % to the 2003 base. Based on the available data this trend can also be observed in the single federal states except Bremen. * According to the data set 'Pflegedienste' (outpatient care services) of the data collection POI-Bund ('Points of Interest'-Bund), as of March 2021 an outpatient care services takes care of 87 (median), or respectively 114 (arithmetic mean) patients. * In the median, in Germany the nearest outpatient care service is around 8 minutes away by car. In the median the nearest adult day care service is around 9 minutes away by car. * The mean accessibilities by car are slightly shorter in the non-rural regions (5 minutes outpatient care services, 6 minutes adult day care services) than in the rural regions (8 minutes outpatient care services, 10 minutes adult day care services) for outpatient care services as well as adult day care services. Between the different types of rural regions the differences in accessibility are very small for both analyzed infrastructures. * In Germany as a whole, as well as in the single federal states and rural region types, more than 85 % of the people can be accessed by an outpatient care service within a travel time of 10 minutes by car. Nearly 100 % of the people can be accessed by an outpatient care service, both in Germany as a whole as well as in the single federal states, in a travel time up to 25 minutes by car. The situation is similar with the adult day care services. In Germany as a whole, ca. 88 % of the people can reach an adult day care service within a travel time of 10 minutes by car. However, considering the different federal states, the percentage of people who are able to reach an adult day care service by car within 10 minutes varies from between 75 % in Bavaria and 100 % in Bremen. Within a travel time of 20 minutes by car more than 97 % of the people can access an adult day care service. Within a travel time of 25 minutes by car nearly 100 % of the people can access an adult day care service in all rural region types. Especially in Bavaria there can be regions identified with a comparably unfavorable accessibility of adult day care services. Although the available data suggests that in Bavaria, as well as Baden-Württemberg, the data sets of adult day care services locations have to a greater extent missing locations, but it can be supposed that in these states the registered unfavorable accessibilities are not the sole result of missing data alone. As such it can be assumed that especially in Bavaria in the counties Garmisch Partenkirchen, Freyung-Grafenau, Neuburg-Schrobenhausen, Regen as well as Schwandorf, there is comparably poor accessibility to adult day care for the people living in these regions. * The analysis of the number of accessible locations of outpatient care services within the travel time windows 'up to 5 minutes by car', 'up to 10 minutes by car', 'up to 15 minutes by car', 'up to 20 minutes by car' and 'up to 25 minutes by car' show considerable differences between rural and non-rural regions. Whereas in rural regions in a travel time up to 5 minutes on average 0.7 outpatient care services can be accessed, in non -rural regions on average 3 outpatient care services can be accessed. Within a travel time of up to 15 minutes on average 8 outpatient care services can be accessed in rural regions, whereas in non rural regions on average 48 outpatient care services can be accessed. The picture is similar for the adult day care services. Whereas in rural regions on average 0.3 adult day care services can be accessed within a travel time of up to 5 minutes, in non rural regions on average 0.7 adult day care services can be accessed. Within a travel time of up to 15 minutes in rural regions on average 4 adult day care services can be accessed, whereas in non-rural regions on average 11 adult day care services can be accessed. * Together with the fact that in 2021 around 15,637 outpatient care service locations existed, as compared to 13,466 outpatient care service locations in 2014, the observations suggest that in Germany the accessibility situation of outpatient care services near the place residence remained quite stable between 2014 and 2021 despite the establishment of around 2,171 additional outpatient care service locations (+16 % to the 2014 base). As such, for outpatient care services, possible supply shortages in outpatient care services at the place of residence would to a lesser extent be the result of a poor accessibility of such services but are more likely due to limited care capacities of service providers. For adult day care services at the place of residence, the results of the accessibility analysis also suggest that possible supply shortages are likely due less to poor accessibility and are more likely the result of limited care capacities by service providers. However, the model results also show clearly that especially in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg as well as in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania there can be communities identified with median travel times by car to the next adult day care service of 15 minutes and 25 minutes, and in individual cases even more than 25 minutes whereas in the majority of the communities the median travel times by car to the next adult day care service are less than 15 minutes.

Chemokines are a family of small molecular-weight proteins, being well-known with their important roles in the process of allergic response, immune regulation, cell proliferation, and differentiation. Almost two decades ago, a novel member of this family, chemokine-like factor 1 (CKLF1) was identified. In recent years, it draws much attention of researchers because of its key roles in many types of tissues and its potential implications in a large number of diseases. Up to now, CKLF1 has been shown to have two main functions: broad-spectrum chemotactic activity, and proliferation- and differentiation-promoting abilities. In this review, we would introduce the basic structural features of CKLF1 and its biological functions, and then elaborate the relationships between CKLF1 and human diseases. The cell signaling pathways CKLF1 may be involved in would be discussed and summarized in details. Furthermore, we present the trials of CKLF1-targeted treatments in animal disease models, hoping to provide a few important insights about CKLF1 to both medical researchers and pharmacy, and finally conclude that CKLF1 is a potent, and very promising, therapeutic target. Impact statement CKLF1, a recently identified chemokine, has been reported by a number of studies to play important roles in quite many diseases. However, the potential pathways that CKLF1 may be involved are not manifested well yet. In our review, we showed the basic molecular structure and major functions of this novel chemokine, and implication in human diseases, such as tumors. To attract more attention, we summarized its signaling pathways and clearly present them in a set of figures. With the overview of the experimental trial of CKLF1-targeting medicines in animal models, we hope to provide a few important insights about CKLF1 to both medical researchers and pharmacy.

Research background: Lesser Poland is one of the most visited regions in Poland. Among the reasons why it is so, there are a variety of attractions located in this voivodeship and also the activities taken by local government, for which the development of the tourism industry is one of the key goals. Purpose: Building a ranking of poviats of Lesser Poland in terms of tourist attractiveness. Research methodology: Selected multivariate analysis tools, i.e. three methods of linear ordering and cluster analysis. Results: Using the Ward algorithm, poviats are grouped into four clusters of areas with similar characteristics due to tourist values. In addition, using three linear ordering techniques, poviats of the Lesser Poland voivodeship are ordered according to tourist attractiveness. The results of ordering are rather consistent and indicate that the most attractive poviats are: nowotarski, oświęcimski, tatrzański and the city of Kraków. Interestingly, these areas belong to three different groups obtained as part of a cluster analysis. This means that Lesser Poland is a diversified region in terms of the attractions that draw tourists’ to the area. Novelty: The study of tourist attractiveness using linear ordering techniques is not an original topic. The thesis is of cognitive value and fills a gap in the literature, in which there are no studies based on data from Lesser Poland.

Regional development is firmly rooted in the theory of land management, and today’s considerations and analyses in this area are gaining special importance. The relationship between specific conditions and the observed effects of regional development was considered under various theoretical concepts. Additionally, the interdependence of processes taking place on the international, national and regional level renders it necessary to pursue, inter alia, an effective regional policy. In this study, particular attention was given to the premises and objectives of intentional actions taken both at supra-regional level (inter-regional policy) and regional level (intra-regional policy). The theoretical considerations concerning the regional policy carried out were supplemented with current statistics regarding the development of regions in Poland. The aim of the study is to show the role of regional policy in shaping regional development and to analyse its current state on the basis of own research using multidimensional comparative analysis (MCA) methods. The considerations presented in the article lead to the conclusion that regional policy is an important factor in regional development, and the presented research results allow to assess the current level and diversity of this development in Poland.

Existing measures of core inflation ignore a part of ‘should be’ the core inflation. Exclusion based measures ‘exclude’ a part of persistent inflation inherently existing in the excluded part whereas filter based measures ‘filter-out’ the cyclical part also rather than the irregular component only. This study proposes a new idea to define and measure core inflation – noise free inflation or denoised inflation. As against considering only trend to define core inflation, this study proposes using cyclical component also to be part of core inflation. If core inflation is to be useful, for monetary policy making, as an indicator of underlying inflation, it has to include demand related component of inflation associated with current economic cycle. By using wavelet analysis approach to decompose seasonally adjusted price index into noise, cyclical component and trend, we estimate a denoised inflation series for Pakistan for the period July 1992 to June 2017. Since denoised inflation passes ‘statistical’ as well as ‘theoretical’ tests necessary for a series to be core inflation, we think it can be used as a new core inflation measure for Pakistan. This can also be estimated and tested for any country.

The complexity of multi-component real properties results from the possibility of identifying various components in legal, physical or functional terms. The possibility of distinguishing various functional elements of real properties, combined with the specificity resulting from their market properties, is problematic when applying the comparative approach to real estate valuation. In this case, the valuation procedure can be implemented using statistical models: the parametric model or the conditional one. This research paper demonstrates the construction of the parametric and conditional models taking into account the geometric and pricing attributes of multi-component real estate. The authors paid attention to adjusting the models to the available market data. They also specified the conditions for the use of statistical models in the real estate valuation process. Based on the analytical and accounting considerations, the estimation criteria for the parametric model and the conditional model were defined, which allow the correct application of these models at the stages of the real estate market analysis and the real estate valuation process.